‘whale’ is a 15-year-old humpback, with a long scar underneath his left eye. he has cried many times over for the loss of his family to the rising sea levels and whaling ships, until one day he meets ‘girl.’ she is a young girl with bright eyes that ends up saving whale’s life. 

“dad, look!” girl shouts from the bow, “look dad!” her dad is a strong seaman and protector. he gazes out to the abyss of his beloved blue ocean.

“what do you see?” it’s unclear that his daughter could see anything on this gray day. they have been out to sea for three days now, having departed from sag harbor and going towards the cape, where they will then embark on a long journey to the labrador sea. they hit a big storm the first night, but dad and girl are survivors like whale, and make it through. 

“it’s a humpback!” girl shouts from the bow. down below under the water, whale begins to see what looks like a gigantic floating white whale.

“what a strange looking whale.” the whale has traveled a bit, and had seen these strange whales before, yet he could not understand why it carried their enemy, the human. 

“the enemy is waving,” whale thought, “and joyfully smiling. how odd. i must peak my nose up and see what the fuss is about, perhaps she sees a shark, and is warning me.”

“hi! how’s the ride?” the girl shouts to whale. whale follows until the sun goes down, and the shiny specks of lights appear in the sky. 

whale thought, “the human girl talks to me all night. i listen, she too lost her mum, but she has her dad. i tell her about my family, and how we spent the summers near her town until the sea levels changed, and my father could not adapt. after my father died, my mother got caught by whalers, and my brother and i left. we traveled together, and hunted together. we saw many things together, and met many others together. yet, he too left me. after my brother got caught in an old fishing net out at sea, i have been alone for the last seven years. girl cries for me, and i too shed many more tears.” 

“we are headed to the cape, then after that we are headed to the arctic to trade, hunt and fish with our cousins. will you come? my cousins have seen pods of your kind near their home. perhaps they are waiting for you,” the girl explains. i wonder if something else could be waiting for me after all these years of solitude. 

whale thought, “i decided to follow the girl and her dad, it is a long journey. one that i was accustomed to, but have not traveled in many, many moons. when we make it to the arctic, the water is fresh, the food is abundant, and there is a hope that arises in my chest.” 

“there!” shouts the girl. girl’s eyes well up. a pod of humpbacks out in the distance. i nod at girl, and join my new family. 

this past september, in slack-calm waters, captain steven melz and his deckhand performed an experiment. fathom by fathom, five different styles of crab traps dropped beneath the surf, delivering lunch to dungeness crabs waiting on the ocean floor. despite a century of unchanged crab trapping techniques, melz hopes to find alternative gear that can sustain the future of the beleaguered bay area dungeness crab fishery, and solve its biggest — and perhaps surprising — problem: whales.

whales are a big problem for crab fishers, or depending on who you’re asking, crab fishing is a big problem for whales, which can become entangled in the ropes attached to crab fishing traps. 

after whale entanglements in the ropes attached to crab fishing gear spiked, a 2017 lawsuit resulted in new whale-safe restrictions on california crab fisheries. although crab fishing season historically opens in november, for the last several years, lingering whale populations in the area have delayed the start of the season until after the valuable holiday market. experts and fishers predict these truncated seasons will become the new normal.

“i would love it to be the way that it was,” said melz, a commercial crab fisher who began crab fishing on his late father’s boat over 30 years ago. “but that’s not going to happen.”

in dedicated working groups, state regulators, game wardens, ecologists, and fishers collaborate to innovate viable whale-safe gear. as numerous other strategies to make conventional gear safer have been implemented, finding a mutually-agreeable alternative crab fishing gear has become a central sticking point. with their livelihoods at stake, some fishers have taken innovation into their own hands.

a tangled history
 

“crab pots,” the conventional gear for trapping crabs, hold bait inside four-sided closed woven cages. crabs enter through tunnels in the netting, while escape rings allow for smaller crabs that don’t meet regulated size requirements to exit. crab pots rest on the ocean floor and are attached to floating buoys that mark their location through a vertical line of rope, which whales can become entangled in.

