Posted by Iréne onboard the Esperanza

With financial support from Greenpeace, humpback whales have been tagged by the Cook Islands Whale Research and Opération Cétacés. The satellite tagging, skin biopsies and photo identification has already provided a huge amount of information about the migration patterns of threatened humpback populations.

The "scientific whaling" carried out by the Japanese government does not address the most important needs identified by the International Whaling Commission, and can not be seen as justifiable. This year their quote includes 50 humpback whales.

Read more about the results from the whale tagging

Download the full report from Nature Precedings (PDF)