‘Extraordinary’ Discovery: Some Humpback Whales Migrate Across the Globe

Thanks to researchers and citizen scientists, it's now clear that a whale species once hunted nearly to extinction still has lessons to teach us.

‘Extraordinary’ Discovery: Some Humpback Whales Migrate Across the Globe. Thanks to researchers and citizen scientists, it's now clear that a whale species once hunted nearly to extinction still has lessons to teach us. For a few humpback whales, the entire world is their oyster. New research published Wednesday reveals that two of these whales have essentially traded one part of the ocean for another one — on the other side of the planet. It was already known that some of these whales will sometimes shift their breeding and mating grounds for others thousands of miles away. But the whales documented in today’s study traded their preferred ocean home after living in their previous zone for many years. One of them moved from Australia to waters near Brazil, while the other immigrated in the opposite direction: from Brazil to Australia. The...