pacific islands report_NU.indd - Whale and Dolphin Conservation ...

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“... the limited research efforts inthis region coupled with the verylarge expanse of the Pacific IslandsRegion makes it plausible thatthere may also be as yet unreportedspecies that inhabit these waters.”
4Checklist of Country-specific CetaceanRecords in the Pacific Islands RegionAlthough a basic overview of the cetacean speciesfound within the Pacific Islands Region has beenexplored (Reeves et al. 1999) country-specific diversityrecords for the Pacific Islands Countries and Territoriesare not well established. The primary reason for therelatively unknown status, geographic distribution andpopulation structure of most cetaceans in the PacificIslands is the lack of directed research that has beenconducted across the region. Therefore this initialexamination of country-specific cetacean diversity inthe region necessarily is a collation of records that havesubsequently been referenced to geographic locationand reliability. It is important to realize that theinformation provided is heavily influenced by uneveneffort both between countries and also over time.Hence, this chapter acts as a checklist of cetaceandiversity rather than an analysis of relative compositionand densities of the cetacean fauna in this region.A concentrated effort was made to collect allreferences relating to cetaceans within the PacificIslands Region. Records were garnered from avariety of sources including peer-reviewed journals,field reports, museum stranding records, whalingship reports, internal records, personal unpublishedsightings and communications, anecdotal reports andnewspaper reports. A particularly useful resourcefor this undertaking was Reeves et al. (1999) in adocument entitled “Marine Mammals in the AreaServed by the South Pacific Regional EnvironmentProgramme (SPREP)”. This review provided substantialsummarization of historical knowledge, unpublishedanecdotal sightings, and museum records. Theinformation within the comprehensive Reeves et al.report has been accepted and transposed to fit withinthe present report. However, the current chapter addsto the Reeves et al. (1999) review in several ways:1. As information gathering for the Reeves et al. reportconcluded in 1996 this chapter incorporates researchand records from this time until the present.2. The South Pacific region focused on by Reeveset al. (1999) represents a portion of the PacificIslands Region yet not all of it. Therefore, a broadergeographic range is covered in this chapter. Theboundaries of the Pacific region are the marineareas under the jurisdiction of each State orTerritory of the Pacific Islands Region, and extendsto the area defined by the Noumea Convention,as the area between the Tropic of Cancer and 60°South latitude and between 130° East longitudeand 120° West longitude. The region stretches over10,000 km from east to west and 5,000 km fromnorth to south, with a combined EEZ of close to 30million km². See Chapter 1 for more details.3. An attempt has been made to qualify each cetaceanrecord included in this chapter. This classificationwas intended to provide a means of indicatingrelative confidence in a given record in terms ofcurrent presence of a particular cetacean specieswithin a given nation’s waters. Three classificationsof records were designated.Class 1 refers to a relatively recent field (orspecimen record) confirmation of the given specieswithin the EEZ of a nation.Class 2 refers to a potential Class 1 record thatis either dated, or may be marginally outside of agiven EEZ.Unconfirmed refers to records that either werenot definitively identified, have not been confirmedby field observations, are from an unobservedstranding event (which therefore may not indicategeographic distribution of the species), or is ananecdotal report that for various reasons may bedifficult to corroborate.Understandably not all records fell easily intothese general characterizations, however, attemptsCURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE OF CETACEAN THREATS, DIVERSITY, AND HABITATS IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS REGION 35
Page 1 and 2: Current State of Knowledge ofCetace
Page 3: Current State of Knowledge of Cetac
Page 7 and 8: Chapter 4: Cetacean checklists by c
Page 9 and 10: Executive SummaryThis report provid
Page 12 and 13: The limited land base of the 22 Pac
Page 14 and 15: “Pacific Island Countries and Ter
Page 16 and 17: Land degradationDue to the limited
Page 18 and 19: identified as marine and coastal ec
Page 20 and 21: The distribution of Pacific Ocean t
Page 22 and 23: ecent global survey of toxicity lev
Page 24 and 25: and Orams 2005). Hector’s dolphin
Page 26 and 27: pilot whale (4), sperm whale (2), s
Page 28 and 29: al. 2003). In January 2004 a humpba
Page 30 and 31: Stranded Cuvier’s beaked whale, A
Page 32 and 33: Reeves et al. (1999) also refer to
Page 36 and 37: were made to ensure that classifica
Page 38 and 39: Scientific NameCommon NameBalaenopt
Page 40 and 41: their presence in the region. Distr
Page 42 and 43: Over the austral summer of 1998-199
Page 44 and 45: 7. KiribatiLand Area (km 2 ): 811Se
Page 50 and 51: Northern Marianas Islands (D. Johns
Page 54 and 55: within the Pitcairn group reported
Page 56 and 57: short-finned pilot whales have been
Page 60 and 61: Scientific NameCommon NameMegaptera
Page 62 and 63: Table 1American SamoaCook IslandsFe
Page 64 and 65: “The diverse and expansive Pacifi
Page 66 and 67: feeding occurs in summer to warmer,
Page 68 and 69: ID: At sea identification between l
Page 70 and 71: FAMILY PhocoenidaePhocoena dioptric
Page 72 and 73: “... the subtleties and extent of
Page 74 and 75: Palumbi. 1993. Abundant mitochondri
Page 76 and 77: Coan, A. L., G. T. Sakagawa, D. Pre
Page 78 and 79: Forestell, P.H. and G. D. Kaufman.
Page 80 and 81: Halliday I., J. Ley, A. Tobin, R. G
Page 82 and 83: grouping and population structure.
Page 84 and 85:
Moller, L. M. and R. G. Harcourt. 1
Page 86 and 87:
Paterson, R., P. Paterson and D. H.
Page 88 and 89:
Samuels, A., L. Bejder and S. Heinr
Page 90 and 91:
Trianni, M. S. and C. C. Kessler. 2
Page 92 and 93:
“The conservation status of amigr
Page 94 and 95:
TAXONVERNACULAR NAMESUBORDER ODONTO
Page 96 and 97:
taxon, threatened status may well b
Page 98:
WDCS CMS ProgrammeCoordinating Offi
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