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Until late afternoon snow showers reduced visibility around the ship to less than 1km. However, the acoustic team did a fantastic job and managed to place the ship amid several groups of calling blue whales. While the conditions were poor we commenced a line transect survey assessing the krill distribution within this blue whale ‘hotspot’ – this information may be able to explain why blue whales appear to aggregate within the area. As the sighting conditions improved we sighted a group of three Antarctic blue whales along with several pods of humpback whales. After a brief echosounder survey around the whales we closed to collect photo-identification images and biopsy samples. The conditions were not favourable with driving snow and biting wind but despite this the photographers managed to collect many quality images of the three blue whales.
Tonight we will resume the echosounder survey of this hotspot and tomorrow if the weather improves we will close again to describe their movements as well as indentify individuals and collect skin samples.
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.