Whale Unit Hermanus – Whale Research South Africa

Established in 1985, the MRI Whale Unit is a global, African research, conservation and education facility that researches the ecology, population dynamics and behaviour of the diverse cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in the Southern African sub-region and surrounding oceans, with the principal objective of providing knowledge that will promote their conservation. A primary raison d’être of the Unit remains the development of human capacity in these areas. Research, Conservation and Education are interlinked to execute forward-looking programmes, integral for the understanding of conservation priorities for African cetaceans.

The MRI Whale Unit possesses a wealth of expertise and tacit knowledge, intellectual property, and well-established knowledge resource bases. The Unit has current national and international collaborations with over 30 organisations, and co-leads the research theme on southern right whales of the Southern Ocean Research Partnership of the International Whaling Commission (iwc.int/sorp)

Research Projects range across a broad national and international geographic and institutional spectrum and align within these Research Themes:

• Recovering Whales – The role of large whales in Southern Hemisphere Ocean Ecosystems

  • Large Migratory whale population abundance and trends

    • Southern right whale population abundance and trends

    • East and West coast humpback whale abundance

    • Antarctic blue whale population abundance

    • Acoustic monitoring of seasonal presence and abundance of baleen whales on historical whaling grounds

  • Large whale feeding ecology

    • West coast humpback feeding ecology

    • Southern right whales as a model species to predict the effects of climate change on Southern Ocean productivity

    • Southern right whale body condition on the South African breeding ground

• African Links – Building African Marine Mammal research capacity

  • African East Coast and Western Indian Ocean

    • Establishing movement links of humpback whales between SA and Mozambique, Madagascar and the Western Indian ocean archipelago breeding grounds

    • Monitoring occurrence of southern right whales in Mozambique and links between SA and Mozambique