Pull out your phone and type "whale." What do you get? Two emojis. One is a cartoon-like creature happily spouting water, as if it had just been cast in a children's TV show. The other is a sleek blue or gray whale that looks like it's about to star in a serious BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough.

Whales have a way of making humans feel tiny. When you stand under the massive arch of a whale skeleton suspended in a museum atrium, your sense of scale collapses. It's like being a Lego figure staring up at a jumbo jet. You realize these animals are not just big, they are colossal—and yet, despite their size, most of us rarely encounter them in the wild.