INDUSTRY
Collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear (known as bycatch), and pollution injure and kill whales. Shipping activity and oil and gas development cause noise that can disrupt or even damage whales’ hearing. Such disturbance can exclude whales from critical feeding and breeding grounds, and disrupt their migratory paths.
COMMERCIAL WHALING
CLIMATE CHANGE
Warming oceans and loss of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic can affect the habitats and food of whales. Large patches of tiny plants and animals that they feed on will likely move or change in abundance as climate change alters seawater temperature, winds and ocean currents. These changes can mean whales such as humpbacks and blues may have to migrate much further to reach feeding grounds, leaving them with less time to forage for food. The shift in food availability due to climate fluctuations has already hurt the reproductive rates of the endangered
North Atlantic right whale.
Collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear (known as bycatch), and pollution injure and kill whales. Shipping activity and oil and gas development cause noise that can disrupt or even damage whales’ hearing. Such disturbance can exclude whales from critical feeding and breeding grounds, and disrupt their migratory paths.
COMMERCIAL WHALING
- Despite a moratorium on commercial whaling and a ban on international trade of whale products, countries such as Iceland continue to hunt whales for their markets. Over 1000 whales a year are killed for such commercial purposes.
- The U.S. and other International Whaling Commission (IWC) member countries have tried for years to persuade Iceland to end its commercial whaling—which includes hunting of the endangered fin whale—as it undermines the effectiveness of IWC’s commercial whaling ban. In 2011, after pressure from WWF and others, the U.S. government officially declared Iceland in defiance of the IWC ban. Although no sanctions were implemented, the President urged Iceland to cease its commercial whaling activities. In 2013, Iceland resumed its fin whale hunt.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Warming oceans and loss of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic can affect the habitats and food of whales. Large patches of tiny plants and animals that they feed on will likely move or change in abundance as climate change alters seawater temperature, winds and ocean currents. These changes can mean whales such as humpbacks and blues may have to migrate much further to reach feeding grounds, leaving them with less time to forage for food. The shift in food availability due to climate fluctuations has already hurt the reproductive rates of the endangered
North Atlantic right whale.