Continuation of the photo identification project

Based on the work from the 1980's, the photo identification project is ongoing around the San Juan Islands. This forms  a good foundation for focal animal studies to investigate foraging behaviour. 

This summer's fieldwork (from August to September) resulted in the identification of  at least 7 individuals.  Interestingly whales were sighted in all 3 feeding areas again, after a long absence from Areas A and B (see History of Project).  We also noted that the number of birds has been higher than in recent years. 

One identified individual named Joan was photographed up around Waldron Island (Area A) and also around Salmon and Hein Banks (Area C). This is different to previous years when whales tended to favour just one feeding area exclusively.  Another whale Bob,  whose dorsal fin has completely flopped over to the left, is a new individual we identified this year. We photographed this whale near to Waldron (Area A).  A whale fitting Bob's description was previously sighted in June near to McArthur Bank  (Area C) by a whale watching vessel. 

We are working in collaboration with the Whale Museum, in Friday Harbor (San Juan Islands) to produce a San Juan Minke Whale Identification Guide for those whales that have been photo identified over the past few years. This should be available before the beginning of the whale watching season next year. We also developing  an online catalogue for publication on this website at a later date. 

Sightings Information - Investigating the stock structure and number of minke whales in the Northeast Pacific

The gathering of information on sightings further a field will help us gain a better understanding of the distribution of minke whales  in the Northeast Pacific. As outlined in the "About Pacific Minkes" section the population estimate for the California-Oregon-Washington (CA-OR-WA) minke whale stock is surprisingly low  (1,019 c.v. = 0.73) compared to other areas in the Northeast Pacific. 

The small population size raises a number of questions we are addressing. Minke whales may be rare (in an ecological rather than a culinary sense). Comparing minke whales with closely related baleen whale species that are rare due to over-exploitation might be instructive. Why aren’t minke whale numbers higher? This is unexpected given the decline of closely related blue, fin and humpback whales? We hypothesize that minke whales are part of a different ecological community and given their small body size and other associated morphological characteristics, are not simply “small blue whales”.

To investigate this further we are encouraging organisations and the general public to report their minke whale sightings to us. 

We hypothesise that the northern extension of the CA-OR-WA stock also includes the coastal waters of British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, Gulf of Alaska and Eastern Aleutian Islands. In addition to the analysis of the sightings data, genetic and telemetry studies are needed to test this hypothesis. 

To gather data we rely on a number of organisations to forward sightings to our database.  

These organisations include: 

Thank you so much for your support!

********If you would like to report a minke whale sighting click here ********

Investigating foraging search strategies of minke whales 

This work involves a combination of photographing and tracking the whales. Minke whales generally surface 3-5 times in quick succession times before diving for a longer period of several minutes. The longer dive is typified by a more exaggerated arching of the back. We follow the whales at a distance for their shallow dives and after the longer dive we position the boat over the "footprint" that the whale leaves on the surface. A GPS reading (location) is taken at this spot and we continue to follow the whale for at least 10 surfacing events. In some cases we are able to follow a whale, without disturbing its behaviour, for many hours.