Humpback whale

“ The tongue of a humpback whale, which has been forced out of the animal’s mouth by air pumped into the body to keep it afloat.
The feeding operations are most interesting to watch, and if the shrimps happen to be but a short distance under water, as often happens during the morning and evening or just before a storm, they can be easily seen. The whale starts forward at good speed, then opens its mouth and takes in a great quantity of water containing numbers of shrimp, turns on its side and brings the ponderous lower jaw upward, closing the mouth. ”

“ If the killer-whale was common here, it would be patent to the most casual eye, because it is the habit of this ferocious cetacean to swim so closely at the surface as to show its peculiar sharp dorsal fin high above the water. Possibly a very superficial observer could and would confound that long trenchant fluke of the Orca with the stubby node upon the spine of a humpback whale, which that animal exhibits only when it is about to dive. Humpbacks feed around the islands, but not commonly; they are the exception. ”

“ Our conclusion, then, is that continued increase in the amount of vessel traffic, particularly charter/pleasure craft, in Glacier Bay is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the humpback whale population frequenting Southeast Alaska. The alteration in the distribution of the whales in Southeast Alaska can be expected to appreciably reduce the likelihood of the recovery of the North Pacific humpback population, especially when viewed as an incremental aggravation of the problem of humpback/human interaction in general. ”

“ In winter, if there is little fish to be had, the meat of the humpback whale, which is most highly esteemed, sometimes brings as much as thirty sen (fifteen cents) per pound; but this is very unusual and ordinarily it can be bought for fifteen sen or less. But the edible portions are not only the flesh and blubber. The heart, liver, tongue, intestines, and 88other parts of the viscera are prepared for human consumption, and what little remains is first tried out to extract the oil, then chipped by means of hand knives, and dried in the sun for fertilizer. ”

“ There are no dull moments when one is hunting a humpback, for it is never possible to foretell what the animal’s next move will be. He may dash along the surface with his enormous mouth wide open, stand upon his head and “lobtail,” throwing up clouds of spray with smashing blows of his flukes, or launch his forty-ton body into the air as though shot from a submarine catapult. ”

“ A whale’s flippers must not be compared with the fins of a fish, for in structure the two are quite unlike. The flippers of all cetaceans are merely the fore-limbs of ordinary land mammals, which have become overlaid with blubber to form a paddle in adaptation to an aquatic life and have the bones, blood vessels, and nerves of the human arm. The flipper of the humpback whale has four greatly elongated fingers but in some other species there are five fingers as in the human hand. ”

“ During our crossing I saw numerous baleen whales belonging to the three species unique to these southernmost seas: the bowhead whale (or “right whale,” according to the English) , which has no dorsal fin; the humpback whale from the genus Balaenoptera (in other words, “winged whales”) , beasts with wrinkled bellies and huge whitish fins that, genus name regardless, do not yet form wings; and the finback whale, yellowish brown, the swiftest of all cetaceans. This powerful animal is audible from far away when it sends up towering spouts of air and steam that resemble swirls of smoke. ”

“ I remember one day, while crossing the Atlantic on the Kronprinz Wilhelm, a humpback came up not far from the ship and swam parallel with her for several minutes. Each time the big fellow drew himself up, slowly rolled over, and brought his flukes out, an involuntary cheer went up from the passengers. But it is only when sounding that the tail is shown and never when the whale is feeding or swimming near the surface.
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A humpback whale with a very white breast. ”

“ If only the flukes are seen as the animal begins a dive, right and bowhead whales may be distinguished from the other two species of large whales exhibiting this behavior, the sperm and the humpback, in this way: the flukes of right and bowhead whales are broad, pointed on the tips, greatly concave towards a deep fluke notch, and dark below: those of the sperm whale are more nearly triangular, while those of the humpback whale have a jagged irregular or rippled rear margin and are sometimes variously white below. ”

