Whale Identification in the Pacific

Cetacean Monitoring

For 2011 OceansWatch has the following projects monitoring Whales:
South West Pacific Humpback Whale Identification Project

Introduction

Humpback whales migrate to the warm waters of the South West Pacific from their Antarctic feeding

grounds in the Ross Sea. It is the dual imperatives of mating and calving that draws them on this 3000 plus nautical mile journey. They spread themselves far and wide throughout the region between the latitudes 10 to 25 south and from 150 east to 130 west. Scientists recognize 4 distinct sub-populations in the region; E2 centered around New Caledonia, E3 around Tonga and Samoa, F1 in the Cook Islands and F2 around rench Polynesia. While quite a lot of research has been carried out in these areas there is still very little known about the movement of whales between the 4 groups. The South West pacific is vast and researchers are limited to easily accessible locations. We, as cruising yachties, on the other hand suffer from no such limitations and can explore wherever desire (and wind) take us. This gives us an ideal opportunity to contribute to the growing database of identification photos that are essential to understanding the relationship between these genetically distinct groups of whales. There is great urgency in this work as these whales have recently been classified as “endangered” where all other humpback whale populations in the world have been downgraded to “least concern” on the ICUN Red List of Endangered Species.

Flukes are the Key!

The underside of a humpback’s tail flukes is unique, not only in their colouration and patterns, but also the serrated trailing edge (top edge) of the flukes. This makes it possible to identify individual whales and ultimately allows us to match photos of individuals taken at different times and places, thereby gaining valuable information as to their movements throughout the region. If we can increase our understanding we will be better placed to manage ourselves in ways that lessen our impact on these magnificent beings. We’d like to invite any interested OceansWatch members to participate in this research project. If you are going to be sailing in this region and have the ability to take fluke photos we will be able to add your images to the database. Along with the photos we would also like to get information about the sighting such as position, number of whales, direction of movement etc. We have a cetacean sightings form that you can download from the OceansWatch website to make it easier to record the relevant information.

How and where will your photos be used?

OceansWatch is committed to the philosophy of sharing research data and findings with other relevant organizations and individuals working towards the same goals. In this case your photos will not only be in the OceansWatch database but will also be shared with the South pacific Whale Research Consortium (SPWRC), Allied Whale and OBIS. New fluke matching software has recently been developed to help improve the efficiency of successful matches but it is still a hands on task so the better the photo to start with, the better the chance of a successful match. The guidelines below will give you a good idea of what is needed but if you are not sure whether the quality of your tail photo is good enough, SEND IT TO US ANYWAY!! In addition we would like a bit of info about the sighting so please have a look at the sightings log so you know what information to record and send to us.

Recognizing Humpbacks

It’s not always easy to recognize what species of whale has just broken the surface in front of you so here are a few tips for identifying humpbacks. Humpbacks have the longest pectoral fins of any whale. In adults they can be up to 5m long.
They have a series of ‘knuckles on their leading edge.
The head of a humpback is rather elongated and narrow compared to the rest of the body. They have two blowholes towards the rear of the head with a raised splashguard in front of them. There are a series of un-even bumps called tubercles along the jaw line and on top of the head.
The blow of an adult humpback can reach 5m high and is more or less vertical. It tends to mushroom at its top before dispersing.
The dorsal fins of humpbacks are very variable in shape and size. It is situated approximately 2/3rds of the way towards the tail and is usually no more than 30cm high.

Tail Fluke Photo guidelines

The following guidelines are based on an international standard used by most researchers as well as the fluke matcher software. There are several important factors that make a good fluke id shot, including sharp focus, good contrast between tail and background, composition and image size.

Focus: It is important to get the tail in sharp focus so that markings on the tail are sharp and the serrated edge is well defined. Images may be blown up to 100% on a computer screen so the sharper the better. Ideal focus with sharp detail OK Focus with reasonable detail Poor focus with no detail.

Contrast: Contrast helps the software or researcher identify distinguishing marks and serration patterns. Below are examples of good and bad contrast.

