NEW ZEALAND: Having a whale of a time

Off the east coast of New Zealand's South Island, a massive sperm whale surfaces, turns turtle and slams its tail flukes into the water. Nearby, a boatload of tourists thrills to the sight. Closer to shore, an encounter with dolphins leaves a group of wet-suited humans breathless on two counts - the physical effort of repeated duck-diving to attract the creatures and the thrill of the dolphins' high-jumping acrobatics. It's all part of a southern hemisphere summer in New Zealand and, as well as attracting thousands of tourists from around the world, such sights also attract scientists.


Further north on a ferry crossing between New Zealand's two main islands, passengers point excitedly as a pod of orca swims past, some of their number making dramatic leaps out of the water.

And to the west, on a sandy beach at the northern tip of the South Island, hundreds of holiday-makers scurry back and forth between the sea and a group of stranded pilot whales. Buckets of water and wet towels are clutched in their hands as they seek to keep the distressed animals alive until high tide brings the possibility of rescue.

Next month, nearly 50 whale researchers from around the world will gather in Auckland for the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium conference. Created in 1999, the consortium's main objectives are to coordinate independent, non-lethal research on whales and dolphins in the South Pacific, provide scientific advice to international and national agencies, and to lobby for the creation of a South Pacific whale sanctuary.

Its members include scientists from New Zealand, the United States, Australia, French Polynesia, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Chile and New Caledonia. Their research covers a truly massive area - from the tropical islands of Tonga and Fiji to the icy Antarctic and from New Zealand and East Australia across to South America.

It's an effort that arguably creates the single largest research hotspot on the planet. Consortium chair Scott Baker says New Zealand, located on its western edge, is a hotspot in its own right. Baker is associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University in the US and a professor of molecular ecology and evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

He says his country has unusual access to humpbacks and other rarer whales because of its extensive coastline and a large exclusive economic zone that extends New Zealand's territory far out into the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. Baker notes that New Zealand's good access to different types of whales does not necessarily mean large numbers of the animals, and that in itself can be a focus for research.

"New Zealand did not escape intense hunting and two signature species, humpbacks and southern right whales, have shown only low levels of recovery in New Zealand waters. This raises interesting scientific questions that we have pursued," he says.

In addition, New Zealanders have a long history of collecting from "beachcast" and stranded whales, a practice now coordinated by the country's Department of Conservation and focused on rescuing stranded whales and returning them to the sea. "Surprisingly, many nations do not have coordinated standing recording systems in place," Baker notes.

That gives New Zealand not only a solid information base on whale strandings, but also an enviable collection of whale remains. In fact, the country's national museum, Te Papa, has the world's fourth largest collection, part of which is now on tour in the US in an exhibition titled Tohora.

The man in charge of the collection, Te Papa marine mammals collection manager, Anton van Helden, says the large number of different species of marine mammals certainly makes New Zealand an attractive place to study whales.

But while students from other countries travel to New Zealand to conduct specialist research, van Helden says a lot more funding is needed to capitalise on the country's potential. "We don't have the big budget funds that are in other countries," he says.

* John Gerritsen is editor of NZ Education Review.

john.gerritsen@uw-news.com