Summary
This study aimed to describe the migratory distribution and behaviour of pygmy blue whales that feed in the Perth Canyon region off the coast of Western Australia. A total of twelve tags were successfully deployed on blue whales between the 14th March and the 6th April although four performed poorly with no uplinks, only Z class data or the tag ceased transmitting within a few days of deployment. The 10 whales that provided some location data were tracked from 1 to 162 days (mean = 43.3 days; SD = 47.8) for a total of 20,621 km (mean = 2,291 km; max: 8,815) and the total net distance moved from the first to last location was 9,606 km (mean = 1,067 km; max: 3227 km). Following tagging several whales remained in the Perth Canyon/Naturaliste Plateau for over a month whereas others migrated north immediately. On their migration north the tagged whales were located offshore (usually between 40 and 100km) and showed distinct changes from high (~100km/day) to lower (