Wildlife

History of Whales in Tasmanian Waters
There was a time when residents of the Hobart suburb of Taroona complained of being kept awake by the sounds of whales snorting in the River Derwent. Today, the mere report of a sighting sends a thrill of excitement through the community.

During the nineteenth century the whaling industry was big business in the developing colony of Van Diemen’s Land. At the peak of the boom, in the 1830s, there were enough whales in Tasmanian waters to support 32 shore-based whaling stations, from Recherche Bay in the south, to Bicheno on the east coast. There were nine whaling stations in Hobart alone; so great were the numbers of massive southern right whales in the Derwent that it was considered dangerous to cross the estuary in small boats. In 1837 the value of whale oil and bone was worth over £135,000 and remained close to £100,000 per annum over the next three years.
Read more on the history of whaling in Tasmania.

The ravages of whaling drove many species to the edge of extinction. Today, the southern right whale is among the rarest of whales, but since the end of commercial whaling its numbers have begun to increase and whale sightings in Tasmanian waters are becoming more common.

Whale biology
Whales, of course, are mammals. Like their land-based cousins, whales are warm-blooded, breathe air and suckle their young on milk.

Whales and dolphins belong to a group of mammals collectively known as cetaceans and are believed to share a common ancestry with the ungulates, a diverse group of hoofed mammals that includes modern-day horses, pigs, sheep, deer, antelopes and camels. Their land-based ancestors adopted a marine existence over 50 million years ago.

Where to see Cetaceans in Tasmania
Bottle-nosed dolphins and baleen, humpback and southern right whales are the cetaceans you are most likely to spot in the River Derwent and on Tasmania’s east coast.
Humpbacks migrate northward to breeding areas off the coast of Queensland and Western Australia between May and July and return southward to their sub-antarctic feeding grounds between September and November.

Southern right whales migrate north from June to September to the waters of southern mainland Australia and return southward between September and late October. A proportion of the population gives birth in Tasmanian waters.
Most whale sightings occur on the Tasmanian east coast. Although this may be simply a consequence of the higher population of human observers in the east, it is likely that the humpback and southern right whales prefer the calmer waters of the east coast. Frederick Henry Bay and Great Oyster Bay on the east coast are excellent vantage points for whale watching.

Sadly, not all encounters with whales today are positive: there are more strandings in Tasmania than in any other Australian state. Most occur in the Circular Head and Macquarie Harbour–Ocean Beach areas.
Read more on whale strandings.