WHALE OBSERVATION AND WHALE MARKING
OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964
ROBERT CLARKE*
National Institute ef Oceanography, United Kingdom

ANELIO AGUAYO L. *Estacion de Biologia Marina de Montemar de la Universidad de Chile, ChileAND
SERGIO BASULTO DEL CAMPO**
Departmento de Pesca y Caza, Ministerio de Agricultura, Santiago, Chile

ABSTRACTThe voyage of the whalecatcher Indus XIV to observe and mark whales
off the coast of Chile between 28° and 37°S in November-December 1964
repeated the track of a similar voyage in October-November 1958, and amajor object was to compare the abundance of exploited whale species after
six years.
Four blue whales sighted in 1964 prompts a discussion on Balaenoptera
musculus intermedia and B. m. brevicauda off Chile.
The abundance of fin whales had drastically reduced from 5.1 per 100
miles sailed in 1958 to 0.1 in 1964. This is attributed to Antarctic whaling
and also, in 1964-66, to intensive fin whaling off Chile, and it is recommended
that the Permanent Commission of the South Pacific prohibit the taking of
fin whales off Chile and Peru until the stock shall have recovered.
One sei whale was sighted in 1964, and the sei whales and Bryde's whales
off Chile are discussed.
In November-December 1964 there were sighted 11.9 sperm whales per
100 miles sailed compared with 1. 7 in October-November 1958. This is attributed to a seasonal influx into the area of the breeding stock moving southwards. Thus it is not suggested that the sperm whale stock had increased
between 1958 and 1964, but there was no evidence of a decline.
Results on the distribution in 1958 and 1964 of the different classes ofsperm whale schools, in relation to surface temperature, do not support the
proposal of an orderly segregation across the Humboldt Current from cold towarmer water of solitary males, bachelor schools and female schools. The
results lead to a review of sperm whale distribution and surface temperaturein other seas, and it is concluded that in the southern hemisphere the temperatures at the subtropical convergence are in general those at the limits of* Present address: Unidad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad Aut6noma de Baja California, Apartado Postal 453,
Ensenada, B.C.N., Mexico.
** Present address: Misi6n de Estudios Bioceanol6gicos y de Pesca, Maputo, Mozambique.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978., 117-177

118

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

female distribution.
The large Humboldt Current squid, Dosidicus gigas, is important in thediet of sperm whales of the Southeast Pacific, and an unsuccessful attempt wasmade to correlate the distribution and abundance of sperm whales with thoseof Dosidicus gigas, as revealed by squid fishing during night stations worked in
1964.
The distribution and abundance of blackfish, tentatively identified as
Globicephala melaena edwardi, were very similar in 1958 and 1964, the abundance being 11.0 per 100 miles sailed in 1964 and 13.2 in 1958. These results were to be expected from an unexploited species. It is recommended
that the blackfish off Chile be exploited by a controlled fishery.
There is a critical review of sightings in Chilean seas of whales recorded as Hyperoodon planifrons. An unidentified toothed whale sighted in1964 is described, and also dolphins, believed to be Tursiops sp., and porpoises,
Phocoena sp., which lead to a review of the species of Phocoena and Cephalorhynchus described from the Southeast Pacific.
One fin whale and 53 sperm whales were marked in 1964. Two ofthese sperm whales have since been recovered, one showing a local displacement of the stock, and the other, recovered from Antarctic Area I, giving
direct evidence of the migration into the Antarctic of male sperm whales fromthe breeding stock of low latitudes.
There are discussed two recoveries from other whale marking voyages
off Chile since 1958. A recovery of a Soviet mark is evidence that the same
fin whales are moving off the coast of Chile from year to year, and a sei whale
marked off southern Chile and recovered in Antarctic Area II after 9 years
shows that sei whales have a migration route between Chile and the Antarctic
similar to the route established for fin whales by whale marking in 1958.
Because of this direct evidence that the same fin whales, sei whales andmale sperm whales are being exploited in the Southeast Pacific and in the
Antarctic, there is urgent need for close cooperation between the PermanentCommission of the Southeast Pacific and the International Whaling Commission.
There are described the results of fishing for fish and squid during 18
brief oceanographical stations when the ship was stopped at night. The
squids were all· Dosidicus gigas and there are notes on feeding and length atsexual maturity in this species.
INTRODUCTION

Expeditions to observe and mark whales began in South America with voyages off
the coast of Chile in 1958 and from the coast of Ecuador towards and beyond theGalapagos Islands in 1959. Observations of whales on these voyages, which were
undertaken at the same time of the year (October-November), gave valuable
results on the distribution and relative abundance of the various species in theareas surveyed, and off Chile they demonstrated a ground for fin whaling on theoceanic edge of the Humboldt Current which had not previously been exploited:
the marking of fin whales off Chile, by subsequent recoveries of marks in Area II
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

119

of the Antarctic, established that the fin whales hunted from the coast of Chilein spring are a migrant stock also exploited by pelagic whaling in the Antarctic insummer (R. Clarke, 1962; translation in Spanish, 1963). A further expedition
was conducted off the coast of Chile in 1964 and is the subject of this report. Since
1964 there have been additional cruises off Chile (Aguayo, 1966; Aguayo andMaturana, 1966, unpublished reports), and some whale marking has been conductedin Peruvian seas (Mejia, 1964; Mejia and Poma, 1966).
We here present the results of the expedition off the coast of Chile in 1964.
The objects were to resume the marking of whales, and, by repeating the tracks ofthe voyage of 1958 at the same time of the year, to learn something of the effectsof whaling by comparing the quantities of whales sighted and their distribution
after a lapse of six years. The voyage in 1958 was conducted in the whalecatcher
Indus X between 28° and 36°S from 21 October to 6 November (Fig. 2). In theevent, the voyage of 1964, conducted in the whalecatcher Indus XIV, faithfully
repeated the tracks of Indus X, with a small extension added to the south (Fig. 1),
but took place a month later in the year, from 24 November to 17 December.
This was because of delays which could not be avoided. Whales in their seasonal
rhythms are moving all the time, more or less, so that this difference of a month
had to be taken into account in our comparisons, although it does not invalidate
our major conclusion that the sperm whale stock in the area surveyed off Chile in1964 showed no depletion after six years, whereas the fin whale stock had beenheavily depleted.
Although the principal results of the voyage of 1964 were submitted by the
first author to the government and the whaling industry of Chile in an interim
report dated 5 January 1965, we have only now been able to complete the present
report for publication in detail. Besides the main account on whales, we discuss
as relevant the fishing for squid which was a part of the brief oceanographicalstations worked at night whilst the ship lay drifting. Fifty three sperm whales
and one fin whale were marked during this expedition.
THE VOYAGE
The expedition of 1964 was conducted between 24 November and 17 Decemberin the chartered whalecatcher Indus XIV (Captain Jose Porra) as two cruises which
repeated the tracks of the expedition of 1958 (Fig. 2), with a small extension to
the south made possible by the time at our disposal (Fig. 1). Our track lay in the
upwelling region across the breadth of the Humboldt Current ; throughout thevoyage the water temperature at the surface was taken every two hours, with usuallyan additional observation of temperature whenever whales were sighted. Once or
twice we had good reason to continue sailing after dark, but otherwise it was ourpractice to stop engines at dusk and lie each night, so as to avoid missing whalesin the hours of darkness. Thus, as on the expedition of 1958, we were able eachnight to make regular observations and collections in the current, including fishingfor fish and squid.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

120

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

On the first cruise we sailed from Valparaiso on 24 November to explore thenorthern part of the area. In the following days, as we continued in the trackof the expedition of 1958, first WSW across the body of the current, then northerly,
and then east again to close the coast, there were two sightings of solitary whales(believed by Captain Parra to be bottlenosed whales), plenty of blackfish, and on
two occasions schools of a small whale which was of great interest since it could
not be identified, and which is discussed at length on p. 150. However, no great
whales were seen until the morning of 28 November, when, steaming northwards
and parallel to the coast some ten miles distant, we sighted near Punta Lengua
de Vaca the only sei whale we were to encounter on this expedition. Later thesame day we came upon the first sperm whales ; we marked nine out of a groupof 16 when 11 miles west of Isla Choros which is one of the chain of islands strung
along the coast, between 29°00'S and 29°35'S, northward of Coquimbo. As westeamed north past the islands the following day; 33 sperm whales were seen andthree were marked. At 1300 we were at the latitude of Huasco, being the furthest
north explored during the expedition of 1958. We decided to search further northduring the remainder of this day, but had sighted only two more sperm whales
when darkness fell; we turned south again, sailing through the night to pick up
next morning, 30 November, the track of 1958 in daylight. Sailing southwards
towards Coquimbo we again approached the chain of islands and came upon 30
sperm whales off Isla Chafiaral, the most northerly of the chain : fifteen of thesewhales were marked. That same afternoon, when three miles west of Isla Pajaros,
we marked six from a group of schools amounting to 26 sperm whales. We had
not long resumed our course when we sighted a magnificent concentration of sperm
whales, comprising 90-110 whales within an area five miles long by three miles
wide. There were harem schools, nursery schools, and schools which could not
be classified, being either mixed schools of immature males and females, or bachelor
schools. The various schools split and regrouped a good deal, and at one timenearly all the whales in the area had joined in five schools of 30, 28, 20, 8 and 8
whales. Many of the whales were less than 36 ft (11.0 m) long, which we consider
the minimum length at which a whale can be marked with certainty that it will
not be harmed by the mark (see p. 155). Nonetheless, we managed to mark 19
of the bigger whales before the light began to fail and we resumed our course for
Coquimbo, where we were expected for water and provisions that evening. Next
day, sailing from Coquimbo again in the track of the expedition of 1958, we observed several large schools of blackfish, and a few dolphins, but no great whales.
On the afternoon of 2 December, reaching our furthest west on this leg during the
expedition of 1958, we used the remaining hours of daylight to explore further west
as far as 75°W, where we turned back, having seen no cetaceans all day, andsteamed ESE through the night to pick up the track of 1958 next day. Again no· cetaceans were seen as we sailed diagonally across the current to complete the firstcruise in Valparaiso on the afternoon of 4 December. Conditions of wind and sea
for sighting whales had been good throughout the cruise.
After bunkering in Valparaiso we sailed towards midday of 7 December on
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

121

the second cruise which explored the southern part of the area. Following theline of the coast as far as Constitucion, according to the trace of 1958, we firstwent close inshore there to look unsuccessfully for a seal rookery reputed to inhabit Piedra de la Iglesia, and afterwards made our departure from the coast.
Sailing westward across the current we sighted and marked a solitary fin whaleon 9 December, 97 miles west of Constitucion; this was the only fin whale we saw
during the expedition. Later, on 9 December, we encountered two solitary sperm
whales, one of which was marked, and a blue whale which was chased unsuccessfully. At 0700 on 10 December, at the position corresponding to Station 110 in
Fig. 2, we left the track of 1958 to begin the short extension which time allowed
us. As we changed course a pair of blue whales were sighted, and afterwards asolitary blue whale, but these whales were chased unsuccessfully. The new course
took us WSW as far as 36°S, 76°W, and then ESE across the current to Talcahuano,
where we arrived on the afternoon of 11 December, having seen only the blow of awhalebone whale afar, and some porpoises. At Talcahuano we took water andprovisions, and sailed on 12 December NWxW towards the position of Station
110 (35°20'S, 75°23'W) so as to resume the track of 1958. This position wasreached at 0820 on 13 December; shortly afterwards the weather deteriorated, andthe ship was hove-to in heavy seas and a strong wind, until the morning of 14
December when conditions improved and we resumed our course. Again on 15
December conditions for sighting whales were poor, and we hove-to for some hours,
not wishing to leave this area, where we might hope to find baleen whales, until
conditions had improved. Course was resumed in the afternoon, and so we continued in good weather for the rest of the voyage towards Valparaiso, where wearrived to complete the expedition in the early hours of 17 December, having
called at the whaling station of Quintay for a few hours on 16 December. During
the four days since leaving Talcahuano we had seen no great whales.
WHALE OBSERVATION

Figure 1 shows the positions and numbers of the kinds of whales sighted in 1964.
For comparison, the corresponding chart for the expedition of 1958 is reproduced
from R. Clarke (1962, Fig. 2) as Fig. 2. Details of schools (Table 6 in the present
paper and Table 3 in R. Clarke (1962)) are not necessarily shown in the charts
which give only the aggregate numbers of whales observed around a particulargeographical position, called a 'sighting': this is an encounter with whales which
may refer to any number of animals, from one to a large concentration comprising
numerous schools and perhaps single whales also. There are indicated on thecharts those parts of the track where now and then a vessel sailed for a period in
darkness, or where, because of bad visibility or heavy weather, the conditions forsighting whales were poor (see R. Clarke and Ruud, 1954). Table 1 is an annotatedrecord of all whales, dolphins and porpoises observed during the voyage of 1964.
The abundance of the various species of whales are expressed as the numbersof whales sighted per 100 miles of effective distance sailed for whale observation.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

122

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO
77•

76"

~

75"

73"

n·

Navegando en la oscuridad~

8

Mr:ilas condidones poi-o ovistor ballenas"""'---Bdllen,, .a3v1
F1n _ _ _ 8allena. de 41eta
s.; _ _ _ Bollena boba

Spo•m _ _ Cachalote.
whole _ _ bolleno
whole bonewhole_ bcllene de borba
small wtiae. _balleno p11quei'la.

blockfish _calder6nbottlenose _9ran colder-6n

'"
31°

33

3t

36

Fig. 1. The voyage of the whalecatcher Indus XIV off the coast of Chile between
24 November and 17 December 1964. The species and numbers of whales sighted
and the numbers of whales marked are shown; a cross represents each whale
marked. The dates are noon positions. Brief oceanographical stations, I 14 toI 31 , are also plotted.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

123

76'

SPE~."xx/ i

28'){GuAsco...........,_,,Sailing in ddrkness.
~Poor

conditions for sighting whales.

/i<honoro\\ i":'~oomas} I. ·caviota.:_~ 1. 'C::horos

27.X\it~·~ojoros
Ji?:

30'

la

JT

JT

34

34'

3-0'

76'

Fig. 2. The voyage of the whalecatcher Indeus X off the coast of Chile between 21
October and 6 November 1958. Reproduced with permission from Norsk Hvalfangst-tidende, 1962, p. 271.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

~~
~!"

...~ ~

.~~
"'
<>O~

~

~

~

~

(For further details see
Table 7)

Sperm whale
Physeter macrocephalus

30°22'S, 71°55'W

28°00'S, 71°58'\V
29°00'S, 71°43'W to

18.2°
14.8° to15.5°

29°03'S, 71°48'W to
29°05'S, 71°48'W

29. xi/0705/0815

29. xi/1645
30. xi15.0°

29°16'S, 11°47'W

17.0°
17.6°
16.2°

14.5°

17.5°

28. xi/1830

35°l4'S, 74°35'W
9. xii/1610
10. xii/0840 35°23'S, 75°17'W
11. xii/0824 36°19'S, 74°2l'W

28. xi/0745

Sei whale
Balaenoptera borealis

Unidentified large
whalebone whales

9. xii/1305

35°16'S, 74°18'W

2

33

16

1
1
l

1

1

l

17.6°

35°20'S, 75°13'W

-

/0750

l
2

17.0°
17.6°

oc

35°1rs, 74°33'W
35°23'S, 75°26'W

PositionNos.
ofwhales9. xii/1555
10. xii/0705

Date andTime

Fin whale
Balaenoptera plfJ'salus

Blue whale
Balaenoptera musculus

Species

Surfacetemp.

-~

One of9Pair
2 Solitary
1 Solitary
3 pairs
One of threePair

4 and 6

Two of5
3 and 2l Solitary

do.
do.
do.

do.

do.

Solitary

Solitary(Separate)

Schooling

E

SW

SW

SW

s
s

SW

s

SSW

s

SW
SW

Directionr

Ha<= .chooIB(Pl. I, Fig. 2)
Harem school
Batchelor pair
S=ll ma!~
Small male
Unclassified
Unclassified
Unclassified

Dispersed over awide .,~

j!

Unclassified schools} DispersedaBatchelor schools
mile or so from
Pl. I, Fig. I.
each other0

Blowing far off
do.
Blew infrequently far off.
sei whale

c:::
r
>-3
0

[Fl

>

to

tj

~

~

2

>

pj

>
:;o
:r::

0

>I>

f '.J

Length about 13.5 m (45 ft)

Possibly a

Length 16.5-18 m (55-60 ft). Accompanied by 10 blackfish and 6-8
dolphins

Length 21.5-23 m (70-75 ft).
Both about 20 m (65 ft). They wereseparate at first. One was moving
SW and was later joined by theother when chased.

Remarks

TABLE I. WHALES, DOLPHINS AND PORPOISES SIGHTED OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964

~·

~

:;;.

~

~

'"'

?> "~

._
~~

~r;;;;::,~

c.,, ::>::i

c:.

~~

8, 8 and 5
2

11, 8, 3, 8

2
30-40
20
8
22
40-50
10

8
3

16.6°
17.2°
16.5°
16.8°
16.9°
17.2°
17.2°
17.5°

16.4°
17.2°

33°05'S, 74°52'W
32°32'S, 74°08'W
31°18'S, 73°4l'W
30°07'S, 72°04'W
30°08'S, 72°08'W
30°12'S, 72°20'W
30°12'S, 72°22'W
35°16'S, 74°18'W

33°44'S, 73°57'W
33°35'S, 72°1l'W

26. xi/0725- /1255
27. xi/0712
1. xii/1725
/1750
/1855
/1905

9. xii/1305

16. xii/0612- /1535

35-40

3

16.2°

33°03'S, 72°24'W

24. xi/1930

Blackfish
Globicephala melaena
edwardi1-

35°23'S, 73°38'W

9. xi/0648

Unidentified large whales

1
1

17.1°
17.0°

35°17'S, 74°29'W
35°17'S, 74°33'W

9. xii/1500
/1550

do.
do.

do.

do.
do.
do.
do.
12, 6, 4
Schoolingdo.

Schooling

Solitary

Solitary
Solitary

2 solitary
1 solitary
90-110 30, 28, 20
8 and 82630

18.1° to
18.7°

16.0°

29°40'S, 71°86'W to
29°45'S, 11°39'W

29°02's, 71°39'W
29°35'S, 11°38'W
to 29°38'S, 71°38'W

30. xi
1610-1915

0715-1020
30. xi
1345-1555

s
NE

SSW

s

s

E

w

E

wide area.

D~spersed over a

1

Continued ...

School comprised whales of3.7-4.6 m.
(12-15 ft) with calves of about 2 m.
(6 ft). Colour notes (see text).
School comprised whales of3.7-4.9 m.
(12-16 ft), but with one (a male)of about 7.5m (25 ft). Aecompanied by a fin whale and 6-8
dolphins.

Accompanied by 8 dolphins.
Colour notes (see text)

Chased for observation (Pl. II. Fig.
2). Colour notes (see text).

Blowing far off

Large bullThis concentration, of which 94 wereschooling as shown at a certain
moment, included harem schools,
nursery schools and unclassified
schools dispersed over a wide area.
There were also a few young solitary males, although these eventually joined the schools.
Large bull
Large bull

Nrn=y ~hool•
Cow and calf(Pl. II. Fig. 1)
Small males

Unclassified

(JI

""

i:rj

:::r::
1-<
t""'

0

"'.!
"'.!

0

Q

z

1-<

:;>::

>
?O

~

t:l

~

z

0

1-<

>-:3

~

?O

i:rj

rn

to

0

i:rj

i:-'

~>

~
"'

?: ~

~~
~.:

..

~ ::0
~?:

~

Dolphins
Tursiops sp.

Phocoena sp.

?:::0 Porpoises

~

16.3°
16.5°
15.9°
16.0°

16.6°
16.7°

18.2°
18.4°
16.6°

33°66'S, 74°57'W
31°16'S, 73°26'W
33°00'S, 72°02'W
33°02'S, 72°1 l'W

33°08's, 74°54'W
31°13'S, 73°16'W

25. xi/1750
27. xi/0808

24. xi/1650- /1755

26. xi/0705
27. xi/0712

29. xi/1402 28°18'S, 11°43'W- /1440 28°ll'S, 71°4l'W
12. xii/1738 35°55'S, 74°24'W
16. xii/1240 33°5l'S, 72°36'W

17.5°

35°16'S, 74°18'W

9. xii/1305

9. xii/0930
11. xii/ 1005
- /101016. xii/1020

35°20'S, 73°47'W
36°22'S, 74°13'W
36°22'S, 74°12'W
33°59'8, 73°07'W

17.2°
16.2°
16.2°
16.2°

17.6°

16.9°

30°ll'S, 72°16'W

I. xii/1830

35°24'S, 73°32'W

16.5°

31°l8'S, 73°41'W

27. xi/0712

8. xii/1940

16.2°

34°04'S, 75°04'W

25. xi/1850

Unidentified small whalesocBottlenosed whales?

Surfacetemp.

Date andTime

Species

Position

TABLE 1.

50-60
20
6
20

15-20

6-8

6

8

8-10

do.

do.
do.
do.
do.

do.

do.

do.

Schooling

Schooling
Schooling
Solitary
Pair

3
3
1
2

14

Solitary
Schooling

Solitary
Schooling

Solitarydo.

Schooling

1

1
15-20

1

1

Nos.
of
whalesContinued.

NW

s

NW

SSW

SW

NW

Direction

Length 0.9-1.5 m. (3-5 ft). Mostly
1.2 m. (4 ft). Notes on form andcolom. See text.
As those on 8. xii/1940.
As those on 8. xii/1940.
As those on 8. xii/1940.
As those on 8. xii/1940.

Length about 2.4 m. (8 ft). Colour
notes. (see text)
As those on 25. xi/1850. Notes onform and colour (Pl. III. Fig. 2).
Accompanying 30-40 blackfish.
Length 1.5-1.8 m. (5-6 ft). As thoseon 25. xi/1850.
Length about 2.4 m (8 ft). As thoseon 25. xi/1850. Accompanying a
fin whale and 10 blackfish.

Chased for observation. Length 4.56.0 m. (15-20 f). Notes on formand colour. The same species seen
1755/24. xi.
See text.
Length about 9 m. (30 ft).

Only the flukes were seen,
LengthChased for observation.
about 6.0m. (20 ft). Notes onform· and colour. See text and
Pl. III. Fig. !.

} See text.

Remarks

-

c:t'"

0

>-l

1fJ.

>

to

ti

~

0

~

g>

_g;

~

t'"

0

N>
O'l

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILETABLE 2.

127

EFFECTIVE DISTANCES SAILED FOR WHALE OBSERVATION
OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964 AND 1958
Miles

1964
Complete
expedition

1964
In the trackof 1958

1958(R. Clarke,
1962, p. 273)

Total distance sailed, lessDistance sailed in darkness
Distance sailed in poor conditions for sighting whales
Approaches of ports
Effective distance sailed for whale observation

2,516
162
205
56
2,093

2,122
162
164
40
1,756

1,820
99
140
16
1,565

This ' effective distance ' represents the total distance sailed less the distances
sailed in darkness, in poor conditions for sighting whales, and in the approaches
to ports (Table 2).
Table 3 presents the numbers of whales observed per 100 nautical miles ofeffective distance sailed in three sets of results : those from the complete expeditionof 1964; those from this expedition less the extension to the southward, that is,following only the track of 1958; and those from the expedition of 1958 itself(R. Clarke, 1962, Table 1). In the event the extension to the south produced
little of interest, apart from the blue whales seen, and for the purposes of comparing the abundance of whales we are mainly concerned with the second and third
sets of results, those from the expeditions of 1964 and 1958 conducted over thesame track.
Results from the two voyages may be compared because on each the sighting
effort was just about the same. The ships were of similar size (Indus X, 292 tons ;Indus XIV, 315 tons), and the vigilance of observation was similar, for in each ship
there were at all times during daylight hours a lookout in the masthead barrel,
and a whaling officer (usually the captain) and at least one scientist on the bridge.
There is evidence in the results themselves that they do give a fair indication of
the relative abundance of the various whale species and that comparison of theresults in 1958 and 1964 is significant. Thus, the ~tock of blackfish off the coastof Chile is not at present exploited and therefore we may expect that in the same
area in the same season the population will remain unchanged from year to year.
The results show this for the same track sailed in 1958 and 1964, whether theabundance is expressed as numbers observed per 100 nautical miles of effective
distance sailed (Table 3), or, since blackfish are gregarious like sperm whales, assightings per 100 nautical miles sailed, and numbers of whales per sighting (Table
4, from Figs. 1 and 2). This is further discussed on p. 148. It may be objected
that, whereas dolphins and porpoises also are not exploited, Table 3 gives quite
different results for the numbers of dolphins and porpoises observed per 100 nautical
miles sailed in 1958 and 1964; but here it is not expected that the results are a good
indication of abundance, because the blows of these small cetaceans cannot beseen at any distance, and recording them seems to be fortuitous to some extent,
depending on whether they are breaching at the time, or whether they interest
themselves in approaching the vessel, or happen to be directly in its path.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

~-=

to ~

""::.:,~· ~~. "''"'"

~

::.:,
~

~

10.5
0.4

4
1

Blue

Fin

Sei

43
30
119

40-45
28-32
111-126

Dolphins

Porpoises

porpoises* Identification as bottlenosed whales uncertain (seep. 149) .

2*

Unidentified small whales

194

and

2*

Bottlenosed whales

181-206

Blackfish

whales,Minke whales

1.4
5.7

30
93

28-32
85-100

42

2*

194

-

1

209

39-44

2*

2.1

181-206

0.1*

-

1

199-219

1

1

1
1

1
1

4

4
1

214

204-224
1

Averagenos.

Nos
observed

5.3

1.7

2.4

0.1*

11.0

-

0.1

11.9

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.2

12.2

Nos per100
miles
sailed1964
Following the track of 1958

9.3

1

-

>0.1

209

199-219

Sperm whales

-

10.0

3

3

Unidentified

-

0.1

1

1

1

>0.1

1

Unidentified large whales

0.2
>0.1

4

Whalebone whales9

Nos per100
miles
sailed219

209-229

Averagenos.

9

All whales:Nos
observed

1964
Complete expedition

EXPEDITIONS OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964 AND 1958

239-2495

198-213

2

3

27

-

1

84

-

85

115

Nos
observed

244

5

206

2

3

27

-

1

84

-

85

115

Average
nos.

0.1

0.2

1.7

0.1

5.4

15.6

0.3

13.2

-

-

5.4

7.4

Nos per100-milessailed1958(Clarke, 1962, Table 1)

COMPARISON OF THE ABUNDANCE OF WHALES OBSERVED DURING TWO

dolphins

Smaller

Whales

LargerGroups or species of whales

TABLE 3.

t"'

0

>-j

[f).

ct"'

~

t)

>
z

0

>
>-<:

c

Q

>

}':I

~

>

0

o:>

;:;;

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

129

When discussing the results, it is at times helpful to refer to Table 5, showing
the catches of whales from the coast of Chile in recent years (1955-1975). The
table is used only in a general way, as it would be misleading to extract muchfrom it on the comparative abundance of the different species: the catches areaggregate figures from three whaling stations (at lquique, Quintay and Talcahuano; see R. Clarke, 1962, Fig. 1) which in different years have pursued varying
policies involving varying catching effort in regard to the selective hunting of
sperm whales and whalebone whales; for example, between 1964 and 1967 whalingfrom Quintay was conducted by a Japanese concession which concentrated solely
on hunting whalebone whales for meat production, which explains the increasein captures from Chile of blue, fin and sei whales in those years and the reductionin the sperm whale catch (see also Aguayo, 1974).
TABLE 4.

Fin whales

Sperm whales

Blackfish

SIGHTINGS OF FIN WHALES, SPERM WHALES AND BLACKFISH
OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964 AND 1958

Number of sightings
Sightings per 100 miles sailed
No. of whales per sighting
Number of sightings
Sightings per 100 miles sailed
No. of whales per sighting
Number of sightings
Sightings per 100 miles sailed
No. of whales per sighting

1964
complete
expedition

1964
In the trackof 1958

1958(R. Clarke,
1962, Fig. 2)

0.05
1
8
0.38
26.1
11
0.53
17.6

1
0.06
1
8
0.46
26.1
11
0.63
17.6

9
0.51
9.3
7
0.45
3.8
11
0.70
18.7

General results
During the complete expedition of 1964 there were observed 209-224 great
whales, comprising four blue whales, one fin whale, one sei whale, three whalebone
whales too far away to be identified, 199-219 sperm whales, and one large whale
seen afar which could have been a sperm whale or a whalebone whale. Only
three blue whales and two of the unidentified whalebone whales were seen on thesoutherly extension of the course (Fig. 1), so that, comparing results from thesame track in 1958 and 1964, large whales (all species of commercial interest) appeared to be nearly twice as abundant in 1964 (Table 3). This was because of
the numbers of sperm whales seen, for a feature of the results is the great reductionin the abundance of fin whales between 1958 and 1964.
Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus)
It is noteworthy that, whereas no blue whales were sighted in 1958, four ofthe species were sighted in 1964. They were far from land, towards the oceanic
border of the Humboldt Current, one in the most southern part of the track of.
1958 and the other three where the extension to the south had just begun (Fig. 1).
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

130

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

Perhaps we were not far enough south at this time of the year for blue whales in
1958, because, since modern whaling began in Chile in 1908, the south of thecountry, between 37° and 40°S, has been noted for blue whales (Risting, 1922,
p. 558; Cabrera and Yepes, 1940, p. 313), whilst in recent years Aguayo (1974) has
observed some farther south, between 43° and 46°S, in 1966.
The blue whales seen in 1964 were travelling southwest or south (Table 1),
and might be thought, at this time of the year, to have been migrants of the main
stock of southern blue whales, travelling to their summer feeding grounds in the
Antarctic. But this may not be so. Dr. Tadayoshi Ichihara has suggested, fromthe length composition of the blue whale catch and the shape of the baleen plate,that blue whales from Chile may be pigmy blue whales (Nasu, 1966, p. 159).
This sub-species of blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda, has been identified
and described by Ichihara (1961, 1963, 1966) from the South Indian Ocean, wherein summer it is distributed between 0° and 80°E, but does not extend into the
Antarctic further than 54°S, although in winter it has since been reported by
Dr. R. G. Chittleborough from the west coast of Australia (Ichihara, 1966, p. 82)
and by Gambell (1964) from the east coast of South Africa. The main stock ofsouthern blue whales, whose migration extends to the ice edge in summer, is now
distinguished, according to Rice and Scheffer (1968), as the sub-species Balaenoptera
musculus intermedia. This ' main ' stock has in fact been so decimated by Antarctic
whaling that it was estimated to comprise, in all oceans south of the equator, less
TABLE 5. WHALES CAUGHT FROM THE COAST OF CHILE, 1955-1975.
FROM INTERNATIONAL WHALING STATISTICS (1968-1976)
Year

Blue

Fin

Humpback

Sei

Sperm

Right

Total

1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975

150
209
100
166
80
131
142
11
31
112
371
128
65

359
202
69
73
70
52
16
34
11
136
265
84
7
25

5
3
5

32
48
39
16
17
13
13
9
6
47
439
210
139
83
31
17

746
1,171
2,299
2,062
2,062
1,886
2,160
2,280
1,494
1,213
267
669
533
319
221
270
246
337
232
130
48

6

1,298
1,633
2,512
2,317
2,233
2,084
2,334
2,338
1,543
1,508
1,348
1,099
744
428
253
291
253
352
246
164
106

3
2
3
4

6
7

3
3

2

15
14
32
58

2*

* ' Other whales ', not necessarily right whales.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

131

than 1,000* animals, during 1962/63, the last season for exploiting the main stockin the Antarctic before it was completely protected by the International Whaling
Commission (Rep. int. Whal. Commn, 1967, p. 40). Nonetheless substantial catches
making a total of 676 blue whales were caught in Chile during the Japanese concession for whalemeat between 1964 and 1967 (Table 5). In view of the low
estimate reported for the whole southern 'main' stock in 1962/63, such catchesfrom just one coastline, the coast of Chile, in the years after 1963 would scarcely
be explicable if all these whales were from what was left of the main stock. Thisevidence alone suggests that there must exist in the Southeast Pacific a subspeciesof the blue whale which does not migrate into the Antarctic and is similar to, or
identical with, the pigmy blue whale B. m. brevicauda. Its presence has now been
confirmed by Aguayo (1974) who identified ten specimens as pigmy blue whales
among 168 blue whales examined in 1965/66 and 1966/67 at Quintay. It is indeed
surprising, from the figures discussed here, that the proportion of pigmy blue
whales was not greater in Aguayo's sample. Meanwhile it is now clear that both
B. m. intermedia and B. m. brevicauda occur in the Southeast Pacific, but much needs
to be discovered about their respective abundances, ranges and seasonal movements.
Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus)
In 1964 only one fin whale was observed, on 9 December, some 96 miles due
west of Constituci6n ; it was travelling SSW and was presumably migrating towards
the Antarctic (Table 1, Fig. 1). This is an abundance of 0.1 whales per 100
nautical miles sailed, whereas on the same track in 1958 there were sighted 84 fin
whales or 5.1 per 100 nautical miles sailed (Table 3). If we look at abundancein another way, as the frequency of sighting fin whales, then in 1958 they weresighted on nine occasions, and there were 9.3 whales per sighting (Table 4).
Notwithstanding these results, it is seen in Table 5 that a large catch of fin
whales was in fact made from Chile in 1964. The explanation is that most of thesewhales were taken by the Japanese concession which was whaling from Quintay
for whalebone whales for meat production between 1964 and 1967. Thus, during
the expedition of 1964 when Indus XIV sighted only one fin whale, there wereat this time four Japanese whalecatchers sighting and catching fin whales in apart of the area covered by our expedition. But there was no comparison in thesighting effort. We were informed (by Captain Parrat) that on the Japanesecatchers (which were fast modern vessels fitted with echo whalefinders) there wereat all times at least twelve men looking out for whales, four at the masthead (twoin the barrel and one in either rigging), four on the bridge and four on the poop,with a substantial prize awarded to the first man to sight a whale. It follows
that every fin whale within the vicinity of such catchers must indeed have beensighted and captured. We therefore do not consider that the catches recorded
in Table 5 contradict our results, which point to a very considerable reduction in* Gulland (1972), reviewing the earlier analyses, revised this estimate upwards to a catchable stock ofabout 4,000 in 1963, but his figure still seems sufficiently low to support the argument here following.
t One of us (A.A.L.) subsequently confirmed Captain Parra's information.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

