\u201cThe Arabian Sea humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae<\/em>; ASHW) is understood to be the only population of this species that does not undertake long-range seasonal migrations between high- and low-latitude waters,\u201d write the authors in the study.<\/p>\n To learn more about these animals, researchers used 14 satellite tags to track where some of the whales went between February 2014 and December 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cLeading into this study we had so many questions about the daily life of the mysterious humpback whales found in the Arabian Sea, of which we would only get fleeting glimpses during long hot hours of boat surveys,\u201d says the study\u2019s author Andrew Willson in a press release.<\/p>\n \u201cTagging these whales allowed us to peel back the lid of the sea and check in online to see where they were each day.\u201d<\/p>\n The whales mostly \u201cstayed within a very restricted home range along the coast of Oman,\u201d says Willson, a marine scientist who is founding director of Future Seas Global SPC. Monsoons in the region make these waters incredibly productive so there is plenty of food to support Arabian Sea humpback whales all year, meaning they don\u2019t need to migrate seasonally like other populations.<\/p>\n But an intrepid voyager called Luban travelled all the way to Goa, spending around a month off the coast of India before coming back home. The researchers think she might have been travelling to find food or reproduce.<\/p>\n Willson was happy to know that she\u2019d made it back to Omani waters safely, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s always a relief when we make resightings of these amazing whales given the limited size of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n Fishing and\u00a0ship strikes\u00a0can threaten the survival of small, fragile populations like this one, so it\u2019s important to understand where these whales go and what human activity they might cross along the way.<\/p>\n The researchers hope their data will help to protect these whales.<\/p>\n \u201cCoastal fishing communities in Oman have revered and respected these whales for many generations,\u201d says Aida Al Jabri, a marine expert at the Oman Environment Authority. By showing which waters the whales like to spend time in, the findings can help to prevent overlap with\u00a0fishing\u00a0activity.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is critical to supporting their conservation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The anomalous whale that departed from homebody life to visit India could be a sign of a shift within the population.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Arabian Sea provides unique conditions allowing a once-migratory species to completely change its ecology. It\u2019s a testament to how extraordinary the region is,\u201d says the study\u2019s co-author Suaad Al Harthi, executive director of the Environment Society of Oman.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope their adaptability will help ASHWs in uncertain times when their domain is influenced by accelerated climate change.\u201d<\/p>\nFollowing the whales<\/h2>\n