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Satellite tracking of Western Australian humpback whales

Satellite tracking of south-bound female humpback

whales in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Final Report

M.C. Double1, N. Gales1, K.C.S. Jenner2, M.-N. Jenner2

1 Australian Marine Mammal Centre, Australian Antarctic Division,

203 Channel Highway, Kingston, Tasmania 7150.

2 Centre for Whale Research (Western Australia) Inc.,

PO Box 1622, Fremantle WA 6959.

September 2010


Satellite tracking of south-bound female humpback whales in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia

Summary

Thisstudy was the first large-scale (>20) deployment of satellite tags on Australian humpback whales

and aimed to describe the migratory distribution and behaviour of nursing humpback whales in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia. A total of 23 tags were deployed on female humpback whales

with young calves in Camden Sound (15.38S, 124.41E), the Buccaneer Archipelago (16.25S,

123.40E), Pender Bay (16.74S, 122.70E) and Beagle Bay (17.09S, 122.86E) between 25th August and

the 6th September 2009. Of the 23 tags deployed three failed to provide any location data, and a further

six failed to provide any location data after the first day of deployment. The remaining tagged whales

were tracked from one to 108 days (mean = 15.3 days; SD = 26.6). A total of 1,250 locations were

received from these whales and they were tracked for a total of 23,243 km (mean = 1,367 km; min:

5.75; max: 9,071) and the total net distance moved from the first to last location was 16,912 km (mean

= 994 km; min: 3.2; max: 7,328). One individual was tracked from its breeding ground in north-

western Western Australian to its feeding ground at the edge of the sea ice around Antarctic; a

migration distance of over 7000 km. Also two individuals deviated from the expected migratory route

close to the coast of Western Australia and were tracked 1,200km into the Indian Ocean; this

behaviour has not been described previously. The potential causes of the poor performance of many of

the tags are discussed.


Introduction

The population of humpback whales that migrate along the west coast of Australia and calve in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia is increasing in size but has not yet recovered from industrial

whaling (Hedley et al., 2009). The latest abundance estimate suggests this west coast population is

now over 20,000 individuals and is probably increasing at a rate greater than 10% per year (Bannister

& Hedley, 2001; Hedley et al., 2009).

Although the general timing of the migration and approximate distribution of migrating whales has

been described for this population (Jenner et al., 2001), the specific migratory routes, habitat use,

resting areas, calving areas and the individual behaviours of the males, females and mothers with

calves are not well described. Therefore a greater understanding of the movement and migratory

behaviours of these whales is desirable to better inform the management of proposed and existing

industrial activities within or close to the calving and migratory areas and to maximise conservation

outcomes for whales.

Satellite telemetry has been used routinely in wildlife biology for nearly two decades and has been

applied successfully in studies of many marine organisms including penguins, albatrosses, seals and

even sharks e.g. (Bonadonna et al., 2000; Gifford et al., 2007; Jouventin et al., 1994; Weimerskirch et

al., 1993). The use of this technology in understanding the migration of large whales has, however,

lagged behind other taxa largely due to the inability to catch and attach tags to such large species. It is

only relatively recently that research groups developed reliable tags that can be implanted into free-

ranging whales (Gales et al., 2009; Heide-Jorgensen et al., 2001; Mate et al., 2007). Such tags have

now been used in studies of many large whales species such as blue (Heide-Jorgensen et al., 2001;

Mate et al., 1999), humpback (Dalla Rosa et al., 2008; Gales et al., 2009; Lagerquist et al., 2008), sei

(Olsen et al., 2009), right (Baumgartner & Mate, 2005), bowhead (Mate et al., 2000) and minke

whales (Heide-Jørgensen et al., 2001), although large scale deployments are still rare.

The aim of this project was to deploy satellite tags on female humpback whales with calves in or near

their known calving grounds in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Females with calves were

preferentially tagged because it is the behaviour of these animals that are likely to be the most

sensitive to industrial activities and other anthropogenic disturbance and therefore are of most interest

to conservation managers and other stakeholders.

Methods

The satellite tags used in this study have a custom-designed, anchoring section joined to a housing

manufactured by Wildlife Computers (Redmond, Washington, USA) containing the Spot 5 transmitter


(Figure 1). The tags were designed to implant up to a maximum of 290mm into the skin, blubber,

interfacial layers and outer muscle mass of the whale (generally just forward and to the left or right

side of the dorsal fin) (Figures 1 & 2). The front 80mm of the tag disarticulates from back section of

the tag post-deployment; a flexible 5mm multi-braided stainless steel wire maintains a coupling

between the two parts. Retention of the tag is maintained through two actively sprung plates, and a

circle of passively deployed ‘petals’ (See Figure 1 for details). All external components of the tag

were built from stainless steel and the tags were surgically sterilised prior to deployment.

Each tag was deployed using a compressed air gun (modified ARTS, Restech) set at pressure of

between 7.5 and 10 bar (cf. Gales et al., 2009; Olsen et al., 2009). When fired from the air gun the tags

were attached to a purpose-designed projectile carrier. Retention teeth on the projectile carrier grip a

metal ring fitted to the end of the tag. When the tag makes contact with a whale, the rapid deceleration

of the tag and carrier withdraws the retention teeth and releases the projectile carrier (Figure 2). The

metal ring used to attach the carrier is designed to fall off in time to reduce the drag of the tag (see

Figure 1). Tags were deployed from the bow-sprit of a 5.8m rigid-hulled inflatable boat at a range of

3-8m.

Once deployed, the first dive of the whale will activate the tag. They then transmit upon each

surfacing if the tag has not transmitted during the previous 30 seconds. On the day of deployment the

tags were set to transmit until 00:00 hrs UTC; after that time they were set to transmit on a 6hr on,

18hr off duty cycle until the tag falls off the whale, malfunctions or the single AA lithium battery is

exhausted.

Only pods identified to include mothers with their calves were approached for tagging. To minimize

disturbance, no biopsies were taken for genetic sexing; all tagged animals were assumed to be female

because they were accompanied by a young calf. Following each deployment, we used a hand-held

receiver to check that the tag was transmitting. Whenever possible all the whales encountered during

the research period were photographed for photo-identification studies and detailed photographs were

taken of each tag deployment. On deployment we also recorded deployment time, deployment

location, tagging distance, gun pressure, percentage implantation of the tag, pod size, pod

composition, the whale’s reaction to the deployment and the weather and sea conditions.

During the transmission periods, locations were obtained via the Argos System of polar-orbiting

satellites (Argos, 1990). Each location was allocated a level of accuracy by the Argos System.

Categories 3, 2, 1 have associated error predictions of 250m, 500m and 1500m respectively whereas

categories 0, A, B have no associated error prediction. All Argos locations were filtered using the

Speed-Distance-Angle function in the R package (R Development Core Team, 2007) ‘Argosfilter’


(Freitas et al., 2008) which has been designed specifically for the tracking data from marine mammals

and is based on the algorithm developed by McConnell et al. (1992). This function will remove

locations from the data set based on unrealistic swimming speeds, distances between successive

locations and turning angles. The conservative default setting of a maximum swimming speed of 7.2

km/h was applied in this study.

Great circle distances between locations were calculated using an equation that assumes a spherical

Earth of radius 6371 km. Analyses based on distances from Camden Sound used the -15.38231

124.41327 (WGS 1984) as the 0km reference location.

To examine habitat use the R package TRIP (Sumner, 2006) was used to interpolate locations at one

hour intervals and ArcGIS (ESRI Software) with Hawth's Analysis Tools for ArcGIS (Beyer, 2004)

were used to generate a sampling grid and calculate the number of locations within each 0.5o quadrat.

Hawth's Analysis Tools for ArcGIS was also used to calculate the total distance traveled and the net

distance traveled from the first location.

Sea ice extent was mapped using data from the Institute of Environmental Physics, University of

Bremen, Germany (http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html).

