The US Minerals Management Service recently announced success in tagging, gathering DNA samples, and photographing for identification "an exceptional number" of sperm whales in a continuing 3-year study to determine if seismic surveys in the Gulf of Mexico have any effect on that endangered species.
The first research cruise of the Sperm Whale Seismic Study was completed in July 2002. The second ended Sept. 15 of this year, after 4 weeks of recording sound levels and underwater behavior of whales in experiments involving an oil industry-provided seismic vessel. MMS, the Office of Naval Research, Texas A&M Research Foundation, and the International Association of Geophysical Contractors participate in that research.
Past MMS studies have shown several hundred sperm whales live in northern waters of the Gulf of Mexico and are most often sighted in about 1,000 m of water.
"As the offshore petroleum industry moves into deeper waters, the potential for interaction with sperm whales and other deepwater cetaceans increases," said MMS officials.
About 36 whales have been tagged so far, and identification photos were taken of many more. MMS will evaluate what effects, if any, seismic surveys may have on sperm whales and whether some areas of the gulf are "preferred uses" locations for the world's largest animals. A final report is scheduled in early 2005.
What too few people realize, however, is that there wouldn't be any whales in the Gulf of Mexico, or maybe anywhere else, if not for the oil industry.
Short history of whaling
Before "Col." Edwin L. Drake drilled the first true commercial oil well near Titusville, Pa., in 1859, US and European whalers had already scoured the Atlantic Ocean clean of whales and were forced to sail around Cape Horn in years-long hunts that extended into the arctic regions of the Pacific Ocean.
For centuries, men had hunted whales primarily to melt down blubber into a clear, smokeless fuel for lamps, which earned the whaling center of New Bedford, Mass., its title as "the city that lit the world." Whalers also harvested whale spermaceti so pure that it lubricated the machines of the new industrial age. Strong and pliable baleen—whalebone—was the plastic of its day.
Most whalers hunted the slow, docile northern right whale, which was the "right whale" to hunt. As a result, "only about 300 right whales survive in the North Atlantic and 250 in the North Pacific Ocean, and the species is showing no signs of recovery," said Peter J. Bryant, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, at Irvine, Calif., in a biodiversity and conservation report. "The bowhead whale was hunted to extinction in the Atlantic Ocean but still exists in the North Pacific. The stock is still small (7,500) but still hunted every year (with a quota of 67 whales/year) by Alaskan [native people]," he said.
The sperm whale is the animal featured in Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick. It was estimated in 2002 that 360,000 sperm whales were still swimming the world's oceans, down from as many as 2 millon at one time. The California gray whale also was hunted almost to extinction in the 19th Century but is now "up to preexploitation levels (about 26,000) and has been removed from the endangered species list," Bryant reported.
Oil saved the whales
That any whales survived at all is largely the result of the happy coincidence that Drake drilled that first oil well at a time that scientists in Europe came up with a process to refine kerosine and lubricants from crude oil to provide an affordable, superior alternative to whale oil. By the time the US Civil War erupted in 1861, increasing demand for lubricants for heavy machinery to manufacture weapons and move troops, the fledgling US oil industry was on its feet and ready to supply that market.
At least it was in the North. In 1860, a farmer near Splendora, Tex., followed his tar-covered pigs into the woods to discover the oil seep where they had been wallowing. He was still trying to raise money to drill a well when the war erupted and dried up funding in the South.
As for Drake, he failed to patent his invention, a pipe liner for the well hole, and lost his savings in oil speculation on the New York market in 1863. He died a pauper, like many an independent oilman since then. Which goes to prove that whales aren't the only endangered species.
