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Orcas (or killer whales) are large, powerful aquatic apex predators. There have been incidents where orcas were perceived to attack humans in the wild, but such attacks are less common than those by captive orcas. [1] In captivity, there have been several non-fatal and four fatal attacks on humans since the 1970s. [2]
Peto's paradox is the observation that, at the species level, the incidence of cancer does not appear to correlate with the number of cells in an organism. [1] For example, the incidence of cancer in humans is much higher than the incidence of cancer in whales, [2] despite whales having more cells than humans.
Although the whales no longer face pressure from commercial whaling, humans remain by far the greatest threat to these species: the two leading causes of death are being struck by ships and entanglement in fishing gear. Today, the North Atlantic and North Pacific right whales are among the most endangered whales in the world.
Researchers have warned that human impact on the ocean is putting increasing pressure on dolphins and whales, and their ecosystems. The UK whale and dolphin conservation charity Orca recorded ...
Whales have beached throughout human history, with evidence of humans salvaging from stranded sperm whales in southern Spain during the Upper Magdalenian era some 14,000 years before the present. [2] Some strandings can be attributed to natural and environmental factors, such as rough weather, weakness due to old age or infection, difficulty ...
Bryde's whales have not been reported as taken or injured in fishing operations. They are sometimes killed or injured by ship strikes. Anthropogenic noise is an increasing concern for all rorquals, which communicate by low-frequency sounds. [8] These whales are protected off the US by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. [8]
The decline of global whale populations Blue whale populations have declined dramatically due to unregulated commercial whaling, putting them at risk of extinction.. Prior to the setting up of the IWC in 1946, unregulated whaling had depleted a number of whale populations to a significant extent, and several whales species were severely endangered.
Whaling in the Faroe Islands, or grindadráp (from the Faroese terms grindhvalur, meaning pilot whale, and dráp, meaning killing), is a type of drive hunting that involves herding various species of whales and dolphins, but primarily pilot whales, into shallow bays to be beached, killed, and butchered.