Dear colleagues,
Our study documenting a live stranding of a neonate Sowerby’s beaked whale in 2017 and a pregnant female in 2020 in the southwest of Ireland was recently published. O’Callaghan SA, Overy L, Hunt L, Foxall D, Collins M, O’Connell M (2022). Strandings of a neonate and a pregnant Sowerby’s beaked whale (*Mesoplodon bidens* (Sowerby, 1804)) in Ireland. *Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom* 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025315422000492 Abstract Sowerby’s beaked whale is a deep-diving cetacean species specialized to live in the deep waters of the North Atlantic, including offshore Irish waters. Sightings of Sowerby’s beaked whales in this area are infrequent and a substantial increase in our knowledge of their presence comes from recent static acoustic monitoring (SAM) and passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). However, most information on this species has been derived from stranding records, which provide opportunistic insights into this elusive species’ cryptic life history. Here we report on the live stranding of a 1200mm long neonate and an adult 5m female Sowerby’s beaked whale in July 2015 and on the stranding of a 4.9m pregnant female in September 2020 with a 495mm long male foetus in the south-west of Ireland. These stranding events provide an important insight into the reproductive life history of this species and provide further evidence that Sowerby’s beaked whales calve in offshore Irish waters. The article is available in the below link but feel free to contact me for a copy if you are interested on seanocallaghan...@gmail.com https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-marine-biological-association-of-the-united-kingdom/article/strandings-of-a-neonate-and-a-pregnant-sowerbys-beaked-whale-mesoplodon-bidens-sowerby-1804-in-ireland/6411828BAFA427F8E7C663DA017F9AEB Regards, Seán PhD candidate, Atlantic Technological University Twitter: @KerrysWildside
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