A small boat drifts in the shallow waters of San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The motor has been cut off. The six passengers sit in silence, bobbing in the gentle waves, scanning the waters in breathless anticipation.
Pooshh! Right next to the boat, a spout of water shoots into the air. It's followed by the booming exhale of a giant underwater beast. It's a Pacific gray whale breaking the water's surface.
Each year, Pacific gray whales gather in these waters to spend the winter months. For some females, it will be time to give birth to a single calf. The young will grow strong...and they'll need to.
Just weeks after their birth, the whales will feel compelled to go north to their summer feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska. Pacific gray whales complete an annual migration of more than 10,000 miles (16,100 km) roundtrip, making it one of the longest annual migrations in the entire animal kingdom.
But the Pacific gray whale's story is so much more than a tale of migration. It's an epic journey that has taken the species from the edge of extinction to becoming one of the world's greatest conservation success stories. Today, the Pacific gray whale is the only marine mammal to ever be removed from the endangered species list due to population recovery.
A Deadly History
Whales and humans have had a long and complicated relationship.
Whaling the hunting of whales for food or products-dates back more than 4,000 years. From Japan to Canada, Native communities relied on the giant animals for meat while their bones were fashioned into tools. For centuries, these small whaling efforts had little effect on whale populations worldwide. This was subsistence hunting, where people only killed what they needed to survive.
Esta historia es de la edición March 2023 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Esta historia es de la edición March 2023 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
