Good news doesn’t get any more in-your-face than this. One thousand fin whales, one of the world’s biggest animals, were seen last week swimming in the same seas in which they were driven to near-extinction last century due to whaling. It’s like humans never happened. This vast assembly was spread over a five-mile-wide area between […]
Tag: blue whale
Tourists are driving Iceland’s whale meat trade
Chef Stefan Ulfarsson makes no bones about selling whale meat at his restaurant a short walk from Reykjavik’s tourist strip. Indeed, the owner of the Three Frakkar is so proud of it that he had a striking wooden statue of a whale’s tail in the restaurant garden. The tourists pouring into the seafood restaurant are […]
Petition: Startling Animation Shows Blue Whale Dodging Ocean Traffic
A blue whale in Chile was caught on animation through a new study. Researchers tracked a whale moving through a busy gulf surrounded by ship traffic. In the animation, the animal looks hectic as it moves between traffic. While blue whales spend time feeding in the South Pacific Ocean, a new study published in Scientific […]
Blue Whales Return to South Georgia from Antarctica after 100 Years
Endangered blue whales, the largest animal in history, have returned to waters of South Georgia, close to Antarctica after 100 years of near extinction. Scientists have recorded dozens of whales in the area after only a single whale had been viewed between 1998 and 2018. “We’ve had indications in previous years that there might […]
Iceland won’t be killing any whales this year
Icelandic whaling company IP-Utgerd announced April 24 that it is stopping whaling completely, while the country’s largest whaling firm, Hvalur hf., says it won’t be hunting any whales for the second year in a row. IP-Utgerd, which mainly targeted minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), cited financial difficulties after no-fishing zones were extended off the Icelandic coast, […]
Whale stress levels influenced by human activity, earwax study suggests
Scientists have mapped whale stress levels in relation to human activity going back nearly a century and a half — using earwax collected from baleen whales. From 1870 to 2016, the whales’ stress levels seem to be closely associated with activities such as industrial whaling, naval operations during World War II, and rising sea-surface temperatures, […]
POLL: Should Iceland be sanctioned for continuing to slaughter whales?
Iceland’s lone whaling company’s ongoing defiance of an international ban on commercial whaling is outrageous and offence enough as it continues to target endangered fin and minke whales, but now it’s reached a new low after having illegally slaughtered the first blue whale in decades. After a two year break from whaling, Hvalur hf announced […]
Bowhead whales: jazz artists of the deep whose calls rival birdsong
How do bowhead whales in the unbroken darkness of the Arctic’s polar winter keep busy during breeding season? They sing, of course. From late autumn to early spring, off the east coast of Greenland, some 200 bowheads, hunted to the edge of extinction, serenade each other with compositions from a vast repertoire of song, according […]