Abstract

(…) Studies on the biology and ecology of the species [harbour porpoise] by the University of Guelph, largely sponsored by the National Research Council of Canada, were begun in the western Bay of Fundy approaches in 1969. We plan to continue this programme at least until 1979, under a renewal of funding granted for the period 1976-79 by NRC and other agencies. Since this will be one of the longest periods for which a population of a small cetacean will have been kept under continual observation and study we hope that our findings will have much general application.
This submission is more in the nature of a general summary of findings from 1969 to 1975, and some of the data presented are of a preliminary nature and may be subject to modification when analyses are completed. Distributional and behavioural ecology of the harbour porpoise is the subject of several MSc and PhD theses at Guelph at the time of writing, and hopefully all the results from these studies will have been published in the primary literature by the end of 1979. (…)