Monitoring Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Behaviour in a Highly Urbanised Coastline: Gold Coast, Australia

Understanding Strandings: 25 years of Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Strandings in Queensland, Australia

“…Similar to findings elsewhere (Capella-Alzueta et al, 2001;Holyoake et al, 2012;Moura et al, 2013), calves and juveniles dominated strandings with only 15-20% of the strandings involving adults, and the peak strandings rate occurred late in the austral winter (Meager and Sumpton, 2016). Mother and calf pairs are known to prefer to rest in shallow, sandy bays during the southern migration, which makes them more susceptible to anthropogenic impacts and strandings (Franklin et al, 2011;Holyoake et al, 2012;Meynecke et al, 2013).…”

“…Strandings clustered in the regions recognised as resting, socialising or breeding grounds (DEWR, 2007). One key 'hotspoť for strandings was the Gold Coast, a region where the migratory corridor is close to the shore and where humpback whales are known to rest (Meynecke et al, 2013). It is also adjacent to a large metropolitan centre and therefore represents a site where anthropogenic interactions would be expected.…”

“…Data were compiled from a number of sources, the The data was categorised into different incident types including beach washed, entanglement in gear from the QSCP gear, entanglement in commercial fishing gear, entanglement in marine debris, vessel collision and floating (dead or alive). The whales were classified in age groups of calves (<8 m in length), juveniles (<10 m in length), sub-adults (<12 m in length and adults (>12 m length) (Meynecke et al, 2013). Data was mapped in ArcGIS (v. 10.1) to identify 'hot spots' of strandings and then summarised for each latitude.…”

“…""Corresponding author: j.meynecke@griffith.edu.au c°Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Inc. 2016 humpback whales travel along the east coast of Australia and are a distinct population. Recognised aggregation sites for resting or breeding of this population in Queensland, Australia, include the Gold Coast bay, Hervey Bay, Moreton Bay, the Swain Reefs, Whitsundays, southern Great Barrier Reef, Bell Cay and the Palm Island Group (DEWR, 2007;Meynecke et al, 2013).…”

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“…The Gold Coast Bay (GCB), in south-east Queensland, is a known aggregation area for the E1 population (Department of Environment and Heritage 2005). Few behavioural studies have been conducted in this location to determine the use of the bay by humpback whales (Meynecke et al 2013;Reinke et al 2016;Valani et al 2020) and there is still limited knowledge about its exact function for socialisation and breeding. Recent research has demonstrated that parturition occurs outside the stated breeding grounds in the Great Barrier Reef, and evidence of newborn calves in the GCB suggests it is a suitable calving ground (Torre-Williams et al 2019;Valani et al 2020).…”