Whales are the largest animals that have ever lived on our planet. Moreover, these are not just large animals - in size, large whales surpass land mammals by almost an order of magnitude - one whale is approximately equivalent in mass to 30 elephants. Therefore, it is not surprising that the attention that people from ancient times have paid to these giant inhabitants of water spaces. Whales are mentioned in myths and tales, in the Bible and dozens of other books. Some whales have become famous film actors, and it is difficult to imagine a cartoon about various animals without a whale.
Not all whales are gigantic. Some species are quite comparable in size to humans. Cetaceans are quite diverse in habitat, food types and habits. But in general, their common feature is a sufficiently high rationality. Both in the wild and in captivity, cetaceans demonstrate good learning ability, although, of course, the widespread belief at the end of the 20th century that dolphins and whales can almost be equated with humans in intelligence is far from the truth.
Because of their size, whales have been coveted hunting prey for almost the entire history of mankind. This almost wiped them off the face of the Earth - whaling was very profitable, and in the twentieth century it also became almost safe. Fortunately, people managed to stop in time. And now the number of whales, although slowly (whales have a very low fertility), is regularly growing.
1. The association that arises in our minds when the word "whale" usually refers to a blue, or blue whale. Its huge elongated body with a large head and a wide lower jaw weighs an average of 120 tons with a length of 25 meters. The largest recorded dimensions are 33 meters and over 150 tons of weight. The heart of a blue whale weighs a ton, and the tongue weighs 4 tons. The mouth of a 30-meter whale contains 32 cubic meters of water. During the day, the blue whale eats 6 - 8 tons of krill - small crustaceans. However, he is not able to absorb large food - the diameter of his pharynx is only 10 centimeters. When the catch of the blue whale was allowed (since the 1970s, hunting has been banned), 27-30 tons of fat and 60-65 tons of meat were obtained from one 30-meter carcass. A kilogram of blue whale meat (despite the ban on mining) in Japan costs about $ 160.
2. Vakita, the smallest representatives of cetaceans, are found in the northern part of the Gulf of California, Pacific Ocean. Because of their resemblance to another species, they are called California porpoises, and because of the characteristic black circles around the eyes, they are called sea pandas. Vakita are very secretive sea creatures. Their existence was discovered in the late 1950s, when several unusual skulls were found on the west coast of the United States. The existence of living individuals was confirmed only in 1985. Several dozen vakit are killed in fishing nets every year. This species is one of the 100 most close to extinction animal species on Earth. It is estimated that only a few dozen of the smallest cetacean species remain in the waters of the Gulf of California. An average vakit grows up to 1.5 meters in length and weighs 50-60 kg.
3. Drawings found on Norwegian rocks depict whale hunting. These drawings are at least 4,000 years old. According to scientists, there were much more whales in northern waters then, and hunting them was easier. Therefore, it is not surprising that ancient people hunted such valuable animals. The most at risk were smooth and bowhead whales - their bodies are very high in fat. This both reduces the mobility of whales and gives the bodies a positive buoyancy - the carcass of a killed whale is guaranteed not to sink. The ancient whalers most likely hunted whales for their meat - they simply did not need huge amounts of fat. They also probably used whale skin and whalebone.
4. Gray whales from conception to birth of a whale swim in the ocean for about 20,000 kilometers, describing an uneven circle in the northern half of the Pacific Ocean. It takes them exactly a year, and that is how long the pregnancy lasts. When preparing for mating, males do not show aggression towards each other and pay attention only to the female. In turn, the female may well copulate with several whales in turn. After giving birth, females are unusually aggressive and may well attack a nearby boat - all whales have poor eyesight, and they are guided mainly by echolocation. The gray whale also eats in an original way - it plows the seabed to a depth of two meters, catching small bottom living creatures.
5. The dynamics of whaling is characterized by the search for large populations of whales and the development of both shipbuilding and means of catching and cutting whales. After knocking out a whale off European shores, whalers in the 19th century moved further into the North Atlantic. Then the Antarctic waters became the center of whale hunting, and later the fishery concentrated in the North Pacific Ocean. In parallel, the size and autonomy of ships increased. Floating bases were invented and built - ships that were engaged not in hunting, but in butchering whales and their primary processing.
6. A very important milestone in the development of whale fishing was the invention of a harpoon gun and a pneumatic harpoon with explosives by the Norwegian Sven Foyn. After 1868, when Foyne made his inventions, the whales were practically doomed. If earlier they could fight for their lives with whalers, who with their hand harpoons got as close as possible, now the whalers fearlessly shot sea giants right from the ship and pumped their bodies with compressed air without fear that the carcass would drown.
