DISTRIBUTION AND MIGRATION 333 



During the same time, W. H. Dawbin, calling in the help of small, 

 locally chartered vessels, managed to mark a great number of Humpback 

 Whales together with a few Fin Whales off New Zealand and some South 

 Sea islands. R. Clarke marked whales, and particularly Sperm Whales, 

 off Peru. Russia and Japan use marks of their own, and the Japanese have 

 so far marked well over i,ooo whales in the North Pacific alone. With 

 financial assistance from all Norwegian, British and Dutch whaling 

 companies, it \vas possible to send the catcher Enern on an Antarctic 

 marking expedition towards the end of 1953. On board were Prof. J. T. 

 Ruud and his assistant, P. Oynes, R. Clarke of the National Institute of 

 Oceanography, and the director of the Dutch T.N.O. group, W. L. van 

 Utrecht. The Ejiern sailed from Cape Town via the Antarctic to South 

 Georgia, marking no whales on its way. In 1954, on a second journey 

 just before the opening of the season, 243 whales were marked in twenty- 

 eight days, as weather conditions were better that time. 



It is a very great pity indeed that funds for large-scale marking expedi- 

 tions are no longer set aside by the various countries. Marking is not only 

 of paramount scientific importance, but, since it tells us more about the 

 distribution, migration, life span, and perhaps also about the size of the 

 w^iale population, it is of great commercial value, as well. In Chapter 14, 

 we shall see how life span and size of population affect the determination 

 of the annual catch limit. Meanwhile, we shall discuss the effects of mark- 

 ing on the study of the distribution and migration of whales in the 

 southern hemisphere. 



The results of the first survey were published in three reports by Rayner 

 in 1940 and 1948, and by Brown in 1954, from which it emerged that a 

 number of Humpback Whales and three Fin Whales marked in the 

 Antarctic had been caught at tropical and sub-tropical land stations. 

 Two Fin Whales marked in the sub-tropics were caught in Antarctic 

 waters. While this is slender evidence, it nevertheless is positive proof for 

 our assumption that Antarctic whales spend the winter in the tropics. 

 The survey has further shown that Humpbacks occur in five distinct 

 Antarctic populations (see Fig. 181), and that individuals usually return 

 to their respective zones, though, very occasionally, an animal from 

 Area II, having wintered ofT the West African coast, may return to 

 Area III, and that there is a similar, occasional, interchange between the 

 Australian and New Zealand stocks, as well as between Areas V and I 

 (Bellinghausen Sea). There are two separate Australian Humpback 

 stocks, one off the East Coast and one ofT the West Coast of the continent. 

 In the 1958-9 season, a mark fired ofT the East Coast was for the first time 

 returned from a whale caught in Area IV. Fig. 183 shows clearly that 

 Humpbacks migrate along the coasts of the continents, possibly because 