Results

Between 25th August and 6th September 2009 23 of the 30 available satellite-linked radio tags were

deployed on humpback whales in Camden Sound (15.38S, 124.41E), the Buccaneer Archipelago

(16.25S, 123.40E), Pender Bay (16.74S, 122.70E) and Beagle Bay (17.09S, 122.86E), Western

Australia (see Table 2 & Figure 3). All tags were deployed on female humpback whales accompanied

by a calf (Table 2). Due to logistical delays it is lily we arrived at Camden Sound after the peak of

whale activity in this region and generally sightings rates were greater further south (see Appendix

One). Also strong sea breezes, deliberately short contact periods per pod, and some whales avoiding

close approaches by the tagging vessel all reduced our opportunities to deploy tags.

Tag performance is summarised in Table 3 and the tracks provided by the tags are presented in Figures

4 & 5. Of the 23 tags deployed three failed to provide any location data, and a further six failed to

provide any location data after the first day of deployment (Table 3). Whales with functional tags were

tracked from one to 108 days (mean = 15.3 days; SD = 26.6). A total of 1,250 locations were received,

1007 of which were not removed by the filtering process (see Methods). Whales that provided more

than one location were tracked for a total of 23,243 km (mean = 1,367 km; min: 5.75; max: 9,071) and

the total net distance moved from the first to last location was 16,912 km (mean = 994 km; min: 3.2;

max: 7,328).


One whale (96382) was tracked to the Antarctic ice edge (Figure 4); the first time a Western

Australian humpback whale has been tracked from breeding to feeding grounds. Two whales (96389

& 96400) did not follow the expected migration path of southbound humpback whales. Instead of

closely following the coastline to south-western Australia these animals left the coast just south of

Exmouth and were tracked approximately 1,200km south west into the Indian Ocean. This behaviour

has not been described previously.

Two tags had long gaps in their location data (96382 & 96400) where there longevity was 108 and 74

days however the number of days of data were 69 and 30 respectively. The cause of the breaks in data

provision is currently under investigation with the transmitter’s manufacturers Wildlife Computers.

Generally the tag longevity in this study was shorter than previous AMMC deployments using a

similar tag design. Figure 6 shows the survival curves for the last three deployment bouts conducted

by the AMMC plus the longevity of tags during the development stage (pre-October 2008). The tags

deployed in the Kimberley suffered a severe early failure rate as shown by the steep survival curve in

the first week after deployment. Although not as severe, the Evans Head deployment did not provide

the longevity seen in the deployment based around Eden, NSW. We suspect that the tag performance

was lower for the Kimberley and the Evans Head (northern NSW) deployments because in these

locations whales are in shallow waters where it is possible for the whales to damage the tag on the sea

floor.

On the discovery of the early tag failure during the Kimberley deployment and after witnessing whales

covered in mud from the sea floor we attempted to protect the rear section of two tags (which houses

the water switch set in epoxy resin) by permanently fixing two stopping rings (see Figure 1 component

F & Figure 7a) to the rear of each tag. In place, these two rings stood proud of the epoxy section of the

tag and provided some protection to the water switch. The two tags (96383 & 96389) lasted 108 and

32 days and provided at total of 69 and 31 days of location data respectively (Figure 7b); they were the

first and third most productive tags (Table 3). The probability of this outcome occurring by chance

was estimated by Monte Carlo simulation to be approximately 0.02.

Camden Sound to Exmouth Gulf

Despite the high tag attrition the migration behaviour of eight female humpback whales was obtained

for the region between Pender Bay and Eighty Mile Beach, the section of greatest interest for this

particular study (Figures 8 & 9).


In the region between Camden Sound and Exmouth Gulf (approx. 1000 km from Camden Sound)

most median distances from whale locations to the coastline of WA were less than 25km (Figure 10)

therefore the whales were frequently in very shallow water (most medians <40 m; Figure 11). The

whales only deviated strongly from this pattern in the region west of the Dampier Peninsula (approx.

