Estimation of the Abundance of the Sei Whale Balaenoptera Borealis in the Central and Eastern North Pacifc in Summer Using Sighting Data from 2010 to 2012

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Estimation of the Abundance of the Sei Whale Balaenoptera Borealis in the Central and Eastern North Pacifc in Summer Using Sighting Data from 2010 to 2012 Fish Sci DOI 10.1007/s12562-017-1121-1 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Fisheries Estimation of the abundance of the sei whale Balaenoptera borealis in the central and eastern North Pacifc in summer using sighting data from 2010 to 2012 Takashi Hakamada1 · Koji Matsuoka1 · Hiroto Murase2 · Toshihide Kitakado3 Received: 28 December 2016 / Accepted: 23 July 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract The abundance of the sei whale Balaenoptera data, which contributes to an understanding of the current borealis in the central and eastern North Pacifc (north of status of this species. 40°N, south of the Alaskan coast including both the US and Canadian Exclusive Economic Zones between 170°E Keywords Line transect sampling · Baleen whales · and 135°W), from July to August, was estimated by the Distance sampling method · Cetacean · Model selection line transect method using sighting data obtained during the 2010–2012 International Whaling Commission-Pacifc Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research cruises. The prob- Introduction ability of detecting whales at a perpendicular distance from the transect was estimated using two diferent models: haz- The sei whale Balaenoptera borealis is the third largest ard rate and half-normal models. Because the diference baleen whale, and typically exhibits a body length of 15 m in Akaike’s information criterion between the two models and a weight of 20 t. It is distributed in temperate waters was small, the Akaike weighted average of the two models of both hemispheres, including the North Pacifc [1, 2]. was taken, which gave an estimated abundance of 29,632 This whale was targeted by commercial whalers, espe- (coefcient of variation, 0.242; 95% confdence interval, cially from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, after num- 18,576–47,267). This is the frst abundance estimate of sei bers of the larger blue whale Balaenoptera musculus and whales in this region based on systematic sighting survey fn whale Balaenoptera physalus had been depleted, but its harvesting was banned by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the North Pacifc in 1975, in the Southern Hemisphere in 1979, and in the North Atlantic in * Takashi Hakamada 1989. Eforts at a crude estimation of its abundance in the [email protected] North Pacifc in 1963 and 1974 were attempted using vari- Koji Matsuoka ous assessment models based on historical catches, catch [email protected] per unit efort, and sighting rate data, leading to estimates Hiroto Murase of 42,000 and 8,600 individuals, respectively, which were [email protected] the average of the results using various assessment models Toshihide Kitakado [3]. More recently, the abundance of whales has been esti- [email protected] mated based on line transect sampling using data obtained by a systematically designed sighting survey conducted 1 Institute of Cetacean Research, 4‑5 Toyomi‑cho, Chuo‑ku, Tokyo 104‑0055, Japan independently from fsheries. Line transect sampling is a distance sampling method in which abundance is estimated 2 National Research Institute of Far Seas Fisheries, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, 2‑12‑4 Fukuura, from a sample of perpendicular distances from tracklines Kanazawa, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236‑8648, Japan to whales [4]. However, no attempt at this method was 3 Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 4‑5‑7 made in the North Pacifc before 1974. Since the ban on Konan, Minato‑ku, Tokyo 108‑8477, Japan commercial whaling, the status of the population of sei Vol.:(0123456789)1 3 Fish Sci whales has rarely been studied because of a scarcity of Materials and methods data [5]. Recently, results of studies on sei whales using data The survey procedures were carefully designed and agreed obtained during the second phase of the Japanese Whale by the IWC Scientifc Committee (IWCSC). Details of the Research Program under special permit in the western procedures of the 2010–2012 IWC-POWER are described North Pacifc (JARPNII) from 2000 to 2016 have been in the corresponding reports of the meeting for planning reported, i.e., on stock structure [6], spatial distribution the surveys [17–19]. The procedures directly relevant to [7, 8], and feeding ecology [9, 10]. The sei whale was this analysis are presented here. one of the target species of the program along with the The 2010–2012 IWC-POWER was conducted north of common minke Balaenoptera acutorostrata and Bryde’s 40°N, south of the Aleutian Islands, and between 170°E whale