As+Seas+Warm,+Whales+Face+New+Dangers

As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Danger The New York Times Accessed on October 3rd, 2017 []

Summary: Researches off of the east coast have been observing whales in the North Atlantic for many years. Lately, the number of whales spotted by said researches have been declining. This is because North Atlantic whales such as humpbacks prefer colder waters as opposed to the growing warmer water near us; this, along with the scarcity and unreliability of food, has caused these whales to move around a lot and make them hard to monitor. Alternative methods of tracking in order to monitor the whale’s health include biopsy darts and planes. Though there exist methods to track whales, whales are very difficult to research because they spend most of their time out of sight under water. Researches have been attempting to discover how salinity, plankton levels, and currents affect whale movement. In addition, these whales are being harmed by strikes with ships and other human fishing vessels. Many people claim that there is a lack of respect for whales, and that creating attachments between people and whales will help raise awareness and ultimately rehabilitate North Atlantic whales.

Relevance to Course: Environmental degradation is a common theme through this course that parallels to this article. Climate change which is often associated with greenhouse gases increases the temperatures on earth (Miller 161). These increased temperatures are affected where these North Atlantic whales can live because of their tolerance limits (Miller 90). In addition, climate change and fishing is affecting the amount of fish and plankton in these areas. The decreased amount of producers and primary consumers most drastically affects the top level consumers, like whales (Miller 97).

Opinion: I have always had a concern for the well-being of whales, in fact I even adopted a whale on the west coast in an attempt to support projects that protect these animals from human activities. I agree that there needs to be increased awareness of people of the dangers whales are going through because the more people behind this movement the bigger impact it will make. I also believe that there should be stricter regulations of fishing and pollutants that can enter the habitats of these whales because the whales have been having to tolerate habitats with wide fluctuations in food and temperature.

Law: North Atlantic whales have now been added as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. These acts suspend commercial fishing of the animals listen under them. Though these laws protect the whales from commercial fishing, they do not protect them of another very major danger to whales: ship strikes. Because of this, the Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule was enacted in order to apply limits on the size and speed of ships in areas where North Atlantic whales are found.

(This image is a picture of a North Atlantic whale suffering injuries from a propellor strike. This image is sourced from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/ole/slider_stories/2013/15_081513_right_whale_rule.html)