Subject: Humpback Whales in the Winter
Tom Ford (tjfketos@devo.ultranet.com)
Wed, 4 Dec 96 08:32:32 -0500
>>Where do humpback whales migrate to in the winter months??
Dear Mike Phelps,
Simply put most humpback whales migrate to warmer waters in the
winter. Winter, you must remember , comes in two flavors, northern and
southern. In the northern winter humpbacks move southward toward the
equator. Conversely , southern hemisphere whales move northward toward
the equator in the southern winter. These movements are temporal
opposites. The northern whales move north to feed at the same time
southern whales move north to reproduce and vice versa.
In the Western Atlantic humpbacks move to the area of the West
Indies. The best known areas are Silver Bank , north of the Dominican
Republic and the Mona Passage off of Puerto Rico. In the Pacific , whales
from Alaska move generally to Hawaii. While whales from the central to
northern California coasts move to Baja Mexico and the Islas De
Revillagigedo, there are known crossovers of individual whales from both
northern Pacific areas to the southern Pacific sites.
The Pacific also has the only known regular crossing of the equator
in these migrations. Whales from the Antarctic feeding area have been
shown to migrate to the Islas De Gorgonas off Ecuador. There has been no
identified interaction between Northern hemisphere populations with
Southern population whales.
This is an example of how a simple question can have a very complex
answer. The best questions are simple ones. Thank you .
Dr. Tom Ford