| Summary: | New records indicate that some Area I humpback whales are present in coastal upwelling waters off Peru and Chile during the austral summer, and thus apparently fail to migrate to the Antarctic. Also, south of tropical breeding grounds of Area I (Gorgona Island, SW Ecuador, northern Peru) humpbacks may enter inshore waters more frequently than hitherto believed, possibly to feed. Such valuable incidental observations stress the need to resume systematic research on humpbacks and other large whales in Peru which ceased with the end of whaling in 1985. It is recommended that the recent access to a Peruvian oceanographic vessel, as platform of opportunity for cetacean sightings, be programmed for the long-term and cover all months and both neritic and pelagic habitats. Dedicated surveys with smaller vessels should be planned as investigations progress. Besides collecting distributional data, abundance estimation, monitoring of strandings and net entanglements, inventory of historical data and samples, biopsy tissue sampling for genetic analysis and photo-ID studies should be initiated.
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