February 17, 2017

Wyland Whaling Walls for World Whale Day

Posted by Laura Guertin

World Whale Day is taking place Saturday, February 18th (although celebrations will typically continue for a week before/after this date). World Whale Day is presented by Pacific Whale Foundation to raise awareness and support conservation efforts to protect humpback whales and their ocean habitat. From its beginnings in 1980 with a festival in Maui, Hawaii, the celebration of whales is now a global one. Check out Twitter for wonderful whale facts that will wow and amaze you with the hashtag #WorldWhaleDay and #WhaleWeek (I can’t help but insert more “w” words in this post – please bear with me, because it is going to get worse!).

NOAA also compiled a great set of resources for Whale Week 2021, Whale Week 2023, and useful overall information about whales.

 

Wyland Whaling Walls

It seems appropriate for World Whale Day to talk about the Wyland Whaling Walls. Marine life artist Robert Wyland (http://www.wyland.com/) starting painting life-size murals of whales and other marine life to change the way people view our oceans and to generate an awareness about environmental conservation. Wyland painted 100 Whaling Walls between 1981 and 2008, starting in Laguna Beach, California, and finishing in Beijing, China. Over a period of 17 weeks in 1993, Wyland painted 17 murals from Portland, Maine, to Key West, Florida (wow!).

Watch below to explore Wyland’s journey to painting his 100 Whaling Walls through original video footage and photographs.

 

You can find a complete list of the Wyland Whaling Walls on the Wyland Foundation website and Wikipedia (unfortunately, some of the original 100 murals are no longer available to view). Below, I have included a few photos of the Whaling Walls I have spotted (so many more I wish I had stopped and taken pictures of during my travels!).

 

Anchorage, Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska
Picture 1 of 5

 

If you are headed to the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans, be sure to look for Louisiana’s Wyland Wall – WW 69 “The Blues Whales”!