Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1992, Qupperneq 27

A note about a male-only pilot whale school
observed in Faroe Islands
Genevieve Desportes, Liselotte Wesley Andersen, Paul E. Aspholm, Dorete Bloch
and Rógvi Mouritsen
Introduction
The long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala
melas) occurs in temperate waters through-
out the North Atlantic, and is one of the
most commonly stranded cetaceans along
the Atlantic coast of Europe (Bloch and
Lockyer, 1992). The traditional pilot whale
drive fishery of the Faroe Islands, operates
throughout the years and takes entire social
groups of whales without any selectivity
(Sanderson, 1991). The landed schools are
known to have a disproportionate number
of females (Miiller, 1883) and this has been
verified by the scientific examinations of
the last decade (Bloch, 1992; Bloch et al.,
in press, a), with an average of 1.6 females
per male (Desportes et al., in press).
However, a school containing only males
was driven ashore on November 18, 1989,
in Tórshavn on the eastem coast of the
island of Streymoy. This note gives a
detailed account of this unusual event in the
Faroese pilot whale drive fishery.
Narrative
Around noon of November 18, 1989, the
Faroese Museum of Natural History was
notified that a small school of pilot whales
was being driven toward Sandagerði, the
authorized whaling bay of Tórshavn (Fig.
1). Early in the aftemoon the harbour offíce
informed the Museum that the school had
been successfully landed and contained
only eight whales. No escapers were
reported.
The school consisted of males only and
was examined by Andersen, Desportes and
Mouritsen following the procedure estab-
lished during the international programme
on the ecology and status of pilot whales
and described by Bloch et al. (in press, a).
The animals were measured, a few teeth
were removed from the lower jaw, both
testes and the stomachs were collected.
Samples of skin, blubber, muscle, liver and
kidney were collected and subsequently
frozen. The animals were examined for the
presence of ecto- and endoparasites and the
parasites found were collected and stored in
70% alcohol.
Fróðskaparrit 40. bók (1992): 31-37