Tag: Whale

Common Minke

Common Minke Whale

The smallest species of rorquals and second smallest baleen whales in the ocean. It was originally ignored, a primary target of whalers in the Southern hemisphere. Also known as the Northern minke whales, it lives in the Southern hemisphere, but is not the Southern Minke as that one lives in the waters around the Antarctic. Its range expands far into the northern hemisphere, up into arctic waters.

Hybrids of the 2 species have been found on several occasions, and it appears that the offspring are fertile – whether this is a threat to the two species as climate change pushes them further together.

It is odd that the common minke whale is also known as the Northern minke whale, as there is a Northern Minke whale which is found in the northern hemisphere.

Links will appear below.

Grey whale

A grey whale breaching: An incredible sight, and the sound travels a very long way in water

Grey whale

The gray whale (other names include grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale), is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. They can reach 14m in length and 41 tonnes. It is found in North pacific – with the Northeast Pacific (American population) and the Northwest Pacific (Asian population) that is endangered. The northern population has been extinct for a long time.

Bowhead whale

Bowhead whale

Also known as Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, steeple-top, and polar whale, they are closely related to the right whales, the bowhead whale looks quite different. It is in a different genus to the other right whales (so is a more distant relation.

The only whale that is endemic to the Arctic and sub-arctic, its mouth is a third of the size of the body. They are incredible long lived often living to 200 years old. They have incredibly thick skulls, which allows them to use their heads to break through the arctic ice.

Unfortunately, they were an early target of whalers, and so in 1966 hunting of them was banned. They have recovered to the point where out of the 5 subpopulations, 3 are endangered, one is vulnerable and the last one currently classed as low risk. Another unfortunate effect of whaling, was to put an end to the summer habits of the bowhead whale – before whaling, it appears that different whale populations would cross seas during the summer, and interbreed.

  1. The Western Arctic stock in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas estimated at 12,500 (though with 95% confidence range 8000-19500         
  2. The Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin stock estimated at 345 with a high confidence
  3. the Baffin Bay and Davis Strait stock which is estimated at over 1000 individuals
  4. the Sea of Okhotsk stock contains only 100-200
  5.  The Svalbard-Barents Sea stock was hunted to near extinction. As such while I cannot find a number, it is unlikely to have a large population

Southern right whale

Southern right whale

The Southern right whale, like the other species in its genus, was hunted incredibly close to extinction. As a wide ranging species, when the population fell possibly as low as 300 in 1920 – so this species was saved by its low numbers, not the ban on hunting in 1935, which likely would have come too late.

It should be noted that Russia ignored this role until 1970. During these 35 years, many were killed by Russia, and when I say many, we are talking hundreds of thousands of species that everyone else was trying to save.

The population is now thought to be around 13,600, which is an impressive increase in around 100 years, of around 45 times increase. The historical population is estimated to lie between 55,000 and 70,000.

So where can they be watched? Far and away, the best known place to see them is Hermanus in South Africa, where around 100 whales congregate each year. I have seen them here, and it is a relatively easy species to see if you are in the right place. They are found from around around 20 degrees South to 65 degrees South around the world. In the past New Zealand was a fantastic place to watch them, and in recent years they returned for the first time in 80 years. They are also naturally seen in big numbers around Australia, and places like Patagonia.

Links will appear below as we make them

  •  

North Atlantic right whale

North Altantic Right Whale

Once thought to exist in numbers between 9000 and 21000, but whaling pushed them close to extinction – with estimates of just a couple of hundred. In the intervening years, since 1986, the population has reached 350 – potentially doubling the population in just 37 years. However, we need to remember that only around 70 of these are breeding age females. A healthy population can expect breeding females to produce a calf every 3 years or so. Unfortunately, given the entanglements and other things that are stressing these whales, the gap between young is currently in the range 6-10 years. This means we can expect 7-11 calves a year – which suggests that for the population to double again in 37 year – we need a survival rate of over 90%

Should the population continue to grow on at that speed, it will take around 180 years for this population to recover.