depending on their permit, fishers set out hundreds of pots a day, which often remain in the water for multiple days. but the longer that ropes remain in the water, the higher the chance of entanglement with a whale, which can result in injuries or death. the whales, snagging their fins and bus-sized bodies on the ropes, can drag gear for thousands of miles, embedding the ropes into their flesh and creating challenges around identifying the origin of the fishing gear.

entanglements happen as whales migrate down to their winter breeding grounds in mexico, and pass through the bay area’s dungeness crab fishing zones. as climate change warms ocean waters, this migratory timing has shifted, overlapping with crab fishing season along the west coast.

prior to 2013, the national oceanic and atmospheric association (noaa) reports an average of 10 whales per year confirmed to be entangled in fishing gear along the u.s. west coast.

but in 2015, a warm water event known to ecologists as “the blob” resulted in a drastic increase of whales in the bay area during crab season. the number of entanglements almost doubled from the previous year. by the end of the season, 50 whales, primarily humpbacks, had been recorded to be entangled along the west coast. 

in 2017, the center for biological diversity, an environmental activism nonprofit organization, sued the california department of fish and wildlife (cdfw), stating that these entanglements were violations of the endangered species act, which protects humpback and blue whales. 

“it’s really clear that lawsuits by private citizens and environmental groups are absolutely crucial to making sure that laws work,” said patrick sullivan, media director for the center for biological diversity. “we just see it as part of the democratic process.”

in response to the lawsuit, fishers in both the recreational and commercial sector say they feel disproportionately targeted as the “low-hanging fruit” compared to other industries, such as cargo ships that collide with whales. data shows that these are a leading cause of whale deaths and have a high fatality rate. but on the west coast, these events are difficult to document as many whales sink before they are found; experts say as few as one in 10 whale strikes are recorded. 

after negotiations and an intervention by the pacific coast federation of fishermen’s associations, which represented crab fisherfolk, the lawsuit reached a settlement, and cdfw developed programs to regulate crab fisheries, based on a yearly risk-to-whales assessment.

“they want a program where they can shorten seasons, pull gear in, reduce the number of [ropes in the water],” said ryan bartling, a senior environmental scientist on the whale safe fisheries project. as part of the settlement, the dungeness crab fishing gear working group was formed to brainstorm whale-safe gear alternatives with input from all stakeholders.

1,000 cuts: the impact of regulations

“[the crab fishery] is a shell of its former self because of the regulations,” said captain larry collins, who is president of the san francisco fisherman’s association and member of the dungeness crab fishing gear working group. “we call it death by 1,000 cuts.”

as part of risk assessments formulated by the group, noaa scientists now conduct an aerial survey of whale populations before the start of each crab fishing season. if too many whales are detected, the season remains closed until the next survey. if entanglements are detected, the season closes early.

fishers face many challenges from both the delayed season starts and early closures. for several years, crab fishers have missed the lucrative thanksgiving market for crab, which is a traditional holiday food in the bay area. fishers also say that starting as late as january means more dangerous weather, competition from northern fleets and large wholesale companies, and that the unpredictable timing adds high costs to retain crews.

“we call it death by 1,000 cuts.”

“i like whales,” said collins. “but now whales are costing me $50,000 to $70,000 a year.”

whale populations are increasing and have continued to remain in high numbers through the start of dungeness crab fishing season in november. “the season is not going to look like it once was, just based on the data we’re seeing,” said bartling. “there’s still going to be a crab fishery, it’s just going to look a little bit different.”

pop-up gear: can technology provide a solution?

as part of the working groups, stakeholders modify existing gear to be more whale-safe, and review proposals for alternative gear that could allow fishing during season closures with lowered whale entanglement risk.

one of these proposals is a new gear technology in development, known as pop-up gear or by the misnomer, “ropeless” gear. pop-up gear reduces the amount of time ropes spend in the water by storing the buoy and rope on the ocean floor with the crab pot, rather than connecting the crab pot to a buoy on the surface through a suspended vertical rope. when triggered by a remote control or a preset timer, the popup gear releases the buoy and rope, which float to the surface to be retrieved by a fisher.

