| Taxon ID: 6,500 Total records: 39,143 | ||||||||||||||
Balaenoptera physalus
Country
| Country | Viet Nam |
|---|---|
| Continent Ocean | Asia |
Classification
| Kingdom | Animalia (COL) |
|---|---|
| Phylum | Chordata (COL) |
| Class | Mammalia (COL) |
| Order | Cetacea (COL) |
| Family | Balaenopteridae (COL) |
Taxonomy
| Genus | Balaenoptera | Reference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SubGenus | Vernacular Name | ||
| Species | physalus | IUCN Threat Status-Year | Vulnerable, 2018 |
| SubSpecies | Nat'l Threat Status-Year | Not Evaluated, 2000 | |
| Infraspecies | Reason for Change | ||
| Infraspecies Rank | subspecies | CITES | |
| Taxonomic Group | Mammals | Native Status | Native |
| Scientific Name Author | Linnaeus, 1758 | Country Distribution | Viet Nam |
| Citation | Description | Geographic Range [top]
Range Description:
Fin Whales occur worldwide, mainly, but not exclusively, in offshore waters of the temperate and subpolar zones (Edwards et al. 2015). They show some poleward migration in summer but appear to be present at some level throughout their range throughout the year. Fin Whales are considered rare or absent in most of the tropics but were hunted off Peru and Ecuador and in the Gulf of Guinea in the 20th century (Allison 2017), and are still occasionally observed in the tropics, for example off Peru (Hamilton et al. 2009) and the Seychelles (Keller et al. 1982). There do not seem to remain any confirmed records from the northern Indian Ocean, after correcting misidentifications (Brownell et al. 2017).
North Atlantic and Mediterranean
In the North Atlantic, the Fin Whale’s range extends as far as Svalbard (Norway) in the northeast (but rarely far into the Barents Sea), to the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay (Canada and Greenland) in the northwest (but rarely into the inner Canadian Arctic), to the Canary Islands (Spain) in the southeast, and to the Antilles in the southwest (Rice 1998, Perry et al. 1999), but it is rare in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico (Ward et al. 2001), where the few recorded strandings may be extralimital vagrants (Whitt et al. 2011).
Their main summer range in the northwestern Atlantic extends from Cape Hatteras (U.S.A.) (39°N) northward (Hayes et al. 2017). They occur in summer (and possibly year-round) west and east of Greenland, around Iceland and the Faroe Islands and along the Iceland-Faroes ridge, and to a lesser extent in the Norwegian Sea and around Jan Mayen (Øien 2009). They occur off the northern and western British Isles and in the Bay of Biscay off northwestern Spain but are rare in the North Sea (Hammond et al. 2017). They regularly occur off the Azores in spring (Visser et al. 2011) and have been detected acoustically west of Madeira (32°N) in winter (Castellotti et al. 2011).
While there may be some north-south migration between summer and winter, it appears from acoustic data that at least male North Atlantic Fin Whales are present throughout most of the range throughout the year (Morano et al. 2012).
Fin Whales are present in the central and western Mediterranean, mainly north and east of the Balearic Islands, and appear to be a mixture of a resident population and one migrating between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic (Notabartolo di Sciara et al. 2016). The area of abundance seems to be concentrated in the Ligurian Sea and the Gulf of Lyon in summer, but expands to cover much of the western and central Mediterranean in winter. Fin Whales are rare in the southern and eastern Mediterranean, do not penetrate far into the Adriatic or Aegean Seas, and are not present in the Black Sea. In the 20th century, Fin Whales were caught year-round near the Straits of Gibraltar (Allison 2017) and observations in this century show Fin Whales leaving her Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar during May-October and (mostly) entering the Mediterranean during November-April (Gauffier et al. 2018); the observations of calves leaving the Mediterranean during May-July suggests they were born there.
North Pacific
In the eastern North Pacific, Fin Whales occur year-round off the central and southern California coast. They occur in summer off the entire coast of western North America from California into the Gulf of Alaska and along the Aleutian Islands. Fin Whales marked off California in winter were recaptured in summer by whaling operations along the entire coast, suggesting migration (Mizroch et al. 2009). Offshore, Fin Whales occur across the North Pacific north of 40°N, at least from May to September in summer, with some tendency for a northward shift in distribution in high summer, when they enter the Okhotsk Sea (Miyashita et al. 1996, Melnikov et al. 2017) and are also found along the east coast of Kamchatka (Filatova et al. 2017) and between Kamchatka and the Commander Islands (Miyashita 2006). They also occur in the Sea of Japan (Miyashita 2006). Fin Whales occur in the Bering and Chukchi Seas, and have recently been detected as far as Point Barrow in the northeastern Chukchi, which may be an indication of a northward expansion as the Arctic warms (Crance et al. 2015).
Fin Whales are abundant in the offshore western North Pacific north of about 35°N in summer, and in the coastal waters of Hokkaido and northeastern Honshu (Japan) (Matsuoka et al. 2016), but in recent years have only rarely been seen off central and southern Japan or around the Korean peninsula at any time of year (Miyashita et al. 1996, Matsuoka et al. 2017, Sohn et al. 2012). Both are areas where large catches were taken in the 20th century.
Fin Whales in the East China Sea are thought to belong to a distinct subpopulation from those of the North Pacific (Fujino 1960), and it is possible that the Korean and southern Japanese catches came from this stock. There were a few net catches in the Yellow Sea and Korea Strait in the early 2000s (CRI 2005-07).
Fin Whales occur, albeit in small numbers, in Hawaiian waters in both summer and winter (Carretta et al. 2017). The winter distribution in the North Pacific poorly known. While there appears to be some migration, acoustic data suggest that overall there is little seasonality in distribution, but that there is seasonality in the amount of vocalization (Watkins et al. 2000, Stafford et al. 2007).
The Fin Whales inhabiting the Gulf of California appear to be a resident, genetically isolated subpopulation (Bérubé et al. 2002). Telemetry information has shown year-round residency in this area, with seasonal latitudinal movements (Urbán et al. 2005).
Southern Hemisphere
Some Fin Whales penetrate into the high Antarctic, along with Blue (Balaenoptera musculus), Minke (B. bonaerensis) and Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), but are rarely seen in the pack ice. The Fin Whale summer distribution also extends into middle latitudes, as evidenced by both sightings and past catches (Miyashita et al. 1996, Allison 2017). Fin Whales were abundant in summer in the Southern Ocean from 40°S to Antarctica in the southeastern Atlantic and southwestern Indian Ocean sectors, and south of 50°-55°S in other sectors. Recent (post-whaling) data on Fin Whales in the Southern Ocean are available mainly for the area south of 60°S: for example, the international circumpolar IDCR/SOWER surveys under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) from 1978-2009 (IWC 2019) which showed that Fin Whales were still distributed in all sectors of the Antarctic, but with a much reduced abundance (Branch and Butterworth 2001); more recently, surveys around the South Orkneys and the South Shetlands (Viquerat and Herr 2017, Joiris and Dochy 2013) found substantial local densities of Fin Whales. An area of suspected high Fin Whale density to the south of Bouvet Island (55°-57°S 0-5°E) was confirmed by a sighting survey conducted there in December 2006 (Ensor et al. 2007).
Large numbers of Fin Whales were caught by whalers operating out of whaling stations on South Georgia (55°S) during 1904-65, but the species was rarely seen there in the ensuing three decades (Moore et al. 1999). Sightings have become more frequent lately but have not yet been quantitatively evaluated (Richardson 2012).
Outside the Antarctic, Fin Whales were caught in substantial numbers off the southwestern and southeastern coasts of southern Africa in winter, and in the early 20th century were also taken in the coastal waters of Mozambique, Angola, Congo, and Gabon (Best 1994), but they are very rare on the western coasts of southern and equatorial Africa today (Weir 2010, 2011). Catch rates of Fin Whales off South Africa declined to near zero by the early 1970s coincident with the severe depletion by whaling in the Southern Ocean, which suggests that this was a wintering ground for a population that migrated to the south in summer (Best 2003).
Fin Whales were caught off the coast of Peru, mainly in the austral winter, until catches petered out in the early 1970s. Sightings of Fin Whales in the eastern equatorial Pacific since whaling ended in 1976 have been relatively few, in contrast to Blue Whales which continued to be sighted frequently (Valdivia et al. 1984, Landa et al. 1983, Hamilton et al. 2009).
Fin Whales were caught from several stations along the coast of Chile from 20° to 44°S from the early 20th century until 1983, but very few were caught after 1970. Catches were taken in all seasons but few in winter; the whales were typically small, with a modal length of 16-17m for each sex, compared with 20-21m (males) and 21-22m (females) for Fin Whales caught by Antarctic fleets. Given the lack of genetic distinction between fin whales in Chile and elsewhere in the southern hemisphere (Pérez-Álvarez et al. 2018) and the recovery in the Antarctic of marks placed in Fin Whales off Chile (Clarke 1978), it is likely that the Chilean Fin Whales were juvenile Southern Fin Whales rather than a race of small Fin Whales (Cooke 2019). In recent years, Fin Whales have been observed in nearshore Chilean waters from 23° to 29ºS during spring and summer and seen to be feeding there (Pérez et al. 2006, Pacheco et al. 2015, Toro et al. 2016). Toro et al. classed 502 out of 519 Fin Whale sightings around the Chanaral and Choros Islands (29°S) in summer and fall as "adults" but used a size criterion of 17m developed for the smaller North Atlantic Fin Whale; hence the "adults" could have included whales of any age class except calves of the year. Pacheco et al. reported two mother-calf pairs off northern Chile (Mejillones Bay, 23°S) in spring 2006.
Fin Whales are now rare in Brazilian waters, but there is virtually no information from the period before the depletion of the whales around South Georgia (Zerbini et al. 1997). A few were taken in a brief period of whaling in southern Brazil in the early 1960s.
Apart from the above-mentioned wintering grounds, the winter distribution of Fin Whales in the Southern Hemisphere is poorly known. Some may remain in the far south while some may disperse into oceanic areas in temperate latitudes. Acoustic detections of Fin Whales in the Antarctic peak in the autumn (May) and are absent in winter and spring, but this may reflect seasonality of vocalization as much as presence/absence (Širovi? et al. 2004).
Other areas
The only confirmed records from Indonesia are two strandings in 1937 and 1975 (Rudolph et al. 1997), which may have been vagrants. A reported sighting off Sarawak (Malaysia) in 1999 (de Boer 2000) is unconfirmed.
The map shows where the species may occur based on a synthesis of occurrence records and oceanography. States for which confirmed records of the species exist are included in the list of native range states.
Countries occurrence:
Native:
Algeria; Angola; Antarctica; Argentina; Australia; Belgium; Bermuda; Bouvet Island; Brazil; Cabo Verde; Canada; Chile; China; Croatia; Cyprus; Denmark; Ecuador; Egypt; Falkland Islands (Malvinas); Faroe Islands; Fiji; France; French Southern Territories (Kerguelen); Germany; Gibraltar; Greece; Greenland; Heard Island and McDonald Islands; Iceland; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Korea, Democratic Peoples Republic of; Korea, Republic of; Lebanon; Libya; Madagascar; Malta; Mauritius (Rodrigues); Mexico; Monaco; Morocco; Mozambique; Namibia; Netherlands; New Caledonia; New Zealand; Norway; Peru; Portugal; Réunion; Russian Federation; Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (Tristan da Cunha); Saint Pierre and Miquelon; Saudi Arabia; Seychelles (Aldabra); Slovenia; South Africa; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Spain; Svalbard and Jan Mayen; Sweden; Syrian Arab Republic; Tunisia; Turkey; United Kingdom; United States
FAO Marine Fishing Areas:
Native:
Arctic Sea; Atlantic – eastern central; Atlantic – western central; Atlantic – southwest; Atlantic – Antarctic; Atlantic – northwest; Atlantic – southeast; Atlantic – northeast; Indian Ocean – eastern; Indian Ocean – Antarctic; Indian Ocean – western; Mediterranean and Black Sea; Pacific – Antarctic; Pacific – eastern central; Pacific – northwest; Pacific – southwest; Pacific – western central; Pacific – southeast; Pacific – northeast
Additional data:
? Continuing decline in area of occupancy (AOO): No
? Extreme fluctuations in area of occupancy (AOO): No ? Estimated extent of occurrence (EOO) - km2:
? Continuing decline in extent of occurrence (EOO): No ? Extreme fluctuations in extent of occurrence (EOO): No
Range Map: Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.
Population [top]
Population:
North Atlantic
The Fin Whale was not easily catchable by early whalers due to its size and speed, but was heavily exploited from the start of mechanized whaling in 1864, particularly off Norway, Iceland, the Faeroes, and the British Isles. Whaling then spread to Spain, Greenland, and eastern Canada, and exploitation continued at a lower level until the 1980s. Fin whaling was phased out in the 1980s except for small catches off West Greenland. Catches resumed off western Iceland in 2007, but no catches have been taken there since 2015 (IWC 2018a).
Catch statistics for the early years are incomplete: some are not divided into species, and a significant number of whales, perhaps 30-50%, were killed but lost due to lines breaking, etc. (Johnsen 1959, IWC 2017). The International Whaling Commission (IWC) Scientific Committee has produced “best” and “high” estimates of Fin Whale kills in the North Atlantic totalling 98,000 and 115,000 respectively (IWC 2017).
Over the last three decades several sets of surveys have been conducted in the North Atlantic in summer to estimates the abundance of Fin Whales and other cetacean species. The most recent abundance estimates for each area are: East Greenland coastal 6,440 (CV 0.26) in 2015 (Hansen et al. 2018); East Greenland (excl. coastal), Iceland, and Faeroes 40,788 (CV 0.17) in 2015 (NASS2015 surveys, Pike et al. 2016); Norway and Jan Mayen 6,409 (CV 0.18) in 1996-2001 (Øien 2009); UK waters, North and Irish Seas, French and Spanish Atlantic waters and coast of Portugal 18,142 (CV 0.35) in 2016 (SCANS III surveys, Hammond et al. 2017); Atlantic Canada 3,522 (CV 0.27) in 2007 (Lawson and Gosselin 2009); U.S. east coast 1,595 (CV 0.33) in 2011 (Palka 2012); West Greenland 2,215 (CV 0.41) in 2015 (Hansen et al. 2018). The available estimates total about 79,000 whales with a nominal CV of 0.13. These figures do not include the waters to the west of Ireland, where Fin Whales are fairly abundant. Data collected in Norwegian waters during 2002-17 have yet (May 2018) to be worked up.
Compared with previous estimates, the latest estimates show a substantial increase for the East Greenland–Iceland–Faroes area but an annual rate of increase that takes survey differences into account has not yet been calculated. The estimates for the Spain–Portugal–France–British Isles area show little change over the years from the first estimate of 17,355 (CV 0.27) obtained in 1989 (Buckland et al. 1992). The trends in U.S., Canadian, western Greenlandic, and Norwegian waters have yet to be determined.
The overall increase in North Atlantic Fin Whales may represent a continuing recovery from past whaling, but it has also been hypothesized that the recovery was already essentially complete by 2000 and that the latest increase is due to environmental changes (Víkingsson et al. 2015).
Mediterranean
Within the Mediterranean, the Fin Whale population was estimated in 1991 from surveys covering much of the western basin at 3,583 (CV 0.27) (Forcada et al. 1996). Given the relative rarity of Fin Whales in the Mediterranean outside this area, a total population of about 5,000 for the Mediterranean is plausible (Reeves and Notarbartolo di Sciara 2006). The relative abundance in the Pelagos Sanctuary in the Gulf of Lyon has been monitored since 2009 from ferries on fixed routes, but the counts are too variable to estimate a trend (Cominelli et al. 2016).
Catches of about 7,000 Fin Whales taken in and near the Straits of Gibraltar during the 1920s depleted the local abundance and may have reduced a population migrating between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean (Sanpera and Aguilar 1992).
North Pacific
Some Fin Whales were likely taken by pre-modern whaling in Japan although the different species of Balaenoptera were not always distinguished (Omura 1986). A total of 76,000 Fin Whales are recorded taken by modern whaling in the North Pacific during 1910-75 (Allison 2017). The total killed is likely to be higher, because many or most of the approximately 6,500 unspecified whales taken during 1900-09 may have been Fin Whales, and in the early years of modern whaling there were likely, as in the North Atlantic, a substantial number of whales that were killed but not successfully landed. Fin Whales were legally protected from whaling by the IWC in the North Pacific from 1976, but small catches, reported at the time as Bryde’s Whales (Balaenoptera edeni), continued off Korea until 1981. These whales were probably from the East China Sea population.
North Pacific Fin Whale stocks have not been assessed in depth by the IWC Scientific Committee since 1973, when the assessment by Ohsumi and Wada (1974) was accepted. It was updated by Allen (1977). The stock in the western North Pacific was estimated to have declined from an “initial level” of 44,000 to 17,000 in 1975. The figures refer to the “exploitable” population, i.e., whales above the minimum allowed size at capture. Although these assessments were based on indices of catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) and sightings-per-unit-effort (SPUE) that did not meet modern requirements for the analysis of such data (IWC 1989), there is no doubt that the populations declined substantially.
There is currently no population estimate for Fin Whales in the North Pacific as a whole, but one may become available once existing data holdings are worked up. The abundance information for each area is summarized here.
In surveys conducted in the Okhotsk Sea in 2003, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2015, the Fin Whale was consistently the most commonly sighted baleen whale species (Miyashita 2004, Yoshida et al. 2010, 2011; Minamikawa et al. 2012, Myasnikov et al. 2016) but the data have not yet been worked up to produce an abundance estimate.
The area of the northwestern Pacific bounded by the 170°E meridian, the coast of Japan, and the border of the Russian Exclusive Economic Zone adjacent to Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, has been surveyed during 2002-2015 by vessels associated with the JARPN II (2nd Japanese Research Programme in the North Pacific) programme. An estimate of about 4,000 Fin Whales (CV 0.4) was derived from data collected in July-August 2008 (Hakamada and Matsuoka 2016).
The area between the 170°E and 135°W meridians. bounded to the north by the coast of Alaska and the Aleutian chain, was surveyed by the POWER (Pacific Ocean Whale and Environment) international cruise in July and August over the years 2010-2012 (IWC 2018c). The data have not yet been worked up to yield an abundance estimate for Fin Whales, but the counts show that Fin Whales were approximately as abundant as Sei Whales, for which an estimate of about 30,000 whales (CV 0.24) has been calculated (Hakamada et al. 2017).
It is planned to survey the Bering Sea in three parts over 2017-2019 under the POWER programme (IWC 2018c). The eastern Bering Sea was covered in 2017, and the Fin Whale was the most commonly sighted baleen whale species (https://iwc.int/iwc-power-research-ship-returns-to-japan). The eastern Bering Sea had previously been covered by U.S. fishery surveys, yielding an estimate of 1,061 (CV 0.38) Fin Whales (Friday et al. 2013). Zerbini et al. (2006) estimated the abundance of Fin Whales to be 1,652 (CV ~0.2) in the coastal waters south of the Alaska Peninsula, which is included in the area surveyed by the 2011-12 POWER. An estimate of 4.8% for the annual rate of increase over the period 1987-2003 was obtained with nominal confidence limits of 4.1%-5.4%, but subsequent recalculation of the variance from the data indicates much lower precision (95% confidence limits -1.6% to +11.1% per year) (IWC 2009). In a survey of the western Bering Sea in 2005, Fin Whales (along with Humpback Whales) were the most frequently encountered species, but no abundance estimate has been calculated (Miyashita 2006).
