[As a Silverback, perched atop the hominid food chain, I take notice of what’s going on with the other kingpins of the Animal Queendom (I’m trying … I’m trying!). A gathering of 304 humpback whales, males and females, is something deserving of attention. Thank you to Silverback Jim, of Jim’s Jibes for bringing this to our attention. SB SM]
https://kathilengel.substack.com/p/304-whales?
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One hundred sixty years later: The revenge of Moby Dick
As three hundred humpback whales gather
To feast and wail and click.
(Do please aspirate the “H” in whale:
Like Herman Melville, we should much rather
Enunciate an accurate tale.)
Who composes the leviathan menu?
Who convenes there the cetacean pod?
Who decides the venue?
With these underwater mammalian fishes
The spirit of Ahab’s nemesis executes
The wise White Whale’s wishes.
(Read that last line again with the H’s exultant
Whisper the phrase with your throaty breath*
Respect the spirit* of the whales ebullient.)
Do these humpbacks inherit their ancestor’s creed?
Are whales like us by their Creator endowed
With inalienable rights guaranteed?
Have they the right to compensatory vengeance?
The right to speak up, and peaceably to assemble
To seek redress for their grievance?
304 humpback whales feeding at the same time: off South Africa, a “supergroup” just shattered every record
By Daniel Garcia MAY 4, 2026
The sound hit first — like “bombs going off,” repeated across the water in every direction. Then came the smell: blowhole spray so thick it stank up the ocean air for miles. Wildlife photographers Chris and Monique Fallows were somewhere in the middle of it, laughing, cameras firing in every direction, struggling to keep up.
The Benguela Upwelling: An Ocean Engine Feeding the Spectacle
Humpbacks feed using keratin plates called baleen, which function as biological sieves. A whale takes in a massive gulp of seawater, then forces it back out through the plates, trapping krill inside. Efficient, yes — but only when prey is dense enough to justify the energy expenditure. The Benguela upwelling reliably creates those conditions.
Research published in 2021, which used chlorophyll-A concentrations as a proxy for ocean plankton density, supports the view that these supergroups are, at their core, feeding events. Whales appear to be actively tracking productive new areas, moving toward wherever the ocean is generating food most abundantly.
Competing Theories: Why Supergroups Are Forming Now
Researchers broadly agree on what supergroups are. They’re considerably less settled on why they occur, or why they appear to be increasing in scale.
Two hypotheses dominate current debate. The first holds that shifts in prey availability have driven a genuinely new feeding strategy — or exposed one that always existed but went unobserved while whale populations were severely reduced. The second, and currently best-supported, explanation is that recovering populations have pushed individuals toward alternative feeding grounds, with South Africa’s productive waters drawing more animals each season. The 2021 chlorophyll-A research offers the most direct support for this view. A third, more observational possibility: supergroups may have always formed at roughly this scale, simply going unseen when humpback numbers were far lower. As populations rebound, so does the probability of encounter.
None of these explanations has been eliminated. Scientists are candid that a definitive answer remains out of reach, keeping humpback supergroups an active and genuinely unresolved area of marine research.RelatedEnergy
The Fallows’ encounter reflects how far that recovery has come. Many of the whales they photographed had no prior documentation, suggesting the population continues to grow and push into new areas.
Simon Elwen frames it plainly: the surprise today is no longer seeing a supergroup. It’s going out and not seeing one. That quiet inversion — from rarity to expectation — may be the clearest measure of how much has changed. It also raises a question worth holding onto: what else might be possible when ocean ecosystems are given the space and time to recover
Daniel Garcia Chief Editor
Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.