Pre-industrial emblem
51Heraldry, materia medica or first-fish law met the blue whale before film.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Speed33
Intelligence67
Range93
Resilience30
Cultural impact76
Ecological role91
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are blue whales recovering like some humpbacks?
Some Northern Hemisphere stocks look better. Antarctic blues remain far below pre-whaling. EN is still the honest card.
What did 1966 change?
The IWC protected blue whales after the factory-ship years had already taken the Antarctic majority. Protection was a lock on an empty room in the south.
Is the 1982 moratorium a blue-whale law?
It is a commercial-whaling pause for many species. Blues were already protected; the moratorium is the political weather that kept factory ships from a sequel.
Why ecological role near the top?
A blue whale eats tonnes of krill and returns nutrients in faecal plumes; a fall feeds the benthos. In this atlas that pump outranks most terrestrial carnivores except elephants and wolves.
Did Roger Payne study blues?
Payne whale-song fame is mostly humpback. Blue-whale acoustics (low-frequency pulses) are a later Navy-and-NOAA file.
What is a pygmy blue whale?
A southern subspecies/form -- smaller, still EN, often confused in catch histories.
IUCN: Endangered
Blue whale culture is local: the same silhouette is a licence in one country and a logo in another.
Status bars are editorial -- they track how loudly this type spoke in English-language media and law, not a best-species score.
Status through time
Industrial take
63Canneries, ivory, longlines or shikar scaled the take.
Cinema and logo
68A film, book or NGO mark often outran the field paper.
Statute and listing
73ESA, CITES, IWC or national parks made the type a legal object.
Live-cam and tourism
58Streams, jeeps and auctions are the present tense of attention.
Portrayals
Factory-ship film1930s
Flensing as industry newsreel.
IWC minutes1966 / 1982
A gavel as a plot point.
NGO murals1970s
A giant as a moral.
Acoustic spectrograms2000s-
A pulse as a census art.
Whale-watch decksCalifornia
A healthier stock as a ticket.
Krill-fishery maps2010s
A competitor on the same grid as penguins.
Rituals
IWC meetings
Delegates still argue exceptions the 1982 vote did not bury.
Acoustic mooring recoveries
NOAA and others pull a year of bass from the water.
Watch-season decks
Channel Islands time a gulp to a weekend.
Sayings
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