It Took A Musician's Ear To Decode The Complex Song In Whale Calls.
Humpback whales don't just sing songs — they compose with the whales around them, singing a song that evolves over time. Scientists didn't know that until they started recording whale sounds in the 1960s and spent years listening. The evolution of this "culture of listening" among researchers is the focus of Morning Edition's weekly summer series, Close Listening: Decoding Nature Through Sound.
Katy Payne, a researcher in acoustic biology at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and her husband, Roger, were the first scientists to realize that the intricate and eerie calls of some humpback whales are actually songs. At a recent visit with Katy in a Cornell sound studio, we played this archived recording of the first whale they ever heard, and she recognized it right away:
Click here to hear A Males humpbacks Sounds!
"It's the voice of a male humpback whale off shore of Bermuda, in 1964," Katy explained. "It was recorded by a Navy engineer."
The Paynes met the engineer, Frank Watlington, on a trip to Bermuda. A friend of theirs had recommended they look him up because he shared their passion for whales, and Watlington invited the Paynes aboard his ship.
"We had no idea we were going to hear anything," Payne told us. "He said, 'I don't suppose you've ever heard the sounds these animals make?' "
And then he played the song of the humpback whale for them.
"I had never heard anything like it," Katy said. "Oh, my God, tears flowed from our cheeks. We were just completely transfixed and amazed because the sounds are so beautiful, so powerful — so variable. They were, as we learned later, the sounds of just one animal. Just one animal."
Watlington had picked up the whale's call while doing some recording with underwater microphones — hydrophones — for his work. In those days, the Navy used such equipment to listen for enemy submarines.
"I don't think anybody knew what he was picking up, and he kept it a secret," Katy recalled. Watlington was afraid whalers would use the songs to find and kill the humpbacks.
Before they left, he gave the Paynes the recordings and told them, "Go save the whales."
The recordings were a revelation to most scientists. And there was something peculiar about the calls that the Paynes didn't recognize at first. It took Katy's special skill and training to discover it.
"I majored in music, with biology as a secondary," she explained. "But I was sort of my own person, really. I was always, always watching and listening to animals."
The Paynes took the tapes home. Katy was taking care of their four young children at the time, but when she could find a moment, she would listen and lose herself in another world.
On our visit with Katy at Cornell, we played several of these haunting humpback songs from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology archives, and asked her to help us understand what we were hearing.
"We call this the beginning sound," she said of the first passage of notes in one song.
Click Here to hear Beginning sound
"Do you hear echoes?" she asked us. "From the bottom of the sea, the underside of the waves? [With] every sound, all the whales are listening. They have memorized this song."
The first time she heard such calls, Katy wanted to see the sounds, to see if there was a discernible pattern. So she got spectrograms of them — visual representations that showed peaks and valleys and gaps. As she traced them with pencil and paper, she began to see structure — what looked like melodies and rhythms.
"This is a crazy sort of arrhythmic portion of the sound," she said of one passage. "But it's coming into another rhythmic portion that goes up in pitch."
Click Here to hear Arrhythmic to rhythmic
The pattern's not random, Payne explained, and that's key. Lots of animals have calls or vocalizations. But the humpback whales' long, intricate songs change — they evolve.
It's exclusively the male humpbacks that sing, the Paynes now know, and at any moment in time, all the males in a local group sing the song in roughly the same way. But over time, some parts of a group's song gradually change, too — in rhythm, pitch and duration — as the whales listen to each other, and together take up variations that eventually become a new tune.
Payne has actually memorized many such songs, and can sing them note for note. Here's a comparison of just single phrases in different years. You'll hear Katy first, then the whale just behind her.
Click here to hear A Katy and whale duet
Two years later, this same humpback group's song had evolved from six elements to 14. All the added sounds came at the end, like a musical coda:
Click Here to hear Same song two years later
Why do these male humpbacks gradually modify their songs?
"We don't know," Katy said. "Ask the whale. But we can say that it seems to be attractive to be an inventive male. Perhaps it's what we call sexual selection. The female is selecting the innovative male."
It's sort of like jazz, she said, where each player riffs on the same methodical repetition, but innovates too.
At first, other biologists didn't believe whales collectively composed new songs. Even Payne's husband was skeptical. So the Paynes got their own hydrophones and boats. They went back to Bermuda, and then to Hawaii and South America, spending years recording whales.
Ultimately, their analysis of these vocalizations showed scientists a way to illuminate life in the deep ocean — not with a flashlight, but with the ear. And many young scientists followed the Paynes' lead, studying other species. One of those scientists was Christopher Clark, who joined the Paynes in Patagonia, Argentina, in 1972, to help record the calls of southern right whales.
"You'd sit there listening to whales blowing," Clark told us, "and to the [elephant seals] snorting on the beach." At night, the Paynes made their own music on a violin and a cello. "We gave Chris a guitar," Katy recalled. "It was a free and playful time. God, it was wonderful."
"I learned to play under the Southern Cross," Clark said. He was hooked. And soon he would hear things in the ocean that even the Paynes never imagined. Bill McQuay is an audio producer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He's on Twitter: @mcquay_bill.
This Image Will Make You Never Want to Visit a Zoo or Marine Park Again. Ever since the release of acclaimed documentary Blackfish two years ago, entertainment giant Sea World has been on the defensive … and on the decline.
Damaging evidence has continually emerged since that time, showing the public that Sea World is not exactly the marine mammal paradise it claims to be. The revelation that they must administer psychoactive medication to their killer whales to stave off depression was particularly damaging, as were their multiple citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for welfare and safety violations. studies have been released concluding beyond doubt that their animals are stressed as a result of captivity.
Last year, marine mammal veterinarian Dr. Heather Rally found “scars and lesions on dolphins, orcas, and other animals,” witnessed “unprotected and unsupervised contact between visitors and aggressive animals; and observed listless animals engaging in abnormal, repetitive behavior likely caused by stress, among other apparent violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).”
There is a lot that could be said about Sea World’s continued policy of holding large marine animals in captivity. However, in this case, a picture paints a thousand words. If anyone, anywhere, still thinks there is nothing wrong with holding a twenty-thousand-pound orca in a tank whose size equates to a minuscule percentage of their natural territory … let them check out this image:
Andrew Lawes posted the image to Facebook after public outrage erupted over the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. He said, “Lot of talk about animal rights this week, thought I’d share this. The red line is the size of the Sea World car park. The green line is where the Orcas spend their entire lives. Shocking really.”
The reality for captive animals right across the board – whether they are housed in a zoo or a marine park – is that they face zoochotic illnesses and stresses that would never be a factor of their everyday lives were they in the wild. While the story of Keiko demonstrates to us that the release of a marine animal must be carefully managed, we need to have a serious conversation NOW about the future of captivity, and whether this practice ought to be phased out. But can we ever do that if SeaWorld continues to deny that there is a problem?
The good news, Green Monsters, is that you can help make a difference for these animals by refusing to buy into SeaWorlds lies and not patronizing their establishments. SeaWorld is an establishment that is solely driven by profit, so when we stop paying for them to abuse animals, it can stop. In-text image: The Daily Express UK - Lead Image Source: Allie_Caulfield/Flickr
Awesome footage of rare white whale off the coast of Australia.
A rare white humpback whale has been spotted off the coast of Queensland on Monday, and whale watchers are hoping it is Australia's famous whale Migaloo.
Migaloo, a name giving by Aboriginal Elders that means "white fella," is one member of a rare group of white whales that have been spotted swimming in Australian waters.
The department told Mashable Australia via email it has still not been able to confirm whether the sighting is that of the Migaloo.
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California Coastal Commission: Don't Let SeaWorld Expand.
Despite the growing controversy surrounding its treatment of captive orcas, last summer SeaWorld San Diego announced major plans to expand its orca habitat. While SeaWorld says it's to benefit the orcas, animal advocates continue to argue that SeaWorld is kind of missing the point of public objections to captivity entirely and now outcry has stalled its plans to move forward.
SeaWorld claims Project Blue World, which will cost millions to marginally increase the size of its orca enclosure, is to improve the welfare of its orcas. Opponents, however, argue the expansion won't do anything to address the inherent cruelty involved in keeping these huge, intelligent, far-ranging animals in captivity and denying them everything they would experience in their rightful place in the wild.
