FISHERY BULLP:TIN: VOL 86, NO 1 



known diameter next to the whale and included it 

 in the photograph to measure whale size. 



Behavioral patterns were observed from the 

 ship's bridge and recorded on a portable computer 

 as they occurred, using a program which timed 

 entries of encoded behaviors or coments to the 

 nearest second. Krill schools were recorded on a 

 Simrad echosounder and the identity of the or- 

 ganisms causing the echograms was verified by 

 net samples taken with an Isaacs-Kidd midwater 

 trawl and by divers' visual confirmation of krill 

 schools near the surface. 



RESULTS 



7 January 1984: At 0500 hour, north of Cape 

 Murray near Two Hummock Island, one right 

 whale was feeding at the surface with its upper 

 jaw lifted above the water, swimming at high 

 speed (estimated at 8-9 knots by the ship's cap- 

 tain) in feeding runs of 15-20 seconds, which we 

 recorded on video. Three humpback whales 

 nearby were diving in one specific location. Th,e 

 right whale repeatedly changed direction be- 

 tween surface runs so that its horizontal direc- 

 tional feeding excursions did not take it far from 

 the vicinity of the vertically diving humpbacks. 

 During these powerful filter-feeding runs enor- 

 mous amounts of water were displaced, cascading 

 beside and behind the right whale and producing 

 a large wake. 



15 January 1985: A cow and a calf were swim- 

 ming slowly at the surface some 500 m from the 

 eastern shore of Anvers Island. On approach by 

 the ship the whales swam slowly into shallow 

 water where we could not follow. It was near dusk 

 and we could not get photographs for future iden- 

 tification. 



7 January 1986: We encountered one southern 

 right whale and six humpbacks at 1830 hour at 

 lat. 63°46'S, long. 61°13'W, between Trinity and 

 Hoseason Islands. We photographed the head and 

 body of the right whale for subsequent identifica- 

 tion. We followed the whale for approximately 2 

 hours, recording diving times, surface intervals, 

 and breathing rates. The whale frequently 

 changed directions underwater and consequently 

 we often failed to see the whale immediately 

 when it resurfaced, so breathing rate data for this 

 behavioral sequence are incomplete. The whale 

 appeared to have captured krill on at least one 

 dive because when the whale surfaced it repeat- 

 edly and briefly opened and closed its mouth, with 

 baleen visible, a behavior presumably associated 



with separation of krill and water prior to swal- 

 lowing the prey (Watkins and Shevill 1976). 

 About 50 cape petrels, Daption capensis, alighted 

 on the water and fed at the surface around the 

 whale. When the whale's jaw movements ceased, 

 the birds soon stopped feeding, but they remained 

 on the water and did not follow the whale when it 

 swam away at the surface. 



2 March 1986: We observed one right whale at 

 the northern end of the Neumayer Channel, 

 where a large iceberg was grounded on a 93- 

 fathom rise 2 miles east of Iceberg Point. The 

 wind was blowing from the north at 20-24 knots 

 and a strong surface current was flowing south, 

 producing a bow wave on the grounded iceberg. 

 The right whale repeatedly swam NE of the berg, 

 raised its tail high out of the water at 90° to the 

 wind, submerged its head, and "sailed" downwind 

 past the iceberg, a behavior previously noted for 

 right whales in Argentina (Payne 1976). Soon 

 after we first saw the whale, it stopped tail- 

 sailing and began diving, still along the N-S tran- 

 sect near the iceberg where it had been sailing. 

 The presence of the ship did not cause the whale 

 to alter its back-and-forth swimming rhythm or 

 direction. We waited until the whale began one of 

 its N-S transects past the iceberg and followed 

 about 100 m behind it with the ship. A large 

 school of krill was present on the east side of the 

 iceberg. We recorded no other schools in the vic- 

 nity. The whale was accompanied by three female 

 fur seals. The seals constantly darted about the 

 head of the whale when it surfaced after long 

 dives and appeared to annoy the whale, because 

 several times the whale repeatedly slashed its 

 head sideways when the seals swam too close. 



3 March 1986: At 1030 hour, we spotted a single 

 southern right whale near the mouth of Andvord 

 Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. The whale was 

 swimming SSW at about 3 knots, making short 

 dives that lasted about 19 seconds {N = 12, 

 SD = 9.0 seconds), with brief surface intervals 

 that averaged 6.1 seconds (A^ = 12, SD = 2.6 sec- 

 onds) (Fig. 1). The whale then stopped diving but 

 continued to swim SSW toward the NE tip of 

 Lemaire Island, swimming mostly at the surface 

 for approximately 90 minutes. During this period 

 the whale appeared unconcerned with the ship, 

 which remained 50-100 m behind it, but when 

 the whale neared an iceberg that was hard 

 aground near Lemaire Island, it turned suddenly 

 at a right angle to its prior course and swam be- 

 tween the iceberg and the rocks. The ship was 

 nonetheless able to follow the whale through the 



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