Identifying and protecting key habitats for species is crucial as anthropogenic influences increase, particularly in coastal areas. This increasing anthropogenic pressure on the recovering humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) population may require adjusting management and conservation strategies. The Gold Coast bay in eastern Australia has long been hypothesised to be an important habitat, primarily for humpback whale mother-calf pairs. Here we investigated distribution, temporal patterns and behavior from 2,305 humpback whales in the Gold Coast bay from 2011-2017. The data was collected from whale-watching vessels using citizen science. We analysed seasonal presence of mother-calf pairs, dive times, direction of movement and location to determine possible habitat use of the bay as a resting area. In average a quarter of all sighted whales were mother-calf pairs with peaks of sightings each October. The recorded average dive time of 3.20 minutes was short compared to that in migratory corridors and there was a difference in dive times between pods with calves and without calves. Mother-calf pairs were sighted more often closer to shore relative to other pods. We compared our results to recognised breeding and resting grounds and found similar results, indicating that the Gold Coast bay may serve as an important stop-over for humpback whale mother-calf pairs.
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