Cetacean sighting data collected under various programmes in Colombian Pacific waters were collated with the goal of assessing the distribution and abundance patterns of all species occurring in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Distribution maps are presented for 19 species and one genus based on 603 sightings collected between 1986 and 2008. Ordered by sighting frequency, these species were:...

Recent International Whaling Commission (IWC) debate on the interaction of whale watching and whaling provides fertile ground for empirical research (International Whaling Commission 2005). Commentary to date on the relationship between whale watching and whaling has been largely anecdotal, rendering the potential effect whaling might have on whale watching largely uninformed. From this situati...

Genetic data are becoming increasingly important in ecology and conservation biology. This article presents a novel method for estimating population size from DNA profiles obtained from a random sample of individuals. The underlying idea is that the degree of biological relationship between individuals in the sample reflects the size of the population and that DNA profiles provide information a...

The genomes of all extant cetaceans are characterized by the presence of the so-called common cetacean DNA satellite. In the mysticetes (whalebone whales) the repeat length of the satellite is 1,760 bp. In the odontocetes (toothed whales), other than the family Delphinidae, the repeat length is usually approximately 1,740 bp. The Delphinidae are characterized by a repeat length of approximately...