Population of finwhales in north part of Pacific was
exposed to excessive commercial pressure and was almost completely eliminated. Information about finwhales in the Sea of Okhotsk after ending is very
poor. Observation of whales in the Okhotsk Sea was performed in June, July 2014 and April 2015 from
ships travel to a research polygon, carrying out
the following records: date, location of animal, species and number, their
movement in relation to the vessel, the visual distance from the vessel to the
whale, the intensity of their movements. In late June 2014, 40 individuals in 26 groups of finwhales were taken into account. On
average, 10.12 individuals per 100 nautical miles of counting route are
calculated. On 27 July 2014 during motion along the coast of eastern Sakhalin, we accounted 14 finwhales in 6 groups in total. On 27 July 2014, during
motion along the coast of eastern Sakhalin, we accounted 14 finwhales in 6
groups in total of which are 3.55 groups and 8.28 individuals per 100 nautical
miles of accounting route on average. The synthesis of the
available literature information and own data shows 2- to 3-fold increase in the
number of finwhales in the Sea of Okhotsk in last decades. Such a significant
number of finwhales in Okhotsk Sea did not register any initial period of
whaling or in the period of its development.
Cite this paper
Melnikov, V. V. , Sidorenko, M. M. and Fomin, S. V. (2017). Okhotsk Finwhale (Balaenoptera physalus) Modern Distribution and Abundance. Open Access Library Journal, 4, e3250. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1103250.
Tomilin,
A.G. (1957) Zveri SSSR i prilezhashchikh stran. Kitoobraznye [Animals of the
USSR and Adjacent Countries. Cetaceans]. Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR [Soviet
Academy of Sciences Publishers], Moscow, 756.
Sleptsov, M.M. (1961) O kolebanii chislennosti kitov v
Chukotskom more v raznye gody [Fluctuation in Numbers
of Whales in the Chukchi Sea in Different Years]. Trudy Instituta morfologii
zhivotnykh im. A.N. Severtsova [Transactions of the Severtsov Institute of Animal
Morphology], Moscow, 54-64.
Mizroch, S.A., Rice, D.W., Zwiefelhofer, D., Waite, J. and Perryman, W.L. (2009)
Distribution and Movements of Finwhales in the North Pacific Ocean. Mammal Review,39,193-227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2907.2009.00147.x
Sleptsov, M.M. (1955) Promyslovyye kitoobraznyye severo
zapadnoy chasti Tikhogo okeana, Okhotskogo i Beringova morey [Commercial Cetaceans
Northwestern Pacific Okhotsk and the Bering Sea], Geograficheskoye rasprostraneniye ryb i drugikh
promyslovykh zhivotnykh Okhotskogo i Beringova morey [The Geographical Distribution
of Fish and Other Commercial Animals the Okhotsk and Bering Seas]. In: Rass, T.S., Kaganovski, A.G. and Kliumov, C.K., Eds., Trudy instituta
okeanologii [Proceedings of the Institute of Oceanology], vol. 19, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moskow,
70-114.
Sleptsov, M.M. (1955) Biologiya i promysel kitov Dalnevostochnykh morei [Biology
and Hunting of Whales in the Far Eastern Seas]. Pishchepromizdat, Moscow, 62.
Berzin, A.A. and Vladimirov, V.L. (1989) Sovremennoye raspredeleniye
i chislennost' kitoobraznykh v Okhotskom more [Modern Distribution and Abundance
of Cetaceans in the Okhotsk Sea]. Russian Journal of
Marine Biology,2,
15-23.
Schuntov, V.P. (1993) Sovremennoye rasprostraneniye kitov i del’finov v Dal’nevo- stochnykh morya i
sopredel’nykh vodakh Tikhogo
okeana [The Current Distribution of Whales and Dolphins in the Far Eastern Sea
and Adjacent Waters of the Pacific Ocean]. Zoological
Journal,72, 131-141.
Vladimirov, V.L. (1994) Sovremennoye
raspredeleniye i chislennost’ kitov v dalnevostochnykh
moriakh [Modern Distribution and Numbers of Whales in Seas of the Far East]. Russian Journal of Marine Biology,20, 3-13.
Schuntov, V.P. (1999) Nekotorie
osobennosti sovremennogo raspredeleniya kitov i del'finov v Okhotskom More [Some
Features of the Modern Distribution of Whales and Dolphins in Okhotsk Sea]. Okeanologiya,39, 253-257.
