Historical reconstruction of the population dynamics of southern right whales in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the recovery of whale populations is critical for developing population-management and conservation strategies. The southern right whale (SRW) Eubalena australis was one of the baleen whale species that has experienced centuries of exploitation. We assess here for the first time the population dynamics of the SRW from the southwestern Atlantic Ocean at the regional level to measure numerically the effect of whaling and estimate the population trend and recovery level after depletion. We reconstructed the catch history of whaling for the period 1670-1973 by an extensive review of different literature sources and developed a Bayesian state-space model to estimate the demographic parameters. The population trajectory indicated that the pre-exploitation abundance was close to 58,

SUBMITTER: Romero MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8885757 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature