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Satellites tracking humpback whales Humpback whales carrying satellite tags are helping researchers discover their migration routes.

An international group of scientists are studying whales in the South Pacific.

They were able to put satellite tags on a group of whales off New Caledonia and the Cook Islands.

Right now, there are 10 tags still operating, five each from New Caledonia group and the Cook Islands group.

NOAA Fisheries' Sheela McLean says they hope that the tags will continue to transmit for weeks or months, showing the final destinations of the animals as they undertake their migration from the tropics to the cold waters of the Southern Ocean.

McLean says almost immediately there were surprises.

Tag data show that several of the New Caledonia whales traveled to a seamount system southeast of the island.

Judging by the time the whales spent there, that habitat is important to them.

Another whale migrated to the northern end of New Caledonia, and then traveled west to the Chesterfield Islands, which was a whaling ground for the United States in the 19th century.

Others began their migration south, stopping off at Norfolk Island or hanging out off the North Island of New Zealand before continuing on toward the Antarctic.

In the Cook Islands, most of the tagged whales moved west, heading toward or north of Tonga.

Mclean says that's important information, since so little is known about the movements of Cook Islands humpback whales.

Source - KTUU, Alaska