Confirmed sightings of Bryde’s Whale, Balaenoptera edeni Anderson, 1878 (Cetacea: Balaenopteridae) from Kuwait

Abstract

Among the nine species of Balaenopterid whales, only four species, viz., Balaenoptera musculus , B. edeni , B. omurai, and Megaptera novaeangliae are reported from the Ara-bian/Persian Gulf (Al-Robbae, 1967, 1971; Al-Sayegh, 2014; Dakhteh et al., 2017; Ranjbar et al., 2016). As our knowledge on whales in Kuwait is poor (Bishop & Al-Saffar, 2008), we present here opportunistic sighting data of Bryde’s Whales ( Balaenoptera edeni ) collected during the years 2009–2022 from Kuwaiti waters by the Kuwait Institute For Scientific Research (KISR) and secondary sources from social media platforms. The sightings of Bryde’s Whale in the years 2011, 2017 and 2022 were documented by KISR’s research team while conducting routine coral reef surveys off Khubbar, Qarouh islands and near an offshore oil rig respectively. Besides that we examined secondary data from sightings by recreational fishers, divers, etc. that were collated by “The Whale and Dolphin Protection Team” (WDPT; www.habi-hiba.com/whales_and