What Color Is a Blue Whale?

>>NARRATOR: What color is a blue whale?   Is that a trick question? Or is the answer as  easy as it sounds? Let’s start at the beginning... The first person to refer to a “blue  whale” is Herman Melville in 1851. In Chapter 32 of Moby Dick, the  sailor Ishmael reels off a list of   “half-fabulous whales”: “the Elephant Whale; the  Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale.” The ocean giant makes one other  brief appearance in the novel,   but this time, under a name sailors and scientists  generally used at the time: Sulfur-Bottom Whale. So, is the blue whale blue? yellow-bellied? The world’s largest animal was a cryptic  character even to those who knew the sea best. And for more than a century, the Museum’s  model whales have mirrored that mystery. [MUSIC] >>MELANIE STIASSNY: We tend to think  that all the action’s on land. You know,   that’s where the daffodils are.  That’s where the monkeys are. When we stand on land and we look out  at the sea, you know, it’s just this   flat blue thing. But in fact, the open ocean  is really the largest biome on our planet. So, you don’t come across blue whales very often.   And there’s still a tremendous  amount that we don’t know about them. >>NARRATOR: For many years, the blue whale  was known as the sulphur-bottom whale   because of a yellowish algae that  sometimes clings to the whales’ skin. But in the years after Moby Dick, the blue whale  came to be known as the blue whale because, well… >>STEPHEN QUINN: A blue whale is so named   because of the fact that it is blue in nature.  That’s one of the characteristic field marks. >>NARRATOR: In the late 19th and early 20th  centuries, the vast majority of people who   saw whales in nature were whalers. These  were not whale watchers, but whale hunters. For hundreds of years before, whalers knew  their prey intimately. They killed for oil   and baleen—the stiff, fringed plates  hanging from the upper jaw of some whales. The whalers’ main targets? Right whales,   bowheads, and sperm whales—slower  swimmers who would float when harpooned. But blue whales dive deep and swim  fast—up to 30 miles an hour fast—faster   than wind-powered ships could chase them. So,  when Moby Dick was written, blues had largely   escaped the harpoon. Even if whalers had managed  to find their mark, without steam-powered winches,   they could never have hauled a 100-ton  blue whale carcass from the deep. That all changed in the 1870s with Norwegian  whaler Svend Foyn. Like Melville’s Captain Ahab,   Captain Foyn was on the hunt for a near-mythic   creature—in his case, not  for revenge, but for profit. He mounted an explosive harpoon gun  on the bow of a steam-powered ship,   and the blue whale had met its match. Only about 30 years later,   the American Museum of Natural History  constructed its first blue whale model. The dimensions and features  were based on a dead whale,   hauled into a Newfoundland port by a whaling ship. >>QUINN: Its pose was less than inspiring. in  that it really appeared like a giant knockwurst. It was painted a battleship grey. Not   really reflecting the color of  an actual, living blue whale. >>NARRATOR: Contemporary  critics were more complimentary,   although during construction, visitors did  ask why the Museum was building a submarine. Still, they were fascinated—only a  small number of people had ever seen   the world’s largest animal in person, and  this model was as close as they would get. Ironically, there might have been a bit of blue  whale blubber on their own kitchen shelves.   Margarine was one of the main  products made from blue whales. By the time technology caught up with blues,  the demand for baleen and whale oil as fuel   was almost non-existent.  But a demand for margarine,   soap, pet food, and nitroglycerin  kept the hunt profitable. For those four products, blue whales were  almost driven to the point of extinction. From   an estimated 350,000 individuals in pre-whaling  years, some 99% of the population was wiped out. >>STIASSNY: It was really treating the ocean   as a pantry. Here’s a place where we can get our  oil. Here’s a place where we can get our meat.   So, it really reflects a very  different attitude to the oceans. >>NARRATOR: When the Museum’s  Hall of Ocean Life opened in 1933,   the early dioramas depicted animals that  were seen as commodities—the fur seal,   pearl oysters, the sperm whale. Many were  expected to go extinct in the 20th century. And the blue whale was no exception. >>STIASSNY: I think whales- I think  whales occupy such an important place in   our culture because we have hunted them, we have  used them. We’ve knocked their populations right   down. And yet, in many ways, they became  the icon of conservation—Save the Whale. >>NARRATOR: By the 1960s, the tide of public  opinion was turning. Blue whales had been   granted protected status and the Museum wanted  to renovate the Hall of Ocean Life, with the   world’s largest model of the world’s largest  animal at its center. There was one problem… >>QUINN: Blue whales were difficult  to study, difficult to see,   and find. Back then, they were very rare. >>STIASSNY: Amazingly, we’d actually  walked on the moon before we’d seen   a live blue whale underwater. >>NARRATOR: So, again, Museum curators and  artists relied on a dead whale—this time, using   the British Museum’s measurements from a large  female killed in the South Atlantic in the 1920s. The arched diving pose was a little more accurate,   but the whale’s color left  something to be desired... >>QUINN: The basis for the coloration on  that model was taken from a dead animal.   