Southern Right Whale monitoring

From the habitat selection of snow petrels in Antarctica, there is only one small step to make to the understanding of habitat preferences of Southern Right Whales!!  This species, which was decimated by whaling along the Australian coast in the last century has started recovering and whales are now progressively colonizing breeding sites which were abandoned for decades.  For two seasons, I participated in an ongoing monitoring study based at the remote Head of the Bight, on the Eastern end of the Australian Nullabor Desert. For several months, a team of three biologists is posted long the high calcareous cliffs to watch whales, a job of patience… Individual Southern Right whales can be identified with the number and shape of callosities on their forehead, so we photographed individuals with a 1000 mm  lense to keep track of the females returning to the site to calve. We also monitored movement of individual whales in a 15 km long stretch of coast to analyze their habitat preferences. Our research camp was located near an aboriginal community, who traditionally venerated whales. Cultural exchange combined with scientific research was a highlight of this project.