Frontiers | Seasonal, Annual, and Decadal Distribution of Three Rorqual Whale Species Relative to Dynamic Ocean Conditions Off Oregon, USA
Whale populations recovering from historical whaling are particularly vulnerable to incidental mortality and disturbance caused by growing ocean industrialization. Several distinct populations of rorqual whales (including humpback, blue, and fin whales) migrate and feed off the coast of Oregon, USA where spatial overlap with human activities are on the rise. Effective mitigation of conflicts requires better foundational understanding of spatial and temporal habitat use patterns to inform conservation management. Based on a year-round, multi-platform distance sampling dataset (2016-2021, 177 su...
Source: frontiersin.org