Ken Findlay

• PhD
• Research Director at AfriSeas Solutions Pty Ltd.

Assessment of historical environmental conditions in the Southern Ocean is limited by sparse oceanographic records prior to remote-sensing data. Whale catch data, particularly from humpback whales, can help fill this gap, as these whales inhabit waters near the sea ice edge. This study combines historical whale catch data with sea-ice model simulat...

Humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) super‐groups, comprising 20+, tightly aggregated, feeding individuals, form during the austral summer in the southern Benguela ecosystem off the west coast of South Africa. This phenomenon, observed since 2011, is thought to be linked to increased productivity from positive chlorophyll‐a anomalies associate...

Photo‐identifications of Antarctic blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus intermedia ) collected from 2003/2004 to 2018/2019 were used in a capture–recapture analysis to estimate abundance and population growth rate for the circumpolar Antarctic. Two capture–recapture models, POPAN and Pradel, were applied to these data. Estimates of annual abundance...

Comprehensive Assessments of the seven Southern Hemisphere humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) breeding stocks require an understanding of their respective catch histories. A lack of information on humpback whale catches from American, British and French open‐boat (or pre‐modern) pelagic and land‐based whaling from 1760 to the late 1920s from s...

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) carried out blue whale research within its annual Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research (SOWER) cruises between 1996 and 2010. Over 700 sonobuoys were deployed to record blue whale vocalisations during 11 Antarctic and three low‐latitude blue whale cruises off Australia, Madagascar and Chile. The rec...

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) carried out blue whale research within its annual Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research (SOWER) cruises between 1996 and 2010. Over 700 sonobuoys were deployed to record blue whale vocalisations during 11 Antarctic and three low‐latitude blue whale cruises off Australia, Madagascar and Chile. The rec...

Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) were heavily targeted during modern commercial whaling operations, with some 216,000 individuals killed between 1903 and 1973. That impacted the abundance of all the seven breeding stocks of the species. Most of these stocks have been recovering from whaling pressure although the understa...

Whales have been titled climate savers in the media with their recovery welcomed as a potential carbon solution. However, only a few studies were performed to date providing data or model outputs to support the hypothesis. Following an outline of the primary mechanisms by which baleen whales remove carbon from the atmosphere for eventual sequestrat...

Shore-based surveys of humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae were performed from Cape Vidal, on the east coast of South Africa (iSimangaliso Marine Protected Area, Indian Ocean), from two independent platforms between 27 June and 7 August in 2018 and 2019, to estimate the relative abundance and growth rate of the C1 breeding substock of the specie...

The cosmopolitan distribution of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) is largely driven by migrations between winter low-latitude breeding grounds and summer high-latitude feeding grounds. Southern Hemisphere humpback whales faced intensive exploitation during the whaling eras and recently show evidence of population recovery. Gene flow and sha...

Most knowledge on the biology and ecology of the spectacled porpoise (Phocoena dioptrica) has been obtained from stranded specimens, with less than fifteen confirmed sightings in the sea. Published photographs of live animals in their natural environment are also very rare. In this study, 28 live sightings are summarised, from Antarctic and sub Ant...

SIGNIFICANCE: Economic and social benefits of ocean resource uses have motivated numerous nations, including South Africa, to turn to their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) to advance economic development initiatives. Such initiatives result in increasing and spatially competitive pressures on ocean systems, compromising ecosystem services and marke...

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is critical in supporting the social and economic development of the nations it borders. To safeguard the various opportunities it provides, it is essential to adopt sustainable ocean development models that balance ocean wealth and ocean health. Such models depend on evidence-based and adaptative ocean governance und...

Dugong (Dugong dugon) Eastern Africa subpopulation has most recently been assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2022. Dugong dugon Eastern Africa subpopulation is listed as Critically Endangered under criteria C2a(ii).

