A whale of a time

A TOTAL of 22 whales have been officially counted in the Straits of Gibraltar this summer.

In a project, organised by CIRCE (Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans), almost 100 volunteers came from as far as Brazil to count the whales.

In total they recorded 20 Humpback whales and two Sperm whales, which according to a spokesman for CIRCE was roughly the same as last year.

He said: “These are good results, taking into account that we didn’t have good weather conditions during the research.”

The data will now be used to alert big cargo and passenger vessels to the dangers of colliding with the whales.

This will be sure to make the whales smile, just as this Sperm Whale appears to be smiling in a recent photo taken by British marine biologist Rory Moore.