132

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

the fin whale population off this part of the coast of Chile between 1958 and 1964.
From recoveries in Antarctic Area II of marks fired into fin whales during
the expedition of 1958, it has been established that fin whales off the coast of Chilein spring are migrating to summer feeding grounds in the Antarctic (Brown, 1960,
196la, 1962a, 1962b; R. Clarke, 1962). It follows that since these whales are a
population in movement, and since the expedition of 1964 (24 November to 17
December) was conducted a month later than that of 1958 (21 October to 6 November), there is a little uncertainty about a strict comparison of the results. It mighteven be argued that in 1964 we were too late to sight more than one straggler froma fin whale population which had already moved southward out of the area ; but
this would require an independent check, such as figures on the monthly catch perunit of effort from Quintay in earlier years, and these could show that fin whalesin the past have been more abundant in the area later than October-November,rather than at this time, or earlier. It is important to recall that migrating whales
move through an area, not as a simple block, but as a procession over a period oftime, and, further, that in the Antarctic the fin whale population does not reachits peak until February. This being so, we believe that whatever may have been
the effect of a difference of a month in the time of the two surveys, the expeditionof 1964 showed such an impoverishment of fin whales as can only in the main be
explained by overfishing of fin whales on the pelagic grounds of the Antarctic,
which has brought about a severe decline in the southern fin whale population inrecent years. The intensive hunting from Quintay by the Japanese concession forwhalemeat would also have had its local effect, but this had only begun in 1964
and is not likely to have been more than a contributory factor at that time.
According to the Report to the International Whaling Commission of theSpecial Meeting on Antarctic Fin Whale Stock Assessment, held at Honolulu in
March 1970 (Rep. int. Whal. Commn, 1971, p. 38), various estimates of the fin whale
population in the southern hemisphere gave an average of about 172,000 in 1958
which had by 1964 declined to about 71,000, little more than a third of its size six
years previously. Moreover, the fin whale populations which have been most
severely depleted by pelagic whaling on the summer feeding grounds are thosewhich resort to Antarctic Area II, which is the sector south of the Atlantic; andwhale marking has shown that some part, probably the major part, of the fin
whales migrating off the coast of Chile do not stay in Area I, the Pacific sector
due south of the route, but pass eastward through Drake Strait into Area II, where
between 1960 and 1961 all the marks were recovered from four out of eleven fin
whales marked off Chile in 1958 (see R. Clarke, 1962, Fig. l and p. 280).
Commenting on the results of whale marking, R. Clarke (1962, p. 283) observed ' ... although the numbers of marked whales involved are too small to beconclusive, it is hard to avoid the impression that, since four whales within three
years have been recaptured in the Antarctic from eleven marked off Chile, theexploitation in the Antarctic of fin whales from Chile may well be substantial '.
The expedition of 1964 has shown the effect of this exploitation. Maintenance ofa fin whaling industry on the coast of Chile depends on effective regulation of
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

133

pelagic whaling in the Antarctic. In an effort to build up the depleted fin whale
stocks, the International Whaling Commission set the Antarctic catch limit after
1967 at a figure rather less than the best estimate for the combined sustainable
yield of the southern fin and sei whale stocks (see R. Clarke, 1968), and after 1972
at a figure less than the estimate for maximum sustainable yield of the fin and sei
whale stocks separately; after 1974 separate catch quotas were provided for fin
whales in the Antarctic Areas I-VI; in the 1975/76 season the prescribed fin
whale catch was only allowed in Area I south of Chile, until in 1976 the Commission prohibited the taking of fin whales throughout the southern hemisphere byits member nations (Int. Commn Whal., Schedules, 1972-1976). After the substantial
catches at the time of the Japanese concession for whalemeat in 1964-1967 fromthe depleted fin whale stock migrating to the Antarctic off the west coast of SouthAmerica, the catches in Chile have been few (Table 5) and they have diminishedin Peru in recent years (International Whaling Statistics, 1976), which is to be expected from the known condition of the stock. There is now urgent reason for thePermanent Commission of the South Pacific to follow the example of the International Whaling Commission and prohibit the taking of fin whales from Chileand Peru until the stock shall have recovered. As R. Clarke pointed out in 1962,
rational exploitation of the stocks of whales in the Southeast Pacific cannot be
achieved unless there is close cooperation between the Permanent Commission andthe International Whaling Commission (see also p. 159).

Sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis)
One sei whale, moving south, was sighted on the expedition of 1964, off
Punta Lengua de Vaca (Table 1, Fig. 1). In 1958 also a single sei whale wassighted, farther west at about the same latitude (Fig. 2). Although little can besaid of a single sighting, one would certainly expect the abundance (0.1 per 100
miles sailed) not to have changed between 1958 and 1964, because very few sei
whales were captured from Chile until 1965-1967 when substantial catches contributed to the Japanese operation for meat production from whalebone whales
at Quintay (Table 5 ).
Bryde's whale, Balaenoptera edeni, has now been recorded from Iquique on the
coast of Chile (R. Clarke and Aguayo, 1965), and so it is possible that the sei whales
seen on the expedition of 1958 and 1964 may in fact have been Bryde's whales.
It is generally accepted that the two species can only be distinguished at sea if it
is possible to get a good view of the top of the head which only in Bryde's whale
bears a ridge on either side of the median ridge common to the head of both species(Omura, 1962). But a ship has to approach so close for a chance to make out
these side-ridges that, in the normal circumstances of a survey for whales, Bryde's
whale and the sei whale are not likely to be distinguished by this character. However, the form and size of the spout may also afford a clue. One of us (A. A. L.)
was informed by Japanese whaling captains in 1966 that the spout of Bryde's
whale is wider and lower than that of the sei whale, and this has since been confirmed to A. A. L. by Dr. Masaharu Nishiwaki. Bryde's whales in the North
Sci. Rep. Whales Rse. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

134

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

Pacific are in general limited to waters of 20°C or warmer (Omura and Nemoto,1955), or mostly to waters warmer than 18°C with very few whales penetrating to
15°C (Nemoto, 1959, p. 247). Consequently the two whales seen around 30°S
in 1958 and 1964 were more likely to have been sei whales, for the surface temperature was 14.5°C at the position of sighting the whale of 1964 (Table 1, Fig. 3).
There is now direct evidence from whale marking that some at least, of thesei whales off Chile migrate like the fin whales to the Antarctic in summer (seep. 159).

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus*)
Abundance. In 1964 there were sighted 199-219 sperm whales or 11.9 per
100 nautical miles sailed, compared with 27 whales, or 1.7 per 100 nautical miles
sailed on the same track in 1958 (Table 3). However, since half of the whales
seen in 1964 comprised the great concentration of 90-110 whales encounteredsouth of Isla Pajaros on 30 November (Fig. 1), we should also consider the frequency of sighting sperm whales, where results for the two voyages are just about
the same, being 0.46 of a sighting per 100 nautical miles sailed in 1964, and 0.45
in 1958, although the numbers of whales per sighting were seven times greater in1964 than in 1958 (Table 4). Distribution was similar on the two expeditions inthat all except two of the sperm whales seen in 1964 were close to the chain ofislands stretching from Isla Cha:fiaral southward to Isla Pajaros, where were seen
half the sperm whales recorded in 1958, although in 1964 we saw none on the'San Antonio ground' which had provided the balance of the sperm whales seen
in 1958 (Figs. 1 and 2).
The chances, then, of encountering sperm whales in 1964 and 1958 were justabout the same, but in 1964 there were many more whales in the encounters. We
believe that this was because, as will be explained when schooling and immigration
are discussed, there were in 1964 more whales schooling and the schools were larger,
due to a seasonal influx of whales into the area over the interval between OctoberNovember, when the expedition of 1958 took place, and November-December,when the survey was repeated in 1964. Thus it is not suggested that the results
necessarily indicate an increase of the sperm whale stock in this area between 1958
and 1964, but they certainly do not indicate any decline in the stock during theperiod.
There was a sharp decline in sperm whale catches from Chile after 1964
(Table 5 ), but this can be explained, at least in part, by the dedication of one
station (Quintay) to hunting whalebone whales for meat production, and to thelow price of sperm oil which discouraged much effort in sperm whaling from theother two stations in Chile.
However, Saetersdal, Mejia and Ramirez (1963) have analysed whaling statistics from Peru, and have concluded that by 1961 sperm whales off Peru were probably already being over-exploited. Further, Arriaga (1976) cites reports (which we* Husson and Holthius (1974) have argued convincingly that Physeter macrocephalus, Linnaeus, 1758 has
precedence over P. catodon, Linnaeus, 1758 as the valid name for the sperm whale.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

135

have not seen) by Mr. Jorge Mejia in 1964 and 1965 which claimed a progressive
reduction after 1961 of the sperm whales off Paita, Peru, as shown by a diminution
in the catch per catcher's days work between 1961 and 1965. (In more recent
years we believe that catch per unit of effort is less reliable as an index of abundance,
because part of the effort in Peru has latterly been directed towards large catchesof sei (or Bryde's) whales. Now Saetersdal, Mejia and Ramirez extended theirconclusions to the Southeast Pacific as a whole, on the reasonable assumption thatthe same sperm whale stock is being exploited from Chile and Peru. This matteris being currently investigated, and all the evidence to emerge so far, from external
characters and teeth (R. Clarke, Aguayo and Paliza, 1968), from morphometry
using the allometry equation (R. Clarke and Paliza, 1972) and from morphometry
using canonical analysis (Machin, 1974), indicates that the sperm whales off Chileand Peru do indeed form a single, continuous stock.
Our observations at sea off Chile in 1964 did not therefore show that decline
in the sperm whale population since 1958 which the results of Saetersdal, Mejia andRamirez, and later of Mejia, would have led us to expect. However, whatever
may have been the condition of the stock off Chile in 1964, it is now generally
agreed that an appraisal of the present condition of the Southeast Pacific sperm
whale stock is urgently required (Scientific Consultation on Marine Mammals,
Bergen, 1976. Document ACMRR/MM/SC/Rep. 1, Addendum to Appendix).
Schooling. The sperm whale is gregarious and polygamous, and the significance of schooling to the reproduction and population dynamics of the species has
been emphasised by R. Clarke (1956, p. 277), Gambell (1967, 1972) and Best(1970b ). Detailed information on the structure of schools, that is, the sexing of thecomponent whales, their condition of immaturity and maturity, and stages in thesexual cycle, requires that sighting from ships or aircraft of particular schools be
combined (as some investigators, especially Best, have attempted) with subsequentbiological examination of carcases after all or some of the individuals comprisingthese schools have been shot. The major difficulty in attempting to classify sperm
whale schools solely by observation at sea is that small males in schools cannot be
distinguished from females, unless the latter are accompanied by calves. Nonetheless, the main kinds of schools can be distinguished to a certain extent. This isbecause we know that, whilst males may be solitary or schooling, females are invariably in schools (R. Clarke, 1956, p. 277), and because females rarely exceed
11. 7 m (38 ft) in length, so that whales judged to be longer than 11. 7 m are understood to be males. Thus, solitary sperm whales of any size are males (Pl. I, Fig.
1). Schools where the whales are all larger than 11. 7 m are bachelor schools. Then
two kinds of schools containing females may be recognised. Harem schools are thosewhere one, or sometimes two or three, large whales are together with small whales,
at least one of which is known to be a female because accompanied by a calf (Pl.
I, Fig. 2). In such a school one of the large whales will be the harem-master.
Nursery schools are those of small whales (less than 11. 7 m), some of which are accompanied by calves (Pl. II, Fig. 1). This is as far as the observer can go at sea, andleaves him with a number of unclassified schools. These would include (if they
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

136

could be identified) the bachelor schools of males smaller than 11. 7 m, the mixed
schools of immature males and females which associate 'as boys and girls go toschool together' (see R. Clarke, 1956, p. 279), and also those harem schools whichcannot be definitely identified as such, because of the absence of a calf or calves tobetray the presence of females among the smaller whales present. It should be
added that when harem schools and nursery schools are identified at sea, it is notthereby inferred that all the small whales (less than 11. 7 m) present are females,
because the examination of catches from such schools has shown that immatureand puberal males may also be present (R. Clarke, 1956, p. 279; Caldwell, Caldwell
and Rice, 1966; Best, 1970b).
Sperm whale schools were classified in this way during the surveys off Chile
TABLE 6. FREQUENCIES OF THE SIZES OF SCHOOLS OF WHALES SIGHTED
OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964. IN THIS TABLE SOLITARY WHALESARE ALSO INCLUDED, AS ' SCHOOLS OF ONE 'Nos of whales ina school

Blue

1

2

Fin

Sei

2

Bottlenose

Unidentified
small
whales

Sperm

Blackfish

8
7
3

I

3
I

2

2

3
4
5
6

2
2

6-8
8

6

2

Doiphins

Porpoises

1

2

9
8-10
10
11
12
14
15-20
20

1

2

22
28
30
30-40
35-40
40-50
50-60
Total schools
3
Total whales
4
Av. nos per school(1.3)
Av. nos per school in 1958

I
(I)
2.6

1
(1)

34
203*
6.0
1.4

11
194
17.6
22.9

2
2
(I)
(5)

8
43
5.4

4
30
7.5
18.8

5
119
23.8

* In the concentration of 90-110 Sperm whales on 30 November, the count from the sizes of schools at a
certain moment came to 94, which explains the apparent discrepancy between the total for all sperm
whales given here (203) and that in Table 3 (199-219, average 209).
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

137

in 1958 (R. Clarke, 1962, Table 2) and in 1964 (Table 7). When numbers ofsperm whales are sighted at a particular position they may, depending upon latitude
and season, comprise schools of some or all of the observable classes scattered overa wide area; thus, the great concentration of 90-110 whales sighted on 30 November 1964 comprised solitary whales, bachelor schools, harem schools, nursery schools
and unclassified schools dispersed over 15 square miles of sea (Table 1). Such
concentrations are not to be confused with the herds which are occasionally encountered at sea (Bennett, 1840, vol. II, p. 171; R. Clarke, 1956, p. 279); the sperm
whale herd is formed only when the animals are migrating, and consists of schools
which have come together as a tight body of whales, one hundred to several hundred strong, all travelling in the same direction. No herds were seen in 1958 or
1964. Schools of sperm whales may not remain stable when approached for observation and marking. Solitary males, several hundred yards apart when firstsighted, may subsequently school together or join existing schools ; nursery schools
may also join together and separate again in schools of different size, and so may
unclassified schools: but harem schools appear to be more stable, as might be
expected from such breeding groups (Table 7).
Immigration. Table 6 shows the frequencies of the sizes of schools, including
those of solitary whales as 'schools of one '. Using this classification sperm whale
schools off Chile in November-December 1964 were on average more than fourtimes larger (6.0 whales per school) than in October-November 1958 (1.4 whales
per school). This is because relatively few solitary males were seen in 1964 (3.9%of all sperm whales observed) compared with those seen in 1958 when they comprised 56% of the total. R. Clarke (1962), noting this result that 56% of sperm
whales were solitary off Chile in October-November 1958, whereas only 4% were
solitary at the same time of the year in a survey conducted from the coast of Ecuador
to the Galapagos Islands in 1959, suggested that with increasing latitude thefemale stock thins out and the males increasingly adopt the solitary habit; but thepresent results indicate that this was too broad a generalisation which did not sufficiently take account of seasonal changes in the spread of schools and in the pattern of schooling.
The sperm whale schools seen in 1964 included numbers of females, femaleswith calves, and young whales of either sex, as shown by the harem schools, nurseryschools and unidentified schools recorded in Table 7. In five instances wherethese schools appeared to be travelling in a definite direction, the movement offour schools was southwest and of one east. Two bachelor schools were also seen
travelling south, and in the class of solitary males, one was moving south, anothersouthwest and one east. None of these whales were among those large numbers
seen on 30 November 1964 close to the chain of islands north of Coquimbo (Fig. 1,
Table 1), for here no steady direction of movement could be discerned for any ofthem (which included the large concentration of 90-110) and all were confidently
believed to be feeding. But it may be said that, where whales were travelling,
their movement was predominantly southerly. On the other hand no direction
predominated in the sperm whales observed on the same track in October-NovemSci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

"'

~~
~.:

55 ~

:;>

~~

~

::0
~

?:

18.7°

17.1°
17.0°
15.0°
15.5°
15.5°

15.5°

29°38'S, 71°38'W

35°17'S, 74°29'W
35°17'S, 74°33'W
29°l6'S, 71°47'W
29°05'S, 71°48'W
29°03'S, 71°48'W

29°05'S, 71°48'W-- /1510

9. xii/1500- /1550
28. xi/1830

29. xi/0815
29. xi/0705-

Bachelor schools:

Harem schools:

Nursery schools:

18.3°

29°35'S, 71°38'W

30. xi/1345

30. xi/1345

30. xi
1610-1915
29°35'S, 71°38'W

18.3°

18.1° to
18.7°

15.5°

29°05'S, 71°48'W

/0815

-

29°40'S, 71°36'W to
29°45'S, 71°39'W

15.5°

29°03'S, 71°48'W

29. xi/0705

/0815

15.0°

29°l6'S, 71°47'W

28. xi/1830

Solitary males:cc

Surface
Temp.

