final report - satellite tracking north bound wa humpback whales (2)

Satellite tracking of Western Australian humpback whales

Satellite tracking of northbound

humpback whales (Megaptera

novaeangliae) off Western Australia

Final Report – May 2012

M.C. Double1, K.C.S. Jenner2, M-N. Jenner2, I. Ball1, S. Childerhouse1, S. Laverick1,

N. Gales1

1 Australian Marine Mammal Centre, Australian Antarctic Division, 203 Channel

Highway, Kingston, Tasmania 7150 2 Centre for Whale Research (Western Australia) Inc., PO Box 1622, Fremantle

WA 6959


Satellite tracking of south-bound female humpback whales in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia

Summary

This study was the first large-scale deployment of satellite tags on northbound humpback

whales and aimed to describe the migratory distribution and behaviour of these whales off

north-western Australia. A total of 28 tags were successfully deployed on migrating humpback

whales between the 8th and the 23rd July 2011. Of these tags, 15 performed poorly providing no

uplinks, only Z class data or the tag ceased transmitting within the first six days of deployment.

Whales were tracked from one to 47 days (mean = 16.04 days; SD = 15.1) for a total of 28,893

km (mean = 1,256 km; max: 3,612) and the total net distance moved from the first to the last

location was 11,702 km (mean = 509 km; max: 1,283). The tagged whales revealed the

consistently narrow, inshore distribution of migrating whales along the north-western coast of

Australia. Surprisingly many whales terminated their northern migration well short of the

recognised calving and breeding area for this population. Also while deploying tags many

females with calves were sighted off North West Cape. These observations highlight the diversity

of migration and calving behaviour that occurs through this region of Western Australia.


Introduction

The population of humpback whales that migrate along the west coast of Australia and calve in

the Kimberley region of Western Australia is increasing in size but has not yet fully recovered

from industrial whaling (Hedley et al., 2009). The latest abundance estimate suggests this

population is now over 20,000 individuals and is probably increasing at a rate greater than 10%

per year (Bannister & Hedley, 2001; Hedley et al., in press; Hedley et al., 2009). Although the

general timing of the migration and approximate distribution of this population of humpback

whales has been broadly described previously (Jenner et al., 2001), the specific migratory

routes, habitat use, resting areas, calving areas and the individual behaviours of the males,

females and mothers with calves are not well described.

Satellite telemetry has been used routinely in wildlife biology for nearly two decades and has

been applied successfully in studies of many marine organisms including penguins, albatrosses,

seals and even sharks (Bonadonna et al., 2000; Gifford et al., 2007; Jouventin et al., 1994;

Weimerskirch et al., 1993). The use of this technology in understanding the migration of large

whales has, however, lagged behind other taxa largely due to the inability to catch and attach

tags to such large species. It is only relatively recently that research groups developed reliable

tags that can be implanted into free-ranging whales (e.g. Gales et al., 2009; Heide-Jørgensen et

al., 2001b; Mate et al., 2007). Such tags have now been used in studies of many large whales

species such as blue (Heide-Jørgensen et al., 2001b; Mate et al., 2007), humpback (Dalla Rosa et

al., 2008; Gales et al., 2009; Lagerquist et al., 2008), sei (Olsen et al., 2009), right (Baumgartner &

Mate, 2005), bowhead (Mate et al., 2000) and minke whales (Heide-Jørgensen et al., 2001a).

Satellite tracking studies of whales or other cetacea in Australian waters are few and therefore

their movement patterns and migratory routes are generally poorly described. In one of the first

studies Gales et al. (2009) deployed 16 tags on humpback whales migrating south off New South

Wales and followed their migration paths around Tasmania and New Zealand and through to

Antarctic waters. In the same year five tags were attached to five long-finned pilot whales prior

to their release after stranding in north-western Tasmania (Gales, R. et al., in press). Although

these studies represent significant progress in the development of satellite tags for large whales,

the technology and reliability of attachment remains somewhat erratic and poor tag

performance remains common for all research groups in this field (e.g. Gales et al., 2010; Gales et

al., 2009; Garrigue et al., 2010; Mate et al., 2007)

