Photo by Monique Anderson
Alaska Sea Grant–funded researchers are the first to scientifically document that humpback whales eat juvenile salmon released from hatcheries.
Prompted by video taken by a hatchery owner, PhD student Ellen Chenoweth observed the whale feeding behavior from 2010 to 2015. The whales were hanging out in shallow water around a hatchery release site in Southeast Alaska and gobbling up young salmon, rather than their usual favorite food item, krill.
“It is part of a seasonal feeding strategy and, in some cases, they return year after year,” Chenoweth told New Scientist magazine. The research showed that humpback predation is significantly affecting the survival of hatchery-released salmon.
Chenoweth’s paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science received widespread media attention in the New York Times, Science News, Food & Wine, and the Daily Mail.
