Listening to the songs of endangered pygmy blue whales could help researchers identify when the animals are feeding off Western Australia’s coast, improving scientists’ ability to monitor their behaviour and inform conservation efforts.
In a new Curtin University-led study published in
Royal Society Open Science, researchers found pygmy blue whales generally fed during daylight hours, leaving more time available for singing at night. During the pygmy blue whales’ feeding season in Perth Canyon, more song was recorded at night than during the day for up to three months.
The findings suggest that listening for differences in whale song between day and night could provide a way to monitor feeding activity across large areas of ocean without needing to observe the whales directly.
The research examined pygmy blue whale singing and feeding behaviour in offshore waters from the
Perth Canyon, along WA’s Midwest coast and further north towards Ningaloo and the Northwest Shelf.
Lead author, PhD candidate
Andrew Davenport from Curtin’s Centre for Marine Science and Technology, says the relationship between feeding and singing offers a valuable new way to understand the behaviour of this endangered population.
Mr Davenport says –
“Just as we can’t talk while we’re eating, pygmy blue whales appear to have less time available to sing while they’re feeding. By listening to when they sing more at night than during the day, we can infer when whales in an area are likely to be feeding.”
The research is available here:
Pygmy blue whale feeding drives greater nocturnal than diurnal song production | Royal Society Open Science | The Royal Society
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photo of a pygmy blue whale at Perth Canyon is attached, and
audio files of whale song and non-song vocalisations can be found here -
Pygmy blue whale – Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda - Centre for Marine Science and Technology (CMST) *these were not recorded during this research, but are the same song type and were recorded during research done previously by Mr Davenport and his colleagues at CMST