Table 3. Summary of movement data for Antarctic blue whales generated by previous studies through Discovery marking, photo-identification and satellite tagging.
| Discovery marks33 | Photo-identifications34,35,36,37, Olson pers. comm. | Satellite tagging33 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austral summer seasons | 1934/35–1966/67 | 1987/88–2014/15 | 2012/13 |
| Number of individuals | 2295 | 399 | 2 |
| Number recaptured within a season | 49 | 36 | NA |
| Minimum movement within a season(degrees longitude; km) | 0.10; 32 | 0.04; 3 | 16.12; 1433 |
| Maximum movement within a season(degrees longitude; km) | 76.45; 3516 | 24.69; 1172 | 75.06; 5300 |
| Number recaptured between seasons | 46 | 14 | NA |
| Minimum movement between seasons(degrees longitude; km) | 1.77; 122 | 0.47; 19 | NA |
| Maximum movement between seasons(degrees longitude; km) | 172.58; 6250 | 141.81; 6550 | NA |
The distances provided as km include latitudinal movements, and the movements within a season exclude those recorded on the same day. The “number of individuals” for Discovery marking is the number of mark deployments, however note that four individuals recaptured within a season, four recaptured between seasons, and one recaptured on the same day had two marks, and that one recaptured between seasons was morphologically identified as a pygmy blue whale33. The whale with the minimum movement detected by satellite tagging was also the whale with the maximum intra-seasonal photo-identification, with a photo-identification taken prior to tagging and on the day of tagging36. Two of the inter-seasonal photo-identification recaptures35 were also identified as recaptures using genetic methods40,43. One was a female identified in the current study as belonging to population 3 (estimated membership 0.474) and moved 131.70° longitude, the other was a male identified as belonging to population 1 (estimated membership 0.846) and moved 6.69° longitude. NA, not applicable.