Dolphin Defender - Discovery

Dolphin Defenders

Dolphin Defenders

Part 1: Discovery

Part 1: Discovery

Welcome to WDC's

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nº1

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Welcome, Dolphin Defenders!

Your job: learn everything you can about whales and dolphins, and what you can do to help them!

Welcome, Dolphin Defenders!

Click through to see some cetacean species!

Click through to see some cetacean species!

CETACEANS

CETACEANS

Whales, dolphins and porpoises are a group of mammals called:

Feeding Behavior Videos

Feeding Behavior Videos

What's the difference?

TOOTHED

BALEEN

Examples:

TOOTHED

Examples:

BALEEN

Hunt fish and larger prey using echolocation.

Capture food with a structure inside their mouth called baleen.

Cetaceans fall into two groups:

What's the difference?

Warm-Blooded

Cold-Blooded

Breathe through lungs

Breathe through gills

Most fish produce eggs

Give birth to one live baby

Move tails vertically

Move tails horizontally

There are four main differences between cetaceans and fish:

CETACEANS vs FISH

CETACEANS vs FISH

Cetaceans are related to modern even-hooved mammals like sheep and deer. But who is their closet living relative?

WHERE DID CETACEANS COME FROM?

WHERE DID CETACEANS COME FROM?

Ancestors of cetaceans were land-dwelling mammals that adapted to live in water. But how?

Question time: How many cetacean species do you think there are?

Click for Answer

Question time: How many cetacean species do you think there are?

...SPECIES IN THE WORLD!

...SPECIES IN THE WORLD!

THERE ARE...

Whale

41

Porpoise

Dolphin

40

THERE ARE...

Body Size

Beaks +Teeth

Dorsal fins

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There are three main differences between dolphins and porpoises:

DOLPHINS VS PORPOISES

DOLPHINS VS PORPOISES

Whales poop close to the surface of the ocean

Why do they do this?

Phytoplankton near the surface feed on whale poop

What are phytoplankton?

Phytoplankton produce oxygen and feed other animals

Where are phytoplankton on the food chain?

WHALE POOP OVERVIEW

WHALE POOP OVERVIEW

DOLPHIN LIFE FACTS

DOLPHIN LIFE FACTS

Dolphins are very social creatures, doing everything from playing, hunting, teaching, protecting and babysitting for each other. What are communities of dolphins called?

Unlike humans who breathe automatically, dolphins must choose when to breathe. This means dolphins can't sleep completely unconcious - so how do they sleep?

Click the animals when they appear to learn more!

Click the animals when they appear to learn more!

Sei Whale

Blue Whale

Fin Whale

Gray Whale

Bowhead Whale

Click each record to see which cetacean holds the title (Try and guess first!)

Sperm Whale

Curvier's Beaked Whale

Blue Whale

Blue Whale

Sperm Whale

Humpback Whale

Sperm Whale

Narwhal

Vaquita

Biggest Brain

Longest Migration

Loudest Singer

Biggest Teeth

Fastest

Biggest Heart

Biggest Babies

Smallest Cetacean

Longest Lived Mammal

Largest Animal

Deepest Diver

Loudest Sound

RECORD BREAKERS

RECORD BREAKERS

Vessel Strikes

Many whales and dolphins are threatened or endangered. Click to learn about the threats whales and dolphins face.

Habitat Damage

Bycatch

Captivity

Hunting

THREATS TO WHALES AND DOLPHINS

THREATS TO WHALES AND DOLPHINS

Discover even more amazing facts and stories about whales and dolphins through these links!

Go online to learn more!

Go online to learn more!

Click when finished!

To finish the DISCOVERY part of your Dolphin Defenders Award!

Complete the Quiz

Complete the Quiz

DOLPHIN DEFENDERS AWARD

Thanks for being a hero, helping WDC to create a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free!

Next up: Your FUNDRAISING activity!

Great job!

You've completed the DISCOVERY lesson and quiz.

Try and guess which cetacean holds the listed record!

RECORD BREAKERS

RECORD BREAKERS

Sperm whale brains:

• Weigh 20 pounds
• Are 6x bigger than a human brain

Click on any of these links to read more!

(whaling)

Hunting

Killed for meat and animal products

• Internationally banned in 1986, but some coutries still participate
• 40,000 large whales have been hunted since the ban
• 100,000 dolphins, small whales, and porpoises are also killed every year
• Example: North American right whales were hunted so severly in the past, there are less than 400 of them left in the world

Dolphin groups are called PODS!

Mutiple pods can sometimes come together to form SUPERPODS of thousands of dolphins! Below is a captured video of a large superpod swimming around the coast of Costa Rica.

