For many years, whales, dolphins, seals, and other marine mammals have been of great interest and significance to human beings. They share various characteristics with human beings including being warm-blooded, the air breathes as well as producing milk for their offspring. Whales are divided into various species including blue whales, southern right whales, and humpback whales just to name but a few. There are bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins. The most commonly known species of seal is the Australian fur seal (Twiss and Reeves, 2009). Looking at the status of these marine mammals, they currently face a number of threats and most of these threats are due to human influence. The factors that pose threat to the existence of marine mammals include changes in climate. Climatic changes tend to influence whale species that depend on arctic waters like the bowhead whale. Other factors include exploitation of prey, chemical pollution as well as pollution by noise and disturbance. There are also factors like hunting and accidental mortalities due to fishing activities (Twiss and Reeves, 2009). Although many species of these mammals are not in extinction, most are on recovering edge due to overexploitation. According to the list provided by IUCN (2012), looking at the evaluated species of whales, 2 species are critically endangered, 7 are endangered, 5 are vulnerable, 14 are conservation dependent, and 1 is nearly threatened. The whaling industry was the most significant threat to the population of whales. According to the estimates taken by IUCN (2012): blue whales: Slightly less than 2000 in the southern hemisphere. Fin whales: 72000 initially in the southern hemisphere. Now about 20, 000. Sei whales: 300-350 in North Atlantic. Southern right: about 8000. North Pacific right: about 7000. Bowhead: about 8000. Humpback: Few populations recovering about 10-20. The rest are nearing extinction. Gray: About 25000 east north pacific. 100 in west north pacific. Bryde’s: Tens of thousands worldwide. Sperm: Serious depleted by whalers in the south pacific. Minke: 100,000 in the north Atlantic. From the population findings, the most endangered whale species are the Sperm, humpback, and blue whales because their population has serious declined and nearing extinction if drastic measures are not taken. They were also considered as most valuable by whalers due to oil. However, the Minke and Sei are much safe, as whalers considered them less valuable. Therefore, whaling should not be resumed to allow a full population recovery process for the various whale species.
References
IUCN Red List (2012) . International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 20 June 2012.
Twiss, J.R. and Reeves, R.R. (2009). Conservation and Management of Marine Mammals. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
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