![[OC] Die Zahl der weltweit getöteten Wale erreichte in den 1960er Jahren ihren Höhepunkt](https://www.bytesde.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/johiqbgwi7mh1-1229x1536.png "[OC] Die Zahl der weltweit getöteten Wale erreichte in den 1960er Jahren ihren Höhepunkt")
Die weltweiten Walpopulationen gingen im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts aufgrund der menschlichen Jagd dramatisch zurück. Einige Walarten waren vom Aussterben bedroht.
Aber eine Kombination aus Schutzbemühungen, technologischem Wandel, wirtschaftlichen Anreizen und internationaler Politik hat den weltweiten Walfang auf ein viel geringeres Niveau reduziert.
Mitte der 1980er Jahre vereinbarte die Internationale Walfangkommission (IWC) ein weltweites Moratorium, das den kommerziellen Walfang illegal machte.
Sie können diesen Rückgang in der Grafik sehen, die die Anzahl der pro Jahrzehnt getöteten Wale zeigt.
Die Grafik kombiniert Daten aus zwei Quellen: Vor den 1990er Jahren stammt sie aus dem Artikel „Emptying the Oceans“ von Robert C. Rocha, Jr. und Kollegen; Seitdem stammt es von der IWC.
Obwohl die Walfangaktivität deutlich geringer ist, wurde sie noch nicht vollständig unterbunden. Es gibt Ausnahmen vom Moratorium der IWC und Japan ist 2019 vollständig aus der IWC ausgetreten.
Datenquelle: Rocha et al. (2014); Internationale Walfangkommission (2026)
Verwendete Werkzeuge: OWID-Grapher und Figma
Von ourworldindata
12 Kommentare
**Data source:** [Rocha et al. (2014)](https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/content/emptying-oceans-summary-industrial-whaling-catches-20th-century); [International Whaling Commission (2026)](https://iwc.int/management-and-conservation/whaling/total-catches)
**Tools used:** OWID-Grapher and Figma
Why were we killing so many in the 60s? Whale oil was WAY not a thing by then…
Would have thought it would be higher in the 1800-1900
Is this accurate? Or is it simply that Japan stopped reporting their numbers?
And since whales are incredibly long-lived, it’s going to take generations for their numbers to rebound. That’s if the warming oceans are even habitable for them by then.
There was a documentary I watch that brought up this fact. Whale population has exploded, and killer whales have adapted their tactics to suite.
Baby whales instinctively swim next to a larger whale. The killer whales tactically separate the baby from the mom, then guide them away from the mom / parents just to kill them.
The doc also said, sometimes the killer whales only eat their tongues before finding a new target.
Apparently whales are tough eating
700k would be „about half all whales alive today“, and whales live a minimum of 20 years, so even one more decade like the 60s would have perhaps wiped out all of the species.
Wow, the whales were saved so quickly! All thanks to Star Trek IV
Conservationists truly are heroes. There’s already so many species gone into extinction over the last 200 years imagine just how many more there’d be without them
„Save The Whales“ was one of the first environmental slogans I encountered as a child back in the 1970s. I didn’t even know why they needed saving, but I remember it. That and the crying Indian standing on a pile of garbage. Next came „Give A Hoot, Don’t Pollute“.
But anyway, the 1970s was the beginning of Americans as a whole really saying, „Holy shit, look at this giant mess!“ And I mean things were so, so much worse than today. It seems bad today, but back then, the smog and acid rain and polluted rivers and toxic waste and cancerous shit in our food… everywhere you looked was an environmental issue that anybody could see with the naked eye needed addressing. This wasn’t like „1.5 degrees per decade“ or „5 parts per million“ kind of stuff. This was „visibility down to 2000 feet due to car exhausts.“
Americans were the first ones to really to put modern environmental regulation into action and legislate against pollution and promote conservation, and the U.S. Government was crucial in the drop in whaling numbers, starting with the Endangered Species Act of 1967, and banning of whale products. That was followed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. That was followed by the U.S. pushing heavily to restrict global whaling.
(Sigh… won’t it be nice to see an American government put the welfare of animals and the environment over the interests of big business again someday?)
Interesting, I’d have expected the peak to be way earlier when whale oil, ivory etc. use were widespread.
Unfortunately, we are now havesting vast amounts of krill, which whales depend on — [https://theconversation.com/antarctic-krill-fishing-is-now-concentrated-in-the-exact-pattern-conservation-rules-were-designed-to-prevent-290019](https://theconversation.com/antarctic-krill-fishing-is-now-concentrated-in-the-exact-pattern-conservation-rules-were-designed-to-prevent-290019)
Can you overlay a graph of total worldwide whale populations?