Every year February the 13th is dedicated to the gentle giants of the ocean, the whales. World Whale Day was founded back in 1980 in Maui, Hawaii to honour the humpback whales which swim just off of its coast but it has since escalated to encompass all species of whales! With this in mind we wanted to tell you a little more about why this day is needed to help protect these incredible animals.
Whales have been considered endangered for over a century now and it is largely down to human interference. However, this isn’t the only reason they could be slowly becoming extinct. Those reasons are:
- Commercial Whaling- This began in the early 1800’s and it came very close to being the reason many whales became extinct. Although it is not the biggest threat facing these animals today, it still exists and the governments of the world need to come together to help prevent this.
- Ship Strikes– Normally whale’s habitats and their migration routes will be in exactly the same place as heavy shipping traffic and this causes an obvious problem. The cruise and cargo ships which use these routes to travel the oceans are huge, and when they strike a whale it is normally always fatal.
- Climate Change- Whilst climate change has a series of very obvious effects on the oceans (namely the sea levels rising) it also has a series of smaller knock-on effects that many people do not even consider. Most whale species feed on a tiny crustacean called krill for the majority of their nutritional needs, and the waters all around the globe warming up has had an adverse effect on the tiny food source. They cannot cope with the increase in temperature, and as a result their numbers are greatly diminished. Less food for the whales means fewer whales.
- Other cumulative threats- There are many other smaller threats which are all contributing to the gradual extinction of the whales. They include marine debris, oil and gas development, disturbance by recreational boats and noise pollution.
There are clearly a lot of threats against whales so we all need to get behind world whale day. The aim is to raise awareness and you can do this in any number of ways, whether it be by sharing this blog, telling your friends, or even visiting the whales in their natural habitat you can help so please don’t hesitate in doing so!
