After seeing videos of kelping and reading a 2012 study on the phenomenon, Meynecke was intrigued. He had now seen three unrelated drone videos of kelping, and wondered how much more was out there.
To collect more data on this strange behavior, he searched social media with keywords like “kelping,” “humpback whale,” “whale,” and “seaweed,” and found hundreds of posts, which the team systematically analyzed.
Meynecke says it became clear that this behavior isn’t accidental: “Having something touching your body in the water is quite difficult because it doesn’t really want to stick, it floats away,” he says.
(Did humpbacks try to save a seal from orcas? See for yourself.)
Heidi Pearson, professor of marine biology at University of Alaska Southeast, who was not involved in the research, has seen kelping at her humpback research site in Juneau, Alaska. Once, a female called Barnacles looked like she was entangled in fishing line. It turned out she “was playing with this kelp” draped over her back.
