DOI 10.1007/s00300-005-0001-9 ORIGINAL PAPER

whalers had brought the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) in the ‘‘Spitsbergen stock’ ’ ranging the waters between eastern Greenland and the western Russian Arctic to the verge of extinction. This paper presents observations of this species in Northeast Greenland and in the Greenland Sea between 19...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Olivier Gilg, Æ Erik, W. Born, O. Gilg
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.406.9878
http://grearctique.free.fr/publications/PolarBiol_Gilg-Born2005.pdf
Description
Summary:whalers had brought the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) in the ‘‘Spitsbergen stock’ ’ ranging the waters between eastern Greenland and the western Russian Arctic to the verge of extinction. This paper presents observations of this species in Northeast Greenland and in the Greenland Sea between 1940 and 2004. The number of observations has increased in Northeast Greenland since the mid-1980s. Only three observations are known for the period 1940–1979 but during the 1980s, the 1990s and between 2000 and 2004, six, six and eight observations of bowhead whales were made, involving an absolute minimum of three, five and eight to ten different individuals, respectively. It remains uncertain whether this represents an increase in survey effort, an immigration from other areas, a recent recovery of an eastern Greenland relict ‘‘tribe’ ’ belonging to the Spitsbergen stock, or a combination of these factors.