Talk:Humpback whale

older entries

Below is a copy of the comments on FAC. Whilst "official" comments remain unmolested at fac, I'm feeling at liberty to refactor this copy to make it easier to see what needs to be done and to add my own comments. (Sorry for using a talk page as something akin to a personal scratchpad!)

• Supporters: David Gerard, Gtrmp (Sean Curtin), Meelar

• Qualified support: Exploding Boy wants
  • External links - This is a reasonable request and should be possible - DONE
  • Querying capitalization - I think it is ok to let this one slide. - PASSED OVER.

• Objectors: Matt dillhole
  • Whale song - DONE.
  • Full view image - Perhaps the most crucial missing element. DONE.
  • Facts - behaviour - Valid - Need to write the separate article - too many other species have similar behaviour to put it here. - DONE what needs to be done here. Other article TO BE DONE.
  • Facts - feeding - We already talk about feeding - probably more can be said without getting too tedious - DONE
  • Facts - size of body parts - Yeah maybe, an image would perhaps be better though. - DONE
  • Talk about the major studies of these whales - who are the key players etc. This might be a little dull but I think necessary to round out the article. - DONE.

• sj
  • Evolution - Good point - Humpbacks are in their own family - was it always thus? DONE.
  • Image descriptions - Good point - DONE.
  • Social groups - Good point - DONE.
  • Intermixing with other species - Need to research what is known - DONE
  • Intermixing with humans - Mention curiousity about boats - protective behaviour of mother - DONE
  • Historical perspective - Suggestion is that we are too top-heavy with the whaling and in particular emphasising the numerical aspect rather than human side. DONE (to the extent that I am able)
  • Who studies these whales - tie with Matt's last above. - DONE

• mav
  • Whole animal image - DONE.
  • Feeding - They feed on their young
  • Parenting - DONE.
  • Mating - DONE.
  • Evolution - DONE.
  • Ecological niche - I don't know the answer to this - TO BE DONE?

Pcb21| Pete 13:10, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article was later featured. Pcb21| Pete 14:14, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Would someone tell me why "Humpback Whale" is capitalized throughout this article? (I attempted to fix this overcapitalization, but someone else reversed the changes.) PittBill 15:49, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, never mind. I found the relevant article on capitalizing species names. PittBill 16:00, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Map

I think a lot of what I've put at Talk:Blue Whale also applies here too (e.g. Humpback Whale is a major rarity in the North Sea, maybe one every few years, and does it ever enter the Baltic Sea?) - anyone care to comment? - MPF 00:36, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC) As far as I remember whales (I think only small ones) enter the baltic sea by accident and don't find the exit again, and die because of the lower salt conditions in the baltic sea.

As you were saying, if a whale (of any kind) is found in the Baltic sea it has most likely wandered off there in error and will have a difficult time getting out again. The English wikipedia has an erroneous map. See this article in any other language for reference, i.e. Swedish, German, Norwegian... --212.209.190.192 11:23, 27 Novemb[[Media:er 2006 (UTC)

--58.173.17.88 (talk) 05:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)Small Text]]ṆŰ

the whale song can be heard right around the world - from one whale. other whales can hear whales that are on the opposite side of the globeInsert non-formatted text hereВ --58.173.17.88 (talk) 05:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Image queue

This image was removed from the article, presumably because there are too many images for low resolution screens? Keeping here in a queue. Pcb21| Pete 07:08, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Humpback Whales spend much of their time submerged

Megaptera band

There also is a band named Megaptera, but Megaptera redirects here. Somebody should do something about that. --82.79.53.16 14:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Intelligence

The text as it stands currently reads, "Their analysis of the whale song led to worldwide media interest in the species, and left an impression in the public mind that whales were a highly intelligent species. This impression is probably incorrect (see cetacean intelligence), but is probably a contributing factor to the anti-whaling stance of many countries."

