How the World’s Oldest Humpback Whale Has Survived Is a Mystery

November 19, 2024

Old Timer, a male first photographed in 1972, was spotted in July 2024 near Alaska, enduring in the Pacific Ocean while some other humpbacks have struggled in a changing environment.

The humpback whale Old Timer, was spotted by Dr. Adam Pack on July 29, 2024, in Frederick Sound in Southeast Alaska aboard the M/V Northern Song with Alaska Sea Adventures on the annual Focus on Whales yacht cruise.  

Adam Pack/NOAA Research Permit 26953 aboard the M/V Northern Song had eight guests, along side Captain Harley Ethelbah spotting and helping to document whales for his research to take back to the The Whale & Dolphin Institute. 

 

A humpback whale’s tail is as unique as a fingerprint. The lobes, or flukes, at the end of the tail have scalloped edges that vary from whale to whale; the undersides feature distinct black-and-white patterns that mark a whale for life. You can see a photograph aboard the M/V Northern Song that showcases many of the different unique patterns.

When Adam A. Pack, a marine mammal researcher at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, was photographing whales in Alaska’s Frederick Sound in July, he photographed the whale and then submitted the photograph to Happy Whale to verify its identification. 

Happy Whale is a unique artificial intelligence tool to capture whale patterns where they travel to, and who last spotted them. 

Artificial intelligence-powered photo-matching algorithms help automatically identify the whales in submitted photos, aiding scientists in the field or others who need to look up previous sightings of a given animal.

“Happywhale has revolutionized our field and has made large-scale collaborations possible,” Dr. Pack said.

Dr. Pack was elated that evening to find out that his old friend “Old Timer” was alive as he was first spotted in 1972.

Old Timer is a male of at least 53 years, making him “the oldest known humpback whale in the world,” said Dr. Pack, who is also the co-founder and president of The Whale & Dolphin Institute.

Dr. Pack had worried about Old Timer: The last time he had seen the whale, in 2015, was in the middle of a record-breaking, years long heat wave. Scores of seabirds and marine mammals, including humpback whales, died.

But after nine years, he saw with his eyes that Old Timer was still alive!

“It was heartwarming because I realized it wasn’t just the old whales who were perishing,” Dr. Pack said. “Some of them were resilient.”

Historically, tracking the whereabouts of the whales has been done the hard way: by scientists using their own eyes to compare new fluke photos with old ones. But future studies of Old Timer and other humpbacks of all ages are set to be accelerated with artificial intelligence. And Dr. Pack hopes it will help him learn how, and why, some whales can withstand harsh conditions.

Multiple humpback populations dwell in the North Pacific. Old Timer is part of a population that spends winters breeding in the waters around Hawaii and summers in southeastern Alaska, filling up on fish and tiny shrimp like animals known as krill or herring. These humpbacks have been the subject of an ongoing scientific study, which began in 1976 when a marine mammal researcher, Louis Herman, began photographing the whales and their distinctive flukes.

Dr. Herman conducted annual surveys, amassing an enormous collection of tail pictures that allowed scientists to keep tabs on individual whales over the course of their lifetimes. These fluke photos, which now number more than 30,000, have provided new insight into the lives of whales, from their migration patterns to their social behaviors.

“It’s one of the longest ongoing scientific studies of humpback whales in the world,” said Dr. Pack, one of Dr. Herman’s former students and colleagues and now leader of the whale project.

Earlier this year, Mr. Cheeseman, Dr. Pack and dozens of other researchers used Happywhale’s image recognition tool to estimate humpback whale abundance in the North Pacific from 2002 through 2021. Initially, the population boomed, climbing to about 33,500 whales in 2012.

But then it dropped sharply. This population decline coincided with the severe marine heat wave when Dr. Pack last spotted Old Timer. It lasted from 2014 to 2016 and slashed the supply of fish and krill. “There’s a lot more we want to learn about the event, but it is quite clear: warmer waters mean food is less available overall, and what is available is more dispersed and deeper,” Mr. Cheeseman said in an email.

The Hawaii humpback population was especially hard hit, falling 34 percent from 2013 to 2021. Although there had been some sightings of Old Timer reported after 2015, Dr. Pack was excited to finally set eyes on the whale himself. That excitement soon gave way to curiosity: Why had Old Timer survived when so many others had perished?

Now, Dr. Pack is hoping to dive deeper himself, with the help of Happywhale. He plans to investigate how humpbacks survived the lean years and whether there are any discernible patterns. Could Old Timer’s age have been an advantage?

“It is possible that Old Timer’s been around enough to be adaptable when certain food resources are limited,” Dr. Pack said.

The idea remains speculative, and it is not yet clear whether Old Timer was the exception or the rule. “How many whales like Old Timer were resilient to this devastation of marine resources?” he said.

Overall, it was a fabulous Alaskan cruise, spotting over 200 whales in 8 days, witnessing countless amounts of bubble-feeding, and seeing Old Timer!

This article should be credited to Emily Anthes is a science reporter for the New York Times, writing primarily about animal health and science. Additional information was reported by local Alaskan Captain Harley Ethelbah with Alaska Sea Adventures, who has been cruising the Inside Passage for over 40 years.

There are two annual Focus on Whales cruises aboard the M/V Northern Song in July. They are heavily focused on the Inside Passage and whales, but there are many other incredible sites to experience, including glaciers, bears, hot springs, and incredible cuisine.  Learn how to hop aboard a whale cruise with whale and dolphin scientist Dr. Adam Pack and experience his incredible work at Alaska Sea Adventures!

This is the ultimate adventure for whale and dolphin enthusiasts.