 

fishers remain unconvinced that pop-up gear is viable, citing the difficulties in operating as a fleet around unseen gear, unfeasible costs, and high rates of failure during tests.

without a surface buoy design marking its location, fishers are concerned with overlapping as each boat lays hundreds of crab traps in the same zone, which can lead to tangling, lower catches, and gear failure.

“they think we lose gear now?” said collins, who participates in a lost-gear retrieval program. “you gotta be able to see the buoys [on the surface of the water] so you don’t tangle with everybody and their brother.” 

at over $1,000 a pot, pop-up gear could be over three times more expensive than conventional crab fishing gear. if the buoy fails to pop-up, the gear becomes irretrievable; lost pop-up gear may pose a larger risk to whales and boat engines, as fishers unwittingly lay gear on top of the unseen ropes below, and ropes from multiple sets of gear tangle with each other.

“it’s a huge capital investment,” said captain shane wehr, a commercial dungeness crab fisher with family roots in the san francisco fishing community. “it would probably weed out half of the fishermen, and guys would sell out of the industry completely.”

regulators and scientists see potential in pop-up gear. “i love the idea of ropeless gear,” said dr. elliott l. hazen, a research ecologist at noaa in monterey, california, who sees pop-up gear as a promising technology that requires further testing. “how do you help fishermen avoid each others’ gear? if you can solve that problem, along with the sheer cost of ropeless gear, i think it’s an amazing solution. i really do.”

although a $500,000 grant currently exists for pop-up gear testing, bartling says few fishers have signed up to participate in gear trials. fishers say they are wary of regulations that would force them to reinvest in the expensive pop-up gear if the trials are successful. 

“it’s a fear from decades and decades of having their way of life stripped away,” said captain brand little, a commercial fisherman. “if something gets taken away, its never coming back”

hoops, scoops and loopholes

captain brand “hoop net” little, received his nickname for his advocacy of another, less experimental type of alternative crab fishing gear as a solution to whale entanglements. 

traditionally used in spiny lobster fishing, hoop nets are shaped like volcanoes, with a circular opening at the top of a wider, circular base. unlike crab pots, hoop nets have no other openings. because of their open top which allows for crabs to escape once they have finished eating the bait, hoop nets cannot be left out for longer than two hours.

due to this incentive to check hoop nets every two hours, the window for entanglement is much smaller. as two hours is too brief to leave the hoops unattended, any entangled whale would be quickly found, allowing time for the whale to be reported and potentially helped.

hoop nets were first seized upon by the recreational crab fishery, which is also impacted by whale risk-assessment closures, but has separate regulations. shortly after the delayed season started in november 2021, captain james smith, a former commercial crab fisher turned recreational charter boat captain, noticed that the text of the recreational regulations allowed for hoop net use during the closure.

“everybody was trying to get their hands on hoops as fast as they could,” said smith. despite initial doubts from his peers on the efficacy of hoop nets, smith was able to tweak his hoop net process to consistently make his catch limit of 10 crabs per net, per day. once the word got out, charter boat businesses were able to salvage their crab fishing season by using hoop nets.

on the commercial side, little, a participant in the dungeness crab fishing gear working group, then noticed that recreational fishers began fishing for crab with hoop nets, despite the whale-risk-related closures. “and we’re all just sitting here waiting,” said little. “why can’t i try these?” 

but while they recognize the success of hoop nets for the recreational fisheries, some commercial fishers say hoop nets are a non-option for commercial fleets. “the guys that run my boats say, ‘f*ck hoops. f*ck ‘em from here and back,” said wehr. 

compared to crab pots, hoop nets catch less crab and require more work. due to the two hour window for operating each hoop net, fishers are concerned of the potential of retrieving gear during storms, which can form quickly on the water. although the costs and set-up of hoop nets and crab pots are similar, many fishers feel reinvesting in new gear is too costly in both price and labor.

