2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Whales

Brief description

The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "State and Trend of whales".
***A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - whales"***

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DESCRIPTION OF TAXONOMIC GROUP FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT
A total of 27 species of whales (two of which comprise a number of subspecies) have been documented from Australian waters. A number (e.g. sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus) are distributed nationally, others are restricted to particular latitudes (e.g. Bryde’s whale, Balaenoptera edeni) and others only seasonally utilise Australian waters (e.g. southern right whale, Eubalaena australis). Since the 2016 State of the Environment (SoE) report, the occurrence of Omura’s whale, (Balaenoptera omurai; Cerchio et al. 2019) has been confirmed in Australian waters and new insights provided into the spatial distribution of breeding humpback whales (Megaptera novaengliae; Irvine et al. 2018) in particular, expansion of breeding/calving habitat (Torre-Williams et al. 2019), and the spatial distributions of southern right whales (Mackay et al. 2020) and Shepherd’s beaked whales (Tasmacetus shepherdi; Donnelly et al. 2018). Sightings of humpback whales have been gradually increasing in waters off the Northern Territory, indicating a return to these waters post exploitation (C. Palmer personal communication).

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
Assessment based on review of literature published since the 2016 SoE assessment – see references for spatial and temporal coverage of data incorporated into assessments.

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2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• 2021 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Unclear
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are comparable to the 2016 assessment
• 2016 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Unclear
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are somewhat comparable to the 2011 assessment
• 2011 • Baleen whales
Assessment grade: Poor
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade & trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
• 2011 • Humpback whales
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Increasing
Confidence grade & trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
• 2011 • Toothed whales
Assessment grade: Poor
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade & trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus

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CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
Assessment has not changed.

Lineage

Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT
Assessment based on review of literature published since the 2016 SoE assessment – see references for an overview and assessment of the quality of data incorporated into assessments.

Notes

Credit
Peer reviews of this assessment was provided by: Mike Noad (University of Queensland) Kelly Waples (Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions)