what-is-that-cetacean

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Baleen Whale Teeth––Yes, They Exist!

You’re probably familiar with the one of the most beloved and studied baleen whales––the humpback whale! Baleen whales’ most notable characteristic is right there in the name: their baleen. Instead of teeth, they have keratinous plates of baleen that allow them to filter out prey items like fish and plankton from the water column. My photo above shows a humpback whale lunge feeding on a school of fish, likely herring. 

But!

Did you know that all baleen whales have teeth at some point in their lives? While in utero, baleen whale fetuses develop small teeth that are later reabsorbed. It is an evolutionary relict that remains from a time that their toothed ancestors prowled ancient seas. 

The teeth (or, more accurately, tooth buds) don’t erupt from the gum line but nevertheless are still very present. Check out this cross sectional photo of the tooth buds in a fin whale fetus: 

From the paper “Morphological and Molecular Evidence for a Stepwise Evolutionary Transition from Teeth to Baleen in Mysticete Whales” by Deméré et al., and can be read for free here!

Another interesting fact about baleen whale evolution is that at one point in time, their ancestors may have had both baleen AND teeth at the same time! One early mysticete, Aetiocetus weltoni, had widely spaced teeth and small holes called palatal foramina in between them. In modern day baleen whales, palatal foramina contain blood vessels that connect to the tissue that holds baleen plates. This in an indication that A. weltoni likely had some baleen as well as teeth. Here is an artist rendition of what this early mysticete may have looked like:

Check out that early baleen between the teeth! Art by Carl Buell.

While their teeth may be long gone in adulthood, the study of fetal development of baleen whales can give us insight into how these filter-feeding giants evolved.  

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What is an Atlantic Spotted Dolphin?

[Image by Eugene Kitsios]

Names: Atlantic Spotted Dolphin, Bridled Dolphin Appearance: Dark grey/black on back fades to cream/white on belly; spots appear light on dark areas & dark on light areas; young dolphins are not spotted, appear similar in appearance to Bottlenose dolphins. Weight: 220 - 315 lbs. (100 - 143 kg) - males are larger Size: 5 - 7  ½ ft. in length (1.6 - 2.3 m) Lifespan: Estimated lifespan is unknown Family: Delphinidae Genus: Stenella Species: Frontalis

Family

Atlantic Spotted Dolphins are typically found in groups of fewer than 50 individuals, but have occasionally been sighted in groups as large as 200+ animals. Inshore/coastal pods normally consist of around 5 to 15 animals. The hierarchy of these pods is determined by age, sex, and reproductive status.

[Image by Wade Hughes - Photographs taken under permit issued by Secretaria Regional do Mar, Ciência e Tecnologia with precautions taken to avoid disturbance to the animals.]

Diet

Spotted dolphins generally make dives of 30ft. that last between 2-6 minutes at a time; though they are capable of reaching depths of 130-200ft. and have been observed holding their breath for up to 10 minutes. During dives, they will feed on various species of fish and cephalopods, including eels, herring, squid, and octopus.

Breeding

These dolphins become sexually mature and begin breeding between the ages of 8 and 15 years. Mating and calving both take place between May and September, with gestation periods lasting 11 to 12 months. Females typically give birth once every 1-5 years (average is 3 years), with nursing lasting anywhere between 1 to 5 years.

[Image by Joost van Uffelen]

Threats & Conservation

Atlantic spotted dolphins have been incidentally taken as bycatch in some small fisheries. Small catches have been recorded in the Caribbean, off West Africa, and possibly in the Azores. A few animals have also been harpooned in the Caribbean, some parts of South America (such as Brazil), West Africa, and other offshore islands. The animals are most often used for human consumption or bait.

Chemical and noise pollution are both a known threat to this species as well. Specimens found off the coast of Florida were found to be contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl - pesticide), DDTs (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane - insecticide), chlordanes, tris(4-chlorophenyl)methane (TCPMe), tris(4-chlorophenyl)methanol (TCPMOH), hexachlorobenzene (fungicide), and hexachlorocyclohexane.

According to the IUCN, the Atlantic spotted dolphin is considered “Data Deficient” due to insufficient information on the population status and trends.

