I wish I could say that I have encountered a whale or two on a dive, but sadly I cannot. Apart from my Girl Scout whale watching trip in the 3rd grade, I did have a brief brush with them on my first trip to Bahia de Los Angeles, the whale shark hub featured in my first post. While I missed the whale sharks on my first trip down there in 2009, I did encounter a pod of fin whales.
Our group headed out on the panga to the first dive site of the day. When we arrived we were excited to find a pod of fin whales, literally within ten feet of our boat.
A member of our dive group was so excited that she immediately jumped into the water with her camera, just in time to catch the tail end of a whale... literally.
7 of the 13 whale species are listed as vulnerable or endangered, including the fin whale, despite decades of being protected. I have recently discovered National Geographic documentaries, thanks to Netflix. The past weekend I watched a documentary entitled Whales in Crisis, if you have Netflix I highly recommend checking it out. If you don't, it is also available on Hulu. It's about an hour long and worth every minute.
One of the threats described in this documentary was the harmful effects of sonar. The effect of sonar on marine animals was questioned after numerous dolphins and whales beached themselves in the Bahamas following a US Navy sonar training exercise. The US Navy later released a report in which it took responsibility for the whales found beached with hemorrhaging. It is thought that sonar can cause distress, temporary hearing loss, permanent injury, or even death. In that same report the navy pledged to study the issue further to find a solution.
The World Wildlife Fund's profile on threats to whales and dolphins includes whaling, ship collisions, entanglement in fishing gear, climate change, pollution, and habitat degradation. This excerpt from the National Geographic Channel's Kingdom of the Blue Whales describes the threat of boat collisions and the need for reduced speed in certain whale hotspots.
The World Wildlife Fund's profile on threats to whales and dolphins includes whaling, ship collisions, entanglement in fishing gear, climate change, pollution, and habitat degradation. This excerpt from the National Geographic Channel's Kingdom of the Blue Whales describes the threat of boat collisions and the need for reduced speed in certain whale hotspots.
Like the whale shark, the slow maturity and reproductive process of whales makes population recovery a slow process. An increasing number of threats calls for greater protection of these creatures. This is the only way we will see the population rebound permanently.
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