To Look Up Into The Mountains And See The Steam Rolling From A Mountai Essay Example For Students

To Look Up Into The Mountains And See The Steam Rolling From A Mountai Essay n streamon a cold winters morning is a beautiful sight. However, to look out over the horizon andsee the white spray of salt water coming from the blow of a huge hump-back whale ismuch more exciting sight and a whole lot warmer. I lived in the mountains of Coloradofor most of my childhood. The first time I had the opportunity to see the ocean was on avacation to California, when I was about 15 years old. It was even better than I haddreamed it would be. The different animals in the ocean, the color of the water, and thewarm sand between my toes was probably what led me to come to the islands of Hawaii. When I first saw the hump-back whale I was amazed at their huge size and how they couldbreach out of the water so gracefully. It is as if they were trying to play or show off. Sowhen we were asked to choose a favorite animal, I had no problem deciding on the hump-back whale. The hump-back whale gets its name from the distinctive hump in front of thedorsal fin and from the way it raises its back high above water before diving. They are amember of the order Cetacea. This order is of aquatic mammals and the hump-backbelongs to the suborder of the Mysticeti. The Mysticeti are the baleen whales which havethree families and several species. The family in which the hump-back belongs is theBalaenopteridae, the true fin backed whale. The thing that separates this genus from theother fin-backed whales is the pectoral fins, which grow in lengths of about 5 meters (16.4feet). This Genus is called Megaptera meaning great wing (Tinker 290). There was acontroversy over the species name in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In1932, Remington Kellogg finally settled the matter with Megatera Novaeangliae(Cousteau 84). The common English name is the hump-back whale. The hump-back whale lives in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Since welive in the Pacific Ill be discussing the hump-backs of the North Pacific. They migratefrom North to South. In the months of July through September they gather in theAleutian Islands, Bering Sea or the Chukchi Sea. They head south for the winter. Theygo to one of three areas: (1) Between the Bonin Islands, the Marianas Islands, theRyukyu Islands and Taiwan; (2) The Hawaiian Islands, and (3) Along the coast ofMexico (Tinker 291). One of the reasons these whales go North is for feeding. They have a short foodchain compared to most mammals. Phytoplankton turns sunlight into energy and thisenergy is consumed by zooplankton. The zooplankton and phytoplankton are eaten bysmall fish. The whale in turn eats the fish. The chain is complete when waste products ordead whales decompose. They have a very short time frame in which they eat comparedto the twelve months out of the year. They have not been seen feeding in Hawaii. Itseems that they only feed during the summer months up north. During the fasting periods,in Hawaii, they survive on their blubber. They mix their diet with copepods, euphausiids(krill), and small fish, primarily herring and capelin. They are considered filter feeders,using baleen plates to filter out their food. They take huge amounts of water into theirmouth using a gulping method and then when they push the water out, they put theirtongue up so the water must pass through the baleens. The food be comes trapped andfalls toward the rear of the mouth. The two gulping methods hump-back whales use arelunge feeding and bubble net feeding. Lunge feeding is used when food is abundant. Thewhale simply swims through the prey with its mouth open engulfing the prey. They cando this vertically, laterally or inverted. This is done toward the surface of the ocean. Hamlets Insanity EssayMost mammals usually have five sense organs. The whale only has three. Touch,which is located in the skin, is the sense that can feel pain, heat, cold and vibration. Theyalso have feelers called vibrissae. These feelers are very similar to whiskers on a domesticcat. The vibrissae are located in rows on the end of the lower jaw, on the sides of thelower jaw and on top of the head. Sight is the sense that allows the whale to see. Theshape of the whales eyeball tend to make them far-sighted below the surface and nearsighted above the surface. Since the eyes are located on either side of the head it makes itimpossible for their visual fields to overlap, therefore, they do not have depth perception. Their auditory sense, or hearing, is very important because in the ocean the visibility ispoor. Good hearing is used to help locate food, hear the approach of enemies, andcommunicate with each other. Their ears are gone and only a slit appears midwaybetween the eye and the base of the flipper. The sense of smell and taste are not presentlike in most mammals (Tinker 81-85). Due to the size of these enormous animals they have few predators. Man is theirworst enemy. However, they do have confrontations with other whales. Some of thedefenses used are, filling their mouth with water or air so to bluff the invader into thinkingthey are bigger than they are. As a second line of defense they will use the head and finsas weapons. They also use their huge body as a defense mechanism by positioningthemselves between the invader, like a boat, and mother and calf. (Kaufman 93-115). Amore subtle defense is countershading , where the top of the whale is dark which makes itharder to see from above looking down and the bottom is light so looking up it is hard tosee against the lighter surface of the ocean. Hump-backs produce a wide range of sounds. Often these sounds are long andcomplex that are repeated for hours. The first sounds were recorded here in Hawaii in1952 by O.W. Schreiber on the basis of recordings collected at the U.S. Navy SoundFixing and Ranging Station. One whale sung a song for fourteen hours without stopping. Since singing is done primarily during the mating season it is thought to serve areproductive function. It has been shown that only the males sing this song. It may alsoattract females, scare away other males, or maintain the distance between singers. Malesand females alike make other sounds which are associated with feeding and socially activegroups (Kaufman 73-77). The whales pectoral fins is not used for propulsion but to balance and steer. Thetail or fluke is used to move this massive mammal through the water. The muscle caudalpeduncle move the fluke in an up and down direction which propels the whale throughthe water (Tinker 55). Flukes The worldwide population of humpbacks is estimated between ten thousand andfifteen thousand animals. This count is down from over one hundred and fifty thousandlast century. (Dietz 39). Man has hunted the whale close to extinction. The good news isthat we have bans against killing whales in most waters. Hopefully we did this in time tosave them from extinction. It would be a true shame if my grandchildren could not enjoythese wonderful creatures. Budd 1