Endangered whale becoming a regular visitor to New Zealand
Scientists have shown that mainland New Zealand has become an increasingly important winter habitat for southern right
whales – a population hunted to near extinction in the 19th century – and members of the public have played a critical
role in the research.
"This endangered whale now seems to be a regular visitor to mainland of New Zealand" said lead author Dr Emma Carroll
from The University of Auckland "For the first time we have documented southern right whales returning to the mainland,
including females returning with their calves in different years.”
The findings suggest that mainland New Zealand could become an important habitat for mothers and calves and perhaps
larger social groups. Between 2003 and 2010, for instance, 28 mother-calf pairs were seen in the area, compared with
only 11 sightings from 1991-2002 and none between 1976 and 1991.
New Zealand’s coastal waters were once the seasonal home of tens of thousands of southern right whales. However
extensive whaling saw the whales all but disappear from around the mainland, with few sightings for most of the
twentieth century.
In recent decades a remnant population was found around the sub-Antarctic islands and members of this growing population
now appear to be re-colonising mainland New Zealand.
“We now have photo-ID matches confirming that the same individuals are moving back and forth between the Auckland
Islands and the mainland,” said co-author Dr Will Rayment from the University of Otago.
“This is great news because the population at the Auckland Islands is recovering strongly. Hopefully we’ll see more of
these whales around the mainland in the future.”
“The public plays a key role in supporting this research by reporting sightings to 0800 DOCHOT (0800 36 24 68),” says Dr
Laura Boren from the Department of Conservation (DOC). “Their reports enable our staff to obtain samples from
opportunistic sightings, in numbers that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. This has been a great piece of collaborative
work to monitor the re-colonisation of an endangered species”.
To monitor the whales’ numbers around mainland New Zealand DOC launched a public awareness campaign in 2003, encouraging
people to report sightings. This led to a collaborative research project involving researchers from The University of
Auckland, University of Otago and Oregon State University.
The latest findings are based on these sightings data, and whales individually identified from photographs of natural
markings and/or DNA profiles from small samples of skin. The research has been published in the current issue of Marine
Mammal Science.
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