Abstract: Blue whales in eastern Canadian waters are regarded as endangered, mainly due to the lack of knowledge on their abundance and life parameters. Here, we analysed sighting histories of 362 photo-identified blue whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence over 24 yr to estimate, for the first time, the adult survival rate of this species. The results revealed that...
Abstract: From 1998 to 2001, 115 h of acoustic recordings were made in the presence of the well-studied St. Lawrence population of blue whales, using a calibrated omnidirectional hydrophone flat ±3 dB response from 5 to 800 Hz suspended at 50 m depth from a surface isolation buoy. The primary field site for this study was the estuary region of...
Abstract: Population spatial structuring among North Atlantic humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae on the summer feeding grounds was investigated using movement patterns of identified individuals. We analysed the results from an intensive 2-year ocean-basin-scale investigation resulting in 1658 individuals identified by natural markings and 751 individuals by genetic markers supplemented with data from a long-term collaborative study with 3063 individuals identified...
