Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the following paper recently published in Aquatic Mammals
De Boer, MN, Jones, D., Jones, H.
(2017). Ocean Wanderers
- Extralimital Encounters with Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus) in Temperate European Shallow Waters. Aquatic Mammals 43(3), 279-288,
DOI 10.1578/AM.43.3.2017.279
Reports of bowhead whales (Balaena
mysticetus) outside the Arctic Circle
are scarce. On 15 May 2016, a juvenile bowhead whale was recorded in shallow
water in Mount’s Bay (Cornwall, UK) much further south than the species’normal
distribution. Fifteen months earlier, another such sighting was made involving
a juvenile bowhead whale in the shallow water of an offshore island, St
Martin’s (Isles of Scilly, Cornwall), only 60km from Mount’s Bay. Other
observations of suspected/confirmed immature bowhead whales include (1)an
unconfirmed sighting involving a whale without a dorsal fin off Cornwall (13May
2016), (2) a confirmed sighting off France (10May 2016), and (3) a confirmed
sighting in Carlingford Lough (border of Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland;
29 May 2016). These extralimital encounters present the first confirmed
sightings of bowhead whales within temperate European waters. Apart from the
whale sighted in 2015, the sightings in 2016 probably all involve the same
juvenile whale. Indeed, photographs depicting natural scars/marks suggest that the
Carlingford Lough bowhead whale is the same individual as the Mount’s Bay. The
whale was displaying behaviour indicative of ram feeding in a sheltered,
shallow bay (< 10 m water depth). Do these records present vagrant animals
from nearby endangered Arctic stocks? Whatever triggered these immature bowhead
whales to venture well outside the Arctic Circle remains unknown, yet these
observations suggest an unexpected adaptability to foraging in temperate
shallow waters.
The paper can be downloaded from Aquatic
Mammals:
http://www.aquaticmammalsjournal.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=160&Itemid=326
Kind Regards,
Marijke de Boer, Ph.D
Marijke.deboer@wur.nl
Wageningen Marine Research, Den Helder, Netherlands
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marijke_De_Boer/publications