By the 1960s, humpback whales and other whale species had been hunted extensively, sometimes to the point of near extinction. Then a recording of humpback whale songs helped shift public opinion on the hunting of all whale species.
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Recordings of Humpback Whale Songs That Made Waves: The Songs That Saved The Whales.

Great Recording of Humpback Whale Songs that are worth listening to…

By the 1960s, humpback whales and other whale species had been hunted extensively, sometimes to the point of near extinction. Then a recording of humpback whale songs that made waves helped shift public opinion on the hunting of all whale species.

In the mid-20th century, whale populations were dwindling. More than 50,000 whales were killed each year by commercial whalers.

But then in the 1960s, a song ??? or rather, many songs ??? sparked a movement.

It started with some underwater equipment that, for the first time, captured the sound of humpback whales.

Composer-Poets

At his home in Vermont, biologist Roger Payne plays the audio that was discovered back then. He points out themes in the whales’ song, and how they evolve over time.

This was a startling discovery. If an animal repeats a sound, like a bird or a cricket, then it’s technically a song. This, however, was arguably the most complex song of any animal.

On her 1970 album Whales and Nightingales, Collins included the song “Farewell to Tarwathie” ??? an adaptation of a traditional whaling song, featuring actual whales in the background.

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Welcome to 600-year-old Whale Bone Alley, once so remote that only few knew about its secrets.

Welcome to Siberia’s answer to Stonehenge or the Pyramids

It???s here, at Siklyuk on the tiny Bearing Sea island of Yttygran, where Eskimos created a 14th century shine and sacred meeting place, made with giant bones. Welcome to 600-year-old Whale Bone Alley, a location once so remote that few outside this part of the world knew about its secrets.
When photographer Evgeniy Basov captured the beauty of giant bones towering high into the Siberia sky, he said they resembled the majesty of England???s Stonehenge. Learning more about their unusual layout, and the significance of their creation, he insisted they were even as important to the Russian Far East as the Pyramids. It???s little wonder.

To many the location appears nothing more than some eerie graveyard of the damned, a last resting place for the whale carcases of yesteryear ??? but that is where they would be wrong.

And just like these, more well-known, monuments Whale Bone Alley raises more questions than answers. Anyone who is not familiar with the history of the Eskimos will never believe it that Whale BoneAlley is made from whale jaws vertically pitched into the ground’.

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Scars help reveal whale migration routes

Scars help reveal whale migration routes

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Cape Town – Scars left by killer whales and cookiecutter sharks are helping scientists unravel the mystery of humpback whale migration routes.
A humpback whale, photographed off the west coast, has scars on its tail from a close encounter with a killer whale. Scars of predators are helping researchers work out the migratory routes humpbacks have followed between the polar regions and their warmer breeding grounds. Picture: NAMIBIAN DOLPHIN PROJECT

Researchers know humpbacks migrate between their polar feeding grounds and warmer waters where they breed, but the exact routes they take are not known.

Now, in a paper published in the Journal of Mammalogy, researchers from the University of Pretoria???s Mammal Research Institute say seeing the kind of scars on humpback whales, and how recently they were made, has enabled them to get a pretty good idea of the routes the whales took before arriving in their breeding grounds off the west coast of South Africa, Namibia and Gabon.

The reason is that cookiecutter sharks prefer warmer water.
Researcher Tess Gridley said by looking at the patterns of scarring on the humpbacks from cookiecutter sharks and killer whales, and comparing these with the distribution of these two predators, they got a better understanding of the waters the humpbacks had travelled through before reaching our coast.

In contrast, killer whales, which regularly attack and kill humpback whales, especially calves, are found all over the ocean. ???So if whales have lots of cookiecutter shark bites, there???s a good chance they have recently passed through warm water in offshore areas, and only recently reached the coast.???

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