SC/65b/SH20

Comparison of Antarctic blue whale photographs fromJARPA II to the Antarctic Blue Whale Catalogue
Paula A. Olson1, Koji Matsuoka2, Luis A. Pastene2
1Southwest Fisheries Science Center NMFS/NOAA, 8901 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA2

Institute of Cetacean Research, Toyomi 4-5, Chuo-ku Tokyo, 104-0055, JAPANPaula.Olson@noaa.gov

ABSTRACT
Fifty-two individual Antarctic blue whales were identified from photographs collected during JARPA IIsurveys in the Antarctic during seven austral summer seasons between 2005/2006 and 2012/2013, in IWCManagement Areas IIIE, IV and V. Comparisons of identification photographs from JARPA II were madeto a collection of 305 photo-identified Antarctic blue whales compiled into the Antarctic Blue WhaleCatalogue. Three whales matched to individuals in the collection with time intervals of 2 years (for 1whale) and 7 years (for 2 whales). The addition of 49 newly identified Antarctic blue whales from JARPA
II brings the total number of photo-identified Antarctic blue whales up to 354. The sighting histories ofindividual Antarctic blue whales from photo-ID provide data for capture-recapture estimates of abundanceas well as information on the movement of individual blue whales within the Antarctic region.
KEYWORDS: ANTARCTIC, BLUE WHALE, PHOTO-ID

INTRODUCTION
The population status of the endangered Antarctic blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia) is a subject ofinterest of the IWC Scientific Committee, which initiated an in-depth assessment of Southern Hemisphere bluewhales in 2006 (IWC, 2006). In support of the assessment, in 2007 a photo-identification catalogue of Antarctic
blue whales was created based on the photographs collected during 20 years of circumpolar IWC IDCR/SOWER
research cruises (Olson, 2010). The photo-ID data from this catalogue has produced information on whale
movement, within season sighting rates, and preliminary abundance estimates (Olson, 2012; Olson and Kinzey,2014). The status of blue whales in the Antarctic is also of concern to the Southern Ocean Research Partnership(SORP), which in 2009 established the Antarctic Blue Whale Project (Bell, 2012). The use of photoidentification data in a capture-recapture analysis for the production of a contemporary estimate of abundance ofAntarctic blue whales is a key component of the Antarctic Blue Whale Project (Bell, 2012).
Since the establishment of the Antarctic Blue Whale Catalogue in 2007 the number of photo-identified blue
whales has been increasing, with photographs collected during the 2013 Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage (Doubleet al., 2013; Olson et al., 2013a), opportunistic photographs contributed by scientists working on other projects
in the Antarctic (Olson, 2012), and photographs made available to the IWC collected during JARPA surveys(Olson et al., 2013b). The total number of photo-identified Antarctic blue whales combining all these sources is305.
In 2013 the Institute of Cetacean Research in Japan made available to the IWC 413 photographs of Antarctic
blue whales collected 2005/2006 to 2012/2013 during the Japanese Whale Research Program II under Special
Permit in the Antarctic (JARPA II). The IWC Scientific Committee’s SH subcommittee requested that blue whale
photographs from JARPA II surveys be compared to the Antarctic Blue Whale Catalogue (IWC, 2013). The
addition of more samples to the collection of Antarctic blue whale identification photographs would beimmensely useful. The JARPA II surveys are a source of identification photos that would potentially provide datafor capture-recapture analysis as well as information on the movement of individual blue whales within theAntarctic region.
This paper presents the results of the comparison of blue whale photographs collected during JARPA II surveys
in the Antarctic to the photographs of 305 Antarctic blue whales currently identified.

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METHODS
A selection of 416 Antarctic blue whale photographs obtained during JARPA II surveys were made available tothe IWC and forwarded to the lead author. The photographs were collected during seven surveys in Antarcticwaters during austral summers spanning 2005/2006 through 2012/2013. A review of field methods is given inMatsuoka and Pastene (2009). The surveys were conducted in IWC Management Areas IIIE, IV and V. Specificlocation data did not accompany the photographs and so are not presented at this time.
Before matching, the JARPA II photographs were judged to meet minimum criteria of quality based on distanceto the subject (whale), focus, angle and lighting. Only photos containing a whale’s dorsal fin were used because
the fin was necessary for comparison to the identification photos in the other photo collections.
The identification photos of the whales from the JARPA II surveys were compared to photographs obtained fromfour other sources: IDCR/SOWER surveys, opportunistic photos, the Antarctic Blue Whale Voyage 2013, andJARPA surveys (Table 1). Methods for comparison followed those outlined in Sears et al. (1990) and Gendronand Ugalde de la Cruz (2012).

Table 1. Photograph collections of individual Antarctic blue whales to which JARPA II
photographs were compared.
PhotocollectionYears

Number ofindividual
1whalesNumber of left
side photos

Number ofright sidephotos

IDCR/SOWERsurveys

1990/19912008/2009219183

171

Opportunistic
photos2009/20102011/2012

854ABWV

2013

47

36

41

JARPA

1992/19932004/2005

3113

21305

237

237

TOTAL
1Whales re-sighted in multiple years are tallied only in the photo collection where they were firstidentified.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Photographs from JARPA II of 52 individual Antarctic blue whales represented by 32 left side photographs and28 right side photographs met the minimum quality criteria (Table 2).

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Table 2. Number of individual Antarctic blue whales identified inphotographs collected during JARPA II surveys.
Year

Number ofindividual whales

Number of left
side photos

Number ofright sidephotos

2005/2006

10762007/2008

17992008/2009

10572009/2010

7452011/2012

3302012/2013

541TOTAL

523228

Photographs of 3 of the 52 whales matched to whales photographed either previously or subsequently, with timeintervals of 2 years (for 1 whale) and 7 years (for 2 whales; Table 3). Similar to findings by Matsuoka andPastene (2009), there were no matches between whales photographed during JARPA and JARPA II.

Table 3. Photo-identified Antarctic blue whales fromJARPA II matched to photographs in previous orsubsequent years.
Whale ID

Date firstsighting

Date re-sighting#0607

20 Jan 2006

15 Dec 2007

#1313

1 Feb 2006

14 Feb 2013

#1322

24 Feb 2006

(JARPA II)(JARPA II)(JARPA II)

14 Feb 2013

The addition of 49 newly photo-identified Antarctic blue whales brings the total number of identified whales in
the Antarctic to 354. Including the three re-sighted whales from the present analysis, there are now a total of 13
whales that have been re-sighted inter-annually. The sighting histories of photo-identified Antarctic blue whales
provide data for estimating abundance using capture-recapture analysis (Kelly et al., 2012; Olson and Kinzey,2014) and these data will be useful for future estimates. The photo-ID data also provide information on themovement of individual blue whales within the Antarctic region (Olson, 2012; Olson et al., 2013a) andpotentially on population structure (e.g. Branch et al., 2007). The continued collection and analysis ofphotographic data from the Antarctic will yield more information on this endangered population.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Bob Brownell, who was instrumental in facilitating this project, Greg Donovan and the IWC. TheMarine Mammal Centre, Australia, and Claire Garrigue, Nicolas Gasco, Russ Manning and Stephanie Martin
provided photographs and data. Thank you also to the many field biologists, researchers, ship captains and crews
for collecting photographs. Funding for this work was allocated to the author (PAO) at the meeting of the
Scientific Committee in 2013.

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