OSU researchers miniaturized the radio tag in 1997 so it could be implanted as a dart into humbacks, which are known as the "singing" whales. Dr. Bruce Mate says of this revolutionary development, "By tagging humpback whales in Hawaii with these new tags, we traced the first complete migration route between a whale's breeding and feeding areas.
The route was a surprise—it went to Russia, via the Aleutian Islands. We did not know whales breeding in Hawaii went there." In 1998, another humpback was tracked from Hawaii to the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia in just 30 days and then for an additional three months of feeding in Southeast Alaska. Other incomplete migration trajectories from Hawaii suggest destinations along the Aleutians, perhaps into the Bering Sea.
During the summer of 1997, OSU researchers tagged 12 humpback whales feeding in Southeast Alaska and observed them for two months. The graduate researchers recorded no evidence of infection or changes in behavior. One whale was tracked for five months (the longest tracking time to date) and provided the first information about how whales move within their feeding range. Most whales tended to stay in the sheltered waters of Southeast Alaska and separately visited specific areas.
Our field season in 2004 was part of the TOPP program (Tagging of Pacific Pelagics), co-funded by the Sloan, Packard and Gordon Moore foundations. We used our new research boat, the R/V Pacific Storm, to travel from Oregon to the waters off central California in search of blue and humpback whales. This season was extremely successful: in four weeks we tagged 29 animals, eight of them with new depth tags.
In the summer of 2005 we returned to the waters off central California for another field season of tagging blue and humpback whales as part of the TOPP program.