7. With the general development of science and technology, the depth of processing of whale carcasses increased. Initially, only fat, whalebone, spermaceti and amber were extracted from it - substances necessary in perfumery. The Japanese also used leather, although it is not very durable. The rest of the carcass was simply thrown overboard, attracting the ubiquitous sharks. And in the second half of the twentieth century, the depth of processing, especially on Soviet whaling fleets, reached 100%. The Antarctic whaling flotilla "Slava" included two dozen vessels. They not only hunted whales, but also completely butchered their carcasses. The meat was frozen, the blood was cooled, the bones were ground into flour. On one voyage, the flotilla caught 2,000 whales. Even with the extraction of 700 - 800 whales, the flotilla brought in up to 80 million rubles in profit. This was in the 1940s and 1950s. Later, the Soviet whaling fleet became even more modern and profitable, becoming the world leaders.
8. Whale hunting on modern ships is somewhat different from the same hunting a century ago. Small whaling ships circle the floating base in search of prey. As soon as the whale is seen, the command of the whaler passes to the harpooner, for which an additional control post is installed on the bow of the ship. The harpooner brings the ship closer to the whale and fires a shot. When hit, the whale begins to dive. Its jerks are compensated by a whole complex of steel springs connected by a chain hoist. The springs play the role of a reel on a fishing rod. After the death of the whale, its carcass is either immediately towed to the floating base, or left in the sea by the SS buoy, transmitting the coordinates to the floating base.
9. Although the whale looks like a large fish, it is cut differently. The carcass is dragged onto the deck. Separators use special knives to cut off relatively narrow - about a meter - strips of fat along with the skin. They are removed from the carcass with a crane in the same way as peeling a banana. These strips are immediately sent to the bilge boilers for heating. The melted fat, by the way, ends up ashore in tankers that deliver fuel and supplies to the fleets. Then the most valuable is extracted from the carcass - spermaceti (despite the characteristic name, it is in the head) and amber. After that, the meat is cut off, and only then the entrails are removed.
10. Whale meat ... somewhat peculiar. In texture, it is very similar to beef, but it smells very noticeably of slave fat. However, it is widely used in northern cooking. The subtlety is that you need to cook whale meat only after pre-cooking or blanching, and only with certain spices. In the post-war Soviet Union, whale meat was first widely used to feed prisoners, and then they learned to make canned food and sausages from it. However, whale meat did not gain much popularity. Now, if you wish, you can find whale meat and recipes for its preparation, but it must be borne in mind that the world's oceans are heavily polluted, and whales pump a huge amount of polluted water through the body during their life.
11. In 1820, a catastrophe occurred in the South Pacific Ocean, which can be described in the paraphrased words of Friedrich Nietzsche: if you hunt whales for a long time, whales also hunt you. " The whaling ship "Essex", despite its age and outdated design, was considered very lucky. The young team (the captain was 29 years old, and the chief mate was 23) constantly made profitable expeditions. Luck ended abruptly on the morning of November 20. First, a leak appeared in the whaleboat, from which the whale had just been harpooned, and the sailors had to cut the harpoon line. But these were flowers. While the whaleboat was getting to the Essex for repairs, the vessel was attacked by a huge (sailors estimated its length at 25 - 26 meters) sperm whale. The whale drowned the Essex with two targeted strikes. People barely managed to save themselves and overload a minimum of food in three whaleboats. They were located almost 4,000 km from the nearest land. After incredible hardships - on the way they had to eat the bodies of their dead comrades - the sailors were picked up by other whaling ships in February 1821 off the South American coast. Eight of the 20 crew members survived.
12. Whales and cetaceans have become major or minor characters in dozens of fiction books and films. The most famous work of literature was the novel by the American Herbert Melville "Moby Dick". Its plot is based on the tragedy of the whalers from the ship "Essex", but the classic of American literature deeply reworked the story of the crew of a ship sunk by a sperm whale. In his novel, the culprit for the disaster was a giant white whale, which has sunk several ships. And the whalers hunted him to avenge their dead comrades. In general, the canvas of "Moby Dick" is very different from the story of the whalers from "Essex".
13. Jules Verne was also not indifferent to whales. In the story “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” several cases of shipwreck were attributed to whales or sperm whales, although in fact the ships and vessels were sunk by Captain Nemo's submarine. In the novel “The Mysterious Island,” the heroes who find themselves on an uninhabited island are given a treasure in the form of a whale, wounded by a harpoon and stranded. The whale was over 20 meters long and weighed over 60 tons. “The Mysterious Island”, like many other works by Verne, did not do without excusable, given the then level of development of science and technology, inaccuracies. The inhabitants of the mysterious island have heated about 4 tons of fat from the tongue of a whale. Now it is known that the entire tongue weighs so much in the largest individuals, and even the fat, when rendered, loses a third of its mass.
14. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Davidson whalers who hunted in the Australian Tufold Bay became friends with a male killer whale and even gave him the name Old Tom. The friendship was mutually beneficial - Old Tom and his flock drove the whales into the bay, where the whalers could harpoon him without difficulty and risk to life. In gratitude for their cooperation, the whalers allowed the killer whales to eat the tongue and lips of the whale without immediately taking the carcass. The Davidsons dyed their boats green to distinguish them from other vessels. Moreover, people and killer whales helped each other outside of whale hunting. People helped killer whales out of their nets, and the inhabitants of the sea kept people who fell overboard or lost their boat afloat until help arrived. As soon as the Davidsons stole the carcass of a whale just after he was killed, the friendship ended. Old Tom tried to take his share of the booty, but was only hit on the head with an oar. After that, the flock left the bay forever. Old Tom returned to the people 30 years later to die. His skeleton is now kept in the museum of the city of Eden.
15. In 1970, a huge whale carcass was dumped on the Pacific coast of the United States in Oregon. After a few days, it began to decompose. One of the most unpleasant factors in whale processing is the very unpleasant smell of overheated fat. And here a huge carcass was decomposed under the influence of natural factors. The authorities of the city of Flowrence decided to apply a radical method of cleaning the coastal area. The idea belonged to a simple worker Joe Thornton. He proposed to tear the carcass apart with a directed explosion and send it back into the ocean. Thornton never worked with explosives or even watched blasting. However, he was a stubborn person and did not listen to objections. Looking ahead, we can say that even decades after the incident, he believed that he did everything right. Thornton placed half a ton of dynamite under the whale's carcass and blew them up. After the sand began to scatter, parts of the whale carcass fell on the spectators who had gone further away. The environmental observers were all born in a shirt - no one was hurt by the falling whale remains. Rather, there was one victim. The businessman Walt Amenhofer, who actively discouraged Thornton from his plan, came to the seashore in an Oldsmobile, which he bought after buying an advertising slogan. It read: "Get a Whale of a Deal on a New Oldsmobile!" - "Get a discount on the new whale-sized Oldsmobile!" A piece of mascara fell on a brand new car, crushing it. True, the city authorities compensated Amenhofer for the cost of the car. And the remains of the whale still had to be buried.
16. Until 2013, scientists believed that cetaceans did not sleep. Rather, they sleep, but in a peculiar way - with one half of the brain. The other half is awake during sleep, and thus the animal continues to move. However, then a group of scientists who studied the migration routes of sperm whales managed to find several dozen individuals sleeping "standing" in an upright position. Sperm whales' heads stuck out of the water. The intrepid explorers made their way to the center of the pack and touched one sperm whale. The entire group instantly woke up, but did not attempt to attack the ship of the scientists, although the sperm whales are famous for their ferocity. Instead of attacking, the flock simply swam away.
17. Whales can make a variety of sounds. Most of their communication with each other occurs in the low frequency range, inaccessible to human hearing. However, there are exceptions. They usually occur in areas where humans and whales live close to each other. There, killer whales or dolphins try to speak at a frequency accessible to the human ear, and even generate sounds that imitate human speech.
18. Keiko, who played one of the main roles in the trilogy about friendship between a boy and a killer whale, "Free Willie", lived in the aquarium from 2 years old. After the release of popular films in the United States, the Free Willie Keiko movement was formed. The killer whale was indeed released, but not simply released into the ocean. The collected money was used to buy a section of the coast in Iceland. The bay located on this site was fenced off from the sea. Specially hired caretakers settled on the shore. Keiko was transported from the United States on a military plane. He began to swim free with great joy. A special vessel accompanied him on long walks outside the bay. One day a storm came suddenly. Keiko and the humans have lost each other. The killer whale seemed to be dead. But a year later, Keiko was seen off the coast of Norway, swimming in a flock of killer whales. Rather, Keiko saw people and swam up to them. The flock left, but Keiko stayed with the people.He died in late 2003 from kidney disease. He was 27 years old.
19. Monuments to the whale stand in Russian Tobolsk (from which the nearest sea is a little less than 1,000 kilometers) and Vladivostok, in Argentina, Israel, Iceland, Holland, on the Samoa islands, in the USA, Finland and Japan. There is no point in listing dolphin monuments, there are so many of them.
20. On 28 June 1991, an albino whale was sighted off the Australian coast. He was given the name “Migalu” (“White guy”). It is apparently the only albino humpback whale in the world. The Australian authorities banned approaching it closer than 500 meters by water and 600 meters by air (for ordinary whales, the forbidden distance is 100 meters). According to scientists, Migalu was born in 1986. It sails annually from the shores of New Zealand to Australia as part of its traditional migration. In the summer of 2019, he sailed again to the Australian coast near the city of Port Douglas. The researchers maintain a Twitter account of Migalu, which regularly posts albino photos. On July 19, 2019, a photo of a little albino whale was posted on Twitter, apparently swimming next to mom, with the caption “Who’s your daddy?”