The California Coastal Commission was expected to vote on the proposal in July, but pushed it back following an outpouring of public opposition.
Please help keep the pressure on by signing and sharing this petition urging the California Coastal Commission to deny SeaWorld a permit to expand. Click Here to Sign it!
Meet the whales’ newest protector: the cruise industry.
Executives at two major German cruise lines—Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA—said Monday they would stop sending their tourist-packed ships to the Faroe Islands in protest of the annual slaughter of pilot whales in the remote North Atlantic archipelago known for its stark beauty and bloody traditional hunts. The move is a blow to the islands, which depends on tourism revenue.
“Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is committed to treating flora, fauna, and the marine ecosystem as well as all its creatures with respect,” Karl J. Pojer, the company’s chief executive, said in an email. “We protect what fascinates us—it is therefore high in the interests of the company that whaling on the Faroe Islands is stopped.”
The cruise lines also cited a new Faroe Islands law requiring anyone who spots whales to report the animals to local officials as a reason to take the destination off their ships’ itineraries.
Hapag-Lloyd had already reduced the number of ships scheduled to visit the Faroes, Pojer said, with only one cruise slated for next year. The company is trying to find an alternative destination for that trip.
Monika Griefahn, AIDA’s chief sustainability officer, said in an email that her company “expressly dissociates itself from whaling. Species conservation is an integral part of our sustainability strategy. Thus, AIDA Cruises has decided to cease approaching the Faroe Islands until further notice.”
Whale hunts are permitted in 22 Faroese bays, where up to 120 pilot whales can be killed at a time. According to Sea Shepherd, 1,200 pilot whales are killed during the hunt season.
The hunt is also used to draw tourists to the islands, according to the website Visit Faroe Islands.
“The pilot whale hunt in the Faroes is, by its very nature, a dramatic sight,” it states. “Entire schools of whales are killed on the shore and in the shallows of bays with knives which are used to sever the major blood supply to the brain.” “It’s not something we want to hide," Brynhild Weihe, an office assistant at Visit Faroe Islands said in an email. "Some people express doubts about coming to the Faroe Islands because they don’t know what to think of the whaling that is done here, and so we want to make sure they can read about the main facts. This doesn’t mean we want them to come here for this reason."
In the past two years, Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA wrote to the Faroese prime minister expressing their concerns about the whale hunt, or grindadráp.
A Hapag-Lloyd official, who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak with the media, said the company never received a response.
The letters prompted Sea Shepherd, the environmental group that has been trying to halt the whale hunt since the early 1980s, to contact the companies, calling on them to suspend cruises to the islands. Sea Shepherd highlighted a recently passed law making it a crime not to report whale sightings to local authorities.
“Authorities are quoted as saying that these reports can be decisive in determining whether or not the spotted whales are subjected to traditional whaling,” said AIDA’s Griefahn.
A court last week convicted five Sea Shepherd volunteers of violating the Faroe Islands law by trying to stop the slaughter of 250 pilot whales on July 23. They face fines or up to two weeks in jail.
“We were very delighted to hear the news,” Rosie Kunneke, land crew leader for Sea Shepherd in the Faroes, said in a telephone interview from the islands. “This puts pressure on the cruise industry, who might want to reconsider what people are doing to the animals here.”
Several other cruise lines still operate in the islands, Kunneke said, including Princess, Royal Caribbean, Crystal, and Holland America.
“We’re hoping that the world gets to know about the hunt and that customers demand that these companies do not come here anymore,” Kunneke said.
Courtney Vail, campaigns and programs manager for Whale and Dolphin Conservation, said that “ethics-based corporate responsibility” is one way to help stop the killing.
The cruise industry has been much criticized by conservationists for polluting the world’s oceans. But recently it has made efforts to appear more attuned to ethical concerns. Carnival, for instance, announced in June that it would launch a cruise line that lets passengers perform community service in the countries they visit.
“We believe in the power of consumer choice to help guide and reform national and global environmental and animal welfare policies,” Vail said in an email. “It is a shame that such a beautiful destination continues to be marred by the shadow of these bloody hunts.”
