About Whales

Some whales are the largest living creatures ever to exist. They can grow bigger than the biggest dinosaur. An elephant could sit on a blue whales tongue. It's heart is the size of a small car! A blue whale can be over 30 metres long and weighs over 150 tons. A baby blue whale is 7 metres long at birth, weighs around 3 tons, drinks 400 litres of its mother's milk every day, and gains weight at 4.5 kilos per hour!

Whales are not fish, they are warm-blooded mammals that breathe air and nurse their young with mother's milk. Whales must come to the surface to breathe. When they breathe out the warm air sometimes forms a cloud called the whales 'spout' or 'blow'. Just like when you breathe out on a cold day. This is how people can spot whales from far away at sea.

About 50 million years ago the ancestors of whales were small, furry creatures that lived on land. But slowly over millions of years these creatures changed or evolved into animals that spent more and more time in water. Their front legs became flippers and their fur was replaced by a thick layer of fat called blubber to keep out the cold. Eventually, they lost their back legs, as their tail became bigger and stronger for powerful swimming. Gradually their nose moved to the top of their heads so that they could breathe and swim at the same time.

Whales have large complex brains and many scientists think they are very intelligent. Whales produce many sounds and can talk over great distances to one another. Male humpback whales 'sing' when they are courting females. Their songs have been recorded and were sent into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. Some songs have even been made into best-selling hit records!

There are about 80 different kinds or species of whales and dolphins. Whales are divided into two groups: those with teeth and those without. Baleen whales, like the blue and humpback whales, are very big and have large plates which hang down from their upper jaws instead of teeth. These plates are called baleen and they are made out of a tough material like your fingernails called keratin. Baleen is used to sieve food from the water.

The whales will swim along and take a huge mouthful of water full of tiny shrimps called krill. Closing their mouths the whales push the water out with their tongues, through the baleen plates, trapping the shrimps inside. Up to a ton of shrimps is then swallowed in one great big gulp!

The other group of whales has teeth instead of baleen. The largest is the sperm whale that can grow up to 20 metres long. Sperm whales have the largest brain ever evolved. They eat squid that they catch way down in the ocean depths. Sperm whales can dive up to a mile below the ocean surface and can hold their breath for up to an hour! You may have read the famous book about a white sperm whale called 'Moby Dick'. Most toothed whales though are very much smaller than sperm whales; these are the dolphins and porpoises.

About Whaling.........

For hundreds of years people hunted whales for their oil to fuel lamps and candles, to lubricate machinery and to make margarine, lipsticks and other products. Even the baleen was used to make things like tennis racquets and women's corsets. But today whale products are not needed to make these things and the killing of whales is unnecessary. Unfortunately, some people eat whale meat even though they eat other farmed animals like pigs and sheep.

In the old days of whaling, the sailors hunted whales from sail ships and rowing boats. They chased the whales and threw hand-thrown spears called harpoons at them. But during the last century, steam powered ships replaced the old sailing boats. They could sail all over the world, even to the north and south poles, and kill whales in vast numbers. Now the whalers could catch the fastest whales. An exploding harpoon was invented that could kill the largest whales. Many whales were killed in this way and some species have become very rare. Not long ago it seemed that the whales would disappear altogether and become extinct!

In 1946, the whalers decided to try and stop the whales going extinct. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was formed but this just made things worse! The IWC was made up of whaling countries and more and more whales were killed. Soon so few whales of some species were left that it was no longer worth trying to find and kill them.

Today, many countries have given up whaling, including the United Kingdom. People became so concerned about how the whales were suffering and dying out that they wrote letters and signed petitions calling for all whaling to stop. Because of this, in 1982 the majority of IWC member countries voted to stop killing whales for profit. Even today, no one really knows how many whales are left out. Unfortunately some countries like Japan and Norway have refused to stop whaling. They still kill hundreds of whales each year.

Japan says it is killing whales for 'scientific research' to discover how many whales are left and if their numbers are growing or not. However, many countries disagree and say Japan can find out this information without killing more whales. Unfortunately whale meat from 'research' is sold to expensive restaurants in Japan and killing whales makes lots of money.

Norway hunts minke whales for profit. They want to sell the meat to Japan so they can make much more money. Fishermen say that whales and seals are eating too much fish but this is not true. It is fishermen that are catching too many fish!

Campaign Whale:

• Campaigns to save the whales, dolphins and porpoises.
• Campaign whale aims to stop all commercial whaling.
• Campaign Whale wants to stop the pollution that poisons the seas and is a danger to whales and other sea life.

How you can help save the whales:

Some people want to let Japan and Norway hunt whales off their coasts because they refuse to stop whaling anyway. Campaign Whale believes whaling is cruel and should be banned forever. Please write a letter, or send a picture or poem, to the Norwegian and Japanese Ambassadors in London saying that killing whales is cruel and asking them to please stop whaling:

Please also write to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and ask him to help stop whaling: