Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)

Assembled from 68 blocks · 4 evidence · 84 related

1. Story
2. The largest subspecies, feeding in the Southern Ocean in the austral summer and the principal target of twentieth-century Antarctic whaling. Published reconstructions put pre-exploitation abundance in the low hundreds of thousands - Branch and colleagues report figures around 239,000 in one Bayesian reconstruction and around 256,000 in another, with wide and overlapping confidence intervals - against which the population was reduced to well under one percent. A capture-recapture analysis published in 2025 using photo-identification collected between 2003/04 and 2018/19 gives a POPAN superpopulation estimate of 3,506 whales (95% CI 2,107-5,832) and an abundance in the final survey year of 1,817 (95% CI lower bound 714). It remains assessed as Critically Endangered. It is also the least tracked: only two satellite tracks of Antarctic blue whales existed at the time of the 2023 data publication describing them.
3. Knowledge
4. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
5. Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)
6. Southern Ocean
7. Connections
8. Southern Ocean
9. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus)
10. IWC Southern Ocean Research Partnership
11. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
12. Whaling begins at Grytviken, South Georgia
13. The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
14. The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
15. Soviet fleets take protected whales and file false returns
16. The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
17. Whaling ends at South Georgia
18. The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
19. Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages
20. Blue whales are found back at South Georgia
21. The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data
22. A capture-recapture abundance estimate for Antarctic blue whales is published
23. An individual Antarctic blue whale is re-sighted at South Georgia
24. Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)
25. Antarctic Summer Feeding Migration
26. South Georgia
27. Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
28. Seasonal Krill Aggregation
29. The factory ship Lancing takes a stern slipway south
30. The Antarctic blue whale catch reaches its all-time peak
31. The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is adopted
32. Dedicated Antarctic Blue Whale Project voyages
33. Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
34. The only published Antarctic blue whale satellite tracks are released as data
35. Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba)
36. Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)
37. CCAMLR is agreed at Canberra
38. A long-term decline in krill density is linked to winter sea ice
39. CCAMLR adopts the Ross Sea marine protected area
40. Antarctic sea ice reaches a record low, a year after the previous one
41. Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)
42. Antarctica
43. Thermohaline Circulation
44. North Atlantic — Grand Banks approaches
45. Weddell Sea
46. A circumpolar current becomes possible
47. Antarctic meltwater is projected to slow the abyssal cell
48. A physics-based early warning signal is proposed
49. Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba)
50. Rorqual Lunge Feeding
51. Antarctic Blue Whale (B. m. intermedia)
52. Pygmy Blue Whale (B. m. brevicauda)
53. Northern Indian Ocean Blue Whale (putative B. m. indica)
54. Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
55. Whale-Mediated Iron Recycling
56. Vessel Collision with Large Whales
57. The longest blue whale on record is measured at South Georgia
58. The heaviest blue whale on record is weighed
59. The IWC protects blue whales from commercial hunting
60. The commercial whaling moratorium takes effect
61. Blue whale song frequencies are observed falling worldwide
62. The energetics of blue whale lunge feeding are modelled
63. Baleen whale consumption is re-measured, and the krill paradox sharpens
64. Evidence
65. A POPAN superpopulation estimate from Antarctic blue whale photo-identification collected between 2003/04 and 2018/19 gives 3,506 whales (95% CI 2,107-5,832), with abundance in the final study year, 2018/19, estimated at 1,817 (95% CI lower bound 714); SORP voyages in 2013, 2015 and 2019 added 119 individuals to an Antarctic Blue Whale Catalogue totalling 552. V55 verification basis: these figures were returned in the search result carrying the published abstract text and attributed to this paper.
66. Blue whales have been protected from hunting by the IWC since 1966; the commercial moratorium was adopted in 1982 with effect from the 1985/86 pelagic and 1986 coastal seasons via paragraph 10(e) of the Schedule; Antarctic blue whale abundance remains below one percent of pre-whaling size. V55 verification basis: iwc.int is blocked by this environment's egress proxy and could not be fetched; these statements come from search summaries that attribute them to the IWC and from concurring secondary sources. One summary refers to a 1964 zero-catch measure whose scope could not be confirmed.
67. Two Antarctic blue whales tagged in the east Antarctic sector during an austral summer produced what the paper describes as the first and only satellite tracks in existence for the subspecies; one animal (PTT 121205) covered a minimum of 1,390 km southeast over 13 days. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this data paper; the paper was not fetched, and the deployment year of the tags was not captured.
68. Southern Hemisphere blue whale catches in the twentieth century totalled roughly 360,000 animals - about 330,000 in the Antarctic and about 33,000 elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere - with the count running until Soviet illegal whaling stopped in the 1970s. V55 verification basis: the catch totals were retrieved in search summary attributed to this work; the paper itself was not read, as WebFetch is blocked at this environment's egress proxy.