Written by Andrew Stevenson
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Here is Magical Whale coming for a closer look, less than a foot from the 120-degree wide angle underwater housing. The image is taken from the high definition video. Magical Whale has never been seen anywhere else but here in Bermuda. On three occasions he has approached boats to within feet. Where does this whale feed? If he hasn't been photo ID'ed before, it could be a sparsely populated place like Greenland. Last year the International Whaling Commission allocated Greenland a quota to kill 27 of the North Atlantic humpback whales over a three-year period. These are the same whales that migrate past Bermuda. There's a good likelihood that Magical Whale feeds in Greenland. If he approaches a Greenland fishing boat equipped with a grenade-tipped explosive harpoon in the same way he approaches boats here in Bermuda waters, he will die an agonizing death.
These are some of the images to be included in my up-coming book "Whale Song: Journeys into the Secret Lives of the North Atlantic humpbacks" published by Constable and Robinson in London and Globe-Pequot Press in North America. The book will be published September 11th 2011.




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