02 August 2012

Mediterranean fin whales probably overestimated - Forse sovrastimato il numero delle balenottere del Mediterraneo

The number of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the Mediterranean may have been overestimated by including specimens from the Atlantic that only visit, at certain times. According to a new study, published in Marine Mammal Science, the estimated 3500 mediterranean individuals may be less on the basis of acoustic data, and the population probably presents a much more limited distribution than currently described. Moreover the noise generated by human activities affects their survival.
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Il numero delle balenottere comuni (Balaenoptera physalus) del Mediterraneo potrebbe essere stato sovrastimato, includendo gli individui che a volte entrano dallo stretto di Gibilterra, ma che appartengono alla popolazione atlantica. Secondo un nuovo studio, pubblicato sulla rivista Marine Mammal Science, i 3500 individui stimati dei nostri mari potrebbero in realtà essere meno, sulla base di dati acustici, e presentare una distribuzione più limitata di quanto si credesse. Inoltre il rumore generato dalle attività umane ne mette sempre più a repentaglio la sopravvivenza.
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Pubblicato da Maddalena Jahoda a 00:56

1 comment:

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara said...

This makes some sense to me. When in 1992 we surveyed fin whales in the Pelagos Sanctuary area in collaboration with Greenpeace, we came up with an estimate just below 1,000 animals, so it was not clear where the remaining 2,500 from the previous estimate could be. However, most of the fin whales sighted during the 1991 survey were also in the Pelagos Sanctuary area, while only a few were sighted in the western portion of the Mediterranean, so it is still unclear which of these whales could belong to the Atlantic population mentioned by Castellote et al.

6 August 2012 at 09:07

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