The Antarctic blue whale is the largest of all blue whale subspecies and, before whaling, the most numerous, accounting for 90% of pre-whaling blue whale abundance. They are currently listed as endangered, primarily due to their exploitation from commercial whaling. In 2004, it was found that that their population size was increasing, though still at less than 1% of their pre-whaling abundance. Recently, more information about the population structure and demography of Antarctic blue whales have become available. In this study, I use Bayesian methods to integrate multiple historical and contemporary datasets to estimate the population size and growth rate of Antarctic blue whales. Additionally, I explore the sensitivity of these estimates to several of the assumptions made by the model.
Preliminary results from this work were presented at the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee meeting in 2024.