The world’s oceans are negatively impacted by humans, resulting in continual threats to ocean ecosystem health. South African oceans are no exception and with the need for economic growth in the country, pressures on ocean resources are increasing. In this study we aimed to determine the trends between 2003 and 2013 of 14 individual stressors, and...

Ocean planning and management is often tasked with balancing multiple policy priorities, such as the growth of ocean-related sectors, conserving ecosystem health and biodiversity, and considerations of equity and inclusivity. Over the last two decades, aligning and operationalising such priorities has increasingly been addressed through Marine Spat...

Although the dugongs of Mozambique's Bazaruto Archipelago are the last known viable subpopulation along the East African coast, they remain threatened by a variety of anthropogenic and natural pressures that must be addressed to ensure their persistence. We aimed to establish recent trends in dugong abundance through a series of aerial surveys carr...

The online symposium Shared Visions for Marine Spatial Planning: Insights from Israel, South Africa and the United Kingdom was held from 9–10 March 2021. Insights from this multi-disciplinary and international symposium included 1) current states of marine spatial planning (MSP) in the three countries, 2) how MSP can be a helpful tool to advance ma...

Antarctic blue and fin whales were once abundant in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean, yet their occurrence and ecology in this region is still poorly understood. Seasonal acoustic occurrence and behaviour of Antarctic blue and fin whales off the South African west coast were determined using bio-acoustic data collected through two autonomous acousti...

Ocean decision-makers are tasked with balancing social, economic, and environmental considerations when addressing complex policy challenges and achieving strategic objectives, such as conservation targets, or sustainable and ocean-based economic development agendas. Like many common environmental assets, oceans have been impacted by a history of i...

Humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, are a highly migratory species exposed to a wide range of environmental factors during their lifetime. The spatial and temporal characteristics of such factors play a significant role in determining suitable habitats for breeding, feeding and resting. The existing studies of the relationship between oceanic...

Large groups of animals aggregate around resource hotspots, with group size often influenced by the heterogeneity of the environment. In most cases, the foraging success of individuals within groups is interdependent, scaling either constructively or destructively with group size. Here we used biologging tags, acoustic prey mapping, passive acousti...

Seasonal feeding behaviour of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) has been observed in the coastal waters of the Southern Benguela where the species has been observed forming super-groups during the austral spring in recent years since 2011. Super-groups are unprecedented densely-packed aggregations of between 20 and 200 individuals in low-lat...

A global review of the growing intersection of Marine Spatial Planning and Ocean Accounting activities globally. Currently under review.

Exploring the theoretical links between marine spatial planning and ocean accounting. In press - Marine Policy.

Machine learning algorithms are often used to model and predict animal habitat selection the relationships between animal occurrences and habitat characteristics. For broadly distributed species, habitat selection often varies among populations and regions; thus, it would seem preferable to fit region- or population-specific models of habitat selecti...

The Antarctic blue whale Balaenoptera musculus intermedia was hunted to near extinction in the twentieth century. Current data on the abundance and distribution of the species are lacking owing to the difficulty and expense of surveys under adverse weather conditions in open-ocean habitats, and to the small population size. The most recently accept...

Animals are distributed relative to the resources they rely upon, often scaling in abundance relative to available resources. Yet, in heterogeneously distributed environments, describing resource availability at relevant spatial scales remains a challenge in ecology, inhibiting understanding of predator distribution and foraging decisions. We inves...

Since 2001, hundreds of thousands of hours of underwater acoustic recordings have been made throughout the Southern Ocean south of 60° S. Detailed analysis of the occurrence of marine mammal sounds in these circumpolar recordings could provide novel insights into their ecology, but manual inspection of the entirety of all recordings would be prohib...

We used passive acoustic monitoring to study southern right whales, a species of recent high concern in South African waters. Gunshot sounds of southern right whales were heard sporadically throughout the year, with the majority of sounds heard in spring. Whales vocalized more at dusk and night to maintain acoustic communication with conspecific wh...

