Nala’s distinctive fluke photographed by Trish Franklin in September 1997. The patterns have not changed during 20 years of observing her return to her Australian homeland.

By Trish & Wally Franklin

Last week in Morocco the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ditched the ‘compromise’ plan seeking to resolve the so-called Japanese issue. The debate over Japan’s ‘scientific whaling’ has interfered with the conduct of the business at the IWC for several years. As argued by the Australian government the IWC should be focussed on the conservation and protection of all whales and dolphins.

Failure to agree on a compromise plan means that the 20-year moratorium on commercial whaling remains in place. However, under the outdated IWC regulation, Japan is now free to return to the Antarctica Whale Sanctuary in November to continue ‘scientific’ whaling. Consequently eastern Australian Humpbacks whales who feed in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary, particularly well-known individual humpbacks like Nala remain at risk! So why should we be protecting Nala and challenging Japan’s actions?

Safe haven
Eastern Australia provides humpback whales a safe haven for their annual breeding and social activities. Locally based, we have been studying humpback whales in Hervey Bay since 1989. Our research is focussed on observing and recording information about individual humpback whales like Nala. Between 1992 and 2009 we have observed Nala returning to Hervey Bay on 49 occasions in ten different years. In eight of those years she had a new calf with her. During 34 of the 49 observations Nala was alone with her calf involved in maternal activity such as feeding, resting and teaching.

Hervey Bay has a thriving whale-watch industry contributing over $70 million annually to the economic benefit of the wide-bay region. That whale-watch industry now extends the length of the eastern Australia coastline and relies on individual humpback whales like Nala returning each year, able to safely interact with the thousands of visitors aboard the whale-watch vessels.

Natural heritage
Humpback whales are ancient marine mammals. They were evolved to their present form between 12 and 23 million years ago. Between 750,000 and 350,000 years ago when the sand from the northern rivers was being carried northward to form Fraser Island, it’s likely that humpback whales were already travelling along the east coast of Australia.

During the last glacial maximum 20,000 years ago, when the seas were 120 metres lower and the Great Barrier Reef began to form as the waters rose, the humpbacks were probably there to witness the process and decided that the shallow waters of the Great Barrier Reef lagoon were an excellent breeding ground for their newly born calves.

Archaeological evidence has shown that the first Aboriginals arrived at Fraser Island around 5000 years ago and the humpbacks were already there to eyeball their arrival. In a very real sense the humpback whales are the first real indigenous elders of eastern Australia and like modern Fraser Island they are truly a national treasure and a significant part of both Australia’s, and the world’s, natural heritage.

The population of humpback whales in eastern Australia and the nearby Pacific islands is estimated to have numbered between 45,000 and 63,000 prior to the last period of commercial whaling under the auspices of the newly created IWC. As a result of devastating commercial whaling after the second  World War and illegal whaling by Russia in the late 50s and early 60s, it is estimated that only around 100 individual Humpback whales survived the slaughter.

Edge of extinction
Humpback whales were taken to the edge of extinction. In two seasons alone – 1959/1960  – the Russians took over 25,000 humpback whales in the Antarctic below Australia and New Zealand, causing a collapse of IWC regulated shore-based whaling at Byron Bay and Tangalooma. It’s sobering to realise that Japan’s industrial whaling fleet has the capability to wipe out in one season the entire current eastern Australian humpback population of around 15,000 whales.
Nala is descended from one of those survivors and is fully playing her part in the recovery of the eastern Australian humpback whales. However recent modelling by South Pacific and Southern Cross University scientists has shown that it may take another 50 years for the humpback whales to fully recover.

In March 1997 Nala was photographed by the Japanese ‘lethal’ whaling expedition in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. She survived that encounter as Trish Franklin photographed her in Hervey Bay in September the same year. But will Nala survive her next encounter with Japanese whalers when they return to ‘commercial’ whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary this November?

What needs to happen?
Sixty-seven Australian communities have now adopted known individual eastern Australian humpback whales as part of the Humpback Icon Program(HIP). Each year these communities celebrate the return of the humpbacks to their Australian home. 

Australians continue to demand strong action by the federal government to stop whaling. On National Whale Day in early June their message was clear: Antarctica must be a safe-haven, not a slaughterhouse for eastern Australian humpback whales.

The Gillard government must now pursue with urgency its legal action at the International Court of Justice and seek an immediate injunction to stop Japan returning to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in November 2010.

The Oceania Project was established by Trish and Wally Franklin in 1988 and is dedicated to raising awareness about whales, dolphins and the oceans. Trish and Wally began a long-term study of the social behaviour of Humpback Whales in Hervey Bay in 1989. Over the last twenty years they have spent each whale season amongst the Hervey Bay Whale Watch Fleet documenting the lives and social interactions of Humpback whales. Trish’s unique photographic archive of 50,000 images allows her to recognise 3000 individual eastern Australian humpback whales and she has assembled life-histories, ranging from two to twenty years, of 480 known individual Humpback whales, like Nala. See more at www.oceania.org.au