Subject: Whale populations

Martine Berube (mberube@ulb.ac.be)
Mon, 11 May 1998 15:05:18 +0200 (MET DST) 

Hello,
The numbers of whales of different species and in different geographical
stocks has been put together in a table by the International Whaling
Commission. The address is:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/iwcoffice/Estimate.htm. I have also
pasted a Table where the population estimates are given by species.
Remember, these number are estimates, e.g., they are an approximation of
what was there and what there is left.
Martine

POPULATION LEVELS OF DIFFERENT WHALE SPECIES
                            AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION
 
     (Sources: IWC; 1994.  Oceanus; Spring, 1989. NMFS; Endangered Whales
                           Status Update; June 1991)
     ________________________________________________________________
 
                        Population Estimates         Listing
     Species            Original :  Latest         US      / IUCN***
                        Level    :  Level         Govt.*
     ________________________________________________________________
 
     Blue Whale****       228,000:   14,000    Severely    /Endangered
                                               Depleted
 
     Fin Whale****        548,000:  120,000    Severely    /Vulnerable
                                               Depleted
     N. Atlantic Fin                 78,020                /Vulnerable
 
     Sei Whale****        256,000:   54,000    Severely    /Vulnerable
                                               Depleted
 
     Bowhead               30,000:    7,500    Severely    /Vulnerable
     Whale****                                 Depleted
 
     Sperm Whale****    2,400,000:1,950,000    At or Above /Insufficiently
                                                OSP*****        Known
 
     Right Whale****     ---      :   1,000    Severely    /Endangered
     (North Atlantic)                          Depleted
 
     (Southern            100,000:    3,000    Severely    /Vulnerable
     Hemisphere)                               Depleted
 
     Humpback             115,000:   10,000    Severely    /Vulnerable
     Whale****                                 Depleted
 
     Gray Whale****       >20,000:   21,000    Recovered   /Unclassified
 
     Bryde's Whale***     100,000:   90,000    Not Listed  /Insufficiently
                                                            Known
 
     Minke Whale          140,000:  941,240**  Not Listed  /Insufficiently
                                                             Known
 
     Atlantic
     Pilot Whale                    780,000    Not Listed    Not Listed
     ________________________________________________________________
 
     *According to the recent announcement by NMFS, US Dept. of Commerce.
     **Including 761,000 in the Southern Hemisphere estimated by IWC/SC in
     1990, re-affirmed in 1993.
     ***Status quoted from the IUCN Red Data Book, 'Dolphins, Porpoises and
     Whales of the World', 1991.
     ****Oceanus, spring 1989
     *****Optium Sustainable Pop.
 

At 08.59 PM 10-05-1998 EDT, you wrote:
>What is the percentage of whales left in the U.S.?
>
>
Martine Berube
Unit of Evolutionary Genetics
Department of Molecular Biology
Free University of Brussels (ULB)
CP 244
Bld du Triomphe
B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 650 5427
Fax: +32 2 650 5421
Email: mberube@ulb.ac.be