Southern resident killer whales have been filmed trimming pieces of bull kelp and using them to rub one another. Researchers call this behavior allokelping. It may help the whales groom and strengthen social bonds, but neither benefit has been proven. The concern behind the “last hope” framing is different: if this isolated population disappears, a behavior documented in it so far could disappear too.
What is allokelping?
In footage recorded by drone in 2024, southern resident killer whales selected bull-kelp stems, bit off shorter sections, and carried the pieces to another whale. The pair then pressed or rolled the kelp between their bodies. A session could last up to 12 minutes, and the behavior was seen among whales of different ages, especially close relatives and age-mates.
That sequence is what makes allokelping different from ordinary “kelping,” in which cetaceans drape or move intact kelp without the same pattern of trimming a piece and using it in paired grooming. The orcas are not simply swimming through seaweed: they select and prepare a segment, transport it, and coordinate with a partner.
Researchers had studied these whales for roughly 50 years before the behavior was noticed. The small kelp piece was difficult to see between two large whales; improved high-resolution aerial cameras made the interaction visible.
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Why might the whales massage each other with kelp?
Grooming is the leading explanation
Bull kelp has a firm, springy stem, or stipe. Michael Weiss of the Center for Whale Research compared its feel to a foam roller. Researchers suspect the stipe may help rub away dead skin and possibly parasites. That is a plausible explanation, not a demonstrated medical result: it has not been established that allokelping improves skin health or removes parasites.
The activity may also support social bonds
Allokelping involves prolonged contact and coordination between two whales, and observations have particularly involved close relatives and age-mates. Those features are consistent with a social-bonding role as well as grooming. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive: an activity could provide physical contact and a shared social experience at once.
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Researchers have not shown that the behavior is self-medication, improves survival, or has a specific health outcome. Its function remains a hypothesis to test.
Does this count as tool use?
The evidence for tool use rests on more than the whales touching kelp. They select a material, trim it into a piece, carry it to a partner, and coordinate how it is used between their bodies. Behavioral ecologist Janet Mann, who was not involved in the study, called the observations “convincing evidence of tool use.”
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The Guardian described the finding as the first documented case of mutual grooming with a tool in a marine animal. The behavior also broadens what is known about marine tool use: the kelp appears to serve both participants during a coordinated interaction, rather than being used by one animal alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why could the behavior disappear?
Allokelping has been documented so far in the southern resident population; whether other orca populations do it is unresolved. The southern residents do not interbreed with other killer-whale populations, so if this behavior is culturally transmitted within the group, losing the population could mean losing this version of the behavior as well. No evidence establishes that the whales are the only orcas capable of it.
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The Center for Whale Research’s July 2024 census context put the southern resident population at 73 whales. That figure is a dated census count, not a current count for 2026. The population also depends primarily on Chinook salmon, whose availability has been reduced by overfishing, warming conditions, and damage to spawning habitat from dams. Bull-kelp forests face pressure from warming seas, too.
These pressures make the behavior vulnerable because it depends on living whales and access to kelp. They do not make kelp massage a remedy for the population’s broader conservation challenges. As Weiss put it, “If we lose them we may never see this behavior on the planet again.” That is a warning about the possible loss of a distinctive behavior, not a claim that allokelping can save the whales.
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