Kaikoura Sperm Whale Research

Kaikoura Peninsula

A sperm whale breaches with the mountains of Kaikoura
in the background. (Marta Guerra, University of Otago)

We are gradually finding our feet after variably tortuous trips from the U.K. and U.S., but everyone eventually arrived on the ship, along with mountains of equipment. After seven of the science crew joined the vessel on Sunday February 17 we steamed to Kaikoura overnight, arriving in the spectacular, mountain-ringed bay forming the northern aspect of the Kaikoura Penisula. Three of us went ashore to meet up with five other colleagues joining the ship already on the South Island, and to test the Aerial Remote Controlled Sampling system, which will hopefully give us high resolution aerial images of surfaced sperm whales.

While ashore we had a meeting with members of the whale watch community in Kaikoura, to discuss how to dovetail our work with theirs. A major condition of our research permit from the New Zealand Department of Conservation is that we do this, in addition to minimizing disturbance of the whales. At the meeting, our hosts were most gracious in sharing their intimate knowledge of the animals and the area.

By noon we were all back aboard the vessel with sundry piles of equipment that to be tested, calibrated and set up for use. Our first step was to test the radio tag tracking antenna up on the flying bridge. For this we sent the tag transmitters that we will use off in a small boat, and then rotated the ship to ensure that we could hear each tag at all angles. Having done this we headed southeast into the deeper offshore waters of Kaikoura Canyon.

A sperm whale spouts in in waters off the Kaikoura Peninsula.
This is what we hope see up close in coming weeks.
(Marta Guerra, University of Otago)

Initially, we saw a variety of albatross, petrels, dusky dolphins and a New Zealand fur seal, but we were beginning to think that we would be working hard to find sperm whales. However, late in the afternoon through to dusk, we found about three large males, one of which put on quite the acrobatic show. We prepared a suction cup tag and came quite close to attaching it at one point, but try as we would, the whales remained elusive until the sunset. All-in-all, not bad for the first day.

So now, all the work for which we have been planning and preparing for some months begins in earnest. We need to forge a number of links in our chain of action: find a sperm whale, launch a small boat, program a tag to release at a suitable time, attach the tag with non-invasive suction cups, and then acquire a suite of data while the tag is attached to allow us to learn about how sperm whales burn energy in different diving behavior modes and with different body conditions. 

So on day one we forged half the chain. We have small-boat operations going well, we have the tags working and ready, and we have whales. Tomorrow we hope for the next few links to drop into place.

Over the next few weeks we will hopefully share with you some of the details of this work, and the results as they come along. The weather forecast for tomorrow is less than cheerful, so as always, good things do not come easily.