Whales Outliving Humans
Who would have though a whale could out live a human. Taking into consideration, they were hunted for their oil, run into by large ships, and suffered from the human caused pollution of their oceans.
Study reveals right whales live 130 years—or more – University of Alaska Fairbanks
New research published in Science Advances reveals that right whales can survive for more than 130 years—almost twice as long as previously understood. Extreme longevity is a trait common to the right whales‘ cousins, the bowheads.
Scientists working with Indigenous subsistence hunters in Utqiaġvik used chemical analysis of harvested bowhead whales to show they can live more than 200 years. Corroborating the chemical evidence, hunters have recovered 19th-century harpoon tips from bowheads taken in modern hunts. Right whales, which are much more closely related to bowhead whales than any other species, appear to exhibit similar lifespans. Like bowheads, right whales filter feed through baleen and migrate seasonally to give birth. Whalers considered them the “right” whales to hunt due to their thick blubber, which caused them to float when killed.
The current study examined four decades of data collected by photo identification programs tracking individual whales from two species: the Southern right whale, which lives in the oceans south of the equator, and the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, found along the Atlantic coast of North America.
Researchers used the data to construct survivorship curves—graphs that show the proportion of a population that survives to each age—similar to those used by insurance companies to calculate human life expectancies. Analysis revealed that Southern right whales, once thought to live only 70 to 80 years, can exceed lifespans of 130 years, with some individuals possibly reaching 150 years. In contrast, the study found the average lifespan of the North Atlantic right whale is just 22 years, with very few individuals surviving past the age of 50.
According to University of Alaska Fairbanks associate professor Greg Breed, the stark contrast in lifespans between these two closely related species is primarily due to human impacts. Breed is the study’s lead author.
“North Atlantic whales have unusually short lifespans compared to other whales, but this isn’t because of intrinsic differences in biology, and they should live much longer,” he said. “They’re frequently tangled in fishing gear or struck by ships, and they suffer from starvation, potentially linked to environmental changes we don’t fully understand.”
Environment and Energy related News from the Week ending December 28th as presented by r.j. sigmund