Friday, April 04, 2008

Illustration Friday-Save


Click image for larger view.

This is my entry for IF's "save" topic. Save the whales!!!

Some of you saw a few whale photos on a different blog last week. Well, the FULL SET of Baja pictures are here:

scottcuzzo.com/baja

I think you will be amazed.

Whales were nearly brought to extinction. By the 1970s, many whale populations were severely diminished due to whaling. Blues had been decimated to about 1% of their original population! They are making a good comeback, but are still endangered.

In my hand I'm holding a little baby gray whale. Actually, they are about 15 feet long when they are born in the lagoons in Mexico! If you haven't seen my pictures, go there NOW! Gray whales have made an excellent comeback. And were, in fact, removed from the endangered species list! Yea! Gray whales were once killed in great numbers too. Gray whales were called "devilfish" as they would fight back and try to attack the fishing boats that were trying to kill them. NOW gray whales may come up to a boat and seek interaction from humans in the boats in the Baja. Many of these whales are old enough to remember times when they were attacked by humans, and now they REACH OUT. I hope you see my photos of this, as it was an amazing experience.

While things are rarely black and white, there are still cultures that place a high value on killing whales, like Japan.

If you have the chance to go whale watching, let me encourage you to follow through! Let me know if you have questions about whales!