Cwr.org.au
Title
CENTRE FOR WHALE RESEARCH - WWW.CWR.ORG.AU
Description
The Centre for Whale Research (Western Australia) Inc. is a non-profit research institute 73A(6) established in 1993 to conduct scientific research into marine mammals in the order Cetacea, the whales, dolphins and porpoises. Studies conducted by it's researchers in NW Australia since 1990 have yielded new information regarding the behaviours and migratory characteristics of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) off Western Australia such as the discovery of this populations calving grounds. Similar research into the migratory characteristics of pygmy blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) began in 1999.
Both humpback whales and blue whales are excellent indicator species for the health of our oceans. They are large, relatively easily monitored animals which feed directly on animals which drive the ocean food chain, the shrimp-like krill. The health of the whales' populations is therefore a biological window into the health of their ocean environment.
On July 25, 1990, with a few seeds of doubt sewn in our minds, we moved into a research station on Enderby Island, owned by the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). Situated between two beaches on an narrow spinifex-covered isthmus on the eastern end of the island, the research station consisted of a 10 x 20 ft cyclone-proof tin shed which was covered on three sides by a pergola under which we slept, ate and worked. We ran a generator for 4-5 hours each evening to power lights, two fridges and our computer after returning from long days out between the two blues. On bad weather days we would spend hours hiking across the island over the red iron-ore rock piles, often surprising some of the rare Rothschild rock wallabies thriving there, free from mainland predators. The rocky, barren landscape spurred our imagination and we thought we had reached the end-of-the-earth or Enderbyearth!
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