In 2009 the first large-scale (>20) tagging study was conducted on the western Australian

population of humpback whales. This study aimed to describe the migratory distribution and

behaviour of nursing humpback whales on their southbound migration and so a total of 23 tags

were deployed on female humpback whales with young calves in Camden Sound, the Buccaneer

Archipelago, Pender Bay and Beagle Bay (Double et al., 2010). Although there was reasonably

poor tag performance (9 tags provided few or no data) tagged whales were tracked from one to

108 days (mean = 15.3 days; SD = 26.6) for a total of 23,243 km (mean = 1,367 km; min: 5.75;

max: 9,071) over the 1,250 locations received. The total net distance moved from the first to last

location was 16,912 km (mean = 994 km; min: 3.2; max: 7,328). One individual was tracked from

its breeding ground in north-western Western Australia to its feeding ground at the edge of the

sea ice around Antarctica; a migration distance of over 7000 km. Importantly, this data set

provided the first detailed individual movement data for migrating females with calves in the

north-west region of Western Australia.


The aim of the project described in this report was to expand on the 2009 study but focus on

northbound movements by deploying satellite tags on northbound male and female humpback

whales off North West Cape of Western Australia (see Figure 1). Data from these tags will

provide further individual and population level information on the whales’ distribution and

behaviour close to their recognised calving area near Camden Sound in the Kimberley region of

Western Australia. This north-west region of Western Australia is currently subject to expanding

marine-based industries. Information on the behaviour and distribution of this recovering

humpback whale population can underpin decisions by conservation managers and other

stakeholders so that potential impacts related to these marine based industries are managed

appropriately.

Methods

The satellite tags used in this study have a custom-designed, anchor section joined to a housing

manufactured by Wildlife Computers (Redmond, Washington, USA) containing the Spot 5

transmitter (see Gales et al., 2009). The tags were designed to implant up to a maximum of

290mm into the skin, blubber, interfacial layers and outer muscle mass of the whale (generally

just forward and to the left or right side of the dorsal fin). The front 80mm of the tag

disarticulates from back section of the tag post-deployment; a flexible 5mm multi-braided

stainless steel wire maintains a coupling between the two parts. Retention of the tag is

maintained through two actively sprung plates, and a circle of passively deployed ‘petals’. All

external components of the tag were built from stainless steel and the tags were surgically

sterilised prior to deployment.

Each tag was deployed using a compressed air gun (modified ARTS, Restech) set at a pressure of

between 7.5 and 10 bar (cf. Gales et al., 2009; Olsen et al., 2009). When fired from the air gun the

tags were attached to a purpose-designed projectile carrier. Retention teeth on the projectile

carrier grip a metal ring fitted to the end of the tag. When the tag makes contact with a whale,

the rapid deceleration of the tag and carrier withdraws the retention teeth and releases the

projectile carrier (Double et al., 2010). The metal ring used to attach the carrier is designed to

fall off in time to reduce the drag of the tag. Tags were deployed from the bow of RV Whale Song

or the bow-sprit of a 5.8m rigid-hulled inflatable boat at a range of 3-8m (see Table 1).

Once deployed, the first dive of the whale will activate the tag. The tag will then transmit upon

each surfacing if it has not transmitted during the previous 30 seconds. On the day of

deployment the tags were set to transmit until 00:00 hrs UTC; after that time they were set to

transmit on a 6hr on, 18hr off duty cycle until the tag falls off the whale, malfunctions or the two

AA lithium batteries are exhausted. Following each deployment, we used a hand-held receiver to

check that the tag was transmitting. Whenever possible all the whales encountered during the

research period were photographed for photo-identification studies and detailed photographs

were taken of each tag deployment. On deployment we also recorded deployment time,

deployment location, tagging distance, gun pressure, percentage implantation of the tag, pod

size, pod composition, the whale’s reaction to the deployment and the weather and sea

conditions.

During the transmission periods, locations were obtained via the Argos System of polar-orbiting

satellites (Argos, 1990). Each location was allocated a level of accuracy by the Argos System.

Categories 3, 2, 1 have associated error predictions of 250m, 500m and 1500m respectively


whereas categories 0, A, B have no associated error prediction. All Argos locations were filtered

using the Speed-Distance-Angle function in the R package (R Development Core Team, 2007)

‘Argosfilter’ (Freitas et al., 2008) which has been designed specifically for marine mammal

tracking data and is based on the algorithm developed by McConnell et al. (1992). This function

removes locations from the data set based on unrealistic swimming speeds, distances between

successive locations and turning angles. The conservative default setting of a maximum

swimming speed of 7.2 km/h was applied in this study.

