Whale News - August 2023

2023 is officially a quiet season

2023 has proved to be a quiet breeding season with only one cow-calf pair in Victoria (Portland). We have had several whales without calves passing through, including a mating group in Portland. It highlights that the population is still very small and a long way off recovering to pre-whaling numbers. Although it is not unusual for calving numbers to fluctuate from year to year, small fluctuations become more noticeable when we have so few individuals in the population.

It is important that we continue to collect data on the eastern Southern Right Whale population to monitor their recovery and help with conservation efforts and planning decisions. Help us spread the word by being champions for WhaleFace - tell your friends and colleagues to join up to WhaleFace and/or Subscribe to our Whale News . Remember you can catch up on any past issues of Whale News by logging in and going to the Whale News tab.

Cow-calf pair in Portland on 15-8-2023, Maureen Macdonald

Have your say

Thank you to those who have already completed the WhaleFace survey. We are keeping the survey open until October 31^st so if you have a spare 10-15mins please fill in our questionnaire. We would like to make WhaleFace bigger and better in the coming years, with more education and engagement opportunities and some targeted survey programs for the community to get involved in. This does require resources though, so it is important for us to demonstrate that the community (and of course the whales) would benefit from these programs. Your questionnaire responses are one way for us to gauge the current benefits to the community and how you would like to see WhaleFace evolve into the future.

Please complete survey here

Do you have photos of Wilma?

Many of you may remember Wilma (especially if you are a local Warrnambool resident), but do you know where Wilma is now?? Wilma holds a special place in many people’s hearts, being the first identified female we have on record in eastern Australia. Even before head callosities were being used for ID purposes, she was easily recognised by the missing piece on her left tail fluke. We know that she had at least eight calves in Warrnambool (1982, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999 and 2002). Wilma has not been sighted in Victoria since 2002, but thanks to the collaborative efforts of Southern Right Whale researchers across Australia we know that Wilma did not just disappear but has continued calving at the Head of Bight in South Australia. She was sighted there with a calf in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2023. So, this amazing matriarch has had at least 13 calves over 41 years and would now be at least 47 years old.

Photo of Wilma taken in Warrnambool showing the missing piece of her fluke. Photo provided by The Warrnambool Standard.

We are putting a call out to all Warrnambool whale photographers that were active when Wilma was here (1982 -2002) to please submit any whale images you may have from that time. We would love to fill in the gaps of our photo-id catalogue from this era and look at any calf images to see if we can identify any of Wilma’s offspring as adults now. We have already gratefully received some photos and hand written logs from the community and The Standard which we can now add to the catalogue.

Below is a photo of Wilma from 2002 and another from this season (note that the 2023 image shows some natural skin sloughing on her back). Thank you to researchers from Curtin University’s Great Australian Bight Right Whale Study for sharing the update and image of Wilma and her calf this season.

Taken from front page of The Warrnambool Standard June 27 2002.

Wilma and Calf at HOB in 2023. Taken under Permit M26085-12 Curtin University’s Great Australian Bight Right Whale Study.

Why contribute to Whaleface - what happens with your data

When you submit your sightings to WhaleFace you agree for your data to be contributed to DEECAs long term Southern Right Whale research database. Data in this database date back to the 1980s and have been used in the past for population estimates, understanding breeding patterns at the Logans Beach nursery as well as movement and connectivity with the western population. We are planning more important publications from these data in the near future and will share these with you once completed. All sighting data, once verified, are added to the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas where they are publicly available. These sightings data can then be accessed for planning and management decisions and for answering research questions. We believe it is important that the sighting data are made freely available to the community that collect it.

Your images are not made publicly available but will be shared with the Australasian Southern Right Whale Catalogue (ARWPIC) and may be used for the promotion of WhaleFace and/or our research. Of course, your images are available to be viewed in the WhaleFace image gallery, but this is optional (and is selected when you submit your sighting).

Latest sightings

Below is a list of sightings we have received since the last Whale News

Sightings between 5 July and 25 August 2023

Logans Beach/Warrnambool area:

26/07/2023	1 UA
7/08/2023	2 UA

Killarney – Port Fairy

4/08/2023

1 UA

Portland (Yambuk-Bridgewater):

07/07/2023	1 UA
08//07/2023	2 UA
10/07/2023	1 UA
11/07/2023	1 UA
12/07/2023	1 UA
24/07/2023	2 UA
3/8/2023	1 CC
6//08/2023	7 UA
7/08/2023	1 CC
8/08/2023	1 CC, 4UA
10/8/2023	1 CC
11/8/2023	1 CC
13/08/2023	1 CC
15/08/2023	1 CC

Surf Coast area

26/07/2023	2 UA
29//07/2023	2 UA
30/7/2023	2 UA
31/07/2023	2 UA
3/08/2023	2 UA

Gippsland:

18/07/2023	2 UA
22//07/2023	4 UA
25/07/2023	1 UA
28/07/2023	2 UA
8/08/2023	1 UA

Mornington Peninsula area:

30/7/2023

2 UA

Please note that this sightings summary is preliminary and does not include all data we have received. All data will be finalised at the end of the season when our validating and photo matching/cataloguing takes place. UA = unaccompanied adult (i.e., not with calf); CC = cow-calf pair.

Research flights

We completed our second aerial survey this month. We flew the entire Victorian coast over two days (14-15 August). Conditions were perfect along the majority of the coast; however, no whales were sighted. Whilst the survey didn’t provide the opportunity to add any new individuals or sightings to our databases it did confirm that this season is indeed a quiet one, with only 1 cow-calf pair sighted in Victoria this year. The surveys are important to look for distribution patterns and habitat use outside those very populated areas (like Logans Beach) where we know we will get sighting data if the whales are there. Many areas of our coast are remote and/or don’t offer adequate high vantage points, so it is important that we search these areas to make sure that we aren’t missing any breeding whales. Systematic coastal surveys offer us a robust way of collecting data that can be repeated over many years to determine long term trends in abundance and distribution. It certainly doesn’t replace the data we get from the community but rather supplements it, to provide a complete picture and answer a variety of questions.

The Deakin University drone crew were on standby in Portland on 14^th of August to hopefully capture some images of the cow-calf pair and assess their health. Some of our most experienced Portland whale photographers and DEECA staff were on the ground assisting them with the search, but unfortunately the cow-calf pair laid low all day and were not sighted – the joys of working with wild animals! Thank you to Allen McCauley, John Morrissey and Nita Tonkin for assisting us in the search!

View from aircraft over the crystal-clear waters around Wilson Promontory on 15 August 2023

Happy Whale Watching!

Kasey