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  BBC 17 Sep 06
First success for whale project
Jo Meek Producer, All Out Productions

On the warm shallow waters of the South Pacific a small boat rides unseasonably choppy seas. Driving the boat is Nan Hauser, founder and director of the Centre for Cetacean Research in Rarotonga, the largest and capital of the Cook Islands.

For the past nine years Nan and her seasonal team of whale researchers have been out on the water studying the behaviour and movement of the humpback whales that migrate past the Cook Islands each year.

They arrive here from the Antarctic feeding grounds to mate and give birth in the warmer tropical waters. Every year between July and November brings new whales; Nan Hauser rarely sees the same ones in successive seasons.

So where do they go year on year?

This season, Nan hopes to expand her knowledge of the humpback by keeping track of at least some of those that pass through.

Brief visitors

It is an ambitious task, especially as this winter season, unusually, has brought choppy seas and bad weather. However, Nan and Ygor Geyer, an expert whale tagger who has travelled from Brazil for this project, are both determined to be the first in the South Pacific to successfully satellite tag three of the humpback whales.

"We have no idea where the whales go or where they are from," says Nan Hauser. "All we know is that they feed in the Antarctic and use the Cook Islands as a corridor to pass through.

"It's the perfect place to satellite tag because we have no re-sights of whales from previous years; that doesn't happen anywhere else in the South Pacific."

It is a month since Ygor arrived from his own whale tagging project in Brazil but he has yet to tag one whale as time and the weather are not on his side.

The task is not an easy one. It sees Ygor stood at the bow of their small boat as Nan negotiates the rough ocean, holding a 7ft (2m) pole which has at one end a 10in (25cm) tag.

This will not hurt the whale, though. The animal has such a thick level of blubber that the tag merely pierces the skin and rests near the surface to be automatically switched on every three days, allowing Nan and her team to track the whale's journey by GPS.

Ygor has to position himself just the right distance away from the whale to allow him to place the tag just below the dorsal fin. He needs a good steady hand and says he will not tag unless it is completely safe for the whale.

But it is a dangerous job: a grown humpback whale is at least twice the size of the boat and could easily capsize it. Nan and Ygor both have years of experience between them and believe their research is worth any risks they may face.

But is the wait becoming a frustration? "We have spent months waiting to go out to tag in Brazil because of the weather," says Ygor. "Sometimes we have only one or two days that are any good to work, so no I'm not frustrated, but I do want to get out there."

But first they have to find the whales, and just as the rain starts to pour, on the day Ygor the whale-tagger was originally due to go home to Brazil, a whale is spotted.

It does not take the team long to get close, but they do not have much time as they refuse to chase the whale. Ten minutes after they first see the whale blow, the first tag has been deployed. It is on a cow (a female humpback whale), followed closely by her recently born calf.

Growing picture

The whale research team in Rarotonga is jubilant. It will allow them to track the travels of this humpback for the next three months and piece together some interesting facts about a mammal about which little is known.

But for Nan that is only one reason for this project; she is looking at the bigger picture, the future population of the humpbacks. "These tags will allow us to see if the whale will swim into areas where whaling is ongoing," she says. "The Japanese are looking to add humpback whales to their quota. The humpback is vulnerable to the harpoons of the Japanese.

"If this whale and her calf, which was probably born in Cook Island waters, swim into these waters we'll now know. Perhaps we can do something to protect them now."

As the e-mails and calls of congratulations come into Nan and her team, the satellite shows that "Jamieson" the whale, as she has become known, is heading north towards French Polynesia, travelling over 100km (62 miles) in just 24 hours.

It is one more piece of the puzzle that adds to the researchers' growing picture of the journey and behaviour of the humpback whale.

A second tag was deployed two days later on another female humpback.

The Cook Islands Whale Research team hopes to successfully complete their tagging project with a third tag in the coming days.
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