Current global population size, post-whaling trend and historical trajectory of sperm whales.

ABSTRACT: The sperm whale lives in most deep ice-free waters of the globe. It was targeted during two periods of whaling peaking in the 1840's and 1960's. Using a habitat suitability model, we extrapolated estimates of abundance from visual and acoustic surveys to give a global estimate of 736,053 sperm whales (CV = 0.218) in 1993. Estimates of trends in the post-whaling era suggest that: whaling, by affecting the sex ratio and/or the social cohesion of females, reduced recovery rates well after whaling ceased; preferentially-targeted adult males show the best evidence of recovery, presumably due to recruitment from breeding populations; several decades post-whaling, sperm whale populations not facing much human impact are recovering slowly, but populations may be declining in areas with substantial

SUBMITTER: Whitehead H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9663694 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature