Whale watchers around the world can help scientists track the journey of individual whales by taking photos of the underside of their tails, said Ted Cheeseman, co-founder and CEO of Happywhale, a website platform used to help track whales using pictures.

“The underside of a whale’s tail has markings unique to each whale, just like finger prints are to humans.

“Tracking whales is vital to our understanding of whales and their population and movements,” he said.

Whales are also an indicator of the health of the ocean and marine ecosystems and by studying them scientists are able to identify the challenges faced globally, helping us to become better stewards of the marine environment.

As scientists can only be in one place at one time, Happywhale embraces contributions from whale watching enthusiasts that are critical to expand scientific knowledge more rapidly. Taking photos is a non-invasive way to track these magnificent creatures.

“The best pictures to take are the vertical photos of the underside of a whale’s fluke or tail,” said Ted.

Once a photo is taken and uploaded to the Happywhale website, the images are run through an ID system.

People who upload the photos are then advised if their whale has been spotted before and the location or if it is a new whale added to the system. They can also learn whether their whale has been attacked by a killer whale and survived or where it will migrate to give birth in winter.

Whale watching season in Tonga runs from June/July to October and Happywhale and scientists are hoping to see more photos of whale's tails in the Pacific region. Each photo contribution counts.

In a presentation to the Whales Conference in Tonga this week, he explained that the migration of northern hemisphere whales had been extensively tracked, particularly around the American coastlines, by well funded scientific research. However, the southern hemisphere tracking had not been done to the same extent. Because whale watching is so prevalent now, photographs of whale watchers can contribute enormously to the knowledge of migration routes.

Time stamping and geographic stamping of whale photos contributed by whale watchers is helpful.

When in the Antartic, whales tails are covered in algae - giving it a golden colour. When they are in warmer waters like Tonga, they are black and white.