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At least we know the ocean is not empty yet...

krylon 8y ago
I have been browsing through Wikipedia articles on various types of whales recently, and I was pleasantly surprised how much some whale populations have recovered since most of the world stopped hunting them. The conservation status of humpback whales is LC ("Least concern"), gray whales, too. It's not all good, far from it, but it is nice to know that collectively, we manage to not mess up everything we touch every once in a while.
- simmanian 8y ago
  I've heard that much of the recent rise in some whale populations can be attributed to the climate change [1]. Apparently, whales are finding it easier to find food with the polar ice retreating. But, since Krill are vulnerable to acidification and dependent on sea ice, we don't know if the trend will continue. [1] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/some-whales-are-liking-climate-change-not-being-hunted/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/some-whales-are-...
- trumped 8y ago
  I'm glad that Wikipedia agrees. But yeah, if you can catch 200 whales, there is probably at least a few multiples of that left...
  - krylon 8y ago
    Just to be clear, some whales only recover very slowly. The blue whale is still considered Endangered, or the North Atlantic Right Whale (many more, probably - I am not a whale expert, just an enthusiastic Wikipedia reader). And while they are slowly recovering, we are still changing their habitat (climate change, noise pollution, etc., being run over by large ships is a common cause of death for large whales) in ways that make it harder for them to recover. But the situation is not totally hopeless, which at least feels like a large improvement from the depressing atmosphere I grew up in.
- pvaldes 8y ago
  Only some whales are recovered. Lets not forget that other went extinct "yesterday", and some big whales didn't recover after fourty years of work. Is not so simple.
  - krylon 8y ago
    Unfortunately, you are right. I did not mean to imply that everything is fine for the whales. Some species recover much more quickly than others, and in the mean time, we continue to mess up their environment, be it by overfishing, global warming, noise pollution (or just plain old pollution) or ships running over whales like cars run over rabbits. All I meant to say was that at least some species have recovered rather impressively under these conditions. Which is far from perfect. But imagine mankind had just continued hunting whales on the scale that was common sixty or seventy years ago - there probably would not be enough whales around today for Japan to kill 177 of them.

I have been browsing through Wikipedia articles on various types of whales recently, and I was pleasantly surprised how much some whale populations have recovered since most of the world stopped hunting them. The conservation status of humpback whales is LC ("Least concern"), gray whales, too. It's not all good, far from it, but it is nice to know that collectively, we manage to not mess up everything we touch every once in a while.

simmanian 8y ago
I've heard that much of the recent rise in some whale populations can be attributed to the climate change [1]. Apparently, whales are finding it easier to find food with the polar ice retreating. But, since Krill are vulnerable to acidification and dependent on sea ice, we don't know if the trend will continue. [1] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/some-whales-are-liking-climate-change-not-being-hunted/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/some-whales-are-...
trumped 8y ago
I'm glad that Wikipedia agrees. But yeah, if you can catch 200 whales, there is probably at least a few multiples of that left...
- krylon 8y ago
  Just to be clear, some whales only recover very slowly. The blue whale is still considered Endangered, or the North Atlantic Right Whale (many more, probably - I am not a whale expert, just an enthusiastic Wikipedia reader). And while they are slowly recovering, we are still changing their habitat (climate change, noise pollution, etc., being run over by large ships is a common cause of death for large whales) in ways that make it harder for them to recover. But the situation is not totally hopeless, which at least feels like a large improvement from the depressing atmosphere I grew up in.
pvaldes 8y ago
Only some whales are recovered. Lets not forget that other went extinct "yesterday", and some big whales didn't recover after fourty years of work. Is not so simple.
- krylon 8y ago
  Unfortunately, you are right. I did not mean to imply that everything is fine for the whales. Some species recover much more quickly than others, and in the mean time, we continue to mess up their environment, be it by overfishing, global warming, noise pollution (or just plain old pollution) or ships running over whales like cars run over rabbits. All I meant to say was that at least some species have recovered rather impressively under these conditions. Which is far from perfect. But imagine mankind had just continued hunting whales on the scale that was common sixty or seventy years ago - there probably would not be enough whales around today for Japan to kill 177 of them.