“all i can do is go out, use my boat, and try to come up with my ideas,” said melz, who participated in pop-up gear trials, and decided to test hoop nets against crab pots for himself. he tested five variations of gear; three versions of a hoop net, and two versions of a crab pot. 

the winner? a crab pot without a top, like a hoop net, but with the other design features of crab pots that add efficiency.

“i lovingly call them scoops,” said melz, nicknaming the modified crab pot. with an open top, his scoops require the same short use-times that make hoop nets safer for whales. but unlike hoop nets, scoops are modified crab pots and would require fishers to simply modify their existing inventory.
 

 

the process for securing hoop net or scoop use commercially would require little and melz to go through the lengthy process of applying for an experimental fishing permit, which would give a limited number of fishers an opportunity to fish with experimental gear.

little said industry competition, alongside the fear of traditional crab pots being banned if hoop nets are successful enough, could put a “huge target” on his back.

“there’s $10 bills on the bottom of the ocean. there’s millions of them and it’s a race to pick them up the fastest,” said little.  “and now you’re sending 50 guys out there to get a head start? it’s not going to be popular.”

some fishers say it’s time to revisit a reduced-gear solution they initially rejected and test the efficacy of the other numerous whale-safe improvements they’ve made to their conventional gear by setting only a portion of their gear out in the water. but due to the initial pushback, regulators are no longer considering this option.

moving forward, together

crab fishing season was slated to open this past weekend. but with over 100 whales detected off the coast, commercial fishermen have been benched for a fourth year in a row; only recreational fishermen using hoop nets were permitted to begin their season.

“we’re stewards of the resource,” said captain richard powers, president of the golden gate fishermen’s association, which represents northern california charter boat fleets. “we’re doing everything in our power to be sustainable. we want this to remain exactly what it’s been: part of our heritage.”

even though a solution won’t come in time for this year’s season, the commercial fleet, charter boat captains, regulators, and scientists say they are committed to collaboration and share the same goals.

“we’re working to solve this, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because we want a viable fishery,” said commissioner eric sklar of the california department of fish and game commission. he said that the stakes are clear: if whale entanglements continue to remain unsolved, it may mean the end of the dungeness crab fisheries.

“there is not one fisherman who wants [entanglements] to happen,” said captain dick ogg, a commercial fisher who assisted during noaa sponsored disentanglement first responder courses, and participated during the aerial surveys of whale populations during entanglement risk assessments. “this is where we make our living. why would we do something detrimental to the environment?”

after the working groups and regulations fulfill the conditions of the settlement, the california department of fish and wildlife says the fishery could file for an incidental take permit, which grants an industry with a permitted amount of yearly “take”. take is defined as an unintentional, but expected, disruption or harm to a species of animal protected by the endangered species act.

while incidental take permits have been called a “necessary evil,” many are in agreement that this would represent a last-ditch solution.

“fishermen are the ones who are gonna want to protect [whales],” said melz, who took the level 1 disentanglement responder training. “because if they fail, we’ll fail.”

however, people’s use of oils came before we had engines to burn them. we have always chased fats for their energy. 

before my lindblad expedition trip to southeastern alaska, i subconsciously saw oil as something unnatural and something always damaging to ecosystems and to our own health. i now see oil as just another resource that industrialized societies have exploited and reaped in excess. the way we go about searching for energy, though, can vary from disastrous to or harmonious with nature, and we are at a crucial point in our atmospheric timeline to relearn old and sustainable ways of energy harvesting. 

fish as candles

the revelation began with my introduction to candlefish. on our second day in alaska, i joined a tour of the chilkat valley. with its pristine water and air quality, it is home to the latest salmon run of the year and is thus where eagles congregate in the fall. 

chilkat valley is aptly known as the valley of the eagles for its yearly visit of up to 3,000 eagles that decorate the trees like ornaments. living below the soaring eagles in this part of southeast alaska are the tlingit people who have been able to maintain their artistically expressive and resourcefully subsistent culture. historically, with all that their environment had to offer them, there was enough time for woodcarving, tapestry-weaving, and storytelling. 

