Locations and Movements 



In 1989, 71 locations were (Jetermined in 22 days for the only whale (PTT #843, 

 NEA #1146) successfully tracked. Seven of the nine transmitters applied in 1990 

 provided more than one day of information, but two of these (PTT #827 and PTT #831) 

 did not provide any locations. An insufficient number of messages was obtained from 

 PTT #827 to calculate locations. Service Argos failed to establish a frequency stability 

 file for PTT #831, resulting in a complete loss of location information. (However, sensor 

 data for these animals were available and are included in the analyses.) 



During the 1989 and 1990 seasons, 356 locations were computed (an average of 

 2.3/day) for the six whales. Together they traveled at least 9,590 km. The number of 

 locations varied from 7-136 per individual animal and distances traveled varied from 

 302 - 3,833 km per individual (Table 3). The distances we calculated were based on 

 straight lines between locations and are thus clearly minimum estimates of actual 

 distances traveled. 



In 1989, Argos did not classify locations or provide zero class locations. Table 5 

 identifies the number of locations in each location class for each of the five transmitters 

 deployed during the 1990 season. The lowest location class has an unknown accuracy 

 and accounted for 65% of all locations. Argos claims that 67% of the locations in each 

 class are actually within the specified distance associated with that class. Thus, 67% of 

 the locations in Class I are within 1 km from their calculated position. The low number 

 of transmissions during Period 1 dramatically affected the number of locations during 

 that period. 



LOCATION CLASS INFORMATION 



Table 5. Summary of location classes for PTTs #823, #825, #833, #839 and #840. 



35 



