Humpback Highway: Diving into the mysterious world of whales

By Vanessa Pirotta

I entered the water quietly and saw two humpback whales sleeping diagonally in the distance. Two school buses just hanging in space... Acclaimed wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta has been mugged by whales, touched by a baby whale and covered in whale snot. In Humpback Highway, Pirotta dives beneath the surface to reveal the mysterious world of humpback whales — from their life cycle and the challenges humans present, to why whale snot and poo are important for us and the ocean. Plus the cutting-edge new technologies that allow us to see where they swim, listen to them talk and spy on them underwater.Whether you' re a whale lover or you' re simply curious about the underwater world, Humpback Highway will inspire and give you a new respect for these majestic, marine giants. From snot to sex, courtship to conservation, Pirotta brings the lives and habits of these incredible mammals to life.' — Melissa Doyle Enthralling Pirotta' s passion and knowledge leaps off every page.' — Richard Glover Dr Pirotta has inspired me with her passion to unlock the secrets of the largest animals on the planet.' — Terri Irwin All whales are precious inhabitants of this planet we call home, yet we humans have treated them harshly with indiscriminate destruction. Humpback Highway takes the reader into the world of a gentle giant whose place on this planet is no less important than our own. I highly recommend it.' — Valerie Taylor

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth
• Release date: Apr 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781742238937

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Cover image for Humpback Highway: Diving into the mysterious world of whales, by Vanessa Pirotta

Humpback

Highway

Dr Vanessa Pirotta

is a wildlife scientist, woman in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), science communicator and vessel operator. Vanessa has been studying whales in Australian waters and around the world for the last 14 years. Her work uses clever new technologies to help conserve wildlife in both marine and terrestrial environments. Vanessa has become a powerful role model for younger generations, connecting young minds with science around the world.

‘From snot to sex, courtship to conservation, Pirotta brings the lives and habits of these incredible mammals to life.’

MELISSA DOYLE

‘Enthralling – Pirotta’s passion and knowledge leaps off every page.’

RICHARD GLOVER

‘Dr Pirotta has inspired me with her passion to unlock the secrets of the largest animals on the planet.’

TERRI IRWIN

‘All whales are precious inhabitants of this planet we call home, yet we humans have treated them harshly with indiscriminate destruction. Humpback Highway takes the reader into the world of a gentle giant whose place on this planet is no less important than our own. I highly recommend it.’

VALERIE TAYLOR

Humpback

Highway

Diving into the mysterious world of whales

vanessa pirotta

Logo: NewSouth Publishing.

UNSW Press acknowledges the Bedegal people, the Traditional Owners of the unceded territory on which the Randwick and Kensington campuses of UNSW are situated, and recognises their continuing connection to Country and culture. We pay our respects to Bedegal Elders past and present.

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

https://unsw.press/

© Vanessa Pirotta 2024

First published 2024

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Design Josephine Pajor-Markus

Cover design Lisa White

Cover image Stocksy / Daisuke Kurashima

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

Contents

Introduction

1Migaloo

2Buriburi, the humpback whale

3Old Tom, the killer whale

4A good news story

5Having a whale of a time

6Mother love

7One of the world’s biggest babies

8Touched by a whale

9Doing good for whales

10Whale snot

11Ocean hazards

12Climate change in the ocean

13Amazing whales

14The tail end

Acknowledgments

References

Introduction

I can’t describe exactly what it is about whales, but I’ve always been fascinated by them. Perhaps it’s the way they look, the way they move through the water, the sounds they make or the fact that they breathe air like you and me. Whatever it is, it started from a really young age. I still have the stack of whale books I acquired as a child. I remember seeing pictures of whales – humpback whales and blue whales to be exact. Back then, I had no idea of the different whale species. I didn’t know that whales, dolphins and porpoises belonged to a group called cetaceans and some whales had teeth and used high-frequency sounds to see the world around them via echolocation (these are known as toothed whales and include sperm whales and dolphins), or that others didn’t have any teeth at all and made low-frequency sounds like elephants (these are baleen whales like blue and humpback whales). I have a fond memory of flicking through the pages of my whale books in my bedroom, with the sun shining into my room, while through the window I could see my pet cow munching away on grass in the back paddock in the distance. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling writing about this. I can hear Dad’s lawnmower, which always seemed to be humming in the backyard of our 40-acre farm.

I didn’t know back then that different whale species looked a certain way. They ate a certain way, travelled to different parts of the world, some made sounds louder than a Boeing 747 plane taking off (I’m a massive plane nerd) and that whale poo is important for the ocean (get ready to learn why in this book). It’s taken me many years, but I can now tell you what most of the whales in my childhood books were doing. The humpback whale sticking its mouth and eyes out of the water to look around – that’s a behaviour known as a spyhop; or another that was jumping out of the water, a behaviour known as a breach; the one circling around the boat – this is known as a mugging (though they don’t demand your money); and the ultimate in doing nothing – logging, where a whale simply floats in the water. Oh, and the group of whales blowing bubbles around their prey to herd them into one spot so they can gulp them up, this is known as bubble-net feeding (not all humpback whales do this).

Because I love communicating science and making it super accessible, I have breakout boxes in each chapter. Even if these are the only things you read from this book, you will learn something!

Whales were always foreign, inaccessible animals to me as a young child. I lived through the books I read. My family had a set of beautifully bound encyclopaedias, today’s equivalent would be YouTube or a BBC documentary. And I watched videos, yes videos, that were on display so I could always see how many were about whales and dolphins. In them, though, I never saw people like me. In fact, I can’t recall seeing one female scientist working on whales. If I did see someone, they were usually male and looked very different from the people in my migrant Maltese and Italian family. One video was set on replay for years – the 1993 movie Free Willy. It centres on a boy who finds his way in life by becoming a killer whale trainer and the whale he sets free. The killer whale star, a real killer whale named Keiko, was eventually released into the wild after a unique journey. He essentially went from being caught from the wild to being taught humans were the best thing around (while in captivity), to then being taught how to find his own way, find his own food and to do his own thing away from humans by returning to the wild. Such an interesting life for one individual. Unfortunately, he didn’t do too well back in the wild, seeking human interaction, and eventually, he became ill with pneumonia and died.

Free Willy set the scene for me. At the start and end of the movie, there’s beautiful footage of wild killer whales swimming. I often cried at the end when I saw this. I don’t know why, I just did. I saw my future with whales, nurturing a passion for wildlife and a desire to work closely with animals. All I ever wanted to become when I grew up was a dolphin trainer. I even remember having a killer whale– trainer Barbie, her wetsuit would appear when she was put in water. I was obsessed. My primary school teachers can back me up here. They told my Mum I would draw dolphins and whales in class at the age of seven or eight.

Fast-forward a few years. I worked at a zoo when I was at university which led to an opportunity to become a dolphin trainer. As a bonus, I worked with sea lions and fur seals and helped to rehabilitate sick and injured marine life like sea turtles and penguins. I was a farm girl living her dream. But the sudden passing of my Mum in 2011 made me re-evaluate everything I was doing. I wanted more. I went from living my childhood dream to asking, what next?

I began harassing Rob Harcourt once a month for the next six months. Rob is a professor of marine ecology and all-round ocean expert who has a genuine enthusiasm for nature and loves to surf. He agreed to become my supervisor and I started the journey to becoming a whale scientist. I never expected this journey into the scientific world. But it has given me the opportunity to ask serious questions to benefit whales globally. This decision also led to whale experiences in the field in Australia and around the world including Tonga, Madagascar, Antarctica and Canada.

I’m addicted to whales. I’ve been a research assistant, volunteer, marine mammal observer, boat driver, master’s and PhD student and naturalist. I’ve spoken about whales at international marine mammal conferences and also at my old primary school.

Let’s start with whale lingo 101: body parts. Humpback whale arms are called pectoral flippers or pecs for short. That thingy on their back, that’s their dorsal fin – they usually only have one, some whales don’t have one at all (hello to the right whale). Their tail is referred to as their flukes – referring to the two lobes on either side. When they raise their tail up out of the water for a deep dive this is called a fluke up dive. Whales also have belly buttons because they are mammals like you and me. Humpback whales have a nose (also called a blowhole) with two nostrils on top of their head. Females have mammary slits for breasts and males have a hidden penis which is sometimes referred to as a dork. And there’s plenty more whale anatomy to come.

