Revised 01/15/2011 BLUE WHALE (Balaenoptera musculus musculus): Central North Pacific Stock
Commission (IWC) has formally considered only one management stock for blue whales in the North Pacific (Donovan 1991), but up to five populations have been proposed (Reeves et al. 1998). Rice (1974) hypothesized that blue whales from Baja California migrated far offshore to fed in the eastern Aleut...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.233.3386 http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/po2010whbl-cn.pdf |
| Summary: | Commission (IWC) has formally considered only one management stock for blue whales in the North Pacific (Donovan 1991), but up to five populations have been proposed (Reeves et al. 1998). Rice (1974) hypothesized that blue whales from Baja California migrated far offshore to fed in the eastern Aleutians or Gulf of Alaska and returned to feed in California waters; however, he has more recently concluded that the California population is separate from the Gulf of Alaska population (Rice 1992). Length frequency analyses (Gilpatrick et al. 1996) and photo-identification studies (Calambokidis et al. 1995) support separate population status for blue whales feeding off California and those feeding in Alaskan waters. Whaling catch data indicate that whales feeding along the Aleutian Islands are probably part of a central Pacific stock (Reeves et al. 1998), which may migrate to offshore waters north of Hawaii in winter (Berzin and Rovnin 1966). Blue whale feeding Figure 1. Locations of four blue whale sightings made by observers aggregations have not been found in aboard Hawaii-based longline fishing vessels between July 1994 Alaska despite several surveys and December 2009 (NMFS/PIR unpublished data). Solid lines |
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