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An eerie picture captures whale skeletons resting of their watery grave after being killed by hunters off Greenland. The whales had been taken to shore, stripped of the pores and skin, blubber and meat, earlier than being dragged again into the ocean. There, they continue to be within the shallows to be consumed by marine invertebrates.
The {photograph}, taken by Alex Dawson, has gained the Underwater Photographer of the Yr 2024 competitors after being chosen from over 6,500 entries. “Whale Bones,” was chosen because the winner as a result of it “invitations us to think about our influence on the nice creatures of this planet,” panel chair Alex Mustard stated in an announcement emailed to Reside Science.
“A really arresting picture proper from the beginning; for me this received greater and higher with each viewing,” Mustard stated. “The diver’s swimsuit and torch give it a ‘visiting alien’ really feel, the composition flows effortlessly and takes your eye on the correct journey to inform the story.”
Dawson, from Sweden, took the {photograph} off Tasiilaq in Greenland, a city with a inhabitants of round 2,000 people who sits on the coast of the North Atlantic, roughly 66 miles (106 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle. Within the picture, a freediver approaches one in every of two whale skeletons from above, with a niche within the ice above and a flashlight illuminating the bones.
Associated: Polar bear sleeping on tiny iceberg drifting in Arctic sea captured in heartbreaking photograph
Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales — species that feed by sieving plankton by way of plates of their mouths. Widespread minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) are listed as of least concern by the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature Crimson Checklist. Due to their measurement, they have been typically thought of too quick and small by the business whaling business, and have been solely hunted when the numbers of different, bigger species have been depleted. The business largely ended within the Eighties, nonetheless some minke populations are nonetheless killed as a part of annual hunts. In east Greenland, a median of 9 minke whales are killed every year.
“In jap Greenland the native hunters carry their catch and share it amongst one another,” Dawson stated within the assertion. “From a secure inhabitants of over 100,000 minke whales within the North Atlantic the hunters of Tasiilaq sometimes take lower than a dozen.” Dawson stated households from the city collect at low tide to chop off the pores and skin, blubber and meat.
“Nearly all of the whale is consumed, nonetheless the skeleton is pulled again into the ocean by the following excessive tide and the stays might be present in shallow waters the place numerous marine invertebrates and fish choose the bones clear,” he stated.
The Underwater Photographer of the Yr competitors was launched in 2015. This yr, Dawson’s picture was the general winner from 130 finalists. A choice of the opposite successful and extremely counseled pictures might be seen beneath.
“At nightfall, a number of dozen lemon sharks rise from the depths and encompass the dive boat. Perched on the swim-step with my physique half-submerged, I got down to take cut up photographs. On at the present time the ocean was tough, it was virtually darkish, and the sharks have been vigorous and really curious,” he stated in an announcement. (Picture credit score: Rodolphe Guignard/UPY 2024)
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