Right Whale Diving and Foraging Behavior in the Southwestern Gulf of Maine

• Main Author: Baumgartner, Mark
• Other Authors: WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION MA DEPT OF BIOLOGY
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Biology; *WHALES; BEHAVIOR; DIVING; FOOD CHAINS; SHIPS; STRATEGY; baleen whale; baleen whales
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA598726; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA598726

Mitigation of a variety of anthropogenic threats to endangered baleen whales depends on information about how the whales use the water column. For example, reducing ship strike risk requires an understanding of how much time whales spend at the surface, and mitigating fishing gear entanglements by ground lines requires an understanding of how often and why whales might dive near the bottom. My long-term goal is to characterize baleen whale foraging behavior by studying diving behavior with respect to both the vertical/horizontal distribution of their prey and oceanographic features and conditions (e.g., mixed layer, stratification, turbulence). This approach will allow me to characterize not only where in the water column the whales feed, but also where the prey are located, why the prey are organized as they are, and how the whales respond to variability in prey distribution and oceanographic conditions. By using this same approach to study several baleen whale species, comparisons between species will ultimately be possible to address fundamental questions about foraging ecology (e.g., variability in foraging strategy induced by morphological constraints and/or prey species/behavior) as well as about differential rates of interaction with human activities.