300 to 400 km from Camden Sound; see Figure 3) where the median distance off shore were over 50

km and some whales were as far as 200 km from the coastline of WA. This is reflected in the

bathymetry data for the region where the median location depth is nearly 50m with some whales in

nearly 300m of water (Figure 11).

We quantified linear travel distances from Camden Sound each day to assess the rate of progress on

their southern migration. These analyses showed that the linear distance traveled per day was highly

variable in all 100km distance classes within 1000 km of Camden Sound (Figures 12 & 13). In this

sector travel distances ranged from over 120km to less than 10 km per day. The median values were

also relatively low in this sector (approx. 30 to 50 km/day) whereas beyond this sector the travel

distances appear to be less variable (although the data are few) and the median travel distances were

between 70 to 80km per day.

The individual daily travel distances of the four whales that provided the most location data showed

highly variable migration behaviour. Some whales had cyclic bouts of resting separated by perhaps

two or three days of migration whereas others had longer periods of active migration followed by

more than one day of low travel distances (Figure 13).

Figure 14 shows the cumulative occupancy durations within 0.5o quadrats for the 17 humpback whales

that provided more than one location. Although influenced strongly by the deployment locations, the

data again show the inshore and relatively narrow nature of the migration corridor for female

humpbacks with calves except at the western side of the Dampier Peninsular where the corridor

appears to be broader and centered further offshore.

Discussion

The study involved the first large-scale (>20) deployment of satellite tags on Australian humpback

whales. The tracks provided by these tags totaled over 23,000 km (1,250 locations) and revealed

detailed migratory behaviour of several individual nursing female humpback whales. One individual

was tracked from its breeding ground in north-western Western Australian to its feeding ground at the

edge of sea ice around Antarctic; a migration distance of over 7000 km. Also two individuals deviated

from the expected migratory route close to the coast of Western Australia and were tracked 1,200km

into the Indian Ocean. These two whales represent 50% of the four whales that provided location data

south of Exmouth Gulf so this may represent a relatively common behaviour. It is possible that such


whales divert from the most direct route to their Antarctic feeding grounds, to exploit temperate

foraging areas (Stamation et al., 2007). Such behaviour was recently revealed by Gales et al. (2009)

who showed many Eastern Australian humpback whales visit productive waters off Fiordland, New

Zealand before continuing their migration to Antarctic waters.

Currently the recognised calving area for this population of humpback whales is the inshore region

from the Lacepede Islands to Camden Sound (Jenner et al., 2001), although calving has been recorded

further north and south (Jenner & Jenner unpublished data). In the calving area several of the tagged

whales showed inconsistent direction in their migratory behaviour with some heading north before

again turning south. Others looped out to sea before returning to shallower waters. Once south of

Pender Bay the whales displayed more consistent migratory behaviour with little or no meandering

(see Figures 9 & 13).

Generally, the tagged whales migrated close to the coastline of Western Australia, often within a few

tens of kilometers of the shore and the width of the migratory corridor revealed by the tagged whales

was frequently less than 100 km. In places, such as off Eighty Mile Beach, the migratory corridor

revealed by the tagged whales was less then 30 km wide and centered only ~15km offshore. North of

Exmouth Gulf the widest point of the migratory corridor revealed by the tagged whales was off the

north-west of Dampier Peninsular (Pt. Coulomb) where the distance between the inshore and offshore

tracked whales was nearly 200 km and seven of the eight tagged whales that passed this point where

greater than 40km offshore. Although the tagged whales generally stayed close to the coast this may

not reflect the behaviour of males or females without calves. It is thought that females with young

calves tend to stay close to shore in order to reduce the possibility of attacks by sharks and killer

whales. This behaviour was also revealed by the bathymetry data which showed that these migrating

whales were usually in less than 30 m of water.

