Weinrich et a\. Behavior of Megaptera novaeanghae during biopsy 



595 



Following the final biopsy attempt, SI4 started a 

 series of stereotypic actions. Every 45-60 s, the animal 

 would trumpet blow loudly, then tail slash or low-lobtail 

 (a quick, low version of lob- tailing behavior), surge for- 

 ward, and roll sideways with great force, often rolling 

 ventral-side-up and spiraling underwater. Periods of 

 submergence were <30s in all cases. The swimming 

 path was erratic, but the animal was never >100m 

 from the vessel. It passed immediately below the vessel 

 twice, repeatedly surfacing on alternating sides of the 

 boat. Swimming speed appeared greater than normal, 

 although net movement in any one direction was 

 minimal. During the same period CRl appeared placid, 

 although it did trumpet blow three times. After 14 min, 

 the vigorous behavior of SI4 suddenly ended, and both 

 animals started logging side by side. At this point, they 

 were within 25 m of the vessel. Logging behavior con- 

 tinued for at least 15 min at which point the observa- 

 tion was terminated. 



In order to compare the intensity of SI4's reaction 

 with the sample analyzed above, we compared the rate 



at which it displayed various behavior types in the post- 

 biopsy focal sample with the larger paired sample 

 (n 21). To obtain a mean number of occurrences of each 

 behavior type in the postbiopsy period, the total num- 

 ber of observations of each behavior type was divided 

 by the number of paired samples (Table 10). From these 

 data, it is clear that unusually high numbers of tail 

 rises, trumpet blows, half flukes, belly-ups, lobtails, tail 

 flicks, and tail slashes occurred in SI4's response. 



Discussion 



The results of this study indicate that behavioral reac- 

 tions of individual whales to the biopsy procedure are 

 detectable but do not appear to be severe. Immediate 

 reactions (hard tail flicks) took place in >50% of 71 

 biopsy strikes, which is especially noteworthy given the 

 rarity of this behavior in any other context. However, 

 no significant difference was seen in most of the 30 

 observed behaviors in 30-min pre- and postbiopsy 



