North Atlantic right whale growth and energetics ...

• Main Author: Fortune, Sarah Marie Elizabeth
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2012
• Subjects: Eubalaena glacialis; North Atlantic; North Atlantic right whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0072686; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0072686

Management plans for North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) focus on preventing mortality from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement. However, population recovery may also be limited by nutritional stress. I derived growth curves and quantified the food requirements of North Atlantic right whales by age, sex and reproductive state. I also compared their predicted needs with field estimates of prey consumption to evaluate the model predictions and consider whether different demographic groups of right whales might be nutritionally stressed. Energy requirements were estimated using a bioenergetics model that incorporated uncertainty in energy inputs and outputs. Consumption was estimated with prey samples taken near feeding whales in two critical feeding habitats—Cape Cod Bay (n=28 net collections) and the Bay of Fundy (n=19 optical plankton counts). Model predictions indicate that mothers invest heavily in their calves, which effectively double in size and attain ~73% of their mother’s length ...