Photo of the week: Southern Ocean humpback whale

Department of Conservation —  18/03/2015

Today’s photo of the week is of a humpback whale spotted by the deepwater research vessel Tangaroa at the Balleny Islands deep in the Southern Ocean.

humpback-whale

Scientists aboard the NIWA ship returned home last week after six weeks in the Southern Ocean.

The voyage, to study the ecosystems around Antarctica, was a joint project between NIWA and the Australian Antarctic Division.

It was supported by Antarctic New Zealand and government departments in both New Zealand and Australia, .

Over 500 hours of whale song recordings were collected during the trip, including more than 40,000 individual calls.

Photo by Dave Allen, NIWA.