More on whales and dolphins

Whales, dolphins and porpoises all belong to the order Cetacea. They are mammals who give birth to live young, and produce milk to suckle them. They breathe air through a blowhole in the top of their head.

Some cetaceans have teeth and eat fish or squid, including the sperm whale, pilot whale, killer whale, dolphins and porpoises. Other cetaceans have baleen plates to filter small, shrimp-like creatures called krill. This group includes all the very large whales (excluding the sperm whale), such as the humpback, blue and minke whales.

Great whales

Here are some sizes for the species known as the great whales (1):

Species

Maximum length

Maximum weight

Blue whale

27 metres

150 tonnes

Fin whale

25 metres

80 tonnes

Bowhead whale

20 metres

80 tonnes

Sperm whale

20 metres

70 tonnes

Right whale

18 metres

56 tonnes

Sei whale

18 metres

30 tonnesm

Humpback whale

16 metres

65 tonnes

Gray whale

15 metres

34 tonnes

Byrde's whale

13 metres

26 tonnes

Minke whale

11 metres

10 tonnes

For more information about these whales, see the web sites of:

Whales in Danger Information Service
American Cetacean Society

Some amazing facts about great whales

For further interesting pieces of information, go to Whales in Danger Information Service.

Numbers of great whales

Many species of great whales were brought to the brink of extinction by hunting. In some cases they are still severely endangered, for example, the Northern right whale. The following are estimates of the population size of great whales that are still being hunted, presented by the International Whaling Commission (3):

Species

Area

Year of survey

Estimated number

Minke

Southern hemisphere

1982/3-1988/9

761,000

North Atlantic

1987-1995

149,000

North West Pacific & Okhotsk Sea

1989-1990

25,000

Fin

North Atlantic

1969-1989

47,300

Gray

Eastern North Pacific

1997/8

26,300

Bowhead

Bering/Chukchi - Beaufort Seas

1988

7,500

Humpback

Western North Atlantic

1979-1986

5,500

Southern Hemisphere

1988

10,000

Minke

Central & Eastern North Atlantic

1989

780,000



The Northern right whale is still extremely endangered even though it was protected from hunting in 1937. There are estimated to be only 325 individuals. Entanglement in fishing gear and injuries caused by ships are major dangers. For example, one individual was found with a broken jaw and a gashed flipper - she died of infected and blood clotting from these injuries. Around two-thirds of animals have scars from collisions with ships. In addition, such a small population may have more miscarriages due to inbreeding. They are in poor body condition, which may be due to reduced food supply caused by pollution or global warming (4).

Gray whales are not considered to be endangered, with an estimated population of around 26,000. However, some conservationists fear that environmental problems could affect their population. For example, a reduction of 30% in their food supply occurred from 1986-1988, which may be due to climate change. Toxic chemicals, such as PCBs, can depress immunity and fertility, in addition to deaths caused by fishing gear entanglements, boat strikes and strandings (5).

Gross cruelty to great whales

Whales have been hunted for centuries. When technology was less sophisticated, they were speared with hand held harpoons. Alaskan Eskimos traditionally used stone or ivory tipped harpoons attached to an inflated seal skin "balloon" (1). This balloon would drag behind the injured whale and tire it, so that it could more easily be dragged to land. These days the Eskimos use grenade tipped darting guns, which increase the number of whales killed and the number who escape wounded, probably to die a slow and painful death. About half the animals struck manage to escape (2).

Subsistence hunters in Greenland use guns; some whales are hit by hundreds of bullets before dying, and some escape injured. A Danish scientist who performed post-mortems on harpooned whales found many bullets in their bodies from previous attempts to kill them (6).

Primitive methods of killing whales are very cruel, and in 1997 the International Whaling Commission adopted a resolution to improve the humaneness of native killing methods.

Modern methods aren't much better. A harpoon is fired from a cannon. It is tipped with a grenade which explodes once it is embedded deep in the whale's body. For the really big whales, the grenade sent pieces of shrapnel flying through the body. However, these days minke whales are hunted for meat rather than oil, and whalers don't want pieces of shrapnel in their meat.

For some time Japan and Norway used non-exploding harpoons , which killed only 12-16% of whales instantly-the vast majority of whales suffered excruciating pain before they died. In 1981 the International Whaling Commission banned the non-exploding harpoon. These days both countries use penthrite grenades, which explode in the whale's body, but without shrapnel.

The following table from Norwegian whaling shows how many whales were killed instantly, the average survival time after being hit, and the longest survival time (7). In the 1981-1983 seasons non-exploding grenades were still used.