Based on surveys conducted during 2004-08, Best et al. (2015) estimated the abundance Fin Whales in the waters of British Columbia (Canada) to be 329 (95% confidence interval (CI) 274-395).
The summer abundance off the west coast of the continental U.S.A. (Washington/Oregon/California) is estimated to have been 9,029 (CV 0.12) whales in 2014, while the average rate of increase over 1991-2014 was 7.5% per year. (Nadeem et al. 2016). However, the variation around the trend line was greater than would be expected from sampling variance alone, suggesting that a variable proportion of the population is found in the area each year.
This genetically isolated Gulf of California subpopulation was estimated in 2004 from a mark-recapture analysis of photo-identification data at 613 (CI 426-970) (Díaz-Guzman 2006). There are no data on population trend for this subpopulation.
Southern Hemisphere
Along with other baleen whales, the IWC has traditionally managed Southern Hemisphere Fin Whales on the basis of six management areas, Areas I through VI, which are longitudinal pie slices 50°-70° wide. The areas were originally chosen as putative management stocks for Humpback Whales, and later used for all baleen whales, with little or no biological support (Donovan 1991).
Over 725,000 Fin Whales have been recorded caught in the Southern Hemisphere during 1905-76 (Allison 2017). There was a series of assessments in the 1970s, including a synthesis by Chapman (1976) which was reassessed for Area I by Breiwick (1977), and updated for Areas II-VI by Allen (1977). A later reassessment of Area VI Fin Whales was inconclusive (IWC 1980).
These assessments were based on a combination of evidence, including trends in CPUE by whaling fleets, sighting rates by Japanese scouting vessels, and inferences on recruitment and mortality rates from age and length data. Their reliability is questionable on various grounds. For example, the IWC Scientific Committee subsequently determined that CPUE data should only be used for stock assessments when the nature of the whaling operations is fully described (IWC 1989). A reanalysis of the historical data using modern methods and insights is warranted.
Regular sightings surveys in the Antarctic south of 60°S were conducted under the IDCR/SOWER programmes in summer during 1978-2010 (IWC 2018) and the JARPA/II (1st and 2nd Japanese Research Programmes in the Antarctic) in summer during 1987-2014 (Pastene et al. 2014). However, only 55% of the historic summer catch taken during 1904-76 occurred south of 60°S, the remainder having been taken mainly between 50°-60°S. Hence there is probably considerable abundance outside the surveyed areas.
Circumpolar estimates from the IDCR/SOWER surveys increased from 2,100 during 1978-91 (CV 0.28) to 5,100 (CV 0.52) during 1991-98 (Branch and Butterworth 2001) but the more recent data do not appear to have been worked up. An extrapolation of the abundance estimate for 1978-91 to the area south of 30°S using Japanese Scouting Vessel data from 1978-88 yielded a circumpolar estimate of 15,000 (no variance given) (IWC 1996). The Scouting Vessel data were not collected according to any kind of statistical design and should be interpreted with caution.
Estimates from the JARPA/II surveys covering just half the Antarctic from 35°E to 145°W (southern Indian Ocean and south-west Pacific sectors) increased from 5,000 (CV 0.15) in 1996 to 17,600 (CV 0.26) in 2008, but large inter-annual fluctuations in the abundance suggested that the proportion of the population within the surveyed area varied from year to year (Matsuoka and Hakamada 2014). Approximately three-quarters of the historical catch came from within the 35°E-145°W sector.
Other data sources cover only limited areas and lack long enough time series to estimate trends. As examples, Viquerat and Herr (2017) estimated abundances of about 500 and 800 Fin Whales around Elephant Island and the South Orkneys respectively.
The current circumpolar abundance remains highly uncertain until all existing data are worked up and more data are collected from the zone 50°-60°S. Overall the information suggests a substantial increase has occurred, but the rate of increase is poorly quantified. All estimates of the rate of increase have very low precision but are compatible with an intrinsic growth rate of around 4-5% per year as assumed in the latest assessments.
Biological parameters and assessment
Estimates of age at sexual maturity for female Fin Whales, based on observed proportions mature by age, are 6-7 years in the Southern Hemisphere from British catches in the 1960s (Lockyer 1972) and Japanese catches in the 1960s and early 1970s (Mizroch 1981), but these values are likely negatively biased due to selection against smaller animals. For the North Atlantic, Gunnlaugsson et al. (2013) report a value for Fin Whales caught off Iceland of around 8 years during 1965-89, increasing to 14 years during 2006-10, although the sample size in the later years was small. Aguilar et al. (1988) estimated 7.9 years from catches off Spain during 1979-84. There do not seem to be any precise values for the North Pacific, but Kimura (Ohsumi) et al. (1958) estimated 8-12 years. For the purpose of this assessment, the age at first reproduction of 10 years (9 years for age at sexual maturity) as estimated by Taylor et al. 2007 is assumed. The values of other biological parameters (age at first capture, net recruitment rate, and natural mortality rate) were taken from the previous IWC Scientific Committee assessments (IWC 2017, Allen 1977).
The generation time for a non-depleted Fin Whale population is estimated to be 25.9 years (Taylor et al. 2007). The 3-generation window for application of the Red List A criterion is 1940-2018.
Because the available published assessments for this Fin Whales are not up to date, an illustrative population assessment is conducted here to enable estimation of a plausible population trajectory over the period 1940-2018 relative to the A criterion. While the available data do not permit a scientifically rigorous estimation of the extent of population reduction, it is reasonable to use conventional population assessment methods to provide a crude indication of the extent of possible reduction relative to the criteria. A conventional deterministic age-structured model with an age at first capture (“recruitment”) and an age at first reproduction, and linear density-dependence was applied to the North Pacific, North Atlantic, and Southern Hemisphere regions separately.
Based on the above (incomplete) information, the following population numbers (total, including immature whales) are assumed for the purpose of this Red list assessment:
North Atlantic: 70,000 whales in 2015;
North Pacific: 50,000 whales in 2011;
Southern Hemisphere: 25,000 whales in 2008.
The parameter values are listed in Table 1 in the Supplementary Material (which forms an integral part of this assessment). The estimated global trajectory for the number of mature individuals indicates that the 2018 mature population size is about 100,000 whales and may be around 45% of the 1940 level, which implies a classification of Vulnerable under the A1 criterion. According to this trajectory, there had already been considerable decline prior to 1940, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. For completeness it should be noted that other models have been posited that imply an increasing Fin Whale population prior to 1940 in the Southern Hemisphere (Mori and Butterworth 2006) but the pre-1940 period does not affect the Red List assessment against criterion A.
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Current Population Trend: Increasing
Additional data:
? Number of mature individuals: 100000
? Population severely fragmented: No
Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology:
The available quantitative evidence suggests that the Fin Whale is a generalist feeder, sometimes preying heavily on fish but mostly on crustaceans. In Icelandic catches, 96% contained krill only, 2.5% a mixture of krill and fish, and 1.6% fish only (Sigurjónsson and Víkingsson 1997), while only 1 of 267 Fin Whales caught in the northeast Pacific off British Columbia, Canada, contained fish (Flinn et al. 2002), and over 99% of stomachs with food in the Antarctic contained krill (Kawamura 1994). On the other hand, Overholtz and Nicolas (1979) reported apparent feeding by Fin Whales on American Sand Lance (Sand Eel), Ammodytes americanus, in the northwest Atlantic, and Mitchell (1972) found that Capelin, Mallotus villosus, comprised 80-90% of prey in Fin Whales caught off Newfoundland. Capelin abundance is extremely variable over time, and Fin Whales may feed opportunistically on Capelin in years with high abundance.
The Fin Whale is the fastest of the great whales, being able to maintain speeds of over 10 ms-1 or 20 kn (Bose and Lien 1989). The high speed is likely an adaptation to avoid predation by Killer Whales, Orcinus orca, (Ford and Reeves 2008) rather than to catch fast prey, because maximum speeds associated with lunge feeding are thought to be below 5 ms-1 (Potvin et al. 2009). The apparent lack of winter breeding aggregations may also be an adaptation to avoid predation of calves, in the context of a flight rather than fight strategy to escape predation.
Systems: Marine
Generation Length (years): 25.9
Use and Trade [top]
Use and Trade:
Large-scale commercial harvesting of this species appears to have ceased, the last catches having been taken in the Antarctic in 2012 and in the North Atlantic in 2015 (IWC 2018a) but frozen products are probably still in trade. The latest entry in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Trade Database was an export of 2,546 tonnes of Fin Whale meat from Iceland to Japan in 2014, but only 1,624 tonnes appear to have reached Japan (CITES 2017).
Threats [top]
Major Threat(s):
Prior to the advent of modern whaling in the late 19th century, Fin Whales were not subject to much human predation because they were hard to catch, but they were depleted worldwide by commercial whaling in the 20th century. Fin Whales have been protected in the Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific since 1976, and catches ceased in the North Atlantic by 1990, except for small “aboriginal subsistence” catches off Greenland. Commercial catches resumed off Iceland in 2006, but none have been taken in 2016 or 2017. A Japanese fleet resumed experimental catches of Fin Whales in the Antarctic in 2005, but this also has been discontinued. It seems unlikely that catching of Fin Whales will return to the high levels of previous years, not least due to the limited market demand for whale products.
Fin Whales are one of the more commonly recorded species of large whale reported in vessel collisions (Laist et al. 2001, IWC 2018d). An average of 2 collisions per year between Fin Whales and vessels was recorded off the U.S. east coast during 2010-14 (Hayes et al. 2017). Although reported incidents have been very few relative to the abundance of the species, most collisions involving large vessels are probably not detected, and to date there has been no satisfactory quantitative assessment of the actual risk. There is concern that collisions in the Mediterranean, especially in the main summering ground of Fin Whales in the Ligurian Sea and Gulf of Lyon where there are high densities of both whales and vessels, may be frequent enough to impact the population there (Panigada et al. 2006).
Fin Whales are also subject to entanglement in commercial fishing gear. Nine cases of entanglement were recorded off the U.S. coast during 2010-14 (Hayes et al. 2017). Five entanglements involving Fin Whales worldwide were reported to the IWC Scientific Committee in 2017 (Hughes 2018). Although not all countries report, and some incidents will be missed by those that do, it appears likely that, globally, the threat from entanglement is low relative to the overall abundance of the species.
Conservation Actions [top]
Conservation Actions:
The IWC set catch limits at zero for Fin Whales in the North Pacific and Southern Hemisphere starting in 1976. The IWC adopted a provision (popularly known as the commercial whaling moratorium) in 1982 to set all catch limits for commercial whaling to zero from 1986, but Iceland, Norway, and the Russian Federation have lodged objections or reservations to the provision. Limited hunting of Fin Whales off western Greenland is permitted for “aboriginal subsistence” purposes.
Fin Whales are listed on Appendix I of CITES, but this does not apply to Iceland, Norway, and Japan, who hold reservations. Fin Whales are also listed on Appendices I and II of the Convention on Management of Migratory Species (CMS). Under the Agreement for Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black and Mediterranean Seas, Fin Whales in the Mediterranean, along with other cetaceans, are protected from deliberate killing by signatories to the agreement.
Citation: Cooke, J.G. 2018. Balaenoptera physalus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T2478A50349982. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T2478A50349982.en. Downloaded on 07 January 2019.
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Additional Info
Synonyms To Manage Synonyms for Balaenoptera physalus, click this link: Synonyms. |
Balaena physalus Linnaeus, 1758 |
Common Names To Manage Common Names for Balaenoptera physalus, click this link: Common Names. |
Fin Whale () |
Localities To Manage Localities for Balaenoptera physalus, click this link: Localities. |
Species Record Updated By:
Carlos Aurelio Callangan
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