Sighting of the fin whale in the Eastern Subtropical South Pacific: Potential breeding ground?

2012/12/01 by Jorge Acevedo, Magnus O'Grady, Ben Wallis · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Marine animal studies overview #Avian ecology and behavior #Underwater Acoustics Research #Whale #Subtropics #Latitude #Oceanography #Geography #Pacific ocean #Fishery #Tropical Eastern Pacific #Geology #Biology #Geodesy

paper · pdf · doi:10.4067/s0718-19572012000300017

openalex publication_date 2012/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19

Abstract

Here we report a sighting of a large school of fin whales on 30th May 2010 approximately 2,810 km west of the continental coast of Chile (2127'S, 9734'W). This sighting supports the limited available information that fin whales migrate to Sub-tropical open ocean waters during the austral autumn-winter. Given the accepted migration pattern of fin whales, reproducing at low latitudes from April or May, we suggest that the geographic location of our sighting could correspond to, or be near to, a breeding ground for this species in the South Pacific.

Citations

• The Southern Stocks of Whalebone Whales

Cited by

• Easter Island [wikipedia]

Related

• Humpback whales wintering at Pitcairn Island, South Pacific
• Global distribution of fin whales B alaenoptera physalus in the post‐whaling era (1980–2012)
• Total Numbers and Movements of Photo‐Identified Subantarctic (Type D) Killer Whales
• Chilean Blue Whales: Fidelity to Feeding Areas and Migratory Connectivity With the Eastern Tropical Pacific 1
• Interbreeding area movement of an adult humpback whale between the east Pacific Ocean and southwest Indian Ocean