Whales and other cetaceans

Kimberley dolphins vulnerable to human activity, Murdoch University researchers say - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : "Dolphins in Western Australia's Kimberley are heavily reliant on their specific habitats and "quite vulnerable" to human activity, researchers have said.  Key points: Study provides estimates of three inshore dolphin species  Data is collected in the Kimberley  Researches find high degree of population variance between sites  Dolphins vulnerable to coastal development  The researchers published the findings of a four-year study which provides the first estimates of the abundance of three shallow, inshore species of dolphin — the Australian snubfin, the Australian humpback and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin.  The Murdoch University team travelled to five remote locations in the Kimberley to collect data, counting dolphins and mapping the sightings. They focused mostly on the West Kimberley, visiting Roebuck ...

Dolphin released after becoming stranded on Bruny Island in rough seas - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : "A dolphin has been successfully released back into the ocean off southern Tasmania after becoming stranded on a beach. Wildlife experts suspect rough seas led to the striped dolphin becoming stranded at Cloudy Bay on Bruny Island on Tuesday. Visitors from Queensland discovered the animal on the beach before contacting the state government's whale hotline and alerting wildlife officers. Wildlife Biologist Kris Carlyon said the dolphin probably became lost in high seas. "If it got into those waves close to the coast, it probably became quite disorientated and possibly couldn't quite navigate its way back out through the waves." "The white water filled with sand ... probably [meant it] had a lot of difficulty," he said." 'via Blog this'

Japan and the whale - BBC News : "Recently I was at a private briefing with a high-ranking member of the Japanese government. Japan had just announced it was going to resuming whaling. I outlined to him why I thought it made no sense, and asked him to respond. His answer was astonishingly frank. "I agree with you," he said. "Antarctic whaling is not part of Japanese culture. It is terrible for our international image and there is no commercial demand for the meat. I think in another 10 years there will be no deep sea whaling in Japan." "So why not stop now?" asked another journalist. "There are some important political reasons why it is difficult to stop now." he said. He would say no more. But Junko Sakuma thinks the answer lies in the fact that Japan's whaling is government-run, a large bureaucracy with research budgets, annual plans, promotions and pensions. "If the number of staff in a bureaucrat's office decreases whi...