Whales in the North and Baltic Seas: Explosion of sightings - what's behind it?

Whales in the North and Baltic Seas: Explosion of sightings - what's behind it?

In the last 20 years, the number of whale sightings and strandings in the North and Baltic Seas has increased significantly. This development is favored, among other things, by the growing global population of humpback whales, as Joseph Schnitzler, research associate at the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW), confirms. The suspension of whale hunting also contributed to this positive development. mopo.de reports that several whale carcasses have already been recovered on the North Sea coast this year, including a humpback whale on the beach in Sankt Peter-Ording and a 14.3 meter long sperm whale that was found dead off Sylt in mid-February.

The sightings in the Baltic Sea are also notable, with reports from Ahrenshoop, near Hiddensee and near Travemünde. These whales appear to get lost frequently, particularly on their way from the Irish coast to northern waters near Norway. One of the hypotheses put forward for this aberration is disturbed magnetic fields and increasing shipping traffic in the affected areas. Whales apparently have difficulty orienting themselves in the shallower areas of the North Sea because their tracking system does not work optimally there.

Inventory challenges

However, despite the positive development of individual whale populations, there are also serious challenges, presumably caused by the history of whale hunting. Studies show that southern right whale, blue whale and fin whale populations in the Southern Hemisphere could return to at most half of what they were before industrial whaling by the year 2100. The main reason for this lies in the dramatic effects of whale hunting in the 20th century. Humpback and minke whale populations could not reach their baseline size until 2050 at the earliest, says an analysis of 122 years of International Whaling Commission (IWC) data led by Viv Tulloch, a doctoral student at the University of Queensland. whales.org states that threats to whales are greater in the northern hemisphere than in the south.

Threats include bycatch, whale-ship collisions and noise pollution. Scientists warn that the recovery of populations in the Northern Hemisphere will take significantly longer because whales there are more intensely impacted by human activities. The analyzed data, which includes over 100,000 illegally hunted whales up to the 1970s, shows how damaging whaling was to the populations.

The importance of whale populations to ocean health and climate change is undisputed. Whales play an essential role in the marine ecosystem by fertilizing plant plankton, which produces over half of the oxygen in the atmosphere and absorbs CO2. Whales.org authors emphasize the need to stop commercial whaling and make whale recovery and protection of these majestic animals a priority.