Date andTime
Position

16

-

9

2
10

1
1
5

1

2

1

2

1

Nos
of
whalesTwo of8-

One of6
One of9

One of3
Pair
Pair
one of4

Separate

Separate

Schooling

SW

SW

s
s

E

Small male about 9.8 m 33 sperm(32 ft)whalesSmall males, from the sighting of 26
whales
Large bull which sounded for 45 minutes when chased and had not
emerged when the chase was abancloned. From the sighting of 26
whales
Large bull about 17.3 rn (57 ft)
Large bull
} From the sighting of 16 sperm
whalesFrom the sighting of 33 sperm whales
School comprised one male (11.612.2 m, 38-40 ft), one female (10.711.6 m, 35-38 ft) with calf (5.5 m,
18 ft) and another whale presumably female, of 10.7-11.6 m (3538 ft).
Pl. I, Fig. 2.
School included two calves, each
The threeabout 6m (20 ft).
harem schools above were from thesighting of 33 sperm whales.
Harem schools were present in theconcentration of 90-110 sperm
whales.
One school comprised two calves each
5..5-6.l m (18-20 ft), swimming oneither side of a female of 11 m
(36 ft), another whale of 11 m, andthen four whales of 9 m (30 ft).

Smollmole, 9-10.5 ml Ffflm <ho(30-35 ft)sighting ofA solitary from the sighting of 16
sperm whales, Pl. I, Fig. I.

sSW

Remarks

Direction

CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCHOOLS OF SPERM WHALES SIGHTED IN 1964

Classification

TABLE 7.

(.>O

-

0

>-cl

r

c::

td

>
Ul

t)

>
z

0

c::
~

Q

>

.t<:I

~

>

0

r

°"

~·

.;~

;_;..

~

~

'"'

O;<

,,, "'

._
~~

'""'~
'*~~

~

~~

Unclassified schools:

/134S

/1510

29°00'8, 71°43'W to
29°02'8, 11°39'W

29°40'8, 71°36'W to29°4S'S, 71°39'W

30. xi
071S-1020

30. xi
1610-191S

18.1° to18.7°

14.8° to
16.0°

-

30

2

18.2°

28°00'8, 71°S8'W

/164S

-

3

1s.s

29°0S'8, 71°48'W

/081S

0

-

6

15.5°

29°03'8, 71°48'W

10

-

2

5

29. xi/070S

IS.O

18.1° to
18.7°

18.3°

18.7°

29°I6'S, 11°47'W

29°40'S, 71°36'W to29°4S'S, 71°39'W

29°3S'S, 71°38'W

29°38'S, 71°38'W

28. xi/1830

30. xi
1610-1915---

11, 8, 8, 3Pair

One of three

Three pairs

Two ofS-

One of2

One ofS

E

SW

SW

School comprised two females, each
9.8 m (32 ft) with their calves of
S.5m (18 ft), and with anotherwhale of 9.8 m .
Mother and calf (Pl. II, Fig. 1)
The three nursery schools and themother and calf above were fromthe sighting of 26 sperm whales.
Nursery schools were present in theconcentration of 90-110 sperm
whalesEach school with at least two males,
about 13.S m (45 ft), and the remaining whales of 10.5-12 m (3S40 ft). They could have beenbachelor schools or harems. Fromthe sighting of 16 sperm whales.
All about 9-10.5 m (30-35 ft). May
have been bachelor pairs.
This school and the three pairs above
were from the sighting of 33 sperm
whales.
Probably a bachelor pair, but no sizes
were recorded.
In this sighting of 30 whales, all wereanimals of medium or small size,
being not more than 40 feet. At
first 6 separate whales (males) weresighted, all within a few hundred
yards of each other, apparently
scattered for feeding. More whales
appeared, and the individuals joined
schools which broke and reformed.
At one time there were four schoolsof 11, 8, 8, 3. Possibly !all werebatchelor schools.
Unclassified schools were present in
the concentration of 90-110 sperm
whales.

""

<i:>

tr:l

r

0
::r::
......

'rj

0'rj

Q

z

:;::
......

>
:;>;l

~

tl

z>

z

0

......

~>-3"'tr:l

O:I

0

tr:l

r

~>

140

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

ber 1958, and R. Clarke (1962) concluded that there was nothing to suggest thatthey were migrating.
Townsend (1935) published world charts showing the positions month bymonth of captures of sperm whales recorded in the log-books of the sailing whaleships between 1761 and 1920. In equatorial latitudes of the Pacific sperm whales
were taken at all times of the year, and, as R. Clarke (1962) has observed, thecharts show also an abundance of sperm whales off Peru and Chile, with indications of a spread southward in summer. With the evidence of these charts in mind,
the differences observed in this region off Chile in 1964 compared with 1958larger schools and fewer solitary males, more females and calves and young whales,
and a general southerly movement of the whales not actively feeding-all indicate
an influx of sperm whales from the north over the period between October-November (of 1958) and November-December (of 1964). This influx would represent a
spread southward in early summer of some part of the breeding stock.
Observations of sperm whales off the west coast of South Africa suggests that'large bulls over 45ft (13.5m) in length join the female schools for the main breeding
season' (Best, 1969a). In the Southeast Pacific the main pairing season has been
estimated to last from June to December with a peak in September (R. Clarke,
Aguayo and Paliza, 1964). During the expedition off Chile in 1958, most of the 15
solitary male sperm whales sighted (R. Clarke, 1962, Table 3) were large individuals : Clarke's unpublished records show that, of six solitary males whose lengths
were estimated, five were between 48 ft (14.6 m) and 52 ft (15.9 m) long. It istherefore possible that the large solitary males, which formed the majority of the
sperm whales sighted in these latitudes off Chile in October-November (of 1958)
had by November-December (of 1964) either schooled as harem males with arriving
females, or, failing to secure harems, had schooled with other bachelors; or perhaps
they had moved further south on the way to spend the summer in the Antarctic.
However, since the peak of conceptions is in September, most of the pairing may
be considered to have taken place to the north of the area surveyed. On the other
hand, parturition in Southeast Pacific sperm whales extends mainly from November to May, with a peak in February (R. Clarke, Aguayo and Paliza, 1964), and webelieve that the results from material now being analysed will confirm our impression that this area between 28° and 36°S, especially in its southern part, is acalving ground for the breeding stock which begins to accumulate there, as theobservations from 1958 and 1964 now show, during November and December.
(There is evidence that elsewhere sperm whale calving grounds are in similar warm
temperate latitudes, as the Azores around 38°N (R. Clarke, 1956) and South
African seas off Durban in 30°S (Gambell, 1967) and off Saldanha Bay in 33°S
(Best, 1969b); whilst Pervushin (1966) and Gambell, Lockyer and Ross (1973) haveactually observed sperm whales calving, respectively in March in 37°01 'S, 71°44'E
and in February in 33°49'S, 28°02'E). Of the calves seen in harems and nurseryschools during the expedition of 1964 there were seven whose estimated lengths
were recorded (Table 7); they ranged from 5.5 m (18 ft) to 6.1 m (20 ft), so thatnone were newborn nor young-of-the-year, for the length of the sperm whale
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,

No. 80, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE
76°

74•

141

7z.•

®Bollanoa~ul(....,whelol~ BoUeN' de dlcttt (fin whale)@ B•no bobo (sei whale>

Cocholotes (sperm wholes.>:o IT*:ho so6it4t"io (solltor4 m•)• grupo soltero (b«helar' schooO
b. 9""Upo tiaren Ch.sor"em ~I)• gr-upo cr"ledero Cnur~r4 schooO)( grupo no claaificddo Cvndoffaif19;d school'>

32

35

Fig. 3.

Surface isotherms during the voyage of Indus XIV off the coast of Chile
There are plotted the sightings ofthe larger whales; and (in square boxes) the numbers of strikes and/or captures
per hour of the Humboldt Current squid Dosidicus gi'gas during the oceanographicalstations.
betwe~n 24 November and 17 December 1964.

Sci. Rep, Whales Res. Inst.,

No. 30, 1978.

142

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

neonate in the Southeast Pacific has been estimated by R. Clarke, Aguayo and
Paliza (1964) at 4.02 m (13 ft 2 in): they will have been young ofa previous calving
season, because lactation is protracted in the sperm whale and the calf is weaned,at least in the North Atlantic, when about 6. 7 m (22 ft) in length (R. Clarke, 1956,
p. 275 ). Since the peak of the calving season is in February, it was not to be
expected that we should see any number of newborn calves in the voyage of November-December 1964.
We have dealt here with immigration of sperm whales into the area surveyed.
On p. 156 we record direct evidence from whale marking of the migration ofmale sperm whales from this area into the Antarctic.
Distribution and water temperature. In his report on the surveys conducted off
Chile in 1958 and from Ecuador towards and beyond the Galapagos Islands in
1959, R. Clarke (1962) wrote:' Female sperm whales do not range beyond about 40° North and South(Matthews, 1938, p. 160), apparently because they avoid cold water, so it would
be expected that a similar exclusion might be traced, meridionally rather thanlatitudinally, in an upwelling region like the Humboldt Current where typicallythe water is coldest near to the coast and becomes progressively warmer towards
the oceanic boundary. Schubert (1951, 1955), from observations made in pelagic
factory ships whaling on the coasts of Peru and Chile in 1938 and 1951 (including
the latitudes explored by Indus X in 1958) concluded that there was an orderly
segregation from the coast westward of solitary males in water of l5°-l 7°C, bachelor
schools in water of l6°-l8°C, and female schools in water of l 7°C and warmer.
Temperature observations on the two expeditions discussed here, so far as they go(Table 2), only partly support Schubert's conclusions.'
Further data on the distribution of sperm whales and water temperature
were collected on the expedition off Chile in 1964. Table 7 includes the surface
temperatures observed at the positions where the various classes of sperm whales
were sighted. In Fig. 3 the whales sighted are plotted according to their classes
on a chart of the surface isotherms prepared from the two-hourly temperatureobservations made throughout the expedition.
The surface isotherms are of interest in themselves as showing two regions ofactive upwelling in this area of the Humboldt Current during the period of the
expedition : thus, the isotherms run close together and parallel to the coast fromsouth of Quintay to Constitucion (about 33°20'S to 35°20'S), where in fact nosperm whales were seen during the survey; and from south of Huasco to south of
Coquimbo (28°40'S to 30°40'S), where nearly all the sperm whales were seen. In
this latter upwelling region the l4°C isotherm runs more or less north and south
to westward of the chain of islands between Is. Chafiaral and Is. Pajaros, withincreasing temperatures to either side, indicating an inshore eddy of comparatively
warm water (rising to l9°C) which embraces the islands and extends to the mainland coast. The great concentration of 90-110 sperm whales, first sighted three
miles from Is. Pajaros on 30 November, was within this eddy at temperatures of
18.1° to 18. 7°C (Table 1). This concentration comprised harem schools, nursery
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

143

schools and unidentified schools, and also a few solitary young bachelors which
eventually schooled.
In Table 8 the records on surface temperatures and the classes of schools
from Table 7 are presented with those from the previous expedition off Chile in1958, and the expedition from the coast of Ecuador to the Galapagos Is. in 1959.
Figure 3 and Table 8 do not support Schubert's conclusions which we are therefore unable to accept. Solitary males have been observed in water as warm as
22.6°C, and nor is it credible that this class of sperm whale, which is widespreadin all seas from the equator to the polar ice, should confine itself to relatively cold
water. Females in harem schools have been observed in water as cold as l4°C.
That bachelor schools were observed only in the small range of 15.0-15.5°C weconsider an accident due to the paucity of data for this class, for bachelor schools
were observed, though not recorded in detail and therefore not included in Table
8, in the great concentration off Is. Pajaros in water of 18.1° to 18. 7°C.
TABLE 8. THE CLASSES OF SPERM WHALE SCHOOLS AND SURFACETEMPERATURE. FROM THREE VOYAGES IN THE SOUTHEAST PACIFIC.

1964

1958 (Clarke,
1962, Table 2)

No. of Temp°C
whalesNo. ofwhales Temp°C

Classificationof schools

Solitary males
Bachelor schools
Harem schools
Nursery schools
Unclassified
schools

9
7
19+
23+
51+

15.0-18.7
15.0-15.5
15.5-18. 7
18.1-18.7
14.8-18.7

153
5

13.6-15.3
15.3
14.0

Ecuador to
Galapagos Is.
1959 (Clarke,
1962, Table 2)

Summary

No. ofwhalesTemp °C

No. ofwhalesTemp°C

5

21.4-22.6

80-100

17.9

29
10
24+
103-123+51+

13.6-22.6
15.0-15.5
14.0-18.7
17.9-18.7
14.8-18.7

However, Table 8 does suggest that nursery schools are limited to water notcolder than l 7.9°C, say 18°C. We may reasonably believe that this is because of
the thermal requirements of the calves. Even so, the limitation is not a rigorous
the nursery schools in the concentration off Is. Pajaros in 1964 will haveone,
needed to cross water of l 4°C to enter the warm eddy, and indeed, two of theharem schools observed in water of 15.5°C on 29 November included calves (Table
7). But it is noteworthy that both these harem schools were travelling, not lingering nor feeding, and the suggestion is that females with their calves seek out
water of l8°C or more, although in the seeking the calves may tolerate colder
water. It may be that the nursery school, a grouping of small whales, females
and calves, becomes an expedient in upwelling regions to serve the requirementsof the mother for food and the calf for warmth : we may imagine that the calves
are 'parked' in the nursery schools in warm water, as for instance the eddy off
Is. Pajaros, whilst some of the mothers go off to feed in the adjacent upwellingstream, perhaps leaving their calves in the care of' aunties ' such as exist in someother animal communities.

for

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

144

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

Observations elsewhere have also demonstrated that female sperm whales
are tolerant of colder water than has been claimed by Schubert, and later by
Gilmore (1959) and Radovich (1961) who gave limits of 20°C and l 7°C respectively. Actually the limits of tolerance must not be those of the mother whales
and other adult females, but rather those of the accompanying calves and juveniles
whose thermal requirements are one of the factors which limit their diving range,
because, as Gaskin and Cawthorn (1967) have noted, adult sperm whales of both
sexes may be in comparatively warm water at the surface and quickly find themselves in water near freezing when diving for food at depth.
When Pervushin (1966) observed sperm whales calving, the surface temperature was 17.5°C. Females in the North Pacific are occasionally taken as far
north as the Aleutian Islands in 52°N when the summer temperature of the sea isabove the normal of 13°C (Nishiwaki, 1966a). This agrees with the lowest surface
temperature, l4°C, at which (in 1958) harem schools were seen in the Southeast
Pacific, although in another paper Nishiwaki (1966b) says that in the North Pacificfemales may enter seas as cold as l0°C, but not colder. However, he makes nomention in either paper of calves accompanying the females. Earlier, Matsuura(1935) had even recorded harem schools sometimes entering water as cold as 3°l00C off Japan, again without mention of calves, although Berzin (1971, p. 182) ·refers to Russian observations of females with calves at temperatures below 3°I00C in the Sea of Okhotsk and off the Kurile Islands. In the western South
Pacific Gaskin (1971) records a harem school (in Cook Strait) in water about l0°120C as an abnormal occurrence, and gives records of l4°-l6°C as realistic limiting
temperatures for nursery schools; regarding latitude, Gaskin (1973) mentions an
extreme record of a female taken in 54°55'S, but puts the normal limits at 50°S
in the western South Pacific. Thus, although the statement that female sperm
whales do not range beyond 40° North and South holds good as a generalisation,
the limit in the southern hemisphere has been put more precisely in oceanographicalterms by Bannister (1968) and Best (1976) as the subtropical convergence. This
lies for the most part around 40°S but in places extends nearly to 50°S, whilst' the water just north of the convergence has a temperature of at least 1 l .5°C in
winter and 14.5°C in summer' (Deacon, 1937, Fig. 4 and p. 72): these ranges justabout encompass the latitudinal and temperature limits for female sperm whales
reviewed here, save for those mentioned by Matsuura and Berzin.
Distribution and the squid Dosidicus gigas. Sperm whales of the Southeast
Pacific, like those in most other parts of the world, feed mainly upon squid.
R. Clarke (1962), referring to the great numbers of large squid seen at thesurface at night during the expeditions off the coast of Chile in 1958 and from
Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands in 1959, observed that the specimens collected
seemed to be identical with the common Humboldt Current squid Dosidicus ( Ommastrephes) gigas. Now in other oceans, ommastrephids with a similar habit,
abounding at the surface, are not known to be eaten by the sperm whale, or are
rarely eaten. Drawing attention to this interesting circumstance, R. Clarke emphasised nonetheless the possibility that sperm whales of the Southeast PacificSci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

