Scientists have successfully attached satellite tracking tags to six New Zealand southern right whales, or tohorā, and are inviting the public to follow the whales’ travels online.
Scientists have successfully attached satellite tracking tags to six New Zealand southern right whales, or tohorā, and are inviting the public to follow the whales’ travels online.
Part of a major research project involving the University of Auckland and Cawthron Institute, the researchers worked in freezing conditions in the sub-Antarctic where tohorā gather each winter in the sheltered harbour of Port Ross on Auckland Island which serves as a nursery and socialising destination.
This gathering provided scientists with the opportunity to attach the tracking tags and do other research including taking skin samples for genetic and biochemical analysis and to measure the size of individual whales using drone technology.
This latest expedition to Port Ross, which lies more than 400km south of Stewart Island in the Southern Ocean, aimed to find out more about the migration routes and offshore feeding grounds of this population of whales.
Continue reading at University of Auckland.
Image via University of Auckland.
