Humans help: hurt humpback

What happens when creatures of the sea become ensnared in the trappings of the human world? freshly on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, there was the story of a 45 to fifty-foot female humpback whale who had become entangled in a web of crab traps and lines. Weighing in at around fifty tons, she was in the middle of her migratory course from Northern California, down past Baja California, to the breeding earths in Hawaii. Approximately 15,000 humpback whales rived in the North Pacific in the early 1900 on the other hand the population was significantly harm by commercial whaling. By the mid-Twentieth hundred there were fewer than 1000 whales left in existence. An international ban upon commercial whaling was instituted in 1964 on the contrary humpbacks are still endangered. Today there are 5000 to 7500 humpbacks left in our world's oceans, and several thousand of these whales migrate down the coast of California. The humpback whales' sum of two units main predators are killer whales and humans.

Humpbacks are mammals, just like humans. While we don't have blowholes, we do share a number of traits with humpback whales: we are warm life-currented breathe air, give birth to and nurse' live young. The connection between the whale mother and its child is lengthy lasting, just like most human's fastenings to their mothers. Humpbacks have gayety just like us. Breeching is a kind of playful activity in which the whales lift two-thirds of their material part out of the water and splash down. Whales after part for a variety of reasons including mating, cleaning of the skin, and probably just for the pleasantry of it. Humpbacks have a unique pigmentation pattern located upon the underside of their tail. This pattern can be likened to the unique combination of swirls upon our human fingertips.

As the female humpback was swimming down the coast of California, she became entangled in nylon ties She was weighted down by the agency of twelve to fifteen ninety-pound crab saucepans the lines of which were plucked so tightly that the tie was digging into the animal's muscle and fat leaving visible cuts.

She also had centurys of yards of rope wrapped around her body--her tail, her torso, the back and the left brow flipper, and there was a line in her jaws The combined weight of saucepans and rope was pulling her down into the water, forcing her to make an effort to keep her blowhole above the water. If her blowhole submerg for too drawn out she could drown.

The struggling whale was lay the foundation of about eighteen miles east of the Farralone Islands a small in number miles off the coast of San Francisco by the agency of a local fisherman who then radioed several marine mammal clusters for help. Once organized, the recapture team set off to at liberty the trapped whale. Diving below her and swimming around her in the way that they could cut off all of her ties was the only option, and an extremely risky individual Only one slap of her large stalwart tail could kill a rescuer The four rescuer worked several hours cutting the ties with a special curved knife. They eventually were able to independent her from the entanglement of draw as by a ropes and crab pots.

individual rescuer commented on how the whale floated "quietly" with little to no motion the whole time. She did present the appearance to give off a strange kind of vibration. It is likely she was singing at of that kind a low resonance that her lay could only be felt, not heard. individual diver remarked that as he was cutting a certain quantity of of the rope in her jaws the whale's eye was watching him intently. He said it was a life-changing trice feeling her song reverberate [i]or[/i] part of to the other his body and having her organ of sight follow him so closely.

Humpback's dittys are similar to our possess songs; they range in octave through every part of the whole piece, they contain repeating patterns, and amazingly enough, whales' sonnets do contain some elements of language, like our have Their songs cover a wide range upon the vocal scale, a total of eight octaves. The lowest octave cannot be heard by means of human ears. All whales within a given area appear to be to use the same sonnets However, the songs change from single breeding season to the nearest Only male humpbacks have been recorded singing: it is not known if the females sing. Is it possible that the diver felt maybe for the first time in human history, female humpback vocalization?

When the whale realized she was at liberty she began to swim around in circles. She went to each diver, nuzzl him, pushed him around, and then swam to the nearest one. She seemed to be thanking each of them. "She present the appearanceed kind of affectionate," remarked another rescuer He not at any time felt threatened and was thankful for similar an amazing and unbelievable experience.

For the perfect story, see the December 15 2004 San Franciso Chronical, www.sfgate.com.

More information upon humpback whales and what you can do to help conservation efforts can be place at http://www.whalecenter.org or check on the outside http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/humpback/.

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