Report information
The Silver bank is the first marine sanctuary ever set up. It was set up by the Dominican Republic Government who are very protective of the whales because at least half, and probably more, of the north Atlantic Humpback Whales are born here. 5-7,000 whales pass through the silver bank in a 3 month period.
Many of the whales that come to the silver banks have been previously identified by observation and their tail fluke patterns so they know where they migrate to and from but not their route or how they navigate or how they move around within their destination.
The first tag went in on the 28th Jan and the last one finished transmitting on 23rd Feb - so they have about a month of data which is typical for whale tags. The tagging project is over so there are no current tags on the whales in the Dominican Republic. The project was a pilot project with 5 tags experimenting with the latest technology - super slim tags with just an antennae sitting outside the whale.
The tags are put into the whale by hand which is a more accurate method than using cross bows which have been used in the past. The tags have a salt water switch which switches them off when they're under the water. When the whale surfaces they work through a doplar effect as satellites travel accross the sky and get numerous transmissions to pinpoint. They have different gradings of signal quality and the tagging produced a reasonable amount of local data about which areas need protecting.
They almost got data about how they navigate but the tag died before they got it. Phil can't reveal much about navigation because he's about to publish a paper so this will be big news when it breaks. Needless to say, WOtM will get him for a follow up as soon as that happens.
Further Reading:
Next Humpback report: Hawaiian Humpbacks
Caribbean Humpback Whale Survey