“ Deep longitudinal furrows, folds or plaits occur on the throat and chest. It is said that the popular name refers to a prominence on which the back fin is set; but this “hump” varies greatly in size in different individuals. The humpback is a coast-whale, irregular in its movements, sometimes found in “schools,” at others singly. The whalebone is short, broad and coarse; but the yield of oil from a single whale has been as much as 75 barrels. A few examples of this whale have been taken in Scotland and the north of England (see Cetacea) . ”

“ I always have a feeling of admiration when watching either a blue or finback whale, for the magnificent brutes move in a slow and dignified way as though conscious that they are the largest and most imposing animals of ancient or modern times.
When sounding the finback sinks lower and lower until the dorsal fin disappears; this is the last part of the body to leave the surface. This species never draws out the flukes as do the humpback, sperm and right whales. ”

“ They certainly cannot drag a vessel as a blue whale or finback will, and apparently do not like to pull very hard against the 71iron. I have seen humpbacks, which were being drawn in for the second shot, squirm and give way each time the rope was pulled taut. I do not pretend to deny, however, the widespread and probably well-founded belief in the danger of coming to close quarters with this whale and will again quote Millais in regard to this:
Pulling the barnacles off a humpback whale. ”

“ The bone grows in the form of strips, from 6 to 10 feet in length, and 6 to 12 inches in width. One end of a strip is fringed with fine, black hair-fiber, this part of the whale finding its way to the top of persons' heads, as out of it some "human-hair" wigs are made. A "right" whale, 10 to 15 feet longer than a humpback and in value equivalent to eight of the latter, is worth from $5,000 to $7,000, but of the hundreds killed in the Indian Ocean during a season not more than half a dozen of this specie will be among the number. ”

“ Balænopter a gigas, or humpback whale, whose fins, despite the name, do not form wings: it is the biggest, averaging seventy to eighty feet; it contains the best and largest quantity of oil, and its colour is whitish, with wrinkled belly.
3. Balæna physalus, herring or sulphur whale, containing far less blubber than the preceding.
4. Balæna rostrata, the yellow-brown finback, or round-lipped whale, whose forefins are some nine feet in length: it is the smallest, the liveliest, and the most powerful; it frequently ascends the firths, and it is known by throwing the highest jets. ”

“ To me it always seems as though a whale ought to have a voice of proportions equal to the animal’s bulk. I have never quite recovered from the feeling I had when I first saw a big humpback rise a few feet from the ship. The animal appeared so enormous that if it had uttered a terrifying roar it would have seemed quite the natural and proper thing. The respiratory sounds differ with each cetacean; I have often been near humpbacks and finbacks which were feeding together, and could always distinguish the latter species by the sharper and more metallic quality 56of the spout. ”

“ A small, non-migratory population of humpback whales in the Arabian Sea is classified as “Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an assessment constrained by a lack of data, including limited understanding of its relationship to other populations. We analysed 11 microsatellite markers and mitochondrial DNA sequences extracted from 67 Arabian Sea humpback whale tissue samples and compared them to equivalent datasets from the Southern Hemisphere and North Pacific. Results show that the Arabian Sea population is highly distinct ”

“ Genetic diversity values are significantly lower than those obtained for Southern Hemisphere populations and signatures of ancient and recent genetic bottlenecks were identified. Our findings suggest this is the world's most isolated humpback whale population, which, when combined with low population abundance estimates and anthropogenic threats, raises concern for its survival. ”

“ Sufficient evidence confirms that if genetic factors are ignored, extinction risks can be underestimated and inappropriate conservation management strategies may be used [93] . However, there is also evidence to suggest that effective management and the reduction of threats to individual survival may reverse population decline, even if genetic variability is low [91] .
All evidence collected and anlyzed suggests that ASHW are genetically and demographically unique, and exhibit atypical behaviour for humpback whales. ”

