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...
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.
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.
Also known as 
only endemic pinniped found in 
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.
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 
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.
