Lessons from attempted video tagging of humpback whales

Humpback whales are well known for their acrobatic displays and complex behaviour. They are widely distributed throughout the northern and southern hemisphere. Albeit numerous studies on humpback whales their behaviour still... [ view full abstract ]

Humpback whales are well known for their acrobatic displays and complex behaviour. They are widely distributed throughout the northern and southern hemisphere. Albeit numerous studies on humpback whales their behaviour still remains largely unknown. Spending most of their life under water many of the behaviours are not easy to observe. A number of bio-tags are available to shed light on animal behaviour such as travel speed, preferred salinity and temperature range. Most of these bio-tags are designed to determine where an animal spends its time in both vertical (e.g. time depth recorders) and horizontal space (acoustic, radio, and satellite telemetry) and the environmental conditions in those areas. Animal-borne videos allow for direct under water observation of behavior and are particularly useful for inter and intra species interaction observations. Animal borne videos are suitable for larger animals without interference or impacts on the animals and have been used successfully on cetaceans, pinnipeds, chelonioideas and elasmobranches. Here I present an overview of animal borne video applications used in behavioural studies on marine megafauna and showcase benefits and limitations of this technology. I undertook a pilot study on the Gold Coast, Australia in 2011 to test the feasibility and possible success rate of video tag deployments on humpback whales. National Geographic’s Crittercam was chosen for deployments during 8 days at sea. Outcomes showed that resources need to be carefully considered and limitations of animal borne video understood before commencement of tagging.