The satellite tracking data showed that the tagged whales often showed very low linear travel distances

over a 24 hour period, but no regions were identified where all or most of the tagged females showed

low travel distances (possible resting areas). Also the migratory behaviour of the tagged whales was

highly variable; some consistently showed a pattern of two or three days of higher travel distances

followed by a day of slow progress (possible resting) whereas others migrated steadily for many days

followed by a multi-day period of low travel distances. North of Exmouth Gulf median travel

distances in 24-hour periods were usually between 40 and 60km per day although some whales

covered around 120km in 24 hours (measured as the linear distance from Camden Sound); further

south this figure rose to over 80 km per day and once south of Australia travels speeds often exceeded

100km per day. These travel speed are similar to those reported by Mate et al. (Mate et al., 1998) for

three humpback whales migrating north from Hawaii (average = 120km/day) and those reported by


Zerbini et al. (2006) for two humpback whales migrating southward in the South Atlantic (63 & 92

km/day).

Tag longevity was lower than on previous deployments (cf. Gales et al. 2009) and anecdotal evidence

suggests this may be due to the whales damaging the tags on the sea floor or through contact with

other whales. On several occasions untagged whales were seen rising to the surface with mud on their

tails and rostrums. Such behaviour has also been recorded in Exmouth Gulf (Jenner & Jenner

unpublished data). This mud-rolling behaviour or perhaps contact with other whales seems to be the

most likely explanation for ten tags providing two or fewer days of data. Previous deployments have

shown that the implanted tags would not have been expelled by the whales in such a short period of

time and that the electronic componentry of the tags is reliable. The improved performance of the two

tags that were modified to protect the base of the aerial and the water switch also suggests that tag

damage reduced tag longevity. When similar tags have been deployed on whales in or close to deep

water the tag longevity has been greater (Gales et al., 2009; Zerbini pers. comm.). Since this

deployment Wildlife Computers have redesigned the rear section of the tag so that the water switch is

no longer set in epoxy; instead it is embedded in a Delrin stopping plate. This design should make the

water switch and aerial less prone to damage.

The compromised performance of many of the deployed tags significantly reduced the size of this

study’s dataset so caution should be taken when generalising the migration behaviour of Western

Australian humpback whales based on information from this study alone. South of Eighty Mile Beach

only four whales provided any location data therefore any description of the variation in migratory

behaviour south of this region is largely anecdotal. Similarly, this study did not aim to describe the

migratory behaviour of males and females without calves. Further work is required to describe the

behaviour of these animals and also to investigate any inter-annual variation in the migratory

behaviours of females with calves.

Acknowledgements

The field-based research team for this project was Vanessa Boladeras, Mike Double, Curt Jenner,

Micheline Jenner, Rebecca McCauley and Dale Peterson. This project would not have been possible

without the skill, expertise and dedication of Eric King, our engineer at the AAD. We are also very

grateful to Dave Watts and David Smith of the Australian Antarctic Data Centre for their assistance

with data curation and GIS respectively. We thank the Western Australian Marine Science Institute

(WAMSI) for partly funding this project. WAMSI received financial support for this project from

Woodside Energy Ltd as the operator the Browse LNG Development.

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Table 1. Summary of field activities and the temporal distribution of tag deployments over the 14-day field project.

Day Date Activity

Number of tags

deployed

1 24/08/2009 Left Broome for Camden Sound 2 25/08/2009 Arrived Camden Sound 1 3 26/08/2009 Full day tagging 2 4 27/08/2009 Full day tagging 1 5 28/08/2009 Traveled to Buccaneer Archipelago 1 6 29/08/2009 Full day tagging 2 7 30/08/2009 Full day tagging 4 8 31/08/2009 Traveled to Pender Bay 0 9 1/09/2009 Full day tagging 2 10 2/09/2009 Full day tagging 3 11 3/09/2009 Full day tagging 1 12 4/09/2009 Full day tagging 3 13 5/09/2009 Full day tagging 2 14 6/09/2009 Returned to Broome 1

Total 23


Table 2. Deployment information for the 23 satellite tags deployed on female humpback whales between August 25th and September 6th 2009.

