Endangered Animals: Blue Whales - Research Paper Example

Endangered Animals: Blue Whales Many species of animals that were present numerously in the past years have now decreased to critical numbers. If the number of animals decreases to a predefined value then that specie of the animal is declared as endangered. Endangered animals are those that have decreased to such a value in number that there exists a danger of them to becoming extinct. There are many animals in the world that are at the verge of becoming of extinct. Animals become extinct mainly due to human activities. Other reason for animals to become extinct is the environmental changes that occur time and again. It is the duty of the humans to become responsible enough and take some serious steps towards the protection of such endangered animals (Hoare, Ben, and Tom Jackson, 37). Not only the animals living on land are facing this issue but birds as well as aquatic animals are facing this same issue. Many aquatic animals, almost 620 species of the aquatic animals are facing this issue. And amongst these species there are a few which are in severely serious conditions and only a few hundreds of these species are present in this world. One such specie is the Blue Whale. The Blue Whale is the largest animal ever known in this world. It is extremely huge. Till the 1900’s these species were highly abundant but between the period of 1900 and 1960’s hundreds of thousands of these whales were hunted by whale hunters. The numbers of these whales have now reduced to a few thousand only (Wexo, John , 100). The blue whale is the largest animal present in this world; in fact even the dinosaurs were smaller in size than these whales. The largest ever known dinosaurs weighed 90 metric tons. The whales are so huge that no adult whale has been correctly weighed up till today, the whales are cut into measurable sizes and then they are weighted, in this way only approximate values of the weight can be observed but certain amount of blood and various fluids are lost during the cutting process due to which the actual weight could never be taken. It is approximated that the weight of one adult whale is 170-190 tons with an approximate length of 89feets (Palmer, Sarah, and David Palmer, 135). Several different species of the blue whales are present in different places of the world. The blue whales are generally present in all the oceans of the world. As compared to other species of whales this blue whale is more slender as compared to the stockier whales which are present in general. The different species of the blue whales are present in different oceans of the world. Some have their habitats in the South Pacific Ocean while some of the species reside in the North Pacific Ocean, while others are found in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean as well. Therefore in general it is considered that the blue whale exists in all the oceans of the world. These blue whales although so huge and enormous feed on small creatures. Krill is the major part of the diet of any blue whale. These whales can eat up to 3600kgs of krill in a day. Seeing their huge sizes this amount of food is not that huge. The general eating method adopted by whales is that they usually move that parts of the ocean where the krill are present in large populations or groups and then gulp in a large amount of water along with which the krill also enter the mouth. The excess water that enters the mouth is expelled out of the whale through the baleen plates and then the krill are swallowed into the body. Along with the krill that is gulped inside squids and small fishes are also eaten up by the whale. The food of the whales vary from their habitat. The most abundant fish that is present in the ocean in which the whales are residing usually become the food of the whales but in general the krill is the most popular food among the blue whales (Royston, Angela, and Phillip Colla, 70-76). About the reproduction and mating process of the whales not much detail is known and their behavior during this period is also not known in detail. The mating process starts from end of autumn and ends up in the winter. The female whale usually gives birth once after every two or three years when the winter starts. The gestation period in blue whales is usually 10 to 12 months. the infants of the whale are also quiet large and weigh up to 2.5 metric tons and are approximately 7 meters in length. The infants usually drink 380-560 liters of milk in a day and almost after a period of six months the whales are weaned and up to that point of time the size of the whale is almost doubled. The whales reach the age of maturity after 10 to 11 years. At this point of time the whales have reached to huge sizes and this size usually depends on the ocean in which they are inhabited. The sizes of the whales vary from place to place. It has been generally found out that the whales can live up to 80 years of life ((Palmer, Sarah, and David Palmer, 49). The whales are such huge creatures that no natural predator is present who can hunt on these whales. The only known predator is the Orca; it does not hunt on these blue whales but can cause considerable damage to the whales. The number of deaths of these blue whales due to attacks from orca is unknown. Many of the whales have scars present on their body due to the attacks of these orca. Some whales are badly damaged and injured after they get hit by large ships and usually due to these injuries the whales can die. The major threat to these huge animals is from the human beings. The whale hunters in the earlier years did not prefer to hunt on these blue whales because of these whales are not easy to get a hand on them. These whales have high speed and great strength. But with the advancements in the hunting instruments and new techniques new advanced harpoons were developed which were specifically designed to hunt larger whales and soon the blue whales started getting hunted. Large numbers of these whales got hunted within a period of almost 60 years. After a great number of these whales were reduced actions were taken by the governmental and non-governmental bodies and a ban was put on whale hunting. After this ban it has been observed that the amount of these whales has increased by 7.3% every year. The whales are usually hunted for their meat, fat, skin and leather. The different body parts of the whales are also valuable and hence they are hunted in large amounts. The major use is the oil that is obtained from the melting of blubber. But after the ban on whale hunting the number of whales has considerably increased. Other threats to whales are from getting entangled in fishing nets (Miller-Schroeder, Patricia, 59). It is highly important that the people start taking some serious steps towards the protection and preservation of endangered animals. It is high time that the governmental and non-governmental organizations take serious steps in helping these endangered animals from becoming extinct. Elimination of any organism from the world leads to a disturbance in the entire ecosystem. References Hoare, Ben, and Tom Jackson. Endangered Animals. New York: DK Pub, 2010. Print. Wexo, John B. Endangered Animals. Mankato, Minn: Creative Education, 1990. Print. Palmer, Sarah, and David Palmer. Blue Whales. Vero Beach, Fla: Rourke Enterprises, 1989. Print. Royston, Angela, and Phillip Colla. Blue Whales. Mankato, MN: Smart Apple Media, 2004. Print. Miller-Schroeder, Patricia. Blue Whales. Austin, Tex: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1998. Print. Read More