Satellite Tags Show Detouring Southern Right Whales Left a Month Early and Still Reached Their Feeding Grounds on Time
A study of Southern right whales shows that individuals use different migration strategies to reach feeding grounds, with some taking a longer detour toward Antarctica. By leaving earlier, these whales still arrive at their destination in time for the seasonal plankton bloom, demonstrating behavioral flexibility in response to environmental shifts.
Why it matters
Understanding how marine species adapt their migration patterns provides insight into how wildlife might cope with climate-driven changes in ocean ecosystems.
Southern right whales leaving New Zealand's subantarctic Auckland Islands split onto two very different routes to their feeding grounds, yet the two groups arrived at about the same time, according to a satellite-tagging study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The whales that took a long detour toward Antarctica simply left about a month earlier.The University of Auckland team found the detour trips averaged 64 days, compared with 42 days for whales that swam directly west, a difference of about three weeks. Both groups reached waters south of Australia in early October on average, near the seasonal peak of phytoplankton growth.The work matters beyond New Zealand.
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