Dr. Deborah Giles

So my name's Deborah Giles, Dr. Deborah Giles, but I just go by my last name, Giles.

Yeah, my main job is poop collection.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everything you can imagine.

Anything that you can get from a blood sample, you can analyze through the feces.

Yes.

She'll go to the front of the boat.

Put her snout in the air.

Stand up on the bow.

And then lead them to it.

And gently break the surface of the water.

And scoop up the poop.

Okay.

There comes a time when we don't see the females in this population giving birth.

These females were living this long stretch of their life without having any new calves.

And we know that now.

These females have rich social lives.

Granny, she was just an astonishing whale who lived to be at least into her late 80s, possibly as old as 105.

And according to Darren and Giles, all the way up to the end, she had this zest for life.

Yeah, what does that look like?

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.