Places to try to see them include

  • Jacksonville, Florida
  •  Hilton-head Island
Generally, anywhere along this section of the American coast they are a possibility.  Directly below this is a video of this whale species, and below this is a list of any mentions that this whale has had on this website (if any). As we get links, they will appear below these two sections.

Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises family tree

Cetaceans -Whales, porpoise and dolphins

Few people can avoid stopping to watch, if they spot cetaceans from a cliff. While the family is wide and varied, they are all pretty interesting. From some of the largest and most intelligent hunters such as killer whales to the largest animal on earth the blue whale.

Whale and dolphin watching tourism is worth a lot of money – this can be essential, as in many places the extra money helps a community survive. 

I hope, overtime, to make this section of the website as large a list of places to view cetaceans and people who will help you in that quest.

As might perhaps be suspected, all of the mammal species which have returned permanently to the sea, and developed breathing holes located on their back (and therefore perfectly placed for taking quick breaths) are  related.

So what is the most closely related living land mammal? Perhaps obviously, it is a species which spends much time in the water – the hippopotamus.

As with all of these pages, as we create pages for each individual species, they will be linked to the photo below.

So the baleen whales are split into three families, these are not large as there are only 16 species of baleen whales in the world. At the current time, there are roughly 1.1 million baleen whales in the worlds oceans

Below is a family tree of the group

 

Baleen Whales

Baleenideae – the rhight whales

 

The first  living split is Baleenidae, this family is not huge. The north atlantic and north pacific are closest related, these species are closely related to the Southern pacific right whales. Their name is unfortunate – it is called right whale for 3 reasons, it swims slowly, floats when dead and carries a large amount of oil. This lead to all these species being hunted close to extinction.

North Atlantic right whale
North pacific right whale
Southern right whale
Bowhead whale

The other family is called Balaenopteroidea. Here species peel off slowly. I will list them in the order that they split.

The first split is the minke whale – of which there are 2 species, the common and southern minke whale, with the grey whale being the next most similar.

Brydes whale
Antarctic (Southern) Minke Whale
Grey whale
Common minke whale
Sei whale mother and calf Christin Khan NOAA

The next are the humpback whale and the fin whale followed by the Blue whale.

Underwater humpback whale jd forester
fin whale by Amila Tennakoon
Blue whale, taken by Australian Antarctic program

The last group of whales are from a group called the Brydes whales complex

Brydes whale
Edens whale
Omuras whale
Rice whale
Sei whale mother and calf Christin Khan NOAA

This completes the list of baleen whales. The other branch of the Cetaceans is known as the toothed whales

Toothed Whale

.I am going to look at them in 3 groups, though the third is not particularly closely related to each other

  • Delphinoidea: This includes
    • Monodontidaes – Belugas and narwhals
    • Phocoenidae – The family of Porpoises (7 species) such as harbour porpoises and Vanquita

 

bermeister porpoises
dalls porpoise Susan E Adams
Harbour Porpoise
Indo pacific (or east Asian) finless porpoise
Spectacled porpoise
Vaquita (Paula Olson NOAA)
Narrow Ridged finless porpoise (Yangtze finless porpoise by huangdan2060)
    • Delphininidae – these are the oceanic dolphins – 37 species split into several subfamilies which we will deal with one by one.
Subfamily Delphininae – 15 species (tamanend bottle nose dolphin only recognized as separate species, will build page for it at some point when photos are readily available.