Sources: NOAA | IUCN Red List of Threatened Species | MarineBio.org | CMS | American Cetacean Society | Dolphin-World | Wikipedia

“What is that Cetacean?” series: Killer Whale | Narwhal | Beluga Whale | Pilot Whale | Risso’s Dolphin | Bottlenose Dolphin | Vaquita | South Asian River Dolphin | Sperm Whale | Humpback Whale

Videos: Spotted Dolphins Echolocating and Eating | Atlantic Spotted Dolphin | Atlantic spotted dolphin | Atlantic Spotted Dolphins

(If I used an image/gif of yours, and you do not want me to use it, please let me know and I will remove it. Also, feel free to send me an ask, correcting any information.)

[what-is-that-cetacean]

hi ✨ your blog is so good! Can I ask you to do a 'what is' an orca or an atlantic spotted dolphin? thanks! xxx

Aww, thank you!

I’ve already profiled the Orca here (though I’m thinking of redoing it - stay tuned), but I’ll be sure to put the Atlantic Spotted Dolphin on the list! ^_^

[what-is-that-cetacean]

Cetacean Fact #2: Not all Orca eat the same thing

Unlike other cetaceans who specialize in eating one or several kinds of prey regardless of their geographic location, Killer Whales all over the world all have varied hunting techniques and various kinds of prey; it just depends on where they live and who they live with.

For example, Killer Whales found in the north eastern Pacific are grouped into at least 3 different eco-types. Residents, who prey mainly on fish such as salmon, generally stay in one area almost year round, though some resident pods will follow their prey north or south for short periods of time.

Transient Orca will sometimes have a larger, less fixed range - aside from special populations like the AT1 Transients in Alaska, who were originally observed in the 1980′s living year-round in Prince William Sound. Transients specialize in hunting other mammals such as seals, sea lions, and other cetaceans like Humpback Whales, Harbor Porpoises, Grey Whales, etc.

Offshore Orca are the most elusive and least studied of the three due to them living so far away from land; occurring at least 9 miles or more offshore. They also are very unique in the fact that, while they are believed to primarily prey upon fish, they have also been observed hunting sharks. Because sharks have rough and abraisive skin, Offshore Orca’s teeth will gradually wear down over many years. However, this also can make it fairly easy for scientists to determine the eco-type when an Orca carcass washes ashore.

NOAA | WildWhales.org | WDC | Center for Whale Research

[photo by Chase Dekker]

[what-is-that-cetacean]

Shedding light on the evolution of whale vision

Eyes are the window between an animal and its environment, and if your environment has changed as much as a whale’s has over the last 50 million years, they tell an intriguing story about your evolutionary history. As marine mammals that descended from terrestrial ancestors, whales and dolphins have many adaptations for aquatic living, including underwater vision, but we still know very little about how these adaptations evolved at the genetic level.

Canadian researchers used a combination of statistical and experimental methods to determine how the gene coding for the visual protein known as rhodopsin has evolved differently in whales and dolphins relative to terrestrial mammals. By using killer whale rhodopsin as an experimental model, their results show that not only is the rhodopsin gene under natural selection pressure in whales, but also that naturally selected mutations in the gene confer greater sensitivity towards blue-shifted underwater light. This makes it one of the first whale evolution studies to directly link selection patterns with a measurable change in function.

“Rhodopsin is a light-sensitive protein in the rod cells of your eyes that allows you to see even in dark conditions. Whales are particularly reliant on rhodopsin because light fades very quickly with depth underwater. But the majority of light in the ocean is also blue, so if you’re a deep diver like a sperm whale, having rhodopsin more sensitive in the blue part of the spectrum allows your eyes to make the most use of the scarce light hundreds of meters below the surface. This could mean the difference between catching your prey or going hungry”. said Sarah Dungan who leader the study 

Illustration:  A model of the killer whale rhodopsin protein illustrating its evolution in response to underwater light. by Sarah Dungan, University of Toronto

Reference:  Dungan et al. 2015. Spectral tuning of killer whale (Orcinus orca) rhodopsin: Evidence for positive selection and functional adaptation in a cetacean visual pigment. Molecular biology and evolution 

University of Toronto Press Release

[what-is-that-cetacean]

Toothed Cetacean Echolocation 

All recorded toothed whales are known to produce pulsed underwater sounds that they use on a regular basis to forage, navigate, and avoid predators; These sounds also help whales investigate objects from different angles to maximize amount of echoing information and easily discriminate small objects. They produce “click trains” or pulses of broad-frequency clicks. These clicks strike an object, and part of the sound energy is reflected back “heard” by the whale and interpreted.