Algoa Bay, South Africa has a diverse array of marine top-predators, including Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus), Indian Ocean humpback dolphin (Sousa plumbea), long-beaked common dolphin (Delphinus capensis), Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera brydei), southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), A...

Humpback whales within the southwestern Indian Ocean undertake annual migrations from summer Antarctic/Southern Ocean feeding grounds towinter breeding grounds in the tropical and sub-tropical coastal waters of Mozambique, Madagascar and the central Mozambique Channel Islands.Little is known of the inter-relationship of humpback whales on each of t...

Globally, baleen whales were severely depleted by historic whaling. Recovering populations have been observed to alter their behaviour. These changes have been attributed to climate change in some cases and raise concerns over the successful recovery of baleen whale populations. Current data‐driven statistical habitat and behavioural models have pr...

In southern African waters, information about species distribution and habitat preferences of many cetacean species is limited, despite the recent economic growth that may affect them. We determined the relative importance of eight environmental variables (bathymetry, distance to shore, slope, chlorophyll-a, salinity, eastwards sea water velocity,...

Descriptions of seasonal occurrence and behaviour of Antarctic blue and fin whales in the Southern Ocean are of pivotal importance for the effective conservation and management of these endangered species. We used an autonomous acoustic recorder to collect bioacoustic data from January through September 2014 to describe the seasonal occurrence, beh...

The world's oceans are subject to the multiple impacts of human activity and to the consequent threats to the health of many and varied ocean ecosystems. Oceans around South Africa are no exception and, with the need for economic growth in the country, anthropogenic stressors on ocean resources are rapidly increasing. In this study, we investigated...

A decrease in the frequency of two southeast Pacific blue whale song types was examined over decades, using acoustic data from several different sources in the eastern Pacific Ocean ranging between the Equator and Chilean Patagonia. The pulse rate of the song units as well as their peak frequency were measured using two different methods (summed au...

Worldwide, nations and regions are increasingly advancing their oceans or blue economies to expand their economic growth and food and energy security through the growth of established marine sectors, the expansion of historically terrestrial sectors into the marine space, or as emergent sector technologies advance marine resource accessibility. Suc...

Seasonal occurrence, diel‐vocalizing patterns, and call‐types of Antarctic minke whales are described using bio‐acoustic recordings from the west coast of South Africa and the Maud Rise, Antarctica. In Antarctica, minke whale bioduck calls were detected in seven of nine months of hydrophone deployment (peaking in May and September) while downsweeps...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important for the preservation of ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity around the world. In South Africa, the role of MPAs in the protection of cetaceans is poorly understood, a knowledge gap that may affect management decisions and future cetacean conservation. Here, we used prese...

South African coastline surveys conducted since 1972 reveal fluctuations and a recent reversal in a long-running increasing trend in regional abundance of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis, hereafter SRWs), whose populations have been recovering from historic whaling. Furthermore, the surveys reveal that the typical three-year calving cycl...

Passive acoustic monitoring was used to detect the sounds of rarely sighted Antarctic blue and fin whales to investigate their seasonal occurrence (as presence or absence of whale calls) and behaviour (as determined from call rates) in the Benguela ecosystem. Data were collected using autonomous acoustic recorders deployed on oceanographic moorings...

North Atlantic right whales (NARW), Eubalaena glacialis, were nearly exterminated by historical whaling. Their abundance slowly increased up until 2010, to a maximum of fewer than 500 whales, and since then they have been in decline. We assessed the extent to which the relatively slow increase demonstrated by NARW was intrinsic, and how much could...

Understanding how dispersal and gene flow link geographically separated the populations over evolutionary history is challenging, particularly in migratory marine species. In southern right whales (SRWs, Eubalaena australis), patterns of genetic diversity are likely influenced by the glacial climate cycle and recent history of whaling. Here we use...

