by Kristin Rasmussen
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We continue to get exciting and unexpected results from our Panama photo-identification project! Since 2002, we have photo-identified 875 individual whales in the Gulf of Chiriqui. These photos were recently a part of a ​large collaborative study led by our colleagues from Brazil. This study discovered the first time that whales from Panama have been sighted in the South Orkney Islands, a feeding area east of the Antarctic Peninsula! 

The whales we normally see off the Pacific coast of Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador during the breeding season, known as “Breeding Stock G,” usually travel to feeding areas off southern Chile and the western Antarctic Peninsula. In contrast, whales breeding in the Atlantic off Brazil, known as “Breeding Stock A,” are known to travel to feeding areas off South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, all areas to the east of the Antarctic Peninsula. But the new study not only discovered Panama whales off the South Orkney Islands; it turns out that whales that breed off Brazil were also sighted in the western Antarctic Peninsula feeding area, traditionally used by Stock G. This gives us new insight into how two different humpback whale populations in the Southern Hemisphere appear to be mixing with each other in recent times, and why this mixing may be occurring.

This study used the online platform Happywhale, a collaboration of researchers and citizen scientists who submit photos of whales seen throughout the world. Happywhale features a sophisticated automated computer algorithm that we used to compare photos of whales seen off Central and South America with whales seen throughout the Southern Hemisphere, as well as with Happywhale’s entire worldwide catalog – in total 47,122 individual whales! The algorithm found eight whales from Stocks A and G that had also been seen outside of their traditional feeding areas. Of these, six Stock-A whales had been seen off the western Antarctic Peninsula, and two Stock-G whales had been seen off the South Orkney Islands. Interestingly, one of the Stock-G whales was seen in feeding areas off the western Antarctic Peninsula in 2019, and then just six months later was sighted off the South Orkneys, suggesting that this whale did not undertake a winter migration that year but that it remained in the Antarctic. The fact that Stock-G whales are being seen so far east near traditional Stock-A feeding areas, and that Stock-A whales are being seen in Stock-G feeding areas, tells us that these populations are mixing more than we had previously thought. In fact, since this study was completed, we found one more whale that had been seen in both the South Orkneys (in January 2021) and Panama (in 2008 and 2018).

There are several factors that may be prompting these whales to expand their range. Both Stock-A and ​Stock-G populations are growing after being drastically reduced by whaling. As the populations grow, their distributions are likely to expand into new areas or previously occupied areas before they were hunted. Additionally, the amount of prey available in a given year influences whale distribution. The main food source for humpbacks feeding off Antarctica is krill, which relies on sea ice in its reproductive stage. As the climate changes and ocean temperatures warm, sea ice coverage in Antarctica fluctuates, directly impacting the amount of krill available. Perhaps whales are seeking out new areas to find sufficient krill resources depending on ice coverage in the previous winter. Another possibility is simply because of increased research efforts and tourism activities in these remote regions, more researchers and citizen scientists have been taking photos in recent years. This may increase the likelihood of finding matches between regions. 
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Large collaborative studies like this are crucial in monitoring these populations as they recover from whaling but are now starting to feel the impacts of climate change. Our years of effort and data collection in Panama are helping address these important questions!

by Kristin Rasmussen

​Panacetacea has suspended field research on our humpback whale project for the past two field seasons (2020 and 2021), largely due to the global pandemic. This doesn’t mean that our work stops! Data analysis has continued, and recently we’ve had a very noteworthy discovery.

Between 2017 and 2019 we collected almost 200 skin/blubber tissue samples from humpback whales in the Gulf of Chiriqui, Panama. Earlier this year we sent these samples to the Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Laboratory at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. Using DNA genotyping, they were able to identify 163 individuals from our samples. When they compared these individuals to their collection of approximately 5,000 individuals genetically identified throughout the Southern Hemisphere, they found a very interesting match. One of our Panama whales had also been seen in the Kermadec Islands – Rangitāhua, New Zealand! Researchers at the University of Auckland have studied whales in the Kermadecs as part of the Southern Ocean Research Partnership Humpback Whale Connectivity project and have discovered that this area is a migratory corridor for whales breeding in Oceania and feeding off Antarctica.

This whale was sighted off Panama in 2018 in one of the largest groups we’ve ever seen. At times there were 16 whales in this “competitive group,” an aggregation of males competing for the chance to mate with a female. These groups are often very active at the surface and show their tails frequently, so we were able to get many photo-identifications of tail flukes that day. We share all our identification photographs with Happywhale, an online collaboration platform where researchers and citizen scientists submit photos of whales seen throughout the world. A few weeks after our genetic match had been discovered, Happywhale independently discovered a photo-identification match between Panama and the Kermadecs. In each location, the photos were taken on the same day the matching genetic samples were collected. Presumably the genetic sample and photo-ID are from the same whale. When the whale was seen in the Kermadecs, it was first seen by itself breaching, then joined a mother/calf pair, and another adult. The figure below illustrates the locations where this male was sighted off the Kermadecs in 2017 and in the Gulf of Chiriqui in 2018, along with the likely migratory route between the two locations via possible Antarctic feeding grounds.

Most whales identified off Panama during the breeding season that have also been identified in feeding areas have been seen in feeding areas off the Antarctic Peninsula and Chile. However, this is not the first time one of our Panama whales has been seen farther afield. As previously reported in our blog, last year Happywhale identified another unusual match to the Amundsen Sea, west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Interestingly, many of the whales seen in the Kermadecs migrate to the Amundsen Sea to feed during the summer!

As the populations in the Southern Hemisphere recover from whaling, it’s possible that some whales are seeking new foraging and breeding areas and are wandering away from where we have typically seen them. Photo-ID and genetic techniques allow us to better understand these movements, and the relationships between the populations in the Southern Hemisphere.

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The locations of a humpback whale identified by DNA profiling and photo-identification near the Kermadec Islands and the Pacific coast of Panama. The thin dashed arrow indicates the straight-line connection between the two matches, while the yellow arrows show the likely migratory route via possible Antarctic feeding grounds (green shading). Biopsy sample information and fluke photographs taken at each location are shown on the left. Figure created by Tomas Follett (Whale Habitat Ecology and Telemetry Lab, Oregon State University).

Both of these discoveries could not have been made without the wide-scale collaborative effort by many researchers: the Cetacean Conservation Genomics Lab (Scott Baker and Debbie Steel), and the Whale Habitat Ecology and Telemetry Lab (Daniel Palacios) at Oregon State University, the Marine Mammal Ecology Group at the University of Auckland (Rochelle Constantine), Panacetacea (Kristin Rasmussen), and Happywhale (Ted Cheeseman), under the sponsorship of IWC/Southern Ocean Research Partnership. We would also like to acknowledge Ngāti Kuri and Te Aupōuri, the local iwi of the Kermadec Islands.