Livestream from AU: Hunting with the Ocean's Giants

No animals in Earth's history have reached the size of whales, and their adaptation to life in the ocean makes them among the most remarkable of all mammals. Yet for decades they were treated as a resource and hunted nearly to extinction. Today the picture has changed: research shows that whales are essential apex predators without which ocean ecosystems cannot function.

For years, researchers were limited to observing whales in the brief moments they surfaced, or studying dead specimens. Drones and suction-cup-mounted measuring equipment have fundamentally changed that - now science can follow the animals into the depths while they hunt.

The lecture draws on concrete examples: porpoises hunting in Danish waters, sperm whales finding food more than 1,000 metres down, Greenland whales surviving Disko Bay, and humpback whale mothers nursing their young for half a year without eating themselves. Finally, the question of how humans and whales can live in sustainable coexistence is addressed.

The lecture is an updated version of a talk from spring semester 2019 and is livestreamed from Aarhus University to Højby Library. The event is free and requires no registration.