Highly interactive behaviour of inquisitive dwarf minke whales

Abstract

In the early 1990s, as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) live-aboard dive industry began to expand along the shelf-edge Ribbon Reefs north of Cairns, reports began to surface of small, conspicuously marked whales approaching scuba divers. The late Dr Peter Arnold of Townsville's Museum of Tropical Queensland published the first account of these encounters (Arnold, 1997) and had previously documented this new form of minke whale (Arnold, Marsh & Heinsohn, 1987). As the dive fleet grew and the frequency of these encounters increased, there was growing concern over potential impacts on the whales (Aw, 1996). In 1996, Peter and one of us (Alastair Birtles) joined John Rumney and Andy Dunstan (General Manager and Operations Manager, respectively) on their vessel Undersea Explorer for the first of what became 15 consecutive years of field work. Our initial objective was to find out what we could about the biology and behaviour of these poorly-known and elusive little whales, but this rapidly evolved in to trying to ensure that the growing whale watching industry would be sustainable.