Number Tag number Date Time (local) Place Latitude Longitude Sex Age Pod

1 96396 25/08/2009 14:20 Camden Sound 15.6267 124.1333 Female Adult Cow/calf





6 96388 29/08/2009 10:12 Buccaneer 16.0847 123.3667 Female Adult Cow/calf






12 96409 1/09/2009 11:57 Pender Bay 16.5300 122.7000 Female Adult Cow/calf











23 96391 6/09/2009 9:05 Beagle Bay 16.8433 122.4000 Female Adult Cow/calf


Table 3. Performance summary of the 23 satellite tags deployed on humpback whales in the Kimberley region, WA 2009. The number of locations for each

Argos accuracy category are given in the last six columns (see Methods). All dates and times are derived from Argos satellite data and so are reported in UTC.

Number Tag Start Date Last Date

Longevity

(days)

No. of

days of

locations

No. of

locations

Total distance

travelled (km)

Net distance

travelled

(km) 3 2 1 0 A B

7 96379 29/08/2009 29/08/2009 1 1 10 18.30 14.21 1 2 3 2 0 2

3 96381 26/08/2009 26/08/2009 2 2 22 39.43 3.20 4 2 7 4 1 4

14 96382 2/09/2009 22/09/2009 108 69 251 9,071.52 7,328.83 14 19 35 17 69 97

21 96383 5/09/2009 5/09/2009 1 1 4 - - 0 0 0 2 1 1

5 96384 27/08/2009 20/09/2009 25 25 141 1,557.02 762.68 13 47 32 13 16 20

22 96387 5/09/2009 5/09/2009 1 1 1 - - 0 0 0 1 0 0

6 96388 29/08/2009 2/09/2009 5 5 37 387.73 203.45 6 12 8 4 4 3

17 96389 3/09/2009 22/09/2009 34 31 91 2,863.33 2,408.63 5 9 21 8 20 28

23 96391 6/09/2009 22/09/2009 36 36 208 2,549.93 1,546.00 26 65 53 15 26 23

4 96392 26/08/2009 26/08/2009 0 - 0 - - 0 0 0 0 0 0

18 96393 4/09/2009 9/09/2009 6 6 28 412.71 320.67 5 3 8 3 4 5

16 96394 2/09/2009 2/09/2009 0 - 0 - - 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 96396 25/08/2009 29/08/2009 5 5 26 233.26 166.62 5 6 6 1 5 3

11 96397 30/08/2009 30/08/2009 1 1 12 16.02 12.65 5 3 1 2 1 0

8 96399 31/08/2009 9/09/2009 10 7 15 478.00 392.10 1 1 1 1 4 7

10 96400 30/08/2009 20/09/2009 74 30 167 3,438.04 2,696.13 16 50 36 17 23 25

13 96402 1/09/2009 1/09/2009 0 - 0 - - 0 0 0 0 0 0

2 96406 26/08/2009 26/08/2009 1 1 1 - - 0 0 0 0 1 0

20 96407 4/09/2009 11/09/2009 8 8 44 339.51 147.30 5 7 18 7 5 2

9 96408 30/08/2009 17/09/2009 19 19 115 981.03 635.70 11 41 30 10 13 10

12 96409 1/09/2009 1/09/2009 1 1 7 5.75 6.44 1 3 2 0 0 1

15 96410 2/09/2009 7/09/2009 6 6 27 353.12 119.15 2 5 8 1 4 7

19 96411 4/09/2009 11/09/2009 8 8 43 498.78 148.62 2 17 14 2 6 2

Totals 352 263 1,250 23,243.48 16,912.38 122 292 283 110 203 240


Figure 1. The satellite tag in post (i) and pre-deployment modes (ii). Components are: A –

sharp, triangular arrow head; B – holding flaps in pre-deployment position; C- articulation

point of the head and body of the tag; D – holding ‘skirt’ of tag held down with dissolvable

tape; E – body of the tag holding electronics and battery; F – detachable stopping ring; G –

aerial.


Figure 2. Left flank of a humpback whale showing a recently deployed tag and the released

deployment projectile. A – tag-holding projectile; B – projectile attachment mechanism; C –

aerial; D – implanted tag.


Figure 3. Locations where 23 female humpback whales were satellite-tagged between the 25th August and 6th September 2009.


