Primates, birds, and elephants are all known to make tools, but examples of tool use among marine animals are much more limited. Reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 23, a team of whale experts has found widespread tool manufacture and usage in an endangered population of resident killer whales living in the Salish Sea—part of the Pacific Ocean between British Columbia and Washington. The whales fashion tools from kelp and use them for grooming purposes.
“We found that southern resident killer whales regularly use lengths of bull kelp during social interactions, apparently as a tool to groom one another,” says Michael Weiss (@CetaceanMike) of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, WA. “To find that the whales were not just using but also manufacturing tools, and that these objects were being used in a way never before reported in marine mammals, was incredibly exciting.”
Weiss and his team discovered this unexpected whale activity while conducting aerial observations of southern resident killer whales, which are a critically endangered whale population with fewer than 80 individuals left found in the Pacific Northwest. The team has been monitoring the whales since 2018 to learn more about their foraging and social behavior.
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