Tohorā southern right whales – unexpected feeding grounds revealed

Live Ocean science partner Dr Emma Carroll and her team have recently published a research paper on the foraging ground locations of the tohorā southern right whale in the International Journal of Global Ecology and Conservation.

This work compared the voyages of southern right whales in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia and yielded some surprising results. Historically, tohorā were thought to head to Antarctica to feed on krill, but only one of the New Zealand tracked whales did that.

“About 90% of the southern right whales or tohorā that we tagged at Maungahuka Auckland Islands actually travelled northward to a region south of Australia in international waters that has really high productivity between October and January,” says Dr Emma Carroll

Scientists flag this area (which is part of the subtropical front, where warm and cool waters meet) as a very productive part of the ocean and say it’s important to other marine predators like seabirds, other whales and sharks.

Emma’s research paper proposes that this key feeding area be considered a marine protected area under the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty (also known as the ‘High Seas Treaty’).

After feeding in the waters south of Australia, tohorā return to the Aotearoa New Zealand subantarctic region in February, and appear to feed in our waters. This was also unexpected as the subantarctic waters have previously been considered a breeding and nursery ground only and suggests that these southern New Zealand waters could be more important to tohorā than previously thought.

This scientific data is vital to ensuring the recovery of tohorā for the next 100 years, and other species with them, by protecting these critical feeding areas effectively in the face of a changing ocean.

Your support of Live Ocean is helping fund the work of Dr Emma Carroll;

“We wouldn’t have had three amazing field seasons at the Auckland Islands and my research would not have been possible without the support of Live Ocean. The partnership has been incredibly important to the field work, to the lab work, and to the analysis as well.”