In her new book, Humpback Highway, wildlife scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta, from the School of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, weaves personal encounters with humpback whales and their calves into an informative and fascinating account of the latest research into these beautiful animals.
Dr Pirotta draws on her many years of marine fieldwork, including extensive research into whale droppings – specifically, snot and poo from humpback whales.
Through her close encounters with humpback whales, Dr Pirotta has been covered in whale snot, eavesdropped on whale-talk using hydrophones, and built a close community of dedicated citizen scientists who have documented the species’ remarkable population recovery on Australia’s east coast for more than a decade.
Dr Pirotta also describes her experiences swimming with whales and calves, including a remarkable encounter where a calf interacted with her.
"I will never forget the moment I entered the water quietly and saw two humpback whales sleeping diagonally in the distance. It was like two school buses just hanging there in space," she writes.
Dr Pirotta’s research-based book gives a thorough overview of the whales' behaviours (such as breaching and bubble-net feeding), biology and life cycle, and human impacts, as well as the cutting-edge technologies unlocking their secrets.
She pioneered the use of drones to collect mucus expelled from whale blowholes, and her book describes various other technologies used in whale research, including electronic tagging to track whale migrations.
Dr Pirotta unpacks whale research for a lay audience, describing humpback whale migration patterns along Australia's east coast and how defining "marine roads" can be used to reduce ship strikes on whale highways.
She also describes some of the major threats whales face, including entanglement, vessel strikes and climate change.
Dr Pirotta was named a ‘Superstar of STEM’ by Science & Technology Australia in 2021-2022, was an international runner-up for Famelab in 2018, hosted the 2023 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science and was a guest on iconic ABC children’s program Playschool earlier this year. She nominates this experience as her career highlight.
Humpback Highway is Dr Pirotta’s second book. Her children’s book Voyage of Whale and Calf was published in 2022.
“Science communication is my passion, and it’s my hope this book will appeal to anyone who is curious about the underwater world,” says Dr Pirotta.
