Moose predators orca1/1/2024 "I thought we had some juice at the drop of the puck tonight and played a much better game." "We needed a good response," said Sissons. The Predators (15-13-0) lost 4-0 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday but have won 10 of their past 13 games after a slow start to the NHL season. "Going on the third period, I really felt we understood that maybe we didn't have the energy, we needed to play a certain way, but we managed the game extremely well." "Early in the year we probably would have caved a little bit, so I think we've been able to grow as a team here. "We're starting to understand how to win these kind of games when maybe you lose a little momentum," said Brunette. Captain Roman Josi pitched in with two assists. “It seems something has changed in this ecosystem,” Sarmarra says.MONTREAL - Nashville Predators head coach Andrew Brunette believes Sunday night's 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens was a good example of how far his team has come.Ĭolton Sissons scored twice, Juuse Saros made 36 saves and the Predators held off the Canadiens despite a late push from the home side at Bell Centre. But Samarra cautioned it’s difficult to know what’s really going on without a closer analysis. So far they’ve conducted their experiment on four killer whales, and while the pilot whale calls didn’t immediately scare them off, a few of the killer whales did swim away. Selbmann and Samarra spent this past summer broadcasting pilot whale recordings at killer whales equipped with tracking tags. “Are the killer whales avoiding the pilot whale sounds?” “Now we want to test the reverse,” says Selbmann. Previous research conducted in Norway showed that when scientists played the sound of killer whales to pilot whales, the pilot whales swam straight toward the sounds and swarmed the researchers’ boat. To gain insight into what could be driving the interactions, Selbmann and Samarra are performing acoustic playback experiments. Already, scientists have noticed other odd cases-such as how humpback whales seem to defend other whales against killer whale attacks. Researchers are beginning to pay more attention to the unusual interactions between different cetacean species, Ferguson says, noting which are capable of defending themselves against attack, and which become aggressive toward predators. However, there have been a few accounts of smaller prey species attacking the killer whales back. Steve Ferguson, a marine mammal ecologist at the University of Manitoba who is not involved with the research, says that the sightings are unusual because in so many other places killer whales are a top predator, and other smaller cetaceans tend to avoid them. Perhaps the pilot whales are viewing them as a threat, and responding accordingly. In other parts of the world, killer whales do feed on smaller whales such as minkes, belugas, and narwhals, and are even known to chase down larger baleen whales. “They’re not really a threat to pilot whales,” she says.īut Selbmann says it’s possible that the pilot whales didn’t know the killer whales weren’t a threat. For example, meerkats will throw sand at snakes.” But even this explanation isn’t ideal, Selbmann says, considering the killer whales aren’t known to eat the smaller pilot whales. “A lot of animals mob their predators to rob them of the element of surprise. “The other theory is that it’s anti-predator mobbing behavior,” explains Selbmann. Since the 2015 encounter, she’s seen similar interactions around 20 times.Īnna Selbmann (front left), Filipa Samarra (back left), and colleagues scan for whales off Iceland. Interactions between killer and pilot whales have only been scientifically documented a few times, and Samarra is among the first scientists to have observed this behavior in Iceland. “It’s very unusual that they’re afraid of anything-or seemingly afraid.” “It’s quite unusual because the killer whale is this top predator,” says Anna Selbmann, a doctoral candidate at the University of Iceland who is supervised by Samarra. As the whistling grew stronger a group of pilot whales came into view, and the killer whales seemed to turn and swim away. “Then the killer whales just went silent,” says Samarra, a biologist and lead investigator of the Icelandic Orca Project. She listened as they pipped, squealed, and clicked when suddenly her ears were filled with high-pitched whistling. In 2015, out on the choppy waters off southern Iceland, Samarra and her research team were eavesdropping on a group of killer whales. Share this articleįilipa Samarra could hear the pilot whales before she could see them.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |