Abstract
Insight into animal movements is essential for understanding habitat use by individuals as well as population processes and species life-history strategies. In this study, we instrumented 25 fin whales with ARGOS satellite-transmitters in Svalbard, Norway, to study their movement patterns and behaviour (Area Restricted Search (ARS), transiting or unknown) during boreal autumn/early winter. Ten of the whales stayed in the tagging area (most northerly location: 81.68°N) for their entire tracking periods (max 45 days). The other 15 whales moved in a south-westerly direction; the longest track ended off the coast of northern Africa (> 5000 km from the tagging location) after 96 days. The whales engaged in ARS behaviour intermittently throughout their southward migrations. During transit phases the whales moved quickly; one individual maintained an average horizontal speed of 9.3 km/h (travelling 223 km per day) for a period of a week. This study documents that: (1) some fin whales might remain at high latitudes during winter; (2) the whales that do migrate probably feed along the way; (3) they can maintain high transiting speed for long periods and; (4) one breeding area for this species is likely located in deep, warm water some 100 km west of Morocco.
Highlights
Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) have a cosmopolitan distribution and are found in all major oceans from tropical to polar r egions[1]
The satellite transmitters deployed in this study on 25 fin whales in Svalbard provided a total of 14,469 locations, after the Z location classes were excluded, within tracking periods ranging between 6 and 96 d (average track duration 33 ± 4 days (± SE) see Table 1 and Fig. 1)
In this study we present novel information on movements and habitat use by fin whales in the North Atlantic and shed light on their migratory strategies and behaviour during the autumn and early winter
Summary
Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) have a cosmopolitan distribution and are found in all major oceans from tropical to polar r egions[1]. A high degree of sinuosity in the tracks of 12 fin whales tagged in the years 2009–2012 suggested that the whales were foraging close to the islands and nearby s eamounts[12]. When they moved north, they travelled at high speeds (7.7 km/h) in almost direct trajectories until they reached areas north of 56°N, where they resumed feeding in areas between Iceland and Greenland. There are no winter observations available for this region, which has 4 months of polar night, fin whales are detected on passive acoustic monitoring devices in the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland (at about 79°N) during the w inter[20,21]
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