Subfamily  Globcephalinae 11 species

Australian snubfin dolphin
False killerwhale by Adam U
Long-finned pilot whale nu Gailhampshire
Rough toothed dolphin
Melon-headed Dolphin by Cyril di Bisceglie
Pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata) off of Guam
Irrawaddy Dophin
Short-finned pilot whale by Martina Nolte
Risso’s dolphin

Subfamily incerta sedis (latin for “of uncertain placement” )6 species

Atlantic White-sided Dolphin
Dusky dolphin by AllenMoC
Hourglass dolphin by Lomvi2
Pacific white sided dolphin by NMFS southwest fisheries science center
Peales dolphin by fDrummondH
White beaked dolphin

Subfamily Lissodelphininae 6 sppecies

Black dolphins by Bobbyandck
Commerson's dolphin by Tonina1
Haviside dolphin by Joachim Huber
Hector dolphin by Avenue
Northern right whale dolphin
Southern right whale dolphin

Subfamily Orcininae

Orca by Robert Pittman NOAA
  • Inioidea : This includes 3 groups
    • Iniidae (only 1 of 5 genus remains -Inea (4 species: Araguaian river dolphin, Bolivian river dolphin  and Orinoco dolphin)
Amazon river dolphin by Oceancetaceen sometimes known as the Orinoco
Araguaian river dolphin by Rio Cicica
Bolivian river dolphin by Ramon and Suzanne Vargas
    • Lipotidae: which contains only one species: the Baiji or Chinese river dolphin
  • Pontoporiidae: which contains one species 
La plata dolpin

The next family is the beaked whales. There are 24 species, of which only 3-4 have been well studied. This is because they spend much of their time deep in the sea, it appears that each species does not have many members and they are incredibly reclusive in their habits.

One might ask how an air breathing animal can spend so much of its time deep in the ocean? Well the Curved beaked whale has had a dive timed at 138 minutes. More incredible, they only need around 2 minutes to catch their breathe before sinking back into the depths. This means that if required, they can spend just 20 minutes out of 24 hours at the surface – an incredible stunt.

There appear to be a great number of species that are extinct – these we will not list, but will mention each subfamily in passing.

Incertae sedis contains 5 extinct genus, Basal forms include 13 extinct genus

Subfamily Berardiinae contains 3 genus, 2 of which are extinct, but the third contains 3 living species (and one dead) .  

Genus Beradius

 

Arnoux's beaked whale
Baird beaked whale
Sato beaked whale

Next we cover the Bottlenose whales

Northern                                                                                                                     Southern and                                                        Tropical

northern bottlenose whale
Southern bottlenose whale
Tropical bottlenose whale

Subfamily Ziphiinae  contains 5 genus, 3 are extinct, but two have just one species in each

Genus Tasmacetus: Shepherds beaked whale Genus Ziphius: Cuviers beaked whale

Click on the image to see it in full

The most populous genus Mesoplodon – mesoplodont whales

As you can see, many of the pictures are of dead whales, or skulls or diagrams, or even just text. This is because sightings of many species are so rare that they have never had a photo taken

As you can see from the whale family tree, the sperm whales are separate from the rest. However, they are toothed whales so belong in this section of the page.

pygmy sperm whale
Sperm-whale-by-Gabriel-Barathieu

Sea-Lions

An encounter with almost any wild animal can be something you remember for years. This sealion that came out of the sea on the beach in New Zealand is no different

Sea-lions

There are 6 living species of sea-lion, and 1 extinct. As the interest in these species grows and the links become unwieldy i will split out the separate species, but for the time being I will just have one page for them all – help it to be necessary to split them as soon as possible. 

Sea-lions are pinnipeds with external ear flaps, long fore-flippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. The sea-lions the 6 living species shown below (the Japanese sea-lion is extinct) in five genera. Their range extends from the subarctic to tropical waters of the global ocean in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, with the notable exception of the northern Atlantic Ocean. They have an average lifespan of 20–30 years.[2] A male California sea-lion weighs on average about 300 kg (660 lb) and is about 2.4 m (8 ft) long, while the female sea-lion weighs 100 kg (220 lb) and is 1.8 m (6 ft) long. The largest sea-lions are Steller’s sea-lions, which can weigh 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) and grow to a length of 3.0 m (10 ft). Sea-lions consume large quantities of food at a time and are known to eat about 5–8% of their body weight (about 6.8–15.9 kg (15–35 lb)) at a single feeding. Sea-lions can move around 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) in water and at their fastest they can reach a speed of about 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph).[3] Three species, the Australian sea-lion, the Galápagos sea-lion and the New Zealand sea-lion, are listed as endangered.

Steller sea-lion
Australian sea-lion
California sea-lion
Galápagos sea-lion
New Zealand sea-lion
South American sea-lion

Steller Sea-lion are found on the land of North America and Asia that circle the north pole (map below, credit NOAA). 

They are predated by killer whales, though sleeper sharks and great whites sometimes take young. They eat a variety of foods, include various fish species, as well as octopus and squid. They are fast swimmers, capable of diving to 1500feet, and staying under for 16 minutes

During breeding season, males fight to control a stretch of beach, and females move freely to the place they favour. 

Status: population has fallen 70-80% since the 1970s and so are listed as endangered, around 46,000 individuals, though in recent years, the Eastern population has grown at around 3% a year (in 2013 this lead to its removal from the US endangered species list)

 

Australian Sea-lion is the only endemic pinniped found in Australia.

They can make a variety of calls, with mothers and young able to pick up each others call in the chaos of a breeding beach. There are currently 66 recognized breeding beaches, though 42% of pups are bred on just 4 of these beaches.

While rare, a bite can require hospitalisation. In both the 1930s and 1960s they were recorded as feeding on little penguins, and this still happens today. Other food includes a variety of fish and even small sharks, in turn, they are hunted by great white sharks and killer whale (orca).

Population was 14370 in 2010 though by 2014 it had fallen to just 6500 mature individuals, though current estimates are 11,200 suggesting a rebound. Still it is clear that they need particular efforts for their conservation. Despite their (relatively) close ranges, the Australian and New Zealand sea-lions do not appear to be closely related. They are considered vulnerable.

California Sea-lion Are found on the west coast of north America. On this map, the navy blue marks the breeding rance, while the light blue shows the total range that they can be found in. It should be noted, that previously the Japanese and Galapagos sealion were both considered subspecies of the Californian species, but no longer. They can stay healthy, for a time, in fresh water, and have been seen living for a while in Bonneville dam – 150 miles inland.

They see (mostly in blue/green) and hear well, as well as being able to sense nearby, with their whiskers. They generally eat fish, squid and occasionally clams. They have been seen cooperating with other sealions, or indeed dolphins porpoises and sea-birds in their hunting techniques, though exploitation is also common.

There are 5 relatively distinct populations. Several sealions have reached Japanese waters in recent years, and this is the most likely origin, as such  it could return to Japan on its own. 

It is considered least concern with 238,000-241,000 individuals and increasing over time.

Galapagos Sea-lions Found on all of the Galapagos Islands, as well as (in smaller numbers) on Isla de la Plata, which is just 40km from Puerto López a village in Ecuador. There have also been recorded sightings on the Isla del Coco which is 500km southwest of Costa Rica (and 750km from the Galapagos). These are not regular, and so have been considered vagrant. It is of course possible that historically they roamed here, but we cannot say.

They are the smallest species of sea-lion, and can often be seen gliding through the water, or sunbathing on the beach. They measure 1.5m-2.5m and weigh between 50 and 400kg.

Much of their diet is made up of sardines. Interaction with humans is usually negative, and feral dogs often form packs, and can then attack the sealions.

The population tends to bounce between 20,000 and 50,000 and they are currently classed as endangered

 

New Zealand Sea-lion (formerly known as the Hooker sealion) is native to south island, though before 1500 it is thought that it was also found on north island. They tend to breed on Subarctic islands of Auckland and Campbell (99% of the pups are born in these islands). In 1993, sealions started breeding on South Island again for the first time in 150 years.

Genetic evidence suggests that until 1300-1500 there was a mainland subspecies, which was wiped out by the Mauri’s and has been replaced by members from the sub-Antarctic population.

As well as eating fish and crustations, they will take new Zealand fur seals as well. They are hunted by great white sharks, and in a survey 27% of adults had scars from near misses. While south American sealions are hunted by orca (with them famously beaching to catch them) they do not appear to do this around New Zealand. After the birth of their pup, females move inland as much as 2km to avoid males, storms and even parasites.

