ALBERT

Description: Stomach contents of 17 sperm whales Physeter macrocephalus stranded in Scotland and Denmark during 1990-96 were analysed. All were sub-adult or adult males and stranded between November and March. They had presumably entered the North Sea during their southward migration from feeding grounds in Arctic waters. Other studies indicate that the majority of the whales were apparently healthy. The diet of these whales was found to consist almost entirely of cephalopods, principally squid of the genus Gonatus (hereafter 'Gonatus', but probably G. fabricii, an oceanic species characteristic of Arctic waters). The other prey species identified were also mostly oceanic cephalopods: the squids Histioteuthis bonnellii, Teuthowenia megalops and Todarodes sagittatus and the octopus Haliphron atlanticus. Although these results are consistent with other recent studies in the area based on single stranded whales, they differ from results of work on whales caught during commercial whaling operations in Icelandic waters (1960s to 1980s) in that little evidence of predation on fish was found in the present study. Remains of single individuals of the veined squid Loligo forbesi, the northern octopus Eledone cirrhosa and the saithe Pollachius virens provided the only possible evidence of feeding in the North Sea. We infer that sperm whales do not enter the North Sea to feed. The timing, and large and uniform sizes of the Gonatus species eaten (most had mantle lengths in the range 195 to 245 mm), as estimated from measurements of the lower beaks, and the seasonality of the strandings is consistent with the whales having fed on mature squid, possibly spawning concentrations--as has recently been reported for bottlenose whales. Assuming that the diet recorded in this study was representative of sperm whales during the feeding season, as much as 500000 t of Gonatus could be removed by sperm whales in Norwegian waters each year and up to 3 times that figure from the eastern North Atlantic as a whole. Evidence from other studies indicates that Gonatus is an important food resource for a wide range of marine predators in Arctic waters.

Description: Research into the feeding habits of cetaceans has traditionally relied on examining samples taken from the digestive tracts of commercially caught or stranded and by-caught animals. This depends on the identification and measurement of hard parts such as fish otoliths. Otoliths are often partially digested in the stomach, making quantitative estimates of fish size from otolith size biased. As a preliminary attempt to quantify the size reduction of otoliths found in the stomachs of small cetaceans, an in vitro digestion experiment was carried out. Otoliths of herring, whiting, poor cod and haddock were digested at 37°C, pH=3·6, and measured every 60 min. Linear regressions relating otolith size to digestion time and original size generally provided an adequate description of the time course of size reduction. The parameter that changed most rapidly due to digestion was otolith thickness. Differences in digestion rates between species reflect the general robustness and shape of the otoliths. A simulation using actual dietary data showed that the overall diet composition was not radically changed by accounting for otolith digestion, although the apparent contribution of herring increased as the assumed digestion time is increased, because herring otoliths were the most susceptible to digestion.