“they have so much candlefish that the river turns black during their run,” our naturalist yelled over the bus engine and rattling windows. 

my ears perked up at that new fish name.

“hooligan is another name for candlefish, and it is so dense with oil that once it’s dry, it can be lit like a candle,” he continued. the klukwan clan gathered enough of the candlefish and traded the excess with the nearby abathascan peoples, establishing trade routes that were known as “grease trails.” this oil allowed them to light their homes and communities, as well as store food for up to a year in the oil. the fish itself also offers people half of their daily caloric needs due to the lipid density. agutuk or akutaq was even a pre-freezer ice cream made of hooligan oil, berries, and fresh snow for people in western alaska. the tlingit people who would procure the hooligan oil would mostly use it themselves to preserve berries, such as highbush cranberries, blueberries, and salmonberries, year-round.

the fish and its oils provided light, food preservation, and nutrition for people. the grease from the fish is high in unsaturated fats and provides more vitamin a, e, and k than other sources of fat. even meriwether lewis, of lewis and clark, stumbled upon it during his travel and journaled that it was “superior to any fish [he] ever tasted.” with so many benefits and uses, i was amazed i had never heard of this fatty fish. hooligan, however, remains a prized possession only to alaskans. because hooligan is primarily found in southeast alaska, it was not a resource that is known to outsiders and was never harvested on a large scale. 

whales as lamps

 

later that day, back aboard the national geographic sea lion, we spotted and watched a humpback whale join us at the surface. it was bubble-net feeding, creating a tunnel of bubbles in which plankton and small fish would be trapped. then it swam with an open mouth through the middle and burst through the surface. in 2022, it was captured only in our photographs, but if it had been 50 years ago, the spotted whale would have been hunted down. since whales are found in all of the world’s major oceans, they are a prized and sought-out source of oil. 

between the 18th and mid-19th centuries, oil lamps across the united states and much of the western world required oil extracted from whale blubber. while in inuit cultures, whaling is a culturally, spiritually, and materially significant tradition, american whalers went out to sea to harvest profitable carcasses. from when they first arrived to the north pacific in the 1830s, the american whalers over-hunted the waters. and by the 1940s they had pushed north into the bering sea. they were primarily after bowhead whales, since each yielded 100 barrels of oil whereas sperm whales averaged only 45 barrels of oil. 

in addition to the blubber oil, bowheads also provided bristly baleen, of which the baleen plates were cut and filed into corset fixtures, fishing rods, or buttons. the oil was used for lamps, cooking, soap, candles, paint, and mechanical lubrication. since whales provided so much raw material for luxury goods, there is a genre of paintings that glorify the whaling industry for the goods they produced. 

 

whereas subsistent cultures involve the whole community in the hunting, processing, and consumption of a whale, industrial societies left the hunting to the professional whalers, the processing to the factories, and consumption to the elite in societies. 

the commodification of whale oil and baleen were devastating to their populations. in 1853 whaling became the fifth-largest industry in the u.s., where 8,000 whales were killed for the sake of commercial goods. about 20 years later, petroleum wells popped up on the west coast of the u.s., providing an even more accessible and powerful oil. 

oil as explosive modernity

the growth of the new oil industry didn’t correlate with an immediate decline in whale hunting. petroleum-powered engines outcompeted wind-powered sails, and whaleships had a chance to become even more effective. the petroleum industry thus increased whaling efficiency before whaling would be officially banned in 1971. 