Great circle distances between locations were calculated using an equation that assumes a

spherical Earth of radius 6371 km. Analyses based on distances used the general tagging

location -22.56 S, 113.62 E (WGS 1984) as the 0km reference.

The R package TRIP (Sumner, 2006) was used to interpolate locations at one hour intervals.

ArcGIS (ESRI Software) with Hawth's Analysis Tools for ArcGIS (Beyer, 2004) was used to

calculate the total distance traveled and net distance traveled from the first location in addition

to Kernel Density Estimates.

When possible, skin biopsies were collected for genetic analyses (Table 1) using a biopsy dart

fired from a modified .22 Paxarms rifle (Krutzen et al., 2002). Biopsies were usually collected

simultaneously with the deployment of the satellite tag. Biopsies were stored in 70% ethanol

and DNA subsequently extracted using the Tissue DNA purification kit for the Maxwell 16 DNA

extraction robot (Promega Corporation). The sexes of the tagged whale were determined using a

5’ exonuclease assay of the polymorphisms in the sex-linked Zinc Finger genes as described by

Morin et al. (Morin et al., 2005).

Results

Between the 8th and the 23rd July 2011, 28 tags were successfully deployed on migrating

humpback whales (Table 1). Of these, 25 were deployed from the bowsprit of R/V Whale Song

and 3 from the RHIB Orca. Three other tags were lost during this campaign due to unsuccessful

deployment attempts. Biopsy samples were obtained from 18 of the successfully tagged whales

from which genetic analyses revealed 5 were females and 13 were male. In addition, 2 whales

were accompanied by a young calf so there was a minimum of 7 females in the sample of 28

tagged whales.

Figure 1 shows the deployment locations off North West Cape for the 28 tagged whales. Of these

tags, 15 performed poorly providing either no uplinks at all (N=1), only Z class data (i.e. no

location, just an uplink - N=2), or stopped transmitting within the first six days (N=12; see Table

2). The poor data stream from five of these tags can be explained by poor deployments (see

Table 1). It is most likely the remaining tags stopped transmitting due to rapid tag loss or

damage.

Tag performance is summarised in Table 2 and the tracks provided by the tags are presented in

Figures 4 to 7. Whales were tracked from 1 to 47 days (mean = 16.04 days; SD = 15.1). A total of

4,404 locations were received. 3,615 of these locations were not removed by the filtering

process and therefore considered reliable (Table 2, see Methods). Whales that provided more

than 1 location were tracked for a total of 28,893 km (mean = 1,256 km; max: 3,612) and the

total net distance moved from the first to last location was 11,702 km (mean = 509 km; max:

1,283).


Generally the tag longevity in this study was shorter than previous AMMC deployments using a

similar tag design (Figure 2 – Exmouth Gulf, WA 2011 survival curve). However, the survival was

very similar to a campaign on the same population of humpback whales in 2009 (Figure 2 -

Kimberley, WA 2009 survival curve). In both studies the tags suffered a severe early failure rate

as shown by the steep survival curve in the first week after deployment. We suspect that the tag

performance was lower for these campaigns in particular because whales in this region are

highly social or aggressive and located in shallow waters where whales may damage the tag on

the sea floor.

North West Cape to Camden Sound

Despite the high tag attrition, 10 whales were tracked for over 3 weeks (Figures 4 - 6). Of these,

seven whales were clearly tracked to the northern most point on their migration (Figure 7).

Interestingly 2 whales (98107 female without calf; 98127 male) completed their northward

migration south of Karratha and passed the tagging location in a southerly direction between 10

and 20 days post-deployment (Figures 5, 6, 7a). This is the first direct evidence that some

whales terminate their migration well south of the recognised ‘calving ground’ for this

population in the Buccaneer Archipelago/Camden Sound region of Western Australia. Of the five

remaining whales where the northern terminus was clear, surprisingly, only one reached

Camden Sound proper while the remaining four reached the Dampier Peninsula or the

Buccaneer Archipelago (Figures 5, 6, 7b).

