Kimberley dolphins vulnerable to human activity

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 Bay, Beagle Bay, Cygnet Bay and Cone Bay, but also took in the Inner Cambridge Gulf in the region's east.

"The motivation for this research was that these animals, from what we know elsewhere in Australia, tend to occur in quite small populations that really depend on the near-shore environment," lead researcher Alexander Brown said."

'via Blog this'

Comments

An increase in the number of irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong

Some good news this week about the Irrawaddy dolphins of the Mekong River. A joint report from the Cambodian government and the World Wildlife Foundation tells how, following decades of seemingly irreversible decline, the population is increasing. They report the number of dolphins in the region has risen from 80 to 92 in the past two years—the first increase since scientists began keeping records more than twenty years ago. The first official census in 1997 estimated that there were 200 Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong, a figure that fell steadily due to bycatch and habitat loss. By 2015, only 80 dolphins remained. The recent census showed that more dolphins are surviving into adulthood, and there’s been a significant drop in overall deaths. Nine calves were born this year, raising the number of dolphins born in the past three years to 32. Seng Teak, Country Director of WWF Cambodia, said the census had positive implications for the Greater Mekong region, wher...

A blue whale spotted in Tasmanian waters - only the eighth sighting in six years

There have only been eight blue whale sightings in southeast Tasmanian waters in the last six years so the Marine Conservation Program was naturally a little bit excited this week.

The blue whale in the red sea

Huge Blue Whale Sighted in the Red Sea for the First Time | Smart News | Smithsonian : "On Tuesday morning, a fisherman off the coast of Eilat, Israel spotted something unexpected: a huge whale swimming along in the Red Sea. Experts were even more surprised to discover that the creature was a blue whale—marking the first time that the world’s largest mammal has been seen in the Red Sea, as Zafrir Rinat and Almog Ben Zikri report for Haaretz. Two days after it popped up in Israeli waters, Egypt’s environment ministry announced that the animal had also been sighted in the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba, according to Aham Online. The ministry revealed that the whale measures 24 meters (nearly 80 feet) long, and belongs to a subspecies known as the pygmy blue whale. Monitoring teams in the South Sinai and the Red Sea have been deployed to track the whale’s movements." 'via Blog this'

Whales and other cetaceans

Search This Blog