FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 80, NO. 2 



B 



Figure 6.— The five feeding variations associated with bubble clouds. A. Whale lunge feeds 

 vertically through the center of the cloud, as in Figure 5. B. Whale apparently feeds under- 

 water and upon completion rises slowly through the center of the spent bubble cloud; the whale's 

 body is on a horizontal plane and the mouth is not agape. C. Whale lunge feeds to one side of 

 cloud. D. Whale surfaces alongside cloud, emits a weak blow, dives, and reappears lunge feed- 

 ing through the center of the cloud. E. Whale swims vertically up alongside the rising cloud, 

 and then passes horizontally, mouth agape, between the still-rising cloud and the water's 

 surface. 



sand lance, were generating bubbles in rows, as 

 well as randomly, and lunge feeding. 



Prey Species 



Shipboard observations, primarily on Stell- 

 wagen Bank, provide direct visual and photo- 

 graphic evidence that concentrated schools of 

 American sand lance are a frequent prey species 

 in the area. American sand lance was identified 

 in 50% of feeding events from the Dolphin III on 

 Stellwagen Bank in 1978 and in 75% of observa- 

 tions in 1979. Photographs show American sand 

 lance in the corners of the whale's mouth, being 

 picked up by closely associated birds, and in con- 

 centrated surface schools in which the whale is 

 feeding. 



At least one other species is a target for hump- 

 back feeding. It appeared that humpbacks in the 

 West Quoddy Head area took herring, Clupea 

 harengus, close inshore and in coves, using the 

 bubble cloud and lunge feeding techniques on a 

 number of occasions. 5 



DISCUSSION 



Humpback whales in the North Atlantic feed 

 on a wide variety of prey species, with krill and 

 schooling fishes the most important (Tomilin 

 1967). In Canadian waters, humpbacks feed 

 heavily on capelin, with krill second in impor- 



5 S. K. Katona and P. V. Turnbull, College of the Atlantic, Bar 

 Harbor, ME 04609, pers. commun. October 1980. 



266 