Composition: There are several things to consider with composition; perpendicular angle, lateral angle, horizontal angle and proportion of fluke visible.

Perpendicular Angle: Good contrast all markings clear Ok contrast most markings clear average to poor contrast Perpendicular to the water less so but still fine not perpendicular and unuseable.

Lateral Angle: Straight from behind and perfect not quite straight but markings still visible 45? and just useable.

Horizontal Angle: Horizontal angle is not so critical as the image can be cropped and straightened as long as the file size is big enough.

Proportion of fluke visible: Full tail including trailing edge 80? of tail but full trailing edge full trailing edge so still useable.

Equipment

As you can see from the above photos, the aim is to get as much of the tail in focus, well exposed and well composed. In an ideal world the whale would come close to your boat and wait, tail held high, while you compose the perfect photo. In the real world however it can be very challenging to get a useable photo. Equipment can play and important role. The best camera rig for this type of photography is one with a telephoto or mega zoom with a minimum focal length of 200-300mm. It is also very desirable to have some form of anti shake or vibration reduction technology, as you will be hand holding the camera in most situations. Below is a list of desirable features.

DSLR with telephoto or zoom lens with maximum focal length of at least 200mm or a good quality Mega Zoom compact camera.
Vibration reduction technology to avoid camera shake while handholding.
Minimum 8 megapixels to allow for cropping of images.
Manual controls that allow fast shutter speeds of at least 500th of a second.
ISO settings of at least 400 to accommodate fast shutter speeds.
High Speed shutter release of at least 3 frames per second to increase the chance of a useable shot. It is possible to get lucky and shoot a useable photo even with a point and shoot camera so if you don’t have the fancy gear don’t feel left out but stay realistic as to what your camera can achieve.
You may have to be patient to get a useable photo but please keep in mind that the wellbeing of the whale is the most important thing so always ensure you are not interfering with their natural behaviour or harassing them in any way.

File Sizes:

To improve the chances of matching your fluke photos to others in the database we need files of a reasonable size and quality. Ideally we want the fluke to fill the frame but it often not possible to get close enough to the whale to achieve that. This means that we often need to crop the image to achieve the full frame. We can only do this if the file is big enough. For this reason we suggest you use the highest resolution and quality settings your camera has, ideally 8 megapixels or more. We are aiming for the final cropped image to still be a minimum of 2000 pixels on it’s longest side. It’s best to save your images as JPEGs with the highest quality setting.

What to do with your photos once you’ve got them:

Ideally we would love to receive your files by email but we know it can sometimes be difficult to find fast internet connections in the South Pacific so sending large files may be difficult until you reach somewhere with a faster connection. Alternatively you can copy them to a CD or DVD and post them to us at PO Box 1803, Whangarei, New Zealand along with the sightings sheets. Because this is an ongoing project it’s not so important for us to get your photos as soon as you have taken them (although that would be great) so please use the method that suits you best with the least hassle. Or you can fill in the cetacean sightings form.

Thanks for your help and GOOD LUCK.

It is not our right to interfere in the lives of other species

But when our paths cross

It is our responsibility to behave in such a way

That we do no harm

Previous projects:

Niue Whale Research Project Report 2010

OceansWatch had been approached by Olive Andrews from the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium (SPWRC). Together with the Niue Government and a local NGO, Oma Tafua, Olive aimed to conduct sighting surveys during the late winter south-bound migration of humpback whales. Due to the lack of an appropriate boat and financial constraints this project could not be carried out last year.

The special interest of Niue for researchers lies in its geographical location. Lying in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it is thought to be a possible area where humpback whales from the eastern and western Pacific meet and mix. Also, as in many other South Pacific countries, there is a lack of knowledge on what other whale and dolphin species are present.

A preliminary survey was undertaken in 2008 and over 50 humpback whales were sighted over a ten day period. Surveys were however severely constrained due to the lack of a proper platform to venture offshore (or farther offshore than a small dinghy could safely do). The project consisted of a combination land and water based volunteers searching for whales and dolphins and undertaking daily sighting surveys. For the yachts this consisted of travelling on a set path with volunteers onboard recording sightings and when possible taking fluke photos to ID individual animals.

