COCOA BEACH, Fla. - A dead female humpback whale discovered on the beach over the weekend may help explain why so many of the endangered species - nearly 30 - have died in the Atlantic Ocean this year.

Researchers were able to take the skull, reproductive organs, blubber and other tissue to examine them and possibly figure out the cause of death. The year-old, 4,000-pound calf was found Saturday morning by beachgoers about three blocks south of the Cocoa Beach Pier, according to police.

The dead whale is a huge find for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which has monitored a sharp increase in humpback deaths since last summer. Observers have spotted bloated, rotting carcasses in the ocean, but this is the first stranded leviathan from which they can get fresh biological samples, NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Terri Friday said.

“We don’t get a lot of opportunities to sample, so necropsies are very important,” she told Florida Today.

Such samples can provide a life history of the animal, its food habits, illnesses and viruses that might compromise the rest of the population, the presence of biotoxins or injuries that indicate a cause of death, she said.

Mendy Garron, the northeast stranding coordinator for NOAA Fisheries, said her agency has noticed a sharp increase in humpback deaths since July in the feeding grounds in New England, “so we will be investigating any mortalities as they migrate south.”

Including Saturday’s stranding, 28 deaths have been recorded this year along the entire eastern Atlantic coast, compared with an average 10 to 15 deaths annually.

Garron said it is a significant number for a population of 8,000 to 10,000 whales. Ideally, to have a successful reproduction rate, she said there should be no more than three deaths a year.

Source:http://www.bradenton.com

Science Daily — By comparing the productivity of lobster fishing operations in American and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine, researchers have identified ways in which cost-saving alterations in fishing strategies can substantially reduce fishing-gear entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. The findings appear in the January 9th issue of the journal Current Biology, published by Cell Press, and are reported by Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, along with colleagues there and at the University of Rhode Island, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the University of New Hampshire.

Though it has been protected for more than 70 years, the North Atlantic right whale has been slow to recover from past exploitation, and extinction remains a threat. The whale is virtually extinct in Europe, but a small population of about 350 individuals remains on the east coast of North America. A leading threat to the species is lethal entanglement by fishing gear: Photographic evidence indicates that 75% of individuals show signs of entanglement, mostly from lobster fishing gear.

In the new work, the researchers analyzed the costs and benefits of two dramatically different lobster fishing strategies currently employed in the Gulf of Maine, the world’s most important lobster-producing area. Compared to lobster fishing on the Gulf’s Canadian side (known as Lobster Fishing Area 34), which occurs over a winter fishing season, American-side lobster fishing is year-round, and involves 8–9 times more lobster traps in the water at any given time. Despite these significant differences in fishing “effort” and cost, Maine has only about 30% higher catches than the Canadian Fishing Area. Accordingly, the researchers estimate that the number of traps used in Maine is 13 times greater than in the Canadian Fishing Area to harvest the same lobster catch. On the basis of these findings and estimations of seasonal whale presence determined by patterns of whale sightings, the authors estimate that, in terms of impact on right whales, each lobster caught in Canada has less than 1% of the impact of each lobster caught in Maine.

The authors propose that if Maine restricted its lobster fishing season to 6 months and reduced the number of traps by a factor of ten, the more optimal fishing strategy–including decreased costs and improved total income–would allow greatly reduced risk to the remaining right whales while providing benefit to fishermen.

The authors point out that the basic problem of huge excess effort in lobster fishing is characteristic of other aspects of fishing industries around the world–including shrimp and tuna longline industries that expend much more effort than needed to obtain optimal yields, while threatening turtles and non-targeted fish, including shark species, as bycatch.

The researchers include Ransom A. Myers, Stephanie A. Boudreau, Scott A. Sherrill-Mix, and Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Robert D. Kenney of University of Rhode Island in Narragansett, RI; Michael J. Moore of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA; Andrew A. Rosenberg of University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. This work was supported by the Lenfest Ocean Pro gram and NSERC.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/

The skeleton of the whale which died after becoming stranded in the River Thames a year ago will go on public display this week.

The exhibition - staged by the Guardian and Observer newspapers - will tell the story of the whale’s journey and the attempt to rescue it.

It will include the whale skeleton and a preserved fin - both on loan from London’s Natural History Museum.

Tens of thousands of people gathered to see the distressed animal last year.

‘Extraordinary information’

The week-long exhibition, which starts on Monday in the Guardian and Observer visitor centre in London, will see the skeleton displayed in a case.

It will also feature photography and a short film by documentary maker Paul Burgess.

