8/16/2019 Future of the Bowhead Whale

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Future of the Bowhead WhalesDan Kimberley 8CP

About ThemThe Bowhead Whale is one of the onlymammals that live exclusively in thearctic. Due to this they have thethickest blubber of any mammal athalf a metre. They are estimated tolive up to 200 years making them thelongest living mammal. They have abow shaped mouth giving them thename of Bowhead whale.

How are they hunted?The traditional method of huntingthem includes several fishing boatscrowding round a whale trying to staba harpoon into it before towing itback to land as technologyprogresses, explosives are becoming amore common way of hunting them.Using a gun to fire the explosivecharge into the whale.

What threats do they face?The only real threat they face todayare a few tribes such as the Inupiat innorthern Alaska as a tradition

What protection do they have? The hunting of the whales for acommercial purpose has been banned.Very few tribes are allowed to huntthem and they are only allowed to killa small varying number of them. Toadd to it, for part of the year thewhales cannot be hunted as they are

too far north.

The FutureThe future of the bowhead whales isnot certain though certain threats arebecoming more apparent as time goeson.

It is being discovered that the ArcticOcean covers many oil deposit alongthe ocean floor. Boats and there paths

could get in the way and hit thewhales and rigs could make whalesmove.

A more likely drastic threat is globalwarming. The whales have adapted tolive in the arctic cold environmentand losing that cold would have a veryserious effect.

It is not likely that they will everbecome extinct due to the rules thathave been put in place to restrict thenumber of whales killed.