However, the article on cetacean intelligence includes no such information. It seems to mostly be about dolphins rather than whales, does not seem to give much particular impression about dolphins not being highly intelligent, and has no information about the whale song. Should the "probably incorrect" commentary be removed, or is there some other source it could point to? Revkat 09:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Image switch

I switched the images because I could barely see a whale in the original image at the top. Although the original shows the power of a whale, a more accurate picture would be that of a whale while being able to discern its details. Silverleaftree 06:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Why "Humpback"?

Can someone add an explanation for why it is called "humpback"? Presumably this refers to its anatomy, though this is just a guess. A-giau 10:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The Humpback whales arch their backs into the "hump" shape shown in the article when diving deep from the surface, giving them the name "Humpback", most other whales tend to simply sink down under the water.

Whaling

Hi just wondering why there aren't any references to Japan in the issue of Whaling? Japan has been calling for the 20-year ban on commercial whaling to be scrapped. There is a real danger that in the near future they will be successful in their campaign, see the following News papers report for recent revelations on Japan's "Aid" to Pro-whaling countries [1].

Bumps and Barnacles?

Was wondering what the encrustations that you often see on the nose and head of humpbacks are? Are they barnacles or parasites of some kind? Or bone structures? --Corinthian 21:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)> Good question. They are most commonly BEEJ and pals. By the way, which head????? BEEJ likes head.

Citation Needed for Research Anecdote

At the end of the Research section is the following:

"One researcher was once approached while observing the whales underwater from far off, the whale came over, and gently nudged the researcher with one of it fins and pushed him towards its eye to get a better look at the human."

This paragraph consists of a single run-on sentence. It is vague, anecdotal, and it seems made up. If this anecdote is true, it needs to be cited and rewritten using specific details and proper sentence structure; otherwise it should be removed.

146.145.138.79 22:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC) rcl

Helpful links

this may be good... [2] cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 07:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC) For those interested in whale watching, here's guide for Hawaii [3]

Protozoan ciliates

I removed the following from the section, "Threats other than hunting" because the paragraph describes something that is, if I'm reading it correctly, not a threat. Can someone provide more context or explanation for the significance of this fact?

The protozoan ciliate Haematophagus megapterae, attaches to the baleen plates of the Humpback as it does to the Fin Whale and Blue Whale, yet is apparently not pathogenic, and merely feeds off the whales' red blood cells.

Kla'quot 05:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm..yeah. Have to look into it, sorta fits under some sort of ecology bit, but where? cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 05:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Marine mammal mortality programs

Sorry, I've just shortened the "Threats due to hunting" section again. This time I removed:

"The stranding of fourteen Humpbacks off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1987 was one of the events, along with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, that led the United States to develop a legal framework and procedures for dealing with MMUMEs (Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events). The United Kingdom also has programmes to investigate events of the large scale death of marine mammals, such as the 1988 epizootic that killed 18,000 common seals."

This sounds accurate, but it doesn't say much about Humpback conservation specifically, and it implies that large-scale die-offs are more of a threat than, say, reproductive failure. This section needs a lot of work. I'll see what I can do to expand it. Please try to beat me to it ;) Cheers, Kla'quot 06:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Population and distribution issues

The other issue is the discrepancy in migration stats in terms of km travelled, if you have a look at the first para. I added the 2nd after a recent study published. Will look more later but just alerting folks. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 06:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe one figure is one-way and the other is round-trip? Kla'quot 06:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting conflicting data on the population estimates. This ref: http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/index.cfm?adfg=endangered.humpbackwhale says there are 1000-1200 humpbacks in the North Pacific. This one: http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0701/feature2/index.html says there are 10,000 to 25,000. Can anyone explain this? Kla'quot 06:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Weird...the 2nd article says its a new study soon to be published. Could have a preamble saying 'reports vary' or highlight numbers are difficult to obtain etc. I recall reading somewhere that numbers can be hard to estimate but not sure where that was now.. Also numbers may be increasing though I didn't think Humpbacks bred that quickly :) cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 06:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds right. Here are the numbers I'm currently crunching:

