Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00930:reg:2:p13
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00930
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2 (pt 13/48)
Character Range: 97146–99993

to Hervey Bay in Qld. (23°S, 150°E) on the east coast and Exmouth/Ningaloo Reef (21°S, 114°E) off the WA coast (Bannister 1986, Smith et al. 2024). Within the species distribution range southern right whales occupy nearshore areas with greater consistency each year, predominantly in coastal areas and around oceanic islands. The greatest numbers of whales constitute the western population and occur in the coastal waters between Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia and Ceduna in South Australia, and are particularly concentrated in three main regions of Albany east to Doubtful Island Bay (WA), Israelite Bay (WA) and Head of Bight (SA) (Charlton et al. 2022, Smith et al. 2023). The eastern population has very low abundance and whales occur to a lesser extent off Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland (Stamation et al. 2020). In Victoria, there is a regular aggregation area in waters off Warrnambool at Logans Beach and increasing numbers of sightings along the Gippsland coast (east from Wilsons Promontory), and relatively regular sightings along the south east coast of Tasmania (Stamation et al. 2020, Watson et al. 2021).
There has been expansion and re-occupation into historic breeding areas as the population has increased in abundance, with whales now utilising areas such as Geographe Bay, Fowlers Bay and Encounter Bay (Charlton et al. 2019, Kemper et al. 2022, Salgado Kent et al. 2022). Unpublished sightings data in NSW indicate an increasing use of areas up the NSW coast by southern right whales (particularly mothers and calf pairs) which may have been historically used areas lost from the cultural memory of southern right whale following early whaling (pers comm Andy Marshall 2023). Since 2006, there has been increasing numbers of sightings of southern right whales occurring in the whale's northern range limits, with the most northerly sighting of a southern right whale (mother and calf) near Hinchinbrook Island (18°S) in Qld (Smith et al. 2024).

Figure 3 Spatial distribution of the southern right whale within the Commonwealth Marine Area and State waters.

Female southern right whales show strong site fidelity to certain areas for breeding (mating, calving, nursing), generally returning to the same location to give birth and nurse offspring. Females are believed to transmit preferences for both winter calving/breeding areas and summer foraging areas to their calves during the first year of the calf's life (Valenzuela et al. 2009, Carroll et al. 2015, Carroll et al. 2016). Consequently, the loss of significant numbers of individuals from a breeding area may result in loss of the collective memory (i.e., cultural memory) of good breeding areas (Carroll et al. 2015, Harcourt et al. 2019). This may then result in suitable habitat not being utilised or recolonised, particularly if there is