Figure 4. The complete tracks obtained from the 17 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.


Figure 5. The tracks obtained off Western Australia from the 17 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.


Tag duration (days)

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Pro

port

ion o

f ta

gs t

ran

mittin

g loca

tio

ns

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Eden, NSW 2008 (N=16)

Pre- October 2008 (N=40)

Evans Head, NSW 2009 (N=15)

Kimberley, WA 2009 (N=23)

Figure 6. Survival curves for the last three satellite tag deployments on humpback whales conducted

by the AMMC. The survival curve for tags deployed during the development stage is also shown.


a.

b.

Tag longevity (days)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 70 80 90 100 110

Nu

mbe

r o

f ta

gs

0

2

4

6

8Normal

Double ring

Figure 7. a) The two-ring configuration used on the two ‘double ring’ tags; and b) the longevity of the

‘double ring’ tags compared to the normal tag configuration (detachable ring; Figure 1).


Figure 8. The tracks obtained off northern Western Australia from the 17 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.


Figure 9. The tracks obtained off the Kimberley region of Western Australia from the 17 satellite-tagged whales that provided more than one reliable location.


Linear distance from Camden Sound (km)

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000

Lin

ear

dis

tance b

etw

ee

n e

ach

locatio

na

nd

the

nea

rest

co

astlin

e (

km

)

0

50

100

150

200

Cam

den

Sound

Pende

r Bay

Eight

y M

ile B

each

Figure 10. Graph showing the distance between the locations provided by the 17 satellite tags that provided more that one reliable location and the main coastline of WA. Data are categorized relative to their linear (great circle) distance from Camden Sound. Indicative geographic locations are provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8). The box plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th (whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box).



100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000

De

pth

be

low

se

a le

ve

l a

t lo

cation

(m

)

-350

-300

-250

-200

-150

-100

-50

0

Cam

den

Sound

Pende

r Bay

Eight

y M

ile B

each

Figure 11. Graph showing the sea depth at the locations provided by the 17 satellite tags that provided more that one reliable location. Data are categorized relative to their linear (great circle) distance from Camden Sound. Indicative geographic locations are provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8). The box plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th (whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box).



200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800

Lin

ea

r dis

tance t

rave

lled

fro

m

Cam

den S

ou

nd

in

24

hours

(km

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160Cam

den

Sound

Pende

r Bay

Eight

y M

ile B

each

Exmou

th G

ulf

Figure 12. Graph showing the linear (great circle) distance traveled in a 24-hour period by the 17 tagged whales that provided more that one reliable location. Data are categorized relative to their linear (great circle) distance from Camden Sound. Indicative geographic locations are provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8). The box plot displays the median, the 10th, 90th (whiskers) and the 25th and 75th percentiles (box) if sufficient data are available.



0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Lin

ear

dis

tance t

ravelle

d

in 2

4 h

ours

(km

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Lin

ear

dis

tance tra

velle

d

in 2

4 h

ours

(km

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Lin

ear

dis

tance tra

velle

d

in 2

4 h

ours

(km

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Lin

ear

dis

tance t

ravelle

d

in 2

4 h

ours

(km

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

96384

96382

96389

96391

Cam

den

Sound

Pende

r Bay

Eight

y M

ile B

each

Figure 13. Graphs showing the linear (great circle) distance traveled in 24-hour periods by four tagged whales. Data are categorized relative to their linear (great circle) distance from Camden Sound. Indicative geographic locations are provided above the graph (cf. Figure 8).


Figure 14. The cumulative occupancy times of the 17 satellite-tagged whales within 0.5o sampling quadrats. Due to the generally short longevity of the tags these data are biased by the deployment locations.


Appendix One Sighting rates of humpback whale pods from the 25th August to the 6th September 2009; (Br=Broome; CS=Camden Sound, BA=Buccaneer Archipelago, PB=Pender Bay).

satellite tracking of south-bound female humpback whales in the … · 2014. 2. 24. · satellite...

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