The whales tended to be within 50km of the coast in the region between North West Cape and

Camden Sound (approx. 1000 km of coastline - Figure 8). Consequently, the whales were

frequently in very shallow water (most medians <40 m; Figure 9). This pattern is similar to the

data from the south migration although on the north migration, there was no indication that the

whales tended to migrate into deeper waters off the western side of the Dampier Peninsula as

was reported in the study of their southern migration (Double et al., 2010).

Daily linear travel distances from the tagging location were highly variable both within and

between whales but throughout the region the median values fell between 40 and 60 km per day

(Figure 10). There does appear to be a trend towards lower daily travel speeds as the whales

progress north but this has yet to be assessed statistically. Data are few south of North West

Cape but the southward daily travel speed reached over 100km per day.

Although likely to be influenced strongly by deployment location and tag longevity, the relative

occupancy duration (Figure 11) illustrates the inshore, relatively narrow northern migration

corridor and the broad longitudinal distribution of humpbacks in this region of Western

Australia.

Discussion

This satellite-tracking study of humpback whales provides the first data on individual whale

movements on their northern migration and in their recognised calving area from the Lacepede

Islands to Camden Sound (Jenner et al., 2001). The tracks provided by these tags total over

28,893 km (3,615 locations) and revealed detailed migratory behaviour of several individual

humpback whales.

On their migration north, the tagged whales migrated close to the coastline of Western Australia

and often within a few tens of kilometers of the shore. The width of the migratory corridor


revealed by the tagged whales was frequently less than 60 km. There was little evidence that the

whales tended to venture further from shore and into deeper water at any point on their

northward migration. This is in contrast to data from the southward migration where the data

suggest the migratory corridor was broader and further offshore off the north-west point of the

Dampier Peninsula (Double et al., 2010). Indeed the few whales from this study that were

tracked through that region on their southward migration also displayed this behaviour.

Although the recognised calving area for this population is the region from the Lacepede Islands

to Camden Sound (Jenner et al., 2001), many whales were seen with calves at the tagging

location off North West Cape and six females with calves were successfully tagged. This

highlights the potential for this area to act as both a migratory corridor and calving site which

indicates a very broad distribution of calving events within this population. Consequently, the

region from the Lacepede Islands to Camden Sound should not be seen as the exclusive ‘calving

ground’ for this population. Similarly, this study showed that many whales terminate their

migration south of the Buccaneer Archipelago and two whales did not even reach Karratha

(some 850 km from Camden Sound) before initiating their southward migration. Therefore,

although the Camden Sound region may be important for a large proportion of this population, it

is clear there is such large variation in breeding and migration behaviour it would not be

possible to delineate specific areas within this region where certain behaviours only occur.

The satellite tracking data showed that the tagged whales often showed very low linear travel

distances over a 24 hour period, however no regions were identified where all or most of the

tagged whales showed low travel distances (possible resting/calving areas). North of Exmouth

Gulf, median travel distances in 24-hour periods were usually between 40 and 60km per day

although some whales travelled distances over 120km in 24 hours (measured as the linear

distance from the tagging location). The data indicates that daily travel distances tend to

decrease further north although not greatly. South of North West Cape, median daily travel

distance commonly exceeded 100km per day. These high travel speeds recorded when the

whales are migrating quickly are similar to those reported by our earlier study (Double et al.,

2010) and to those reported by Mate et al. (1998) and Zerbini et al. (2006) of 120 and 63 to 92

km/day km per day respectively.

Tag longevity was lower than on previous deployments (cf. Gales et al. 2009) although very

similar to the deployment on the same population on their southward migration. Anecdotal

evidence suggests this may be due to the whales damaging the tags on the sea floor or through

contact with other whales. Previously untagged whales were seen rising to the surface with mud

on their tails and rostrums. Such behaviour has also been recorded in Exmouth Gulf (Jenner &

Jenner unpublished data). This mud-rolling behaviour or perhaps contact with other whales

seems to be the most likely explanation for ten tags providing two or fewer days of data. Tag

longevity has been greater when similar tags have been deployed on whales located in or close

to deep water (Gales et al., 2009; Zerbini pers. comm.).

