The Whale Menopause
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2016
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Killer whales and humans are almost unique in the animal kingdom. The females of both species go through the menopause in their 40s or 50s, and then live for decades without producing any more offspring themselves. It is an extremely rare phenomenon. No other mammal does this, including other apes, monkeys and elephants, with the exception of another species of toothed whale. There are good grounds for thinking the menopause evolved for a reason, but why?
BBC science reporter Victoria Gill takes to the sea off the north-west coast of the USA with scientists who believe the killer whales in this part of the world can explain why the menopause evolved in both orca whales and our own species.
Victoria encounters 'Granny', the world's oldest known orca - a matriarch killer whale who is estimated to be between 80 and 105 years old. 'Granny' has not had a calf for at least 40 years and is still very much the leader of her family group.
(Photo: An Orca whale jumps out of the water © Jane Cogan)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, |
| 0:07.0 | go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. broadcasts. with me Victoria Gill. A five ton killer whale powers her way through the waters of the Harrow Strait. |
| 0:30.0 | She surfaces just briefly for a breath. |
| 0:36.0 | She's known for many, many decades, the submarine contours of this channel between the US and Canada. |
| 0:44.0 | Does she wonder where the salmon is that used to come here in such numbers, |
| 0:48.0 | the food on which she and her family depends? |
| 0:52.0 | The old orca rises again. A glistening black dorsal fin breaks the surface. |
| 0:58.0 | Yeah, so J2 is there. |
| 1:02.0 | J2 is there. So that's Granny. Yeah, affectionately known as Granny. |
| 1:05.0 | That's a celebrity of the whale watching world we've just seen. |
| 1:09.0 | Certainly a celebrity of the whale watching world, and especially to us as well as menopause |
| 1:14.1 | researchers so she's the oldest known killer whale she's estimated to be over a |
| 1:19.4 | hundred years old and she's still going strong and she's really interesting to us because she's been |
| 1:25.2 | post reproductive so hasn't given birth for the entire length of the study so for four decades she hasn't |
| 1:32.0 | given birth. |
| 1:35.0 | J2 or Granny is no freak among the older female orka in this part of the world. |
| 1:40.0 | I've always loved the old ladies. They just so spunky I mean you think gosh |
| 1:43.9 | how can you launch your body out of the water like you do j2 but she's one of the |
| 1:48.1 | spunkier animals that we have around one in three of these all females have actually stopped reproduction and it's not just at the end of life |
| 1:55.7 | They're having their last calf in their 30s or 40s |
| 1:59.0 | So Killer whale matriarchs can live on after the menopause for decades. Despite our very, very |
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