Whales and Dolphins

About Whales and Dolphins

       A whale is any marine mammal under the order Cetacea. This word comes from the Latin cetus, meaning "large sea animal'. A cetacean is any whale, dolphin, or porpoise. Cetaceans spend their entire lives underwater, from birth to death. They are mammals, and therefore breathe air, and give birth to live babies. There are 79 known species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, ranging in size form tiny 1-meter dolphins like the Franciscana and Commerson's Dolphin, to the blue whale, whose largest baleen plates may be 1 meter long. Cetaceans vary greatly in color and build. They live in all oceans of the world.
      It is thought, from certain evidence, that whales' ancestors were four-legged creatures, something like a primitive hoofed mammal. It is estimated that whales date back as far as 60 million years; the earliest known whale fossil is 52 million years old.
     There are two main sub-orders of cetaceans: one is toothed whales, which include all dolphins and porpoises, and such smaller whales as the orca and narwhal. These animals feed on crustaceans and fish, and others have a more varied diet including seals, seabirds, and in the orca's case, sometimes other whales. It is toothed whales that are most commonly found in aquariums.
     The other sub-order, which contains all other large whales, are the baleen whales. These whales have no teeth; they have stiff baleen plates hanging from their upper jaw. Baleen works much like a strainer. When the whales feed, they swim with their mouths open, trapping the minute plankton and krill which is the main component of most baleen whales' diet. The krill are trapped in the bristles of the baleen, but the water is strained out and returned to the ocean.

The Center for Coastal Studies, the organization I am going to donate money to as part of my project, is a private, nonprofit organization located in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on the very tip of Cape Cod. At first, their small organization worked on issues such as coastal erosion, but over time, it has grown to envelope many different marine environmental issues, concentrating especially on helping marine mammals. Since 1984, the Center has rescued 55 large whales, and many dolphins and porpoises. They have also named and identified many different Humpback Whales in and around the Stellwagen Bank area (an area off the coast of Cape Cod that is home to a huge amount of sea life, including many whales.)
Visit Center for Coastal Studies website here.

Main Threats to Cetaceans

The overall population of cetaceans today is much less than it was a few centuries ago, as a result of humans. Whaling, entrapment in nets, habitat destruction, competition with humans for food, human disturbances, and marine pollution have all had their effects on whales and dolphins.
Whaling, the process of killing whales for food and other products, began hundreds of years ago, but with the invention of a harpoon that could be shot from a cannon (1864) and floating factory ships (1920s), the killing was increased worldwide. Nearly every species of large whale was hunted, almost to extinction. The Right Whale, named so because it was a slow swimmer and floated when dead, thus being the "right whale" to hunt, was hunted extensively for hundreds of years, and its population is now less then 300 and counting. A global ban against whaling was created in 1986, but hundreds of whales are still slaughtered annually, some legally, most not.
Fishing is a very important aspect of our economy, yet it is very dangerous to the lives of whales and dolphins. In addition to destroying the animal's sources of food, hundreds of thousands of cetaceans, and other marine animals, become entangled in fishing nets and drown every year. In most cases, though, simple modifications to the nets can be made to lessen the danger of entanglement. Most fisheries that kill dolphins do so accidentally, with the exception of tuna fishers, who intentionally set their nets around pods of dolphins, because they know that dolphins often swim with schools of tuna. Companies often put a 'dolphin safe' logo on their tuna products, but in many cases they are not really 'dolphin safe'.
Marine pollution is another hazard to cetaceans. A huge variety of man-made pollutants, such as sewage, toxic chemicals, and agricultural runoff enter the ocean every day. Severe accidents such as oil spills (which kill a huge number of sea animals on its own) speeds up the pollution process drastically. This pollution is extremely unhealthy to cetaceans, as well as other marine life.
Captivity- It is unarguably true that aqariums and oceanariums that contain whales, dolphins, or porpises (for the purpose of humans to stare at these trapped animals through the glass for their own pleasure) provide a great oppurtunity for people to learn about and observe these animals, something which they otherwise might not be able to do. This is especially important if these animals (many of which are already endangered) should ever need our help for survival. But the fact remains that many dolphins in captivity die prematurely, long before they reach old age. In addition to high mortality rates, keeping dolphins captive has lead to very poor reproduction rates (including many stillbirths) and to very different, aberrant behavior than is normal for a wild dolphin (want proof? click and read "The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity"). So go ahead, enjoy your trips to Sea World.

The Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises of the World (underlined name signifies a rare/endangered species)
Franciscana, Tucuxi, Short-Snouted Spinner Dolphin, Common Dolphin, Atlantic Spotted Dolphin, Pantropical Spotted Dolphin, Long-snouted Spinner Dolphin, Indus/Ganges River Dolphin, Boto, Baiji, Southern Rightwhale Dolphin, Striped Dolphin, Rough-toothed Dolphin, Atlantic Hump-backed Dolphin, Indo-Pacific Hump-backed Dolphin, Northern Rightwhale Dolphin, Bottlenose Dolphin, Commerson's Dolphin, Hector's Dolphin, Heaviside's Dolphin, Vaquita, Finless Porpoise, Black Dolphin, Harbor Porpoise, Burmeister's Porpoise, Hourglass Dolphin, Dusky Dolphins, Spectacled Porpoise, Pacific White-sided Dolphin, Peale's Dolphin, Dall's Porpoise, Atlantic White-sided Dolphin, Fraser's Dolphin, Dwarf Sperm Whale, Irrawaddy Dolphin, Melon-headed Whale, Pygmy Killer Whale, White-beaked Dolphin, Risso's Dolphin, Pygmy Sperm Whale, Lesser Beaked Whale, Hector's Beaked Whale, Andrwe's Beaked Whale, Blainville's Beaked Whale, True's Beaked Whale Sowerby's Beaked Whale, Ginkgo-toothed Beaked Whale, Stejneger's Beaked Whale, Gervais' Beaked Whale, Hubbs' Beaked Whale, Unidentified Beaked Whale, Strap-toothed Beaked Whale, Gray's Beaked Whale, Cuvier's Beaked Whale, Southern Bottlenose Beaked Whale, Longman's Beaked Whale, Northern Bottlenose Whale, Arnoux's Beaked Whale, Beluga, Narwhal, False Killer Whale, Long-finned Pilot Whale, Short-finned Pilot Whale, Pygmy Right Whale, Minke Whale, Killer Whale, Baird's Beaked Whale, Humpback Whale, Byrde's Whale, Gray Whale, Sperm Whale, Sei Whale, Northern/Southern Right Whale, Bowhead Whale, Fin Whale, Blue Whale.