Whale!

2012

The Behavioral Response Studies are intended to collect information which will enable the Navy to minimize negative impact on marine mammals related to sonar and other sources of anthropogenic sound in the marine environment from Navy training operations.

2006

sponsored the workshop. The sponsor approved the contracted organization, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to facilitate the workshop and to provide reimbursement, through the contract, of invited participants travel expenses. Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Compliance As provided by the NOAA Office of General Counsel, the following FACA guidance was followed for the gear workshop. Ground Rules for Workshop: This workshop is a closed meeting with whale biologists, whale disentanglers, veterinarians, National Marine Fisheries Service personnel, and other invited guests, which was not chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act or noticed in the Federal Register. Under these circumstances, facilitators should: • Keep discussions to exchanges of facts and information. • Not seek consensus advice on future Federal Government policies or actions (i.e., not seek consensus advice or recommendations from workshop participants as a group). Any advice provided to NOAA Fisheries must reflect the views of individual workshop participants. Regardless of what industry, agency, facilitator or attendees may have experienced at previous workshops or conferences, National Marine Fisheries Service expects this workshop to abide by the law and to err on the side of caution. Participants A range of participants with particular expertise was required. The participants had expertise in the following areas: ♦ Disentanglement and capture ♦ Biology of right whales and other large whales ♦ Veterinary medicine ♦ Anesthesiology ♦ Ballistics ♦ Large whale tagging and telemetry ♦ Mechanical engineering ♦ Professional mariner ♦ NMFS participants Large Whale Restraint-Page 6 of 108 ♦ Chair ♦ Rapporteurs The Large Whale Restraint Workshop Working Group seleted the actual participants. The Large Whale Restraint Workshop Working Group has selected Michael Moore to serve as the chair of the workshop and three WHOI staff members will serve as the workshop rapporteurs. Timeline The first workshop was scheduled for February 7 and 8, 2006, with a report from that workshop expected in September 2006. Follow-up will depend on the direction and progress made at the first workshop. Products At a minimum, the proceedings and results of each workshop will be summarized in a workshop report.

Since 28 th May 2001, Whale shark Rhincodon typus Smith, 1828 have received the highest protected status for an animal in India through the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 Schedule-1. However, landings have still been recorded off the Indian coast since 2001, mostly as incidental bycatch in commercial fishing operations, and other sightings have also been reported. In the 1990's, a targeted whale shark fishery existed off the Gujarat coast following increased demand for the flesh in some other Asian countries. Since the ban, landings of whale sharks have decreased substantially with only 79 recorded between 2001 and 2011. Landings were recorded in each year and in each month of the year with the highest landings in January and February. Between 2001 and 2011, the smallest specimen reported from Indian waters was a 94 cm TL individual and the largest was a 13.7 m TL individual, with most individuals recorded in the 4-6 m TL size class. Small juveniles of less than 3 m TL are rarely recorded in the literature and appear to be rarely observed globally. Between 2006 and 2011, seven juveniles of less than 3 m TL were recorded from two landing sites. Despite the continued landing of whale sharks along the Indian coasts since 2001, the protection of this species appears to have substantially reduced the catches with only incidental landings and strandings now evident.

During its 2002 and 2003 meeting, the Whale Watching Sub-Committee of the Scientific Committee requested the authors to prepare a listing of scientific research activities which involve whale watching, both as its main subject and/or research that utilizes whale watching boats as platforms of opportunity. This paper summarizes information obtained to date on 80 projects, and though it is certainly incomplete and preliminary, it shows clearly that the extent of scientific activity related to whale watching is considerable and widespread.

The largest southern hemisphere humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae stock (E1) uses the east coast of Australia as a migratory corridor to travel between their high-latitude feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean and low-latitude breeding grounds in northeast Queensland and the south-west Pacific Ocean. The population is recovering at close to the maximum rate of growth (r m ), and the increasing abundance of whales passing within sight of land has facilitated the development of a growing land-and vessel-based whale watching industry. We observed the behaviour of 156 individual pods of humpback whales passing Sydney, New South Wales, during their 2006 and 2007 northern migration and monitored vessel−whale interactions with respect to the Australian National Guidelines for Whale and Dolphin Watching 2005. We applied generalised linear mixed models with random effects to compute the odds of changing to the current behaviour state. We found that in the presence of vessels, whales were more likely to remain on the surface breathing or to cease surface breathing and switch to generally short, shallow diving than was the case when no vessels were present. Northerly migrating whales off Sydney were more likely to remain on the surface breathing in the presence of vessels, rather than taking some form of vertical avoidance (deep, long dives) as reported elsewhere. Given the high rate of population increase of stock E1 and the low level of behavioural changes seen, it appears that for this population at least, adult humpback whales migrating to their breeding grounds are relatively robust to disturbance by whale watching.

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Marine Mammal Science, 2007

Humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) whale watching off Sydney, Australia, has recently seen significant growth in both the commercial and recreational sectors. Concurrently, more commercial operators have extended the period during which they conduct commercial whale watching to include the migrations both to and from the breeding grounds. This means that more frequent whale watching now occurs from May to November each year and focusses on all age classes, including calves. In Australia whale watching is managed through regulations designed to control the behaviour of vessels around whales. This study compared commercial and recreational vessel compliance with key features of the whale watching regulations between two years, 2007 and 2010, and found varying but regular breaches. Low compliance, with its concomitant increase in risk of harm to whales, risks undermining the ability of the regulatory framework to minimise impacts on whales. Whale watching regulations need to go beyond developing rules for boat behaviour around animals and consideration should be given to how those rules are enforced and whether additional management measures, such as operator permits, should be required across the industry.