Ocean of Hope

Category: Marine Mammals

The 200 year old Bowhead Whale: the Oldest Mammal on Earth

Marine Mammals, Whales
Greenland right whale
The 200 year old Bowhead Whale

I am a bowhead whale. I just celebrated my 200th birthday this year. That makes me the oldest living mammal on the planet! Sure, trees can live thousands of years, and the oldest living tree on earth is a bristlecone pine who is 4,841 years old, but look at me, I am twice as old as a tortoise!

To give you perspective, the year I was born was 1812. That year is known for the War of 1812, and it was when Francis Scott Key wrote the United States’ national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. Also, you may think of Tchaikovsky’s famous 1812 Overture.

The most amazing aspect of my life is that I avoided being hunted and killed by any whaling boats. Most of my friends were not as lucky as me. I chalk it up to a sixth sense of knowing when humans are around and avoiding them. Thank goodness bowhead whales were banned from commercial whaling in 1943.

We are also known as Greenland right whales. We can reach lengths of 60 feet (18m) and weigh over 100 tons (89 metric tons). Bowhead whales can live so long because we live in the icy Arctic. One explanation for my longevity is having a core body temperature lower than those animals living in warmer oceans.

Whaling is now low on my list of worries, and ocean pollution is now at the top. Food tastes different now because of all the tiny plastic bits that my food, the microscopic-sized plankton, ingests. Plastic is everywhere in the ocean, and all ocean life is affected by it. See Alby the Albatross’ post for more on plastic ocean pollution.

For more on how humans figured out how old I am, click here

UPDATE: Scientists have found a 507 year old clam named Ming!

My Unforgettable Moment with Mae, the Sea Otter Surrogate Mom from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Marine Mammals, Sea Otters
Mae, southern sea otter mother
Mae, Surrogate Sea Otter Mom from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I am very sad to hear of the passing of Mae on November 17, 2012. Mae was one of southern sea otters in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Exhibit. I first met Mae 11 years ago when she was named “199.” She did not have a “real” name yet, because the hope was that she would someday be released back into the wild. Mae was picked up as a 2 day old orphan from Santa Cruz, California.

I still remember the dark and foggy Monterey night on my volunteer swing shift when I held Mae in the palm of my hand. She was only days old, and probably only weighed a few pounds. My hands are petite sized, so she really was tiny!

I had made her “clamshake” formula earlier, and I fed it to her in a warmed human baby’s bottle. I supported the back of her head with one hand while I held the bottle to her mouth with the other hand. Mae guzzled the formula down quickly, and the white formula dribbled down from her mouth and onto her soft brown fur. Sea otter fur is so soft and dense (up to 1,000,000 hairs per square inch versus 100,000 hairs on a human’s entire head!) because the water in which they live is so cold (around 50 degrees Fahrenheit year round).

I placed Mae in the water trough next to her haul out, and cleaned her fur the best I could through my disposable latex rubber gloves. Sea otter pups cannot sink, so there was no fear of me letting go and her falling to the bottom of the tank. I dried her with bath towels, and groomed her with brushes or combs. I forgot why I picked her up, but as I held her, she nuzzled her tiny muzzle into my hand. In that moment, I knew that the hundreds of smelly tanks I had cleaned as a volunteer was worth it!

Peering through my dark welder’s mask, I could barely make out the black eyes and nose that a sea otter has. Human caregivers in the Sea Otter Research and Conservation Program, or SORAC, wear welder’s masks so the pups can’t make eye contact, and wear a large black poncho to disguise their human shape. The idea is to keep sea otter pups from bonding too strongly to humans, and stop them from interacting with humans when released back into the wild. Now the sea otters themselves are the surrogate mothers!

Mae was the first sea otter to raise a previously orphaned pup on exhibit. “207,” later named Toola, was the first sea otter surrogate mom in SORAC’s history. Her first surrogate pup, “217” is still alive in the wild, and he is even a territorial male! Talk about a second chance at life!

Holding Mae in the palm of my hand, I had never felt so close to any animal before. This tiny and frail sea otter needed me at that moment as much as I needed her. It was proof to me that all beings on the planet (furred, scaled, or human) are invariably connected whether we acknowledge it or not. I do not know how long that moment lasted, but it is etched in my memory for a lifetime.

For more on Mae, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Blog

For more about sea otters, check out my post, 10 Amazing Facts About Sea Otters

Willow, the All-White Humpback Whale Found Off of Norway

Marine Mammals, Whales
all white humpback whale
Willow the White Humpback Whale found off of Norway (photo by Dan Fisher)

While it is nice to get some attention for being an all-white humpback whale, I wanted to clear a few things up. First of all, I am not Moby Dick! Moby Dick was a sperm whale, and a fictional one at that, created from the imagination of author Herman Melville. The only thing I have in common with sperm whales is that we are both whales.
Whales are mammals (not fish), and as such, we have the following 5 characteristics:

1. Breathe air
2. Give birth to live young
3. Young drink milk from mom
4. Have hair (yes we whales have hair, but the hairs are really small)
5. Are warm-blooded

Sperm whales are toothed whales that hunt large prey, while I am a baleen whale that “hunts” very small prey called plankton. Other toothed whales include orcas (killer whales), and dolphins (all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins!). Other baleen whales include the blue whale (the largest animal to ever live on planet earth), and the minke whale.

