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Off the shore of Campania Island in Canada’s British Columbia is a place where whales of many species find sanctuary. Northern resident killer whales, the fish-eaters, come together to form superpods.

On some days more than fifty individuals follow the salmon migration into the mainland fjords of the Great Bear Rainforest. The transient killer whales, the marine-mammal eaters, are forever travelling between seal and sea lion haul-outs, teaching the young how to hunt.

Yet there is trouble in this resplendent, tranquil ocean paradise.  This short film by Pacific Wild shows us what the future may hold in store for these magnificent creatures.  Click on the HD symbol at the bottom right of the video for its full awesomeness (if your device will take it!).

If you don’t have nets to use then you can always make your own.  This is what humpback whales do when they sense an opportunity to enjoy a feast and this behavior is only seen in Southeast Alaska where this rare and remarkable footage was taken by AkXpro Productions.  Other whales do use bubble feeding but this method is unique to the Alaskan whales. Anywhere from four to twenty whales will join in with the hunt.  One will release a ring of bubbles from its blowhole beneath the herring.  This curtain of bubbles acts as a wall which keeps the fish inside it.  Then another whale will produce vocalizations (which we can’t hear in this video, of course!) which makes the herring squeeze together in tight balls.

Then the whales lunge in unison.  Breaking the surface simultaneously with their mouths wide open, then roll over and down.  This captures as many fish as possible as well as forcing the water they take in out through their baleen plates.  With the water forced out they can then gulp down their prey.  Altogether, pretty amazing!

This is just beautiful work.  Filmed by Darren Rice, this video shows some amazing images of whales, shot from both above and below.  Foa Island Ha'apai, Kingdom of Tonga was the location where these whales were filmed. With a lilting piano accompaniment this shows the majesty of these amazing creatures perfectly. No need for narration, just sit back and take it all in.

This is a beautifully made piece of film by Sarosh Jacob. It captures life beneath the surface in a number of places throughout the world, starting with Bonaire and a mesmerizing school of fish. Next we go on to the Cayman Islands and its beautiful coral alongside the Kittiwake shipwreck. From there it is on to Socorro, Mexico and we get to see dolphins and whale sharks: next to Iceland and the Silfra Rift and lagoon. Finally we go to the Philippines, and witness clownfish anemone, schooling jacks, turtle and Palau to see the amazing sight that is Jellyfish Lake.

It is an almost bewildering array of animals and habitats. It is also for those of you who have emailed in specifically asking for more marine life and environments to be featured on Ark in Space. You’re quite right – over 70% of the planet is covered by water!

It is an industry worth over two billion US dollars but questions have been raised about the safety of whale watching. This is not whether it is safe for us, but whether it is safe for the whales. According to at least one major conservation group whale watching can have a detrimental effect on the wellbeing of pods. What might adversely cause these magnificent animals harm and what should be done about it?

The group which has raised the issue is The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), dedicated solely to the worldwide conservation and welfare of all whales, dolphins and porpoises. The organisation acknowledges that to see whales in their natural environment is a wonderful and even emotional experience and that many of those who see whales in the wild go on to raise awareness (and money) to help save the animals.

Yet there are many companies who do not promote responsible whale watching and it is to the actions of these that the WDCS wishes to draw attention. Trips which ignore the needs of the pod risk increasing the respiratory rate of the whales which means that they will use more energy. That in turn means that they will have less inclination to hunt for food and so sometimes go hungry because of the intrusion of humans upon their habitat.

It has even been suggested that our ever more frequent interaction with the biggest mammals on the planet could stop them from foraging, and so have a knock on impact when it comes to the survival chances of their calves as the females will produce less milk. If young die in any numbers then the future of their pod becomes less than certain.

The organisation, together with the International Fund for Animal Welfare will be setting out measures which they believe will help both those running whale watching expeditions to treat the animals more sensitively and the whales themselves. Their study also shows that the continued hunting of whales is in breach of modern commercial slaughter standards – something which we knew already but an issue which needs to be addressed with some immediacy.

The figures around whale watching are staggering. As well as the money involved, around 13 million people (a couple of million more than the entire population of Greece) from 119 countries go whale watching each year. Although it started in the 1950s it has only been the last decade in which whale watching has really developed, and has outpaced other varieties of global tourism considerably.

For human communities living along the coastline of whale habitats the fiscal benefits are obvious. Jobs are created and this can help develop local infrastructure. As wealth has been accrued and more tourists attracted, then the number of trips to see the cetaceans in the wild has increased. Hereby lies the rub: although human communities have benefited hugely the real participants (the whales!) have not been on the receiving end of any real advantage – in fact there is strong evidence to say that they are suffering for our pleasure.

There are reasons. Cetacean-focused tourism more often than not targets the same groups of whales time and time again. The demand for encounters increases – as well as their intimacy – and the whales may suffer. Several papers have been written on the effects unrestricted whale watching has on pods. One (Lusseau, 2005) has shown that pods attempt to move away from the areas the boats are likely to visit. Yet it would not be too much of a problem if it was simply a case of moving away from noisy neighbors (as it were) – the oceans are large, after all.

The same report showed that there was a big reduction in the social behavior of the targeted pods as well as a decline in the amount of time that the whales rested when the watching vessels were around them. Another report (Bejder, 2005) showed that whale watching vessels had a great impact on the reproductive success of the pods that they were targeting. In other words the whale watching expeditions were having a negative impact on the chances of the pod surviving the next generation or two.

It is not only behaviour in certain pods (which can have an impact on the wider population). Two further reports (Laist et al, 2001 and Jensen and Silber, 2004) have shown that serious and often fatal injury has been caused by whale watching vessels through impact with the cetaceans. This has mostly been caused by the vessels trying to approach the whales too closely and a failure to handle the vessels with due care and attention.

The WDCS has put together recommendations which it hopes whale watching vessel owners will follow. These include making sure that the whales are watched with the lightest possible ‘footprint’. Actions include making sure that the vessels are fit for purpose and approaching the whales with extreme care and attention. Other measures may include setting approach distances from a pod and a legal limit on the time which can be spent in their company.

For tourists, the best way to check that the whale watching vessel upon which you will visit a pod respect the whales is to ask before you purchase tickets. By asking about the welfare of the whales you are helping to local human populations to self regulate. Do not ask, for example, how close you will get to the whales: rather, enquire about whether the boat will be at a distance sufficiently away from the pod for the whales to continue their normal existence unhindered. Be adamant that you will demand a refund if you feel that the whales have been exposed to undue danger.

The WDCS and the IFAW are hoping, too, to promote situations where the cetaceans that are the focus of this burgeoning industry are long term monitored. The modern world already presents whales with many pressures and the monitoring will hopefully help to determine the sustainability of activities like whale watching.

Ark in Space would like to thank all the Flickr photographers featured here for their generosity in making their amazing photographs of whales available under Creative Commons. We would just like to point out that there is no inference, in the choice of pictures, that the whale watching trips featured were in any way detrimental to the welfare of the pods involved.

The Luminous Deep is a short animated documentary made by Kevin Adams and Amy Scott-Murray, two final-year Animation students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art.

The fact that it was made by two undergraduates makes it even cooler in my opinion – the quality of the animation is awesome, particularly when you realize that their budget was hardly Spielbergian. The documentary was made with the assistance of researchers at Aberdeen University's Oceanlab.

During the short animation, we learn the fate of a dead whale that sinks to the darkness of the seabed, and how its carcass can come alight by nourishing a huge interconnected community of scavengers and predators. Most of these creatures produce glowing lights that researchers theorize would create a brilliant firework display in the abyssal night.

In a move likely to confound conservationsists and - let's face it - sensible people all over the world, it looks very much like that moratorium on whaling will be swept away later on this year.  Looks like Japan, Norway and Iceland will be the three nations most responsible for the ultimate extinction of any number of species of whales in their pursuit of money.  A great shame but not one that is a massive surprise as the US - for a long time a great supporter of the moratorium - has inexplicably given in to pressure from these countries and now supports the lifting of the ban.  The NZ Herald has the story.

Image Credit Flickr User Minette Layne

A gray whale dives to dredge the bottom for food.

Taken off the coast of Washington, Whidby Island in March 2008.