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The External Locations of Harpoon Wounds on Minke Whales Taken in Antarctic Commercial Whaling Operations, 1978/79 Season

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

P B Best
P B Best*
Affiliation:
Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 0002 South Africa
*
Contact for correspondence and requests for reprints: Dr Peter B Best, MRI Whale Unit, c/o South African Museum, PO Box 61, Cape Town, 8000 South Africa.
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Abstract

Observations on the external locations of harpoon wounds were made on 127 minke whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata taken during Japanese commercial whaling operations in the 1978/79 Antarctic season. The numbers of wounds per whale did not vary between catcher boats, the average being 1.2. Although the cranio-thoracic region seemed to be the target of choice (bearing 60.5% of all wounds examined), the proportion of wounds in this region varied significantly between catcher boats, ranging from 43.6 to 75.7 per cent. It is suggested that this variation arose because to hit the cranio-thoracic region, the first section of the whale to surface, requires considerable skill on the part of the gunner.

Keywords

animal welfareAntarcticharpoon woundsminke whalewhaling
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 57 - 62
Copyright
© 1996 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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