Migration

Humpbacks are widely distributed and may be found in all oceans of the world. Most humpback populations undertake extensive annual migrations from high-latitude summer feeding grounds to low-latitude winter breeding grounds and back. Their migrations are amongst the longest known for any mammal on Earth and the distance between their feeding and breeding areas can be up to 8000 km or more (one-way!). In the Eastern North Atlantic, humpbacks are generally found in the Barents Sea and around the Svalbard-archipelago during the summer and fall. Later in the autumn, around mid-October, they start their migration southward and in recent years they have paused at the coast of Troms and Nordland, in Northern Norway, for an extended period during the winter to feed on overwintering herring in the fjords here. While at their tropic or subtropical breeding grounds such as the Caribbean or West Africa they generally do not feed.