Preliminary Results of Non-lethal Whale Research Presented at IWC Meeting
29.06.2010 - Water & Oceans, Flora & Fauna, Antarctic
Australian Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully revealed the preliminary results of the non-lethal whale research undertaken in the Southern Ocean earlier this year. The preliminary report, which was presented at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Agadir (Morocco), features recordings of whale vocalizations and other yet to be analyzed data.
The first multilateral project to have been undertaken under the Southern Ocean Research Partnership had a team of 17 scientists from Australia, New Zealand and France gather new information using non-lethal techniques. Using these techniques, the team recorded vocalizations from Antarctic Minke whales and humpback whales, gathered a collection of 64 biopsy skin samples, and tagged 30 humpback whales.
While they still need to analyze the rest of the data they collected, the scientists are happy about their contribution to our understanding of the migration routes of the great whales between their Pacific island breeding grounds and their Southern Ocean feeding grounds.
