Diet, feeding behaviour and habitat-use patterns of bowhead whales in the Eastern Canadian Arctic ...

• Main Author: Fortune, Sarah Marie Elizabeth
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2018
• Subjects: Arctic; Balaena mysticetus; Calanus glacialis; Cumberland Sound; Greenland; Nunavut; Copepods
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0375660; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0375660

Climate induced changes in prey quality and quantity may affect the foraging success of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in coming years. However, little is known about the diet and feeding behaviour of bowhead whales under present environmental conditions. I studied the eastern Canada-West Greenland population (ECWG) of bowhead whales to determine 1) where their important feeding areas occurred, 2) what their primary prey was, and 3) how they foraged. Through analysing long-term movement and dive data to assess behaviour (satellite-telemetry time-depth recorders), I concluded that ECWG bowhead whales feed year-round, with peak feeding occurring between July and September. Of all their feeding habitats, Cumberland Sound, Nunavut, appears to be the most important because of the dominance of large-bodied, energy rich Arctic copepods (e.g., Calanus glacialis). I found that the depth where the whales fed varied temporally over seasonal and diel time-scales, and matched the ontogenetic vertical movement of ...