Blue whale
Abundant in almost all of the worlds oceans until the 19th century, they were hunted close to extinction. In 1966 hunting of them were banned.
There are places around the world, where these animals can be watched, we hope to link to many of these below.
At their peak, before whaling, it was thought that their was around 350,000 in the world. Now there is between 10,000 and 25,000 around the world.
It is certainly not the time to allow them to be hunted again, far from it.
One recent suggestion, is that whales sink huge quantities of carbon down into the ocean, and that our current problems with global warming might have been tiny if we had not killed the vast majority of most species of Baleen whales.
Below is a small outtake from blue planet, the bbc series from 2001 which features a blue whale in the vastness of the ocean
I have included a second video clip, as this one give you an idea of the size and shape of a blue whale, in a way that little footage does.
Below this is any articles that have been written about blue whales on this website, and below that, we will add any links that might help you see blue whales in the wild.
Our behaviour may be still pushing the Northern right whale to extinction – entanglements may use as much energy as rearing all young
The Northern right whale was hunted to the brink of extinction - with less than 500 left when hunting ended. To put this in perspective, only 300 Southern right whales...