*WDC is working with the fishing industry to make fishing safer

Bycatch

Entanglement in fishing nets or line

• Entanglment is the biggest threat to whales and dolphins
• Hundreds and thousands of individuals die each year
• Deaths for entangled animals are slow and painful
• Even if freed, the stress of the experience can lead to health issues or eventual death

• Reach 235 decibels. That's louder than a:
• Rock concert (115 decibels)
• Jet Engine (140 decibels)

• This means sperm whales can talk to each other 37 miles apart!

Sperm whales don't sing, but their clicks:

They can also stay underwater and hold their breath for more than 2 hours.

Curvier's beaked whales can dive down to a depth of nearly 2 miles.

Click text to highlight

Toothed whales use their teeth to latch onto meals. They eat larger prey such as fish or squid.

Toothed whales have special organs in their foreheads called melons that can pick up soundwaves. Once they sense echoes, they can pinpoint the location of their prey, and off they go to hunt!

Toothed whales use echolocation, or sonar, to find their prey. Echolocation is when an animal uses soundwaves that bounce off of nearby objects to detect and identify things around them.

How do toothed whales feed?

The hippopatamus!

A gray whale named Varvara, migrated roughly 14,000 miles from Sakhalin Island, Russia, to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California in 2011!

10 feet

A narwhal's iconic "tusk" is actually a 9-10 foot long tooth!

Humpback whale bubble-netting

Did you know...

Although called the "killer whale", the Orca is actually a kind of dolphin!

**Bowhead whales also win the prize for the biggest mouth and the longest baleen!

Evidence suggests that bowheads can live to be over 200 YEARS OLD.

**Vaquitas are the most endangered porpoise in the world, with only about 20 of them left in the world.

The vaquita only grows up to 5 feet (1.5m) long.

Over millions of years, whales and dolphins lost their hair and legs, adapting streamlined bodies and flippers/flukes for swimming.

Dolphins create sponge armor for safer hunting

The baiji or Yangtze river dolphin was declared EXTINCT in December 2006. Many got trapped in fishing equipment.

3. Once the whale has lots of seawater, they push the water back out through their baleen plates, and small fish or krill get stuck in the baleen for the whale to swallow!

2. To catch prey, baleen whales take a large gulp of seawater into their mouths- this can be thousands of gallons worth of water!

How Baleen Works

1. Baleen whales are filter feeders: they have bristly baleen plates made from keratin in their mouths - the same protein as our fingernails!

Fun fact: Fin whales are nicknamed the "greyhounds of the sea" for their speed!

Sei whales and fin whales can swim up to 34mph when hunting.

Sperm whale echolocation clicks

Captivity

Separated from family/communities, confined to small spaces

• Have no freedom despite being wild animals
• Have to eat dead fish and can't use echolocation
• Die much younger than wild whales and dolphins due to unnatural conditions
• Example: Orcas in captivity develop collapsed dorsal fins due to stress and their confined swimming space

Blue Whales are the largest creatures ever!

• They are larger than any known dinosaur that ever lived
• Fully grown, they can:
• Weigh 190,000 kg (190 tons)
• Be over 98 feet long (around 30 meters)

• Fun fact: They have such large tongues, an entire soccer team could stand on it!

Blue whale hearts:

• Weigh nearly half a ton
• Are the size of an adult male polar bear
• Fun fact: The main artery (aorta) of a blue whale's heart is so large that an average size human could walk through it!

Dolphins only let one half of their brain sleep at a time! This way, they have enough brain function to keep breathing while still getting rest they need.

Why is Whale Poop So Important?

Blue whale babies can weigh over 6,000 pounds!

Habitat Damage

Alteration of the conditions necessary for animals to survive

• Plastic and chemical pollution affect the waters and habitat that whales and dolphins live in
• Noise pollution from human activity affect animal's abilites to navigate their environment

• Food sources depleted from overfishing can affect an animal or group of animal's survival abilities

That’s like shouting from MAINE and being heard in FLORIDA.

Humpback whale songs can be heard over 1,500 miles away.

Sperm whales have the largest full set of teeth, with each tooth being up to 8in (20cm) long

8 inches

Right whale skim feeding

Dolphins trick fish with mud "nets"

Blue whale lunge feeding

Vessel Strikes

A collision between any type of boat and a marine animal.

• Occurs when an animal isn't detected, or when a vessel is moving too fast to avoid the animal
• Water vessels can be very quiet, making it hard for animals to hear them approach
• Biggest threat is to large whales who migrate through heavy boat traffic areas
• Example: Around 45 North Atlantic right whales (> 10% population) were killed by vessel strikes over the past 10 years.