How to save the whale

Whale extinction avoided – for now…
It may be the flash of a tail, a plume of vapour or, if you’re lucky, the large body breaching the surface.
Anybody who’s ever seen a whale can tell you it’s associate haunting expertise.
And we’re determined to form certain it’s associate expertise future generations will get pleasure from.
What’s at stake?
The whale is one amongst Earth’s most luxurious creatures.
But over the last 2 centuries, they were afraid remorselessly for his or her meat and oil.
By the flip of the ’80s, rampant, uncontrolled whaling had pushed many species to the purpose of extinction.
The world’s nice whales, as well as blue, fin, sei and humpback whales, had been almost totally wiped out.
WWF Founder Sir Peter Scott made up our minds that the mass extinction had to prevent.
The story so far
Generated and
the achievement of effective conservation results.
It eventually semiconductor diode to a world moratorium on business whaling, that came into impact in 1986.
But though there's a ban on business whaling, some governments have bent the foundations by killing whales for “scientific research” – with the meat from these “scientific” catches going
straight to the supermarket.

Around 1,000 whales area unit killed for “scientific research” annually.
We powerfully oppose this, and area unit fighting to assist destroyed whale populations to recover.
Virtually the whole of the Southern Ocean – a vital whale habitat – was declared a whale sanctuary in 1994, thanks to the lobbying efforts of WWF and many other organizations.
Today, the Southern Ocean sanctuary links to a different whale sanctuary within the Indian Ocean.
However, a lot of work remains required to limit on unmanaged “scientific” whaling that still happens within the Southern Ocean Sanctuary.
In the late Nineteen Nineties we tend to helped persuade the governments of France, Italia and Monaco to form the Ligurian whale sanctuary.
It covers eighty,000 sq klick between the coasts of northern Corsica, northwest Italy and southwest France.
Did you know?
Blue whales area unit the biggest famed animal ever to own lived on Earth, reaching around 30m in length and weighing up to 180 tonnes.
A blue whale’s heart is that the size of a Volkswagen Beetle automobile.
They eat little shrimp-like creatures referred to as malacostracan crustacean – up to forty million of them a day!
Facts and stats
Around 35,000 – whales killed since the 1986 international moratorium on business whaling came into impact.
130 – variety of western Pacific Ocean grey whales alive.
Only around thirty area unit females of breeding age, creating this one amongst the world’s most vulnerable whale species.
330,000 – blue whales killed within the Southern Ocean before the ban on business whaling.
Today, there area unit thought to be solely two,300 blue whales left in the whole Southern Hemisphere.
What next?
Today, some nice whale populations area unit ill , particularly the humpback.
But half-dozen of the thirteen nice whale species as well as the huge Balaenoptera musculus area unit still classed as vulnerable or vulnerable.
Whaling isn’t the sole threat they face: different dangers embody obtaining entangled in rig or hit by ships, pollution, overfishing depleting their food sources, being bombarded by noisy activities
such as oil and gas exploration and development.
The impact of temperature change on whales and their habitats is complicated too, and not nonetheless absolutely understood.
We’re operating at the side of partners to deal with these threats during a variety of ways:
In Chile, we’re operating with the govt., communities and the salmon fishing industry to protect an important nursing and feeding ground for blue whales.
In Canada, we tend to helped modification a shipping lane within the Bay of Fundy to shield critically vulnerable North Atlantic right whales from collisions with vessels.
In Russia, we’ve worked with partners to induce associate pipeline rerouted faraway from the feeding space of western grey whales.
But oil and gas comes square measure increasing during this fragile space, so there’s much more to do if this critically endangered whale is to have a realistic chance of survival.

But there’s a long way still to go.