Katy Payne, a researcher in acoustic biology at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and her husband, Roger, were the first scientists to realize that the intricate and eerie calls of some humpback whales are actually songs. At a recent visit with Katy in a Cornell sound studio, we played this archived recording of the first whale they ever heard, and she recognized it right away:
Click here to hear A Males humpbacks Sounds!
"It's the voice of a male humpback whale off shore of Bermuda, in 1964," Katy explained. "It was recorded by a Navy engineer."
The Paynes met the engineer, Frank Watlington, on a trip to Bermuda. A friend of theirs had recommended they look him up because he shared their passion for whales, and Watlington invited the Paynes aboard his ship.
"We had no idea we were going to hear anything," Payne told us. "He said, 'I don't suppose you've ever heard the sounds these animals make?' "
And then he played the song of the humpback whale for them.
"I had never heard anything like it," Katy said. "Oh, my God, tears flowed from our cheeks. We were just completely transfixed and amazed because the sounds are so beautiful, so powerful — so variable. They were, as we learned later, the sounds of just one animal. Just one animal."
Watlington had picked up the whale's call while doing some recording with underwater microphones — hydrophones — for his work. In those days, the Navy used such equipment to listen for enemy submarines.
"I don't think anybody knew what he was picking up, and he kept it a secret," Katy recalled. Watlington was afraid whalers would use the songs to find and kill the humpbacks.
Before they left, he gave the Paynes the recordings and told them, "Go save the whales."
The recordings were a revelation to most scientists. And there was something peculiar about the calls that the Paynes didn't recognize at first. It took Katy's special skill and training to discover it.
The Paynes took the tapes home. Katy was taking care of their four young children at the time, but when she could find a moment, she would listen and lose herself in another world.
On our visit with Katy at Cornell, we played several of these haunting humpback songs from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology archives, and asked her to help us understand what we were hearing.
"We call this the beginning sound," she said of the first passage of notes in one song.
Click Here to hear Beginning sound
"Do you hear echoes?" she asked us. "From the bottom of the sea, the underside of the waves? [With] every sound, all the whales are listening. They have memorized this song."
The first time she heard such calls, Katy wanted to see the sounds, to see if there was a discernible pattern. So she got spectrograms of them — visual representations that showed peaks and valleys and gaps. As she traced them with pencil and paper, she began to see structure — what looked like melodies and rhythms.
"This is a crazy sort of arrhythmic portion of the sound," she said of one passage. "But it's coming into another rhythmic portion that goes up in pitch."
Click Here to hear Arrhythmic to rhythmic
The pattern's not random, Payne explained, and that's key. Lots of animals have calls or vocalizations. But the humpback whales' long, intricate songs change — they evolve.
It's exclusively the male humpbacks that sing, the Paynes now know, and at any moment in time, all the males in a local group sing the song in roughly the same way. But over time, some parts of a group's song gradually change, too — in rhythm, pitch and duration — as the whales listen to each other, and together take up variations that eventually become a new tune.
Payne has actually memorized many such songs, and can sing them note for note. Here's a comparison of just single phrases in different years. You'll hear Katy first, then the whale just behind her.
Click here to hear A Katy and whale duet
Two years later, this same humpback group's song had evolved from six elements to 14. All the added sounds came at the end, like a musical coda:
Click Here to hear Same song two years later
Why do these male humpbacks gradually modify their songs?
"We don't know," Katy said. "Ask the whale. But we can say that it seems to be attractive to be an inventive male. Perhaps it's what we call sexual selection. The female is selecting the innovative male."
It's sort of like jazz, she said, where each player riffs on the same methodical repetition, but innovates too.
At first, other biologists didn't believe whales collectively composed new songs. Even Payne's husband was skeptical. So the Paynes got their own hydrophones and boats. They went back to Bermuda, and then to Hawaii and South America, spending years recording whales.
Ultimately, their analysis of these vocalizations showed scientists a way to illuminate life in the deep ocean — not with a flashlight, but with the ear. And many young scientists followed the Paynes' lead, studying other species. One of those scientists was Christopher Clark, who joined the Paynes in Patagonia, Argentina, in 1972, to help record the calls of southern right whales.
