[?]ngan Whale That
p. 153 · Read in the full issue
Travelled Far
3SEARCH into the ways of Nature is often unrewarding, but once in a while the itists are given a thrill, le such came recently to essor W. H. Dawbin, Senior urer in Zoology at Sydney rersity and formerly of Victoria rersity, Wellington, NZ. ofessor Dawbin has been □nsible for organising the le-marking projects which have . in hand in various South fic regions in recent years. ,tely in Tonga, carrying out ler marking, Professor Dawbin rted that a whale marked there rtalinoa, near Nukualofa, in the ter of 1952, was taken in the irctic by a whaling vessel in lary this year, 6,000-odd miles 7. is, of course, well known that hern Hemisphere whales ate north to the tropics each imn to breed, and head south a about August-September, and as generally thought that their atory routes lay more-or-less north and south, r example, whales which might een due south of New Zealand ummer months, would be found north in Fiji-Ellice waters in Winter —and not, say, over rds Tahiti. lis particular whale has dis
proved all that, as it was taken south-w r est of Chile and far to the east of its assumed Antarctic cruising ground (though not so far east as a Mercator map would suggest, a globe gives a better idea).
This was the greatest east-west travel by a whale ever recorded.
Professor Dawbin said that such a discovery was important where establishment of a whaling industry was being considered, as if it were found that whales did not always frequent the same areas, but wandered into areas of other whaling industries, commercial prospects in a particular area might not be so good.
In all, seven whales have been marked in Tonga waters. The
project is on behalf of the British Museum.
The steel markers are fired by a shotgun, especially adapted, deep into the whale, and are not recovered until the whale is cut for processing. t The mild influenza epidemic which had been prevalent in both the main islands of Western Samoa for several weeks, was reported in early October to have abated. No fatalities have occurred as a result of the epidemic. The improvement is believed due to the change in weather conditions, as after a long dry spell, rains have set in and cleaned the atmosphere from dust.