Old Timer, the male humpback whale photographed for the first time in 1972, was spotted last month in Alaska.
The tail of a humpback whale has unique characteristics similar to fingerprints. The fluke of each whale has distinct bumps and ridges that vary from individual to individual. When Adam A. Pack, a marine mammal researcher at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, took photos of whales in Frederick Sound, Alaska, in July, he immediately recognized the fluke of his “old friend.” The predominantly black tail with white speckles near the edge belongs to the whale known as Old Timer. First seen in 1972, Old Timer is now at least 53 years old, making him the “oldest humpback whale in the world.” according to Pack, co-founder and president of the Dolphin Institute.
The fluke of Old Timer photographed by Adam Pack on July 29 in Frederick Sound. (Photo: Adam Pack).
Once severely depleted due to commercial whaling, humpback whale populations have been recovering over the past few decades. However, this species is threatened by ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and climate change. Pack is very concerned about Old Timer.
The last time he saw the whale was in 2015 during a record-breaking heatwave that lasted a year. Seabirds and marine mammals like humpback whales were dying in large numbers. However, after nine years, Pack was able to see Old Timer still surviving.
Tracking the location of whales is challenging; scientists compare newly taken fluke photos with older images. However, future research on Old Timer and other humpback whales of various ages will be enhanced by artificial intelligence. Pack hopes this will help him discover how and why some whales can withstand harsh conditions.
Many populations of humpback whales reside in the North Pacific. Old Timer is part of a population that breeds in the waters around Hawaii during the winter and spends summers in southeastern Alaska, filling their bellies with fish and small crustaceans. Humpback whales are the subject of an ongoing scientific study that began in 1976 when marine mammal researcher Louis Herman photographed whales and their distinctive flukes.
Herman conducted annual surveys, amassing a massive collection of fluke photographs that allows scientists to track individual whales throughout their lives. This collection has grown to over 30,000 images, providing new insights into whale life, from migration patterns to social behavior. “This is one of the longest-running scientific studies of humpback whales in the world,” Pack, a former student of Herman and current project director, shared.
The research is entering a machine learning phase with the support of an online platform called Happywhale, which specializes in collecting fluke photographs from scientists and the public worldwide. The Happywhale database currently includes approximately 1.1 million images of over 100,000 humpback whales, according to Ted Cheeseman, co-founder of Happywhale and a Ph.D. candidate at Southern Cross University in Australia. An AI-powered image matching algorithm helps automatically identify whales in photos, assisting scientists in finding previous sightings of the animals.
Earlier this year, Cheeseman, Pack, and dozens of other researchers used Happywhale’s image recognition tool to estimate the abundance of humpback whales in the North Pacific from 2002 to 2021. Initially, the population surged, reaching about 33,500 by 2012. However, it then abruptly declined, coinciding with a severe marine heatwave when Pack last saw Old Timer. The heatwave lasted from 2014 to 2016 and reduced the supply of fish and crustaceans. The humpback whale population in Hawaii was particularly hard hit, declining by 34% from 2013 to 2021.
Pack hopes to explore why Old Timer survived while many other individuals perished due to changing living conditions with the help of Happywhale. “Perhaps Old Timer lived long enough to adapt when food resources became scarce. How many whales like Old Timer are resilient enough to withstand such resource depletion?” Pack said.