Ian Katz, the Guardian’s executive editor, said: “The bones contain an extraordinary amount of information about the kind of diet the whale would have been on, the habitat it would have been living in, the kind of groups it would have been living in.”

The whale, a female northern bottle-nose, was the first of the species to be found in the River Thames since records began in 1913.

Experts said it may have been trying to head west to the Atlantic Ocean where it could feed on deep sea squid, but made a wrong turning, ending up in the heart of London.

Dehydration

The battle to rescue the whale was followed around the world and tens of thousands of people visited the banks of the River Thames to see the animal.

Rescue attempts failed and the whale died on 21 January.

The post-mortem, carried out by vets from the Zoological Society of London, established the cause of death as dehydration, cardiovascular failure, muscle damage and kidney failure.

The Natural History Museum acquired the bones of the whale for the its scientific research collection.

After the exhibition the bones will be returned to the museum.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

(CP) - New research suggests melting Arctic sea ice may be drawing more killer whales into northern oceans, raising concerns among Inuit hunters about increasing competition for food.

Federal researcher Jeff Higdon has compiled a database of the number of times the sleek, black-and-white predators have been spotted in the waters north of Newfoundland since the 1980s.

“There’s been a massive increase,” he said Thursday.

Two decades ago, hunters, scientists and other northern travellers usually reported about six killer whales a year in the waters of western Hudson Bay, he said. By 2000, the number of sightings in that one area had ballooned to more than 30 annually.

Higdon’s data comes from Inuit hunters, conservation officers and ecotourism operators. While Arctic tourism has increased in recent years, most of the information comes from the relatively stable number of hunters who go out on the water.

The reason for the increase in killer whale numbers is unclear. But Higdon, who works with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Winnipeg, said his research shows a strong correlation between increased sightings and the decline of sea ice.

“For Hudson Bay at least, there’s a direct relationship there. Declining sea ice is directly correlated to increasing killer whale reports.

“It’s definitely a large impact.”

Recent NASA studies suggest that climate change is causing Arctic sea ice to melt faster and faster.

For more than 25 years, winter sea ice diminished by about 1.5 per cent per decade. But in the last two years, melting has occurred at rates 10 to 15 times faster.

From 2004 to 2005, the amount of ice dropped 2.3 per cent and over the last year, it’s declined by another 1.9 per cent.

A second NASA study found the winter sea ice in one region of the Eastern Arctic has shrunk about 40 per cent in just two years.

While the shrinking sea ice is creating major problems for animals such as the polar bears of Hudson Bay, it may be providing a smorgasboard for killer whales.

“We’ve got reports of killer whales attacking every marine mammal in the Arctic,” Higdon said. Although there are no reports of a killer whale taking on a polar bear, there are records of them bringing down belugas, narwhals, walrus and even huge bowhead whales.

That concerns some Inuit hunters, who depend on the same animals to keep their larders stocked.

“They’re a bit concerned that too many killer whales is not good for the whale population,” said Gabriel Nirlungayuk, director of wildlife for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which administers the Nunavut land claim.

Some, however, appreciate how killer whales drive pods of narwhal closer to shore, making them easier pickings for humans, Nirlungayuk said.

There are still many unknowns about the Arctic killer whale population. There’s even a chance that the increase in sightings may be the result of growing populations after the end of commercial whaling in the 1970s and has nothing to do with climate change.

But the federal government is now sponsoring research into the issue. Undersea microphones were mounted near Churchill, Man., and Repulse Bay, Nunavut, last summer to record whale cries.

Scientists are now poring over the tapes to separate out killer whales from the other animals, said Higdon. As well, hunters have been asked to report any sightings.

Meanwhile, hunters on the ocean are grateful they no longer venture forth in kayaks, said Nirlungayuk.

“If you’re in a small kayak, a killer whale is not something you want to see,” he said. “It was something to be feared.

“Today, we have big boats. It’s an excitement more than fear.”

Source:http://cnews.canoe.ca

Qingdao, China (Jan 17, 2007 18:47 EST) Veterinarians who sometimes have trouble diagnosing diseases because their patients can’t talk have never had a problem this big.

Doctors are racking their brains to treat Tina a 5-year-old, 500-kilogram female white whale at Qingdao Polar Ocean World in this coastal city in East China’s Shandong Province.

Two pus-filled lumps each 5 centimeters in diameter on her body and ulcerations on her tail fins have made Tina suffer every day for more than a month. She has been in low spirits and has no appetite, according to the theme park’s animal keepers.

“We are making every effort to cure her, though we have no such experience,” said Liu Zhenguo, deputy general manager of the aquarium, which has four white whales.

