It's A Little Over-Whale-Ming

Blue Whale

Balaenoptera Musculus

Alex Dowthwaite

Image from www.wallstreetotc.com

Image from www.animal-kid.com

The blue whale is the largest animal known to have existed on earth! With a heart the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, a blue whale’s heartbeat can be detected from two miles away. They dive for ten to twenty minute periods and feed in depths less than 100 meters. Their stomachs can hold one ton a krill, which is understandable considering that they need to eat about four tons each day! Blue whales are the loudest animals on Earth, including being louder than a jet engine, which is valuable when paired with their excellent hearing and the dark ocean surrounding. Although blue whales are not necessarily the blue-ish color you would expect, they “have a mottled gray color pattern which appears light blue when seen through the water” (Recovery Plan). Blue whales are fairly independent and either travel alone or in small groups of two or three. Unfortunately, this may just be our interpretation of these amazing creatures as they can communicate from very far distances due to their powerful voices and may be in constant contact without our knowledge. 

Image from www.shorecrest.org

In the summer, the blue whale migrates towards the poles and into cooler waters to feed. When these warm few months are over, they migrate back toward the equator and into warmer waters to breed in the winter. This causes the different stocks in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres not to mix due to the opposite seasons in each hemisphere. Blue whales can be found in the Arctic Sea and the Atlantic, India, and Pacific Oceans. Despite their wide geographic range, they are one of the rarest of all whales. Most of the few remaining whales are even “true” blue whales! They are merely a subspecies known as “pygmy” blue whales, which are not as enormous as the originals.

Image from www.dolphins.jump-gate.com

Blue whales were listed as endangered wherever found on June 2, 1970. They were occasionally hunted in the first half of the 19^th century but hunting was dramatically increased with the introduction of steam power in the second half of the century. Boats were now able to overtake the fast-swimming giants and when deck-mounted harpoon cannons were added, hunting was moved to a more industrial scale. Modern whaling technology including factory ships have been available since the early 1870s causing hunting to be accelerated since the turn of the century until the mid-1960s. Blue whales are also injured from collisions with the propellers of large ships that can cause serious scaring and occasionally death. Due to their large size, blue whales very rarely become tangled or trapped in fishing nets or gear.

GIF from www.giphy.com

The deliberate killing of blue whales has been prohibited for several decades and no whaling for blue whales occurs presently. Both of these steps have had such a positive effect of the conservation of such beautiful giants. Immediate objectives of the recovery plan are to “identify factors that may be limiting the populations and actions necessary to allow the populations to increase (Recovery Plan). There is a stressed importance of a multi-national approach to the rehabilitation of blue whales since they move freely across all boarders. One form of protection mentioned in the recovery plan is to limit or eliminate human caused injuries and death due to ship collisions, fishing gear, and pollution. It is also very important to collect scientific data from “dead, stranded, and entangled blue whales” (Recovery Plan) so that effective steps can be put in place to save these alluring creatures.

GIF from www.gifsoup.com

For more information, visit these awesome websites:

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/blue-whale/

http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/education/marine-mammal-information/cetaceans/blue-whale.html

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/blue-whale

Works Cited:

"Animals For Humpback Whale Size Comparison." Animal-Kid. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://animal-kid.com/humpback-whale-size-comparison.html>.

"Blue Whale." GifSoup. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://gifsoup.com/view/163632/blue-whale.html>.

"Blue Whale." WWF. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. <http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/cetaceans/about/blue_whale/>.

Fortin, Nathan. "California Blue Whale Population Rebounds." Wall Street OTC. N.p., 6 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallstreetotc.com%2Fcalifornia-blue-whale-population-rebounds-to-historic-97-level-in-west-coast%2F28635%2F>.

GIPHY. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fgiphy.com%2Fsearch%2Fwhale>.

"Species Profile for Blue Whale (Balaenoptera Musculus)." U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile?spcode=A02M>.