Yet, as a scientist, I don’t know much about whales. This might sound crazy. I’ve devoted years to studying whales, watching them from land, operating boats near them and swimming with them. But these experiences have made me aware of what we don’t know. Humans often try to interpret what is happening when we have barely scratched the surface. When I was writing the chapter ‘Mother love’, I was pregnant with my second calf (baby) and had my first calf running around me. It made me look at the subject in a new way. Humpback whale mothers are truly one of the most amazing mothers in the animal kingdom. I had a fresh sense of understanding I didn’t have as a student when I was underwater staring into the eyes of a humpback whale mother. And lots more questions. After all, we are both mammals.

For instance, in the later stages of pregnancy, I did not always feel like eating much, but it was important to make sure I had the appropriate nutrients to fuel my body and to make sure my iron levels didn’t get too low. It made me wonder how whales can eat enough in Antarctica that they’re still able to migrate, give birth and breastfeed while fasting, sometimes for months at a time. Do they opportunistically top up on food if it is around? I wondered if female humpback whales feel the extra need to wee all the time. For a start, they don’t drink water like we do, but rather acquire most of it from their food.

I was also curious about how whales experienced labour. Spontaneous labour is uncontrollable, we rely on the natural biological cues of our bodies. It turns out humans don’t completely understand the combination of what needs to happen to go into labour, despite wanting to control it. I’m sure it’s much the same for mammals in the ocean, although they don’t have the option of induction. But, of course, whale birth is only one part of this book.

Being around whales always makes me feel like there’s so much more to know. And my scientific work has sparked natural curiosity from others wanting to learn more too. The catalyst was my research on whale snot and drones, at a time when drones were relatively new and out of reach for most people. At the beginning, my team and I didn’t know what was possible. But we figured out how to collect and process bacteria and viruses from migrating whales.

This book is special to me because it documents so many amazing moments in my life with whales. Through my passion and addiction, I have collected a bunch of whale information to share. Science communication was not a thing when I was studying, though now there’s university degrees focused on it. But I did spend years doing keeper talks and tours at the zoo and presented countless dolphin and sea lion shows.

Most of all I want to reflect the importance of whales in a changing world. For a long time, as a female scientist, I hid the fact I was a mother because I felt it put up barriers to scientific opportunities. But motherhood has made me think about the future now more than ever before. I want my research on whales to help ensure that we can enjoy them for generations after my time on earth. I also want scientists and passionate families to read this book and know others have done the dance and juggle of motherhood/familyhood and a scientific career. I’m empowered when I see people’s faces light up when they learn something new from my research or something I have explained to them. Sharing knowledge and acting in service to others through communicating science is powerful. I learnt this in my first year as a mother and it never gets old.

I hope this book brings you a fresh perspective, whether you have zero understanding of whales or a lot. Whether you’re simply curious about the science world or want to learn more about our marine environment, welcome! I hope you share the stories with others to inspire and seek answers and that you gain a new respect for nature.

CHAPTER 1

Migaloo

I’m dedicating my opening chapter to a whale I’ve seen only once in my life, briefly and from a distance. It was memorable though.

On a sunny winter’s afternoon in 2014, I was at my desk at Macquarie University, going through data I had collected from the field. I’d spent days on end from dawn to dusk at the whale deck at Cape Solander, in the Kamay Botany Bay National Park near Kurnell – a beautiful cliff-based location in Sydney’s south. I was researching an idea to prevent whale entanglement in fishing gear. My good mate Wayne Reynolds called. A dedicated citizen scientist who has 30 years of whale-watching experience, he was down at the whale deck. Excitedly, he told me that he had just spotted Migaloo.

I dropped everything. I knew I had to head to the closest headland for a chance to see him. Wayne was an hour’s drive south. Migaloo would have travelled too far north by the time I made it there. So I headed towards the coast, using every toll road possible. Around 30 minutes later I arrived at Maroubra Beach. There was a risk Migaloo might have swum out to sea, away from land. Fortunately, he hadn’t. I chose absolutely the right place to be.

Migaloo is part of the