About Us

We represent a consortium of institutions and individuals, who are studying blue whales along the Western Australian coastline. The work is focused primarily on the Perth Canyon which lies to the west of Fremantle. The work described here has been made possible by support from the Australian Department of Defence and Environment Australia.

In brief, blue whales visit the Perth Canyon on a seasonal basis. They arrive in largest numbers during February to March, although they may be present at other times of the year. At times individual whales have been observed to be feeding on small crustaceans called krill. The whales surface behaviour suggests that they actively search the canyon for food. The oceanography of the canyon is complex. We currently believe that under certain conditions currents may bring deep nutrients into the photic zone, or that the canyon acts as a trap for nutrients or zooplankton, or some combination of both occurrs. This influx of nutrients sustains deep populations of krill, which the whales feed on. Most of this activity occurs deep in the water column, below the dominant southerly flowing Leeuwin current.

The project described in these pages uses the skills of numerous groups in an attempt to understand as much as possible about blue whales along the WA coast and in the Perth Canyon in particular. For example, we carry out:

behavioural observations
photo-identification work
genetic sampling
krill mapping
passive acoustic studies
aerial surveys
oceanographic studies
satellite tagging