Social behaviour of feeding finback whales off Newfoundland: comparisons with the sympatric humpback whale

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Zoology
• Main Authors: Whitehead, Hal, Carlson, Carole
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1988
• Subjects: Animal Science and Zoology; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Newfoundland; Humpback Whale
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z88-031; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/z88-031

Finback whales off Newfoundland and Labrador formed groups of between 1 and 10 animals, with smaller groups being found more frequently. The number of whales in a group was closely related to the horizontal size of the prey schools on which the whales were feeding. Associations between individual finbacks were generally of short duration. In these respects finback social behaviour was similar to that of the humpback whales that frequently fed on the same prey schools as the finbacks. However, finbacks moved faster than the humpbacks, stayed further apart from conspecifics, and, unlike the humpbacks, were never observed to perform energetic above-water displays. Differences in speed and manoeuvrability between the two species may explain why they rarely formed interspecific groupings.