Personal tools
You are here: Home → About → References and resources → Classroom Antarctica Resources → Maps & PDFs → Nature → Southern Ocean whales
Navigation
 
Document Actions

Southern Ocean whales

The following table shows the approximate sizes and weights of whales found in the southern hemisphere, and the best estimates of their original and present abundance.

Click here to get the file

Size 2.5 kB - File type text/html

File contents

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<!-- saved from url=(0079)http://www.classroomantarctica.aad.gov.au/textversion/Materials_txt/whales.html -->
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Subantarctic and Antarctic seals</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=content-type content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1589" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY text=black bgColor=white>
<H4 class=text>Whales</H4>
<P class=text>The following is a table showing the approximate sizes and weights 
of whales found in the southern hemisphere, and the best estimates of their 
original and present abundance.</P>
<P>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width="75%" align=center border=1>
  <TBODY>
  <TR>
    <TD>
      <H5 class=text>Kind of whales</H5></TD>
    <TD>
      <H5 class=text>Length (metres)</H5></TD>
    <TD>
      <H5 class=text>Approximate weight (tonnes)</H5></TD>
    <TD>
      <H5 class=text>Original population estimate</H5></TD>
    <TD>
      <H5 class=text>Latest population estimate</H5></TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD class=text>Blue</TD>
    <TD class=text>23 to 27</TD>
    <TD class=text>up to 200</TD>
    <TD class=text>228,000</TD>
    <TD class=text>11,700</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Humpback</TD>
    <TD class=text>11 to 16</TD>
    <TD class=text>about40</TD>
    <TD class=text>115,000</TD>
    <TD class=text>10,000</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD class=text>Orca (Killer)</TD>
    <TD class=text>8 to 10</TD>
    <TD class=text>up to 9</TD>
    <TD class=text></TD>
    <TD class=text>53,000 (southern hemisphere)</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Minke</TD>
    <TD class=text>about 9</TD>
    <TD class=text>about 10</TD>
    <TD class=text>490,000</TD>
    <TD class=text>880,000</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD class=text>Sei</TD>
    <TD class=text>about 16</TD>
    <TD class=text>about 25</TD>
    <TD class=text>256,000</TD>
    <TD class=text>54,000</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD>Sperm</TD>
    <TD class=text>up to 12 (females) 
      <P>up to 19 (males)</P></TD>
    <TD class=text>about 14 
      <P>about 40</P></TD>
    <TD class=text>2,400,000</TD>
    <TD class=text>1,950,000</TD></TR>
  <TR>
    <TD class=text>Southern Right</TD>
    <TD class=text>13 to 18</TD>
    <TD class=text>up to 74</TD>
    <TD class=text>100,000 right whales</TD>
    <TD class=text>3,200 right whales</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P>
<P><STRONG>Table source:</STRONG> Congressional Records Service of the Library 
of Congress, 1997. Estimates from the April 1994 issue of 
Audobon.<BR></P></BODY></HTML>