• National Parks Conservation Association: Worldwide pre-whaling pop. 125,000, current pop. 5,000 to 7,500.
• American Cetacean Society: Worldwide current pop. 30,000-40,000 at present, or about 30-35% of the original population.
• Marinebio.org Worldwide current pop. 60,000, or about 30-35% of the original population.
• National Geographic (2007): Largest study to date, by SPLASH, puts the current North Pacific population at 10,000 to 25,000.

As SPLASH has the best research methods, I'm inclined to consider it the most reliable, so the National Parks Conservation Association is probably in error here. I'll try something like "worldwide population estimates range from about 30,000 to 60,000." Kla'quot 05:02, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 09:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The article used to say 5,000-7,000, now says 30,000 - 50,000. This is even better than tripling elephants! Kla'quot 08:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Updated with the above NG figures for the N-pacific (is that source already among the footnotes?) and 30.000 for the N-Atlantic with sources. This, with the southern population of 50.000 (Is there a source on that?) brings the total to about 100.000. I'm raising the intro to 60.000-120.000. Asgrrr (talk) 05:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

NOAA states that the North Atlantic population is at about 11,570. The estimate is over a decade old, so it could possibly be an underestimate. Heres the pdf: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/sars/ao2006_whhb-gme.pdf. A recent report submitted to the IWC stated that there are over 50,000 humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere. Heres the pdf: http://www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/sci_com/SC59docs/SC-59-ForInformation25.pdf Jonas Poole (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Come on now, a decade old number is no use. The source I cited fulfills the criteria for a reliable source. Unless someone has a better one, there is no foundation for removing it. Asgrrr (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Find an ENGLISH source that gives 30,000 as the current population size, and how that estimate came to be. Come on now, you're telling me that the humpback whale population in the North Atlantic nearly trebled in a decade in a half when it is estimated to be increasing at around 3% annually? I'm removing it until you find a RELIABLE source. Jonas Poole (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the AP the humpback whale population(s) in the North Pacific now numbers between 18,000 and 20,000. Here's the press release: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jWFkQCL_vHK6YpzN4u_OGxhZdm6AD90RC50G0 I don't know how to add in-line references to news articles on the page, so in the edit I'll just say "See Discussion." Anyone want to add the link for me it would be much appreciated. Jonas Poole (talk) 20:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Cooperation in defending from Orcas

I've removed this claim as I can't find a ref to support it, and most of the literature is sketchy on the whole subject. (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2006.02943.x?journalCode=mec states males do not directly defend mothers and calves under attack, which is a strike against it) Yomangani^talk 09:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

How do you guys feel about the article now? The only other thing I could think of was a wikilink to a description of "blow" as I didn't immediately know what it was, however none of the meanings on blow are accurate. Only a very minor point though. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 09:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've got some articles to write to fill some redlinks for this article - I've done Remington Kellogg, but SPLASH, Regnum Animale and Blow (cetacean) are all on my list. I'll try and do blow tomorrow (hold on, that's today), but I'm a little busy at the moment. Some of the refs could do with moving to the cite template in line with the others and some ISBN numbers need adding, but, again, minor points. Yomangani^talk 09:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

No major issues. There can probably be some quibbles about things like whether numbers should be numbers or words. Something should be added about theories as to why humpbacks migrate. I'd also like to add more about rescues of humpbacks entangled in fishing nets. Kla'quot 05:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

semi-protect

What is it with whales? First Blue Whale, now this one are copping daily hits. I've semiprotected it for a month to see if it dies down...cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 02:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, unprotected and lasted all of an hour or so before being vandalised...let's see how we go......cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 06:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Life time citation

The article claims humpback whale can become 40-50 years old, but doesn't cite a source. It is known that some related species can live for up to 200 years.