Clicks can be repeated up to 600 times per second (in the case of bottlenose dolphins)! The rate of click repetition is adjusted to allow the echo to return between outgoing sounds - the speed at which a click returns to the emitting whale from the object is a measure of the distance to that object. Additional echoes that are received may be interpreted to indicate the target’s speed and direction (if moving) – the click repetition rate increases as the whale closes in on the target.

(via: Whale and Dolphin Conservation ) Image courtesy of Listening for Orcas  (listen here)

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Unmanned NOAA hexacopter monitors health of endangered Southern Resident killer whales

Thousands of high-resolution photos provide baseline information on whales ahead of oncoming El Niño

A NOAA Fisheries research team flying a remotely operated hexacopter in Washington’s San Juan Islands in September collected high-resolution aerial photogrammetry images of all 81 Southern Resident killer whales that showed the endangered whales in robust condition and that several appear to be pregnant.

Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs and has proven to be a powerful method for understanding the health of whales and other wildlife. Researchers can readily identify individual killer whales from the distinctive shape of their dorsal fin and saddle patch from the air or water, allowing them to track the condition of individual whales over time. Following analysis, individual growth and body condition from this year will be compared to previous photogrammetric assessments in 2008 and 2013 to assess changes.

The thousands of photogrammetry images collected to date provide important baseline information about the condition of the whales as a warm El Niño climate pattern takes hold along the West Coast following more than a year of already unusually warm ocean temperatures. El Niño and warm ocean conditions have in the past led to declines in salmon, the favored food of Southern Residents.

“Most individuals appear to be fairly robust this year, which is good news, but it’s also very important baseline information to have if the next few years turn out to be difficult for salmon and their predators,” said biologist John Durban of NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center, who piloted the hexacopter on 115 flights totaling about 23 hours over the Southern Resident killer whales.

The flights were part of a joint photogrammetry project conducted by the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the Vancouver Aquarium to collect high-resolution images of both Southern Resident killer whales and neighboring Northern Resident killer whales around Vancouver Island.

“We have typically counted births and deaths to assess population status, but photogrammetry gives us a new tool to better assess the whales’ condition between years and to look for changes over the course of the year,” said Lynne Barre, branch chief for protected resources in NOAA Fisheries’ Seattle office.

Highlights of the September flights included:

High resolution aerial photographs of all 81 individuals in the Southern Resident population.

New photographs of the latest calf (L122) taken just days after its birth, and its mother (L91) just before and following birth. The team also captured vivid photographs of several calves nursing.

Initial analysis suggests most whales appeared to be in robust condition and several females in the population may be pregnant; further analysis is underway to confirm this. The fate of the calves will shed light on the reproductive success of the population.

Scientists previously collected photogrammetry images in 2008 and 2013 using helicopters, which flew at 750 to 1,000 feet compared to the hexacopter that flies at 100 to 120 feet. The hexacopter weighs about 4.5 pounds, with a roughly 30-inch wingspan, and carries a special camera system designed at the SWFSC. The small, quiet aircraft allows researchers to collect high-resolution images at a much lower altitude without disturbing the whales.

Photogrammetry efforts in 2008 and 2013 documented a decline in the overall body condition of the Southern Resident killer whales, as well as the apparent loss of calves by some pregnant females.

Initial examination of this year’s data suggests improved condition for some whales, offering hope for the population. Researchers plan to use photogrammetry to monitor the condition of Southern Resident killer whales again next year and in different seasons to determine whether they face shortages of salmon prey at certain times of the year. Seasonal photogrammetry data will help NOAA Fisheries prioritize salmon recovery actions to improve salmon numbers at the times of year when the whales may be food-limited, Barre said.