 

alaska’s first oil reserves were discovered in 1957, two years before alaska was granted statehood. it was in 1967, though, that alaska became known as an oil hub with the discovery of prudhoe bay’s oil deposits. experts estimated there to be 24 billion barrels of oil, of which 12 billion have been recoverable and so far extracted. 

but today’s oil flow is slowing. the petroleum flowing through the 800-mile trans-alaska pipeline from prudhoe bay is estimated to be about a quarter of its peak flow in the 1980s. not only does the petroleum seem to be slowing, but land sales and industry interest in the region seem to be dropping as well. most recently, the biden administration canceled the cook inlet lease sale which “would have opened more than one million acres for drilling.” 

while this was met with contempt from pro-oil representatives and individuals, the bureau of ocean energy management has canceled lease sales in the region in 2006, 2008, and 2010 due to a “lack” of interest from the industry as well.

having read headlines about alaskan residents relocating towns due to the permafrost-dense soils melting below their houses and infrastructure, i thought all of the state’s residents would be eager to move away from fossil fuels. but while they are feeling the effects of climate change so directly and rapidly, alaskan residents also directly benefit from the alaska permanent fund. the fund provides an annual check to families that is a percentage of alaska’s oil revenues, averaging a payment of $1,600 annually. beyond fossil fuel money however, alaskans can cut down costs by investing in renewables since they already pay almost double the amount citizens in the lower 48 are charged for utilities. 

a future for alaskan energy

on that day on the klehini river when i learned about candlefish, i also learned about a mining operation that has sprung up between klukwan and deishú (now known as haines). across from the river that is home to candlefish, salmon, and eagles, as well as the human residents of the valley, stands a shredded mountainside. known as the palmer project, the mine provides copper and zinc to the metal-heavy electronics and energy markets. here stands the frustrating reality of our industrial society. to continue feeding our energy-intensive lifestyles, we must source the energy from somewhere. 

europe and the united states were once fueled by local vegetable oil, before whales were hunted down in alaska, and later abandoned for oil reserves there and abroad. today, internationally, we are in an era of pushing past fossil fuels to reach mineral-intense electrification. our air may be near free of fossil fuel emissions, but is it guaranteed that our soil and water will be free of leached minerals and chemicals?

 

with four years spent pursuing a bachelors in environmental studies at george washington university, punctuated with my trip to alaska, i continue to be skeptical of an industry-first approach to solving our climate crisis. this is where technological advances paired with profit are expected to spur change. as we’ve seen from how we’ve fueled our societies since the industrial revolution, it is damaging and unsustainable. 

in contrast to phrases we hear in mainstream politics and media like “boost growth,” “revitalize the economy,” and “energy superpower,” the word we often heard in klukwan and describing the tlingit culture was “subsistence.” through art, business, and architecture, even today the tlingit people focus on the renewable and the regenerative. one tlingit woman, jodi mitchell, founded the inside passage electric cooperative, which is an energy group that installs small-scale hydroelectric dams that use slow-spinning blades that small fish can swim through and large fish can swim around. 

mitchell started a renewable energy project that meets human desires and needs as well as those needs of surrounding animals and the land. her work follows the increasingly renewable trend in alaska, where its contribution to state-wide energy has increased by 25% between 2010 and 2019. 

across the state, with many native alaskan-run projects, we see solar projects saving their communities $7,726 each and dams safely built on salmon-rich rivers that plan to soon provide 90% of igiugig’s power. beyond the typical solar and hydro projects we often discuss in the lower 48, alaska also now has biomass facilities that process wood or fish waste and kelp. 

humans, like all living things, need to take resources from the environment in order to survive. but like all other creatures, we collectively need to be more in tune with natural processes so that we don’t continue to strain our environments. 