"You'd sit there listening to whales blowing," Clark told us, "and to the [elephant seals] snorting on the beach." At night, the Paynes made their own music on a violin and a cello. "We gave Chris a guitar," Katy recalled. "It was a free and playful time. God, it was wonderful."
"I learned to play under the Southern Cross," Clark said. He was hooked. And soon he would hear things in the ocean that even the Paynes never imagined. Bill McQuay is an audio producer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He's on Twitter: @mcquay_bill.
|
Imagine you were hungry and walked into the backyard to pick some garden
vegetables, but the garden had mysteriously vanished. Not to be defeated, you
walk to the grocery store to find an office building in its place. Finally, you
return home thinking you will munch on some emergency ramen stashed in the
cupboard, but when you walk in, access to the kitchen has been blocked by a
thick brick wall.
If our homes and communities are our habitat, we recognize that some areas are more critical than others. The aforementioned kitchen where we forage for food might be critical. Or the bed where we tuck ourselves safely in at night to get an essential night’s rest. Every inch of our habitat has a function, but for us and animals alike, there are some places neither of us can survive without. Understanding what those places are for southern resident orcas – the group of orcas that live along the coast of the Pacific Northwest – has taken a very long time. In 2006, a year after southern resident orcas were listed as endangered, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) designated the inland waters of Washington State, also known as the Salish Sea, as their critical habitat. This was great news. Experts recognized that there was still a lot about these orcas we didn’t yet know, but it was clear that without habitat protection, we may never get the chance. So they protected the area they could best determine at the time was the most important – the area the species lived in every summer.  As the years have passed, NMFS has conducted very focused research to answer important questions about the southern resident orcas. Where do they go in the winter? What do they prefer to eat? Why do they prefer certain types of habitat? By 2014, many of these questions had answers. We now know that southern resident orcas spend a hefty portion of the year along the outer coast of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California munching on Chinook salmon, their main prey. Satellite tracking found that the orcas forage up and down the length of their range, spending a significant amount of time at the mouth of the Columbia River, which used to hold the largest runs of salmon in the world. To finally have this knowledge is a vital step toward protecting the orcas. But these findings suggested that the earlier critical habitat designation had protected only part of the habitat that was most important to the species – not all of it. The Endangered Species Act defines critical habitat as a specific geographic area or areas that contains features essential for the conservation (a.k.a. recovery) of a threatened or endangered species. While designating critical habitat doesn’t necessarily stop other uses or development, it does mean that federal agencies have to protect the habitat so that it continues to aid in the species’ recovery. Each species is highly adapted to their environments, just as we are. It is important that wildlife agencies designate critical habitat that not only protects the areas the species currently uses, but those areas that will help the population recover as well.  Earlier this year, NMFS responded to the petition. Although the agency acknowledged that there was reason to consider expanding the critical habitat, it also stated that it wanted to analyze additional data in order to make a more informed decision. The agency plans to announce the final decision on whether or not to expand the critical habitat for the southern residents in 2017. That’s a long time for southern resident orcas to wait, especially considering the impacts that humans are already having on their habitat; and on their feeding grounds in particular. The number of Chinook salmon, the main food source of southern resident orca, has been dwindling across the region for years as pollution increases, their foraging and rearing habitat is lost to development, and barriers like dams cut off spawning habitat. Designating critical habitat for southern resident orcas may be tricky. These animals follow their prey, and Chinook salmon ranges can vary widely. Rivers across the Northwest produce more or less salmon each year based on many different conditions, so it can be tough to predict where the salmon – and therefore the orcas – may be next. But that is all the more reason to expand the orca’s critical habitat. We need to protect the coastline where Chinook salmon-bearing rivers and streams meet the ocean. The bottom line is that plenty of research has already been completed showing the full extent of southern resident orcas’ range. Any new research will show the same results, and the agency can always make other changes in the future if necessary. Along with many other conservation groups, we’ve reached out to NMFS to remind them of all this. The time is now to help the southern residents. This part of this post is from the Making Habitat ‘Critical’ for Southern Resident Orca post from Defenders of Wildlife Blog.  |
This Image Will Make You Never Want to Visit a Zoo or Marine Park Again. Ever since the release of acclaimed documentary Blackfish two years ago, entertainment giant Sea World has been on the defensive … and on the decline.