145

might in the event be found to be feeding on D. gigas, when study of the biology
and distribution of this squid would become important to the whale investigations.
Recently M. R. Clarke, MacLeod and Paliza (1976) have reported on cephalopod remains from the stomachs of sperm whales examined in Chile and Peru.
They have not only established the presence of beaks of D. gigas in stomachs from
Paita and Pisco in Peru, but have also estimated that, although this large bulky
species only constituted 3.6 % of the total number of beaks in the samples, it contributed 31.6% of the squid flesh swallowed by the whales. It appears therefore
that in the Southeast Pacific D. gigas is one of the most important species of squidin the nutrition of sperm whales.
The identification of D. gigas beaks in the stomach contents was made by
Dr. Malcolm Clarke as early as 1963, when the samples were sent to the National
Institute of Oceanography in England (see R. Clarke, Aguayo and Paliza, 1968,
Part I.). Consequently, during the expedition off Chile in 1964 we arranged tofish for squids each night when the ship lay drifting, so as to look for any correlation
between our sightings of sperm whales and the distribution and abundance of thesquids. It is with these results that we are here concerned : an account of thefishing methods and some observations on the squid themselves are included in'Other work on the voyage', p. 162.
Fishing was conducted mostly at 25 or 50 m. All the squids we caught were
the same species, and the fourteen specimens preserved were later identified as
D. gigas by Mr. Patricio Garcia-Tello (p. 163). This makes us confident that thelarge squid we saw around the ship, and the 'strikes' not captured were all D.
gigas. In Fig. 3 the numbers in square boxes represent the abundance of the squid
as the number of strikes and/or captures per hour's fishing (Table 10) at each of
the Stations 114 to 131 (Fig. 1). The letter ' P ' within a box indicates those stations
where no strikes or captures were made during the routine fishing period, but
squid were known to be present, either because they were seen at the surface or
because they were caught at some time in the night by the watch after the station
work had been completed. At five of the stations, for one reason or another (Table
10) no fishing was undertaken, and here a question mark appears in the box.
We had expected a correlation between the presence of numerous sperm
whales, an abundance of D. gigas, and positions of active upwelling, but the results
supported no such correlation. The greatest abundance of squids, yielding 27
squids per hour's fishing, were at station 124 in the region of active upwelling southof San Antonio, but no sperm whales were observed there; nor were sperm whales
observed at station 117 where squids were also abundant (nine per hour's fishing)in the southern part of the active upwelling in the Coquimbo area. On the other
hand no squids were caught at station 118 in the northern part of this upwelling
region, although sperm whales were abundant at and near station 118 ; actually
D. gigas is so abundant in this region of the chain of islands north of Coquimbo
that the only factory for making squid meal in Chile is working here on the mainland coast (Garcia-Tello, 1965). Figure 3 also shows that squids were present
further westward in water of surface temperature between 17° and 18°C where
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

146

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

no sperm whales were seen. There are several possible reasons for these unexpected
results : the stations were comparatively few ; the total fishing time at any station
was usually 30 minutes or less, and never more than one hour ; and althoughvarious baits of fish and meat were used, we might have done better with no bait
at all, for the best catch (at Station 124 ) was taken with an unbaited tota (see p.
163): or perhaps there was no correlation possible because the whales were feeding
mostly in the day when the D. gigas were at a deeper level and displaced horizontally from our stations.
We have thought it worthwhile to report these results because, althoughroutine observations and exploratory fishing for oceanic surface-living squid havebeen conducted before (Baker, 1960), this is the first time to our knowledge thatobservations on sperm whales have been combined with exploratory fishing for asquid known to be a constituent of the diet. It is hoped that more work of thiskind will be done on future voyages in the Southeast Pacific. The fishing methods
need to be improved by experiment, and then standardised and conducted more
intensely. Fishing seems at present to be the most reliable way to measure abundance of these squids, because (as Baker (1960) has observed in regard to Ommastrephes pteropus) the squids move in and out of the illuminated area around theship so quickly that they cannot be counted ; also the fact that no squid may beseen at the surface is no guarantee that they are not present twenty or so metres
down.
It is not surprising that D. gigas, because of its size and abundance, should be
eaten by sperm whales in the Southeast Pacific: it is surprising that related squidsof similar habit in other oceans should be eaten rarely or not at all. Betesheva andAkimushkin (1955) claimed that in the North Pacific Ommastrephes sloanei pacificus
is only rarely eaten, a statement later modified by Akimushkin who said (1963,
p. 196) that it is not eaten. The squid abundant at the surface in the North
Atlantic, Ommastrephes pteropus, is not known to be eaten by the sperm whale (Baker,
1957; M. R. Clarke, 1962), although M. R. Clarke (1966, p. 105) says that specimens of Ommastrephes discussed by Baker (1957, 1960) included not only 0. jJteropus
but also 0. caroli and possibly 0. bartrami which Kawakami (1976) has now recorded
from the stomachs of sperm whales in the Northwest Pacific. Dr. Malcolm Clarke
has informed us that the surface living squid of the Indian Ocean, Symplectoteuthis
oualaniensis has not be recorded from sperm whales in that ocean, although some of
the beaks examined from sperm whales at Paita, Peru are believed to belong tothis species (M. R. Clarke, MacLeod and Paliza, 1976). It is not clear why sperm
whales outside the Southeast Pacific should pay little or no attention to the surface
frequenting ommastrephids. Betesheva and Akimushkin (1955) and Berzin (1971,
p. 201) believe that 0. sloanei pacificus is confined to the surface and that sperm
whales feed at deeper levels; yet 0. pteropus has been recorded from the surface todepths as great as 1,000 m (Baker, 1960), and we believe-from the accumulating
evidence on the food of sperm whales in various seas-that these whales are feedingat all levels from the surface to substantial depths. Again, S. oualaniensis andD. gigas have light organs (Roper, 1963; M. R. Clarke, 1965) and D. gigas has
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,.No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

147

been observed to emit a brilliant blue light (Garcia-Tello, 1964), so it might bethought that in these squids the light betrays the squid to the sperm whale ; but
0. pteropus is also bioluminescent (Roper, 1963; M. R. Clarke, 1965) and is notknown to be eaten.

Blackfish (Globicephala melaena edwardi)
Results on the distribution and abundance of blackfish off Chile need to beprefaced with remarks on the species identification. As R. Clarke (1962) has
observed, these blackfish in the parochial sense ' are to be referred to Globicephalachilensis which Philippi (1896) described as a new species from two almost complete skeletons cast up on the coast of Chile '. On three occasions some of theblackfish sighted in the expedition of 1964 (Table 1) were approached closely
enough to observe the pigmentation. These bore a whitish saddle-shaped area
behind the dorsal fin (Pl. II, Fig. 2) and a whitish streak behind the eye. In one
large school of 40-50 whales sighted at 1905 on 1 December, one adult of about
4.6 m. (15 ft) was posed upright in the water, apparently watching the vessel, andit was seen to have a white patch on the throat. The saddle-shaped white area
behind the dorsal fin and the whitish steak behind the eye are the distinctive external characters which Rayner (1939) used to describe the southern blackfish,
G. leucosagmaphora. According to F. C. Fraser, in Ellermann, Morrison-Scott andHayman (1953), leucosagmaphora is antedated by edwardi A. Smith, 1834. R. Clarke(1962), discussing the blackfish sighted off Chile in 1958, noted that' Davies (1960)
believed that differences between the northern and southern forms did not warrant
more than subspecific importance at most, and so he distinguished a northern
G. melaena melaena from a southern G. melaena edwardi. He drew attention to records of southern Globicephala which apparently lacked the dorsal white saddle, andto a record of northern G. melaena which possessed the saddle, and explained that
he and other authors found no differences between the skulls of Globicephala from
Tasmania, the Falkland Islands, the Cape of Good Hope and Kerguelen'. Davies'
proposal has since been accepted by Sergeant (1962a), who has made an intensive
study of the North Atlantic blackfish, and by Rice and Scheffer (1968) in theirclassification of marine mammals: Hershkovitz (1966, p. 96) lumps the southernand northern forms together, saying that distinctions are based on 'individual or
pod variables ' and are without geographical basis, but this would seem to us to
go too far whilst so little anatomical material has been examined from great areas
like the Southeast Pacific. R. Clarke was content to leave the blackfish sighted
off Chile in 1958 (and also off the coast of Ecuador in 1959) as Globicephala sp.,
because he had been able to observe only the white saddle and not the whitish
streak behind the eye described by Rayner, and also because True (1903) consideredthat Philippi's G. chilensis could be distinguished by characters in the skull andbackbone from G. melas (melaena). But now that we have observed the white streak
behind the eye, and also the white throat which agrees with Rayner's descriptionof leucosagmaphora as being similar in its ventral white pigmentation to melaena, it
appears reasonable to identify the blackfish of the Southeast Pacific as G. melaena
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CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

edwardi. However, the identification is tentative only, for it is based upon thepigmentation of the body which certainly seems to vary a good deal in Globicephala.
The matter will not be settled until specimens of blackfish from the west coast,ofSouth America are examined anatomically and osteologically, when the differences
claimed by True can be confirmed or denied. Meanwhile, if records of blackfish
in the Southeast Pacific all refer to G. melaena edwardi, its range is continuous fromthe south of Chile (Cabrera and Yepes, 1940, p. 300, Tierra del Fuego; Norris, citedby Aguayo, 1975, Golfo de Penas; Philippi, 1893, 1896, Isla Chiloe; Aguayo,
1975, the region from 49° to 33°S; Gilmore, 1971, Isla Mocha) through central
Chile (Philippi, 1893, 1896, Los Vilos; Oliver, 1946, Concepcion; R. Clarke, 1962;
the present paper) and far out at sea near Isla San Ambrosio off northern Chile(Gilmore, 1971) to the length of the coast of Peru (Scammon, 1874, p. 87; R.
Clarke, 1962; Guillen and Flores, 1965; Mejia and Poma, 1966; Aguayo, 1975)
and the coast of Ecuador (Scammon, 1874, p. 87; R. Clarke, 1962; Leveque,1963).
During the expedition off Chile in 1964 there were seen 181-206 blackfish,
all of them in the track of 1958, for none were sighted on the extension southwards
to Talcahuano. They were sighted on eleven occasions (Table 1), and the general
distribution of these sightings across the body of the Humboldt Current, from 20
to as much as 160 nautical miles from the coast, was similar to the distribution of1958 (Figs 1 and 2). In 1964 the abundance of blackfish as numbers per 100
nautical miles sailed (Table 3) was very similar to the abundance in 1958 (respectively 11.0 and 13.2 per 100 nautical miles sailed); the abundance measured inthis gregarious species as sightings per 100 nautical miles sailed (Table 4) was justabout the same in 1964 and 1958 (0.63 and 0.70 per 100 nautical miles sailed), as
were the number of whales per sighting (17.6 and 18. 7). The stock of blackfish
off Chile is not exploited at present, and the numbers are therefore likely to remain
steady from year to year, so that these results from two surveys over the same trackat very nearly the same time of the year were to be expected; we have earlier
noted (p. 127) that to have obtained these expected results makes us confident
that our results for the abundance of other whales may be significantly compared.
In 1964 the direction of movement of the blackfish was noted at seven sightings(Table 1) ; the directions were south or southerly on four occasions, and west, eastand northeast on the others, suggesting, as far as they go, that the general trendof movement might be southerly. The sizes of schools are shown in Table 6 : theaverage numbers per school were 17.6 in 1964 and 22.9 in 1958, when the average
was somewhat swelled by one sighting of a school of about 100 whales (R. Clarke,
1962, Table 3); these figures agree well with the sizes of schools in the North
Atlantic where Sergeant (1962b) says 'the pelagic herds comprise on average
about 20 individuals and rarely include more than 100, ... '. In Table 1 there
are some notes on the estimated sizes of the blackfish we encountered ; they include
one whale, which from its size must have been a male, estimated at 7.5 m (25 ft).
This was probably an over-estimate, for the largest of 1,275 males measured in the
North Atlantic was 6.17 m or 20.2 ft (Sergeant, 1962b); however, it is possible
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WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

149

that blackfish grow bigger in the southern hemisphere for few southern blackfish
have been measured, the largest, 5.89 m (19.3 ft), being from a sample of ten
males belonging to a school stranded in Tasmania (Scott, 1942).
Blackfish sometimes mingle with other cetaceans. This was observed in twoof the eleven encounters with blackfish in 1964 ; on one occasion a school of 30-40
was accompanied by eight dolphins (see p. 151), and on another a school of ten
accompanied 6-8 dolphins and a fin whale (Table 1). In 1958 they were seen to
be mingled with other cetaceans on four occasions, respectively with sperm whales,
fin whales (twice) and a fin whale with dolphins (R. Clarke, 1962). Gilmore(1971) and Aguayo (1975) have also reported them mingled with bottlenosed
dolphins (Tursiops sp.) off Isla San Ambrosio in Chilean seas. In other seas theirassociation with sperm whales have been reported by Gaskin and Cawthorn (1967),
and with dolphins and porpoises by Sergeant and Fisher (1957), Norris and Prescott(1961), Brown (196lb), Fiscus and Niggol (1965) and Pilleri and Knuckey (1968,1969). As Gilmore (1971) has noted, the habit of the blackfish of mingling withother cetaceans is widespread and appears to be characteristic of Globicephala.
From the results of the expeditions of 1958 and 1964 we recommend thatconsideration should be given to exploiting the blackfish resource off the coast of
Chile (see also Aguayo, 1975). At the present time blackfish are hunted in Norway,
the Faeroe Islands, Greenland~ Newfoundland, the Lesser Antilles and Japan. The
International Whaling Statistics (1976, LXXVII, Table Z5) give the catches fromthese countries (except the Lesser Antilles) between 1964 and 1968. In the Faeroe
Islands and Newfoundland the whales are driven ashore (Williamson, 1945 ; Sergeant, l 962b ). At St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, there is ahand harpoon fishery from open boats (Mitchell, 1975, p. 82). In Japan and
Norway they contribute with other cetacean species to the 'small whale' catchtaken pelagically by small vessels using the harpoon gun, as described by Omura,
Maeda and Miyazaki (1953), Jonsgard (1955) and Foote (1975). Similar small
whalecatchers would be required in Chile, where the schools of blackfish do not(so far as we are aware) come close enough to the coast to be driven ashore. Blackfish meat is edible: in Japan and the Faeroe Islands it is used for human consumption, and in Norway and Newfoundland it is used for animal food, including foodfor mink and fox farms. If blackfish whaling is started in Chile, then from the
beginning there should be established a research programme to monitor continuously the stock under exploitation.

Bottlenosed whales
There were two occasions on the expedition of 1964 when Captain Parrasighted a solitary whale which he reported as a bottlenosed whale (Table 1, Fig. 1).
Little is known of the true southern bottlenosed whale, Hyperoodon planifrons, ofwhich there are only twenty records of flesh or bone at the present time (Gianuca
and Castello, 1976). A number of sighting records have been published, but nearly
all of these are unreliable, because the species can easily be confused at sea withcertain other ziphioid whales. Therefore we cannot be sure that the two whales
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CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

reported by Captain Parra were definitely H. jJlanifrons, although they may wellhave been, since R. Clarke (1962) recorded five H. planifrons in 33°15'S, 73°27'W
on the expedition of 1958. · We accept Robert Clarke's identification because during the Antarctic whaling season of 1947-48 he arranged for a specimen of H.
planifrons to be shot, and combined a complete examination of the specimen withhis photographs and observations of the living whale (see Fraser, 1964); but on
the expedition off Chile in 1964 he was not on deck to confirm Captain Parra's
sighting.
There are other reports from Chilean seas of whales believed by the observers
to be H. planifrons. Two were reported in Drake Strait in December 1965 (Aguayo
and Torres, 1967), and in 1966 there were reported 14 animals in March-April andsix in December, and in 1973 a solitary animal in February (Aguayo, unpublished).
Duguy (1973) also saw two whales in Drake Strait in December 1972 which hethought were probably H. planifrons. There is one report which we do not accept
even as a possibility: Gianuca and Castello (1976) said ' Morzer Bruyns (1971)
saw a pod off Chile estimated to comprise about 40 specimens (May, 1965)';
actually Bruyns (1971, p. 149) saw only records where an unidentified observer
had reported 40 pilot whales (blackfish) but which Bruyns, solely from notes on
their pigmentation, thought 'must have been' the southern bottlenosed whale.

Unidentified small whales
There were eight sightings in 1964 of small whales which we could not identify(Table 1). On most occasions they were too far away, and there is nothing more
to be said about them, but we are here concerned with two sightings, at 1755 on
24 November and at 0712 on 27 November, of a species of whales which we havenever seen before.
On both occasions the schools were chased for observation, the first time for
35 minutes and the second time for nearly three hours, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to harpoon a specimen. Photographs were taken but we could
not approach them closely. When chased they soon became scared and ran fast,keeping their distance from the ship steaming at 13 knots. Each time the school
stayed together during the chase, and on the first occasion the school was noted as
running in single line abreast. The first sighting was a school of 15-20, the whales
being about 6.0 m (20 ft) long; the second sighting comprised a school of 14, allabout 4.5-6.0 m (15-20 ft) long. Some of the external characters are shown in
Pl. III, Fig. 1. The head was somewhat bulged, and we caught a glimpse of thesnout of one individual: it was bluntly rounded, without any sign of a beak. The
dorsal fin was conspicuously high, rising stoutly from a wide base, with the axis
inclined slightly backward ; the anterior margin was steep, with scarcely any curve
until it swept back to form the blunt tip; the posterior margin was shallowly concave. The whales did not at any time show more of the body surface above thewater than the midline of the flanks, so nothing can be said of the ventral colouration. The back posterior to the dorsal fin was dark, almost black. The forepartof the body was greyish-white of a streaky pattern, extending in some individuals
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from the head to the anterior emargination of the dorsal fin, and in others fromthe head to the region just behind the dorsal fin which thus appeared to rise up
like a dark island in a white surround. The dorsal fin itself was generally dark,although streaks of white invaded the base in varying amounts, and one whale
had the length of the anterior margin of the fin white, and the remainder dark.
These whales are certainly odontocetes, if only for the single blowhole (Pl.
III, Fig. 1). They have no beak, and so are not ziphiids but delphinids. They
are not killer whales Orcinus orca, for the dorsal fin, although high, is really not likethat of either the male or female killer, and nor do they have the bold piebald
pigmentation of the killer. The pigmy killer whale, Feresa attenuata, is too smalland has a different dorsal fin (Nishiwaki, Kasuya, Kamiya, Tobayama and Nakajima, 1965, Fig. 6). Risso's dolphin, Grampus griseus, has a similar pigmentation
when observed at sea, and the dorsal fin is similar to, although not so high andrather more falcate than, the fin of our whale (Pilleri and Knuckey, 1968, Pls VIIIXI; Mitchell (edit.), 1975, Fig. 24); but Risso's dolphin does not exceed 4 m(13 ft) in length. As may be seen from Pilleri's photographs of the false killer
whale, Pseudorca crassidens, at sea (1967, Pls. I-IV), the dorsal fin of the false killer
comes closest to that of our whale in shape, although the false killer's fin is not sohigh; the body size of the false killer is also about the same, and although the colour
is said to be black, relieved only by white scar marks, there appear to be small
white patches on the back of some individuals in Pilleri's photographs, and white
markings on the head and flippers of stranded specimens photographed by J. G.
Mead (in Mitchell (ed.), 1975, Fig. 14).
We can only conclude that these whales seen off Chile in 1964 may be a new
species, possibly of the genus Pseudorca or Grampus. It is clearly important toobtain specimens as soon as opportunity affords. The animal agrees well withthe 'undescribed whale' reported and figured by Wilson (1905, p. 472; 1907,
p. 4 and Whales, Plate I) as 20-30 feet long, black above but with some white
about the mouth or chin, and characterised by a high dorsal fin 'erect, pointed
and sabre-shaped'; several were seen in the Ross Sea during the British National
Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904), but they have never been reported since.

