But their populations have been slow to recover, and the blue whale is still endangered.
Even as a baby, a blue whale can make a grown man look like a minnow.
The blue whale had disappeared into these giant tanks, arranged in long rows as at any refinery.
It's like saying the blue whale is in an evolutional cul-de-sac because it lives in the ocean.
Although hunting of the blue whale was banned in 1966, the recovery of this magnificent Marine mammal has been exceptionally slow.
"We really appreciate all you've done for us, but now you need to let us die," intoned a 170-ton blue whale through a series of deep and mournful vocalizations.
Baleen whales, including the humpback whales and blue whales, are toothless and instead use hairlike structures called baleen to filter tiny prey such as krill from seawater.
The scientists also found that darker whales, in this case sperm and fin whales, tended to not get sunburned as much as lighter blue whales.
They go straight to the ocean surface, feed there, grow; some will descend deeper into the ocean where they will dodge jelly fish, sharks, blue whales and hope to survive.
