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roam
This is a Blue Whale lunge feeding or surface feeding on Krill in Monterey Bay, California. Can you believe they can take in over 10,000 gallons of seawater in one long gulp!⠀⠀
>> Video and caption by
@slatermoorephotography
#ROAM
paulnicklen
An 80 foot long female blue whale approached me off the coast of the Azores and blew my mind. She was so massive that she seemed to go on forever. Here are some fascinating facts about blue whales: Weighing up to 340,000 pounds, they are the largest animal to have ever existed on Earth. When their mouth is agape, they hold up to 180,000 pounds of water. One source says that they can eat up to 70,000 pounds of krill a day, but I find that hard to believe. Their tongue weighs up to 6,000 pounds (twice as much as a hippo). But these next facts are truly important: Before commercial whaling, there were approximately 300,000 blue whales worldwide. The last intentional kill of a blue whale was in the mid-’70s when their population was all but wiped out due to the greed of man. Their numbers have failed to rebound, and there may be fewer than 20,000 worldwide today. There is pressure to hunt them once again. As absurd as it sounds, they killed one in Iceland this year while hunting Fin Whales, which are also threatened due to commercial whaling. I get the odd email telling me to stick to photography and keep my opinions to myself. I shoot pictures and video so that I can have an opinion and audience in the first place. It is what we do, and I will never tire of speaking up for those who do not have a voice and do not have the necessary protection.
#muchworktobedone
. Shot under permit N.O XX-ORAC-2018.
Blue whale with bubble ring
Blue whales off the California coast
Relics from a century ago, #bluewhale bones decorate the rocky shores on a remote island in the Antarctica Peninsula, a haunting reminder of the whaling years. Nearly a century ago the blue whale, the largest animal in earths history, was nearly hunted to extinction. Now, some hundred years later, the waters of Antarctica are being fished for something much smaller, Krill. These tiny shrimp are the life line to the vast majority of animals on the Antarctica peninsula. Over the years Krill have become fished heavily by man, used primarily for their high omega 3 nutrients. Its incredibly important that we make good decisions regarding these fishing guidelines internationally to ensure that the numbers are sustainable for the wild residents of Antarctica - some 11 million+ breeding pairs of penguins alone depend on krill, as well numerous species of whale and seals. Shot #onassignment for @natgeo / @sea_legacy @paulnicklen @cristinamittermeier @andy_mann @craigwelch @ianvaso @shanemoorefilms
This counts as incredible timing. Videographer on a boat off the coast of Iceland is visited by a blue whale and captures the encounter on camera. My word that thing is enormous, look at its size compared to the waves! Also...note how blue the water is while we’re at it.
Ocean Giants - Blue whale's heart
Blue whales are the largest mammals on this planet and these gentle giants are the apex predators of the oceans. The largest documented blue whale was a staggering 190 metric tonnes (418,000 pounds) in weight and was 98 feet (30 metres) long. A mammal of such gigantic size requires a massive heart in proportion to its body size. The blue whale's heart weighs 400 pounds (181 kilograms) and pumps 60 gallons (227 litres) of blood with each heart beat. The heart is comparable in size to a small car about 5 feet (1.5 metres) long. An online video (see, http://bit.ly/1FaOdqA) shows the ongoing preservation of a blue whale's heart.
The heart in the video was extracted in May of last year from a dead blue whale carcass that floated ashore into the beach of Newfoundland, Canada. The heart was sent to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) after Jacqueline Miller, a mammalogy technician from the ROM and her team helped with the extraction of the heart. Miller described how four members of her team managed "to push the heart through a hole that we had carved into the chest cavity."
After the heart was extracted, it was frozen in an ice chamber for about a year. Last August, ROM researchers decided to preserve the heart for permanent display. The preserving procedure began by thawing the heart after taking it out from its icy chambers. The heart took five days to thaw completely; after that Miller's team poured 1,000 gallons (3,785 litres) of formaldehyde throughout the heart and closed all the arteries. The heart was kept in the formaldehyde chamber for a week, then it was taken out for acetone dehydration, and finally filled with silicone. Once the silicone hardens the permanent preservation process will be completed. Afterwards the heart will be housed at ROM for public display alongside the whale skeleton.
Usually when a whale dies its body sinks to the seafloor where it is then scavenged upon by other ocean creatures. But when this carcass swam ashore, scientists got a rare opportunity to study the blue whale anatomy in vivid details. Now by preserving the heart, Miller and her colleagues have given everyone a chance to see the powerful heart of a majestic creation of nature - the blue whale.
--RB.
Further information: http://bit.ly/1iIHrhK http://bit.ly/1Vd7M3f http://bit.ly/1aNeDtr Whale food 'krill': http://bit.ly/1NPstSd Image: http://bit.ly/1Q67NVG http://bit.ly/1QnWabk
Blue whale beached on Indian shore
In a heart rending incident, a female blue whale was found stranded on the Revdanda coast, 17 km south of Alibaug, Maharashtra on the afternoon of June 24th. She was 42 feet long and was alive when she beached. Forest department employees and villagers tried to push her back into the water but without success, and ultimately after 10 hours of struggle she succumbed around 0400 hrs IST.
A blue whale is a rare sight along the Arabian sea coasts as they are usually found in the open waters of the Indian ocean. However, this year marine biologists from the Cetacean Population Study have reported sightings of live blue whales along the Arabian sea's Konkan coastline near Maharashtra state. N. Vasudevan, chief conservator, (Maharashtra State Mangrove Forests, Govt. of India), stated that such standings of marine mammals are on the rise. Increasing pollution levels, ocean acidification, and large scale marine die-offs are forcing whales to venture greater distances in search of food, and more of them are getting stranded in shallow water all over the world.
--RB
Further information: http://bit.ly/1LJK2Ac http://bit.ly/1GNrcap Image: http://bit.ly/1fJblkm http://bit.ly/1LtQFJ9
