Have a Whale Of a Year
Editor: Anita Newkirk Hackney
Protecting the environment’s rights is not a hot topic as Covid-19 or what happened on January 6th, but it doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem when it is clearly the “whale” in the room. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), there are many underwater mammals on the endangered list. There are multiple reasons underwater mammals like blue whales, beluga whales, dolphins, and porpoises are on the endangered list such as contaminated habitations, killing them or stealing them from their pods for our amusement.
Whales are fascinating creatures that need to be protected from being taken or killed, but why are all these occurrences happening anyway? Why are we allowing this to happen in the first place?
Some of the reasons this continues to happen is we refuse to change our toxic behavior to the environment. We hurt the ecosystems and harm the whales’ health and their food supply by polluting the water with toxic chemicals from plastic, litter and oil spills.
Then there are the people who kill the whales. Whales are often hunted by people and by commercial fisheries which is about to bring the whale populations to a near collapse. They are hunted for their meat and sometimes just for sport. Sometimes the whales get caught in the ice and become prey for bears, other underwater creatures and people.
To make matters worse, baby whales, namely orcas have been abducted from their pods and raised in captivity in places like SeaWorld. In 2013, the documentary Blackfish showed the psychological toll that wild-caught go through focusing mainly onTilikum, one of the wild caught orcas who killed two trainers at SeaWorld. The documentary included interviews from former SeaWorld trainers and specialists who argued Tilikum’s stress started to progress into aggression towards humans.
According to the National Geographic website:
“Orcas are highly intelligent, social mammals that have long been a part of marine park entertainment, performing shows for audiences. However, it’s become increasingly clear that orcas do not thrive in captivity. [. . .] In captivity, orcas are kept in artificial social groups. Captive-born orcas are often transferred between facilities, breaking up social relationships. The stress of social disruption is compounded by the fact that orcas in captivity don’t have the ability to escape conflict with other orcas, or to engage in natural swimming behaviors in pools.”
Whales are one of the smartest mammals on the planet using their brains to strategize how they’ll ensnare their food by using their techniques. For example, according to National Geographic: Giants of the Deep Blue, a set of dolphins used a tactic forcing fish ashore and then soon followed the fish as they tried to go back in the water.
Orcas are also one of the largest mammals on earth with some about the size of a bus. Blue whales are one of the largest animals ever known weighing upwards of 200 tons and about 100 ft. in length.
According to the National Geographic website:
“Blue whales [. . .] tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant. Their hearts, as much as an automobile.”
These marine mammals are known for their longevity with the blue whale living close to 80-90 years. Orcas in captivity live up to 50-80 years and whales like beluga and humpback tend to live a shorter lifespan of 35-50 years.
If we begin to preserve the whales’ natural habitat, repurpose toxic materials like plastic and stop killing them, future generations might be able to see them in real life and not just on a piece of paper. If we keep going down this route, extinction will be inevitable; and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