“We don’t know what disease she suffers from. We hope experts from home or abroad will join us in our efforts to save Tina.”

The aquarium has opened a 24-hour hotline 532-8909-1811 to solicit opinions on medical treatment. Local veterinarians have checked Tina several times, giving her oral medicine and antibiotic injections.

Xu Ting, at Qingdao Seaside Charity Hospital, said it is still too early to tell whether the illness is threatening her life.

“But she is getting thinner each day,” Xu said.

Tina, who was imported from Russia in 2004, is a “priceless” addition to the marine theme park, after more than two years of training, Liu said. The new tourism season starts in May.

There are about 62,000 to 80,000 white whales in the world, living around the North Pole. However, the number is decreasing due to commercial hunting.

Source: http://www.underwatertimes.com/

The California Coastal Commission voted Wednesday to allow the U.S. Navy to continue training exercises in Southern California, but it imposed strict controls to protect marine life from high-powered sonar and other threats.

The commissioners, before an 8-1 vote, said they believed the Navy could train personnel if it took precautions with high-powered sonar, explosives, mine drops and missile launches from ships, submarines, helicopters, airplanes and amphibious vehicles.

At the meeting, Navy Adm. Lyn Hering said he couldn’t agree to the state’s imposed conditions without approval of the secretary of the Navy.

The Navy can agree to the state’s action or inform the state that it chooses not to meet some of the conditions. The state could then argue in court that the military was threatening resources protected by state law. If the state wins, the Navy could get relief only from the president.

For decades the Navy has trained at San Clemente Island, the southernmost of the Channel Islands, and at Camp Pendleton. The military probably has been using the midfrequency active sonar technology for about 50 years.

Naval officials have said that they don’t intend to intensify their activities.

Sonar, the underwater equivalent of radar, uses sound to locate an object and determine the speed at which it’s traveling. Scientists believe marine mammals depend on sound to navigate, find food, locate mates, avoid predators and communicate. Flooding their habitat with man-made, high-intensity noise interferes with their lives in the ocean, experts say.

Wednesday’s vote was the result of the first major review by the commission of environmental effects of the Navy’s military training, which occurs in the region offshore of San Diego. The federal Coastal Zone Management Act allows states to decide if federal activities are consistent with state laws.

The Navy has promised to conduct most of its sonar activities 80 miles offshore, and said it would limit explosive charges to 5 pounds in near-shore waters.

The commission, however, voted unanimously in December to ask the Navy to do more to limit potential harm to wildlife. Gray, blue and humpback whales, dolphins and porpoises live in California waters.

The commission members had concerns over midfrequency active sonar because there have been several stranded whales in the Bahamas, Puget Sound, Alaska and Hawaii at the same time as naval training activities over the past six years.

Commissioners Sara Wan and Meg Caldwell, along with underwater acoustic scientists, as well as the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, pressed for strong protections at the meeting in Long Beach.

“I believe that the Navy could go ahead with its exercises and do these mitigations. Most are taken from things, in one way or another, that the Navy has done,'’ Wan said.

Some of the conditions placed on the Navy include:

– Ensuring that midfrequency active sonar won’t reach whales and other marine species at levels higher than 154 decibels, a precautionary number recommended by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, unless the Navy could show in what cases it wouldn’t be possible. The Navy wanted to use the benchmark of 190 decibels but had agreed to the National Marine Fisheries Service recommendation of 173 decibels.

– Avoiding, where possible, effects on gray whales, which travel twice a year close to the coast between their winter habitat in Baja California and summer habitat in the Bering Sea and Arctic region.

– Staying away from natural underwater configurations such as seamounts that support sea life.

– Dedicating two observers trained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to monitor the use of sonar.

– Protecting loggerhead shrikes, island night lizards and snowy plovers on land during amphibious landing activities at San Clemente Island and other activities at Camp Pendleton.

Source:http://www.sfgate.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Princess Cruise Lines has agreed to pay a large fine after one of its ships was accused of striking and killing a humpback whale near Glacier Bay in southeast Alaska.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, Princess is expected to pay $755,000 in fines and restitution. A court date to finalize a plea agreement is set for Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Princess is expected to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor of “failing to operate at a slow, safe speed while near humpback whales.”

Under a plea agreement yet to be filed, the company would pay a $200,000 fine to the government and $550,000 in “community service restitution” to the National Park Service Foundation, court papers say. That money would go to an account for Glacier Bay National Park.

A Princess spokeswoman, Julie Benson, confirmed that the company plans to enter the plea agreement.

