The region around the Balleny Islands is a known foraging area for humpback whales. Objective one of the Antarctica voyage aimed to determine why the Islands are such a popular spot for humpback whales. Food must be abundant, as they migrate thousands of kilometres from their winter breeding grounds in the tropical Pacific to these icy southern waters (and back again) every summer. In this case, ‘food’ turned out to be krill – a small (5 cm long) crustacean that is incredibly abundant in Antarctic waters.
