00:01It's a humpback whale, so I always bring Winston along.
00:04It's a whale just like this, and what you're typically seeing now is that whale that's,
00:09we don't know why, I don't know, I personally don't know, we don't, there's not been an
00:12acropsy done, an animal autopsy, but something has happened to this whale, and so it's on
00:17the beach like this, and it's probably died some time ago, not too long, but it's still
00:23relatively fresh, and it remains on this beach.
00:26And so do whales sometimes die of old age, or what are some reasons they just die?
00:31They can do, unfortunately a lot of the time it's probably human interaction, so maybe
00:35entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strike, there may be illness, and so there's a variety
00:41of reasons, but we do have the bulk of the north, the southward migrating humpback whales along
00:46the east and the west coast of Australia as they're heading back to Antarctica, so this
00:50is a problem that we're likely to see around Australia, but it's now where we've got this
00:55especially on a public holiday like yesterday.
00:58And what's it like for you if someone is passionate about whales to see this?
01:01My gosh, okay, so the first thing I would, I'm always worried about someone standing right
01:05there like that, because not only does it, you get used to the smell, it stinks, there's
01:10blubber around, there's natural juices that are oozing out of the whale, you want to make
01:15sure that you do not, and I can see there's now cones around, which is good, you want to
01:19make sure that you don't get any, anything from the whale that it could be carrying,
01:23some disease, there's also the bird flu risk, so mammals like whales could potentially carry
01:28this being a mammal.
01:30And so it's been there for a couple of days now, why can't it just be kind of towed out
01:35to sea straight away?
01:36That's the million dollar question, how come we can't just push this whale back out and
01:40be done with it?
01:41Well, that's a big problem, you've got potentially 20,000 kilos plus of a whale, a school bus dead
01:48weight like that on the beach, you can't just go, I'm just going to get rid of it, be done.
01:53The animal is probably embedded into the substrate, the sand, and putting a line around it, it
02:00might not just go out like that.
02:02So there's weather conditions that would be considered to see if we should remove the
02:06animal from the beach out to the ocean, that would be ideal, but apparently the sea conditions
02:11aren't favourable for that, so the animal is likely to be removed tomorrow and then taken
02:15to a site on land to be buried.
02:17Right, and in the last couple of days we've seen some shots of sharks hanging around the
02:23area, there they are.
02:24Yes.
02:24Yes.
02:25How long is it likely that they will continue to hang around this spot?
02:31Well, that's a really good question.
02:33If you're in Perth and the whales are removed tomorrow, I still personally would not swim
02:37in that beach.
02:38So that's why authorities...
02:39Is that how long?
02:39Well, it could be weeks.
02:41Yes.
02:41If it's embedded in the sand and there's juices oozing out of the whale, these are natural
02:46ecosystem warriors like the whales and also the sharks, the sharks could persist beyond
02:51the whale carcass physically being there.
02:55So authorities will make the call as to whether it's safe or not to swim.
02:59And authorities are using this opportunity apparently to try to tag some of those sharks.
03:04How good an opportunity is that to do something like this?
03:08Well, it's just so fabulously amazing because not only can you sample from this whale, but
03:13shark scientists have had a beacon or an attractant come in and so there's multiple sharks in
03:18one area, so shark scientists can have a field day there by tagging as many sharks as they
03:23can.
03:23And why is the tagging so important?
03:25Tagging by placing a little tracker on the shark can help us learn more about their movements
03:29and their interactions post a dead whale carcass.
03:33So this can really provide us great information on their movements, but also any information
03:37we learn about sharks and our blue backyard can help inform us, Jo, as Australians and
03:41how we can better interact with our blue backyard.
03:43Love that expression, our blue backyard.
03:45And so, as I mentioned, yes, sad to see this wire, this carcass on the beach, but give us
03:50an insight into how healthy the population of these whales is.
03:55Well, if we flip it around, so a healthy, happy swimming whale like Winston, fortunately
04:00the east coast population is estimated to be at least 50,000.
04:04And how does that compare to previous years?
04:06Well, around the time of whaling that was probably only a few hundred, but previous years, you
04:11know, we were hearing 20,000, 40,000, the west coast of Australia is probably even bigger.
04:16Wow.
04:17So these are good things.
04:18And the main challenge that we have now as whales is there's a lot more of them, but our
04:23interactions with them are likely to increase.
04:25So we need to be mindful of acoustic pollution, the entanglement risk that we place in the
04:31ocean, ship strike risk.
04:32That's why we call it the humpback highway, because it's blubber to blubber sometimes, Jo.
04:36And then you've got these animals that have challenges, but also the biggest challenge
04:39for these animals right now is climate change.
04:42Yeah.
04:42So reduction in sea ice down in Antarctica is bad.
04:44And what's happened with the ocean temperatures over the last couple of years?
04:49Well, we do know that the ocean is warming, which is not a good thing if you're a whale,
04:53because this could shift where we're seeing whales migrate to, to carve.
04:57And I'm doing work in the kingdom of Tonga through the Tongan Whale Tourism Project.
05:01And we know a lot of Australians go over there to swim with whales.
05:03But what if it becomes too warm?
05:05Will the whales swim there or will they shift their movements?
05:07And then Antarctica, Antarctic krill.
05:10We love Antarctic krill.
05:11We don't want to see them in tablets.
05:13We want to keep them in the ocean.
05:14But if the ocean becomes too warm, we see sea ice melt and then the habitat for krill might
05:19become less favourable.
05:20So all of these big picture thoughts about a whale and thanks to a dead whale, one single
05:25dead whale, we're having these chats right now.
05:28OK.
05:28Well, thanks to Winston.
05:30And always lovely to see you, Vanessa.
05:32And we don't have time.
05:33I'd love to ask you about your woven brooch, whale brooch there.
05:37We don't have time.
05:38Maybe next time.
05:39Cheers.
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