SC/64/O5

SC/64/O5

Cruise report of the Second phase of the Japanese Whale Research
Program under Special Permit in the western North Pacific (JARPN II)
in 2011 (Part III) – Coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey
TOSHIYA KISHIRO1, HIDEHIRO KATO2, NOBUYUKI ITO3, GENTA YASUNAGA4, HARA TAKAHIRO3, GEN
NAKAMURA2, HIKARI MAEDA2, SATOKO INOUE2, NAOKO MIYAKAWA2, KOZUE ISHIDA2, ICHIROKADOWAKI2, HIROYUKI OIKAWA4, TOMIO MIYASHITA1, TOSHIHIDE IWASAKI1, YU KANAJI1, SHINGOMINAMIKAWA1, HIKARU WATANABE1, SAEKO KUMAGAI3, HITOMI SATO3, AND KAZUYA KITAYAMA2
1

National Research Institute of Far Seas Fisheries, 2-12-4 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 2368648, Japan

2

Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, 4-5-7 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0075, Japan

3

Association for Community-Based Whaling, Hakata-Eki-Higashi, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka 812-0013, Japan

4

The Institute of Cetacean Research, 4-5, Toyomi-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0055, Japan

Contact e-mail: kishiro@affrc.go.jp
ABSTRACTThe autumn survey of the JARPN II coastal component off Kushiro, northeast Japan (the sub-area 7CN) was conducted from
9 September to 30 October 2011, using four small-type whaling catcher boats as sampling vessels. The sampling was
conducted in the coastal waters within the 50 nautical miles from the Kushiro port, and all whales sampled were landed on
the land station in the Kushiro port for biological examination. During the survey, a total of 5,367.8 n. miles (515.0 hours)
was searched, 144 schools/ 150 individuals of common minke whales were sighted and 60 whales were sampled. Average
body length of sampled whales was 6.24m (SD=1.06, n=35) for males and 6.05m (SD=1.08, n=25) for females, respectively.
19 of the 35 males (54.3%) and three of the 25 females (12.0%) were sexually mature. The dominant prey species found in
the stomach was Japanese anchovy Engraulis japonicus (61.7%), followed by walleye pollock Theragra chalcogramma(26.7%), and krill Euphausia pacifica (8.3%). Pacific saury Cololabis saira and Japanese common squid Todarodes pacificus
were not observed. Frequent sightings of the whales, slightly higher ratio of mature and larger whales in the samples
compared with the last year survey, and more whales taking Japanese anchovy suggested that Japanese anchovy might beabundant in the research area in this season, and the distribution of those preys attracted the whales including mature animals
to the coastal waters off Kushiro in 2011 autumn season. During the survey, no apparent impact due to the earthquake
occurred in March 2011was detected in the distribution, density, and catch composition of common minke whales. Thisimplied that effect of the earthquake for the migration of common minke whales in the coastal waters off Kushiro might be
reduced or negligible when the present survey was conducted.
KEYWORDS: COMMON MINKE WHALE; NORTH PACIFIC; COASTAL WATERS OF JAPAN; FOOD/PREY;ECOSYSTEM; SCIENTIFIC PERMITSBACKGROUND
The full-scale surveys of the second phase of the Japanese Whale Research Program under Special Permit
in the western North Pacific (JARPN II) started in 2002 (Government of Japan, 2002). The objectives ofthe surveys are: i) feeding ecology and ecosystem studies, involving prey consumption by cetaceans, prey
preferences of cetaceans and ecosystem modelling, ii) monitoring environmental pollutants in cetaceans
and marine ecosystem, and iii) stock structure of whales (Government of Japan, 2002).