Read more here.

More photographs available here.

Provided by NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region

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Cetacean Fact #1: Did you know that only male Humpbacks sing?

While female Humpbacks can vocalize, scientists and researchers note that only males have been observed emitting these long, loud, and complex songs - which can last for up to 20 minutes; sometimes being sung repeatedly over the course of several hours. Groups of males will often sing these songs together in order to attract females. Even males who are not yet sexually mature will join in the singing in an effort to learn the song - researchers also believe that with more singing males, the better the chance they have of attracting females.

x | x | x [photo by Gaby Barathieu]

[what-is-that-cetacean]

NEW FOSSIL WHALE SPECIES FROM NEW ZEALAND FILL EVOLUTION GAP

Paleontology these last day has surprised us with a recent new fossil species from a early river dolphin, Isthminia panamensis. Now scientists have identified a new species of early baleen whale in New Zealand.

Based in three individuals represented by well-preserved crania, mandible and tympanoperiotics, the new species, called Waharoa ruwhenua  is a Eocene eomysticetids, and demostrate ontogenetic changes from young juvenile to old adult, elucidating the early evolution of filter feeding in early mysticetis. The delicate nature of the jaws and skulls indicated they were likely not “lunge feeders” like humpback whales, but were adapted for skim feeding. 

Holotype cranium of Waharoa ruwhenua in dorsal view. (A) photograph; (B) interpretive line drawing. Stippling denotes matrix, cross-hatching denotes broken surfaces. 

Eomysticetidae is a family of extinct baleen whale,  occupying an important position in the evolutionary tree of cetaceans—and Tokarahiaappears to be a transitional fossil between primitive toothed baleen whales and modern baleen whales.

This new species is  lived around 25-30 mya. and is characterized by an elongate and narrow rostrum which retains vestgial aveoli an alveolar grooves. Their fossils were collected from rock formations in the South Island’s Waitaki river area.  .

The etimology behind  Waharoa, is long mouth; from the Māori waha (mouth) plus roa (long).   Ruwhenua, from the Maori for ru (shaking) and whenua (land), a translation of the “The Earthquakes” locality. 

Illustration:  Alternative life restorations of Waharoa ruwhenua (A) with erupted permanent dentition; (B) without dentition.

Reference (Open access)  Boessenecker et al 2015. Anatomy, Feeding Ecology, and Ontogeny of A Transitional Baleen Whale: A New Genus and Species of Eomysticetidae (Mammalia: Cetacea) from the Oligocene of New Zealand. PeerJ

[what-is-that-cetacean]

What is a Humpback Whale?

[Gif by CetaGifs] Names: Humpback Whale, Hump Whale, Hunchbacked Whale, Bunch Appearance: Dark grey with some areas of white Weight: Up to 40 tons (80,000 lbs.) Size: 48 to 60ft. in length Lifespan: At least 50 years in the wild Family: Balaenopteridae Genus: Megaptera Species: Novaeangliae

Family

[Mother and calf by Gaby Barathieu] Humpback Whales are relatively solitary cetaceans; with the exception of pods between 2-15 individuals who have been sighted off the coast of Hawaii - though these pods seem to stay together only for short periods of time. The most common type of pod for Humpbacks is a “cow-calf pod”, which typically consists of a mother and her calf. In many instances, cow-calf pods are accompanied by another adult whale known as an escort. Escorts can be either sex, but are usually reported to be male, and only remain with the cow-calf pod for a few hours.

Diet

Humpback whales are baleen whales, meaning that instead of sharp, conical teeth, they have a series of 270-400 fringed, overlapping plates located on each side of the upper jaw. These plates consist of fingernail-like material called keratin that frays out into fine hairs on the ends inside the mouth. Baleen plates serve as a filter for food during feeding. When the whale takes in a large amount of water into it’s mouth, the water is expelled through the baleen plates, trapping food on the inside of the mouth to be swallowed.