1981-1983
non-exploding

1984-1986
exploding

1992
exploding

1993
exploding

Killed instantly

16%

45%

50%

54%

Average time to death

11.1 min

6.6 min

3.7 min

3.5 min

Longest time to death

62 min

57 min

32 min

55 min



At the 1999 International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting it emerged that in Norwegian whaling, 40% of whales are not killed instantly, while in Japanese whaling 70% are not killed instantly (8). Whales can take up to 1 hour to die, during which time they are likely to suffer excruciating pain (7).

It is not surprising that so many whales are wounded. In a study of whales killed by the Japanese it was found that only 60% of harpoon wounds were in the front area of the body. A hit in this area produces instant or near-instant death in about two-thirds of whales, while a hit in the rear area produces instant or near-instant death in only one third of whales. However, the vital front 40% of the body is hard to hit because the harpoonist has to aim very quickly when the whale breaches (9). In this study there were 152 wounds on 127 whales, so some were hit more than once.

The Japanese method for dealing with injured whales was to winch them to the ship, and then to strike electric lances into them, with the aim of passing an electric current through the heart to produce heart failure. The current was applied for up to 8 minutes, and could cause excruciating pain due to severe muscle spasms. For 29% of injured whales a second electric shock was needed to kill them, and 5% of whales required 4 shocks (7). At the 1997 International Whaling Commission the Japanese agreed to stop using electric lances.

Until 1992, the Norwegians chased an injured whale to exhaustion, and then shot it. With this method it took a long time for the animal to die. These days the whales are winched to the boat and shot. Little research is available on the effectiveness of shooting such a large animal with 9mm bullets. In one report covering 5 whales, 1 was shot once, 2 were shot four times, 1 was shot eight times, and 1 was shot nine times before dying (7). This can hardly be called a humane death.

In addition to the whales that are killed and hauled onto ships, another 3% are hit and escape. Given the terrible wounds caused by harpoons, these whales are likely to die a slow and painful death (7).

Whaling is and always will be extremely cruel. It is irrelevant how many of a particular species there are. Whether a harpooned whale is the last of her species, or one of 100,000 the agony is the same, and is completely unjustifiable. All whaling must stop, regardless of whether it is called "scientific" or commercial or subsistence.

For letters you can write, see our Letters to write file.

If you want to find out more about whaling in the past, Australia's involvement, and the role of the International Whaling Commission, go to History of Whaling .

Small cetaceans

The commercial and aboriginal whaling discussed in the precious section applied to the so-called great whales. However, small whale species, dolphins and porpoises also suffer a number of problems. For example:

Beluga whales

Like other small whales and dolphins, beluga whales are not covered by IWC decisions. These whales are shot around the Arctic circle by subsistence hunters. However, in September 1999 the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) found out that Russia was planning to kill 200 belugas in the Okhotsk sea to sell to Japan. By the time an IFAW film crew arrived on the scene, 13 whales had already been killed. This publicity, including an article in "The Times" newspaper of London, halted the slaughter for this year (10).

Faroe Islands slaughter

In these islands north of Scotland, there is a traditional drive hunt for pilot whales. It can take place at any time of the year, whenever a pod is sighted. The whales are driven into a shallow bay with motor boats. The aim is to beach them so that they can be easily slaughtered. In 1992, 1572 pilot whales were killed in 14 separate drives (11).

In 1992 observers from the Environmental Investigation Agency filmed the extreme cruelty of this hunt (11). The animals become increasingly panic-stricken as they are driven into shallow water by the noisy boats. On this occasion, the pod of 100 whales was not beached. Instead, once in the shallows, whales had 2kg hooks (gaffs) thrust into their bodies to tow them ashore. On average, each whale was gaffed twice, but some were gaffed up to 4 times.

A 15cm knife was then used in a sawing action to cut through the blubber and flesh of the whale to the spinal cord, to sever the arteries to the brain. Some of these cuts were ineffective, and some whales were cut more than once. The shortest time from when the whale was first gaffed until it stopped moving was 1 minute, the longest 4 minutes. This is a time of excruciating pain, as the helpless and terrified animals thrash about.

No training is required for these hunts-anyone can join in. The Faroese have a high standard of living due to fish exports to Europe. They don't need whale meat. The slaughter has just become a day's entertainment, a particularly cruel blood sport.

The largest 2 supermarket chains in Germany decided not by buy fish from the Faroe Islands while the whale slaughter is allowed to continue.

If you would like to write letters of protest, go to our Letters to write file.

Dolphin and porpoise slaughter in Japan

As in the Faroe Islands, Japan kills small whales, dolphins and porpoises of many species in drive hunts. Hundreds of animals are driven into shallow bays, where they are beached and butchered. The Japanese use the dolphins for food, and claim that they compete with humans for reduced fish stocks (which are reduced by human over-fishing!). In 1988 Japan is thought to have killed 40,000 Dall's porpoises with hand harpoons (12). although the Japanese government agreed to reduce the kill to 10,000 a year, in 1995, there were still 12,396 Dall's porpoises slaughtered (13). The Japanese also kill striped dolphins and harbour porpoises (13).

