Photo Credit: Duke University Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing under NOAA permit 14809-03 and ACA permits 2015-011 and 2020-016

Researchers from Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and Duke University investigate a humpback whale by boat and drone in the surface waters near the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

Research Update: Baleen whale prey consumption based on high-resolution foraging measurements

An estimated 1.5 million baleen whales that lived in the waters of the Southern Ocean were killed between 1910 and 1970. Now, a recent NSF-funded study showed a surprising result: along with the decline of baleen whales, was a decline of their predominant food source - krill.

In a new study published in Nature, researchers used tagged whales with acoustic measurements of prey density to calculate the prey consumption of baleen whales. In the Southern Ocean, researchers calculate that pre-whaling populations of baleen whales annually consumed 430 million tons of Antarctic krill, twice the current estimated total biomass.

Read more about the study on the NSF website and check out the Whale Engineers episode of The Discovery Files.