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Minke Whale


Minke whale - Queensland, Australia
photo: WWF-Canon / Jürgen FREUND
Status: some populations abundant, some depleted
Total remaining:
northern minke: up to 204,000
southern minke: previously estimated around 760,000, but this is now considered inaccurate - no new estimate is yet available.

Although the smallest of the great whales, the minke may still reach 33 feet (with females tending to be larger than males) and exceed 10 tons. Minkes are distinguished by their very pointed heads; in fact, their scientific name - Balaenoptera - means "pointy snout." They are widely distributed from the tropics to polar waters in both hemispheres. The three populations in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and Southern Hemisphere do not mix and may actually be separate subspecies.

This filter feeder's diet varies with location. In the Southern Hemisphere, it consists mostly of krill (small shrimp-like animals), while in the Northern Hemisphere the whales eat small fish (such as capelin, sand eel and sardines) as well as krill. Generally, minkes migrate between summer feeding grounds in polar waters and wintering grounds in warmer waters where calving takes place, but their migrations vary from year to year.

The calf will spend 10 months in the womb and up to six months nursing. The young minke whale will mature sexually after six to eight years and might live up to 40 or 50 years, although adult mortality rates are relatively high (around 9-10 percent per year).

Up until the 1930s, no one in the whaling industry bothered with minke whales because their larger relatives, such as finbacks and blues, were plentiful and brought a higher profit per catch. But when populations of the larger whales became seriously depleted, with several species close to extinction, attention turned to minkes. In 1949, Norway alone caught no fewer than 4,000 of this species. By the time the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on commercial whaling was passed in 1982, minkes were the most important species for whaling in both the North Atlantic and the Antarctic Oceans.

Even though minkes are not endangered and are now the most abundant of the great whales, their populations have been depleted by whaling in the North Atlantic and the western North Pacific, as well as in some parts of the Southern Ocean. At one time it was thought that minkes might increase in numbers in the Southern Hemisphere because they had increased amounts of food available after the decimation of the larger baleen whales, but there is no evidence that they have increased.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetacea...species_mw.cfm

Interesting reason for why the minke is such a popular whale to kill. It because all the other species have been depleted!! How nice....

My stand is there is no reason to kill any whale. Any product that whales once provided can now be made synthetically. As for wanting to eat whale meat...get over it. Depleting natural treasures like whales isn't worth a whale burger. Personally, I don't like the idea of eating something that may be more intelligent than myself.

Pardon me while I go chain myself to a harpoon.