If whales could talk, that's what whales in the Southern Hemisphere would be saying this week, after scientists announced they'd look into securing a whale sanctuary off the coast of New Zealand.
Scientists from all over the world met in Auckland last week to look for new insights into the lives of humpback whales and to build a case for a huge whale sanctuary that would dwarf other well-known sanctuaries like New England's Stellwagen Bank.
Every year, humpback whales migrate through New Zealand waters on their way to Niue, New Caledonia and Samoa. The whales spend winter and early spring near Antarctica, feeding on plentiful schools of small fish. Then, in the late spring, they head north to spend the South Pacific winter off the coast of New Zealand. These whales are known as Tongan humpbacks because they congregate in mainly Tongan waters to breed from June to November.
Scientists hope the new sanctuary will enable this population to grow. New Zealand's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, Jim McLay, said there was an urgent need to extend international protection to whale breeding areas in the South Pacific, so that whales in this Tongan population can begin to work on increasing the size of their group.
Today, scientists estimate fewer than 750 whales exist in this population. The population was hunted close to extinction not so long ago. What was once a group of about 10,000 was nearly eradicated by the 1960s. In 1972, when most countries including New Zealand stopped the slaughter, this particular population of humpbacks numbered about 500. Over the last few years, while humpbacks migrating along the eastern shores of Australia and breeding off the Great Barrier Reef have been recovering well, Tongan humpbacks have not.
In response, scientists at the University of Auckland - including Jacqui Greaves from New Caledonia - have started researching the Tongan population to track its growth. In particular, Greaves and his colleagues have used photographs of humpback tails to determine the breeding population of the whales in the South Pacific.
Years ago, when the project first began, University of Auckland scientist Scott Baker said that humpbacks were difficult to study but, in their tropical breeding grounds, they were found close to shore for several months.
"We were able to spot them there," he said. "We were lucky to find them close enough to shore to conduct this necessary research."
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