Saturday marked the 38th annual World Whale Day, and the Discovery Centre in Halifax celebrated the day by featuring the mammals that live in the waters surrounding the province.
Whale Day was founded in Maui in 1980 and honours the humpback whales that live off their coast. The day focuses on educating people on why it’s important to protect the giants of the ocean.
“It’s about not only celebrating these amazing animals but also raising awareness on the things that are impacting them and how people can help,” said Tonya Wimmer, executive director of the Marine Animal Response Society
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In Nova Scotia, there are about 150 bottlenose whales off the coast. The whales are endangered, so researchers track them through pictures.
“Every whale is an individual. That is the way I conduct my research: to identify individual whales so that we can count them and understand more about their family group, their social structure, how many there are in the population and how that’s changing over time,” said researcher Laura Feyrer.
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At the Discovery Centre, kids learned interesting facts that help make education engaging.
“I like seeing the pictures of them,” said one youngster.
“I learned something today that the whale’s spine looks a little different than ours,” said another.
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World Whale Day takes place on the third Saturday of February annually.
With files from Whitney Oickle
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