einstein is quoted as saying, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” i deeply believe that we cannot solve an industrial issue with industrial methods. in this time of climate transformation and societal potential, we can use thoughtful technology on a smaller and more local scale to meet our energy needs. not energy wants, but energy needs.

i think it’s time we ask ourselves if we need to hunt a whale when we can just stick with a fish.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

i was grateful to feel that on the boat as well. everyone on board had gratitude for the spaces we were able to explore and learn from. alaska has a long history of extraction where people have come to take advantage of the resources, animals, and people there, and before my trip, i was nervous about contributing to that. but now after talking to the naturalists and other guests, i’ve come to accept that humans, just like other animals do need and use parts of the environment. our responsibility is to not cause damage and be as subsistent as we can. along with the attention to not take away too much, i also realized i need to give back to spaces i’m in. i took away food, water, memories, and knowledge from alaska, and in return i made sure to pick up trash, spread seeds, and not bother animals when i could. going back to dc, i’m eager to grow the connections i have to the natural elements of my urban space so that eventually with volunteering i help can grow forests where we once had a yard; a river where we once had a stream; a family where we once had a group of strangers. i’m so grateful for this experience and am eager provide you with alaska’s story around lipids, from candlefish to whales to oil reserves.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

my intellectual curiosities were stoked by the seemingly endless knowledge of the many naturalists on board. the naturalists had incredible presentations about geology, glaciology, marine ecology, and even squid physiology (complete with a on-deck dissection of a squid we found on a beach)! i found myself falling deeper in love with the natural world and finding new exciting disciplines — like geology. i’ll be writing my story about the language of rocks — so stay tuned!

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

environmental campaigns that focus on strictly one species are easily marketable to the public, but it comes at the cost of missing the bigger picture. in theory, saving one species means preserving their environment and all of the organisms with which they interact, but seldom is that how these initiatives play out.

in 1975, greenpeace launched its “save the whales” campaign¹ to help protect these incredible marine creatures. this movement gained such widespread public attention and support that by 1986 a ban on commercial whaling went into effect.² with the work of many activists, policy makers, and both national and international politicians, drastic progress came quickly. but if we’ve already “saved” the whales, why are we still talking about them in 2021, 35 years after the ban on commercial whaling? 

without the threat of commercial whaling to reduce their numbers, many whale populations are doing better today, but they still face a plethora of problems. human induced climate change has been negatively affecting whale migration patterns across the globe, which in turn negatively impacts their mating rituals, access to food, and limits their livable environment. news headlines such as “endangered baby right whale washes up on florida beach,” and “gray whale population drops by quarter off u.s. west coast,” still pop up on a weekly basis, which speaks volumes to their current predicament.

is the “save the whales” campaign to blame for the whales today’s problems? no, not exactly. greenpeace’s activism got the public invigorated and was a crucial stepping stone in helping these creatures, but that’s not enough to ‘save’ them. we also need to protect whales’ environments from pollution and the dangers of boating as well. human actions all alter the natural lives of these grand creatures and they are often not critiqued heavily enough, since these problems are one step removed from the whales themselves. 

although the public may be excited and willing to take additional steps to continue to protect whales, there still remains the challenge of all the other organisms that inhabit this shared aquatic environment. whales are an example of charismatic megafauna, meaning they capture the public’s attention with their size and likeability. the energy put towards whales often drives up the amount of funding, legislation, and protections generated to save these large charismatic creatures. by dedicating so many resources to one specific species, it becomes hard to find the money to run programs to educate the public, lobby congress, or reduce pollution for less cute and cuddly animals. 

so where do we go from here? there’s no need to throw in the towel just yet. get on the internet or to your nearest library and educate yourself about the biodiversity in the region of wherever your favorite megafauna lives. consider donating to organizations that protect habitats on a larger scale rather than just for one animal. it’s okay to remain infatuated with the whales, just remember that they also have their marine friends, and they too deserve protection.