Damaging evidence has continually emerged since that time, showing the public that Sea World is not exactly the marine mammal paradise it claims to be. The revelation that they must administer psychoactive medication to their killer whales to stave off depression was particularly damaging, as were their multiple citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for welfare and safety violations. studies have been released concluding beyond doubt that their animals are stressed as a result of captivity.
Last year, marine mammal veterinarian Dr. Heather Rally found “scars and lesions on dolphins, orcas, and other animals,” witnessed “unprotected and unsupervised contact between visitors and aggressive animals; and observed listless animals engaging in abnormal, repetitive behavior likely caused by stress, among other apparent violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).”
There is a lot that could be said about Sea World’s continued policy of holding large marine animals in captivity. However, in this case, a picture paints a thousand words. If anyone, anywhere, still thinks there is nothing wrong with holding a twenty-thousand-pound orca in a tank whose size equates to a minuscule percentage of their natural territory … let them check out this image:
The reality for captive animals right across the board – whether they are housed in a zoo or a marine park – is that they face zoochotic illnesses and stresses that would never be a factor of their everyday lives were they in the wild. While the story of Keiko demonstrates to us that the release of a marine animal must be carefully managed, we need to have a serious conversation NOW about the future of captivity, and whether this practice ought to be phased out. But can we ever do that if SeaWorld continues to deny that there is a problem?
The good news, Green Monsters, is that you can help make a difference for these animals by refusing to buy into SeaWorlds lies and not patronizing their establishments. SeaWorld is an establishment that is solely driven by profit, so when we stop paying for them to abuse animals, it can stop. In-text image: The Daily Express UK - Lead Image Source: Allie_Caulfield/Flickr
Awesome footage of rare white whale off the coast of Australia.
Migaloo, a name giving by Aboriginal Elders that means "white fella," is one member of a rare group of white whales that have been spotted swimming in Australian waters.
The department told Mashable Australia via email it has still not been able to confirm whether the sighting is that of the Migaloo.
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California Coastal Commission: Don't Let SeaWorld Expand.
SeaWorld claims Project Blue World, which will cost millions to marginally increase the size of its orca enclosure, is to improve the welfare of its orcas. Opponents, however, argue the expansion won't do anything to address the inherent cruelty involved in keeping these huge, intelligent, far-ranging animals in captivity and denying them everything they would experience in their rightful place in the wild.
The California Coastal Commission was expected to vote on the proposal in July, but pushed it back following an outpouring of public opposition.
Please help keep the pressure on by signing and sharing this petition urging the California Coastal Commission to deny SeaWorld a permit to expand. Click Here to Sign it!
Public opinion has largely turned on SeaWorld, and
compassionate people across the globe now understand that keeping killer whales
in captivity is a horrible idea. SeaWorld isn't giving up without a fight. I
think the corporation is trying to write the sequel to "Blackfish" - I'd call it
"Shamu Strikes Back!"
The corporation has paid for a series of ads
telling us how much they care for their animals, sponsored an online series to
sell the public on their conservation program, and now they are working to
expand their orca habitat in San Diego. Sign Alicia's petition to
the California Coastal Commission - tell them to deny SeaWorld's plans for a
more elaborate orca prison!
Immediately following the news that SeaWorld's
stock prices had plunged by 35%, they announced a plan to nearly double the
depth of their killer whale tanks in San Diego. Before we get too excited,
the new plan calls for a 50 foot-deep tank. In the wild, orcas regularly dive
over 300 feet, and can go as deep as 800 feet!
The new tanks still won't change the reality that
orcas shouldn't be in captivity. These highly social animals spend their time in
the wild traveling in family pods over 100 miles a day to hunt schools of salmon
and other prey together. Orcas cannot thrive in these lonely conditions - even
if the bathtub is deeper that it used to be!