Dolphins (Tursiops sp.)
We have already explained (p. 127) the observed difference in abundanceof dolphins sighted off Chile in 1964 (1.7 per 100 nautical miles sailed) comparedwith their abundance over the same track in 1958 (15.6 per 100 nautical miles
sailed).
Dolphins were sighted on four occasions during the expedition of 1964 (Table1). They were all of the same species which we have not been able to identify
with certainty. They were in schools of between six and ten animals. At one
sighting the school was accompanied by blackfish, and at another, by blackfish
and a fin whale (p. 149). The estimated lengths of the dolphins varied from
1.5 m (5 ft) to 2.4 m (8 ft). Two which played at the bow of the ship could beobserved fairly closely, and were photographed when just under water (Pl. III,Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
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CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

Fig. 2). All were slender dolphins, similar in build, dorsal fin and flukes to thecommon dolphin, Delphinus deljJhis, but with a different colouration. The tailstock
was strongly compressed. The beak was fairly short. The anterior border ofthe flipper was convex: the posterior border was concave from the tip to a point
near the insertion; at this point, where the flipper had its greatest breadth, theposterior border became convex, curving inwards to the insertion. The colour
was lead-brown above, relieved by some white mottling, especially on the head.
In some individuals there were white scratch marks and scars. The lead-brown
colour extended to the dorsal fin and the flippers and to the dorsal aspects of thebeak and the flukes. The ventral surface was white, including the ventral aspectsof the beak and the flukes. The flanks were also white as far as the mid-lateralline of the body.
The compressed tailstock suggests a species of Lagenorhynchus. But the formof the flipper is a Tursiops characteristic, and there are no features in our notes
which exclude Tursiops, unless it be that the better known species of Tursiops are
somewhat more robust than these dolphins. The colour is similar to that of
Tursiops catalania as described by Fraser (1948). Tursiops in the Southeast Pacificis definitely known from two skulls and some notes on body colour from photographs of the individuals which provided them: they are from Talara, Peru andfrom Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands, and Hershkovitz (1963) identified themas T. nesarnack catalania, which in 1966 he included as a synonym of T. truncatus
aduncus. Grimwood (1969) has since identified this species as common in Peruvian
coastal waters, from Mancora to the Chilean border. We are inclined to thinkthat the dolphins observed in 1964 were a species of Tursiops, and Aguayo (1975)
was of the same opinion, but we would not commit ourselves until specimens areavailable for study.
In 1958 also many of the dolphins seen were not identified, although R. Clarke(1962) did report sightings of Lagenorlrynchus cruciger and the common dolphin
Delphinus delphis, neither of which were seen in 1964. R. Clarke has discussed
previous records of L. cruciger from Chile. He saw nothing remarkable about theD. delphis he observed (unpublished notes), but Banks and Brownell (1969) examined
two specimens of the common dolphin from the coast of Peru and concluded thatthe body proportions fitted those of D. bairdii from the Gulf of California, adding'it appears that there is a bairdii-like population of dolphins in the eastern South
Pacific Ocean '. But whatever differences may exist between the stocks of common
dolphins in different oceans, they can hardly warrant more than the subspecificrank afforded them by Hershkovitz (1966) who gives D. bairdii as D. delphis bairdii.
Aguayo (1975) has recorded other species of dolphins from Chilean seas.

Porpoises (Phocoena sp.)
Porpoises (Phocoena sp.) were sighted on five occasions during the expedition
off Chile in 1964 (Table 1). The sightings ranged from 50 to 85 nautical miles
from the nearest land, which is unusual for Phocoena which is regarded as a coastal
form. Their abundance was 5.3 per 100 nautical miles sailed. No porpoises
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WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

153

were encountered sailing the same track in 1958 (see p. 127).
All the porpoises were of the same species. The numbers in schools were as
few as six to as many as 50-60. One school of 15-20 was feeding on 'sardine'(anchoveta ?) shoals when first sighted; another school, of 50-60, was accompanied
by flocks of petrels. Both these schools were approached for observation. Whenchased they ran faster than our maximum speed of 13 knots. Whilst runningthey repeatedly leapt from the water in true porpoise fashion. They were small,stout porpoises, between 0.9 m (3 ft) and 1.5 m (5 ft) long, mostly about 1.2 m(4 ft). The shapes of the head and dorsal fin were typical of the common porpoise,
Phocoena phocoena. The animals were coloured lead-brown above and white beneath. The white of the ventral surface extended to the flanks where it mergedwith the dorsal lead-brown in an area of dirty white. The flukes were darkly
pigmented.
Norris and McFarland (1958) reviewed the genus Phocoena and concluded that
there were only four valid species, sjJinipinnis, sinus, phocoena and dioptrica.
Burmeister's porpoise, Phocoena spinipinnis and the spectacled porpoise, Phocoena dioptrica, are known only from the southern hemisphere. P. spinipinnis iscommon along the coasts of Chile and Peru, and is known from Uruguay andArgentina (Brownell and Praderi, 1976). The ten records of P. dioptrica are from
Uruguay, Argentina as far as Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands and South
Georgia (Brownell, 1975). But Allen (1925) considered that P. dioptrica Lahille1912 was 'with little doubt' the same as Phocoena obtusata described by Philippi(1893) from a single specimen caught in Talcahuano Bay on the coast of Chile.
Fraser (1948) thought this only a possibility, and in 1968 argued that Philippi's
obtusata should not be given priority until further evidence were forthcoming.
Praderi (1971) considered P. obtusata a doubtful species. When we examined
Philippi's text and figure (1893, Plate III, Fig. 1) we were convinced by Allen'sargument that the two species are identical, and there appeared to be confirmationfrom Donoso-Barros (1975) who examined the holotype of P. obtusata in the Museo
Nacional de Historia Natural, Santiago de Chile and considered it the same as
specimens of P. dioptrica in the Museo de la Plata, Argentina. However, Brownell( 1975) has also examined the holotype of P. obtusata and he believes that it is infact a species of Cephalorhynchus. We therefore accept that the identity of P. obtusata
still remains in doubt. In 1903 True had suggested, from the appearance ofPhilippi's figure, that P. obtusata might be a Cephalorhynchus. Hershkovitz (1966)
placed P. obtusata simultaneously in the synonymy of Cephalorhynchus eutropia Gray,
1846 and in the synonymy (but with a question mark) of P. dioptrica.
C. eutropia is a rare dolphin of Chilean seas known mostly from skulls and twoskeletons. From characters of the skull True (1903) found this to be almost certainly conspecific with Tursio (Phocoena) albiventris Perez, published by Philippi(1896) who had earlier (1893) named this dolphin Phocoena (Hyperoodon ?) albiventris
Perez from a description and figure of the external form and colour provided by
Dr. Perez Canto. It had been caught near Valparaiso. In 1896 Perez Cantohimself published his description as Phocoena albiventris Perez Canto. His accountSci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
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CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

of the head, dorsal fin and flipper of P. albiventris conform with those of the genus
Cephalorhynchus. His dolphin was small (1.36 m, 4 ft 6 in), greenish-black above,
extending to the flanks, with throat and belly white and a white patch behind theflipper. The flukes were pigmented. There was 'a dark line on the sides whichruns from front to behind. (This line is not seen in the figure)'. Fraser (1948)
called it the white-bellied dolphin, Cephalorhynchus albiventris. The 'handsome
black and white beakless porpoises' seen by Murphy (1925, p. 255) near Ruacho,
Peru may have been specimens of Cephalorhynchus eutropia, although Murphy thought
they were probably C. albifrons, a species which Hershkovitz (1966) includes in thesynonymy of C. hectori from New Zealand waters. Recently Aguayo (1975) has
recorded that Dr. Kenneth S. Norris, in an unpublished report of 1968, took two
specimens of a dolphin or porpoise which he identified as C. eutropia, and saw many
more ofthe same species at sea between 37° and 40°S on the coast of Chile.
Now the porpoises we saw on the expedition of 1964 were neither Burmeister's
porpoise nor the spectacled porpoise. The first author has become familiar withthe appearance of P. spinipinnis, first in the fish market at Chimbote (R. Clarke,
1962, p. 279, footnote) and thereafter in the markets at Chimbote, Ancon, Callao,
Pucusana, San Andres and Ilo, whilst he was fishing on the coast of Peru during
1971 and 1972. Another of us (A.A.L.) has also observed a school of eight P. spinipinnis at the mouth of the Loa River in Chile in 1965 (Aguayo, 1975). P. dioptrica
should be easily recognised at sea, being very distinctly marked in black and whiteand showing sexual dimorphism of the dorsal fin (Fraser, 1968; Brownell, 1975).
On the other hand our porpoises could have been, with regard to size and colour
pattern, the white-bellied dolphin C. eutropia as described by Perez Canto; his' dark line on the sides ' could have been the dirty white area on the flanks of our
porpoises where dark and white merged. But again, our field notes say that thehead and dorsal fin were typical of Phocoena.
We come now to compare the northern species, Phocoena phocoena and P. sinus,
with our porpoise. In the external characters we were able to observe, it only
differs from P. phocoena in its rather smaller size and the lead-brown colour of theback which is black in P. phocoena. The latter is widely distributed in northernseas, but it has not been reported from the southern hemisphere, which is not to
say that our porpoise may not be a southern race of the species. On the other
hand, Norris and McFarland (1958) described a new porpoise, Phocoena sinus, froma skull cast up in the Gulf of California. Little is known of the colour pattern of
P. sinus (Brownell, 1976), but there have been sightings of porpoises believed tobelong to this species, where the animal is described as rather less than five feet inlength, and of a uniform brown colour dorsally (Norris and McFarland, 1958), as
five to six feet long and ' dull lead grey in colour with a slight brownish cast ', andas somewhat over four feet long, and lead grey above grading to white below(observers cited by Norris and Prescott, 1961). The size and colour of our porpoise
agree with these observations, but P. sinus is considered at present to have a very
limited distribution in the Gulf of California (Brownell, 1976).
We therefore prefer to record our porpoise as Phocoena sp. until such time as
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WHALE OSBERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

155

specimens may be obtained.
R. Clarke (1962) called attention to the paucity of our kno·wledge of thetaxonomy and bionomics of the smaller cetaceans of the Southeast Pacific. His
remarks are reinforced by this discussion of the small whales, dolphins and porpoises we could not identify in the expedition of 1964.
WHALE MARKING
During the expedition 53 sperm whales and one fin whale were estimated to havebeen effectively marked. The positions of marking are shown in Fig. 1. A copyof the whale marking records is lodged with the Whale Research Unit, British
Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Methods and precautions
The procedures of marking whales (Pl. IV, Fig. 1) and recording the results
followed those used in 1958 and 1959 and were similar to those described by R.
Clarke and Ruud (1954). Before firing all marks were smeared with an antibiotic
ointment to guard against infection of the wound of entry of the mark, as recommended by Ruud, Clarke and Jonsgard (1953) and R. Clarke (1971). To avoid
the risk of a mark penetrating to the body cavity of the whale, the marksman
aimed at the region of the dorsal fin of whalebone whales (Ruud, Clarke and Jonsgard, 1953), but the aim was directed at the region behind the dorsal fin whenmarking sperm whales, for reasons explained by R. Clarke (1971). On the voyagesof 1958 and 1959 in Chilean and Ecuadorean seas, no whales estimated to be lessthan 38 ft (11.6 m) in length were marked, because the first author of the present
paper considered them too small to be marked without risk of injuring the whale.
But few female sperm whales exceed 38 feet, and on the voyage of 1964 we reduced
this minimum size for marking to 36 ft (11.0 m) so as to make available the larger
female sperm whales and also more of the smaller males. We agree with Clarke(1971) that, unless there is experimental evidence to the contrary from the markingof carcases, a minimum length of 36 feet should be strictly observed for the safe
marking of any species of whale where the standard 12-bore Discovery mark is
employed.
TABLE 9.

WHALE MARKS EXPENDED OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964

Result of shot
Hit
Hit, mark protruding
Possible hit
RicochetMiss
No verdict
WastedTotal expenditure* Three whales marked twice.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

Fin

Sei

Sperm

Total

Percent

4

56*
8
5
4
13

62
9
5
4
18
0

4

86

57*
8
5
4
17
0
1
92

99

156

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

Whale marks and their expenditure
The expenditure of whale marks is shown in Table 9. About 25% of the
sperm whales sighted were considered to have been effectively marked, and we
could have marked many more had we not observed the minimum size for markingof 36 ft.
The blubber of sperm whales is very hard: when marking sperm whales off
the coast of Chile in 1958, a large proportion of the marks which scored hits wereseen to protrude from the blubber. Whales struck in this way are not considered
to be effectively marked, because no mark recorded as protruding has ever been
recovered from a whale (with one exception), presumably because the mark eventually falls out from the blubber. Accordingly, for the marking in Ecuadoreanseas in 1959, a mark was developed with a slightly more powerful cartridge thanthat used for whalebone whales. The modified mark proved successful in 1959
(R. Clarke, 1962), and these special marks for sperm whales were also used off
Chile in 1964. Of the combined total from 56 hits and eight hits with the markprotruding on sperm whales (Table 9), 13 % were hits with the mark protrudingwhich we consider very satisfactory. R. Clarke (1962) gave details of the modification, and we recommend these marks for future use on sperm whales.
Recoveries of whale marks
Up to the time of completing this report, two of the sperm whales marked in1964 have been recaptured.
Mark no. 23539 was fired into a male sperm whale, estimated to be 49 ft(14.9 m) long, at three miles from Isla Chafiaral in 29°0l'S, 71°4l'W on 30 November 1964, and the whale was in an unclassified school (Table 1, time 0715 to 1020).
It was shot on 7 January 1967 in 36°40'S, 73°40'W near Talcahuano where themark was recovered and the length of the whale recorded as 37 ft. This figure forlength must have been a clerical error at the whaling station because we believethat our estimates of the sizes of whales approached for marking were accurate
within one foot. The recovery establishes a local displacement of 4 70 nautical
miles southward parallel to the coast in three years (Fig. 4). Although there is
no way of knowing the whale's movements in the interval between marking andrecovery, this is evidence that sperm whales are indeed moving through the seasadjacent to the coast of central Chile, and that the stock is a local one in the sensethat the whales return to the same ground. Perhaps the date of recovery is significant also, because if the whales in successive years were to keep to the sameprocession of movement with time, then we might well expect a sperm whale
which is off Isla Chafiaral in November, embarked on a leisurely southward migration combined with feeding, to be off Talcahuano five weeks later in January.
The second recovery is especially interesting, as Brown (1976) has noted.
Mark no. 23598 was fired into a male sperm whale, estimated as 40 ft (12.2 m)long, in 29°42'S, 71°37'W where it was one of the great concentration of 90-110
sperm whales (which included harem schools, Table 1) encountered SW of Isla
Pajaros on 30 November 1964. The whale was shot in the Bellingshausen Sea
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,.No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

ao·

75"

70°

30°

30°

.Tuan Fernande3
(lo

35°

35°

FINO"

40

40°

17.ii.ee.

Fig. 4. Recoveries on the coast of Chile of a sperm whale marked in 1964, and of
a fin whale bearing a Soviet mark.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

157

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

158

in 66°0l'S, 83°03'W on 19 December 1973, and it was recorded as 46 ft (14.0 m)
long. This recovery after nine years shows a southerly movement of 2,200 nautical
miles by the shortest route from sub-tropical latitudes deep into Antarctic Area I(Fig. 5 ), and is direct evidence from whale marking of the migration into the
Antarctic of male sperm whales from the breeding stock of low latitudes. A lessextensive penetration into the Antarctic has also been demonstrated from West
Australian waters where a sperm whale marked off Albany in 1963 was recoveredin 1971 south of Tasmania in 46°3l'S, 148°42'E (Brown, 1973). There is one
other marking record from elsewhere which shows the return migration: a malesperm whale marked by a Soviet vessel in the Antarctic in the western part ofArea III in December 1967 was recovered four and a half months later 2,000

eo·

80°

70°

60°

50°

~

~
I

1 AREAIT
SEI~

6Q•

Ii

In

.tfl

Ill

1e.xii.7a

gp•

so•

70°

60°

50°

Fig. 5. Recoveries in the Antarctic of a sperm whale marked in 1964 and of a sei
whale marked in 1966 off Chile.

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

159

nautical miles to the northward in the Indian Ocean off Durban (Best, 1969b ).
The recovery of mark no. 23598 is also of interest regarding age determinationin sperm whales. Most workers are now agreed that the rate of accumulation ofdentinal growth layers in the teeth is one per year (Ohsumi, Kasuya and Nishiwaki,
1963; Best, 1970a; Gambell, 1972) but Berzi:n (1971) believes that two layers
accumulate each year. In Best's mean growth curve for male sperm whales off
the west coast of South Africa (1970a, Fig. 5), growth from 40 to 46 ft correspondswith an increase of eight dentinal growth layers, from 21 to 29, so that growth of
the whale with mark no. 23598 from 40 ft (estimated) to 46 ft in nine years supports a rate of accumulation of one growth layer each year.
No further marks have been recovered from the voyage of 1964, and there areno additions to the recoveries discussed by R. Clarke (1962) from the voyage off
Chile in 1958, whilst so far there have been no recoveries from the voyage of 1959
in Ecuadorean seas. However, we may appropriately discuss here two recoveries
from whalebone whales marked on other voyages off the coast of Chile.
We are indebted to Dr M. V. Ivashin of the All-Union Research Institute ofMarine Fisheries and Oceanography, Moscow for details of the marking of a fin
whale with Soviet mark no. 974 on 17 February 1962 in 42°20'S, 78°23'W. The
whale was shot on 6 December 1964 in 35°S, 73°10'W and the mark recovered at
Quintay where the whale was recorded as a male 19.8 m (65 ft) long. The minimum displacement was 500 nautical miles after nearly three years (Fig. 4). The
recovery is evidence that the same fin whales are moving off the coast of Chilefrom year to year. Although the recovery gives no information on the actual
range of the whale's movements in the interim after marking, it was probably in
February 1962 at the rear of the procession of fin whales which was moving pastsouthern Chile into the Antarctic in the summer of 1961/62, because we know,
from the recapture in Antarctic Area II of four fin whales from 11 marked off
Chile in 1958, that the fin whales off the coast of central Chile in spring are migrants
belonging to a stock which moves through Drake Strait to frequent the westernpart of the Atlantic sector of the Antarctic in summer (R. Clarke, 1962).
The other recovery is from a sei whale marked by one of us (A.A.L.) with twomarks, nos 22734 and 22741, off the Taitao Peninsula of southern Chile in 46°32'S,75°55'W on 17 December 1966, when it was estimated to be 49 ft (14.9 m) long.
The marks were recovered (no. 22734 from the whale, no. 22741 from the factory
ship deck) in the western part of Antarctic Area II, 61°20'S, 56°22'W, on 26
January 1976, and the whale was recorded as a female, 52 ft (15.9 m) long. The
minimum displacement after nine years was about 1,250 nautical miles (Fig. 5).
Reporting the recovery, Brown (1977) has emphasised that this movement through
Drake Strait into the western Atlantic sector of the Antarctic is directly comparable with that of fin whales marked off Chile in 1958.
The direct evidence from whale marking reviewed here shows that not only
fin whales, but also some parts of the sei whale stock and the male sperm whale
stock of the Southeast Pacific are exploited on their migrations by coastal whalingfrom Chile, where regulation is under the Permanent Commission of the South
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

160

TABLE 10. FISHING FOR SQUIDS AND FISH BY

StationNo.

Date

Position

Duration

Surface
Temp.

oc

lu

24. xi33°04'S, 72°28'W

2145-2330

16.1°

115

25. xi33°15'S, 75°00'W

2120-2155

16.9°

116

26. xi31°2o's, 73°55'W

2110-2255

17.0°

117

27. xi30°42'S, 72°00'W

2110-2135

15.6°

l1a

28. xi29°16'S, 7I 0 47'W

2230-2330

15.1°

119

29. xi

28°38'S, 72°00'W

2115-2130

17.0°

120

I. xii30°15'S, 72°3l'W

2130-2215

17.5°

121

2. xii30°17'S, 75°00'W

2000-2015

18.1°

122

3. xii30°27'S, 74°08'W

0345-0600

123

3-4. xii

31°57'S, 73°10'W

2000/3-0600/4

17.2°

124

7. xii34°07'S, 72°17'W

2145-2230

17.2°

12;

8. xii35°21's, 73°33'W

2150-2235

17.6°

126

9-10. xii

35°17'S, 75°00'W

2050/9-0200/10

17.3°

127

10. xii

36°16'S, 74°54'W

2045-2330

16.8°

Casts
Bait

Depth Duration
m
min.
50
100

15
15

25
50

5
10

Putrid meat

25
50
50

2
5
15

Putrid meat

50

30

Fish (Jurel,
Trachurus
trachurus)

25
50

15
15

25
50

15
15

None

4

20

None

25
50

15
15

Meat
Garfish

50

30

25}
30
50
Continued ...

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

161

INDUS XIV OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964
Squid fishing

Strikes

CapturesNo. of strikes
and/orcapturesper hour

0
0

0
0

0
0
Present000
00, but present

9

2
0

0

0

0

0

0
0

0
0

0, but present

4

5

27

0
0

0
0

0

0

0

Hand lining for 15 min. at
50 m caught nothing

Two specimens of Scomberesox washed on deck.

Two squids caught by thewatch during the night,
but later they were lost.

Three specimens of D. gigas
caught by the watch during the night. Preserved.
A great number of squid,
hunting Scomberesox, surrounded the ship at thesurface (1-4 m).
Theywere all 1.0-1.5 m long.
The five captures were D.
gig as.
Preserved.
The
colour changes of one
squid were noted.
No squids seen at the surface.

0, but present

Schools of garfish (Scomberesox) passing every 2-3
minutes. Each school contained 50-200 fish.
Two specimens of Scomberesox
washed on deck during thenight.

Six specimens of Scomberesox
caught in handnet.
Ship stopped only for basic
station routine.

Two specimens of D. gigas
caught by the watch during
the night. Preserved.

000

No fishing, but three specimens of Dosidicus gigas were
washed on deck during thenight. Preserved.
Numbers of squids, of 0.40.5 m standard length, present at the surface. A
large squid, about 2.5 m
long,appeared for a
moment.
A large D. gigas of about
1.5 m standard length wascaptured, but it broke at
the surface and only thehead was recovered.

Present00

0Other observations
Remarks?

Because of a heavy swell, no
fishing was attempted.

0

No squids seen at the surface.

Ship stopped only for basic
station routine.
The watch caught with ahandnet 37 specimens of
Scomberesox and 18 myctophids.
Hand lining for 30 minutes
between 25 and 50 m
caught nothing.
A single specimen only of
Scomberesox was caught.

Some Scomberesox were seen.
Some Scomberesox were washed on deck as the shiprolled.
Nine were preserved.
One specimen of Scomberesox
washed on deck.
Continued ...

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

162

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTOTABLE 10.

StationNo.

Data

Position

Duration

Surface
Temp.

Casts

oc

Bait

Depth Duration
m
min.

l2a

11. xii

36°35'S, 73°10'W

1510-1530

16.5°

129
lso

12. xii
14. xii

35°4l'S, 74°52'W
33°55'S, 75°26'W

2030-2045
2110-2130

17.1°
17.5°

Garfish

50

15

131

15. xii

33°55'S, 74°00'W

2100-2315

16.5°

Garfish

25
50

15
30

Pacific, and in summer in the Antarctic by factory ships operating under regulations of the International Whaling Commission. This increases the urgency forthat close cooperation between the Commissions recommended by R. Clarke(1962) after discussing fin whale migrations.
OTHER WORK ON THE VOYAGE
Each night in 1964 when the ship was stopped a brief oceanographical station was
worked; the data and samples have been deposited with the Estacion de Biologfa
Marina de Montemar. The routine comprised a surface water sample and surface
temperature record, and vertical hauls with phytoplankton net and zooplankton
net from 20 m to the surface (Fig. 1, Table 10). The stations were numbered
114 to 131 in continuation of the similar stations (Ii-1 13 ) worked on the voyage of1958 (R. Clarke, 1962).
Station 128 was worked in the daytime to sample the only patch of discoloured
water seen on the voyage (Table 10). There were two occasions when the ship
continued sailing through the night, so that we stopped only to work the basicroutines of stations 119 and 121 • At all the remaining 15 night stations we fishedunder a cargo light for squid with hand lines and for fish with a hand net.

Fish
The only fish seen or caught were myctophids and garfish.
The myctophids were recorded at only one station, 122 , and the catch appeared similar to Myctophum clarkei de Buen, taken during the voyage of 1958
(R. Clarke, 1962).
The garfish were widely distributed on the track of the voyage, being present
at ten of the 15 stations where fishing was conducted. They were sampled atseven of the stations and all the samples have been identified by Dr Walter Fischer
as Scomberesox stolatus de Buen. This is the punto fijo of Chilean seas, formerly confused with Scomberesox equirostrum Le Sueur and described, from specimens collectedon the voyage of 1958, as a new species by de Buen in 1959. Our unsexed sample
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

163

Continued.
Squid fishing

Strikes

CapturesNo. of strikes
and/orcapturesper hour

Other observations
Remarks
No fishing.

0

0

0
?

0
0

0
0

0
0

No squids seen the surface.
No fishing. No squids wereseen at the surface.
No squids seen at the surface.

Ship stopped to sample apatch of discoloured water,
3-10 m in diameter, of
reddish brown colour
Three specimens of Scomberesox washed on deck;of 45 individuals from 1964 had a mean length of 32.33±6.39 cm. As on thevoyage of 1958, S. stolatus was abundant and sometimes present in immense numbers.
At station 114 schools of 50-200 Scomberesox were passing every 2-3 minutes fora period of 105 minutes.

Fig. 6.

The tota used in fishing for squid from the INDUS XIV.

The squid Dosidicus gigas
Table 10 shows the results of fishing for squid. The hand lines were mostly
fished at 25 m and 50 m for periods of 15-60 minutes; one cast at 100 m yielded
nothing. We used a jig called the tota by Chilean squid fishermen (Fig. 6). It
is a copper tube, 1.6 cm in diameter and 15 cm long, with about 12 fish hooks
protruding in a rosette from one end. The baits used were putrid meat, garfish,
and the fish jurel (Trachurus trachurus), although our best catch, at station 124 wasmade without bait, using the tota purely as a jig at 4 m depth. In other seas useof the unbaited jig for squid fishing is widespread (Lane, 1957, p. 132).
Squid were either seen or caught at seven of the 15 night stations. The 14
captures were preserved by injection with 10% formalin (Pl. IV, Fig. 2), and later
deposited at Montemar where all were identified as Docidicus gigas by Mr Patricio
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

~~ ~

._ .
~
a"
~.;.,..,.

"'":::0.~ 1'"
"'

~

:::0
~

~

47

Male

114
109

121

118

97

141

133

121

118

116

FemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleMaleMale2) Measured after preservation in 10% formal.

94

108

103

80

100

103

110

129

Male

1) Measured fresh

124

123

122

130
110

41.3

42

44
24

24.5

26.5

2) Mantle
length cm

Imm.

-

-

48

55

57

58

59

47

55

58

59

59

Mat.

-

37

Imm.

Imm.
25

Imm.
-

Imm.

-

-

-

Imm.

-

24

-

-

33

-

Imm.

Mat.
Imm.

-

-

Imm.

~

31

45

-

Empty, except for a few fish remains

Stomach contents

Empty, except for a few fish remains

Full of fish remains

Empty

Remains of squid, possibly D. gigas

Empty

Empty except for fluid

Fish remains, and remains of a squid
tentacle which was not D. gigas

Fish remains

Full of fish remains

Fish remains

Fish remains

Longest arm 44 cm, tentacles 62 cm)

Imm.
Imm.

-

-

Sexualmaturity-

2) Lengthof fins cm-

2) Widthof fins cm(Only the head recovered.

1) Standard
length cm

Femaleea 150

47

Iu

48

Male

Male

Iis

I) Totallength cm

Sex

StationNo.

RECORDS OF THE HUMBOLDT CURRENT SQUID DOS/DICUS GIGASCOLLECTED BY INDUS XIV OFF THE COAST OF CHILE IN 1964

TABLE 11.

.....

t""

0

...,i

[F1

c::t""

>

l:C

z>t:J

0

Q

>
c::
>
><:

~

~

0

,j>.

Ol

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

165

Garcia-Tello. We are confident that those we saw at the surface but did not catch
were also D. gigas, as were those seen or captured on the voyage of 1958 (R. Clarke,
1962). This squid is important in the diet of sperm whales in the Southeast Pacific,
and we have already discussed our results on the incidence and abundance of D.
gigas in relation to the distribution of the sperm whales sighted (p. 144 ff). We
give here our observations on the squid itself.
The largest individual seen was about 2.5 m (8 ft 6 in) long and appeared
for a moment at the surface at Station I 16 • The largest hooked was about 1.5 m(5 ft) long but only the head was recovered. Duncan (1941) recorded a capture
9 ft (2.7 m) long, and Professor Gilbert L. Voss, reported by Lane (1957, p. 131),says that D. gigas growths to a total length of 12 ft (3.7 m) and mantle length 6 ft
(1.8 m). Table 11 records Mr Patricio Garda-Tello's examination of our captures. On these data males are seen to become sexually mature between 1.16 m
and 1.18 m total length, say 1.17 m (mantle length, 0.52 m), whilst females arestill immature at 1.41 m (mantle length, 0.59 m). This indicates that the femalesof D. gigas are larger than the males, unless the latter grow more rapidly after
sexual maturity.
The fish remains which occurred in eight of the nine stomachs of D. gigas
which contained food (Table 11) probably included Scomberesox stolatus, for wesaw the squid feeding voraciously on this fish at Station I 24 • R. Clarke (1962)
also reported them feeding on S. stolatus during the voyage of 1958. 'Scomberesox
equirostrum' (S. stolatus) was found by de Sylva (1962) in one out of six stomachs
containing food in specimens of D. gigas caught off northern Chile. The stomachof one of the squids from Station I 24 contained the remains of squid, possibly
D. gigas (Table 11). This was to be expected because at Station I 11 the freeswimming squids were seen to attack their captured fellows as the line washauled. Duncan (1941) and Wilhelm (1954) have also reported cannibalism inthis species.
The captured D. gigas showed spectacular colour changes when brought on
deck. One specimen at Station I 24 showed the following changes over the mantle
within three minutes of reaching the deck: lead-brown, deep crimson, ochre, dirty
cream, brick-red and reddish-brown.
SUMMARY

An account is given of an expedition in the whalecatcher lndus XIV to observeand mark whales off the coast of Chile between 28° and 37°S from 24 November
to 17 December 1964. This voyage repeated (with a small extension to the southward) the track of an earlier expedition conducted from 21 October to 6 November
1958, and a major object was to compare the abundance of the exploited whale
species after a lapse of six years.
In 1964 there were sighted 209-224 great whales, comprising 199-219 sperm
whales, four blue whales, one fin whale, one sei whale, and four whales far away,of which three were whalebone whales.
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

166

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

The sighting of four blue whales on the southern part of the track of 1964
prompts a discussion on the presence of the pigmy blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus
brevicauda as well as the much depleted 'main stock' blue whale B. m. intermedia
off the coast of Chile.
A drastic reduction in the abundance of fin whales, from 5.1 per 100 nautical
miles sailed in 1958 to 0.1 in 1964, is attributed to the effect of Antarctic whaling
because whale marks recovered from the voyage of 1958 have established that fin
whales off Chile in spring are migrating to the Antarctic. Subsequent intensive
fin whaling from Chile in 1964-66 further depleted the stock. Fin whaling in
the Antarctic has been prohibited by the International Whaling Commission since
1976, and there is reason for the Permanent Commission of the South Pacific toprohibit the taking of fin whales in Chile and Peru likewise until the stock shallhave recovered.
One sei whale was sighted in 1964 as also in 1958. Sei whales and Bryde's
whales are both present off Chile, and the possibility of distinguishing them at sea
is discussed.
In 1964 there were sighted 11.9 sperm whales per 100 nautical miles sailed
compared with I. 7 in 1958. This increase is attributed to a seasonal influx into
the area of the breeding stock moving southwards, as shown by the presence inNovember-December (of 1964) of few solitary males, larger schools, more females
and calves and young whales, and a general southerly movement of the whales
not feeding, compared with the situation in October-November (of 1958). Thus
it is not suggested that the stock had increased between 1958 and 1964, but there
was no evidence of a decline.
The distribution of sperm whale schools in relation to surface temperatures
in 1958 and 1964 does not support Schubert's conclusion (1951, 1955) that in the
Humboldt Current there is an orderly segregation from the coast westward ofsolitary males in the coldest water, followed successively by bachelor schools andfemale schools in the warmer water. Solitary males were seen in water of 13.6°18. 7°C, and females in harem schools in water as cold as l 4°C, although nurseryschools seemed limited to water not colder than 18°C. Limiting temperatures
observed for females and calves in other seas are reviewed, and it is concluded
that in the southern hemisphere the temperatures at the subtropical convergence
are in general those at the limits of female distribution.
Because the large Humboldt Current squid, Dosidicus gigas, is known to beimportant in the diet of sperm whales in the Southeast Pacific, an attempt wasmade to correlate the distribution and abundance of sperm whales with those of
D. gigas, as revealed by squid fishing during night stations worked in 1964. No
such correlation was observed and possible reasons are suggested. A discussion
follows on the fact that in other seas surface-living ommastrephid squid are eaten
rarely or not at all by sperm whales.
From the external characters of blackfish observed in 1964, the species istentatively identified as Globicephala melaena edwardi and its general distribution in
the Southeast Pacific is reviewed. Distribution and abundance off Chile were
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MAKRING OFF CHILE

