Data from: Scales of blue and fin whale feeding behavior off California, USA, with implications for prey patchiness ...

• Main Authors: Irvine, Ladd M., Palacios, Daniel M., Lagerquist, Barbara A., Mate, Bruce R., Follett, Tomas M.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Movebank Data Repository 2019
• Subjects: Balaenoptera musculus; animal movement; Balaenoptera physalus; animal tracking; Argos; blue whales; cetaceans; diving behavior; fin whales; Fin whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.47h576f2; https://www.datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.959

Intermediate-duration archival tags were attached to eight blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus; four females, three males, one of unknown sex) and five fin whales (B. physalus; two females, one male, two of unknown sex) off southern California, USA, in summer 2014 and 2015. Tags logged 1-Hz data from tri-axial accelerometers, magnetometers, and a depth sensor, while acquiring Fastloc GPS locations. Tag attachment duration ranged from 18.3-28.9 d for blue whales and 4.9-16.0 d for fin whales, recording 1,030-4,603 dives and 95-3,338 GPS locations per whale across both species. Feeding lunges (identified from accelerometer data) were used to characterize “feeding bouts” (i.e., sequences of feeding dives with < 60 min of consecutive non-feeding dives), within-bout behavior, and to examine the spatial distribution of feeding effort. Whales fed near the tagging locations (Point Mugu and San Miguel Island) for up to 7 d before dispersing as far south as Ensenada, Mexico, and north to Cape Mendocino, California. ...