Report of the 2017 South African southern right whale aerial survey

This paper extends the analyses of Brandão et al. (2013) which applied the three-mature-stages (receptive, calving and resting) model of Cooke et al. (2003) to photo-identification data available from 1979 to 2012 for southern right whales in South African waters, by taking five further years of data into account. The lower counts of calving female...

South Africa has 2800 km of coast line which provides important ecological and economic services to the country. With increasingly innovative technologies being applied to resource identification and use within the regional oceans economy, ocean health is fast declining. This coupled with Operation Phakisa which is a recent South African Government...

South Africa has 2800 km of coast line which provides important ecological and economic services to the country. With increasingly innovative technologies being applied to resource identification and use within the regional oceans economy, ocean health is fast declining. This coupled with Operation Phakisa which is a recent South African Government...

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Sousa plumbea. 2017

A central paradigm of aquatic locomotion is that cetaceans use fluke strokes to power their swimming while relying on lift and torque generated by the flippers to perform maneuvers such as rolls, pitch changes and turns [1] . Compared to other cetaceans, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have disproportionately large flippers with added stru...

The description of genetic population structure over a species’ geographic range can provide insights into its evolutionary history and also support effective management efforts. Assessments for globally distributed species are rare, however, requiring significant international coordination and collaboration. The global distribution of demographica...

The 2016/17 Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE), conducted by the newly-created Swiss Polar Institute, took place from 20 December 2016 – 19 March 2017, aboard the Russian icebreaker RV Akademik Treshnikov. Scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division conducted acoustic monitoring for marine mammals during Legs 2 and 3 of the ACE voyag...

Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) generally undertake annual migrations from polar summer feeding grounds to winter calving and nursery grounds in subtropical and tropical coastal waters. Evidence for such migrations arises from seasonality of historic whaling catches by latitude, Discovery and natural mark returns, and r...

Dedicated and incidental sightings of “super-groups” of humpback whales reported in this study. (DOCX)

Harvested to perilously low numbers by commercial whaling during the past century, the large scale response of Antarctic blue whales Balaenoptera musculus intermedia to environmental variability is poorly understood. This study uses acoustic data collected from 586 sonobuoys deployed in the austral summers of 1997 through 2009, south of 38°S, coupl...

Elucidating patterns of population structure for species with complex life histories, and disentangling the processes driving such patterns, remains a significant analytical challenge. Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) populations display complex genetic structures that have not been fully resolved at all spatial scales. We generated a data s...

South Africa has 2800 km of coast line which provides important ecological and economic services. Increasingly innovative technologies are being applied to resource identification and use within the regional oceans economy resulting in decreasing ocean health. Operation Phakisa is a recent SA Government initiative to unlock the oceans economic pote...

Daily charts of the aerial search effort (432 206 nautical miles) of the Union Whaling Company and 1 099 sightings of 10 497 whales were available from 628 flights off Durban between 1972 and 1975. Densities of whales were analysed by month and water depth distribution over the four-year period. Low observed densities of blue Balaenoptera musculus,...

Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea) are obligate shallow-water dolphins that occur exclusively in the near-shore waters of the Indian Ocean, from South Africa to the Bay of Bengal. They have a narrow habitat preference, restricted distribution and do not appear very abundant across any part of their range. There is no estimate of total s...

A dedicated dual-vessel cetacean survey cruise targeted humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) off the west coast of South Africa between 28 October 2014 and 8 November 2014. The overarching objective of the cruise was the determination of the distribution of whales between Dassen Island (33° 25' 34.32" S, 18° 5' 20.04" E) and Groenriviermond (30...

A clear understanding of population structure is essential for assessing conservation status and implementing management strategies. A small, non-migratory population of humpback whales in the Arabian Sea is classified as “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an assessment constrained by a lack of data, including limited understa...

Marine mammals, and in particular Antarctic blue whales, represent an important predator component of marine ecosystems. These mammals are considered to be critically endangered due to unsustainable whaling practices in the previous century. Currently, it is also difficult to monitor the species’ population recovery through the use of sighting surv...