[Humpback Whales Coming Up Behind Paddleboarders by Marlin Harms] Their diet consists mainly of krill and other euphausiids’, capelin, sardines, herring, and mackerel. To feed on schools of herring or mackerel, Humpbacks often hunt cooperatively by herding schools of fish together using bubble nets, created by releasing air bubbles while swimming in circles beneath their prey, causing the fish to swim tightly together and become disoriented. The whales then lunge towards the surface with their mouth open, filtering out the water through their baleen plates and swallowing the fish.

Breeding

In their wintering grounds, Humpbacks will congregate and engage in mating activities. They are generally “polygynous”, meaning that males will usually mate with more than one female. Males are also known to exhibit competitive behavior, engaging in aggressive and antagonistic actions such as chasing, vocalizing, bubble displays, and tail/rear body thrashing. Often, males will make contact with each other during these bouts - sometimes causing injuries ranging from bloody scrapes to, in one recorded instance, death.

Also on these wintering grounds, males will sing complex songs that can last up to 20 minutes and be heard from at least 20 miles away. He may sing for hours, repeating the song several times. Males in a population all sing the same song, but that song continuously evolves over time. Scientists have studied Humpback songs for decades but still understand very little about it’s function.

[Humpback whale by Arctic Al] Gestation for females lasts around 11 months, and newborn calves are between 13-16 feet long. Calves are weaned somewhere between 6-10 months. Mothers are very protective and affectionate towards their calves, swimming close and frequently touching them with their pectoral flippers. Breeding typically occurs every two years, but sometimes occurs twice in a three year span.

Whaling

As early as the 18th century, Humpback whales were hunted by whalers. By the 19th century, Humpbacks were being hunted heavily, particularly in the Atlantic Ocean and to a lesser extent in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. By the end of the 19th century, the introduction of the explosive harpoon allowed whalers to accelerate their take. This, along with hunting in the Antarctic beginning in 1904, caused a sharp decline in whale populations.

However, in the mid-1900′s, The Soviet Union became responsible for perhaps the most horrific environmental crimes of the 20th century.

[Whaling photos from this article] In 1946, the Slava left the port of Odessa, Ukraine on it’s maiden whaling voyage. It was a factory ship, crewed and equipped to separate one whale every 30 minutes into oil, canned meat and liver, and bone meal. The Slava was bound for the whaling grounds off the coast of Antarctica; the first time Soviet whalers had ventured so far south. In her first season, the Slava only caught 386 whales. However, by her fifth season, the Slava’s annual catch was approaching 2,000. The next year it was 3,000.

Then, in 1957, the ship’s crew discovered such dense populations of Humpbacks off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, the Slava’s helicopter pilots joked that they could make an emergency landing on the animals’ backs.

In 1959, the Slava was joined by a new fleet led by the Sovetskaya Ukraina, the largest whaling factory ship in the world. By this time, the harpooners were killing whales faster than the factory ships could process them. Sometimes the carcasses would be towed alongside the ships until the meat spoiled, and the flensers would simply strip them of their blubber and toss the rest back out to sea.

During the 1959-60 season, the Soviet fleets killed almost 13,000 Humpback whales and nearly as many the next season, when the Slava and Sovetskaya Ukraina were joined by a third factory ship, the Yuriy Dolgorukiy. Whaling was grueling work, with one former whaler claiming, in a Moscow newspaper years later, that five or six Soviet crewmen died on the Southern Hemisphere expeditions each year.

Still, it was well-paying and glamorous work by Soviet standards. Whalers got to see the world, stock up on foreign products that were prized on the black market back home, and were welcomed with parades when they returned home.

[Whaling photos from this article] When a fourth factory ship, the Sovetskaya Rossiya, prepared for her maiden voyage in 1961, the men and women who found themselves aboard would have considered themselves lucky. However, when the Sovetskaya Rossiya reached the western coast of Australia late that year, whalers were greeted by a deserted ocean. By the end of the season, the ship had only managed to round up a few hundred animals, many of them calves.

Five years of intensive whaling by the Soviets caused one of the fastest decimations of an animal population in world history - but it happened almost entirely in secret.

