Whale spotting project

Press, 20 October 1980, Page 25

Whale spotting project

j\;ZPA Nuku’alofa Commercial pilots, captains of inter-island vessel* commercial fishermen. arid Peace Corps volunteers' are helping officers of the Tongan Fisheries Department to identify the number of humpback whales in longan waters during the present breeding season. The project is part of extensive study financed and organised by New Zealand as a contribution to the International Decade of Cetacean Research, according to the Tongan Government. An international consultant on marine mammals, Dr W. H. Dawbin, is in Tonga to set up the field-work programme, with the assistance of two marine biologists from New Zealand. Messrs Martin Cawthorn and Simon Mitchell, and an American representative of the World Wildlife Fund, Mr Ron Keller. ’ Dr Dawbin said the team of local "spotters” would record the time and place of all sightings until early November. Land-based spotting stations on the islands of Vava’u and ’Eua Would provide back-up for the same period. The Tonga Fisheries Department would then collate all information received and forward it to New Zealand for processing, analysis, and incorporation in a regional report which would be distributed internationally.