All About Whales With Rhyl Frith

Every year about a quarter of North Atlantic Right Whales become entangled in fishing gear. Some result in minor scars, but others involve ghastly deaths. An entangled whale has a harder time to move around freely, reproduce and eat. Entanglements can lead to infection and even cut through to the muscle and bone.

How do we protect and conserve a wildlife species when we don’t know where it is? How can we possibly change our behaviours to reduce our impacts and ensure the ongoing existence of species if we cannot say with certainty where they are? Simply put, we cannot. It is impossible to truly protect a whale species without knowing a great deal about its key needs and behaviours, as well as its main existential threats, so many of them caused by human activity. There is much work still to be done.

Studies have demonstrated conclusively that any time a whale is struck by a boat, no matter how small, the whale suffers. It is as simple as that. The faster the vessel is travelling, the greater the trauma. Collisions between whales and ships first became an issue late in the 1800s when technology allowed ships to start reaching speeds above 13 knots (24 kmph). It wasn’t until the 1950s, with faster and larger ships — and the exponential increase in demand — that the problem was recognized, though little was done.