Centre for Whale Research

The drive to migrate is instinctive and many animal species undertake enormously, long annual migrations. Humpback whales engage in extensive journeys between polar feeding grounds and tropical breeding areas. In Australia, humpback whales on our eastern seaboard migrate from feeding areas in East Antarctica northward along the east coast to The Whitsundays in the Great […]

With a following sea and following winds we had a fantastic glide up the coast.   Once offshore RV Whale Song’s wheelhouse filled with the trills, grunts and groans of humpback whales testing their vocals with this year’s Whale “Top 40” tunes!   Live whale song piped from the depths of the sea onto the […]

On a simply fine morning near the end of May, the crew of RV Whale Song dropped her lines in the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour and we began our voyage cruising towards the NW coast.   The sunshine we enjoyed on Day 1 was not to last but the cloud and rain failed to dampen […]

During the last week with a good run of suitable small boat weather conditions the marine and science personnel from AIMS (@australianinstituteofmarinescience) and CWR (#Centre for Whale Research) ventured offshore on daily forays to the Perth Canyon, Western Australia.   Using various platforms (boats and drones), many pods of whales have been observed, photographed and […]

Are you looking for some engaging reading for your children?   Look no further!   “The Things You Can Do With Blue Whale Poo” written by Chris Collin and illustrated by Bruce Potter is a funny tale about all things icky, sticky, stinky and whale pooey!   Just how important is whale poo anyway?   […]

First Breath.   Our paper with nine observations from around the world of humpback whale birthing events is out now in Marine Mammal Science at the link below: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12864 Well done to all the authors and especially Nico Ransome! This photo records the first breath of a neonate humpback whale observed by the CWR Team […]

Smokey Haze This story was first posted on our Centre for Whale Research Facebook page on May 07, 2021. The fourth pygmy blue whale to have a LIMPET (Low Impact Minimal Penetration Electronic Tag) tag attached is a whale we have dubbed Tiny. In this collaborative project between the Australian Institute of Marine Science and […]

Blue on Blue This story was first posted on our Centre for Whale Research Facebook page on May 05, 2021. After a gorgeous patch of calm weather and even some smoky conditions offshore, the CWR and AIMS crew are very excited to be watching the tags we have deployed so far. Rosemary, the large pregnant […]

Goosey on the Loose During a spell of glassy calm autumn Perth weather, the CWR and AIMS crew, aboard RV Whale Song tagged a few more pygmy blue whales in the Perth Canyon. With a flippy-floppy gooseneck barnacle as opposed to an acorn barnacle, this whale has a psuedo-stalked barnacle (Xenobalanus globicipitis) on the trailing […]

ANZAC Day Whale Tagging Rosemary and ANZAC were the first pygmy blue whales to be satellite tagged in the latest effort by collaborators Australian Institute of Marine Science and Centre for Whale Research (Western Australia) Inc. to understand the movement behaviour and identify the foraging areas of these whales along the WA coast. The two […]