Why the Wind is So Important to Sea Animals

You might think that a creature that lives in the ocean wouldn’t be affected by things that are going on above the surface such as wind and weather... but blue whales actually rely on the wind to help them find their next tasty meal! Learn all about it in this new episode of SciShow!

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[terramater]

Whales are fascinating! Our crew also found evidence that sperm whales also used the wind to survive, in this case, to fight against whalers, and it totally worked! They are so clever, and there's still so much to learn.

[KnightSlasher]

Wind being used to follow a food source is very interesting and clever, animals are a lot smarter than some people think and facts like this proves it

[jmanj]

Awwww!!
I totally thought the whales were going to be sticking their fins out the water...maybe dropping a small fin-ful of seaweed to check the direction of the wind...lol

[eumeis]

Guys, I suppose you know this is called the ekman transport and as you mentioned it is related to coriolis effect. So the diagram in minute 03:02 is of the southern hemisphere and will totally confuse the audience because the same wind direction on US east or west coast (blowing roughly south along the coast) will have the very opposite effect regarding upwelling and downwelling

[justsomeguywashwd_jbm]

On the subject of finding ways to prevent ship/whale collisions, I've been wondering if with all this listening to whales have they discovered some sort of sound that whales will avoid. The only thing I know of that preys on them are giant squid, & I don't know if they make any noise.

I know there has been a lot of study of sea mammal calls, & in some species scientists can even tell that individuals of some species have specific audio identifiers, or names, so I was wondering if maybe scientists had identified a whale call that roughly translates as "danger here"? If so, maybe ships could broadcast it to warn whales that something dangerous is passing through.

[lamegoldfish]

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, just a Blue Whale might help.

[qumphie]

DougDoug and Rosa paid for these findings.

[philipb]

Listen to the whales. They sing the blues 2:25 'The krill is gone...'

[GeraldBlack]

Seems like we need to learn whale talk for get out of the way and play that on a speaker just loud enough to give them a heads up.

[scorpio]

Maybe put a warning sound on the ships.

[johnmillerpere_grin]

I guess I haven’t seen a blue whale before, because I thought they’d be a lot thicker than they seem to apparently be. More semblance to a torpedo of size comparable to many buildings, than humpback whales I guess. I probably just haven’t seen a photo of an entire whale either.

[dustman]

I wonder how much whales use ocean currents to travel more efficiently.

[Marine_Veteran_Vegan_Gamer]

Most non-human animals are someone, a sentient being trying to live their best life.

[touchofgrey]

You're getting carried away here; a Blue Whale eats up to four tons of food a day! NOT 20 tons!

[williamfrazier]

I have seen groups of 6+ sea lions all sticking one of their long fins out of the water to either use as a sail or to let the sun warm it

[some_noob_Guy]

Planktons are the most important sea animal because if there are non we would only breed 50%

[broman]

why is your mixing of treble off by 15 hz

[AlphaKnight-hgjq]

Back when they were using sailing ships for whaling the whales figured out if they swam up wind of the ships the ships couldn't follow them

[josemarialaguinge]

How do the whales realize the change in the wind? Or do they just casually find the buffet?

[ncp]

How would a soul travel? If plasma goes into water can it get to space faster?