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Whales: Giants of the Ocean

Whales are among the largest and most remarkable animals on Earth. These marine mammals live in oceans around the world, from warm tropical waters to the cold seas surrounding the poles.

Life Beneath the Surface

Although whales spend their lives in water, they breathe air through blowholes located on top of their heads. They must regularly return to the surface to breathe before diving again in search of food or traveling through the ocean.

Whales are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, and nurse their calves with milk. A thick layer of fat called blubber helps protect them from cold water and stores energy during long migrations.

Two Main Groups

Whales are generally divided into baleen whales and toothed whales. Baleen whales filter small animals from the water using flexible plates inside their mouths. This group includes blue whales, humpback whales, and gray whales.

Toothed whales use teeth to catch fish, squid, and other prey. Many of them also use echolocation, producing sounds and listening for returning echoes to understand their surroundings. Sperm whales, belugas, and orcas belong to this group.

The Blue Whale

The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever lived. An adult can grow longer than a city bus and weigh well over one hundred tonnes. Despite its enormous size, it feeds mainly on tiny crustaceans called krill.

Communication and Migration

Whales communicate using clicks, whistles, pulses, and complex songs. Some sounds can travel across great distances underwater. Humpback whales are especially famous for their long, patterned songs.

Many species migrate thousands of kilometres each year. They often feed in cold, nutrient-rich waters before traveling to warmer regions where they mate and give birth.

Protecting Whales

Commercial hunting once caused severe declines in many whale populations. Today, whales also face threats from fishing gear, ship collisions, underwater noise, pollution, and changes to ocean ecosystems.

Conservation programs, safer fishing practices, protected habitats, and international cooperation can help whale populations recover. Protecting whales also supports healthier oceans because these animals play an important role in marine food webs and nutrient cycles.

Whales: Giants of the Ocean

Whales are among the largest and most remarkable animals on Earth. These marine mammals live in oceans around the world, from warm tropical waters to the cold seas surrounding the poles.

Life Beneath the Surface

Although whales spend their lives in water, they breathe air through blowholes located on top of their heads. They must regularly return to the surface to breathe before diving again in search of food or traveling through the ocean.

Whales are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, and nurse their calves with milk. A thick layer of fat called blubber helps protect them from cold water and stores energy during long migrations.

Two Main Groups

Whales are generally divided into baleen whales and toothed whales. Baleen whales filter small animals from the water using flexible plates inside their mouths. This group includes blue whales, humpback whales, and gray whales.

Toothed whales use teeth to catch fish, squid, and other prey. Many of them also use echolocation, producing sounds and listening for returning echoes to understand their surroundings. Sperm whales, belugas, and orcas belong to this group.

The Blue Whale

The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever lived. An adult can grow longer than a city bus and weigh well over one hundred tonnes. Despite its enormous size, it feeds mainly on tiny crustaceans called krill.

Communication and Migration

Whales communicate using clicks, whistles, pulses, and complex songs. Some sounds can travel across great distances underwater. Humpback whales are especially famous for their long, patterned songs.

Many species migrate thousands of kilometres each year. They often feed in cold, nutrient-rich waters before traveling to warmer regions where they mate and give birth.

Protecting Whales

Commercial hunting once caused severe declines in many whale populations. Today, whales also face threats from fishing gear, ship collisions, underwater noise, pollution, and changes to ocean ecosystems.

Conservation programs, safer fishing practices, protected habitats, and international cooperation can help whale populations recover. Protecting whales also supports healthier oceans because these animals play an important role in marine food webs and nutrient cycles.

Once again this winter we here in Newquay have been blessed by Humpback Whales.

This may seem surprising to many of you, however, Humpbacks are native here in the UK and since the abolition of Whaling in 1963 the numbers of Whales has increased globally.

This has had a very positive effect on sightings of Whales here in the UK. Recently Humpback and Fin Whales have been turning up in the Isles of Scilly around December and some of them have been moving North looking for food.

This has brought them to North Cornwall and we have had 2 Humpback Whales off the coast of Newquay for about 5 weeks and they are still here now (10 Feb 25) They can be seen best from the cliff top around Watergate Bay and Bedruthan Steps feeding close in shore.

We shall be running Sea Safari trips which will cover this area during the February Half Term, these trips will be run following the “WISE” (Wildlife Safe Scheme) which means we will be putting the welfare of the whale first allowing plenty of space for its natural behavior.

Although I have seen these whales a number of times unfortunately I have not been able to photograph them.

Who is this gorgeous seal that turned up in Newquay Harbour yesterday…?? Not enough of him out of the water to tell yet so we hope to get more images of him today to photo ID…isn't he big though? Watch this space for update….

This extremely cute Whitecoat Seal Pup was rescued today from a local beach close to Newquay Harbour. He is only about three weeks old and suffered from possiblely infected bite wounds. After ensuring there was no mother nearby and that the seal pup was truely sick Chris and I acted with our medics hat on and retrieved the gorgeous pup to be transfered by other British Divers Marine Life Rescue Marine Mammal Medics. He is a good weight so his mum has fed him extremely well so hopefuly he will make a full recovery but his progress can be checked on:

http://www.sealsanctuary.co.uk/corn1.html

This is our fourth seal pup rescue of the season…its been a tough couple of weeks for the seals with the huge ground sea …for advise about what to do if you see a seal pup :

http://www.bdmlr.org.uk/index.php?page=stranded-animals

26th April 2011 The Crisp Boys are back in town Fishing from Atlantic Diver with catches of cod up to 81bs ,Wrasse, Whiting, Gurnard and at least 50 shimmering blue/green mackerel…fit for the B-B_Q…hmmm yummy! Whilst the fishing Frenzy took place out at sea …our new toy arrived in the guise of an underwater camera with top deck TV monitor!! Now all can share in the magic of the world which lies beneath the boat. Can’t wait to try it! Medallion Man popped up to see all the fish activity back at the Newquay Harbour.

 

 

The weather in Newquay has been rather challenging this week but it didn't put off a group of stags who stayed the course and caught a dozen Pollack , a dozen Cod , plus plenty of Mackerel for a fishtastic  Bar-B-Que later .Hope this is a good omen for a long and happy marriage. Thanks to Matt ( Howler) for putting the trip together.

All aboard for the dive trip of the century..as we left Padstow Harbour, “Atlantic Diver” cut through the glassy sea in the warmth of the newly found July Sunshine..awesome in itself you would think…Chris  let out full throttle and off we sped for a 30mile journey to the wreck site the REWA…2 Puffins flew past followed by numerous Gannets and hundreds upon hundreds of Manx Shearwaters…spectacular watching them take off from the waters surface, circle and reland again. Then over about half way through, a pod of about 80 Commom Dolphins  including calves were actively hunting, blowing bubbles from below and coralling in circles. Behind them was a pair trawler and having read recent research it would suggest that the dolphins have a familiarisation with the fishing vessel….or was it the other way around?

About 2 mile on and we spotted 1 loan Bottlenose Dolphin …unusual we thought, on its own …when…suddenly the tell tale bubbleblows surfaced and we realised there were more, at least 25 surface and porpoised out of the sea, some came to join us in our journey whist others reained actively hunting. Again calves were present and one adult had pocks marks all over its body. The water visibility was so clear that we could see ever y rake mark on their bodies’…..just breath taking. During this we passed 4 Potuguese Man-of-war jellyfish just below the surface, there may have been more but we passed rather rapidly.

Smiles all round and divers safely enjoying their dive, we waited still spotting for more Cetacean encounters. Two divers surface when….A MINKIE WHALE surfaced scooping up great mouth fulls of plankton….quick get the cameras….again it surface and again, circling Atlantic Diver and eventually came 100m to our port side…at this stage we realised that it was over twice the size of our 10m Blyth Catamaran and so with the surfacing pattern and the dorsal fin size and shape,we reidentified as a Fin Whale…..WOW absolutely AWESOME…best day ever. Divers continued to surface and some saw the whale…what a sightb that would be underwater during your decompression stops!!! Loving this job !! Thanks guys for booking our boat!!:0)

 

A beautiful 3.6m Thresher Shark was bycaught in bass fishing nets 100m off Tintagel yesterday and landed in Newquay Harbour . Sadly occassionally cetacean like harbour porpoise, dolphins,and Seals and in this case Sharks become net entangled and often drown as a result. The target fish was Bass which we can only guess the shark was feeding on as they eat small fish, squid and other small sharks. The commercial fisherman kindly allowed us to record the size of the sharks dorsal fins and tail fin as this is a "BAP" ( Biodiversity Action Plan) species which the government has funded to monitor the health of the species. All sightings or landings of this species are useful to determine the population's health. The shark was landed whole and all of the carcus sold .