This whale made an epic trek across 3 oceans — possibly for the ladies

Why did a humpback whale swim a record-breaking 13,046 kilometres, traversing the planet and crossing three oceans?

It’s possible he got lost on his usual route, or that a changing climate forced him to travel farther afield in search of food.

But marine research scientist Aylin Akkaya suspects he’s simply a “cool dude” scouring the oceans to meet hot new babes.

Akkaya is a co-author of a new study that documented what is believed to be the longest recorded migration of a humpback whale — from the Pacific Coast of Columbia to the Indian Ocean near Zanzibar. The previous record was 10,000 kilometres from Brazil to Madagascar set in 2010.

The whale’s journey was so long and unusual that scientists first thought it must be some kind of technological error. 

“We were like, rechecking and checking and checking again [to see] if there’s a mistake,” Akkaya, of the Tanzania Cetaceans Program, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “But no, it was just one wander of the humpback whale male cruising around and looking for females.”

Scientists say the findings, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, provide new insight into humpback migration patterns, and could even be a sign the species is undergoing a cultural shift, adapting to changing oceans and taking different journeys than the generations that came before them.

A skull-shaped ‘tattoo’ on his tail

The team made the discovery using data from HappyWhale, a platform created by marine scientist Ted Cheeseman, to which whale watchers and scientists upload photos of whales around the world to be used in research.

Cheeseman, a co-author on the study, says this kind of international collaboration would be much less likely to happen without the platform. 

“It’s really much more honest to how the animals use the ocean,” Cheeseman told CBC. “They’re not following the borders and boundaries that we follow.”

The key to identifying whales lies in their tails, also known as flukes, which have unique markers. The male humpback in question, says Akkaya, has an imprint on its tail that resembles a skull. 

“It’s like almost like a tattoo, you know?” she said.

Using an artificial intelligence algorithm, scientists tracked the skull-tailed whale on his massive trek. He first appeared near a humpback breeding ground off Colombia in 2013, and then again in 2017.

Then he popped up in 2022 near breeding grounds by Zanzibar, an archipelago on the eastern coast of Africa that’s part of Tanzania.

Canadian humpback whale researcher Christie McMillan, who was not involved in the study, says this is extremely unusual.

Humpbacks, she says, are creatures of habit who tend to breed in warm waters and feed in cold ones.

“They tend to return year after year to the same breeding and feeding areas where their mothers first brought them when they were calves,” MacMillan, who works for B.C.’s Marine Education and Research Society as well as the Department of Oceans and Fisheries, said in an email. 

“Unlike the individual in this study, who was documented in two breeding areas separated by such a great east-west (longitudinal) distance.”

Climate change or cultural shift?

Cheeseman says it’s unclear why the whale took such an unconventional journey instead of heading to the West Antarctic Peninsula to feed, as Colombian whales usually do. 

It’s possible, he says, he had to travel to different parts of the Arctic in search of food, and adjusted his mating route accordingly.

Or, he says, he could be “essentially looking for a different mate because he wasn’t finding what he liked” in Colombia. 

That could be a symptom of a larger generational shift, he says. Humpbacks were once hunted to near-extinction, and their populations are only beginning to recover in recent decades. 

“There are many more younger animals, and it could be that this is part of figuring out, and actually like a re-establishment of the culture of the population,” he said. “Because these animals do very much have culture.”

Akkaya says this whale is “mixing the culture” in a way that’s fascinating. Different populations of humpbacks, she says, have their own unique whale songs and dialects, which vary between regions.

“So in Colombia, they speak more Latino. And in Tanzania, they have … fragments of African languages,” she said. “What we are curious about now, this male, does it [have] a Colombian song or does it [have] an African song?” 

Learning about humpback migration and culture, she says, is key to conserving the species.

“For me, humpbacks are like little hyperactive kids. You know, they are like, ‘Look at me! Look at me! I’m gorgeous!’ Like, they’re jumping all over the place,” she said. “But it’s not just cute.”

The whales, she says, are “climate warriors” that store immense amounts of carbon in their bodies, which is released into marine ecosystems when they die. 

“So it’s cute to protect them, but it’s also vital for us, for our own living, too.”