Blue Whale Study Inc

04/08/2026

For two years we watched nervously as the Karenia algal bloom crisis spread through South Australian waters, and while it continues to impact marine wildlife in that State, we are grateful that it has not spread to Victorian waters.

Now, however, we face a deadly new threat in the form of the H5N1 bird flu. Since 2021 it has run amok though wildlife populations of the Southern Ocean, including the deaths of 13,000 elephant seal pups on remote Heard Island last summer. Seabirds are the most effective spreaders of this virus imaginable, as species such as albatrosses and petrels range constantly and widely across vast tracts of ocean searching for food, and frequently come into close contact while competing for food.

Low numbers of seabird mortalities attributed to this virus have been reported in Western and South Australia, but Birdlife Australia has just reported a mass mortality of crested terns at Baudin Rocks, just off Cape Jaffa to the north of Robe, SA. See
https://go.birdlife.org.au/webmail/946822/1450688712/797b2fd66fc6fb2b4e14ed67be7a5fcb16e227398ad5c2c9e6f11723d238807e

Bird flu has entered the Bonney Upwelling, and has the potential to spread further into wild populations of marine birds and mammals, as well as terrestrial wildlife and farmed birds and animals. There has been recent speculation that the disease could even spread to migratory whales. The gannet colony at Lawrence Rocks near Portland, one of Australia's largest, is now at risk.

Birdlife Australia is calling for the Commonwealth to provide $200M for a Wildlife Resilience Package to protect and restore habitat, reduce avoidable threats, support monitoring and rapid response, and safeguard vulnerable breeding colonies, to minimise the spread of this deadly disease. See the BA link above for the letter template.

I encourage you to support this call by sending a letter to your local MP, asking them to support this important initiative.

03/10/2025

I've just received the latest issue of the delightful Kelp Magazine. Produced on a voluntary basis in Warrnambool by Katrina Carey, Kelp is all about connecting kids with the ocean. The latest issue is about whales, and I was happy for Katrina to ask me some questions about blue whales and upwelling. She is having a Kelp Magazine stall at the Portland Upwelling Festival on Saturday 1st November, so if you can, get along and support Kelp!

03/10/2025

We've just had a short family holiday with friends near Bateman's Bay, NSW south coast. For me it was a rare chance to watch whales while on holiday. There was a constant stream of humpbacks heading south, many of them breaching, pec slapping and lobtailing. Some very active whales were less than 100m off the rocks. When I started humpback research with Dr Bill Dawbin on the NSW north coast in 1983 there were no more than 800 whales in this migratory population; now there are more than 40,000. An amazing recovery, let's hope they can survive an uncertain future.

09/08/2025

Congratulations to Agostina Hawkins of Glenelg Shire Council for obtaining funding for an important new exhibit on the Bonney Upwelling in the Portland Maritime Discovery Centre. Agostina has kindly invited the Blue Whale Study to work with her to provide information and images for the exhibit, which will showcase this amazing regional oceanographic phenomenon. The upwelling underpins the productive fisheries of south-west Victoria, and makes it a seasonal feeding ground for a rich variety of marine wildlife, from krill to their biggest predators, the mighty pygmy blue whales.

🌊In exciting news the Maritime Discovery Centre has scored a 2025 MMAPSS grant to create a stunning new exhibit on the Bonney Upwelling!

In partnership with Dr. Pete Gill and the Blue Whale Study, the exhibit will dive into the science and cultural significance of this coastal phenomenon, including its deep connection to the Gunditjmara people.

Work will soon begin to deinstall the current objects and prepare the gallery for installation. Our Arts team will work with Dr. Pete Gill to begin the process of selecting artworks and objects as well as writing interpretive material.

Learn more: https://www.glenelg.vic.gov.au/News-and-Media-Releases/Funding-win-to-showcase-Bonney-Upwelling

📷 Photo: Council's Collection Management Coordinator Agostina Hawkins with Dr Pete Gill

26/02/2025

Following up from our last post regarding the panel discussion on whales at the Phillip Island Whale Festival in July last year, it has finally appeared on the airwaves, as an episode of Big Ideas on ABC Radio National. Here is the link:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/conservation-pete-gill-barry-mcgovern-island-whale-festival/104907786

It is part of a series of animal-related sessions, the link to the full series is here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/animals-us-and-them-dynamic-collection/104966212

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.

03/02/2025

In July 2024 I was invited as a guest speaker to the Phillip Island Whale Festival https://islandwhales.com.au/. This excellent festival runs every year, timed to coincide with the winter migration of humpback whales. At the Festival I was fortunate to be invited to take part in a panel discussion about whales, expertly chaired by Natasha Mitchell of ABC Radio National's Big Ideas program. The other panel member was humpback whale researcher Dr Barry McGovern of the Pacific Whale Foundation.

The program is finally going to air next week, see the link below
BIG IDEAS on ABC Radio National with Natasha Mitchell; 8pm Wednesday 12 February , repeated midday Thurs 13 February

Stream from the BIG IDEAS website via:



https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/whales-cetaceans-pete-gill-barry-mcgovern-humpbacks-conservation/104868106

17/10/2024

Blue Whale Study's Spring 2024 research and project news - https://mailchi.mp/41e465eeecbc/blue-whale-studys-research-and-project-news-6738049

19/06/2024

Since the heat went out of Antarctic whaling a few years ago, there has been a sense that whaling has had its day. That is not the case: Japan, Iceland and Norway have kept up limited whaling in their home waters but that is about to change. Japan and Iceland have just announced quotas for fin whales, the second largest whale species and the species hit harder even than blue whales by 20th century industrial whaling. And Japan has built a new whaling factory ship capable of Antarctic operations.

My old colleague Dr Peter Corkeron has just written this piece on the future of whaling https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/japan-commercial-whaling

You should read it and wonder when this will ever end.

The industry is on the cusp of winning a major victory over the global conservation movement that has fought for decades to bring this murderous practice to an end once and for all.

29/03/2024

As a researcher, every so often you are blessed with a truly awesome experience watching animals. Last week during an aerial survey, we found three blue whales engaged in 'racing behaviour', in which a presumed adult female is pursued at high speed by two competing males, prospective mates. This has been confirmed by researchers in Canada, who biopsied a racing group. We have seen this only once before in our upwelling system, in 2003. The frequent changes of pace and direction were clearly dictated by the female, and the males did their best to stay close to her, while trying to outpace and physically displace each other. It was a spectacular display of massive power and grace, one of the great sights in nature. We circled for about 15 minutes, then left them alone, still racing. Thanks to Save Our Marine Life for their support of this survey.

02/05/2023

Yesterday I was joined by Lachy Lev and Johnny Melis-Walsh to fly an aerial survey through shelf waters off south-west Victoria and south-east South Australia, searching for blue whales. It is getting late in the blue whale feeding season but we were lucky to find 7 blue whales and an ocean of krill swarms. Great to see that the whales are still out there feeding, before they start their long migration north to breeding grounds in Indonesian waters. Good feeding success is critical to breeding success for this Endangered giant, so we wish them well with what remains of the season - but there seems to be plenty of food available still. The weather threatened to shut us down with patchy low cloud and rain squalls but somehow it kept opening up for us. We may try to get out on our little research vessel Bonney Blue soon if we can, to search for blues and for humpbacks, which should soon be migrating past our coast on their way to Great Barrier Reef waters to breed. By the end of May the rich feeding season will have shut down, and the southern right whales will arrive to mate and calve along the coast.