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The Decline of Humpback Whales in Prince William Sound, Alaska, Following the 2014–2016 Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Marine Mammal Science
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
  • Description:
    In the early 1970s, all populations of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) were listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969 (Public Law 91-135, n.d.) and the Endangered Species Act in 1973 (Public Law 93-205, n.d.). Three decades later in 2006, the humpback whale population in the North Pacific Ocean had increased from approximately 1200–1400 (Johnson and Wolman 1984) to at least 21,000 individuals (Barlow et al. 2011) and continued increasing to over 30,000 individuals by 2013 (Cheeseman et al. 2024). In 2016, the National Marine Fisheries Service of the United States (NMFS) reassessed the listing of humpback whales under the Endangered Species Act. Worldwide, 14 distinct population segments (DPS) were identified, with four inhabiting the North Pacific. The Hawai'i DPS, that includes approximately 89% of the individuals that migrate to the Gulf of Alaska (Wade 2021), was delisted from the Endangered Species Act, the Mexico DPS was listed as threatened, while the Western North Pacific and Central American DPSs remained classified as endangered (Federal Register 2016). Coincident with this revised listing of humpback whales was the northeast Pacific marine heatwave (PMH), one of the strongest marine heatwaves recorded in recent decades (Di Lorenzo and Mantua 2016; Hobday et al. 2018).
  • Source:
    Marine Mammal Science, 42(3)
  • DOI:
  • ISSN:
    0824-0469 ; 1748-7692
  • Format:
    PDF
  • Publisher:
    Wiley
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • License:
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:a0c5e8a092bbbfa799a701df05a084fc44589bb73e29cc76214aa495c424715c770d6812de0f0630ffdf3dc822f84578a6d9834e5c7df3caf0c8a6e03dc98492
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1.20 MB ]
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