Monthly Archives: July 2017

The Facts About Whale Hunting And Why We Do It

Whale Information , , ,

Whale Hunting thrived for many centuries and should have ended completely by now.

A Minke Whale: Facts about Whale HUnting

A MInke Whale: This Is One Of The Species Of Whale That Is Still Hunted To Date. (Courtesy: NOAA/Wiki Commons, P.D.)

Whale hunting or whaling, is the practice of hunting whales for the various products we can get from their bodies.

This may sound like a pretty tame endeavor without too much implications. After all, whales are so large. For instance, the blue whale grows up to almost 100 feet and 200 tons. So, you may assume that killing a few of them may not be too much of a problem.

Well, prepare to be shocked.

Statistics tell us that when whale hunting was at its peak the blue whale, for example, dropped from about 200,000 to just a few thousand individuals. And that’s just for the blue whale.

Continue reading

Species Profile: The Narwhal

Species Profile , , ,

Learn all about the Narwhal. This medium-sized whale has a tooth growing right through its lip.

An Illustration Of A Narwhal

An Illustration Of A Narwhal.

 The Narwhal is a medium-sized toothed whale that belongs to the Monodontidae family. The only other member of this family is the Beluga whale.

Narwhals are easily distinguishable by one unique feature: males of the species, and even a few females, have a large “tusk” that protrudes out of their mouth. In fact, this tusk is an “overgrown” canine tooth that pierces through the left side of their lip.

This spiral-shaped tusk was once touted in past centuries as a unicorn’s horn and sold as such to unsuspecting buyers!

Continue reading

15 Facts About Whales You Probably Did Not Know

Whale Information , , , , , , ,

Join us as we briefly explore the hidden world of these giants of the Oceans in our compilation of facts about whales.

Beluga Whales Can Mimic Human Sounds : Facts About Whales

Beluga Whales Love Music And Some Of Them Can Mimic Human Sounds.

The gentle giants of the Oceans are some of the most mysterious and awe-inspiring creatures we share our world with.

Whales have been around for millions of years before we humans even showed up.

Some species like the blue whale are so large that they would have little trouble sinking a modern day oceangoing vessel. Yet with all their massive size, they go about their business with so much grace and without causing a fraction of the havoc that humans do!

Continue reading

General Conservation Status Of Different Whale Species

Whale Information , , , , , , , , ,

One sea creature that has suffered extreme exploitation is the whale. Here’s the current status of some well-known whale species.

Bryde's whale

Bryde’s Whale Off Phi Phi Islands, Thailand (Author: Morningdew cc by-sa 3.0)

Whales are magnificent, extremely large, and generally gentle sea mammals. Different species of whales have lived in the Earths’ waters for millions of years now but they are now threatened due to excessive whaling and uneven climatic changes.

Specifically, unregulated and relentless hunting in past centuries led to a sharp decrease in the population of most species of whales.

In fact, in some of the more severe cases, the current population is just a mere fraction of the pre-whaling population.

Initially, commercial whalers were monitored by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

However by 1986, due to the extreme depletion in the number of these creatures the IWC temporally banned whaling entirely.

Continue reading