Branch and Jackson., 2008:

"Antarctic blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia) currently number just 2280 (95% CI 1160–4500) (Branch,  accepted) and are just a small fraction of the 202,000–311,000 that originally existed (Branch et al., 2004). This assessment of their current status was based entirely on recent abundance estimates and historical catches, from which it was inferred that they are increasing at 7.3% per annum (95% credibility interval 1.4–11.6%) from minimum abundance levels in 1973 of 360 (95% credibility intervals of 150–840) (Branch et al., 2004).

An independent estimate of minimum abundance would reduce the uncertainty in the historical trajectory and relative status of Antarctic blue whales."

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Citation and/or URL

Branch, T.A. and Jackson, J.A. 2008. Minimum bottleneck abundance of Antarctic blue whales based on current mtDNA diversity. Paper  SC/60/SH10 presented to the IWC Scientific Committee, 60th meeting of the International Whaling Commission, Chile. 

Spatial Coverage

Southern Hemisphere

Temporal Coverage

1993 - 2002

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

None