The California Coastal Commission can show
important leadership for wild killer whales, and efforts to return killer whales
to the ocean by denying SeaWorld's PR campaign - sign the petition
today!
Cruise Lines Shun Faroe Islands to Protest Whale Slaughter. Environmentalists applaud German companies’ decision to stop sending tourists to the site of an annual slaughter of pilot whales.Executives at two major German cruise lines—Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA—said Monday they would stop sending their tourist-packed ships to the Faroe Islands in protest of the annual slaughter of pilot whales in the remote North Atlantic archipelago known for its stark beauty and bloody traditional hunts. The move is a blow to the islands, which depends on tourism revenue.
“Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is committed to treating flora, fauna, and the marine ecosystem as well as all its creatures with respect,” Karl J. Pojer, the company’s chief executive, said in an email. “We protect what fascinates us—it is therefore high in the interests of the company that whaling on the Faroe Islands is stopped.”
The cruise lines also cited a new Faroe Islands law requiring anyone who spots whales to report the animals to local officials as a reason to take the destination off their ships’ itineraries.
Hapag-Lloyd had already reduced the number of ships scheduled to visit the Faroes, Pojer said, with only one cruise slated for next year. The company is trying to find an alternative destination for that trip.
Monika Griefahn, AIDA’s chief sustainability officer, said in an email that her company “expressly dissociates itself from whaling. Species conservation is an integral part of our sustainability strategy. Thus, AIDA Cruises has decided to cease approaching the Faroe Islands until further notice.”
Whale hunts are permitted in 22 Faroese bays, where up to 120 pilot whales can be killed at a time. According to Sea Shepherd, 1,200 pilot whales are killed during the hunt season.
The hunt is also used to draw tourists to the islands, according to the website Visit Faroe Islands.
“The pilot whale hunt in the Faroes is, by its very nature, a dramatic sight,” it states. “Entire schools of whales are killed on the shore and in the shallows of bays with knives which are used to sever the major blood supply to the brain.” “It’s not something we want to hide," Brynhild Weihe, an office assistant at Visit Faroe Islands said in an email. "Some people express doubts about coming to the Faroe Islands because they don’t know what to think of the whaling that is done here, and so we want to make sure they can read about the main facts. This doesn’t mean we want them to come here for this reason."
In the past two years, Hapag-Lloyd and AIDA wrote to the Faroese prime minister expressing their concerns about the whale hunt, or grindadráp.
A Hapag-Lloyd official, who asked not to be identified because she was not authorized to speak with the media, said the company never received a response.
The letters prompted Sea Shepherd, the environmental group that has been trying to halt the whale hunt since the early 1980s, to contact the companies, calling on them to suspend cruises to the islands. Sea Shepherd highlighted a recently passed law making it a crime not to report whale sightings to local authorities.
“Authorities are quoted as saying that these reports can be decisive in determining whether or not the spotted whales are subjected to traditional whaling,” said AIDA’s Griefahn.
A court last week convicted five Sea Shepherd volunteers of violating the Faroe Islands law by trying to stop the slaughter of 250 pilot whales on July 23. They face fines or up to two weeks in jail.
“We were very delighted to hear the news,” Rosie Kunneke, land crew leader for Sea Shepherd in the Faroes, said in a telephone interview from the islands. “This puts pressure on the cruise industry, who might want to reconsider what people are doing to the animals here.”
Several other cruise lines still operate in the islands, Kunneke said, including Princess, Royal Caribbean, Crystal, and Holland America.
“We’re hoping that the world gets to know about the hunt and that customers demand that these companies do not come here anymore,” Kunneke said.
Courtney Vail, campaigns and programs manager for Whale and Dolphin Conservation, said that “ethics-based corporate responsibility” is one way to help stop the killing.
The cruise industry has been much criticized by conservationists for polluting the world’s oceans. But recently it has made efforts to appear more attuned to ethical concerns. Carnival, for instance, announced in June that it would launch a cruise line that lets passengers perform community service in the countries they visit.
“We believe in the power of consumer choice to help guide and reform national and global environmental and animal welfare policies,” Vail said in an email. “It is a shame that such a beautiful destination continues to be marred by the shadow of these bloody hunts.”
