Dr. Deborah Giles

Socializing, foraging, breaching, tail slapping.

It does sound zesty.

Yeah, living life.

Yeah.

Carried and played with and babysat brand new babies.

Yes.

Our colleagues captured drone imagery of Granny helping to corral a fish towards her great grand calf.

I mean, it was clear that Granny was the one in charge.

The matriarch of all matriarchs.

Females, especially post-reproductive females, are intervening in the lives of their adult sons, making sure that they're not roughhousing enough to get injured.

Granny would just start slapping her tail on the water and like all the whales would go like, whoop, Granny's calling.

We're going to go in the direction that she wants us all to go.

That was something that we used to get to see quite often.

And even after she spent 45 minutes or even an hour trying to catch a fish.

you know, continuing even though she was most assuredly hungry herself.

Charles said she would see her bite the fish in half or sometimes even in thirds and have family members come over to grab that fish.