Whales Today
Jacobs Family Gallery
Dr. Roderick H. Turner Gallery
Clifford W. Ashley Gallery
Opened: February 18, 2019
Whales Today exhibition provides an introduction to and an examination of the status of whales in today’s oceans and mankind’s historic and current interactions with these magnificent mammals.
From this point of view, and only after this introduction, will the visitor explore the broader history of human cultural and commercial connections with whales and whaling.
Explore whale biology, behavior, and habitat, particularly as these themes relate to the whale skeletons on display. Learn more about what whales are, where they live, their diversity in speed, size, and communication patterns, their evolution, and migration.
Particularly, find out how these traits make them vulnerable to challenges currently facing whales: ship strikes, entanglements, and noise pollution. Learn about conservation efforts and eco-tourism as a way to create positive change. This will include information on current news and legislation and offer real ways people can have an impact – from recycling to writing elected officials.
The history of marine mammal research will connect the past with the present as the exhibits will discuss how we know what we know about whales, from historic baseline bioacoustics recordings informing policy change in noise pollution mitigation, to 19th-century whaler’s logbooks informing 21st-century marine mammal population studies, to 20th and 21st-century whale tagging and data processing.
Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database
The William A. Watkins Collection of Marine Mammal Sound Recordings consists of recordings of various marine mammal species collected over a span of seven decades in a wide range of geographic areas by Watkins and many others.
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Cultures of Whaling
Geography, environment and habitat have all contributed to the growth of cultures that hunt whales for food, bones and oil for survival in regions where agriculture is difficult or impossible...
Seals and Society
While many seal species use the waters off of New Bedford, harbor seals and gray seals are the most common and have a year-round presence in New England and beyond...
Skeletons of the Deep
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is host to four large whale skeletons, and one very special small skeleton from animals that either died accidentally or by undetermined circumstances.