167

very similar in 1958 and 1964, the abundance being 11.0 per 100 nautical miles
sailed in 1964 and 13.2 in 1958. Since blackfish are at present unexploited from
Chile no change in abundance was to be expected between 1958 and 1964, andthese results on blackfish lend confidence to the comparisons of the abundance ofother whales on the two voyages. The schooling of blackfish and their habit ofmingling with other cetaceans are reviewed. From the results of the voyages of1958 and 1964 it is recommended that the blackfish resource off Chile should be
exploited by a controlled fishery.
Two unconfirmed sightings in 1964 of the southern bottlenosed whale, Hyperoodon planifrons, lead to a critical review of sightings in Chilean seas of whales
believed to be H. planifrons, which can easily be confused with other ziphioid whales
at sea.
The appearance at sea is described of an unidentified toothed whale, 4.56.0 m (15-20 ft) long, schools of which were encountered twice in 1964. It is
possibly of the genus Pseudorca or Grampus, and agrees with the unidentified, highfinned whale described by Wilson (1905, 1907) from the Antarctic.
Dolphins sighted on four occasions in 1964 were all of the same species. Theirappearance is described and they are believed to be Tursiops sp. Reports are
discussed of other dolphins from Chilean seas.
Porpoises, Phocoena sp., were sighted on five occasions in 1964, uncharacteristically far off the coast for this genus. They were like the common porpoise
Phocoena phocoena but smaller. A discussion on their identity leads to a review of
species of Phocoena and Cephalorlrynchus described from the Southeast Pacific, andtheir synonymy.
One fin whale and 53 sperm whales were marked in 1964. Precautions weretaken to avoid injury to the whales when marking them. No whales estimatedto be less than 36 ft (11 m) long were marked.
Two sperm whales marked in 1964 have been recovered to date. One marked
in 29°01 'S, 71°41 'W was recovered in 36°40'S, 73°40'W, 470 nautical miles to thesouthward after three years, showing that sperm whales are indeed moving throughthe seas adjacent to the coast of central Chile, and that the stock is a local one in
the sense that the whales return to the same ground. The second whale wasmarked in 29°42'S, 71°37'W and recovered nine years later to the southward in
Antarctic Area I in 66°01 'S, 83°03'W, a minimum displacement of 2,200 nautical
miles. This is direct evidence of the migration into the Antarctic of male sperm
whales from the breeding stock of low latitudes. Also the estimated length of thewhale at marking and the length at recovery support the view that one dentine
growth layer accumulates in the teeth each year.
Two recoveries are discussed from other whale marking voyages off Chile
since 1958. A Soviet whale mark fired into a fin whale on 17 February 1962 in
42°20'S, 78°23'W was recovered nearly three years later 500 nautical miles to the
NNE, in 35°S, 73°10'W, and is evidence that the same fin whales are moving off
the coast of Chile from year to year. A sei whale marked in 46°32'S, 75°55'W on
17 December 1966 was recovered in the western part of Antarctic Area II in
Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. 30, 1978.

168

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTO

61°20'S, 56°22'W after nine years, a mm1mum displacement of 1,125 nautical
miles, and showing a migration route like that of fin whales recovered in the
Antarctic from marking off Chile in 1958.
This direct evidence that not only the same fin whales, but also the same sei
whales and male sperm whales, are being exploited in the Southeast Pacific and in
the Antarctic increases the urgent need for close cooperation between the PermanentCommission of the South Pacific and the International Whaling Commission.
Eighteen brief oceanographical stations (1 14-1 31 ) were worked when the ship
was stopped at night in 1964. Fishing for squid and fish was conducted at 15
stations. The fish caught were myctophids and the garfish Scomberesox stolatus.
All the squid were Dosidicus gigas, and in 14 specimens the males were sexuallymature at total length 1.17 m (mantle length, 0.52 m), whilst the females were still
immature at 1.41 m total length (mantle length, 0.59 m). The squid were feedingon Scomberesox stolatus and on each other.
RESUMEN

Se informa sobre una expedicion en el barco cazador lndus XIV para observar ymarcar ballenas frente a la costa de Chile entre 28° y 37°S desde el 24 de Noviembre hasta el 17 de Diciembre de 1964. Este viaje repitio (con una pequefia extension hacia el sur) la ruta de una expedicion anterior conducida desde el 21 deOctubre hasta el 6 de Noviembre de 1958; y un objetivo mayor fue comparar laabundancia de las especies de ballenas explotadas despues de un lapso de seisafios.
En 1964 se avistaron 209-224 ballenas grandes, comprendiendo 199-219
cachalotes, cuatro ballenas azules, una ballena de aleta, una ballena boba, ycuatro ballena lejanas, de las cuales tres fueron ballenas con barbas.
El avistamiento de cuatro ballenas azules en la parte sur de la ruta de 1964
promueve una discusion sobre la presencia de la ballena azul pigmea, Balaenoptera
musculus brevicauda como tambien de la muy disminuida ballena azul ' existencia
principal ' Balaenoptera musculus intermedia frente a la costa de Chile.
Una reduccion drastica en la abundancia de ballenas de aleta, de 5.1 por
100 millas navegadas en 1958 a 0.1 en 1964, se atribuye al efecto de la caza
Antartica porque marcas de ballenas recuperadas desde el viaje de 1958 hanestablecido que las ballenas de aleta que se encuentran frente a Chile en la primavera estan migrando a la Antartica. Posteriormente una caza intensiva deballenas de aleta desde Chile en 1964-66 disminuyo aun mas la existencia. La
caza de ballenas de aleta en la Antartica ha sido prohibida por la Comision Ballenera Internacional desde 1976, y hay igual razon para que la Comision Permanente del Pacifico Sur prohiba la captura de ballenas de aleta en Chile y
Peru hasta que la existencia se haya recuperado.
Una ballena boba fue avistada en 1964 como tambien en 1958. Ballenasbobas y ballenas de Bryde existen ambas frente a Chile, y se discute la posibilidad
de diferenciarlas en el mar.
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WHALE OBTERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE169

En 1964 se avistaron 11.9 cachalotes por 100 millas navegadas comparado
con 1. 7 en 1958. Este aumento es atribuido a un influjo estacional en el area dela existencia de reproduccion moviendose hacia el sur, coma se muestra por lapresencia en Noviembre-Diciembre (de 1964) de pocos machos solitarios, de grupos
mas grandes, de mas hembras y crias y de juveniles, y un movimiento general hacia
el sur de las ballenas que no estaban alimentandose, comparado con la situacion en
Octubre-Noviembre (de 1958). Por lo tanto no se sugiere que la existencia decachalotes habia aumentado entre 1958 y 1964, pero tampoco hubo evidencia de
una disminucion.
La distribucion de grupos de cachalotes en relacion a las temperaturas superficiales en 1958 y 1964 no apoya la conclusion de Schubert (1951, 1955) que enla Corriente de Humboldt hay una segregacion ordenada desde la costa hacia eloeste de machos solitarios en las aguas mas frias, seguidos sucesivamente por gruposde machos solteros y grupos de hembras en aguas mas templadas. Machos solitarios fueron vistas en aguas de 13.6°-18.7°C, y hembras en grupos harenes en
aguas tan frias como l4°C, aunque grupos criaderos (grupos de crianza) aquellasparecian limitados a aguas no mas frias que 18°C. Las temperaturas limitantes
observadas para las hembras y crias en otros mares son revisadas, y se concluye que
en el hemisferio del sur las temperaturas en la convergencia subtropical son en
general encontradas en los limites de distribucion de las hembras.
Como se sabe que la jibia grande de la Corriente de Humboldt Dosidicus
gigas, es importante en la dieta de cachalotes en el Pacifico Sur Oriental, se hizo
un intento de correlacionar la distribucion y abundancia de cachalotes con aquellasde Dosidicus gigas, coma estuvieron reveladas por la pesca de jibias durante lasestaciones nocturnas trabajadas en 1964. No se encontro tal correlacion y posibles
razones son sugeridas. Sigue una discusion sobre el hecho que en otros mares las
jibias epipelagicas de la familia Ommastrephidae son raramente o nunca comidas
por cachalotes.
A partir de los caracteres externos de los calderones observados en 1964,
la especie es identificada tentativamente como Globicephala melaena edwardi y su
distribucion general en el Pacifico Sur Oriental es revisada. La distribucion yabundancia frente a Chile fueron muy semejantes en 1958 y 1964, siendo la abundancia 11.0 por 100 millas navegadas en 1964 y 13.2 en 1958. Como en la actualidad los calderones no son explotados en Chile, no se esperaba cambios en laabundancia entre 1958 y 1964, y estos resultados sobre el calderon dan confianzaa las comparaciones de la abundancia de otras ballenas en los dos viajes. El
agrupamiento de los calderones, y su costumbre de mezclarse con otros cetaceos,son revisados. De los resultados de los viajes de 1958 y 1964 se recomienda quela existencia de calderones frente a Chile debe ser explotada por una caza controlada.
Dos avistamientos no confirmados en 1964 de la ballena narfz de botella (graurcolderon) Hyperoodon planifrons, conducen a una revision critica de avistamientos enaguas chilenas de ballenas supuestas ser Hyperoodon planifrons, las cuales pueden
facilmente ser confundidas en el mar con otras ballenas de la familia Ziphiidae.
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170

CLARKE, AGUAYO AND BASULTOSe describe la apariencia en el mar de una ballena con dientes no identificada,4.5-6.0 m (15-20 pies) de largo, grupos de las cuales fueron encontrados dos veces
en 1964. Es posiblemente del genero Pseudorca o Grampus, y esta de acuerdo conla ballena de aleta alta no identificada descrita por Wilson (1905, 1907) de la
Antartica.
Los delfines avistados en cuatro oportunidades en 1964 fueron todos de lamisma especie. Se describe su apariencia y se cree que sean Tursiops sp. Informesde otros delfines de los mares chilenos son discutidos.
Marsopas, Phocoena sp., fueron avistadas en cinco oportunidades en 1964,
extrafiamente muy lejos de la costa para este genero. Ellas eran parecidas a lamarsopa comun Phocoena phocoena pero mas pequefias. Una discusion sobre SU
identidad conduce a una revista de las especies de Phocoena y Cephalorhynchus descritas del Pacifico Sur Oriental, y de sus sinonimias.
Una ballena de aleta y 53 cachalotes fueron marcados en 1964. Se tomaron
precauciones para evitar dafiar a las ballenas cuando se marcaron. No se marco
ninguna ballena estimada ser menor de 11 m (36 pies) de longitud.
Dos cachalotes marcados en 1964 han sido recuperados hasta la fecha. Uno
marcado en 29°0l'S, 71°4l'W fue recuperado en 36°40'S, 73°40'W, 470 millas
nauticas hacia el sur despues de tres afios, mostrando que los cachalotes estan en
realidad moviendose traves de los mares adyacentes a la costa de Chile central, yque la existencia es una poblacion local en el sentido que las ballenas regresan a lamisma zona. La segunda ballena fue marcada en 29°42'S, 71°37'W y recuperada
nueve afiosm as tarde hacia el sur en Area I de la Antartica en 66°01 'S, 83°03'W, un
desplazamiento mfnimo de 2,200 millas nauticas. Esto es evidencia directa de la
migracion hacia la Antartica de cachalotes machos provenientes de la existencia
de reproduccion de bajas latitudes. Tambien la longitud estimada de la ballena
en la marcacion y la longitud al recuperarla soportan el punto de vista que una
capa de crecimiento de dentina se acumula en los dientes cada afio.
Se discuten dos recuperaciones de otros viajes de marcacion frente a Chile
desde 1958. Una marca sovietica disparada a una ballena de aleta el 17 deFebrero de 1962 en 42°20'S, 78°23'W fue recuperada casi tres afios mas tarde 500
millas nauticas al NNE, en 35°S, 73°10'W, y es evidencia que las mismas ballenasde aleta se estan moviendo frente a la costa de Chile de afio a afio. Una ballena
boba marcada en 46°32'S, 75°55'W el 17 de Diciembre de 1966 fue recuperada enla parte oeste de Area II de la Antartica en 61°20'S, 56°22'W despues de nueve
afios, un desplazamiento minimo de 1,125 millas, y mostrando una ruta de migracion como la de las ballenas de aleta recuperadas en la Antartica de la marcacion
frente a Chile en 1958.
Esta evidencia directa, que no solo las mismas ballenas de aleta sino tambienlas mismas ballenas bobas y cachalotes machos estan siendo explotados en el
Pacifico Sur Oriental y en la Antartica, aumenta la urgente necesidad de una
cooperacion estrecha entre la Comision Permanente del Pacifico Sur y la Comision
Ballenera Internacional.
Dieciocho breves estaciones oceanograficas (I 1 cl 31 ) fueron trabajadas cuando
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WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILE

171

el barco estaba parado en las noches en 1964. Pesca dejibias y peces fue conducida
en 15 estaciones. Los peces capturados fueron de la familia Myctophidae y el pez
aguja (' punto fijo '), Scomberesox stolatus. Todas las jibias fueron Dosidicus gigas,
y en 14 espedmenes los machos estuvieron sexualmente maduros a la longitud total
de 1.17 m (longitud del manto, 0.52 m) mientras que las hembras fueron aun
inmaduras a 1.41 m de longitud total (longitud del manto, 0.59 m). Las jibias
estuvieron alimentandose de Scomberesox stolatus y de ellas mismas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The voyage was made possible by the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile which hired
the whalecatcher Indus XIV for a period which should not last more than 30 days.
This arrangement owed much to the interest and support of the late Mr Fernando
Mujica, then Director of the Department of Fisheries and Game, and of the Deputy
Director at that time, Mr Carlos Esquivel. The ship was hired from the Compafifa Industrial, which collaborated as fully as in 1958. We recall with pleasure
the enthusiastic cooperation of Captain Jose Parra, master of Indus XIV, and of
his officers and crew, during the voyage.
Whale marks and marking guns were supplied by the National Institute of
Oceanography, United Kingdom, as part of the international scheme for cooperation in whale marking. The Permanent Commission for the Exploitation andConservation of the Marine Resources of the South Pacific, at its Sixth Meetingin Quito in November 1959, confirmed the participation of Chile, Ecuador andPeru in this scheme which is coordinated by the National Institute of Oceanography.
Mr Patricio Garcia-Tello, in 1964 a colleague at the Estacion de Biologfa
Marina de Montemar, kindly identified the squid specimens collected and provided
most of the information in Table 11. Other colleagues at Montemar who assisted
were Dr Walter Fischer, who identified the collections of garfish, and Mrs Nora
Aguirre who drew the tota shown in Fig. 6.
The first author, who undertook the voyage during his return to Chile in1964 and 1965 on foreign service from the National Institute of Oceanography of
the United Kingdom (see R. Clarke, Aguayo and Paliza, 1968, Part I), extends hisbest thanks to Dr Walter Fischer and Mr Hector Etcheverry, successively Directors at Montemar whilst he worked at the Station as a guest of the University ofChile ; and his co-authors thank their respective Directors at that time.
This paper was completed in 1977 whilst the first author was in receipt of a
grant from the Whaling Security Fund of the Government of Norway, to whom
grateful acknowledgment is made.
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Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,
No. !JO, 1978.

WHALE OBSERVATION AND MARKING OFF CHILEEXPLANATION OF PLATESPLATE I
Fig. l. Solitary male sperm whale on 28 November 1964 in 29°16 S, 71°47'W.
(Photo: Robert Clarke).
Fig. 2. Harem school of sperm whales on 29 November 1964 in 29°03'8, 71°48'W.
(Photo: Robert Clarke).
PLATE II
Fig. l. Sperm whales, mother and calf from a nursery school, approaching thevessel on 30 November 1964 in 29°35'S, 71°38'W. (Photo: Robert Clarke).
Fig. 2. Blackfish, Globicephala melaena edwardi, one of a school of 35-40, on 26 November 1964 in 38°05'8, 74°52'W. The white area behind the dorsal fin may beseen. (Photo: Robert Clarke).
PLATE III
Fig. l. Unidentified high-finned toothed whales on 24 November 1964 in 33°02'8,
72°1 l'W. See page 150. (Photo: Robert Clarke).
Fig. 2. Dolphins, believed to be Tursiops sp., below water at the bow of the vessel,from a school of eight animals on 27 November 1964 in 31°18'8, 73°4l'W. (Photo:
Robert Clarke).
PLATE IV
Fig. 1. Marking sperm whales from the whalecatcher Indus XIV on 30 November
1964. (Photo: Robert Clarke).
Fig. 2. Measuring and injecting captures of the squid Dosidicus gigas on board
Indus XIV on 8 December 1964. (Photo: Anelio Aguayo L.)

Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst.,

No. 30, I978.

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