Tracking humpback whales

In the first move of its kind in Australia, scientists are using satellite technology to track the migration of the humpback whale. The Southern Ocean Research Partnership has tracked 16 humpback and four blue whales as they journeyed from the coast of Australia to their feeding grounds in Antarctica.

Some of the whales were tracked over five months and 4,000 km and Dr Nick Gales said it had helped scientists learn more about many whale species, where the whales were breeding and how they mixed. It also helped to look at the size of each of the populations and assess which were recovering well, which were not and what the reasons behind it. Dr Gales also said it was particularly important to understand the reasons in an environment that was changing rapidly because of the climate processes. In an interesting discovery, the scientists have discovered that humpback whales tagged off the east coast traveled more widely than had been previously thought.

The discovery also differs from the traditional understanding of the humpback whale's travel routes as identified by the International Whaling Commission (IWC0 and it is now hoped the research will provide accurate scientific data to help the Australian government protect the Southern Ocean whales. The study's findings suggest that whales spend more time feeding in temperate waters than previously thought. These areas stretch from the east of Flinders Island off north-east Tasmania, and west of Fjordland, New Zealand. It's the first study to show migration through Bass Strait and also down Tasmania's west coast, it also provided information on the whales' feeding patterns in Antarctica and the relationship between their food source, krill and retreating sea ice during the summer melt.