Journal
ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE
Volume 66, Issue 10, Pages 2253-2266Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsp191
Keywords
Greenland; minke whale; oceanography; sea temperature; sex ratio; whaling
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The harvest of common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in West Greenland has historically been skewed towards female whales, yet a complete analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of catch sex ratio has never been conducted. We examined trends in the sex ratio of catches over time, season, space, and relative to sea temperature using 2400 records from inshore Greenland subsistence whaling operations (1960-2006) and 2072 records from offshore Norwegian commercial operations (1968-1985). Logistic regression models were developed to examine the trend in sex ratio in three regions (Northwest, NW; Central West, CW; Southwest, SW) and by latitude. The highly skewed proportion of females in all catches was strongly positively correlated (r(2) = 0.8) with latitude in the offshore catches (>100 km). Generalized linear models of inshore catches indicated slightly increasing though non-significant trends in the proportion of females taken off CW and NW Greenland and a significant declining trend off SW Greenland. Sensitivity analyses show that the declining inshore SW trend was entirely accounted for by the past 5 years (2002-2006) of data. Models containing both year and temperature interactions suggested that either parameter provided an equivalent explanation of the variation in trends across regions.
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