It is worth noting that although these data provide a unique insight into the migration behaviour

of these humpback whales, the compromised performance of many of the deployed tags

significantly reduced the size of this study’s dataset therefore caution should be taken when

generalising the behaviour of these whales based on information from this study alone.

Acknowledgements


The field-based research team for this project was Curt Jenner, Micheline Jenner, Dale Peterson,

Sarah Laverick and Simon Childerhouse plus other crew. This project would not have been

possible without the skill, expertise and dedication of Eric King, our engineer at the AAD. We are

also very grateful to Dave Watts and David Smith of the Australian Antarctic Data Centre for

their assistance with data curation and GIS respectively. We thank the Western Australian

Marine Science Institute (WAMSI) for partly funding this project. WAMSI received financial

support for this project from Woodside Energy Ltd as the operator the Browse LNG

Development.

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Table 1. Summary information of the 31 attempted tag deployments on humpback whale off North West Cape, Western Australia.

Number Argos

ID

Deployment date/time

(Perth local)

Deployment

Latitude

Deployment

Longitude Biopsy Vessel Group type Notes

1 98110 08-07-11 11:41 -22.56 113.64

Whale Song Adults x 2

2 98113 08-07-11 12:46 -22.51 113.58


3 53398 08-07-11 13:46 -22.52 113.65 HKW11NR10 - Male Whale Song Adults x 2

4 98126 09-07-11 10:37 -22.55 113.61 HKW11NR11 - Female Whale Song Adults x 2, Subadult x 1


6 98104 09-07-11 15:35

HKW11NR13 - Male Whale Song Adults x 5 Miss

7 98123 10-07-11 14:14 -22.49 113.62 HKW11NR14 - Male Whale Song Adults x 2, Subadult x 3

8 53582 12-07-11 12:14 -22.57 113.59 HKW11NR15 - Male Whale Song Adults x 3 Not fully implanted





13 98133 14-07-11 16:35 -22.60 113.70

Whale Song Adults x 1, Subadult x 1

14 98124 16-07-11 11:40 -22.53 113.57

Whale Song Adults x 2 Not fully implanted



17 53576 16-07-11 15:25

Whale Song Adults x 5 Miss

18 53379 16-07-11 16:21 -22.37 113.61

Whale Song Adults x 5 Low deployment

19 98105 17-07-11 14:34 -22.40 113.66

Whale Song Adults x , Subadult x 1 Low deployment

20 98107 18-07-11 10:36 -22.55 113.62 HKW11NR22 - Female Whale Song Adults x 3


22 98142 18-07-11 11:58 -22.51 113.57


23 98144 18-07-11 12:25 -22.48 113.57




26 53360 20-07-11 14:46 -22.62 113.63 HKW11NR27 - Female Whale Song Cow & calf Not fully implanted

27 98121 21-07-11 10:30 -22.62 113.75

Whale Song Cow & calf

28 98119 22-07-11 11:32 -22.51 113.61 HKW11NR28 - Female Whale Song Cow & calf Not fully implanted

29 53329 23-07-11 11:25

Orca Cow & calf Miss

30 98118 23-07-11 12:41 -22.63 113.62 HKW11NR29 - Female Orca Cow & calf

31 53733 23-07-11 16:22 -22.29 113.52

Orca Cow & calf


Table 2. Summary of the post-filter location data received from the 25 satellite tags deployed on humpback whales off North-West cape 2011. The

number of locations for each Argos accuracy category is given in the last six columns (see Methods). All dates and times are reported in UTC.

Transmissions were received for tags 98119 and 53379 for 2 and 8 days but no location data were provided. No transmissions were received from

tag 53582.

Tag - sex Start Date Last Date

Longevity

(days)

No. of

locations

Net distance

travelled (km)

Total distance

travelled (km) 3 2 1 0 A B

53360 - F 20/07/2011 8/08/2011 20 216 1233.45 1636.37 20 49 44 9 38 56

53398 - M 8/07/2011 23/08/2011 47 550 727.52 3586.14 53 119 161 72 69 76

53431 - M 18/07/2011 20/07/2011 3 25 175.10 296.76 2 3 5 5 7 3

53733 - F 26/07/2011 26/07/2011 2 5 40.45 54.99 0 2 1 0 0 2

98101 - M 12/07/2011 12/07/2011 2 10 17.04 55.82 1 1 4 0 2 2

98105 17/07/2011 17/07/2011 1 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 0 1 0 0

