Tag Archives: Humpback Whales in Tasmania

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Become a citizen scientist and help with Humpback Whale research!

Would you like to be involved in marine conservation projects but you don’t have a university degree?

In today’s technologically advanced world, the opportunities to make a meaningful impact on our planet have expanded far beyond the confines of traditional scientific roles. You no longer need a lab coat or a degree in marine biology to contribute to the health of our oceans and the creatures that call them home.

Gone are the days when scientific research was solely reserved for experts in the field. Now, everyday individuals can play a vital role in advancing our understanding of marine ecosystems.

How you can contribute to Humpback Whale research and conservation

Photo of the flukes of a Humpback Whale in Tasmania which can be uploaded to the online database Happywhale.

Travel to your favourite coastal destinations along the Humpback Highway, armed not with a microscope or a notepad, but with a camera. That’s all you need to contribute to Humpback Whale research through platforms like Happywhale – a website that serves as a global database, pooling together fluke identification photos submitted by citizen scientists just like you from around the world.

The concept is simple yet powerful: by capturing photos of Humpback Whale flukes (the underside of their tails), which bear unique identifiers akin to fingerprints, you can help scientists track individual whales and monitor their migrations and behaviours. Every fluke photo you capture adds another piece to the puzzle of Humpback Whale conservation.

Help us expand our Tasmanian Whale dataset

In 2020, we started logging our Humpback Whale sightings through the Happywhale database. Every time we spotted a Humpback Whale on our trips that showed its flukes and we were able to take a high resolution photograph, we uploaded it to the website. It can be a lot of fun, when the algorithm shows you that it’s a ‘new’ animal to the database or when the whale has been sighted previously. The website gives you some interesting information including the year and location where it showed up previously.

As a tourist and passenger on a wildlife watching tour, you can do the same: Simply sign up on the Happywhale website and start uploading your fluke images. Ideally, you will upload the location/coordinates and time of the whale sighting along with your photos. If you are not sure about the location, just ask your skipper or crew onboard the vessel and they will be able to give you the coordinates from their onboard GPS.

If you are just curious to see where Humpback Whales have been sighted recently, you can search the website for certain locations or organisations that are contributing to the database. Below is a screenshot of the Wild Ocean Tasmania Whale sightings on the Happywhale website. Our tour covers the east coast of the Tasman Peninsula which is considered a hotspot for marine mammal sightings in Tasmania.

Screenshot of whale sightings along the east coast of the Tasman Peninsula on the Happywhale database.

When is the best time of year to see Humpback Whales in Tasmania you ask?

The time we start seeing whales along our coastline varies from season to season. After all, we are dealing with wild animals. Their migration patterns are influenced by a number of factors including the water temperatures, food availability, reproductive cycles, weather patterns and ocean currents. As a rule of thumb, a good time to see Humpback Whales in Tasmanian waters is between the months of June and July and October and November. Sometimes we see whales migrate past our shores much earlier and sometimes they extend their migration into December and even early January. If you’d like to spot a Whale, you need three things: a bit of luck, a positive spirit and patience.

Book your tour through our online booking system!

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And keep an eye out when you travel along the coast, you might even spot a blow from your car window!

Tasmania has some fantastic lookout platforms as well. On the Tasman Peninsula, we recommend checking out the Blowhole lookout, Tasman Arch and Remarkable Caves. If you enjoy a walk in the National Park, you will get rewarded with a mesmerising view at Waterfall Bluff, Cape Hauy and Cape Raoul.

Learn more about Humpback Whale research through the Tasmanian Fluke Project.

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Tasmanian Whale Fluke Project

A peduncle throw of a Humpback Whale
This behaviour is known as a ‘peduncle throw’. The peduncle of a whale is the muscular area where the tail fluke connects to the body. The whale powerfully throws its tail sideways, slamming the water with a big splash.

Each year we cannot wait for the moment when our East Australian Humpback Whales swim past the Tasmanian coast as they migrate between their sub-tropical breeding grounds and their Antarctic feeding grounds. Relatively little research has been done outside of these breeding and feeding areas, that’s why we joined forces with our marine biologist friend Dr Mads (Maddie Brasier, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies UTAS) and we started the Tasmania Fluke Project.

This project is all about investigating the importance of Tasmania to the East Australian Humpback Whales by collecting ‘fluke’ images. The fluke is the underside of the whale’s tail that is raised above the water as the whale dives, tail slaps or throws the peduncle. Each fluke is unique in its markings, scars, and trailing edge which means they can be used to identify individual whales, a bit like our fingerprints.

A tail-slapping Humpback Whale in Tasmanian waters
A whale’s fluke is unique to each individual, just like our fingerprints. Taking photos of the flukes helps us identify the whales and monitor their movements.

Fluke identification is a non-invasive scientific method that has been the basis of whale research since the 1970s. By matching our Tasmanian flukes, we can start to understand how long individual whales are spending in Tasmanian waters and if individual whales are returning to Tasmania each year. We are also comparing them to an international dataset at Happywhale.com which can help us understand transit times and migration routes as they travel between the poles and the sub tropics.

It has been amazing to see an incredible number of Humpback Whales off the Tasmanian coastline this year. We’ve been seeing whales on every trip for nearly two months now. But it has not been this way for some time. Just 60 years ago the Humpback Whale population was reduced to less than 1000 individuals! However, since the ban on commercial whaling, Humpback Whale numbers have been increasing and could be approaching >40,000 Whales in the next few years (Noad et al. 2019).

A Humpback Whale slapping its tail in front of Tasman Island
A Humpback Whale slapping its tail with Cape Pillar and Tasman Island in the background.

Despite this increase, Whales and other marine life are still threatened by human activities and our impact on the ocean, including entanglement in fishing gear and marine debris, boat collisions / vessel strikes, plastic ingestion, chemical pollution and climate induced ecosystem change.

We hope that the Tasmania Fluke Project can help raise awareness about the importance of Tasmania to the east Australian Humpback Whale population as a migratory stopover.

You can help by sending any fluke images you would like to contribute to Dr Mads (madeleine.brasier@utas.edu.au or @madsbrasier on Instagram), by reporting any sightings of entangled Whales to the Tasmanian Whale hotline (0427 942 537) and of course by actively supporting Ocean conservation.

The logo of the Tasmania Fluke Project

Here are some of the easiest ways to help the Whales and our Oceans: 

  1. Support responsible whale watching companies 
  2. Abide by national whale watching guidelines when you are on the water
  3. Eat less seafood and only eat seafood from sustainable sources (check out the sustainable seafood guide) 
  4. Reduce your plastic use and keep the Seas clean by disposing of rubbish responsibly
  5. Help clean up our beaches and waterways
A powerful peduncle throw performed by a Humpback Whale on tour with Wild Ocean Tasmania
Another powerful peduncle throw, performed by one of the Humpback Whales we spotted on our tour.

Hope you have been enjoying the Whales this season, if you haven’t seen them yet, make sure you get out there (you can book your tickets here).

If you’d like to stay up to date with the sightings that we’ve had and the fluke images that have been captured along the Tasmanian East coast, check out our project page on ‘Happywhale’ at https://happywhale.com/org/878.