Personally Speaking: Breathtaking and Wounded

Assistant Research Professor Ari Friedlaender recently came back from the first of two voyages south to Antarctica as part of MISHAP: the Multi-scale and Interdisciplinary Study of Humpbacks and Prey. His scientific party was made up of seven researchers and students from Duke’s Nicholas School, and another eight from other institutions around the country. This was the first scientific trip sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs specifically designed to study whales. What the team found was, quite literally, fantastic. Read on.

I made my first trip to Antarctica 11 years ago. I was young and eager, naïve and impressionable, over-excited and under-clothed, and in no way prepared for what I was about to experience. I was hooked before passing through the furious 50s (a particularly treacherous stretch of the Southern Ocean) and since then have done whatever I could to make this place part of my life.

Antarctica does not provide a lot of breathing room. It does not yield, is not forgiving, and does not give away secrets from its cold clutches easily. Mostly it takes your breath away.

Consider the early explorers who challenged the limits of human endurance, both physical and emotional, to measure and conquer this land and surrounding ocean. The names are both famous and linked with disaster. Amundsen calculated and conquered. Mawson gained insight and survived. Scott miscalculated and paid. Shackleton endured. Cushman-Murphy narrated.

Yet despite the rough edges and natural inhospitality of Antarctica, human industry has had an unprecedented impact on its environment. During the 20th century, commercial whaling ventures killed more than 2 million baleen whales (blue, fin, sei, humpback, minke) as quickly and as thoughtlessly as possible. And over the past 50 years, aided by human-induced climate changes, the Antarctic Peninsula has been warming at as fast a rate as anywhere on the planet.

The effects of these two extraordinary perturbations cannot be underestimated.

There is no baseline for how this ecosystem functioned before these changes. Rather, we are measuring and documenting things amidst the changes, making comparisons to “normal” nearly impossible.

Take South Georgia Island for example. For the first quarter of the 20th century shore-based whaling stations here processed hundreds of thousands of baleen whales. Today, finding more than a handful of whales in the surrounding waters is unheard of.

In contrast, there are seabird and penguins by the millions, fur and elephant seals by the tens of thousands. All of these animals are fed by a conveyor belt that transports krill from the Antarctic Peninsula and deposits them around the island. But in some years, there are fewer krill and the reproductive success of the penguins and seals drops precipitously.

What is happening upstream to cause these changes? Where do the whales fit into all of this?

In the time since large-scale commercial whaling, the common belief has held that other predators took advantage of the krill left by the once numerous whales. Perhaps, there are more seals and penguins now than before the system was thrown into flux? Given time, however, whale populations are beginning to show signs of recovery. Whales are not tied to land to give birth and are thus free to range far and wide to feed. And given their large size, they likely require prey in larger and more dense quantities than smaller animals. The makings of an ecological conundrum is in the works.

Do whales directly compete with the penguins and seals? Is there enough food for all of the predators? Where will the whales go to feed?

By coming to land frequently, seals and penguins provide scientists with great opportunities to weigh, measure and outfit them with devices to track their movements and behaviors at sea. We know generally where they go, how deep they dive, what size krill they favor, and what they require. We know next to nothing about the behaviors and needs of whales in this system.

Our mission was to study how humpback whales feed and begin to understand their relationship to Antarctic krill.

On this journey Doug Nowacek was our Chief Scientist, in charge of organizing and facilitating all of our work. His ability to juggle and find a path forward and conduct cutting-edge science in a difficult environment is reminiscent of a great symphony conductor.

Our first task generally on these types of expeditions is to survey an area visually and determine the number of whales in the region. Dave Johnston and Andy Read coordinated our visual surveys to locate and measure their distribution and abundance. It turned into an extraordinary effort to manage our team and comprehensively collect one of the most fascinating and valuable data sets on the density of whales our community has known.

Reny Tyson and Lindsey Peavey were champion observers, working tirelessly with honed vision.

We used echosounders to measure how much prey is available to whales at a broad scale. Elliott Hazen used his savvy and technological expertise to shine a light in the darkness and illuminate the patches and layers of krill upon which the whales feed.  

To collect data on individual whales, we placed suction-cup tags with sensors to continuously measure underwater movement and behavioral patterns for about 24 hours on the whale’s back. By linking their movements with real-time acoustic measurements of their prey, we could assess whale behavior in relation to the distribution, abundance, and behavior of their prey, Antarctic krill. My role was to get the tags on the whales and analyze these data once they were full of information and retrieved.

With new analytical technology we were able to visualize in unique ways the underwater path of the whales and determine when, where, and how humpback whales feed, and how these behaviors relate to the density, patch size, and other characteristics of their prey. Colleagues from the University of New Hampshire are building new and creative ways for us to do this. Likewise, Pat Halpin used his wizard-like skills to integrate our many data streams and project them in ways that will allow us to comprehensively analyze the relationships between predators and prey.

Our home for the two months was the 220-ft long R/V Laurence M. Gould. During the day, we fanned out in a small armada of inflatable boats to tag and follow the whales, and map the prey around them.

With the visual survey team poised outside around the ship’s bridge, we zigged and zagged, pushed and churned through ice floes and bergy bits. Our office was beyond compare.

We spent our time probing and surveying three of the large bays and fiords on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. These natural harbors are buffeted by a formidable coastal mountain range. Glaciers and ice sheets fill in the open spaces between jagged peaks and end abruptly at the water’s edge as sheer cliffs reaching 100 feet or more.

The skin of the water was sprinkled with fields of sea ice floes that are blown about by the winds. Sometimes it was an impenetrable single mass, and on other days the ice was spread thin enough for us to pass through without incident.

Pictures and words can’t fully capture being in Antarctica. There are sensations that surge through your body with the combination of sight and sound and cold that continually bombards you.  

Personally, this voyage south was special for many reasons. This was my first opportunity to work with so many close friends and colleagues from Duke with whom I have grown and by whom I have been mentored.

On my first trip south I remember a dear friend telling me that one of his greatest thrills was watching someone see their first iceberg in Antarctica. I remember mine as if it were yesterday and how overwhelmed I felt by its size and beauty. This trip gave me the opportunity to have the same experience several times over.  

Antarctica often seems like a distant fantasy-land that is too foreign and different to comprehend. In so many ways it is beyond human approach, yet its vulnerability is painfully obvious and clear. Between commercial whaling and human-augmented climate warming, the Antarctic Peninsula is under an assault it cannot repel.

This place and its animals are more than important to me. Our team has the desire and ability to do something special, and make a difference here. Understanding the foraging behavior of the whales is the first of many steps toward determining how different krill predators satisfy their needs, and how each of them impacts or is impacted by changes in krill and the environment around them.  

I struggle to rationalize how the history of humans in the Antarctic can be so inspiring and yet so nauseating. We are racing against an ambiguous clock to learn as much as we can about this ecosystem and the relationships between predators and prey so that we can better understand the impacts of a warming climate.

Those who came before us are glorified by their writings, but to me the wounds of a short-sighted and gluttonous industry remain open.