HUMPBACK WHALE (Megaptera novaeangliae): Western North Atlantic Stock

• Main Authors: Stock Definition, Geographic Range
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Greenland; Navidad; Newfoundland; Norway; Denmark Strait; Humpback Whale; Iceland; Megaptera novaeangliae; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.294.9806; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao1995whhb-gme.pdf

During summer there are at least five geographically distinct humpback whale feeding aggregations occurring between latitudes 42°N to 78°N. These feeding areas are (with approximate number of humpback whales in parenthesis): Gulf of Maine (400); Gulf of St. Lawrence (200); Newfoundland and Labrador (2,500); western Greenland (350); and the Iceland-Denmark strait (up to 2,000) (Katona and Beard 1990). The western North Atlantic stock is considered to be include all humpback whales from these five feeding areas. Humpback whales from all of the western North Atlantic feeding areas migrate to the Caribbean in winter, where courtship, breeding, and calving occur. The majority (85%) are found on Silver and Navidad Banks off the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The remainder are scattered in Samana Bay (Dominican Republic), along the northwest coast of Puerto Rico, through the Virgin Islands, and along the eastern Antilles chain south to Venezuela (Katona and Beard 1990). Courtship groups on the wintering ground contain whales from different feeding aggregations, so that humpbacks from the western North Atlantic probably interbreed (Katona et al. 1994). Apparently, not all humpback whales from this stock winter in the West Indies, as there are winter reports from Bermuda, the Gulf of Maine, Newfoundland, Greenland, and Norway (Katona et al. 1994) Clapham et al. (1992) reported a high degree of individual site fidelity, both within and between years, from a long-term study of identified humpback whales in waters off Cape Cod. Some reproductive parameters which have