The first humpbacks have arrived in the Ha’apais after swimming 1000s of miles from their Antarctic feeding grounds!
So far we’ve had several whale watching trips and enjoyed a lot of surface activity. Earlier this week, whilst watching 3 adults ‘playing’ around with each other, one suddenly burst out of the water in the most spectacular breach Glenn has ever seen! The whale launched its whole body clear of the water and while still in mid-air gave a slight twist, presenting its under-belly to us, before crashing back into the water! WOW! Imagine the powerful thrust of its tail needed to launch 40 tonnes from the sea into the air!
The weather at the moment is calmer than last year and the water is 2°C warmer!
Glenn has finally finished his book – “The Humpback Whales of the South West Pacific” – and it will be on sale in August. It has only taken him three years to write!! Packed with information and photos from his experiences with the whales that visit here during July – Oct, it includes sections on their natural history, behaviour and migration patterns, as well as an interesting and thought provoking one on “The Whales and Us.”
We have recently joined forces with the Antarctic Humpback Whale Catalogue, part of Allied Whale catalogue. The aim is to match as many tail flukes from Antarctic waters with those identified from the breeding grounds of the southern hemisphere. You can have a look at progress by visiting www.flickr.com and searching for our group; Southern Ocean/Antarctic Humpback Flukes. So far we have 20 members submitting images. If you have any good humpback fluke images we could use to identify individuals then please upload them to the group.
The humpbacks that visit the south west Pacific islands have recently been recognised as being distinct breeding sub-groups and have been listed by ICUN as endangered. This is in contrast to virtually all other humpback populations around the world which have had their status downgraded from threatened to least concern. The south west Pacific humpback populations were decimated by illegal whaling by the Russian Antarctic fleet in the early 1960’s, almost to the point of extinction. Even now they are struggling to recover and their survival hangs in the balance. This is why we feel such urgency to learn more about them in the hope that we can do something to help their recovery. It goes without saying that even one whale lost to a whalers harpoon, fishing gear entanglement, boat strike or any other human induced threat is a major blow to the survival of these unique humpbacks.
The Tongan government will soon be enshrining the draft whale watching and swimming guidelines into law. Following on from the conference attended by government agencies, all the whale watch operators as well as scientists, conservation organisations and NGO’s the final draft regulations are due to be presented to parliament this month. We’ll keep you posted on the outcome.