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

The full-scale JARPN II involves two survey components; ‘offshore’ which is covered by the Nisshin Maru
research vessels and ‘coastal’ which is covered by small-type whaling catcher boats, and the latter one isnecessary to cover the temporal and spatial gaps, which cannot be covered by the Nisshin maru research
vessels (Government of Japan, 2002).
Based on the results of the two-year feasibility study of the coastal survey component conducted in 2002
off Kushiro and 2003 off Sanriku district (Kishiro, et al., 2003, Yoshida, et al., 2004, Government of Japan,
2004a), the coastal component has been revised to be conducted twice a year, with 60 common minke
whales being sampled in each of spring off Sanriku and autumn off Kushiro (Government of Japan, 2004b).
After the first revised survey carried out off Kushiro in autumn 2004 (Kishiro, et al., 2005), the coastal
survey off Kushiro was conducted annually from 2005 to 2010 (Kishiro, et al., 2006, 2008, 2010, Yoshida,
et al., 2007, 2009, 2011).
In January 2009, the expert workshop was carried out in Japan under the IWC/SC, and reviewed the resultsof the first six years of the full-scale JARPN II (IWC, 2009). Because there was no critical problem in thesurvey methodology, the coastal components were continued following the original research plan
(Government of Japan 2004b).
However, in March 2011, the great earthquake disaster occurred in the Sanriku region. The serious disasterprevented to carry out the survey in Sanriku region, and the coastal component in spring season in 2011
was modified to conduct in Kushiro region for collecting the information about the seasonal variation in the
distribution and feeding habit of common minke whales off Kushiro (Yasunaga, et al., 2012). After thespring survey off Kushiro, the coastal component off Kushiro was conducted again in the autumn season
following the original research plan.
This paper presents results of the autumn survey conducted off Kushiro, from 9 September to 30 October in
2011. The survey was authorized by the Government of Japan in compliance with Article VIII of theinternational convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The National Research Institute of Far Seas
Fisheries (NRIFSF), Fisheries Research Agency, planned and conducted the survey cooperate with theInstitute of Cetacean Research (ICR), Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and the
Association for Community-Based Whaling.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Research area
The research area was same to the previous surveys (Kishiro, et al., 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, Yoshida,
et al., 2007, 2009, 11, Yasunaga et al., 2012), i.e. the coastal waters off Kushiro, within the 50 nautical
miles from the Kushiro port (Fig. 1). This area is included in the middle part of the sub-area 7CN,
established by the IWC.

Research vessels and land station
Four small-type whaling catcher boats were used as sampling vessels.

Taisho Maru No. 28 (47.3GT),
Koei Maru No.8 (32.0GT),
Sumitomo Maru No.51 (30.0GT)
Katsu Maru No.7 (32.0GT)2

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All whales sampled were landed on the land station (the JARPN II research station) in the Kushiro port forbiological examination. Research period was from 9 September to 30 October, 2011.

Searching and sampling methods
Searching and sampling methods were almost same with those for the first coastal survey off Kushiro in2002 (Kishiro et al. 2003). The research head office was placed in the research station and controlled thesampling vessels during the survey. All catcher boats were engaged as the sampling vessels. To avoid theconcentration of sampling location, the research head office arbitrarily determined the searching area androute (direction from the port) for each sampling vessel in every day, based on the information of the whale
distribution. Weather conditions and information on fishing grounds of prey species were also considered.
In each vessel, a researcher was on board and recorded the cruise tracks, searching time on effort, sea
weather conditions and sighting data. Sighting data would be collected for all baleen whales and sperm
whales. The vessel principally continued to cruise and search along the predetermined direction until
arrived at 15-30 n. miles from the port, and then freely cruised in the waters within the 50 n. miles radiusfrom the port. Searching was carried out during the day and the vessels returned to the port every night.
Sighting was conducted from the top barrel and upper bridge by all the crews and researcher with vessel
speed at about 11 knots. All common minke whales sighted were targeted for sampling, except for the cowcalf pair. When a sighting consisted of more than one animal, first targeted animal was selected following
the random sampling digits. Sampling was made by 50 mm whaling cannon. Once a vessel caught a whale,
it returned to the Kushiro port to transport the animal to the research station. While returning to the port,other common minke whales sighted were also targeted for sampling, if the situation allowed. At the port,
the sampled whale was lift up from the vessel using wire nets and a crane and transported to the station by
an 11 tons freight trailer. At that time, body weight of the whale was measured with the truck scale.

Biological research on common minke whales collected
All the whales sampled were biologically examined by researchers at the research station. Research itemsof the biological studies were summarized in Table 2, with the number of data and samples obtained. These
items were related to studies on feeding ecology, stock structure, life historical biology and pollutions.

RESULTS
Searching effort made by sampling vessels
The cruise tracks made by the sampling vessels during the survey are shown in Fig.2. The searching areas
covered widely coastal waters within 30 nautical miles from the Kushiro port. Searching distance and time
are shown in Table 1. Here, we defined the searching distance and time as that with sighting effort, i.e. theperiods of the searching conducted from the top barrel. During the research period, total searching distanceand time were 5,367.8 n. miles and 515.0 hours, respectively.

