How much of a problem are barnacles for whales?

Question

Apart fom making them look so ugly.

Answer 1

barnacles need love too. everybody wants to save the whales,what about the poor oppressed barnacles?

Answer 2

They really don't affect whales. Barnacles aren't even really parasites, since they don't feed off the whale or harm it in any other way. They use whales as transportation, and nothing more. So aside from being extremely unattractive, they aren't a problem.

Answer 3

The barnacles don't harm the whales much other than creating drag and of course weighing a lot. They don't eat what the whales eat and they don't feed on the whales.

Slower whales are more prone to barnacles, such as the baleen whales like Right Whales, Humpback and Gray.

Faster whales & dolphins are not as likely to have barnacles, and many barnacles are species specific, that is, those barnacles only make their home on those kinds of whales.

A large whale may carry hundreds or even thousands of pounds of these parasites, which may make them go just a little slower. (A gray whale is about 40 tons, and if it has at most 1 ton of barnacles on it, that's 2.5% of their body weight!)