The Soviet Union was a party to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, a 1946 treaty that limited countries to a set quota of whales each year. By the time a ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986, the Soviets had reported killing a total of 2,710 Humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere.  However, the country’s fleets actually killed nearly 18 times that many - more than 48,000 Humpbacks - along with thousands of unreported whales of other species. Soviet captains had disguised ships, tampered with scientific data, and misled international authorities for decades.

Generally speaking, environmental crimes tend to be the most rational of crimes. Fortunes have been made by selling contraband rhino horns and mahogany or helping toxic waste disappear, while the risks are minimal. Poaching, illegal logging, and dumping are very weakly penalized in most countries, when they’re penalized at all.

[Whaling photos from this article] However, the Soviet whale slaughter did not follow such logic. Unlike Norway and Japan, the other major whaling nations of the era, the Soviet Union had no real demand for whale products. Once the blubber was cut away for conversion into oil, the rest of the animal was typically dropped back into the sea to rot, or was thrown into a furnace and reduced into bone meal - a low-value material used for agricultural fertilizer.

To this day, there is still no definitive answer as to why a country with such minimal use for whales killed so many of them. Corrected catch records show that Soviet whalers likely killed a total of more than 200,000 Humpbacks in the Southern Hemisphere between 1904 to 1980.

Famous Humpbacks

There have been numerous Humpbacks across the world that have made headlines for various reasons. From repeated encounters to pure white whales, they conjure up quite a bit of attention.

In 1985, a 40 foot long Humpback entered San Francisco Bay and was followed closely on the evening news by Bay Area television stations. Nicknamed Humphrey, he spent a few days in the bay before swimming up the Sacramento River and under the Rio Vista Bridge into a freshwater dead-end slough about 69 miles from the ocean.

Various attempts to try and coax Humphrey back to the ocean all failed; and after several weeks of being trapped in the fresh water of the Sacramento Delta brought sighs of physical distress. His skin was beginning to grey, and he was becoming more and more listless as it appeared Humphrey may have been dying.

A last-ditch effort to save Humphrey was soon put together. Louis Herman, a well known researcher of various cetaceans, figured that it would be possible to lure Humphrey out by playing acoustic recordings of vocalizations from Humpback feeding grounds. Dr. Bernie Krause offered recordings he had made and, with the help of a powerful speaker and amplification system borrowed from the Navy, the equipment was rushed to Rio Vista where Humphrey was last seen.

Early the following morning, the equipment was loaded onto a private yacht - donated by it’s owner for the rescue effort - and the speaker was lowered into the water and directed at Humphrey’s last known location in the slough. After beginning to play the sounds, Humphrey emerged from the water at the bow (front) of the ship. The captain quickly started down the river with Humphrey close behind. Numerous fish and wildlife agencies, including the Army’s 481st Transportation Company, were there to assist in the effort as the crew on the yacht led Humphrey the many miles back down the Sacramento River, sometimes stopping the vocalizations and then continuing to play them to keep his interest.

As they approached San Francisco Bay and the water gained in salinity, Humphrey became visibly excited and began vocalizing himself. The crew lost sight of him during the night, but were able to spot him again the following morning and continue to lead him out through the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific on November 4, 1985.

In 1990, Humphrey came back to California and soon became beached on a mudflat in San Francisco bay. He was extricated from the mudflat with a large cargo net with help from the Marine Mammal Center and U.S. Coast Guard. This time around, Humphrey was successfully guided back to the ocean using a “sound net”, in which people in a flotilla of boats make unpleasant noises behind the whale by banging on steel pipes. At the same time, Researchers Louis Herman and Bernie Krause, who were involved in Humphrey’s first rescue, led a team of scientists who used recordings of Humpback’s preparing to feed to guide Humphrey back into the Pacific ocean. Since his second rescue, there has only been one confirmed sighting of Humphrey.

[_MG_1314.JPG by John Edwards] Another well known Humpback, who is still spotted to this day, is Migaloo - a true Albino male Humpback first spotted in 1991 along the Australian coast. At time of his first sighting, Migaloo was the only known all white whale in the world. He was believed to have been between 3 and 5 years old, and received the name Migaloo - a word from the Australian Aboriginal community in Queensland meaning “white fella”. In 2003, Migaloo was struck by a Trimaran off Townsville, Queensland and still bears the scars on his back today.