Sightings and sampling of common minke whales
Fig.3 shows distribution of common minke whales sighted by the sampling vessels. Sighting positions
widely distributed in inshore areas off Kushiro port to the waters in around 30 n. miles from the port, andrelatively concentrated on the continental shelf regions in the south western side and the south eastern sideof the research area. During the survey, a total of 144 schools/ 150 individuals of common minke whales
were sighted, consisting of 122 schools/ 126 individuals of primary sightings and 22 schools/ 24
individuals of secondary sightings (Table 1). These figures probably include some duplicated sightings

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

because sampling vessels searched almost same areas in every day. Density index of common minke
whales was calculated as 2.27 for DI (the number of primary sightings of schools per 100 nautical miles
searching) and 0.23 for SPUE (the number of primary sightings of schools per 1 hour searching). Of the
126 common minke whales sighted, 60 common minke whales were sampled. In the sampling process,there were no struck and lost animals. Fig.3 showed sighting positions of sampled whales. Distribution ofthese whales almost covered all of the areas where the sightings were made during the survey period.

Sightings of other large cetaceans
During the survey, a total of 8 schools/ 9 individuals of humpback whales, and 2 schools/ 2 individuals of
sperm whales were sighted (Table 1). Sighting positions of those whales were shown in Fig.4.

Sex ratio, body length and maturity of common minke whales caught
The 60 sampled whales were consisted of 35 males and 25 females (sex ratio of males was 0.58). Average
body length of the whales was 6.24m (max=7.76, min=4.07, SD=1.06) for males and 6.05m (max=8.55,
min=4.31, SD=1.08) for females, respectively (Table 3). Composition of sex and sexual maturity of thewhales is listed in Table 4. Male with a single testis weight of 290g or more, and female had at least one
corpus luteum or albicans in their ovaries were determined as sexually mature. In males, 19 of 35
individuals (54.3%) were sexually mature. This figure was higher than that of the last two years autumn
surveys, e.g. 33.3% in 2009, and 22.0% in 2010. In females, three of 25 individuals (12.0%) were sexuallymature, and all mature females were resting animals, e.g. no lactating and no pregnant. In the last two years
autumn surveys, there was no mature females (n=23 in 2009, and n=19 in 2010), and maturity ratio of
females in 2011 was higher than those of 2009 and 2010.

Prey species of common minke whale found in the stomach contents
Stomach contents of all collected animals were examined (Table 5). Following the same methods used in
the JARPN II feasibility surveys (Fujise, et al., 2002), stomach contents were weighted to the nearest 0.1
Kg by each four chamber in both cases of including and excluding liquid. Then, a sub-sample of stomach
contents was collected and frozen for the later laboratory work. Three prey species, walleye pollock
Theragra chalcogramma, krill Euphausia pacifica, and Japanese anchovy Engraulis japonicus were foundin the forestomach contents. Among them, Japanese anchovy was the most dominant prey species. Ratio of
the whales mainly fed on Japanese anchovy was 61.7% or 37 out of 60 whales. Next dominant prey species
was walleye pollock (26.7% or 16 whales), followed by krill (8.3% or 5 whales). Pacific saury Cololabis
saira and Japanese common squid Todarodes pacificus were not found. The weights of forestomach
contents ranged from 0.88Kg to 116.9Kg, and average weight was 25.6Kg.

DISCUSSION
The present survey was the ninth survey of the JARPN II coastal component in the autumn season off
Kushiro. As same as the previous surveys, bad weather conditions such as typhoons, low atmosphericpressures and thick fog often disturbed research activities. Of total 52 day survey period from 9 September
to 30 October, sampling vessels could conduct the research for 26 days or 50.0%. This figure was lower
than those of the last two years surveys (58.1% in 2009, and 60.0% in 2010). Of these, there was only 9days (17.3%), on which the vessels conduct the survey throughout the day. Nevertheless, we could collect aplanned sample size of 60 animals as well as in the last 2010 survey. One of the reasons was thought to be
the migration of common minke whales. The density index of common minke whales recorded by the
sampling vessels in autumn 2011 (DI=2.27) was almost same in the last year survey (DI=2.34, Yoshida etal., 2011), and higher than those of the past survey in 2009 (DI=1.89, Kishiro et al., 2010) and 20084

