Fish on Friday No More.

This is a fascinating story about bagging lunch.Clever Whale Uses Fish to Catch Seagulls:

Michael Noonan, a professor of animal behavior at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., made the discovery by accident while studying orca acoustics.

'One day I noticed one of the young whales appeared to have come up with a procedure for luring gulls down to the pool,' the professor said. 'I found it interesting so I noted it in my log.'

First, the young whale spit regurgitated fish onto the surface of the water, then sank below the water and waited.

If a hungry gull landed on the water, the whale would surge up to the surface, sometimes catching a free meal of his own.

Noonan watched as the same whale set the same trap again and again.

Within a few months, the whale's younger half brother adopted the practice. Eventually the behavior spread and now five Marineland whales supplement their diet with fresh fowl, the scientist said.

'It looked liked one was watching while the other tried,' Noonan said of the whale's initial behavior.

The capacity to come up with the gull-baiting strategy and then share the technique with others — known as cultural learning in the scientific world — was once believed to be one of those abilities that separated humans from other animals.

But biologists have since proven certain animals, including dolphins and chimps, do this.

I'd love to see a video of this.


(via Fark)