98107 - F 18/07/2011 14/08/2011 28 296 1028.56 2762.99 15 57 68 35 67 54

98110 8/07/2011 10/07/2011 3 39 150.50 184.92 6 13 8 1 5 6

98111 - M 13/07/2011 11/08/2011 30 67 951.71 1614.33 2 6 7 12 11 29

98112 - M 16/07/2011 5/08/2011 22 245 1236.16 1999.66 16 42 65 37 39 46

98113 8/07/2011 11/07/2011 4 15 222.79 265.91 0 0 2 0 3 10

98117 - M 9/07/2011 9/07/2011 1 1 0.00 0.00 0 0 1 0 0 0

98118 - F 23/07/2011 20/08/2011 29 180 579.67 1362.93 6 28 34 13 40 59

98120 - M 14/07/2011 14/07/2011 1 4 60.28 75.05 0 0 0 1 1 2

98121 - F 21/07/2011 31/07/2011 11 78 627.59 814.48 0 7 13 8 18 32

98123 - M 10/07/2011 31/07/2011 23 208 1283.39 1822.53 5 25 31 19 54 74

98124 16/07/2011 17/07/2011 2 6 71.68 80.51 0 1 0 1 0 4

98126 - F 11/07/2011 1/08/2011 22 35 626.65 810.95 1 3 2 1 6 22

98127 - M 20/07/2011 16/08/2011 28 236 509.92 2277.75 8 16 52 24 50 86

98131 - M 18/07/2011 23/07/2011 6 58 337.93 456.36 1 8 14 7 8 20

98133 14/07/2011 23/08/2011 41 515 193.04 3135.75 53 134 131 63 72 62

98136 - M 12/07/2011 13/07/2011 2 10 12.30 33.40 0 2 0 3 2 3

98140 - M 16/07/2011 29/08/2011 45 534 396.36 3612.22 24 110 168 89 64 79

98142 18/07/2011 9/08/2011 24 267 1050.30 1756.78 15 54 60 20 64 54

98144 18/07/2011 20/07/2011 4 14 169.61 195.91 0 2 2 2 3 5

Totals 402 3,615 11,702 28,893 228 682 873 423 623 786


Figure 1. Deployment locations for the 28 humpback whales satellite-tagged between the 8th and

26th of July 2011.


Figure 2. Survival curves for the six latest tagging campaigns conducted by the AMMC research

group. A survival curve relating to a group of tags deployed early in tag development (pre 2008)

is also shown.


a)

b)

Figure 3. Summary of tag performance: a) number of locations per day; and b) number of

locations per day for each PTT.

Number of locations

Pro

port

ion

0 5 10 15 20

0.0

00

.02

0.0

40.0

60

.08

0.1

00

.12

533

60

533

98

534

31

537

33

981

01

981

05

981

07

981

10

981

11

981

12

981

13

981

17

981

18

981

20

981

21

981

23

981

24

981

26

981

27

981

31

981

33

981

36

981

40

981

42

981

44

0

5

10

15

20

Tag number

Lo

catio

ns


Figure 4. The tracks obtained off Western Australia from the 25 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.

SATELLITE TRACKING OF WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HUMPBACK WHALES

PROJECTION: Azithumal EquidistantTrue Scale at 25oSCentral Meridian at 130oE © Austra lian Antarctic D iv ision

Humpback whales tagged during theirnorthbound migration in the month of July 2011.

This research was conducted by the Australian Marine Mammal Centre of the Australian Antarctic Division (DEWHA) in collaboration with the Western Australian Marine Science Institute (WAMSI), Woodside Energy Ltd., and the Centre for Whale Research (WA) Inc.

Woodside Energy Ltd. provided funds to WAMSI to support this project.

PTT Numbers

53360

53398

53431

53733

98101

98107

98110

98111

98112

98113

98118

98120

98121

98123

98124

98126

98127

98131

98133

98136

98140

98142

98144

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

PERTH

DERBY

KALBARRI

GERALDTON

CARNARVON

PORT HEDLAND

Broome

Exmouth

Karratha

Scott Reef

Pender Bay

Perth Canyon

Camden Sound

North West Cape

James Price Point

130°E

130°E

120°E

120°E

110°E

110°E

20°S 20°S

30°S 30°S


Figure 5. The tracks obtained off northern Western Australia from the 25 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.


