Blog de Chile
Whale Experts Flock (or Swim) to NZ
Friday, 23 January 2009
In February nearly 50 whale researchers from around the world will gather in Auckland for the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium conference.
(Via University World News) Created in 1999, the consortium's main objectives are to coordinate independent, non-lethal research on whales and dolphins in the South Pacific, provide scientific advice to international and national agencies, and to lobby for the creation of a South Pacific whale sanctuary.
Its members include scientists from New Zealand, the United States, Australia, French Polynesia, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Chile and New Caledonia. Their research covers a truly massive area - from the tropical islands of Tonga and Fiji to the icy Antarctic and from New Zealand and East Australia across to South America.
It's an effort that arguably creates the single largest research hotspot on the planet. Consortium chair Scott Baker says New Zealand, located on its western edge, is a hotspot in its own right. Baker is associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University in the US and a professor of molecular ecology and evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
He says his country has unusual access to humpbacks and other rarer whales because of its extensive coastline and a large exclusive economic zone that extends New Zealand's territory far out into the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. Baker notes that New Zealand's good access to different types of whales does not necessarily mean large numbers of the animals, and that in itself can be a focus for research.
"New Zealand did not escape intense hunting and two signature species, humpbacks and southern right whales, have shown only low levels of recovery in New Zealand waters. This raises interesting scientific questions that we have pursued," he says.
In addition, New Zealanders have a long history of collecting from "beachcast" and stranded whales, a practice now coordinated by the country's Department of Conservation and focused on rescuing stranded whales and returning them to the sea. "Surprisingly, many nations do not have coordinated standing recording systems in place," Baker notes.
That gives New Zealand not only a solid information base on whale strandings, but also an enviable collection of whale remains. In fact, the country's national museum, Te Papa, has the world's fourth largest collection, part of which is now on tour in the US in an exhibition titled Tohora.
The man in charge of the collection, Te Papa marine mammals collection manager, Anton van Helden, says the large number of different species of marine mammals certainly makes New Zealand an attractive place to study whales.
Share this article
Subscribe to this blog 