Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management
Mortality and injuries caused by ship strikes in U.S. waters are a cause of concern for the endangered population of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) occupying the eastern North Pacific. We sought to determine which areas along the U.S. West Coast are most important to blue whales and whether tho...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4108441 2023-05-15T15:36:24+02:00 Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management Irvine, Ladd M. Mate, Bruce R. Winsor, Martha H. Palacios, Daniel M. Bograd, Steven J. Costa, Daniel P. Bailey, Helen 2014-07-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4108441 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25054829 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25054829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 2014-07-27T01:01:08Z Mortality and injuries caused by ship strikes in U.S. waters are a cause of concern for the endangered population of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) occupying the eastern North Pacific. We sought to determine which areas along the U.S. West Coast are most important to blue whales and whether those areas change inter-annually. Argos-monitored satellite tags were attached to 171 blue whales off California during summer/early fall from 1993 to 2008. We analyzed portions of the tracks that occurred within U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone waters and defined the ‘home range’ (HR) and ‘core areas’ (CAU) as the 90% and 50% fixed kernel density distributions, respectively, for each whale. We used the number of overlapping individual HRs and CAUs to identify areas of highest use. Individual HR and CAU sizes varied dramatically, but without significant inter-annual variation despite covering years with El Niño and La Niña conditions. Observed within-year differences in HR size may represent different foraging strategies for individuals. The main areas of HR and CAU overlap among whales were near highly productive, strong upwelling centers that were crossed by commercial shipping lanes. Tagged whales generally departed U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone waters from mid-October to mid-November, with high variability among individuals. One 504-d track allowed HR and CAU comparisons for the same individual across two years, showing similar seasonal timing, and strong site fidelity. Our analysis showed how satellite-tagged blue whales seasonally used waters off the U.S. West Coast, including high-risk areas. We suggest possible modifications to existing shipping lanes to reduce the likelihood of collisions with vessels. Text Balaenoptera musculus PubMed Central (PMC) Lanes ENVELOPE(18.933,18.933,69.617,69.617) Pacific PLoS ONE 9 7 e102959 |
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Research Article Irvine, Ladd M. Mate, Bruce R. Winsor, Martha H. Palacios, Daniel M. Bograd, Steven J. Costa, Daniel P. Bailey, Helen Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Mortality and injuries caused by ship strikes in U.S. waters are a cause of concern for the endangered population of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) occupying the eastern North Pacific. We sought to determine which areas along the U.S. West Coast are most important to blue whales and whether those areas change inter-annually. Argos-monitored satellite tags were attached to 171 blue whales off California during summer/early fall from 1993 to 2008. We analyzed portions of the tracks that occurred within U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone waters and defined the ‘home range’ (HR) and ‘core areas’ (CAU) as the 90% and 50% fixed kernel density distributions, respectively, for each whale. We used the number of overlapping individual HRs and CAUs to identify areas of highest use. Individual HR and CAU sizes varied dramatically, but without significant inter-annual variation despite covering years with El Niño and La Niña conditions. Observed within-year differences in HR size may represent different foraging strategies for individuals. The main areas of HR and CAU overlap among whales were near highly productive, strong upwelling centers that were crossed by commercial shipping lanes. Tagged whales generally departed U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone waters from mid-October to mid-November, with high variability among individuals. One 504-d track allowed HR and CAU comparisons for the same individual across two years, showing similar seasonal timing, and strong site fidelity. Our analysis showed how satellite-tagged blue whales seasonally used waters off the U.S. West Coast, including high-risk areas. We suggest possible modifications to existing shipping lanes to reduce the likelihood of collisions with vessels. |
format |
Text |
author |
Irvine, Ladd M. Mate, Bruce R. Winsor, Martha H. Palacios, Daniel M. Bograd, Steven J. Costa, Daniel P. Bailey, Helen |
author_facet |
Irvine, Ladd M. Mate, Bruce R. Winsor, Martha H. Palacios, Daniel M. Bograd, Steven J. Costa, Daniel P. Bailey, Helen |
author_sort |
Irvine, Ladd M. |
title |
Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
title_short |
Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
title_full |
Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
title_fullStr |
Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spatial and Temporal Occurrence of Blue Whales off the U.S. West Coast, with Implications for Management |
title_sort |
spatial and temporal occurrence of blue whales off the u.s. west coast, with implications for management |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4108441 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25054829 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(18.933,18.933,69.617,69.617) |
geographic |
Lanes Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Lanes Pacific |
genre |
Balaenoptera musculus |
genre_facet |
Balaenoptera musculus |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25054829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102959 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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