Whales and other cetaceans

Southern right whale study quantifies impact of whaling in New Zealand's waters - Science News - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : The population of southern right whales in the waters off New Zealand today is just 12 per cent of its size before whaling began, according to a new study. The research, published today in Royal Society Open Science , highlights the slow path to recovery from whaling in this area, said the study's lead author, Jennifer Jackson from the British Antarctic Survey. "It's really easy for us to forget how different our oceans looked before we went in and exploited them," Dr Jackson said. "There are anecdotes that people in Wellington would complain about the noises that the southern right whales were making in the harbour at night." In the 19th and 20th centuries, southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) were massacred by whalers in their coastal calving grounds around the New Zealand mainland and while foraging i...

Skull of sperm whale from 2014 Yorke Peninsula mass stranding stripped and studied - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : "The beaching of a pod of sperm whales in 2014 has given Adelaide-based researchers a rare opportunity to study the ocean mammals. Scientists at the South Australian Museum have removed one of the whale's skulls from a macerating vat, where it has spent the past 12 months. After drying and cleaning, the skull will join the rest of the skeleton, which the museum hopes to put on public display. The whale was one of seven that beached themselves on Yorke Peninsula in 2014, but museum staff say their research will not be able to explain why the pod became stranded. David Stemmer, the collection manager of mammals at the South Australian Museum, oversaw the skull retrieval. "It's a fairly big skull, it weighs probably around half a tonne," Mr Stemmer said. "It needs heavy equipment to get out of the tank, so we've asked our n...