Blue whale in 2008: SOWER / IWC surveys · 357
[356] [desk-blue-whale-8] In 2008, the field log for Blue whale is headed “SOWER / IWC surveys.” The figure kept beside that heading is 1966. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. CCAMLR and whale forage in the same Southern Ocean sentence as penguins.
The largest animal whose 1966 IWC protection, 1982 moratorium and still-thin Antarctic recovery define a hunted giant. 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.
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.
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.
Keep 2008, “SOWER / IWC surveys,” and 1966 together or the note on Blue whale stops being that year’s record.2008
Figures to keep
- Year of the note
- 2008
- Figure to keep
- 1966
- Species
- Blue whale
- Line in the log
- SOWER / IWC surveys
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