This depends on calculations based on the digitized shape of a whale necropsy, which is provided as whaleshape. The results are \(0.143 * L^2\) for the projected area (see reference 1) and \(0.448 * (0.877 * L)^2\) for the wetted area (see reference 2, but note that we use a correction related to whale mass).
whaleAreaFromLength(L, species = "N. Atl. Right Whale", type = "wetted")length in m.
A string indicating the whale species. With
this version of the package, the only permitted choice is
"N. Atl. Right Whale".
character string indicating the type of area, with
"projected" for a side-projected area, and
"wetted" for the total wetted area. The wetted
area was computed by mathematically spinning a spline fit to the
side-view. In both cases, the original data source is the
necropsy side-view presented in Daoust et al. (2018).
Note that multiple digitizations were done, and that the coefficients used in the formulae agreed to under 0.7 percent percent between these digitizations.
Dan Kelley's internal document dek/20180623_whale_area.Rmd, available
upon request.
Dan Kelley's internal document dek/20180707_whale_mass.Rmd, available
upon request.
Daoust, Pierre-Yves, Emilie L. Couture, Tonya Wimmer, and Laura Bourque. "Incident Report. North Atlantic Right Whale Mortality Event in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 2017." Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Marine Animal Response Society, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2018. https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.850838/publication.html.