Whale Tales is one in a large number of organizations dedicated to better understanding the mysterious lives of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Sightings networks, often with the help of citizen scientists, collaborate from coast to coast to coast in an effort to track, match, and protect cetaceans in all of the world’s oceans. Since whales don’t need passports to travel it’s vital for organizations to work together to try and piece together the behaviours of individuals and large populations while inside their borders.
Thanks to reports from people like you who see a wild whale on the water, scientists all over the world have access to more information about their species of study which can ultimately help all of us better protect these animals and their critical habitat. Sightings networks exist all over the world, and not just for whales, so while we do have some listed on our website we’d also love to hear about the networks we don’t know about yet – and some may be in your backyard.
Do your part and check-out your local wildlife sighting networks and let us know if anyone’s tracking whale tales near you!
Australia
Southern Ocean: http://www.marinemammals.gov.au/sorp/sightingsTasmania: whaleTas or 0427WHALES
Victoria: http://www.dolphinresearch.org.au/research/report-sightings/
New South Whales: http://www.wildaboutwhales.com.au/whale-watching
Gold Coast: http://www.humpbacksandhighrises.org/get-involved/report-a-sighting/
New South Wales and Queensland (Dolphin Watch): www.dolphinresearchaustralia.
Migaloo only: http://migaloo.com.au/
Killer Whale Australia (Orcas only): 0401 011 022 or ddonnelly6@yahoo.com.au
Canada
British Columbia: www.wildwhales.orgEastern Canada: 1-844-800-8568 or email XMARWhaleSightings@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Europe
Hebrides, Scotland: https://whaletrack.hwdt.org/report-sighting/Madeira, Portugal: http://www.madeirabirds.com/cetaceans_in_madeira
Turkey: http://cetazoom.org/
Forth: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0b06dab9522e4efcb1ca5c8392c15626
New Zealand
http://www.doc.govt.nz/marinemammalsightings
South Africa
SouSA (Humpback Dolphins only): http://www.sousaproject.org/SEAFARI App: http://www.seafariapp.org/
United Arab Emirates
http://www.uaedolphinproject.org/report-a-sighting/
United States of America
Juneau, Alaska (Humpback flukes only): http://www.juneauflukes.org/submit-a-sighting.htmlWashington: http://www.orcanetwork.org/Main/index.php?categories_file=Sightings
Hawaii (Humpback and various dolphins only): http://www.pacificwhale.org/donatephotos
San Francisco and North Coast of California: http://www.ggcetacean.org/contact-us.html
San Francisco: https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/report-an-animal/whale-dolphin-sightings
East and West Coast (of North America): whalealert.org
New York: https://gothamwhale.org/wanted/
There are also a few world-wide sightings networks for certain species:
Whales (mainly flukes): http://www.happywhale.com
Porpoises: https://porpoise.org/get-involved/report/
Sperm Whales: http://flukebook.org/