==

Delta and Dawn were in the Port of Sacramento in the City of West Sacramento75.8.108.180 04:09, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Whaling section

"The first recorded Humpback kill was made in 1608 off Nantucket. Opportunistic killing of the species is likely to have occurred long before, and it continued with increasing pace in the following centuries. By the 18th century, the commercial value of Humpback Whales had been recognized, and they became a common target for whalers for many years."

I for one would like to see the original document that states that a humpback whale was killed off Nanucket in 1608. It wasn't settled until 1659, so it may have been some unknown explorer (to me at least) who witnessed native americans hunting this supposed humpback? I know the reference came from Phil Clapham's book Humpback Whales (1996), but he doesn't provide a source, and knowing his rather ignorant remarks made on whaling history (calling the bark Superior the Thomas Roys, the ship's captain), I'd show caution in using him as a source on this subject. Shall this part of the section be removed or edited in some way? Jonas Poole 01:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely - if you have a higher level of knowledge and are fairly sure of the above then please step in and alter. I was one of the folk that rescued this from FAR and am only an enthusiast not an expert. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I remembered that John Smith fitted out or was at least part of a mixed voyage to New England in 1614, in which they had whaling experts with them. Now Ellis (Men & Whales, 1991) had left out what species they attempted to catch (as they weren't able to catch any), but I found a reprint of Smith's writings and it stated they were hunting "iubartes" or "jubartes," which is a french term for the humpback whale. Now perhaps the beginning should be rewritten as such, "One of the first attempts to hunt the humpback whale was made by John Smith in 1614 off the coast of Maine." Anyone else feel free to suggest an alternate intro. Heres the book, which I'm not quite sure how to cite as it has more than one title: http://books.google.com/books?id=FwAbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=smith,+john&ei=tBjzRuuWM6S4pwKVouVf&ie=ISO-8859-1#PPA175,M1 Jonas Poole 01:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Featured Picture?

Hey all. With a Featured humpback article already, I've nominated one of these images as a featured picture. If you have time, maybe you could check out the discussion and voice your opinion on THIS PAGE.--Eva ^bd 19:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Room for another Featured Picture candidate?

There is a very nice image of a humpback whale breaching up for consideration to be a featured picture. However, one of the criteria for being a featured picture is contributing significantly to an article, this image isn't even in any articles, and there is already a very nice image of a whale breaching on this page. Does anyone know of a good place Image:Humpback stellwagen.JPG could go? Enuja (talk) 03:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Conservation status

Some recent news sources[4][5][6] have indicated that the IUCN now classifies Humpback Whales as "least concern" instead of "threatened". Are these sources trustworthy? --UberScienceNerd _{Talk Contributions} 01:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. This is from the IUCN. See this IUCN press release and this update to the cetacean species for the 2008 red list. Neil916 (Talk) 04:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am confused. The 'conservation' section still talks about them to be endangered and threatened. Does that need to be updated as well? Splette :) ^{How's my driving?} 13:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. This is a new development and it hasn't been completely integrated into the article yet. Sorry I have such little time, or I'd do it myself. Neil916 (Talk) 15:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been meaning to make these changes too. This all just happened literally within the last week. --JayHenry (talk) 00:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The IUCN templates that show Humpback Whales as "Vulnerable" should probably be removed from the page now (and updated to the extent those templates are used on other article pages). Rlendog (talk) 02:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Famous humpbacks: "Colin" the abandoned baby humpback whale

The section concerning famous humpbacks in my opinion should be expanded to include the current story unfolding in Australian waters with Colin, the abandoned baby whale. This whale is currently attracting national media attention in Australia. Major news outlets covering the unfolding story include:

• The Australian
• The Daily Telegraph
• The Age
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation

- Zzrbiker (talk) 09:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Colin" turned out to be female.[7] 203.7.140.3 (talk) 04:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)