Whales galore…
PLETTENBERG BAY - "Many, many whales!" That was the comment of Dr Els Vermeulen of the University of Pretoria's mammal research institute after the first two days of the 2023 annual southern right whale aerial survey that started at Nature's Valley on Wednesday 27 September.
Vermeulen and her colleague, Chris Wilkinson, technical manager of the Mammal Research Institute (MRI) whale unit, made a fly-past at the Beacon Island Resort in Plettenberg Bay in their Eurocopter AS350 (Squirrel) helicopter.
They flew from Nature's Valley to St Sebastian Bay and photographed 37 females with calves and 11 unaccompanied adults. Five females with calves were around Keurbooms, another five in Wilderness and about 15 females were seen in Mossel Bay
"Tomorrow we aim to cover [the area from] St Sebastian Bay - despite the challenging visibility near the Breede River Mouth after the heavy rainfall - to Struisbaai. The helicopter hovers and circles over southern right whales to obtain ID photos and could be as low as 50m from the sea surface at this time," Vermeulen said.
The survey is conducted under permit from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and is the 54th annual aerial survey collecting important data of southern right whales to monitor the health of the population.
"We are flying between six and nine hours a day, after which I have to input the data on the laptop," said Vermeulen. She said all female southern right whales with associated calves along the coastal stretch between Nature's Valley and Muizenberg are counted. Since 1979, such surveys have also incorporated photo identification, a method by which individual whales are identified through overhead photographs of the callosity pattern on the head.
Preliminary count surveys conducted in August this year indicated a high number of southern right whales between Hermanus and Witsand, recording 556 females with calves (1 112 individuals) and 24 unaccompanied adults.
"This is about double than what was seen last year around the same time and marks a second "bumper" year after 2018, re-confirming a five-year cycle," said Vermeulen. The survey will be completed by early next week.