Balaenoptera edeni [11]. Systematically designed and 135°W (Fig. 1). Although the IWC-POWER was also sighting surveys were conducted under the program to esti- conducted to the south of 40°N in 2013 and 2014, the mate the abundance of these species based on line transect obtained data were not considered in this analysis because sampling. The abundance estimates of sei whales distrib- only one sighting of a sei whale was made in these 2 years uted in the survey area in early summer (May–June) in [20]. Table 1 depicts the survey area (northern and south- 2011 and 2012 and in late summer (July–September) in ern strata) and survey periods in 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2008 were 2,988 and 5,086, respectively [11]. Note that 2010, a part of the northern stratum within the US EEZ the southern, northern, eastern, and western boundaries was surveyed frst, and then, the rest of the northern stra- of the survey area of JARPNII were 35°N, the boundary tum and southern stratum in the high seas were surveyed of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claimed by coun- (Fig. 2a). As shown in Fig. 2a, some of the northern stra- tries other than Japan, 170°E, and the eastern coastline of tum was surveyed after the survey in the southern stratum Japan, respectively. had started. Owing to this, the survey periods in the north- Several sighting surveys, which had been designed to ern and southern strata overlapped. estimate systematically the abundance of whales based The research vessels Kaiko-Maru [860 gross tonnage on line transect sampling, were conducted in the coastal (GT)] and Yushin-Maru No. 3 (742 GT) were engaged in areas of the eastern North Pacific in the 2000s, although the surveys in 2010 and 2011–2012, respectively. The sur- they were not designed specifically for sei whales. The vey was conducted during daytime from 1 h after sunrise abundance of sei whales in the waters of California, to 1 h before sunset. The survey vessels traveled between Oregon, and Washington to a distance from the coast 10.0 and 10.5 knots along the survey tracklines during the of 300 nautical miles, was estimated as 126 individuals, survey hours. Surveying was conducted when the visibility based on the unweighted geometric mean of the 2005 and was 2.0 nautical miles or more, the wind speed was 20 knots 2008 estimates [12]. Only one sighting of a sei whale or less, and the Beaufort wind force scale was less than 6. was made in the surveys conducted in British Colum- Tracklines were designed systematically in each stra- bia’s coastal waters in the summers of 2004, 2005, and tum following the principles outlined in the IWC Sci- 2008 and spring/fall of 2007 [13]. In addition, no sei entific Committee’s Requirements and Guidelines for whales were sighted in surveys conducted off western Alaska (within the 1000-m isobath) and the central Aleu- tian Islands (as far as 85 km offshore) in the summer of 2001–2003 [14]. The IWC has conducted a dedicated whale sight- ing survey program, Pacifc Ocean Whale and Ecosys- 60°N tem Research (IWC-POWER), since 2010 to contribute 2012N information on the abundance and trends in abundance of populations of large whales and to explain any such 2011N identifed trends [15]. A number of priority species and 50°N 2010N topics for this program were identifed and high priority 2012S was assigned to sei whales [16]. 2011S Abundance is fundamental information for understand- 2010S ing the status of whales. However, the abundance of sei whales in ofshore areas of the central and eastern North 170°E 180° 170°W 160°W 150°W 140°W 130°W Pacifc has never been estimated based on line transect sampling. The objective of this paper was to obtain such Fig. 1 Areas of the surveys conducted in the central and eastern an estimate using the 2010–2012 IWC-POWER data. North Pacifc 2010–2012 1 3 Fish Sci Table 1 Strata boundaries, Year Strata Strata boundary Survey period Survey survey periods and survey coverage coverage (i.e., proportion of North South West East (%) tracklines actually surveyed to planned survey tracklines) for 2010 Northern Aleutian Is. 47°N 170°E 170°W 8 July–20 August 2010a 34 each stratum during 2010– Southern 47°N 30°N 170°E 170°W 18 July–25 August 2010a 70 2012 International Whaling Commission–Pacifc Ocean 2011 Northern Aleutian Is. US EEZ 170°W 150°W 21 July–1 August 2011 58 Whale and Ecosystem Research Southern US EEZ 30°N 170°W 150°W 2–31 August 2011 78 (IWC-POWER) cruises 2012 Northern Aleutian Is. US EEZ 150°W 135°W 24 July–3 August 2012 80 Southern US EEZ 30°N 150°W 135°W 3–30 August 2012 85 Is. Islands, EEZ exclusive economic zone a Survey periods in northern and southern strata overlap for reasons given in the main text (a) (b) (c) 60°N 60°N 60°N 2 4 1 5 2 6 6 2 3 50°N 1 5 50°N 3 50°N 4 12 34 6 1 8 13 9 10 14 7 40°N 40°N 9 40°N 11 8 7 5 170°E 180° 170°W 170°W 160°W 150°W 150°W 140°W Fig.
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