Supporting Whale Conservation Efforts Worldwide
Whales are beautiful animals and are found in all oceans around the world. Learning more about these animals will enhance your whale watching experience, no matter where. This articles focuses on Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
What are whales
Whales are marine mammals, with sleek, streamlined bodies that move through the water seemingly without effort. They are the only mammals, other than manatees, that live their entire life in the water, and the only ones living in the open oceans.
Like all mammals they:
- breathe air into lungs
- have hair (although a lot less than land mammals, and almost none as adults)
- are warm-blooded (they maintain a high body temperature)
- have mammary glands with which they nurture their young
- have a four-chambered heart
There are a total of 39 different species, 15 are baleen whales including the Humpback, Gray and Blue whale, and 24 are toothed whales including the Sperm whale. Baleen whales are characterized by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, which expand during feeding. Toothed whales, as the name suggests, are characterized by having teeth (rather than baleen).
Every year, Humpback and Gray whales migrate along the coastline from Alaska to Los Cabos, Mexico. They head south throughout December, and return northwards from around March to April. On a daily basis during the season from December through April are humpback and gray whales, and two of the species we occasionally encounter are sperm and blue whales.
When seeing such amazing and graceful animals, one cannot believe there are still countries that support commercial whaling.
In 1986 the International Whaling Commission (IWC) finally responded to decades of unsustainable whaling and adopted a moratorium on all commercial whaling. A total of 89 countries are a member of the IWC, however membership does not exclude whaling. Despite the ban Iceland, Norway and Japan continue commercial whaling using a loophole in the IWC’s founding treaty. Norway officially objected and continues allocating annual quotas for whaling. Iceland and Japan use the special permits of Article VIII ‘Scientific Research’ for commercial whaling. These three countries keep pressuring the IWC into legalizing commercial whaling, even in designated santuaries. Recent polls show that the majority of the Japanese populationd does not support whaling in the Southern Ocean and nearly 87% does not know their tax money is used to subsidise the whale hunt. As the whale industry in Japan is being exposed, whale meat sales have dropped by over 30%, showing that education and awareness are key to the survival of whale species worldwide.
Conservation efforts
There are at least a 86 cetacean species recognized by the International Whaling Comission, including all whale species. Although some species have been closely studied, relatively little is known about their biology, ecology and status of whale species and populations. This demonstrates the need for the continued and increasing international research efforts and the development of comprehensive conservation programs to alleviate the growing pressure on these species.Commercial Whaling
Some species are not threatened as a global population, but specific population of the species might be Endangered.
Current threats
Cetaceans, including all whale species, are increasingly threatened by human activities including:
hunting and whaling
fisheries interactions including mortality from accidental capture of entanglement (bycatch)
habitat degradation or loss from coastal development and associated pollution
noise disturbance and collision with vessels
disease outbreaks
depletion of food resources through competition with fisheries
climate change impacts
The impact of these threats is worse when two or more threats occur at the same time. These threats, if allowed to continue unabated, are likely to overwhelm some species, subspecies and populations and possibly drive some to extinction in the near future. These areas need to be targeted to actively manage conservation management of these animals.
By participating in a whale watching tour people directly support whale conservation as the public is made more aware of the current status of whales and they support whale research directly, which contributes to whale conservation on a global scale.
The Future Of Worldwide Travel
Today a visa and passport are almost always both essential when traveling internationally. In order to prevent criminals from moving openly, these travel documents have been required for many years. Although new methods will likely not completely replace the passport system that we have been accustomed to today, they will add more security measures that need to be passed.
The move from physical passports to digital ones is via the use of biometric devices. The biometric technique measures a person’s face in order to find a match and pull their profile, and this approach prevents passport fraud. Recent breakthroughs have allowed this to happen accurately in only a few seconds from the first read. In order to keep analyzing a person’s face until a precise match is found, a high resolution video camera can be used to keep reading and finally make an exact match. Faking the system with these devices becomes near impossible, and merging this method with the traditional passport will deter most criminals.
One of the technologies that is being considered with biometrics is utilizing an RFID chip in a physical passport. This chip is similar to other near field technologies that transfer personal information when asked wirelessly. Though these chips do not do anything cutting edge, they offer a great double check of US passports and biometric information that is presented when traveling.
Although there are always new technologies being developed, the biggest challenge with any of them is creating something that is as difficult as possible to replicate. Innovative technologies always associate with advanced methods of piracy and programming, so officials have a difficult time determining how to lock down digital technology. These systems could be put at risk, so they must implement methods for expanding in the future that will be like the markings that make physical passports difficult to forge.
Visiting other countries is also becoming more secure by means of what they call e-visas. These go right alongside of the passports, but are tricky to implement since a standard needs to be adapted. For example, traditional China visas are not near as secure as an e-visa, and it would also make traveling simpler as well. It could take many years before they replace traditional paper visas, but the day is on its way when cheap technology can be extremely accurate and reliable as well. Luckily the amazingly fast advances in small computer chips these days have made everything technology related speedier and cheaper. In spite of these advancements, other countries without any sort of technology backbone would be left out, instead making the countries that implement them more secure than the rest.
Collecting Toy Guns Worldwide
There are millions that have fond memories of cowboy series and playing the games as children, maybe this is the reason that toy guns are a collector’s dream. With so many available it is no wonder that collectors have amazing collections to display.
As a seasoned collector or a newbie, it is easy to network, collect, buy and sell toy guns and all their accessories. Building your knowledge and your collection takes time and patience, but it brings great rewards.
The Wild West has an amazing draw for interest and nostalgia, the wide array of guns in silver, gold and black along with the holsters and gun belts makes this one of the most varied collections possible.
The variety between rifles, pistols and small hand guns offers a unique elegance in the collection and for displays. Replicas of pistols now a days so true to form that it is often difficult to distinguish between the authentic and a replica. The powered weapons are not quite as detailed but none the less collector’s masterpieces. They are not produced in the same quantities as the pistols, but that also works in their favor when buying and selling these items. Specialist collectors and the internet are a great way of finding more information and networking.
There are no limits to collections or the imagination of collectors, starting with something you are interested in and going from there. If you start with guns there are always tangible links to other toys, which in turn opens up many new opportunities for networking and learning.
Collecting guns in all shapes and sizes will offer a multitude of events, arenas and networks but it is not a distant leap to weapons from other life forms, Star Wars and Aliens, light sabers. There are no rules or regulations in concrete to say what has to be in your collection, only you can decide.
Collecting toy guns is a fun hobby that can be captivating and a money spinner….so why wait, how many old boxes do you have in the attic or the garage.
A Toy Garage for collectors and collectables is a safe and easy way of storage or display. A toy garage for play is somewhere to show off and elaborate the game.
Toy collectors come from all ages, genders and locations. The one thing they have in common is at sometime they will all have too many toys or too little space. One of the ways to get around this problem is to build a single or multistory toy garage.