Fin Whales
Beka Dunaway
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=40
Description and Ecology of Fin Whales
1. Also called the Finback whale, the Razorback, or the Common Rorqual
2. A Fin Whale is in the suborder of baleen whales, which means that it is a widely distributed order of carnivorous marine mammals
3. They are the SECOND LARGEST animal in the world, second only to blue whales!
4. Can grow to be 89.6 feet long and the average weight is 163,096 pounds. The maximin recorded weight is 2,204 pounds!
5. They have a slender body that is built like a racing yacht and they can surpass even the fastest ocean steamship, getting up to speeds of 23 mph. They are brownish-grey in color and has a prominent curved) dorsal fin located at the back of their bodies
6. Their diet consists of krill, small schooling fish (for example: herring, capelin, and sand lance), and squid. They fast all throughout the wintertime. Fin Whales have been observed circling schools of fish at incredibly high speeds, then rolling the fish into compact balls, and turning over to lay on their right side in order to eat the fish that they catch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_whale
7. Fin Whales can live 80-90 years!8. There are two named subspecies of fin whale: physalus physalus in the North Atlantic ocean and physalus quoyi in the Southern Ocean
9. Genetic Analysis is a major way to study Fin Whales at different locations to find out which groups are interbreeding and which are not. Scientists use sound as a tool to study these whales
10. Only the males produce sound (in order to find mates or mark their territory). Different packs of whales "speak a different dialect" depending on where they are from (make different sounds due to their different locations)
11. Fin Whales hum at such a low pitch that humans can not even hear them without using a hydrophone (which is an underwater microphone that picks up noise and translates it to a computer for people to decipher)
12. Fin whales are found alone most often, but groups of 3-7 whales are common. Groups of larger numbers sometimes occurs in some areas
Geographic and Population
1. There are currently believed to be less than 100,000 to roughly 119,000 Fin Whales worldwide (were almost extinct but their numbers have risen greatly in the recent past)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_whale
2. Live in deep, offshore waters of all major oceans, primarily in temperate to polar latitudes, and less commonly in the tropics
These two websites allow you to search for a particular animal and then enables you to see where they live in the world: http://iobis.org and http://www.gbif.org/species/7194022
Listing Date and Type of Listing
1. Fin Whales have been listed as “endangered” since 1970 under the precursor to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and have remained on the list of threatened and endangered species since the ESA was passed in 1973 (35 FR 8491; June 2, 1970)
2. Type of listing: endangered
Cause of Listing and Main Threats to its continued existence
1. Populations majorly depleted by modern whaling practices and hunted for oil, their meat, and baleen
3. Fin whales are still hunted in Greenland, which falls under the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) “aboriginal subsistence whaling” scheme
4. Iceland resumed commercial whaling of Fin whales in 2006 under a formal objection to the IWC’s ban on commercial whaling and Japan kills Fin whales as part of its scientific whaling program, as well as to be sold in Japanese markets for oil and meat
5. The IWC issued a moratorium on commercial hunting of this whale, but Iceland and Japan have resumed hunting
6. The main threats to Fin Whales are collisions with vessels/ships, direct harvest/hunting, and competition among them and other animals for resources, such as food, loss of prey due to climate change, and disturbance from anthropogenic noise
Recovery Plan
1. Coordinate State, Federal, and International Actions to Implement Recovery Actions and Maintain International Regulation of Whaling for Fin Whales
2. Determine Population Discreteness and Population Structure of Fin Whales
3. Develop and Apply Methods to Estimate Population Size and Monitor Trends in Abundance
4. Conduct Risk Analyses
5. Identify, Characterize, Protect, and Monitor Habitat Important to Fin Whale
http://indonesiaglory.com/all-about-fin-whale/
6. Populations in U.S. Waters and Elsewhere
7. Investigate Causes and Reduce the Frequency and Severity of Human-caused Injury and Mortality
8. Determine and Minimize Any Detrimental Effects of Anthropogenic Noise in the Oceans
9. Maximize Efforts to Acquire Scientific Information from Dead, Stranded, and Entangled or Entrapped Fin Whales
10. Develop Post-Delisting Monitoring Plan
This plan not a perfect list of ideas but instead it is used to identify actions that will minimize or hopefully eliminate the negative effects of human activities that are detrimental to the recovery of Fin Whales. Immediate objectives of this list are to identify all of the negative factors that may be stunting the abundance/recovery/productivity, and describe actions necessary for the populations increase. This plan stresses the absolute importance of a multinational approach to management and recovery. This is due to the fact that Fin Whales move across international borders that are through the oceans
What can YOU do?
1. The most important part of the recovery plan that normal, typical people can do to help these whales is to support existing studies, help initiate and support new studies that investigate population discreteness and population structure of Fin Whales using genetic analyses
2. Don’t hunt them for oil, meat, and baleen
3. Support WWF and International Whaling Commission
4. Adopt a whale
5. Join the MarineBio Conservation Society or donate monthly
