RESEARCH WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 11

RESEARCH WORK.

WHALES' MIGRATIONS.

WILL THEY SOON VANISH? OPERATIONS OF HUNTERS. Every year some hundreds of great wjiales pass northward through Cook Strait, right by the back doors of Wellington. Sometimes they even enter Port Nicholson. Only about a month ago fishermen off Seatoun were astonished to see the black and shiny back jand the tremendous flukes of a huge jliunipbac-k whale blowing and sounding! | in the harbour, within a biscuit-toss of I their rocking dinjthy. There are records jof whales being hunted and killed with:in sight of Wellington wharves, saj-s jthe Dominion. i Of recent years considerable scientific Iresearch has been devoted to studying Jthe periodic migrations which bring the jwhales close to these shores. For thi* research the British Government has fitted out a number of special vessels,! of which one, the William ScorcsbyJ returned to London reccntlv after marking some 800 wliale«. *A specially-! jconstructed whale chaser, the steamer [spent six months cruising in South I American and Antarctic waters. Si-nilar [work is to be carried out. and a certain [amount has already been done, in the Iseas south of New Zealand. | The marking of the whales is done bv shooting a small tubular dart, of stainless steel, into the whale's overcoat of blubber, in which it remains fast. If the whale is taken by hunters the dart will be found during the trving-out process, and returned to the Colonial Office. London. It bears a number bv which it can be identified. Whale Does Not Mind. I The darts are shot into the whales I with a weapon similar to a heavv ,«hot | gun. The range is about 70 * yards. The whale takes small notice of being marked. Probably the pain of the dart is no more to him than the sting of a mosquito to a man. At any rate, he does not heed it, but continues to cruise 1

leisurely on liis way, carrying with him i a means whereby he can be identified , again at the time of his final encounter! with man. j : Whenever a dart is fired into a whale' 1 the latitude and longitude, the date.j and the number of the dart are entered'' in a register, and thus, when the dart! is returned, with information of the' 1 time and place of the whale's demise.! >ome clue is given to its movements in ' the interim. ■ J It has been discovered that certain] species carry out regular migrations.! Others such as the nearly extinct sperm ! whale, simply follow wherever the food is plentiful. The migration of the luimp-i back whale, which is the commonest species found in Xew Zealand waters, i-j believed to be more or less as follow*:—! In late autumn he is found in the! Ross .Sea and the cold Antarctic w.*ter«j surrounding Xew Zealand's southern dependencies. He is fat with fe-dins! on the shoals of minute marine tacea which he strains from the -vater with the baleen sieve of his cavernous I mouth. This is an allied but different! jspecies from the tiny red shrimps soine-l times seen in teeming millions in the! | Marlborough Sounds and other coastal! inlets and called by the local fishermen! "whale-food." j When at the fall of winter the whale! turns toward the north, lie is fat and well covered with a warm blanket ofl blubber between his hot bodv and the! | chilly, ice-bound seas. For "the bodv I temperature of the whale is extraordiii-l arilv high: that is why in the bitter sea! air his breath condenses in the form! ot a fountain of spume when he blows.; Follows the Coastline. I he north, the Xew Zealand jCOd»t, a 1000-mile-long barrier lies at lan angle athwart the track of his migra-. tion. He has no choice but to follow ithe, coast until the natural gatewav of A Elt ' 01 t * lc l and ' s ending at the |.North Cape, opens his course to the' jwarm seas of Tonga, Fiji. Xorfolk! Island or the New Hebrides. And while; jhe skirts the Xew Zealand coast hei comes within the range of operation.|of the shore whalers. i , Tory Channel whalemen say their! quarry is found in Cook Strait onlv in jJune. July and August. He i> hea*cli»<; :always toward the north. Onlv <.nre has a south-bound whale been ' taken., He was lean and ill-conditioned, with the thin layer of blubber appropriate to tropical seas, and barely worth the

[trouble and expense of trying out. Bay |of Plenty whalemen say the whales return south round Xorth Cape, but are not worth chasing at that season. Little is now known of the movements of other species or whales in Xew Zealand waters, as only the humpback is extensively caught. Occasional right and blue whales appear to aceompanv him on his migration, but these big species are rare to-day and are rapidly bein<* hunted to extinction. The old* whale" ships have passed, giving wav to the j floating factories; of the shore stations I there is only one still working; and it | seems to-day as if the great whales i themselves will soon have vanished from i the seas.