Whales and other cetaceans

A cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez. Enter the rabbit hole of our @NYerCartoons at Random tool: https://t.co/WoT482HlOY pic.twitter.com/WmPVP5Bn9M — The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 31, 2015

How realistic are the vengeful whales of “Moby-Dick” and “In the Heart of the Sea,” really? - Quartz : Gentle giants—or monsters of the deep? (Flickr user Biodiversity Heritage Library (licensed under CC-BY-2.0; image has been cropped)) "Mess with a sperm whale, get an 80-ton torpedo—one that will sink a ship and, like a giant mammalian Jaws, stalk the surviving crew across the ocean. That, at least, is the plot of Ron Howard’s cinematic rendering of In The Heart of the Sea. Based on the 2000 book by Nathaniel Philbrick, it’s a loose retelling of the 1821 sinking of the whaleship Essex, after an enormous sperm whale bashed in its hull with its head. The story eventually helped inspire Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick, which describes a whaleship captain’s self-destructive obsession with hunting down the white sperm whale that sank a previous ship and severed his leg. In the movie version of In the Heart of the Sea, the sperm whale goes beyond the historical account...

Omura's whales: Scientists release video of first confirmed sighting of species in wild Published on 26 Oct 2015 Dr. Salvatore Cerchio of the New England Aquarium and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and an international team of whale biologists have just released images and detailed descriptions on the first scientific observations in the wild ever of Omura’s whales, one of the least known species of whales in the world.

Japan rejects international court jurisidiction over whaling : From Sydney Morning Herald in October "Japan has moved suddenly to fence itself off from any future challenge to its Antarctic whaling in the International Court of Justice. After its last whaling program was ruled illegal by the court in a case brought by Australia, its latest plan to restart whaling within weeks has come under strong scientific attack. Now the Japanese government has told United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in a special declaration that it will take a sweeping exception to the court's jurisdiction. It says the court's jurisdiction "does not apply to ... any dispute arising out of, concerning, or relating to research on, or conservation, management or exploitation of, living resources of the sea". The declaration was made by Japan's ambassador to the UN, Motohide Yoshikawa​, earlier this month, and disclosed in Australian political circles on Sunday night. Un...

The World Today - Japan's new 'scientific' whaling program still breaches international law: legal experts 01/12/2015 : "Legal experts from Australia and New Zealand say Japan is breaking international law by resuming so-called 'scientific' whaling. Last month the United Nation's International Court of Justice ruled Japan's scientific whaling program was a sham that should be stopped. Despite that, the Japanese whaling fleet is leaving port today and heading south to the Southern Ocean, as Lucy Carter reports.  LUCY CARTER: At a Japanese port, four ships and more than 100 crew members are preparing to set sail. Japan's fisheries agency has committed to what it calls 'lethal research' from December until March next year. The whaling fleet used to kill 1,000 whales a year this time its target will be 333. The fleet is heading south to the Antarctic despite last year's International Court of Justice ruling that Japan's whal...

Japanese whaling ships depart for Antarctic hunt - BBC News : "Japanese whaling ships have departed for the Antarctic hunt, resuming the programme after a year, despite international opposition. Japan says its whaling programme is for scientific research - one of the exceptions in which whaling is allowed under international rules. But in 2014 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said its Antarctic hunt was not scientific and should cease. Activists say the programme is inhumane and unsustainable. Japan insists it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to justify a return to whaling for commercial purposes, and says it has to kills the mammals to carry out its research. In the 2014/2015 season Japan said it would respect the ICJ's decision and did not catch any whales in the Antarctic, although it did go ahead with a smaller hunt in the Pacific. Japan's Fisheries Agency said on Monday that it has taken into account the ICJ's ruling and this ...

Scientists find hundreds of dead sei whales in Patagonia, Chile - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : More than 300 whales have been found washed up in a remote inlet in Patagonia in southern Chile in one of the largest die-offs on record. Vreni Haussermann of the Huinay Scientific Centre was one of the scientists who made the discovery. "It was an apocalyptic sight. I'd never seen anything like it," Ms Haussermann said. Scientists launched an expedition to count the animals after 20 sei whales were reported dead in April. They were beached in an extremely remote region some 2,000 kilometres south of the capital, Santiago. When researchers flew over the region in June, they found the scale of the die-off was much larger. There were at least 337 dead whales, including the bodies and skeletons of the mammals. 'via Blog this'