Long‐term acoustic monitoring of whale vocalizations offers valuable information on cetacean population biology and ecology and has become an essential tool for stock management. This study investigated seasonal and interannual variation in fin whale call characteristics off the west coast of South Africa using passive acoustic data across two periods: July 24, 2014 to January 13, 2017, and March 3, 2023 to September 27, 2024....

Humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) super‐groups, comprising 20+, tightly aggregated, feeding individuals, form during the austral summer in the southern Benguela ecosystem off the west coast of South Africa. This phenomenon, observed since 2011, is thought to be linked to increased productivity from positive chlorophyll‐a anomalies associated with reduced water export in the area, and possible changes in associated trop...

Photo‐identifications of Antarctic blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus intermedia ) collected from 2003/2004 to 2018/2019 were used in a capture–recapture analysis to estimate abundance and population growth rate for the circumpolar Antarctic. Two capture–recapture models, POPAN and Pradel, were applied to these data. Estimates of annual abundance and their variances from the left and right side photo data were inferred using...

Southern Hemisphere humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) were heavily targeted during modern commercial whaling operations, with some 216,000 individuals killed between 1903 and 1973. That impacted the abundance of all the seven breeding stocks of the species. Most of these stocks have been recovering from whaling pressure although the understanding of the current growth rates of some stocks, and how the rates compare ac...

Whales have been titled climate savers in the media with their recovery welcomed as a potential carbon solution. However, only a few studies were performed to date providing data or model outputs to support the hypothesis. Following an outline of the primary mechanisms by which baleen whales remove carbon from the atmosphere for eventual sequestration at regional and global scales, we conclude that the amount of carbon whales...

The Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is critical in supporting the social and economic development of the nations it borders. To safeguard the various opportunities it provides, it is essential to adopt sustainable ocean development models that balance ocean wealth and ocean health. Such models depend on evidence-based and adaptative ocean governance underpinned by holistic social, environmental and economic indicators. The ocean ac...

Humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae , are a highly migratory species exposed to a wide range of environmental factors during their lifetime. The spatial and temporal characteristics of such factors play a significant role in determining suitable habitats for breeding, feeding and resting. The existing studies of the relationship between oceanic conditions and humpback whale ecology provide the basis for understanding impac...

Globally, baleen whales were severely depleted by historic whaling. Recovering populations have been observed to alter their behaviour. These changes have been attributed to climate change in some cases and raise concerns over the successful recovery of baleen whale populations. Current data‐driven statistical habitat and behavioural models have proven useful for addressing questions of whale distribution changes within their...

Seasonal occurrence, diel‐vocalizing patterns, and call‐types of Antarctic minke whales are described using bio‐acoustic recordings from the west coast of South Africa and the Maud Rise, Antarctica. In Antarctica, minke whale bioduck calls were detected in seven of nine months of hydrophone deployment (peaking in May and September) while downsweeps were only detected in June. Bioduck calls were sporadically detected in South A...

Elucidating patterns of population structure for species with complex life histories, and disentangling the processes driving such patterns, remains a significant analytical challenge. Humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) populations display complex genetic structures that have not been fully resolved at all spatial scales. We generated a data set of nuclear markers for 3575 samples spanning the seven breeding stocks and...

Often abundance of rare species cannot be estimated with conventional design‐based methods, so we illustrate with a population of blue whales ( Balaenoptera musculus ) a spatial model‐based method to estimate abundance. We analyzed data from line‐transect surveys of blue whales off the coast of Chile, where the population was hunted to low levels. Field protocols allowed deviation from planned track lines to collect identifica...