We report the first records of a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) observed off both Japan and British Columbia. This whale was photographically identified off Japan in April 1990 and March 1991, off British Columbia in August 1991, and again off Japan in March 1993, as shown in Figure 1. The Japanese sightings were all in the winter assembly area off the Ogasawara Archipelago (Nishiwaki 1959, Rice 1978, Darling and Mori 1993), and the British Columbia sighting was in a summer feeding area off Vancouver Island (Darling and McSweeney 1985). The “circle distance between these sightings is 7,900 km.
Citation:
Darling, J.D., J. Calambokidis, K.C. Balcomb, P. Bloedel, K.R. Flynn, A. Mochizuki, K. Mori, F. Sato, H. Suganuma, and M. Yamaguchi. 1996. Movement of a Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) from Japan to British Columbia and Return. Marine Mammal Science 12(2): 281-287. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.1996.tb00577.x
Download PDF