Andrew Darby; 17/5/08
The first humpbacks have begun their annual migration along the Australian coast. They may be safe from Japanese whalers, but perils remain. Australia’s largest single wild animal migration, the coastal trek of the humpback whale, is expanding yearly into a major spectacle. This week’s sporadic first sightings in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania show the lead animals in the yearly passage between Antarctica and the tropics are on their way north again. Up the coast, humpback season has started. Perched on a sandstone cliff from dawn to last light, a group of whale watchers at Cape Solander, south of Sydney, has seen a quadrupling in a decade, with 1295 whales sliding by in only 69 days last year. And many others swam through in the dark.