Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
independent.co.uk
Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
1–10 of 93 posts
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#2I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships.
This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale.
Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more intelligently to this.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#3I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…
I took a ferry once, and the Seagulls followed the ship and prayed on the fish stirred up to the surface by the ships propeller. This is a very plausible explanation.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#4I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…
I am not a marine biologist, but worked in VFX: Of course this is sped up, watching those ships travel their routes in realtime would be a bit like watching paint dry.
Certain aspects/patterns of movement will only become visible when the playback speed is changed (early 20th century theorist Walter Benjamin called this the Optical-Unconscious). So e.g. it is easier to judge patterns in the traffic flow of vehicles in a sped up video than in real time footage. Both display the same movement but something else becomes visible.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#5I'm open to an explanation. But, I think a lot of the effect of the animation is created by the dots representing the whale and ships being huge. In reality the dots would be tiny and almost never come into visible range of each other.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#6I'm open to an explanation. But, I think a lot of the effect of the animation is created by the dots representing the whale and ships being huge. In reality the dots would be tiny and almost never come into visible range of each other.
And the massive trails on the ships! What purpose does that serve other than to mislead?
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#7I'm open to an explanation. But, I think a lot of the effect of the animation is created by the dots representing the whale and ships being huge. In reality the dots would be tiny and almost never come into visible range of each other.
Shipping noise can travel much further underwater than through the air. If the effect being shown is real then I wouldn't be shocked if sound were the culprit.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#8I'm open to an explanation. But, I think a lot of the effect of the animation is created by the dots representing the whale and ships being huge. In reality the dots would be tiny and almost never come into visible range of each other.
I don't think the animation type influences the information in a misleading way and I think that the suggested effect is real.
Whales use sound to gather information about their surroundings rather than sight. So it isn't about visibility range, but rather about auditory range. In addition, sound travels at a different speed under water (I don't know how it affects the range).
The movie 'The last Giants' [1] is a documentation about the whales in the Strait of Gibraltar. While I don't think it is a particular good movie (too emotional), I think the basic information presented, gives a good impression of how whales are affected by modern ships. It is cruel.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#9I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…
I took a ferry once, and the Seagulls followed the ship and prayed on the fish stirred up to the surface by the ships propeller. This is a very plausible explanation.
If the whale would want to follow a ship he would do that. Instead the pattern looks more like he bounces off as soon as he comes close to a ship. Looks more like he wants to avoid ships.
Seagulls on the other hand, have a very different pattern. They also use ships to rest on them and tend to travel along side.
Re: Animation of a blue whale trying to avoid ships
#10I believe I saw this on reddit last week and I feel it's disingenuous. It's sped up and meant to make it look like the whale is frantically trying to escape while being hemmed in by ships, but a more plausible explanation is that the whale is attracted to the wakes of the passing ships. This speaks to some kind of phenomenon that creates a feeding opportunity for the whale. Perhaps a marine biologist can speak more i…
I saw it too there.
Another commented suggested that it actually might be following to these points/paths as the ship stirs krill or used as distance markers or something. I don't really know if I believe that and haven't had a chance to read the associated study. To be fair, the ocean is a big place so I am a bit skeptical overall.
I do know though, anything from the independent.co.uk URL is almost guarenteed to be heavily sensationalized. Always the most outlandish and emotional headlines. So if it's running here, my first instinct is to just move along.