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    • Meet the 2020 southern right whale – Tohorā
    • Track the 2020 southern right whale – Tohorā
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    • Track the 2021 southern right whale – Tohorā
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    • Track the 2022 southern right whale – Tohorā
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A HISTORY OF TOHORĀ

Past, Present, and Future

Southern right whales – tohorā have been important to the peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand throughout our country’s history. Whales and dolphins are important taonga to Māori, with whales playing important roles in the voyages of Pacific peoples. When Europeans arrived, tohorā became the backbone of one of the settler’s first industries: whaling. Like other whale species, tohorā were hunted without regard for sustainability first by early whalers in row boats and hand held spears and then by illegal Soviet whalers in modern floating factories. Whales then emerged as a flagship species of the conservation movement, with the tohorā a testament to Aotearoa New Zealand’s measures to protect marine mammals. Now tohorā face new challenges from human impacts on the environment, which we must understand if we are to support the continued recovery of this conservation success story.

  • 1830’s
    Start of whaling

    About 30,000 southern right whale – tohorā in Aotearoa New Zealand waters

    Photo: Group with two whales, Kaikoura, circa 1910. Taken by an unidentified photographer.

  • 1860’s
    Tohorā disappear

    Southern right whales – tohorā basically commercially extinct – any seen killed though

  • 1920’s
    Population at lowest level

    As few as 40 southern right whales – tohorā remain in Aotearoa New Zealand

  • 1935
    Tohorā protected

    International legal protection given to southern right whales – tohorā globally by the League of Nations

  • 1928 – 1963
    No Sightings

    No southern right whales – tohorā seen around mainland Aotearoa New Zealand for nearly three decades

  • 1960 – 1961
    Illegal Whaling

    Illegal Soviet whaling kills about half of the recovering New Zealand southern right whale – tohorā population

  • 1980’s
    Tohorā sightings

    Yachties start reporting sightings of tohorā around the Auckland and Campbell Islands

  • 1992 – 1993
    Dozens sighted

    Royal Air NZ Force surveys of Auckland and Campbell Islands showed dozens of whales

  • 1995 and 1997
    Project Tohorā

    Ramari Stewart led surveys in Campbell Island showed high numbers of southern right whales – tohorā

  • 1995 – 1998
    Population 1000

    Auckland Islands field surveys by University of Auckland estimate population has recovered to around 1000 southern right whales – tohorā

  • 2006 – 2009
    Population 2000

    Auckland Islands field surveys by University of Auckland estimate population has recovered to around 2000 southern right whales – tohorā

  • 2005 – 2009
    Mass die off

    Mass die offs of southern right whales – tohorā in Argentina

  • 2015 – 2019
    Fewer sightings globally

    Southern right whale – tohorā populations in Argentina, South Africa and Australia see fewer calves being born and decrease in recovery from whaling

  •  

    2020-21
    Tohorā Research Project

    Auckland Islands field surveys by University of Auckland and Cawthron Institute to understand how southern right whales – tohorā wintering in Aotearoa New Zealand have continued to recover, and see where our whales go to feed.

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This work was funded by the Te Apārangi Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, Live Ocean, Lou and Iris Fisher Charitable Trust, Joyce Fisher Charitable Trust, University of Auckland Science Faculty Research Development Fund, Brian Sheth/Sangreal Foundation, International Whaling Commission – Southern Ocean Research Partnership, New Zealand Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai, Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, and the Cawthron Institute. It was supported by the Australian Antarctic Division, British Antarctic Survey, Antarctic New Zealand, Strannik Ocean Voyages, Spindrift Images and the Bluff Yacht Club.

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