Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 42

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STUDIES ON THE LONG-FINNED PILOT WHALE
Table 2. Weight of 7 long-finned pilot whales off the Faroe Islands with the usable amounts
of meat and blubber for consumption calculated.
Sex Skinn Length cm Weight kg Derived netto kg Utilization %
Female 1 250 230 69 30
Male 3 310 270 207 77
Female 5 420 760 345 45
Female 7 415 830 483 58
Female 10 470 1140 690 61
Male 13 580 1990 897 45
Male 18 585 2080 1242 60
57 7300 3933 54
ment. When the skinn value is assessed, the
fatness and overall condition of the whale is
also taken into consideration. The highest
skinn values found for females was 14 skinn,
and the highest for males was 22 skinn (Fig.
7), but Dalsgaard (1957) mentions a few
males of up to 30 skinn (Bloch and Zachari-
assen, 1989). The average whale was valued
at 6.1 t 0.1 skinn (N = 944), while a male
was 6.8 t 0.2 skinn on average (N = 379),
and a female 5.6 t 0.1 skinn (N = 565).
The only difference between the skinn-
length curve for the two sexes was that fe-
males stop growing in length before males
(Fig. 8). The relationship follows the equa-
tion:
3. S = 6.54 x 107 x L2 “
where S = skinn value, L = total body
length in cm (Bloch and Zachariassen,
1989).
The personal assessment of the condition
of the whales will result in some scattering
on the curves. Very fat animals in good con-
dition would be placed to the left of the con-
centration, and lean or wounded animals to
the right.
The skinn at age shows the same pattern
with a power function as a weight at length
(Table 2). Also here the figures show a clear
difference between the sexes caused by the
slower growth of the females. Again, the per-
sonal assessment in the skinn valuation gives
some scattering around the concentration,
with the whales in good condition placed at
the top of the curves and the lean and
wounded at the base.
Growth
Foetus growth and size: All 61 foetuses are
represented in Table 3.
The weight and length of 19 foetuses are
recorded (Fig. 9), and for the foetuses the
growth was also exponential but with a
steeper correlation than for the post-natals
following the equation:
4. W = 0.00006 x L2677
where W = total body weight in kg, L = to-
tal body length in cm (Lockyer, in print, b).