More great news about whales, this time in the north Atlantic as opposed to the encouraging news from Alaska the other day.. Thankfully the Japanese ships don't hunt in the Atlantic though perhaps the Norwegian ships do. Joelle and I kayaked in Walvis Bay, Namibia a few years ago and spent two hours playing with a southern right whale. (Photo above.) The youngster was around 20-some feet long and swam next to us, under us, back and forth. We stayed in a fairly tight area (a few hundred meters in length) and couldn't believe how interactive our whale friend was. Each time we lost track of her, she would pop up again and dive under us, just a couple of feet away from the side of the kayak. They are such incredible animals and the two of us are total suckers for moments like this. Onto the good news up north:
Government scientists believe they have some good news about the endangered right whale, whose population in the Atlantic Ocean is struggling to come back.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday they have found evidence of a significant right whale population in waters off the southern tip of Greenland. The whale was thought to have largely disappeared from that area decades ago. Only two of the whales have been sighted in the area in the last 50 years.
But now scientists, over a yearlong period, recorded 2,000 whale calls from underwater listening devices in the area. No whales were sighted.
