Blue whale · The largest animal whose 1966 IWC protection, 1982 moratorium and still-thin Antarctic recovery define a hunted giant.
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Some Northern Hemisphere stocks look better. Antarctic blues remain far below pre-whaling. EN is still the honest card.
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.
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.
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.
Payne whale-song fame is mostly humpback. Blue-whale acoustics (low-frequency pulses) are a later Navy-and-NOAA file.
A southern subspecies/form -- smaller, still EN, often confused in catch histories.
IUCN: Endangered
Icons here are not a ranking of living animals as best. They are the Wikipedia-titled faces a later chapter can attach images to.
Stats are relative 0-100 marks inside this type, for comparison on the page, not a global scoreboard.
NOAA Photo Library · Public domain
Largest animal; EN remnant in the south.
Blue whale (B. musculus, Global oceans) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
The quota then protection house.
International Whaling Commission (1946- / protect 1966, International) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
NGO slogan decade.
Save the Whales (1970s, United States / global) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
The emptied feeding ground.
Antarctic blue whale (remnant stock, Southern Ocean) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
Allison Meier · CC BY 4.0
Smaller form in the same EN file.
Pygmy blue whale (B. m. brevicauda, Indian / southern) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · Public domain
Pulses as a count.
NOAA acoustic programme (low-frequency census, United States) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
Unknown author · Public domain
A brighter North Pacific chapter.
Monterey / Channel Islands sightings (healthier stock, United States) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
The same Southern Ocean as penguins and albatrosses.
CCAMLR krill rules (forage overlap, International) is filed here as a dated individual, programme or portrayal -- not as a rank of the living animal.
“Icons teach constraints: law, habitat and methods matter as much as a famous face.”
Stats are relative 0–100 marks within this species, for comparison only.
Toggle icons on and off — every bar rescales to the leader of your selection.
1966 locked a southern crash. California sightings can look like a sequel the Antarctic has not earned.
CCAMLR tonnes and faecal plumes share a grid. The argument is spatial, like the penguin one.
Asia largest cat — subspecies maps, 1973 Project Tiger, and roughly 4,000 remaining wild animals still frame a century of recovery arithmetic.
Overall 62 🦁A social pantherine whose prides, Gir relic and 2015 Cecil killing still structure African conservation politics.
Overall 66 🐘The atlas type is the bush elephant -- an ecosystem engineer whose ivory ban (1989) and split from forest elephants still structure African conservation.
Overall 61 🐺A Holarctic pack hunter whose 1995 Yellowstone return and older Leopold ethics still structure predator politics.
Overall 78 🐼A bamboo specialist whose WWF logo, Wolong quake and 2016 IUCN downlist from EN to VU made a recovery into a brand.
Overall 41 🐻A marine bear whose seal-and-ice budget made Churchill, Knut and climate models into one public animal.
Overall 56 🦍The atlas type is the western gorilla -- a knuckle-walking ape whose Fossey-era mountain cousins and Koko lab fame split one public name.
Overall 45