John Quinley, an Alaska spokesman for the National Park Service, said Justice Department attorneys have told Park Service officials not to discuss the case at least until next week.

The body of a 45-foot humpback was found floating near the mouth of Glacier Bay in mid-July 2001. A necropsy conducted at the time showed the animal died of massive skull fractures.

A Princess vessel, the Dawn Princess, had been operating near two humpback whales a few days before, according to the court papers and news reports at the time.

Source: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com

VERAVAL, JANUARY 22: For a fisherman, nothing is perhaps more painful than to let go of a big catch with his own hands, especially if it happens to be a 30-ft whale shark that would fetch at least Rs 80,000.

But that’s exactly what fishermen of Saurashtra are doing — often cutting their expensive nets and releasing the whale shark they once butchered by the hundreds as the gentle giants came to breed in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea.

On the face of it, behind this change of heart is a ban on hunting whale sharks. But the fishermen couldn’t have cared less for the law if not for one man’s word of faith, Morari Bapu’s.

One day in 2003, the guru ventured into the sea off Dwarka and blessed a whale shark entangled in a net and said he wished the creature was left alone. The killings stopped almost immediately.

This was two years after the Central government ban on killing whale shark in 2001, and the forest department was struggling to implement it. Every year, at least 250 whale sharks were killed along the Saurashtra coast.

But Morari Bapu, famous for his Ram kathas, knew that in spite of a large following among the fishing communities even his word was not enough. He decided to combine his preaching with the strict laws for whale shark protection to convince the fishermen against hunting.

“Whale sharks come to Saurashtra coast to give birth and end up getting brutally killed. I reasoned with the fishermen by comparing the whale shark with a daughter who comes home to give birth. Instead of death we should give them respect,’’ the soft-spoken guru told The Indian Express.

The whale shark, protected and classified as a vulnerable species world wide, migrates from as far as the waters of Australia and Mexico to give birth in the warmth of the Arabian Sea along the Saurashtra coast. They are often found just 1-2 km off the fishing ports of Veraval, Dwarka, Diu, Mangrol and Porbandar.

The rare guests were hunted in the hundreds every year by fishermen who modify their normal fishing boats, arming them with harpoons weighing 8 to 10 kg and ropes tied to half a dozen empty plastic barrels. “The worst part is they would start cutting it alive. The waters of Veraval and Bhidiya harbour used to turn red,� says K Babariya, Veraval range forest officer.

Agents of fish processing and export firms would pay up to Rs 1 lakh for a 40-foot whale shark weighing 8 to 10 tonnes. Its fins, liver from which oil is extracted, and meat has great demand and fetch a heavy price in the international market. In the coastal fishing towns, it is said that if a fisherman netted two whale sharks in a season he could afford to sit at home the rest of the year.

As the whale shark fetch such a huge price, I felt there was jealousy among a majority of fishermen. Some were angry too. That is when I felt I should tell them about the strict laws against killing this whale,� Morari Bapu said.

“Till then I did not know why and under what laws the whale shark was protected. I learnt a little bit, like the maximum jail sentence if one is caught, why the whale shark is an endangered species, and started spreading awareness, he said.

“A couple of corporate houses also approached me and I joined their efforts.� Besides the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Wildlife Trust of India, Tata Chemicals and Gujarat Heavy Chemicals have also joined the campaign to save the rare breed.

“Morari Bapu being a respected spiritual leader, his word has provided us a positive inputs in the campaign to save the whale shark,� said Pradeep Khanna, chief conservator of forest (wildlife).

The holy man’s words have indeed tamed greed. The powerful Kharwa community, which dint care for the laws, has also fallen in line. “We used to get good money but after the ban and with Morari Bapu appealing, most fishermen have stopped catching that fish,� said Narsinh Dholki, president of the Kharwa Association. The Kharwas worship whales, which are mammals, as an incarnation of Lord Hanuman but since the whale shark is classified as a fish they have been hunting it without religious qualms.

Several fishermen who cut their nets that often costs up to Rs 10,000 to release trapped whale sharks have been felicitated by Morari Bapu on several occasions.

However, it’s not all faithful submission. During a bad season, tempers flare in the fishing communities. “Morari Bapu’s preachings are fine but we are becoming poorer by the day,� says Laxmansinh Ramsinh, the Veraval Boat Association leader.

He says it is just a matter of time before fishermen’s patience runs out and they start illegally killing the shark whale again. But the religious leader has his own plans to up the campaign: he is holding a public meeting in Veraval on February 17 to campaign against the killing of the whale shark.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com