Dominca’s marine reserve is expected to benefit some 200 to 300 sperm whales that inhabit the island’s waters. (Photo by Amanda Cotton/ Courtesy of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project)
The Lesser Antilles island nation of Dominica is setting up a marine reserve to protect its native sperm whale population, a project that is also expected to support tourism and help conserve a carbon sink. The 788-square-kilometer (304 square-mile) reserve will run north-south along the island’s western coastline, which is a feeding and nursing ground for some 50 families of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) that are consistently sighted there. The whales, believed to number 200 to 300 off Dominica and some 500 in the waters of the Lesser Antilles as a whole, are not migratory. They are matrilineal, with mothers and grandmothers tending to calves in a home range comprising the waters of several of the region’s islands while the males, once in their teens, leave to roam the open ocean. Since 2005, when scientists began observing a group of 16 sperm whale families off Dominica... [Log in to read more]
