Antarctic Summer Feeding Migration

node · earth · Southern Ocean and the temperate southern oceans

The austral-summer movement of Antarctic blue whales into high-latitude Southern Ocean waters to feed on krill, and the return north in winter toward lower latitudes. It is the least directly observed of the major blue whale migrations. Nearly everything known about it comes from three indirect sources - the geography of the historical catch, passive acoustic detections of the Antarctic Z-call across the Southern Ocean, and photo-identification re-sightings - because only two Antarctic blue whales have ever carried a satellite tag whose data has been published, one of which covered a minimum of 1,390 km southeast over 13 days. The winter destination of most of the population is not established.