On 18 October 1996 the Tokyo-based Dolphin Whale Action Network drew media attention to one slaughter, when fishermen trapped 200 bottlenose dolphins, 50 pilot whales and 50 false killer whales (pseudorcas) in Futo Bay (14).

They separated off the best "capture specimens", 75 bottlenose dolphins and over a dozen pseudorcas, and began slaughtering the rest in the nearby slaughterhouse. One observer described a pilot whale in this area "... flanked on both sides by long rows of dead whales and dolphins, powerfully thrashing on the concrete slaughterhouse floor for several minutes. As the struggling whale approached exhaustion, a fisher wielding a long fillet knife cautiously approached and decapitated the whale by repeatedly slicing its neck ".

Blood began to flow from the slaughterhouse drainpipes into the bay. Panic-stricken dolphins were swimming in the blood of their own pod, and were calling and whistling.

Buyers from the aquarium industry bought 37 dolphins for around $3000 each, and 6 pseudorcas for $5000-6000 each. The aquarium industry is closely connected with the drive hunts, and make them more profitable. Captive animals are supplied to the rest of the world from Japan.

Thanks to the media attention and the work of Japanese activists, 150 animals on this occasion were released from the bay -- usually they are all slaughtered.

Capture for entertainment

Over the years, thousands of dolphins and small whales have been captured from the wild for entertainment purposes. They suffer the stress of capture, being taken away from a close family group, and being confined in small pools to perform tricks for humans. In the ocean, these energetic animals swim many miles each day, while in a small pool they can only swim round and round.

World-wide attention focused on the capture of 5 orcas in Taiji, Japan in February 1997. One of the whales had a miscarriage in April and died in June, only 4 months after being captured. Another of the five also died in June. There is an ongoing campaign to free the 3 that are still alive (15).

The film "Free Willy" focused attention on captive orcas. Unlike in the film, the star stayed in captivity, and there were concerns about his health and well-being. A group formed to raise money to release Keiko, the "real" name of the star, and he is now in an ocean pool awaiting release.

For more information about Keiko, see news stories as they become available on the Whales in Danger Information Service web site. There are other campaigns to free orcas such as Corky and Lolita, news of which is also on the Whales in Danger web site.

Beluga whales are captured for display in entertainment centres, where they suffer many health problems, as well as behavioural deprivation. For information on belugas in north America, go to Cetacean Society International .

For more information in general about the problems of keeping cetaceans in captivity, see: Cetacean Society International

In Australia, Marineland in Adelaide and Atlantis in Perth closed down. However, Sea World on the Gold Coast still caught animals from the wild. It has a permit to keep 30 dolphins and 7 small whales. In August 1994 two female bottlenose dolphins were captured in Queensland waters. Sea World also had a permit to capture pseudorcas, but did not do so (16). In 1995 Sea World announced that it would no longer capture dolphins and whales from the wild.

Entanglements and other hazards

Hundreds of thousands of small whales have been killed in fishing nets. Purse seine fishing for tuna in the eastern Pacific was particularly destructive. Because dolphins often associated with schools of tuna, the fishermen surrounded them with their nets. In the late 1980's, around 100,000 dolphins a year were being killed, but this was reduced to 2700 by 1996 after the USA banned imports of tuna products that were not "dolphin safe" (17).

Gill nets, also called drift nets, have killed large numbers of dolphins and other animals. These nets hang vertically in the water like a wall, and are supposed to catch small sharks around the gills so that they drown. In Australia, Taiwanese fishermen were setting nets 30km long. Something like 14,000 dolphins were caught from 1981-1985. In 1986 the government set a maximum length of 2.5km for gill nets, and fewer dolphins were caught (18).

A lot of fishing net is lost each year, and continues to drift in the water, entangling many different species of marine animals. Plastic garbage is a major health hazard, and has been found in the stomachs of stranded cetaceans.

Pollution through industrial or agricultural chemicals can be particularly damaging for dolphins who live close to shore. The toxic chemicals PCB and DDT accumulate in the fatty blubber. When a female has her first baby at around age 10, a lot of the accumulated toxins will be passed to the baby through her milk. These chemicals may be enough to kill the first-born).

River dolphins depend on freshwater rivers, such as the Amazon, Ganges and Yangtze. Some populations are threatened because of habitat changes. For example, building dams on a river reduces the water flow in some seasons, and restricts the movement of fish and dolphins. In some areas, mining is causing pollution which is affecting the dolphins.

For more information about Amazon river dolphins see:

Pink Dolphin Page

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