Figure 29. — Bowhead whale sightings in Ihe Bering and southern 

 Chukchi Seas. 1974-79. from aerial and vessel surveys. October sight- 

 ings were provided b> A. Berzin, pers. commun. For greater detail 

 see Brahametal. (1980b). 



Twenty large, apparently adult bowheads were observed 

 north of Point Barrow at lat. 71°N between long. 156° and 

 157°W on 22 October 1978 (Savage 1978 20 ). The animals 

 were following a large, slow moving ice floe and appeared to 

 be feeding. As ice appeared to cover the Beaufort Sea east of 

 long. 152°W on this date, Savage felt that these sightings 

 were made near the end of the autumn westward migration. 

 Details of the few other sightings made in October 1978 and 

 the unsuccessful aerial survey effort of the area around Prud- 

 hoe Bay in September 1978 are reported in Braham et al. 

 (1980d). 



DISCUSSION AND REVIEW 



Western Arctic-Bering Sea Population 

 of Bowhead Whales 



Distribution and Migration 



Bowhead whales of the western Arctic-Bering Sea stocks oc- 

 cur seasonally from the west central Bering Sea northward 

 along the coast of Siberia and around St. Lawrence Island in 

 the northern Bering Sea, throughout the Chukchi Sea, and in 



"Savage. S. 1978. Distribution of B. myslicelus and D. leucas in the Beaufort 

 Sea. October 1978. Unpubl. manuscr., 11 p. Natl. Mar. Mammal Lab., Natl. 

 Mar. Fish. Serv., NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE., Bldg. 32, Seattle, WA 

 98115. 



fewer numbers in the eastern East Siberian Sea, and eastward 

 throughout the U.S. Beaufort Sea to Banks Island and Amund- 

 sen Gulf, Northwest Territories, Canada (Fig. 1). 



The exact location of the wintering area for bowheads is not 

 known, but the western and central Bering Sea appear to be 

 the most probable location (Sleptsov 1961; Durham footnote 

 10; Braham and Krogman footnote 2; Braham et al. 1980b, c; 

 Brueggeman 1982). Results from our icebreaker survey in 

 March and April 1979 indicated that bowheads winter in the 

 west central Bering Sea pack ice (Braham et al. 1980c). Com- 

 ments made to Braham by A. Berzin (footnote 19) indicate 

 that in some years a few bowheads may winter in open water in 

 the Gulf of Anadyr. The waters around St. Lawrence Island 

 are occupied intermittently by bowheads, dependent upon 

 open water, from approximately December to April (Braham 

 et al. 1980c, d). Past whaling records and reported observa- 

 tions by Alaskan Eskimos support the hypothesis that bow- 

 head winter distribution is south and west of St. Lawrence 

 Island to the pack ice front and perhaps farther south into 

 open water. Townsend's (1935) records of bowhead whale 

 catches and recent data from Bockstoce and Botkin (footnote 

 13) show that large numbers of whales were taken from Cape 

 Olyutorskiy north to the Gulf of Anadyr, U.S.S.R., and ad- 

 joining waters during early spring and summer during com- 

 mercial whaling when bowheads were more abundant than 

 now. Few whales were taken or have been observed in the east- 

 ern Bering Sea, despite extensive aerial and shipboard surveys. 

 Of those sightings in the eastern Bering Sea over the Continen- 



17 



