Human effect

Whaling

• Some species of large whales are endangered as a result of large-scale whaling during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For centuries large whales have been hunted for oil, meat, baleen and ambergris (a perfume ingredient from the intestine of sperm whales). By the middle of the 20th century, whaling left many populations severely depleted.
  
  The International Whaling Commission introduced a six year moratorium on all commercial whaling in 1986, which has been extended to the present day. For various reasons some exceptions to this moratorium exist; current whaling nations are Norway, Iceland and Japan and the aboriginal communities of Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada.
  
  Several species of small whales are caught as bycatch in fisheries for other species. In the tuna fishery in the Eastern Tropical Pacific thousands of dolphins were drowned in purse-seine nets, until measures to prevent this were introduced. Fishing gear and deployment modifications, and eco-labelling (dolphin-safe or dolphin-friendly brands of canned tuna), have contributed to a reduction in the mortality of dolphins by tuna fishing vessels in recent years. In many countries, small whales are still hunted for food, oil, meat or bait.

Sonar interference

• Environmentalists have long argued that some cetaceans, including whales, are endangered by sonar used by advanced navies. In 2003, British and Spanish scientists suggested in Nature that sonar is connected to whale beachings and to signs that the beached whales have experienced decompression sickness. Mass whale beachings occur in many species, mostly beaked whales that use echolocation systems for deep diving. The frequency and size of beachings around the world, recorded over the last 1,000 years in religious tracts and more recently in scientific surveys, has been used to estimate the changing population size of various whale species by assuming that the proportion of the total whale population beaching in any one year is constant.
  
  Despite the concerns raised about sonar which may invalidate this assumption, this population estimate technique is still popular today. Researchers in the area (Talpalar & Grossman, 2005) support the view that it is the combination of the high pressure environment of deep-diving with the disturbing effect of the sonar which causes decompression sickness and stranding of whales. Thus, an exaggerated startle response occurring during deep diving may alter orientation cues and produce rapid ascent.
  
  Following public concern, the U.S. Defense department has been ordered by the U.S. judiciary to strictly limit use of its Low Frequency Active Sonar during peacetime. Attempts by the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society to obtain a public inquiry into the possible dangers of the Royal Navy's equivalent (the "2087" sonar launched in December 2004) have so far failed. The European Parliament on the other hand has requested that EU members refrain from using the powerful sonar system until an environmental impact study has been carried out.

Other environmental disturbances

• Conservationists are concerned that seismic testing used for oil and gas exploration may also damage the hearing and echolocation capabilities of whales. They also suggest that disturbances in magnetic fields caused by the testing may also be responsible for beaching.
  
  Some scientists and environmentalists suggest that some whale species are also endangered due to a number of other human activities such as the unregulated use of fishing gear, that often catch anything that swims into them, collisions with ships. Toxins and the combination of toxins, particularly POPs (which concentrate up the food chain), are known to cause hearing loss.
  
  Whales are also threatened by climate change and global warming. As the Antarctic Ocean warms, krill populations, that are the main food source of some species of whales, reduce dramatically, being replaced by jelly like salps.