December 2003 NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE (Eubalaena glacialis): Western Stock

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Newfoundland; Norway; Eubalaena glacialis; Iceland; North Atlantic; North Atlantic right whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.227.8579; http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/tm/tm182/pdfs/06.pdf

Individuals of the western North Atlantic right whale population range from wintering and calving grounds in coastal waters of the southeastern United States to summer feeding and nursery grounds in New England waters and northward to the Bay of Fundy and the Scotian Shelf. Knowlton et al. (1992) reported several long-distance movements as far north as Newfoundland, the Labrador Basin, and southeast of Greenland; in addition, recent resightings of photographically identified individuals have been made off Iceland and arctic Norway. The latter (in September 1999) represents one of only two sightings this century of a right whale in Norwegian waters, and the first since 1926. Together, these long-range matches indicate an extended range for at least some individuals and perhaps the existence of important habitat areas not presently well described. Similarly, records from the Gulf of Mexico (Moore and Clark 1963; Schmidly et al. 1972) represent either geographic anomalies or a more extensive historic range beyond the sole known calving and wintering ground in the waters of the southeastern United States. Whatever the case, the location of a large segment of the population is unknown during the winter. Offshore surveys