I love getting the chance to write about topics like this, and when I get to see Greenpeace making a stand, I’m even happier. The conservation group is out to prove to Japan – and the rest of the world – that death is not a necessary part of animal research.

Greenpeace hopes to make a mockery of Japan’s method of whale research – killing whales in their hundreds – with their Great Whale Trail initiative. They currently have 19 whales tagged, moving from their breeding grounds in New Caledonia and the Cook Islands to their normal feeding grounds in the south; already they are discovering new behaviors.

For a long time, the journey between breeding grounds and feeding grounds has been a mystery (to us humans at least – the whales seemed to be in on it). The long journey has grown more dangerous as well over the last decades, with changing weather patterns and sea temperatures, not to mention the pollution and garbage littering the seas.

Collaborating with scientists from Opération Cétacés in New Caledonia and the Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation (CCRC) in the Cook Islands, Greenpeace has placed tracking tags on to the dorsal fins of 19 humpback whales. These tags are regularly relaying back data and providing real-time locations and tracking of the whales.

This is a truly fascinating experiment, and one that flies in the face of Japanese whale research. For many years, Japan has held to the belief that many hundreds of whales must die to provide answers for their scientific queries.

"They’ve been doing it for 20 years," said Mike Hagler, an Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace in New Zealand, "and in that time there’ve been thousands of whales that have been killed."

"This year for example," he continued, “[Japan is] going to be targeting over a thousand whales; something like 935 minky whales and an additional 50 humpback whales and 50 fin whales."

I spoke to Mike on the phone, and he told me that Japan’s targets have changed over the past 2 or 3 years, from just hunting the minky whales to "targeting the humpback whales and the now endangered fin whales."

Japan’s methods of research are already proving brutal when compared to what Greenpeace has discovered since this initiative began. By visiting the Greenpeace Great Whale Trail page, a user will find a Google Map of the whales’ progress. Already we can see anomalies in their behavior and travel patterns, and you don’t even need to be a scientist.

So far, there are two groups of whales: seven out of the Cook Islands and the remaining 12 from New Caledonia. The majority of the whales from both locations have spread out, as they’ve begun travelling, but the seven from the Cook Islands haven’t even turned south yet. Whether they are heading for a slipstream that will ease their journey, or another unknown location, no one is sure.

In addition, Mikaela – a pregnant female humpback out of New Caledonia – has begun heading towards the Australian east coast, apparently heading for the sunny beaches of the Gold Coast. Why these odd behaviors? No one is sure, but over the next few months amateur and professional scientists alike have the chance to find out.

Japanese researchers, however, are kicking back. Japan’s Fisheries Agency official Hideki Moronuki responded to Greenpeace by saying that "You can’t tell, with a satellite, if a whale is male or female, how old it is, if it is pregnant, or what it eats. There are too many things you can’t tell."

This attack at Greenpeace seems a little absent minded, considering that not even Greenpeace have said that their research is entirely satellite-based.

In my phone call with Mike Hagler, I was able to ask him about Japan’s retaliation. He explained that the satellite research is taken in context with other non-lethal methods of research.

"The satellite monitoring in combination with other monitoring research can basically tell us everything we need to know about a lot of things, including the whale’s gender."

He added that "killing the whales to find out if they’re pregnant makes absolutely no sense. When they were setting the tags they were able to determine whether or not the whales were pregnant or not" via visual observation.

Moronuki told reporters that Japan uses both lethal and non-lethal methods and that "it is best to do both." Japan has no plans to change their current research methods.

The humpback whales were tagged by Greenpeace during the period of late August through September, and already there is a wealth of information being passed back.

"The actual satellite information will tell us information about the habitats that they prefer," said Mike when I asked him about what information they were getting back. According to Mike, it’s "information that is really vital in the Oceania region because there is very little information about the humpbacks in this particular area of the world."

"They’re beaming useful information all the time, particularly the whales in the Cook Islands area; they really have a dearth of information about that population."

"They seem to be attracted to seamount areas," he added, as we were wrapping up. Seamount areas

…tend to be areas that are highly productive, especially in the open oceans… around seamount chains there is a lot of upwelling and nutrients associated with that and attracting life forms, so they seem to be attracted to those areas.

I would like to thank Mike Haggler, and the New Zealand Greenpeace staff for their cooperation. It was a real benefit to get Mike’s input on this, and I hope that you have got as much out of it as I did.

Great Whale Trail initiative

Greenpeace - Tracking whales from space

MSNBC - Humpback whales monitored via satellite

ENN - Greenpeace tracks whales as Japan prepares to hunt

Google Map

New Zealand Greenpeace

Photo Courtesy of Greenpeace