Dear list members Apologies for cross-posting , the paper below has just become available online on Marine Biodiversity Records: Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in the Mediterranean Sea: anomalous event or early sign of climate-driven distribution change? Aviad P. Scheinin1, Dan Kerem1, Colin D. Macleod2, Manel Gazo3,4, Carla A. Chicote3 and Manuel Castellote5 1Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center (IMMRAC), The Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies and Department for Maritime Civilizations, The University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel, 2IBES, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK, 3SUBMON-Conservation, study and awareness of the marine environment, Rabassa, 49-51. 08024 Barcelona, Spain, 4Department of Animal Biology, University of Barcelona, Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain, 5National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA, Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115 USA Abstract: On 8 May 2010, a gray whale was sighted off the Israeli Mediterranean shore and twenty-two days later, the same individual was sighted in Spanish Mediterranean waters. Since gray whales were last recorded in the North Atlantic in the 1700s, these sightings prompted much speculation about this whale's population origin. Here, we consider three hypotheses for the origin of this individual: (1) it represents a vagrant individual from the larger extant population of gray whales found in the eastern North Pacific; (2) it represents a vagrant individual from the smaller extant population found in the western North Pacific; or (3) it represents an individual from the previously thought extinct North Atlantic population. We believe that the first is the most likely, based on current population sizes, on known summer distributions, on the extent of cetacean monitoring in the North Atlantic and on the results of a performed route analysis. While it is difficult to draw conclusions from such singular events, the occurrence of this individual in the Mediterranean coincides with a shrinking of Arctic Sea ice due to climate change and suggests that climate change may allow gray whales to re-colonize the North Atlantic as ice and temperature barriers to mixing between northern North Atlantic and North Pacific biomes are reduced. Such mixing, if it were to become widespread, would have implications for many aspects of the marine conservation and ecology of these two regions. Keywords: global warming, climate change, migration, vagrancy, sea ice, ecosystem sentinels The article can be downloaded from Marine Biodiversity Records (Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom): http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FMBD%2FMBD4%2FS17552672110 00042a.pdf <http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FMBD%2FMBD4%2FS1755267211 000042a.pdf&code=9671dc798e740d6ea239898b8d35813a> &code=9671dc798e740d6ea239898b8d35813a Otherwise please contact me for a copy: scheinin@013.net.il. For those of you missing the ECS video night in Cadiz here is the Gray whale short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9IY58s9uGg Happy Passover Aviad __________________________________________________________________ Aviad Scheinin, Ph.D <mailto:scheinin@research.haifa.ac.il> scheinin@013.net.il <http://immrac.org/> http://immrac.org/ Chairman, IMMRAC - Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance center ECS (European Cetacean Society) council member Home address: Tirat Shalom, P.B. 1356, Nes-Ziona 74052, Israel Tel 972-8-9406584 Mobile 052-3571193 __________________________________________________________________