SYDNEY, July 31 (Xinhua) -- A new international study involving Australian scientists has found that migrating whales travel up to 20 percent farther than previously thought.
The research showed that traditional satellite tracking underestimates whale migration by ignoring their three-dimensional movement through the ocean, said a statement released Thursday by Australia's Griffith University on Science Media Exchange website.
"For years, we've tracked whales using satellite tags, plotting their movements across oceans. But this research shows we've been looking at only part of the picture," said the study's co-author Olaf Meynecke from Griffith University.
Researchers from Australia, the United States, Panama and Ecuador used geodesy and whale diving data to account for Earth's curvature and whales' vertical movement in their migration estimates.
The study of a humpback whale's migration from Ecuador to near Antarctica showed the traditional surface estimate of 6,658 km was 16 percent shorter than the 3D geodesic model, which added 1,055 km.
Meynecke said humpback whales migrating between South American breeding grounds and Antarctic feeding areas, may travel up to 14,000 km per season, about seven times the average yearly distance traveled by a human, much farther than previously thought.
"If animals are expending more energy than previously estimated, we may be underestimating the ecological costs of migration and the impacts of environmental change," he said. ■
