Sightings are grouped by detection function species pool (Table 2): (A) pantropical spotted dolphin, (B) species pool 1, (C) species pool 2, (D) species pool 3, (E) species pool 4, (F) species pool 5, (G) species pool 6, (H) unidentified
rorqual, (I) unidentified dolphin, and (J) unidentified cetacean.
"You can have two organisms that are as completely different as a pelican and a
rorqual whale are - you just have to look at them to immediately understand the differences - but, that said, they have these extraordinary similarities as well," study leader Daniel Field of Yale University told Live Science.
The
rorqual fishery by steamers in the Gulf of Maine was intertwined with the menhaden fishery.
Unidentified delphinoids were pooled with all delphinids; unidentified small whales were pooled with Ziphius, Mesoplodon and Kogia spp.; unidentified
rorquals were pooled with all
rorqual species; and unidentified large whales were pooled with
rorquals and sperm whales.
We recommend care when discerning Fin Whales from other
rorquals in these waters, and that mariners exercise caution when transiting these waters given the documented presence of Fin Whales in the region.
Minke whales are part of the
rorquals, a family which includes the humpback whale, the fin whale, the Bryde's whale, the sei whale and the blue whale.
Family Balaenopteridae: Only three species belonging to this family (commonly referred to as
rorquals) have been reported in the study area, namely: the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) and the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) (Townsend, 1935; Aguayo et al., 1998a).
After this, several participating countries (England, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Canada, and the United States in the Northern Hemisphere and South Africa, England, Chile, Norway, and Argentina in the Southern Hemisphere) took full advantage of the previously unexploited stocks of large
rorquals (Allison, 2012).
They give clear descriptions of physical characteristics and habitats and even provide a handy species checklist to record your loons, grebes,
rorquals, terns and albatrosses.
Australia accused Japan on April 1 of planning to step up whaling activities by hunting humpback whales and common
rorquals in addition to its current catches of smaller minke whales.
Tokyo rapidly became the focus of a furious row when it proposed lifting the ban on the sale of products based on
rorquals from the Northern Hemisphere and Bryde's whales from the North Pacific, which are currently on the endangered species list.
The Norwegians catered to markets different from those the Americans entered (whale meat and cooking oils markets), pursued a new group of whales (the fast-swimming
rorquals, whales that could rarely be taken by American methods), hunted a different region (the Antarctic), and employed different techniques.