Revised 12/15/2006 FALSE KILLER WHALE (Pseudorca crassidens): Hawaiian

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific; Killer Whale
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.8312; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/po2006whfk-hi.pdf

False killer whales are found worldwide mainly in tropical and warm-temperate waters (Stacey et al. 1994). In the North Pacific, this species is well known from southern Japan, Hawaii, and the eastern tropical Pacific. There are six stranding records from Hawaiian waters (Nitta 1991; Maldini 2005). Two sightings of false killer whales were made during a 2002 shipboard survey of waters within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Hawaiian Islands (Figure 1; Barlow 2006). Smaller-scale surveys conducted around the Main Hawaiian Islands (Figure 1, inset) show that false killer whales are also commonly encountered in nearshore waters