And, of course, no one knows how long the animal  was dead. And there were so few accurate color   references of blue whales that the safe color to  render it at that time was kind of a flat grey. >>NARRATOR: Almost ten years later, marine  biologist, explorer, and icon Sylvia Earle   was one of the first scientists who would  give us a glimpse into the open ocean. >>SYLVIA EARLE: We only, up until that time,   had mostly seen the tail or a fin or whatever.  People hadn’t been in the water with them. The pictures I’d seen, the descriptions  of whales before looked like   loaves of bread. They looked like Greyhound  buses. What we really wanted to do is get in the   water with the whales and observe them on their  own terms, to see whales as whales see whales. >>NARRATOR: Earle was part of  a team that set out to capture   some of the earliest documentation of  large, living whales in their habitat. They went in search of humpbacks—another  type of baleen whales that,   like the blues, had been hunted to near  extinction and were still mysterious. Off the coast of Hawaii, Earle and the  team found what they were looking for. >>EARLE: We were moving along in a small Zodiac  rubber boat. And a group of whales we saw moving   parallel to us. And all at once, they decided they  wanted to come over and see who, what we were. When we convinced ourselves, finally,   that we really wanted to get in the water  with those whales, we were just blown away. There is no instruction book about “How do  you behave? What is the proper etiquette   when you’re in the water with a whale?”  Well, as it turns out, it isn’t up to us. It’s like diving with giant swallows.   They were upside down, they were doing twirls,  they were doing the most graceful ballerina style   pirouettes and swoops and it was exhilarating. We  danced with them for, ah, two and a half hours. >>NARRATOR: Earle and other scientists and  explorers were at last bringing back references   to living whales. And when the Museum decided  to renovate the Hall of Ocean Life in 2000,   the curators and artists finally knew  what large whales looked like underwater. >>STIASSNY: It’s really important that  we were able to remodel that blue whale   with our current knowledge, our scientific  knowledge, about what it really looks like. >>NARRATOR: Steve Quinn was tasked with  overseeing the blue whale’s restoration.   They wouldn’t produce a whole new creation.  Instead, they would reanimate a giant. They would use the 1960s model as raw material,  shaping a living animal out of a whaler’s catch. >>QUINN: It was based on a dead animal. And my  suspicions were always that because the animal was   laying over on its side, the nose and jaws were  distorted. So, we had quite a job ahead of us. >>NARRATOR: They’d have to taper the tail flukes,   re-shape the flippers, adjust the eyes, add  a belly button, anus, and even blowholes. And of course, there was the question of paint. >>STIASSNY: We really had to redo things—like   the color in life is so different  from the color in death. >>QUINN: ...a darker tone blue and pale patches. And also has a little bit of the yellow, which is where the sulphur-bottom whale name comes in. >>NARRATOR: Finally, the Museum had  reference material. Researchers had   captured images of blues underwater. So,  at last, this model could be truer to life. >>QUINN: When an artist goes about  undertaking the job of painting a blue whale,   there are lots of things to consider. Things  that you take for granted. For instance,   when an object is underwater, it doesn’t look wet. >>NARRATOR: Donning 25 gallons of paint, the whale  now wore a new coat of color. It was science,   presented with more than a dash of awe. >>STIASSNY: I think whales  hold a very special place   in our hearts, perhaps because they’re so big. We know they’re intelligent. We know they’re  social. I think they really grasp people’s   imaginations, not just as a kind of big  animal, but an animal that really represents   the wild nature still on our planet. We hope that that will inspire people  to really think a little bit more about   their impact on the oceans and  how we can do something about it. >>NARRATOR: Since the international  ban on commercial whaling in 1982,   populations have made recoveries.  Humpbacks have made a remarkable comeback.   There are now an estimated  135,000 swimming the oceans. Blue whales are still considered endangered,  numbering only about 5,000-15,000 worldwide. They are still incredibly mysterious,  and their habitat is still in peril. >>EARLE: The ocean is not infinite. It is not too  big to fail. It is failing. The big question—how   do we create a real awareness? This museum, the American  Museum of Natural History   and fellow institutions around the world—it’s  our collective knowledge, our history. As a kid, I remember museum  experiences that inspired me   to want to go see the creatures that I could  not see in my backyard, but I knew they existed. I know that the kids who come through this  institution have experiences like that. And   years later, they will look back and say,  “It’s when I stood under the great blue whale   that I knew I had to go see one for myself.” I know of no faster way to make  people aware and create a feeling of   humility and respect, and to realize we’re a part   of it, not apart from it. To put ourselves  in perspective—that is so worth doing.

Channel: American Museum of Natural History

Views: 207,803

Rating: 4.9103045 out of 5

Keywords: blue whale, American Museum of Natural History, whale model, whales, conservation, blue wail, blue wale, ocean

Id: 2F6r-GplE9s

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/relight]

TL;DR They are blue! However: it was a really interesting watch and I think you all should give it a try! <3

[u/bitchmob69]

Loved this :)

[u/DragonDevito]

Imagine thinking they were blue instead of orange lmao

Even my colorblind ass is smarter than y'all