Whales and other cetaceans

Dozens Of False Killer Whales Mysteriously Strand Themselves In Florida : The Two-Way : NPR : "Scientists are trying to determine why a group of at least 95 false killer whales stranded themselves on a remote coast in Florida's Everglades National Park. At least 82 of the animals have died, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "This is the largest mass stranding ever for this species in the United States," NOAA Marine Biologist Erin Fougères said, "And one of the largest mass strandings we've ever had in the southeast." The event was first reported on Saturday and rescue efforts to herd the animals to safety have seen "minimal success," she said in a Facebook Live video with the Weather Channel on Wednesday. The remote location, along Hog Key in the Everglades, is difficult for biologists to reach and dense with mangroves." 'via Blog this'

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Navy Sonar-Use Rules - ABC News : "A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the U.S. Navy was wrongly allowed to use sonar that could harm whales and other marine life.  The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision upholding approval granted in 2012 for the Navy to use low-frequency sonar for training, testing and routine operations.  The five-year approval covered peacetime operations in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.  The appellate panel sent the matter back to the lower court for further proceedings.  A message seeking comment from representatives of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Honolulu was not immediately returned.  Sonar, used to detect submarines, can injure whales, seals, dolphins and walruses and disrupt their feeding and mating. " 'via Blog this'

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...

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...