Antarctic krill is an essential component of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, forming an integral part of the prey assemblages of numerous marine mammals and seabirds. Hydro-acoustic technology is an effective method for assessing the diurnal and seasonal abundance, distribution and behaviour of planktonic organisms in hostile environments like the So...

Antarctic blue whales are one of the endangered large baleen whales recovering from the extensive whaling pressure experienced in the 20th century. Blue whales are very vocal marine mammals capable of producing powerful sounds that can travel from a hundred to thousand or so kilometers, and these sounds can be used to estimate the relative abundanc...

The South African Blue Whale Project is aimed at estimating the relative abundance, distribution and seasonal movements of Antarctic blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia) within the South Eastern Atlantic Ocean. As part of the project, we applied for, and received, the International Whaling Commission's International Decade of Cetacean Res...

The South African Antarctic Blue Whale Project proposed two major research objectives during the 2013/2014 South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) 53 cruise to Queen Maud Land coastal region on the SA Agulhas II. An Autonomous Acoustic Recorder (AAR) mooring deployment was carried out on the Maud Rise at 65°00S; 002°30’E in water depths...

Growing to 30 m long and weighing up to 163 tonnes, Antarctic blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus intermedia, are the largest animal that ever lived on the planet; yet despite their enormous size, they feed on small Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). Blue whales are not easily seen at sea as their numbers are severely reduced, however, they are gr...

Both historic whaling data and recent field research confirm the presence of a resident sub-population of humpback whales in the western Arabian Sea (Breeding Stock X). This endangered population is geographically, demographically and genetically isolated and is thought to have been greatly reduced in size by Soviet whaling in 1966; it likely remai...

South Africa has a long track record in Southern Ocean and Antarctic research and has recently invested considerable funds in acquiring new infrastructure for ongoing support of this research. This infrastructure includes a new base at Marion Island and a purpose-built ice capable research vessel, which greatly expand research opportunities. Despit...

The Southern Ocean Research Partnership (SORP) is an international research program initiated within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 2009 to promote collaborative cetacean research, develop nov el research techniques, and conduct non-lethal research on whales in the Southern Ocean (CHILDERHOUSE 2009). One of the original research proj...

Cetacean research, in terms of the number of papers, and areas for which data are available, has expanded considerably in the southern African subregion in the past decade, especially in the South-West Indian Ocean. We review cetacean research within this subregion from the 1800s to the present to provide an overview of findings, investigate trends...

Shore-based surveys of migrating humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae were undertaken from Cape Vidal, northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, each year between 1988 and 1991, and in 2002. Daily observations of migrating whale groups were carried out from an approx. 60 m-high platform during all surveys. Whale groups were tracked by position-fixing...

The presence and movement of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins Tursiops aduncus were investigated using shore-based observations made during a humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae migration survey at Cape Vidal, South Africa, undertaken between June and October 1988–1991. Occurrence was analysed as counts of dolphin sightings per hour within a gene...

Despite the distribution of dugongs Dugong dugon ranging across nearshore waters of the tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean, their distribution in the western Indian Ocean is highly fragmented and appears to be declining. The population of the Bazaruto Archipelago is believed to comprise the only viable po...

Habitat models are tools for understanding the relationship between cetaceans and their environment, from which patterns of the animals space use can be inferred and management strate- gies developed. Can working with space use alone be sufficient for management, when habitat can- not be modeled? Here, we analyzed cetacean sightings data collected...

Previously published data on the occurrence of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Arabian Sea suggests that the region hosts a non-migratory population that adheres to a Northern Hemisphere breeding cycle. In order to investigate the distribution and abundance of this population, twelve small boat surveys were conducted in three main l...

Often abundance of rare species cannot be estimated with conventional design-based methods, so we illustrate with a population of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) a spatial model-based method to estimate abundance. We analyzed data from line-transect surveys of blue whales off the coast of Chile, where the population was hunted to low levels. Fi...