Whales and other cetaceans

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.

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...

The Washington Post  has today reported on the hazards threatening the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. The report says: "... lately the imperiled animals have acted in strange and disturbing ways. They are having fewer calves; not a single newborn was seen this year. The whales are skipping favored feeding grounds and showing up in unusual places. And in the past 11 months, 18 whales have been found floating, dead — the worst mortality event since scientists began keeping records decades ago."

The whale killing season has just ended so what do the hunters of Taiji do? They hold a memorial service for the hunted whales. The Mainichi newspaper reports that around 100 people including fishermen attended the service on Sunday and offered incense in front of a monument shaped like a whale in a park in the town in Wakayama Prefecture. The memorial service is held every year in the park on a hill where an old whaling watchtower used to stand. "We will pass on the long history of the town connected with whaling to future generations," Taiji Mayor Kazutaka Sangen said in a message read on his behalf by town official Hironobu Ryono. ( From Wikipedia ) Taiji has drawn international criticism for its traditional drive hunting of dolphins and small whales. The open season on cetacean drive hunting, in which the animals are herded into a bay and killed, starts on Sept. 1 in Taiji. The season for drive hunting of dolphins lasts until the end of February, and the hunti...

Bloomberg Environment reports that while Mexico is increasing its efforts to protect the highly endangered vaquita porpoise by expanding its protected habitat, it still struggles to enforce fishing bans meant to keep the species alive. The push to expand the vaquita refuge area in the Gulf of California, which the Environmental Ministry announced April 20, is a last-ditch effort to save the rapidly disappearing porpoise, whose numbers have been reduced to about 30 mammals. The illegal capture of vaquitas is a side consequence of the poaching of another endangered fish—the totoaba—in the same waters. Totoaba are caught illegally with wide-sweeping gill net, which also sweep up vaquitas. Totoaba bladders command top prices in China because of their supposed medicinal properties

THE sighting of a humpback whale off the coast last week has sparked calls for the immediate removal of shark nets from our beaches, the Northern Star reports . Tweed Seasports owner Peter Comerford snapped a photo of the humpback last Thursday during a dive trip at Nine Mile Reef east of Fingal Head. Following the sighting Sea Shepherd has ramped up its calls for an end to the shark meshing program.

The San Juan Islander reports that half a million healthy juvenile Chinook salmon were released into the Salish Sea as part of the South Vancouver Island Anglers Coalition (SVIAC) and the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA)'s "Feeding Our Endangered Orcas Initiative." The fish were delivered to Sooke, B.C. This multi-year program is intended to significantly increase large adult Chinook salmon in the Juan de Fuca Strait during the key pre-winter feeding time of local killer whales. The Southern Resident Killer Whales - J, K and L pods are endangered. Lack of food is one of the issues believed responsible for their declining numbers. Pollutants and noise from vessels are other top reasons for their decline according to NOAA. Last year 225,000 healthy Chinook salmon smolts were successfully released from their temporary holding enclosure in the Sooke Basin and are expected to return as large adults in 2020. In the future, increased quantities of Chinook smolts will ...