In 2004, scientists and researches confirmed Migaloo to be male via analysis of sloughed skin samples. Many people also began to express concern over the possibility that Migaloo was becoming distressed due to the number of boats following him each day. These concerns prompted the Queensland and New South Wales governments to introduce legislation each year to create a 1,600ft. exclusion zone around Migaloo. The fine for violating this law is a hefty $16,500 AUD ($11,826.21 USD).

[Migaloo with dolphin and companion by Migaloo White Whale] For a number of years, Migaloo was believed to be the only all-white Humpback in the world. Then, in September 2011, an all-white baby calf was spotted in Australian waters. For now, the calf has been nicknamed Migaloo Junior, or MJ, though it is not known for sure whether the calf is really Migaloo’s calf.

Conservation

In August 2008, the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species changed the Humpback Whales’ listing of ‘vulnerable’ to ‘least concern’, though two subpopulations remain endangered. Apart from extensive whaling in the last two centuries, various other threats post significant danger towards Humpbacks and other species of cetaceans.

[injured humpback whale by Tony Wu] Entanglement in fishing gear is one of the most prominent towards many species of cetacean. Humpbacks are vulnerable in the sense that they can become entangled and swim off with the gear still attached, or they can become anchored in one place. Incidental “takes” of Humpbacks have been observed off the coast of California and Oregon in the swordfish and thresher shark drift gillnet fishery. Many entanglements have been reported during the annual migration from Hawaii to Alaska; in Hawaii, Humpbacks have been observed becoming entangled in longline gear, crab pots, and other non-fishery related lines.

Ship strikes, harassment from whale watching vessels, and impacts to their habitat are also significant threats to Humpbacks. Ship strikes in the Gulf of Maine and southeastern Alaska have proven to be fatal, while in other places such as Hawaii, no Humpback fatalities have been verified. Whale watching vessels have also been known to come too close or crowd Humpbacks and other whales, causing stress to the animals - some whale watch vessels have even been involved in ship strikes.

[Humpback nicknamed Bladerunner by Ros Butt/Cat Balou Cruises from this article] Humpback aggregation areas are sometimes disrupted or destroyed due to it being part of a shipping channel, or due to being occupied by fisheries and aquaculture. Military operations and oceanographic research using active sonar are also causing increasing concern.

Despite commercial whaling having been banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986, whaling for scientific purposes is still allowed to take place - so long as the proper permits are received.

The Japanese Government in particular announced plans to resume Humpback whaling in the Antarctic during the 2007/08 season, starting with an experimental catch of 50 animals per year under scientific permit. However, according to the IWC, Japan has refrained from taking Humpbacks thus far.

Though Humpback numbers were depleted to the point they only numbered in the thousands during the whaling era, they have since recovered strongly to an estimated 60,000 whales worldwide, and their numbers are increasing.

Sources: National Geographic | NOAA | Wikipedia | IUCN Red List of Endangered Species | American Cetacean Society | The Marine Mammal Center | MarineBio.org | Humpback Whales of Southeast Alaska | Pacific Standard: The Most Senseless Environmental Crime of the 20th Century | Soviet Whaling Vessel Records | Migaloo - x

“What is that Cetacean?” series: Killer Whale | Narwhal | Beluga Whale | Pilot Whale | Risso’s Dolphin | Bottlenose Dolphin | Vaquita | South Asian River Dolphin | Sperm Whale | Atlantic Spotted Dolphin

Videos: GoPro: Humpback Whale Breach | Humpback Whales Feeding | A Surprise Diving Encounter with a Giant Humpback Whale | Humpback Whale Breaches on Top of Kayakers | Humpback Whale shows AMAZING Appreciation After Being Freed From Nets | Norwegian fishermen have close encounter with hunting humpback whales (with captions) | Ingenious Bubble Net Fishing | Diver: I thought the other diver was inside the whale

(If I used an image/gif of yours, and you do not want me to use it, please let me know and I will remove it. Also, feel free to send me an ask, correcting any information.)