Whales have been important to communities around the world for thousands of years. They have provided meat, fat, tools (from whale bone), leather and gut. These fabulous creatures have been (and still are), so useful that they have been over exploited and their numbers are rapidly dropping.
A recent survey showed that there are eleven species of whale around Canada but seven of these are now endangered. Similar trends have been noted in other parts of the world. Human activity is the biggest single cause of this depletion in numbers.
Commercial whaling, collision with ships and getting tangled in fishing gear kills thousands of whales every year. Their habitat is also being destroyed by pollution from chemicals and rubbish, but on a far more serious level, their whole way of communicating via sonar is being destroyed by noise pollution. These sensitive creatures use a very sophisticated language to contact each other and call their young. Modern sonar on ships and busy radio frequencies, are interfering with this.
The world's most endangered cetacean is the Chinese River Dolphin, which is also known as the baiji.
The baiji is a white, fresh water dolphin. This long nosed dolphin lives in groups of three, or four and feeds on fresh water fish. It was once revered as a Chinese River God but its number are thought to have dropped as low as 50 individuals. The only place in the world that it can be found is in the Yangtze River. The population and human activity along the Yangtze River is fast increasing and these creatures stand little chance of adapting to it, so a Baiji Sanctuary is planned in an ox bow lake next to the river in Hubei Province.
The North Atlantic Right Whale is now very precarious. It was once plentiful in North America and has been so intensely fished that its numbers have reached an all time low.
This whale is so rare that it was once thought to be extinct but it is now estimated that about 60 breeding females remain. These creatures are still being injured by fishing gear, nets, poles and ropes and are often found tangled in them, or severely injured by them. They also receive horrific injuries from collisions with ships. This is partly because they move slowly and spend a lot of time at the surface. (The very thing that made them easy to catch.)
Much is being done to ensure the safety and survival of this species but there is a long way to go.
Beluga Whales in the St. Lawrence River, in Quebec, are the most polluted creatures on earth. The bodies of dead belugas are considered to be toxic waste because they contain very high levels of PCB's and DDT.
The belugas in the St. Lawrence are a small pocket of population. The Arctic is their normal environment. The hunting of these creatures was stopped in 1979 and in 1980 restrictions were placed on PCB's a DDT that had been found in their bodies. Population was expected to grow by 3% per year but their population in the river has not changed and remains at between 1000 and 1200 individuals.