“ The crew had just time to float the boats, and was rescued by another whaler some hours later.
Owing to its sudden rushes and free use of tail and pectorals the Humpback is more feared by the Norwegian whalemen than any other species, although fewer casualties occur than in the chase of the Bottlenose. It is not to be wondered at when you ask a Scandinavian about the dangerous incidents of his calling he will invariably answer, “I not like to stab de Humpback; no, no, no!” The Humpback generally sinks when killed, and is a difficult Whale to raise. ”

“ Naturally, the technological improvements which make whaling profitable again would have been meaningless without the discovery of new whaling grounds. About 1900 the seas around the antarctic continent were found to be teeming with whales. These were principally three species—the humpback, the finback, and the blue. The blue whale is distinguished by the fact that it is the largest mammal on earth, reaching sometimes 100 feet in length and weighing over 100 tons. ”

“ Whale meat on the washing platforms ready to be sent to market.
It is most unfortunate that prejudice prevents whale meat from being eaten in Europe and America. It could not, of course, be sent fresh to the large cities, but canned in the Japanese fashion it is vastly superior to much of the beef and other tinned foods now on sale in our markets. In New Zealand, the Messrs. Cook Brothers, who have developed the 90method of capturing humpback whales in wire nets (described in the Introduction) , can a great deal of meat and ship it to the South Sea Islands, where it is sold to the natives. ”

“ Recent work has identified significant population structure among breeding concentrations in the North Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Oceans [14] , [15] , [16] . Patterns of differentiation have been extensively studied in Northern (e.g. [14] , [17] ) and some Southern Hemisphere populations (e.g. [16] ) , but understanding of population structure and gene flow in the Indian Ocean remains limited, particularly for humpback whales in the Arabian Sea (Figure S1) . ”

“ The extent to which ASHW are related to whales in other populations is not well understood. The IWC has defined seven Southern Hemisphere humpback whale breeding ‘Stocks’ (A–G, see Figure 1 inset) , and we use these designations hereafter to describe them. Recent mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analyses found strong genetic structure between the ASHW and IWC breeding Stocks A and B in the South Atlantic Ocean and IWC Breeding Stock C in the south-western Indian Ocean (pair-wise FST range between Oman and other Indian Ocean breeding populations 0.11–0.15, 33) [16] . ”

“ A very characteristic feature of certain Whales are the furrows {345}to be seen on the throat. This is especially the case with the Rorquals, in which group the Humpback Whale, Megaptera, is to be included. ”

“ It was while I was with Captain Charles Grahame on the Tyee in Alaska. We had had an exciting experience with a humpback whale which rose under the ship (described in Chapter III) , and after killing it had steamed toward several finbacks which were spouting far away near the coast. The huge brutes were feeding and lying on the surface rolling from side to side, thrusting their fins and flukes into the air. ”

“ The skin of the throat is fluted so as to form an expansible pouch; there is a low back-fin; and the flippers, which have four digits each, are extremely long, equalling about one-fourth the total length of the animal. The acromion and coracoid processes of the scapula are rudimentary. See Humpback-Whale.
The right-whales are built for cruising slowly about in search of the shoals of small floating invertebrates which form their food, and are consequently broad in beam, with a float-shaped body and immovable neck. ”

“ Feeding humpback whales habitually blow 4-8 times at intervals of 15-30 s after a long dive. In the tropics they habitually blow 2-4 times in succession when beginning a long dive. In diving, humpback whales throw the tail flukes high into the air, exposing the sometimes white undersurface and the rippled rear margin. ”

“ But, in a case where one of these finbacks is held by killers, it can be approached, as I have said, by shore boats and killed, as is the practice of the Twofold Bay whalemen.
Let the writer now quote, with the publisher's permission, from a work he wrote some years ago describing the way the killers “work in” with their human friends. In this particular instance, however, it was a humpback whale, but as Orca Gladiator treats the humpback and “right” whale as he does the lengthy “finner,” the extract from the article is quite applicable. ”