Whale watch update
24 July 2020
Dear whale watchers,
It’s been a slow start to this year’s southern right whale season in Victoria. The first confirmed southern right whale sighting for the season occurred at Phillip Island of a single whale on 11 June. This was followed by a sighting of two southern right whales at Portland on 16 June. There have been several sightings of migrating whales moving through the Portland area since then including an unusual grey morph (colour variation) seen on 5 July.
The first confirmed report of a calf we received this year occurred on 28 June at Cape Schanck. This cow:calf pair was reported to have stayed in the Westernport Bay area for 2-3 days then was subsequently seen at Portland on 8 July then Encounter Bay South Australia on 16 July. This is a long distance to travel for a young calf in such a short space of time. The mother possibly belongs to a calving ground in the west and has calved before she could reach her destination. There are concerns for the welfare of this pair as they were reportedly followed by boats around Phillip Island and again in Encounter Bay. Images from Encounter Bay show a heavy sea lice load on the calf which is usually a sign of poor health. We will be investigating this further with our photo-ID colleagues in other parts of Australia.
We have received several reports of other cow:calf pairs being seen along the Victorian coast. There were reported sightings at Skene’s Creek on 19 June, Seaspray/Loch Sport on 18 June, 2 July and 8 July, and Logans Beach on 10 July. It appears from photos we have received that there have been at least two other cow:calf pairs bringing the total to three so far this season for Victoria. There have been very few re-sights of these pairs suggesting they too are on the move. if anyone has further information or images from these dates and locations, we would love to hear from you!
Although there have been sightings at Logans Beach, as yet we don’t have any of our resident females there. Logans Beach is the only regularly used nursery for southern right whales in our region and we have been expecting a couple of our regular breeding females including well known favourites ‘Big Lips’ and Long Coaming’. Southern right whales calve on average once every three years. Variations in calving intervals do occur and are thought to be related to climate and food availability. Movements of females between calving grounds also do occur but these are unusual, and the reasons are unknown. There is still time for our whales to show up, but as the season progresses, this is looking unlikely as there will be less time for the calves to grow and gain weight in preparation for their long migration back to feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean.
We are very grateful to have also received sightings reports from New South Wales for our research, including a number of cow:calf pairs seen at Ulladulla and Byron Bay!
Thank you to those who have contributed to our sightings database using the new online portal hosted by SWIFFT. We have received more than 50 southern right whale sighting reports from around Victoria and New South Wales on SWIFFT so far this year. Identifying images we receive may be included in the South-east Australian Southern Right Whale Photo-Identification Research Program, and sightings records added to the department's Victorian Biodiversity Atlas.
We will continue to post regular news updates on the whale season on the News tab of this page. We also posted a copy of our recently published scientific paper on population estimate for the south-east Australian southern right whale population.
If you would like to register and contribute sightings, please visit: www.swifft.net.au/srwsmp
Once registered you can also view images and news updates even if you don’t wish to contribute data yourself.
Regards,
Mandy Watson