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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/the-new-climate/whales-are-recovering-from-whaling-can-they-survive-climate-change-31b734296803>
"When one of my best friends called to invite me on a girls' trip to Alaska in
late July, I answered before she could finish the sentence. One of my childhood
dreams was finally coming true.
But the biggest surprise came once we were there.
One morning, we were kayaking through a quiet fjord when something unexpected
happened. Not far from our boats, a whale surfaced. The blow appeared first.
Then a long dark back rolled slowly through the water before disappearing
again. The entire moment lasted only a few seconds, but it is the kind of
encounter that stays with you. Especially when four scientists are sitting in
those kayaks. One of them happened to be a marine mammal biologist.
Moments like that are a reminder that whales are not just large animals. They
are survivors of a difficult history.
For much of the twentieth century, whales were hunted at an industrial scale.
Modern whaling fleets used fast ships, explosive harpoons, and factory vessels
that could process whales at sea. In only a few decades, many whale populations
collapsed. Blue whales were reduced to a tiny fraction of their former numbers.
Other species followed the same path.
By the late twentieth century, the situation began to change. International
agreements limited commercial whaling, and many countries banned it. Slowly,
whale populations started to recover. It has not been quick. Whales reproduce
slowly. Many species have only one calf every few years. But over time
scientists began to see encouraging signs. In some regions, humpback whales
returned to their former feeding grounds. Gray whales increased along the
Pacific coast of North America. Blue whales began to appear again in places
where they had almost vanished.
For conservation scientists, these recoveries have often been presented as one
of the rare good news stories in marine conservation. Protect a species from
direct hunting, and populations can rebound. Nature has the ability to recover
when pressure is removed.
But the ocean that whales return to today is not the same ocean they lived in
decades ago."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
