{"id":881,"date":"2026-05-06T16:29:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/orcas-turn-kelp-into-a-social-tool-revealing-a-threatened-north-pacific-animal-culture\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T16:29:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:29:58","slug":"orcas-turn-kelp-into-a-social-tool-revealing-a-threatened-north-pacific-animal-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/orcas-turn-kelp-into-a-social-tool-revealing-a-threatened-north-pacific-animal-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Orcas Turn Kelp Into a Social Tool, Revealing a Threatened North Pacific Animal Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Under the water, two orcas roll a strand of kelp between their bodies. Drones have revealed this gesture among Southern Resident orcas, studied for 50 years. The tool does not aid in feeding, but could support skin, social bonds, and a culture already vulnerable.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A <strong>selected kelp<\/strong> tool, cut and shared between two orca bodies<\/h2>\n<p>The behavior, called allokelping by researchers, literally means \u201ckelping with another.\u201d The orcas seize giant kelp, cut a stalk, and then place it between them. This <strong>deliberate fabrication<\/strong> sets the gesture apart from a simple game with floating seaweed.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">These crafty caterpillars trick ants into treating them like queens<\/span><\/section>\n<p>The piece used typically measures around <strong>60 cm<\/strong>, about the length of an forearm. The stipe, the flexible stem of the alga, acts like a smooth garden hose. Under pressure, it rolls between the flanks without tearing.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why this kelp massage speaks as much about <strong>renewed skin<\/strong> as it does about social bonds<\/h2>\n<p>The researchers advance a twofold explanation. The skin of cetaceans renews itself, but cold water can slow the shedding of dead cells. In individuals more marked by molt, <strong>the use of kelp<\/strong> appears more frequent in the videos analyzed.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the gesture goes beyond hygiene. In primates, <strong>grooming<\/strong> maintains alliances, reduces tensions, and organizes group life. Allokelping resembles a prolonged handshake, except that the hand is replaced by seaweed held by two bodies.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">An octopus filmed while sleeping shows how active sleep briefly colors its skin and brain in the lab<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Professor Darren Croft, from the University of Exeter and executive director of the Center for Whale Research, emphasizes this social dimension. The partners observed often come from the same pod, a family group of orcas, or share close maternal kinship.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What <strong>recent drones<\/strong> have made visible after half a century of observation<\/h2>\n<p>The Center for Whale Research has tracked this population since the 1970s. Boats and coastal stations have documented births, deaths, and movements. Yet <strong>drone cameras<\/strong> have added a decisive, almost vertical, vantage point.<\/p>\n<p>Rachel John, an animal behavior student at the University of Exeter, spotted in a video a brown stalk stuck between two animals. The detail seems tiny when scaled to the size of an orca, like a straw between two swimmers in a <strong>dark pool<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">The dark side of the hippopotamus, Africa\u2019s most dangerous animal<\/span><\/section>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A <strong>precious animal culture<\/strong>, kept track of in a population still fragile<\/h2>\n<p>The study published in Current Biology describes 30 allokelping sequences recorded across 8 of the 12 days of observation. Males, females, youngsters and adults participate. This distribution gives the behavior the appearance of a <strong>shared tradition<\/strong>, not merely a solitary habit.<\/p>\n<p>The latest annual census from July 2025 counts 74 Southern Resident orcas, spread across pods J, K and L. NOAA Fisheries has classified them as endangered since 2005, with three major pressures: fewer chinook salmon, persistent pollutants, and ship noise.<\/p>\n<p>The question thus goes beyond the survival of isolated animals. <strong>Bioaccumulation<\/strong>, the buildup of pollutants in the food chain, weighs on their health. The decline of kelp forests adds a very real cultural risk: beneath the surface, a brown stalk still rolls between two black-and-white bodies.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Thanks to static electricity, this worm boosts its capture chances and opens new avenues for biological control<\/span><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,1163,1160,564,1158,413,441,232,1162,1161,1159],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-animal","tag-culture","tag-kelp","tag-north","tag-orcas","tag-pacific","tag-revealing","tag-social","tag-threatened","tag-tool","tag-turn","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}