ABSTRACT

Effective conservation and management of large whale populations depends on reproductive parameter information, monitoring health of individuals and populations, and understanding the impacts and significance of both natural environmental variation and anthropogenic stressors (e.g., habitat disturbance, fishing gear entanglement, vessel strikes, and underwater noise). Assessing health in large whales is challenging because live-capture for examination and handling is not safe or practical, observation and sample collection from largely submerged animals is difficult, and almost all large whales range over vast distances, making them difficult to access throughout all stages of their life cycle. In the past, all information relevant to health of large whales was obtained from studies of carcasses from commercial whaling, subsistence hunts, or strandings. More recently, noninvasive (or minimally invasive) methods using analyses of alternative sample types and remote approaches have been developed to gain insight into body condition, health status, reproductive physiology, and stress responses of free-swimming large whales. Application of these novel approaches has greatly enhanced our ability to understand the health of individual whales and health trends in demographic groups and populations.