SC/64/O5(DI=1.67, Yoshida et al., 2009). This suggested that the migration of common minke whales in autumn
2011 was abundant as same as in 2010, and higher than those in 2009 and 2008.
Body length of common minke whales collected in autumn 2011 was ranged from 4.07m to 8.55m,
and frequency of large animals was relatively high, when compared with those of 2010 (Fig. 5). Ratio of
sexual maturity animals (54.3% for males, and 12.0% for females) in autumn 2011 was also high, whencompared with those of 2010 (22.0% for males, and 0% for females: Yoshida, et al., 2011). These results
indicated that the mature whales were more frequently migrated off Kushiro in the 2011 autumn season,compared with the same season of the last year. The most dominant prey species found from the whale
stomach was changed from walleye pollock in 2010 to Japanese anchovy in 2011 (Fig.7). Japanese
anchovy was taken by both immature and mature whales, but ratio of mature whales taking Japanese
anchovy was high compared with those of walleye pollock (Fig. 8). The whales taking Japanese anchovy
were distributed widely on the continental shelf region, while the whales taking walleye pollock wereconcentrated along the 200-500m isobaths on the continental slop region (Fig. 9). These results suggested
that Japanese anchovy might be more abundant than the last year, and the distribution of those preys
attracted more whales including mature animals to the coastal area, and as a result, stable and abundantmigration of the whales was observed in autumn 2011.
Pacific saury was not observed in the stomach of the whales. This might be due to fewer migrationof Pacific saury in the restricted research area (within a 50 nautical miles from the Kushiro port). Fishinggrounds for Pacific saury during the present survey period were located in the offshore waters at around 90
to 180 nautical miles from the Kushiro port (Japan Fisheries Information Service Center, 2011).
The present survey was conducted in about six month later the earthquake disaster, which
occurred in the Sanriku region in March 2011. However, as shown in Fig.3, 5, and 6, no apparent impact
due to the earthquake was detected in the distribution, density, and catch composition of common minke
whales. This implied that effect of the earthquake for common minke whales might be reduced or
negligible when the present survey was conducted.
In this year, spring survey of the JARPN II coastal component was conducted off Kushiro, insteadof Sanriku (Yasunaga, et al., 2012). Compared with the results of that survey, apparent difference such as
the increase in the density of the whales (0.83 animals/100 n.miles in spring, 2.27 animals/100 n.miles inautumn) and the diversification of the prey species (from 2 species: walleye pollock and krill to 3 species:
added Japanese anchovy) were observed (Yasunaga, et al., 2012, and Fig.6). This information is valuable inconsidering the seasonal change of the habit of common minke whales within the same waters in the same
year, and will be contribute to the objectives of the JARPN II feeding ecology and ecosystem studies,though the impact of the earthquake in the spring survey might be carefully considered.
There was no serious practical problem in conducting the surveys and the 2011 autumn survey off
Kushiro was conducted successfully.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are greatly indebted to Dr. Hiroshi Hatanaka, the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), Dr.
Seiji Ohsumi (ICR) and Mr. Tatsushi Matsuo, the Fisheries Agency of Japan for their guidance andimplementation of the research. We thank to all crew of the research vessels and all staff of the land stationand the Japanese small-type whaling association. We also thank to the staff of the Kushiro City and theKushiro Fisheries Cooperative Union for their kind assistance in the implementation of the research.

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

Table 1. Searching days, hours, distances, and number of sightings made by the whale sampling survey inthe 2011JARPN II coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey.

Table 2. Summary of biological data and samples collected during the 2011 JARPN II coastal component
off Kushiro, autumn survey.

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Table 3. Body length (m) of common minke whales sampled by the 2011 JARPN II coastal component off
Kushiro, autumn survey.

Table 4. Composition of sex and sexual maturity of common minke whales sampled by the 2011 JARPN II
coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey.

Table 5. Number of common minke whales by major prey species found in their forestomach contents
sampled by the 2011 JARPN II coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey.

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

Fig.1. The IWC sub-area for western North Pacific minke whales (upper) andresearch area for the 2011 JARPN II coastal component off Kushiro (lower).

Fig.2. Cruise tracks of the sampling vessels in the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey..
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Fig.3. Sighting positions of common minke whales in the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro, autumn
survey. Closed circle indicates sighting position of sampled whale.

Fig.4. Sighting positions of humpback whales (closed triangle), (grey square), and sperm whales (opensquare) in the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey.

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

Fig 5. Body length frequency of common minke whales sampled during the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey,
with comparison to the results of the previous surveys.
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Fig. 6. Composition of prey species of common minke whales sampled during the 2011 coastal component
off Kushiro, autumn survey, with comparison to the results of the previous surveys.

Fig.7. Sexual maturity and body length frequency of common minke whales by their major prey species
found in the forestomach in the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro, autumn survey.

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Kishiro, et al.: Report of the JARPN II in 2011 – Coastal Component off Kushiro, autumn survey

Fig.8. Sighting positions of common minke whales in the 2011 coastal component off Kushiro,
autumn survey, by their sexual maturity and major prey species found in the forestomach

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