They are thought to number 12,000 making them the rarest sealion. They are also the most distinct being part of the Genus Phocarctos, and are listed as endangered.

 

South-American Sea-lion

Also known as the Southern sealion or the Patagonian sealion. They have been recorded going as far north as Ecuador, though not yet breeding there. They eat fish, as well as squid and octopus, and have even been observed predating penguins, pelicans and South American fur seals.

Males set up territories, but after the arrival of females switch to protecting them. Having said this, one population in Peru have a different set-up where males perform, and females choose a mate, and are free to move freely. This may be in result to the warmer climate, which means the females make regular trips into the sea.

The total population is estimated at 265,000. They are declining in Patagonia (Argentina) and the Falklands but increasing in Chile and Uruguay. In the 2013 El nino many Peruvian sealions died. They are still regularly killed by fishermen, both for damaging equipment and stealing fish.

They are listed as least concern

 

As we gain contacts each picture above will become a link to a page for the specific species – for now, all species will be looked after by this page. If you are a wildlife guide or live nearby and want to be able to host (as a hotel or B&B or campsite) and would like to be listed do get in touch. Our aim, is to give people all the information and links on one page, so that they can book everything in one go – making it easy, and therefore more people undertaking these sort of trips.

Sea-lions can be specifically searched out, but it is also possible to have a surprise encounter with one.

One of my most memorable encounters with any wildlife, is an encounter with a New Zealand sealion.  We had simply gone for a walk on the beach, and at some point, we saw the sea-lion coming out of the sea. This huge male slowly made its way towards us, and when about 10m away it lay down in the sand, threw sand all over itself and went to sleep.

To return to the Pinniped page click here

aaa Lofoten Islands, Just off the mainland of Norway

These islands are relatively large, covering 1227 square km or 474 square miles. While in the past this island may well have had a permanent population of polar bears, these days, polar bears rarely come this close to Norway,

So what is the wildlife of Lofoten Islands?The Lofoten Islands are home to otters, foxes and whales, as well as moose on the larger islands. We have incredible trips out to see the orcas and humpbacks off the coast of Tromsø and Tromvik in the winter, where travelers spend a week swimming alongside these incredible creatures. Indeed, while whales can be seen from Lofoten islands, one needs a great deal of luck, they are not common enough to have whale watching boats.

Here is a video of still shots taken on Lofoten islands

aaa Red Sea including Herghada underwater gardens

Red Sea

The red sea coast heads south from the Suez canal for about 500 miles. There is a range of places which are good for diving

Hurghada underwater gardens: until recently largely unknown, it is now a place which people come from all over the world to see the underwater world either with snorkels or diving.

Sites of merit include    

•         Dolphin house: A pinnacle with a half moon coral. Covered with table corals and giant fans and home to  several dolphin families

•         Small Giftun (within Giftun Island national park) is a fantastic playground for experienced divers. Caves, canyons, steep walls, black coral, white tip sharks, Barracuda, and whale sharks

If you work along this coast, do fill in the form to add your location

 

Posted on

Humpback whale sighting off Cornwall first in summer for a long time

There has been a steady 1 or 2 sightings of humpback whales off the coast of Cornwall over the last 5 or so years – with Cornwall wildlife trust identifying 10 individuals. However the others have visited in the winter, so this might be an indication of a recovering population.

This one was encountered about 2 miles from shore, so would only be seen from a boat.

Unfortunately, there is still a great deal of recovery that this whale population has to do. At their lowest it is thought that there were only 700 in the North Atlantic, but that number is now 35,000. You might think that this is a fantastic recovery, but best estimates suggest that there were around 200,000 humpback whales in the 16th century, before whaling began, so the population could still grow to be 500% of its current size and still not have reached the number of individuals that once existed.

Still, it just makes it clear, whether on the land or at sea, keep your eyes peeled, many species are recovering, and you never know what you might spot.

See Animals Wild