Long-finned pilot whale

Pilot whales (Globicephala melas) are almost completely black in colour. Newborn and juvenile animals can be lighter in colour, and younger whales can have subtle grey spots. Adults generally have light markings on the throat and belly and sometimes behind the dorsal fin and eye. These are typically a long anchor-shaped ventral patch, a dorsal saddle and eye blaze.

Most adults are marked with scars made by squids' suckers or the teeth of other whales. The average length of an adult male pilot whale is 5.7m. Females average 4.5m. Males can weigh up to 2.3 tonnes and females 1.3 tonnes.

Pilot whales are extremely sociable and are generally found in 'pods' of 20 to 100 animals. Entire pods are often seen floating in a raft formation or in lines with just the dorsal fin and blowhole exposed. Pilot whales can swim at an average speed of 3.3km per hour, with bursts of up to 16km per hour. They frequently travel up to 200km a day.

Where are they found?
Long-finned pilot whales live in some temperate and sub-polar oceans, and are usually found in deep, offshore waters, although they can be seen in coastal waters in parts of the North Atlantic Ocean. They are often found along the edge of continental shelves as they prefer deep water.
In the North Atlantic, the long-finned pilot whale is common in the Barents Sea and around Iceland, Canada, Newfoundland and Greenland. They have been recorded in the southwest coasts of Britain and Ireland and off the Hebrides, Shetlands and Faeroe Islands. Surveys in the 1980s showed they were about 750,000 pilot whales in the north-eastern North Atlantic.

What do they eat?
The diet of pilot whales in the North Atlantic is varied: nine genera of cephalopods (predatory marine molluscs, including the squid, octopus, and nautilus), thirteen species of fish and three species of crustaceans. Squid are their primary prey, in particular luminous species.

How long do they live?
Female long-finned pilot whales become sexually mature between the ages of seven and 10. Males mature between 11 and 16. Mating can take place throughout the year, but conception peaks between April and June. The gestation period is believed to be around 12 months. The interval between births is estimated at around four years.

Female long-finned pilot whales can live for 60 years or more. Males generally have a life span of around 50 years. Pilot whales tend to strand, both individually and in entire herds of up to several hundred animals. This may be the most serious natural mortality factor. Strandings have frequently occurred on the coasts of Ireland and Britain, with an increasing number in the last two decades.

Long-finned pilot whales and hunting
In the eastern Atlantic, hunting takes place in the Faeroe Islands, where a drive fishery with an annual catch of up to several thousand whales has taken place for several hundred years. Small numbers have also been hunted in Norway, West Greenland and Iceland, and previously in northern Scotland.

Conservation concerns
Pilot whales have suffered through by-catch in the mackerel fishery off the north-eastern United States, and off south-west England, and in trawl and gill nets elsewhere in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.

An immediate concern for pilot whale populations is the amount of bio-accumulating toxics that researchers have discovered in samples taken from them. Metals such as mercury and cadmium, and PCBs and other organochlorines may have a negative effect on the health and reproduction of pilot whales.