The award-winning scientist, author and presenter is a passionate proponent of science and the arts, indigenous knowledge and better communication to involve everyone in the future of our planet.
“There are probably around 10 whales out here behind us,” says renowned multi-award winning Australian whale scientist, Dr Vanessa Pirotta, referring to the ocean beyond Mollymook Beach where we are enjoying lunch at Bannisters on a sunny day in late August.
Vanessa is here to help promote whale tourism, a popular winter-spring pastime along the “humpback highway” as these enormous mammals travel to warmer waters where they give birth and frolic for a while before heading back to Antarctic oceans where most of their food source is located.
Coincidentally, Vanessa is the author of a new book called Humpback Highway, published earlier this year that is a delight for adults and ‘young adults’ to learn about the lives of whales and the scientists and citizen scientists to watch them, learn about them and advocate for them.
I found the book in a bookshop in regional Victoria earlier in the year and I was instantly drawn to it. Despite living in Jervis Bay for a dozen years, I was yet to go out on a whale-watching tour and I knew this book would be the convincing I needed.
At lunch, Vanessa tells us that she grew up on a farm outside Canberra, several hours drive from the ocean, but she was fascinated by whales from an early age. As a persistent uni student, she wrangled a job on a whale boat and has since worked on many research projects including conservation work, such as how to avoid “ship strike” of whales and how to minimise the effects of sound and light pollution on ocean habitats.
Debris from commercial fishing is another hazard for whales, and Vanessa mentions a successful mission to free a juvenile humpback in Sydney Harbour a few days ago to a round of applause.
One of her most exciting projects was harnessing drone technology to collect “whale snot” – the blow that whales emit while breathing and often the plume that we spot from the boats on a tour. She then examined this material to assess whale health according to their lung bacteria.
Vanessa is a huge proponent of STEAM – that’s science, technology, engineering, ARTS and maths – which she believes is one of the ways science can better communicate with the general public so we all learn together, about our world and the creatures within it.
She has also published a couple of beautiful picture books for little people, one that I am sure would have been dog-eared and much loved if it had been her own childhood book and one her own children inspired her to write.
“It starts with the younger generations, such as on Playschool telling kids about balloons in water, and our blue backyard,” she says. “The work I do is for the next generation, it’s reflective and thought-provoking for the future. And if you can get the word ‘frolick’ into a news article, you’ve done the job!”
Vanessa is passionate about changing the way we do science by forming genuine partnerships with First Nations knowledge holders, a big part of which is storytelling and science communication.
Her own research is steeped in a STEAM-ethos, and she values the contribution of graphic design, the adapted drone technology, cinematography and art that all combine to help build our knowledge of the earth’s “second lungs” (the ocean – the first lungs are the forest).
“The whales show us things about the earth because of where they go and their behaviour, such as melting polar ice or like a super feeding event in Australian waters with 20+ humpbacks that had never been observed before. It makes us ask, what is going on?”
Over the past few seasons, scientists and citizen scientists have observed megapod “bubble net” feeding events off the coast of Narooma, NSW, causing them to ask what may be changing in the whales’ migratory behaviour. Vanessa tells us that whales were thought to follow a “feast and famine” pattern on their migration, not eating on their migration journey and eating in the colder waters of Antarctica. But these feeding events may point to important environmental changes.
Vanessa mentions some local VIPs among us at lunch, including the tour operators from Woebegone Freedive and Matt Sims from Djiriba Waagura (meaning Two Crows) cultural custodians, both of whom offer a range of experiences in and around Jervis Bay. Vanessa reiterates how much we have to learn by merging science and indigenous knowledge, and encourages us to experience a walk on country with Matt and his team.
Online, Vanessa maintains a fantastic website that is a great resource for schools and families, and citizen scientists. You can buy her book there too, highly recommended.