PROJECTION: Azithumal EquidistantTrue Scale at 25

oS

Central Meridian at 130oE © Austra lian Antarctic D ivis ion




PTT Numbers

53360

53398

53431

53733

98101

98107

98110

98111

98112

98113

98118

98120

98121

98123

98124

98126

98127

98131

98133

98136

98140

98142

98144

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

DERBY

PORT HEDLAND

Broome

Exmouth

Karratha

Scott Reef

Pender Bay

Camden Sound

North West Cape

James Price Point

130°E

130°E

120°E

120°E

20°S 20°S


Figure 6. The tracks obtained off the Kimberley region of Western Australia from the 25 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable

location.


PROJECTION: Azithumal EquidistantTrue Scale at 25

oS

Central Meridian at 130oE © Austra lian Antarctic D iv ision




PTT Numbers

53360

53398

53431

53733

98101

98107

98110

98111

98112

98113

98118

98120

98121

98123

98124

98126

98127

98131

98133

98136

98140

98142

98144

DERBY

PORT HEDLAND

Broome

Scott Reef

Pender Bay

Camden Sound

James Price Point

120°E

120°E

20°S 20°S


a)

b)

Figure 7. Linear distance from a) the tagging location and b) Camden Sound against the number

of days since the tag was deployed.

0 10 20 30 40

050

01

00

015

00

Days since tagged

Dis

tance

fro

m ta

gg

ed

loca

tion

(km

)

0 10 20 30 40

05

00

10

00

15

00

20

00

Time since tagged (days)

Dis

tan

ce

fro

m C

am

de

n S

ou

nd

(km

)


Figure 8. Distance between the locations from the 25 satellite-tagged whales and the main

coastline of Western Australia. Data are categorized relative to their linear (great circle) distance

from a single general tagging location (-22.56 S, 113.62 E). Indicative geographic locations are

provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8). The box plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th

(whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box).

-900 -600 -300 0 300 600 900 1200

05

01

00

15

02

00

Distance from tagging location (km)

Dis

tan

ce

fro

m c

oa

st (k

m)

Exm

ou

th

Po

rt H

ed

lan

d

Pe

nd

er

Ba

y

Ca

md

en

So

un

d


Figure 9. The water depth at the locations provided by the 25 satellite-tagged whales. Data are

categorised relative to their linear (great circle) distance from a single general tagging location

(-22.56 S, 113.62 E). Negative distances are those to the South of the tagging location. The box

plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th (whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box).

-600

-450

-300

-150 0

150

300

450

600

750

900

10

50

12

00

13

50

-1200

-1000

-800

-600

-400

-200

0

Distance from tagging location (km)

De

pth

(m

etr

es)

Exm

ou

th

Po

rt H

ed

lan

d

Pe

nd

er

Ba

y

Ca

md

en

So

un

d


Figure 10. Graph showing the linear (great circle) distance traveled in a 24-hour period by the

25 satellite-tagged whales. Data are categorised relative to their linear (great circle) distance

from a single general tagging location (-22.56 S, 113.62 E). Indicative geographic locations are

provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8). The box plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th

(whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box) if sufficient data are available.

-600 -300 0 150 450 750 1050 1350

05

01

00

15

0

Linear distance from tagging location (km)

Lin

ea

r dis

tance

tra

ve

lle

d in

24

ho

urs

(km

)

Exm

ou

th

Port

He

dla

nd

Pen

de

r B

ay

Ca

md

en S

oun

d


Figure 11. Cumulative occupancy times of the 25 satellite-tagged whales determined by interpolating the whale tracks to daily points. The density is

determined using a Kernel Density Smoother with 2 degree sampling radius. Note that although the unit is in cumulative days this is a relative rather

than absolute measure of occupancy. Due to the generally short longevity of the tags these data are biased by the deployment location.

final report - satellite tracking north bound wa humpback whales (2)

Documents

north west

migrating

northbound

female humpback

humpback whales

satellite

28 tagged

west region