The Whales Have Rebounded, but a New Threat Looms

The second largest animal on earth is a bit of an enigma to scientists. Fin whales don't have ostentatious jumps or enormous sprays of water announcing their presence. Despite being up to nearly 90 feet in length (dwarfed only by the blue whale), they travel unannounced in deep waters and are often mistaken for smaller species. The whales swim in every ocean, and they have an affinity for British Columbia's northern coast. Which presents a problem: After being nearly hunted to extinction there, the species has begun to return to the Kitimat fjord system, where Laura Trethewey for Hakai Magazine writes that a new danger is emerging. A new export terminal in the area that's set to ship liquefied natural gas via massive tankers starting in 2030 threatens to decimate fin whales, a protected species in Canada.

"This is really one of the few places in the world where you can see fin whales from shore," Hermann Meuter, who opened the remote Cetacea Lab on the southern tip of Gil Island, tells Trethewey. He and his former partner were the first to spot the fin whale's return in 2006. The whales can live up to 100 years, and he believes the elder whales remember their mass slaughter in the area, and have only begun to trust the krill-rich waters again. Fin whales' only natural predator is the killer whale, which they evade through their remarkable speed. But a more ominous threat to the species is ship strikes, which kill 20,000 whales of all stripes per year (a conservative estimate). With 350 tanker ships set to navigate the region, one study predicts "unsustainable losses" that will "deplete" fin whales along the coastal region. Read the full story. (Or read other Longform recaps here.)