Tuesday 16 August 2022
Monday 20 September 2021
Australian east coast 'peak' southern whale migration underway but so far fewer whale sightings & fewer calves
ABC News, 19 September 2021:
The Australian coast is a busy route for whales during their annual migration north. (Supplied: Go Whale Watching) |
Queensland researchers say whale watchers have reported fewer sightings this east coast migration season.
But experts say there has been less traffic near popular beaches this year.
Griffith Centre for Coastal Management researcher Dr Olaf Meynecke said it's been an unusual season with whales remaining further out to sea.
"Very different to the last three years at least, because we've had the whales migrate quite far offshore," Dr Meynecke said.
"There's a lot less happening closer to the coast."
Dr Meynecke said the southern migration was now underway, with whales and their calves making their return journey.
He said pods had been more commonly spotted 10-to-15 km offshore.
"We've actually had less entanglements in shark nets and those entanglements usually happen when the whales are close to shore," he said.
"Of course the mums and calves usually come close to shore to rest.
"But there's not as many as we had last year and definitely not as many newborns.
"It's been a very different season."
Whales and their calves are currently on their return journey south along the east coast.(Supplied: Seaworld) |
Dr Maynecke said the East Australian Current (EAC) - made famous by a certain clownfish - serves as a navigation tool for migrating humpbacks.
He said this year the EAC was further offshore which could explain why whales were too.
Ocean Analyst Lucinda Matthews from the Bureau of Meteorology said the EAC did appear to weaken along the Gold Coast in August and move slightly east.
"It's possible the whales are now staying offshore to stay in the maximum current available to hitch the best ride south," Ms Matthews said……
The East Australian Current begins at the point where the westward flowing South Equatorial Current splits into two. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology) |
Sunday 14 July 2019
Government of Japan sponsored whalers finally leave the Southern Ocean
Nisshin Maru is seen after it returned to port in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture at the end of its final whaling voyage into the Southern Ocean Japan Times |
Amid international criticism, several vessels left ports across the nation for the first for-profit hunt in 30 years. But this time, they are only going to hunt whales in Japanese waters.
Last December, Japan quit the International Whaling Commission, the body responsible for protecting global whale populations.
That meant the country could return to commercial whaling, but Japan had to give up a legal right to its so-called 'scientific whaling program' in the Southern Ocean.
Last year alone, Japan killed 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science.
Exiting the IWC and giving up that Southern Ocean whaling program was a "stupid" decision according to Japan's former chief IWC negotiator Masayuki Komatsu.
"We should go because it's a common property of the ocean," Mr Komatsu said.
Friday 5 April 2019
The rare Omura’s whale
Monday 4 March 2019
From September 2019 onwards underwater seismic blasts will rock the Great Australian Bight around the clock over a 30,100 sq kilometre area
Monday 24 December 2018
Japanese Government to withdraw from International Whaling Commission and recommence commercial whaling?
Friday 10 August 2018
The fight against Japanese whaling in the Antarctic continues....
Minke Whale Breaching at http://wildwhales.org/speciesid/whales/minke-whale/ |
Australia states its position……
BACKGROUND
Tuesday 3 July 2018
Japan finds threats and bribery not working as well as expected with member countries in International Whaling Commission – will seek to change voting rules
Whaling Commission (IWC) and bribery allegations seem to have been floating
around forever.
and now want to see IWC voting rules changed so that it won’t take as many
threats and bribes to get its way and recommence large-scale commercial whaling.
meeting of the International Whaling Commission in September as a ruling
party endorsed the government plan on Tuesday.
abundant such as minke whales for the proposal, but it remains uncertain
whether it can secure support from members of the IWC that are split over
whaling.
calls from some government officials and ruling party lawmakers that Japan
should weigh withdrawal from the IWC.
nature of the international body, with one ruling party source saying, "We
are not going to drag this out."
government representative Joji Morishita, Japan plans to make a packaged
proposal that also calls for easing of the IWC's decision-making rules, a plan
seen as a tactic to court anti-whaling members.
needed to set a catch quota or a sanctuary where whaling is banned.
The Japanese proposal is to lower the hurdle to a simple majority.
to secure support for designating a new whale sanctuary.
against the practice, according to Japan's Fisheries Agency.
established in 1948. In 1982, it declared there should be a moratorium on
commercial whaling and the ban came into force in 1986.
continues to hunt whales for "research purposes," drawing criticism
overseas that the practice is a cover for commercial whaling.
quota for species whose stocks are recognised as healthy by the IWC
scientific committee", Hideki Moronuki, an official in charge of whaling at
Japan's fisheries agency, told AFP.
how many mammals Japan wants to hunt, but he said the IWC classifies
several species as no longer depleted.
attempts to win a partial lifting have been unsuccessful.
process, lowering the threshold for proposals to pass from three quarters
of members to half.
cooperative system," Moronuki said.
loophole allowing "scientific research". It says the research is necessary to prove whale populations are large enough to sustain a return to commercial
hunting.
when the country was desperately poor, but most Japanese now say they
rarely or never eat whale.
of conservative activists and politicians.
said permits being issued by Tokyo were "not for purposes of scientific
research".
year after Japan reported it had caught 333 minkes on its latest expedition,
122 of which were pregnant.
of the minke population.
down its request to hunt 17 minke whales in its coastal waters—where
smaller whales which Japan claims are not regulated by the committee are
already hunted.