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© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Crowe, L. M., Brown, M. W., Corkeron, P. J., Hamilton, P. K., Ramp, C., Ratelle, S., Vanderlaan, A. S. M., & Cole, T. V. N. In plane sight: a mark-recapture analysis of North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Endangered Species Research, 46, (2021): 227–251, https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01156., North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis are most commonly observed along the eastern seaboard of North America; however, their distribution and occupancy patterns have become less predictable in the last decade. This study explored the individual right whales captured photographically from both dedicated and opportunistic sources from 2015 to 2019 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL), an area previously understudied for right whale presence. A total of 187 individuals, including reproductive females, were identified from all sources over this period. In years when more substantial survey effort occurred (2017-2019), similar numbers of individuals were sighted (mean = 133, SD = 1.5), and dedicated mark-recapture aerial surveys were highly effective at capturing almost all of the whales estimated in the region (2019: N = 137, 95% CI = 135-147). A high rate of inter-annual return was observed between all 5 study years, with 95% of the animals seen in 2019 sighted previously. Capture rates indicated potential residencies as long as 5 mo, and observed behaviors included feeding and socializing. Individuals were observed in the northern and southern GSL, regions divided by a major shipping corridor. Analyses suggest that individuals mostly moved less than 9.1 km d-1, although rates of up to 79.8 km d-1 were also calculated. The GSL is currently an important habitat for 40% of this Critically Endangered species, which underscores how crucial protection measures are in this area., Funding was provided by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the National Marine Fisheries Service/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Island Foundation, Irving Oil, the Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk, Environment Climate Change Canada, and private donations. Where applicable, work was conducted under permits issued to the investigators under SARA Section 73 for the Gulf and Quebec regions.

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 134 (2013): 1814-1823, doi:10.1121/1.4816406., In the past decade, much progress has been made in real-time passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammal occurrence and distribution from autonomous platforms (e.g., gliders, floats, buoys), but current systems focus primarily on a single call type produced by a single species, often from a single location. A hardware and software system was developed to detect, classify, and report 14 call types produced by 4 species of baleen whales in real time from ocean gliders. During a 3-week deployment in the central Gulf of Maine in late November and early December 2012, two gliders reported over 25 000 acoustic detections attributed to fin, humpback, sei, and right whales. The overall false detection rate for individual calls was 14%, and for right, humpback, and fin whales, false predictions of occurrence during 15-min reporting periods were 5% or less. Transmitted pitch tracks—compact representations of sounds—allowed unambiguous identification of both humpback and fin whale song. Of the ten cases when whales were sighted during aerial or shipboard surveys and a glider was within 20 km of the sighting location, nine were accompanied by real-time acoustic detections of the same species by the glider within ±12 h of the sighting time., The Office of Naval Research funded this work, with additional support provided by the NOAA Fisheries Advanced Sampling Technologies Working Group via the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region.

Author Posting. © Arctic Institute of North America, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of Arctic Institute of North America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Arctic 61 (2008): 61-75., During the 16th and 17th centuries, Basque whalers travelled annually to the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence to hunt whales. The hunting that occurred during this period is of primary significance for the North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis (Müller, 1776), because it has been interpreted as the largest human-induced reduction of the western North Atlantic population, with ~12250–21 000 whales killed. It has been frequently reported that the Basques targeted two species in this region: the North Atlantic right whale and the bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus L., 1758. To evaluate this hypothesis and the relative impact of this period of whaling on both species, we collected samples from 364 whale bones during a comprehensive search of Basque whaling ports from the 16th to the 17th century in the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence. Bones were found and sampled at 10 of the 20 sites investigated. DNA was extracted from a subset (n = 218) of these samples. Analysis of the mitochondrial cytochrome b region identified five whale species. The identification of only a single right whale bone and 203 bowhead whale bones from at least 72 individuals indicates that the bowhead whale was likely the principal target of the hunt. These results imply that this whaling had a much greater impact (in terms of numbers of whales removed) on the bowhead whale population than on the western North Atlantic right whale population., Financial support for this work was provided by the Canadian Whale Institute, the Northern Scientific Training Program (NSTP), the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Science Subvention program, the Ocean Life Institute (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).