As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Dangers

Kunzang Namgyal

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology- EF even

2 October 2017

Weintraub, Karen. “As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Dangers.” The New York Times, 2 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/science/humpbacks-right-whales.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront.

“As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Dangers”

By Karen Weintraub

I chose to review the article “As Seas Warm, Whales Face New Dangers” by Karen Weintraub. In the article Weintraub addresses the new issue regarding north atlantic humpback whales and right whales, their recent unusually high mortality rates. In the past 6 months, 15 North Atlantic right whales have died, which has reduced their population to a dwindling number below 450; and in the past 19 months, 53 humpback whales have been killed after colliding with boats or fishing gear. If these high mortality rates continue, whales may become endangered one day in the near future. In fact, Scott Kraus, the vice president and chief scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium went as far as to say that “We haven’t seen this level of mortality in right whales since we stopped whaling them” in coastal New England in the 1700s. Researchers became alarmed with these high mortality rates because something had to be causing the sudden and drastic spike. Researchers have attributed it to the rising water temperatures of the Gulf of Maine. As the water temperatures rise, the whales’ food sources have begun to migrate and so the whales follow, as Dr. Krauss stated that with the rising water temperatures, “Food is becoming more patchy and less reliable, so animals are moving around more,”. The new migration pattern of whales has led to many of their deaths because they are in more danger of colliding with ships or becoming entangled in fishing gear, in fact, half of the deaths for humpback whales are caused by ship strikes. Researchers have noted the change in migration of whales by keeping track of specific whales. They can identify the whales in two ways, which vary depending on the whale type. Humpback whales can be identified by the fluke pattern on their tail tails, which is a unique pattern of speckles, lines, and dots on their tails and right whales can be tracked by their callosity, which is the roughened skin on the top of their heads.

Many researchers of ocean life are concerned by the recent mortality rates of the whales. For those who are active members of the whale watching community, there is an online public catalog of humpback whale sightings, and people who post images of a specific whale then receive email notifications when that whale has been spotted again, and when a whale that you have been tracking ends up in an entanglement, you care. As a user of the sight, Ted Cheeseman, puts its, “People react very differently when it’s ‘my’ whale [involved in an entanglement]”. Many of you may still not find a connection with this article, for those of us who are not avid whale lovers, this article is still relevant to us because if the food source of the whales is moving due to rising water temperatures, what is happening to other animals and their food sources? The rising temperature has to affect more than just the whales, it must be affecting every creature in the ocean. And if you’re concerned neither with the unusually high mortality rate of whales nor with the other creatures in the ocean, perhaps you are a ship owner, whose ship now has a larger chance of hitting a whale due to their new migration patterns. Most collisions with whales lead to very costly ship repairments (as well as the injury or death for the whale).

Overall, I believe that this article was well-written and well-researched. The author quoted many credible sources including Scott Kraus, the vice president and chief scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, Dan Dento, the president and chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Peter Stevick, a senior scientist with the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog. I do wish that Weintraub had gone into the food source of the whales and describe details pertaining to what whales eat and where exactly their food sources are migrating to. Also, at one point in the article she sounded very doubtful and unreliable when she stated that “It’s not even clear how right whales find their food. Christy Hudak, a research associate at the center, said she thinks the whales probably use a combination of senses”. The unclarity she addresses and the use of the word “thinks” makes the reader question Weintraub’s authority on the subject at hand. Weintraub also could have tried to emphasize the relevance of the article to an audience past the whale-loving community, I believe that she should have brought up the effects that the rising water temperatures could be having on other animals.