Bowhead Whale
Since life began on earth, species have come and gone. Indeed, mankind
has hustled some of them along. The bowhead whale barely survived extinction.
Bowhead whales today inhabit the eastern and western Arctic, usually
staying near the edge of the ice. No longer do the animals visit the Gulf
of St.Lawrence during the winter, as they did in their heyday.
While a few adult bowheads reach sixty-five feet in length, fifty-eight
feet is more normal. The colossal head takes up a third of the body. Baleen
whalebone plates, some fourteen feet long, hang from the upper jaw. These
plates filter a tremendous quantity of krill (marine crustaceans) from
the water, enough to maintain a layer of blubber eighteen inches thick.
The blubber makes the whale so buoyant that some scientists believe that
it has trouble diving.
The bowhead´s commercial advantages nearly caused its extinction. One
large specimen yielded one and a half tons of lucrative baleen and twenty-five
tons of oil. Also, the whales swam slowly and did not sink when killed.
The United Kingdom alone was dispatching two or three hundred whaling ships
a year when the hunt for bowheads reached its height. Today, international
agreements protect these sociable beasts, and only killer whales and a
few Inuit prey on them.
Robert Batemen, noted wildlife artist and conservationist, has shown
the bowhead whale in its preferred habitat: the icy polar seas.
REFERENCE
Canadian Postal Archives-STAMP BULLETINS ISSUED BY CANADA POST CORPORATION,
VOL. 2,1970-1988, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 1990
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