Sobolevsky, E.I. (1983)
Morskiye mlekopitayuchie Okhotskogo morya, ih raspredeleniye, chislennost’ i rol’ kak potrebiteley drugikh zhivotnykh[Marine Mammals of Okhotsk Sea, Their
Distribution, Abundance and Role as Consumers of Other Mammals]. Russian Journal of Marine Biology,5, 15-20.
Rovnin, A.A. (1967) Razvedka
i mecheniye kitov v zapadnoy chasti Tikhogo okeana, Filippinskom, Okhotskom,
Beringovom i Chukotskom moryakh. Otchet po nauchno-poiskovomu reysu SRT “Vityaz” v 1967 godu [Investigation and Tagging of Whales
Western Pacific Ocean, the Philippines, the Okhotsk, Bering and Chukchi Seas. Scientific Report on
Exploratory Voyage of Ship “Vityas” in 1967]. Archives TINRO No.
10948, Vladivostok, 1-31.
Miyashita, T. and Doroshenko, N.V. (2000) Cruise Report of the Japan-Russia
Joint Sighting Survey in the Sea of Okhotsk in 1999. Paper SC/52/RMP4 Presented
to the IWC Scientific Committee, 1-5.
Vladimirov, A.V.,
Miyashita, T. and Okamura, H. (2001) New Data on the Distribution of Cetaceans
in Okhotsk Sea (Based on the Results of 1998-1999 Surveys) Results of the Far
East Marine Mammal Researches in 1991-2000. In: Vladimirov, A.V., Eds., Materials of
the 16th Working Group Meeting under
Project 02.05-61 “Marine Mammals” within the Framework
of the US-Russia Agreement
on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection, VNIRO Publishing, Moscow, 205-210.
Vladimirov, A.V., Miyashita, T., Khayashi, N., Saito, T., Tokuda, D. and Shvetsov, E.P. (2004) Distribution of Cetaceans in the Sea of
Okhotsk in July-September, 2003. Marine
Mammals of Holarctic, Proceedings
of 3rd International Conference, Koktebel, 11-17 October 2003, 136-140.
Yoshida, H., Kanaji, Y., Miyashita, T., Uoya, T. and
Furukawa, H. (2010) Cruise Report of the Common Minke Whale Biopsy Sampling
Survey in the Okhotsk Sea, Summer 2009. Paper SC/62/NPM22 Presented to the IWC
Scientific Committee, 1-10.
Yoshida, H., Kishiro, T., Kanda, N. and Miyashita, T.
(2011) Cruise Report of the Sighting and Biopsy Sampling Survey in the Okhotsk
Sea, Summer 2010, Including Individual Stock Identification of Common Minke
Whales. Paper SC/63/RMP9 presented to the IWC Scientific Committee, 1-10.
Istomin, I.G., Tatarnikov,
V.A., Zharikov, K.A., Miyashita, T. and Akishin, V.V. (2013) Observation of Cetaceans
in the Sea of Okhotsk in 2009-2010. The Researches of the Aquatic Biological Resources
of Kamchatka and the North-West Part of the Pacific Ocean 28, 116-128.
Vladimirov V.A. (2002) To Assessment of the Minke Whale Number in the Sea
of Okhotsk//Marine Mammals of Holarctic. Proceeding of Reports the 2nd International Conference, Baikal, 10-15 September 2002, 66-68.
Buckland, S.T., Cattanach, K.L. and Miyashita, T. (1992) Minke Whale
Abundance in the Northwestern Pacific and the Okhotsk Sea, Estimated from 1989
and 1990 Sighting Surveys. Report of the International
Whaling Commission, 42, 387-392.
Fujino, K. (1960) Immunogenetic and Marking Approaches to
Identifying Sub- Populations of the
North Pacific Whales. Science Report Whales Research Institute, 15, 84-142.
Kornev, S., Miyashita, T., Saito, T., Hiruda, H. and
Gusakov, P. (2006) Results of Survey of Cetaceans in the Northvestern Pacific
in 2005. In:
Belkpvich, V.M., Eds., Marine Mammals of Holarctic, Marine Mammal Counsil, Leningrad, 256-261.
Moore, S.E., Waite, J.M., Friday, N.A. and Honkalento, T.
(2002) Cetacean Distribution and Relative Abundance on the Central-Eastern and
the Southeastern Bering Sea Shelf with Reference to Oceanographic Domains. Progress in Oceanography, 55, 249-261. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6611(02)00082-4
