Abstract
The social structure of humpback whales in their tropical wintering grounds is very fluid. To date, no information has been published for cases in which two whales were both satellite-tagged while in association. Here, we report the movements of four humpback whale pairs tagged together off the coast of Brazil. Fieldwork and satellite tagging of humpback whales was conducted between 2003 and 2008 along the eastern coast of Brazil, between 20°S and 8°S. Movement was monitored while whales were still in their breeding ground. A switching state space model was applied to the filtered data of each humpback whale to standardize telemetry data and allow direct comparison of each individual track. GIS was used to plot model-predicted locations and to visually compare animal movements. The results confirm the short-lived nature of associations between breeding humpback whales, and shows that individuals differ widely in their movements.
Highlights
Humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781), occur in all major oceans of the world
Occasional records have been observed along the South American continent and near oceanic islands (PINEDO 1985, LODI 1994, SICILIANO 1997, PIZZORNO et al 1998), but it is not yet clear whether these regions correspond to the regular range of the species
Pair A consisted of a mother with a calf and an escort (MOCE)
Summary
Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781), occur in all major oceans of the world. Breeding Stock ‘A’ (BSA) corresponds to whales wintering off Brazil In this region, the species typically occur from the northern portion of the South America (~5°S) to Cabo Frio area (~23°S) in the state of Rio de Janeiro (ANDRIOLO et al 2010). The Abrolhos Bank (16°40’ to 19°30’S) corresponds to the main breeding habitat of the species in the western South Atlantic Ocean (SICILIANO 1997, MARTINS et al 2001, MORETE et al 2003, ANDRIOLO et al 2006, 2010), with some individuals showing relatively high site-fidelity to this region (WEDEKIN et al 2010). Stable associations between paired whales have been noted (CLAPHAM 2000), even among larger groups in feeding grounds (PERRY et al 1990)
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