Researchers have recorded rare video footage of a white southern right whale calf off the coast of Western Australia.

Murdoch University researchers used a drone off Augusta, in south west Australia, to capture the footage.

Professor Lars Bejder of the Cetacean Research Unit said the team was using innovative technologies, including drones and tags, to better understand whale behaviours in breeding and calving grounds.

"The precision of these drones to estimate size and growth is incredible, up to centimetres' precision," he said.

"The tags are looking at a different aspect, the tags provide information on three-dimensional usage of the water column.

"The engineering behind these tags is quite extraordinary, it gives us the depth of the animals, the pitch and the roll, basically, the three-dimensional use of the habitat."

The tags also record sounds the whales produce and hear.

Professor Bejder said this meant they could see how the whales communicated, as well as how they responded to sounds in the environment.

"For example, if a shark's around, or we put sound into the ocean, boats and so on, that will really help us to inform industry and management and all kinds of activities," he said.

The digital acoustic recording tags, with suction cups, were attached to seven whales by approaching them slowly in a small boat, and using nine-metre carbon fibre poles.

They stayed on the whale for about 24 hours, after which they would detach and float to the surface for retrieval, and the information was downloaded.

The footage, captured last month, does not depict an albino whale, rather, a white calf.

About 5 per cent of southern right whales are born white and eventually turn grey.

The project, in collaboration with Aarhus University in Denmark, aims to gain knowledge which can be used to help conserve the whales.

Since hunting ended off the Australian coast, the population of right whales has not recovered as strongly as humpback whales, which are increasing at a rate of about 10 per cent a year.

Professor Bejder said it was important to know why this was the case.

"The southern right whales were also hunted, but they're not recovering nearly as fast as humpback whales, and we don't really understand why these guys aren't recovering at the same rate," he said.

"The breeding grounds are a critical area for these animals for various reasons, when they give birth to the calves they need time for the calves to grow, to beef up, to get more energy to migrate down to their foraging habitats."