Boats

We were expecting to work from 2 volunteer vessels (through OceansWatch), each donating 3 weeks of ship time. As most of you have heard, our first vessel, the Anna, capsized between Tonga and Niue in a storm. The 2 crew members were rescued and the boat was abandoned and subsequently salvaged a few weeks later from a reef in Tonga by Reef Shipping. We were very relieved to welcome our 2 friends, Kelly & Glen ashore after their ordeal. SO, boat-less, we put a call out on the TV and radio to locals and visiting yachties which precipitated a swag of interest in our project and we ended up working opportunistically from 6 boats, 1 of which, the Fidelis, offered a full week for the researchers. Our second OceansWatch vessel, The Falcon GT, arrived Aug 21 and we worked from her for the last few weeks.

Quiet whales

In addition to working from many different boats, the whales were very few, and the conditions averaging 20knots and over with 2m swell. The

humpbacks that did come through were very skittish and 2 out of 3 were rounding out instead of fluking! We were only able to complete half of the line transect survey but I think it’s miraculous that we did achieve 130 miles of track lines in the conditions and with half the boat hours. Whale stats: In total, over 6 weeks, we saw 45 humpbacks including vessel and land observations. Of these there were 3 cow/calf pods. We got 18 individual fluke ID’s, 3 sloughed skin samples, and 21 song recordings notably with a distinct song change brought by one individual we called Mr Curly.

Headlines

We documented a new cetacean species for Niue when we had a very interesting encounter with 2 Sei whales 12 miles off shore near a sea mount....yes Mike Donoghue, they were SEI whales. We also recorded the first sighting of a live sperm whale in Niue (only sighting was a standing event many years ago).

Public Education

The team did multiple presentations on marine mammal biology and natural history to both the primary and high schools and got senior biology students on the water with the researchers. We also did weekly public presentations to locals and yachties at different venues. The highlight of this season was the Oma Tafua` (treasured whales) show case. Attended by 200 people and raising $1500, the night was opened by a breaching humpback in the sunset in front of the venue, Matavai Resort. Dozens of traditional dance and music groups from all around the island performed stories and songs about whales and the team presented the Fisheries Minister Pokotoa with the SPWRC award for leadership in marine mammal protection from Ocean Voices. The whole event was televised nationally multiple times.

Media

We did weekly interviews with BCN broadcast on national news and introduced 2 whale films, What to do About Whales and The Humpback Code (thank you Mick McIntyre and Daniel Opits) which were also broadcast. The TV station said people were ringing them asking for the whale team to update them on the research findings every week!

Thank you Volunteers and sponsors

Our host organisation Oma Tafua` looked after the research team amazingly well and generated such a buz locally (Fakaue LAHI Rex, Marsh and Hipa families!!!!) and we were able to facilitate taking Oma volunteers Pauline, Joe, Lima & Aunty Roz on the water to train them in the research.

We also had volunteer crew from the vessels Further, Exabyte, Artimus, Maamalni, and African Innovation. Special thanks to Vince and Diego from Fidelis and especially to JOHN, Karlos, Karen, Gerry and Chris on the Falcon GT for all your effort and support. Also special thanks to Michael and Annie and the crew of Infinity for taking the school kids out. And to the Crew of the voyaging waka Te Matau Maui (especially Magnus, Jamal, Kai, Tomson, Tony & Carlo) who were great at the helm of the research vessel, performed a haka for us in a mid-seas sail by, and ran us around endlessly in their tender.

Fakaue Lahi also to Glenda Kay at Kaliki lodge now known as Fale Tafua` or Whale HQ, and to Les, Graham, and Pat & Jim for transport. SO despite the setbacks the project was very successful in achieving most of its aims and we look forward to going back to ‘The Rock’ of Polynesia in 2011.

(Pictures Courtesy of O. Andrews, Whaleology)

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