150 



Verde Islands (Winn et al.. 1 98T ), which makes nnore sense as an eastern North 

 Atlantic calving ground. 



P 3-28/1 3: It is not clear to me, in the absence of literature citations, why the 

 toxic dose should be related to metabolic rate. Does this mean metabolic 

 rate, which is higher in a humpback than a sea otter, or weight-specific MR, 

 which is lower? And doesn't the toxic dose depend on both the saxitoxin 

 concentration in the prey and the amount of prey consumed? 



P 3-30/1 1: It seems confusing to introduce two sets of numbers to prove the 

 same point, when it is not clear how they relate. What years were encom- 

 passed by the OCS data? Since the northeast OCS is much larger than the 

 Gulf of Maine, why so many fewer entanglements? 



P 3-30/1 2/L 6-7: These numbers don't add up. If the Gulf of Maine humpback 

 stock is 600 whales, a 4.8% annual mortality rate means that 28 whales die 

 in entanglements each year, but only 5 or 6 deaths are known for 1975- 

 1990. 



P 3-32/1 5/L 2: I believe that this should be Mona Passage. 



P 3-33/1 T/L 3: There is no direct evidence for right whale mother/calf pairs get- 

 ting a free ride in the Gulf Stream. Mention of this in Kraus et al. (1992) was 

 speculation based on what should be adaptiveiy and energetically beneficial to 

 the animals. 



P 3-33/1 6/L 6-8: Calanus samples reported by Wishner for 1986 were from the 

 Great South Channel, not the Bays. So they are not from the same location 

 as the data reported by Payne. In addition, sample densities in the two 

 papers are not directly comparable, since Wishner's data were from MOC- 

 NESS (i.e. vertically discrete) samples and Payne's were based on MARMAP 

 bongo (i.e. vertically integrated) tows. Our 1989 data in the Great South 

 Channel were another order of magnitude higher than 1986 (Wishner et al., in 

 prep.), and Mayo has collected samples in Cape Cod Bay another order of 

 magnitude denser still. 



P 3-35/1 2: The argument presented in this paragraph is not clear. Mike -Payne 

 and I have talked about this many times over the years. His 1986 paper used 

 humpback sighting distribution relative to abundance and distribution of sand 

 lance and distributional changes by humpbacks coincident with the sand lance 

 explosion to support the hypothesis that humpback distribution was related to 

 sand lance patterns. We both also recognized that humpback distribution was 

 clearly related to steeply sloping bottom topography. He hypothesized that 



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