While white humpback whales such as myself are rare, there is one off of Australia named Migaloo, who is quite famous. He has been seen by humans off and on for two decades. He even has a lesser seen pal named Bahloo who is all-white, except for some black spots on his head and tail. I will never meet those two as we live in completely different oceans.

Like Bahloo, I have black on the undersides of my fluke (tail). That means that I am not an albino, but rather hypo-pigmented or possibly leucistic. True albinos are completely white, and have pink or red eyes.

If you are ever so lucky to spot me, I hope you will follow the guidelines the Australian government has made for Migaloo so he does not become harassed: vessels must stay at least 500 meters away, and airplanes can fly no lower than 2000 feet. The fine for harassment of Migaloo is $16,500.

UPDATE: There have been reports of an all white humpback whale calf seen off of Queensland, Australia. Wildlife Extra reports that white killer whales (orcas) have been spotted off of Alaska and Russia (it could be the same animal), white right whale calves have been spotted off of Southern Australia, and an albino dolphin has been spotted off of Louisiana, USA. An albino Risso’s dolphin was seen off of Monterey, California June 2017.

Polar Bears and Climate Change: Hear from a Polar Bear!

Marine Mammals, Polar Bears
”polar
I’m the poster animal for climate change!

How Climate Change Affects Polar Bears

Hello, my name is Ursula. I am a polar bear. While it is flattering to be the poster “animal” for climate change, it just plain sucks to be a polar bear in this day and age. Don’t get me wrong, as I am very grateful to be alive. But life has gotten so much harder than when I was a cub. I was one of three triplets for goodness sakes! Food and mom’s milk was plentiful, and we cubs had plenty of time to play wrestle. When I give birth now, I am lucky if even one of my cubs survives.

The smell of change is in the air. There used to be a clean and cool scent that permeated the Arctic air. I especially liked it when that smell included the faint whiff of newborn seals! Now I sense restlessness, and the air smells foul, which hampers the scent of my prey.

How can humans doubt that climate change is happening right under their noses…oh wait, humans have a poor sense of smell compared to me, that must be why they don’t get it! In any case, climate change affects my every waking moment when the ice is around. Sea ice melts seasonally, but the ice season is much shorter now due to the environment warming. Sometimes the ice is gone before the newborn seal pups are born. Not good for them, and especially not for my tummy!

I love to swim, which is why I am a marine mammal. While I can swim for hours (up to 61 miles/100km), I would prefer not to! It would be nice to have the ice platforms closer together. Then I can conserve my precious energy hunting the fewer seals left! There are fewer seals not just because the ice is melting earlier in the season, but also because humans are overfishing many of the fish the seals eat.

Also see How Seals are Affected by Climate Change
and How Sea Otters Fight Climate Change

For more on climate change and polar bears, visit National Wildlife Federation

Meet Migaloo, the All-White Humpback Whale of Australia

Marine Mammals, Whales
The white (not albino) humpack whale of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia
Migaloo, the all-white humpback whale

Hi, my name is Migaloo. I am the famous all-white humpback whale that lives off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. My name is an aboriginal term meaning “white fellow.” I have been called an albino, but what I really am is “hypo-pigmented.” That means that I have low (hypo) levels of pigments. True albinos have genetic mutations that cause melanin to be produced in very low quantities, or not at all, and have pink or red eyes. Melanin is what causes human skin to tan. My buddy, Bahloo is also all-white, but he has black spots on his head and tail. That’s one reason why humans have chosen to call me “all-white” instead of albino.

Those terms don’t matter to me as I’m just like any other humpback whale! I still have to migrate to the Antarctic in the summer to feast on krill, and then make my way back to Eastern Australia. There we mate, and if female, give birth. Females’ calves are 14 foot (4.3m) long and weigh 2.5 tons (2.3 tonnes) at birth! No wonder their pregnancies last up to a year! They want to give birth in warm tropical waters, and they mate every year. That is why we go to the trouble of migrating every year! Otherwise with my thick layer of blubber, I could stand being in the frigid Antarctic waters all year long.

If you should ever be so lucky as to spot me, please e-mail my human friends at the Pacific Whale Foundation, migaloowhale.org or The White Whale Research Centre in Australia. Also, I hope you are with a responsible whale watching boat or airplane operator, as the Australian government has specific guidelines to prevent humans from harassing me (thank you!): vessels must stay at least 500 meters away, airplanes can fly no lower than 2000 feet near me, and the fine for harassment is $16,500. It’s okay if I approach you though!

UPDATE: In November of 2012, an all-white humpback whale named Willow was photographed off of Norway. There have been reports of an all white humpback whale calf seen off of Queensland, Australia. Wildlife Extra reports that white killer whales (orcas) have been spotted off of Alaska and Russia (it could be the same animal), white right whale calves have been spotted off of of Southern Australia, and a pink albino dolphin has been spotted in a lake in Louisiana, USA. In June 2017 an albino Risso’s dolphin was seen off of Monterey, California USA.