Northern Resident Orca, Humpbacks, Dolphins and a Few Porpoise

A huge southern right whale frolicking in Wellington harbour has brought the capital’s waterfront to a standstill as locals skip work to catch a glimpse of the animal.

Southern right whales used to be a common sight in Wellington harbour, but 150 years of whaling from the 17th century brought them to the brink of extinction.

Known as Tohora in New Zealand, the whales were targeted because of their propensity to swim close to the shore, their huge quantities of flesh and approachability….
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Campobello Whale Rescue Team freed a young entangled whale Saturday, its first emergency response on the water since fellow rescuer Joe Howlett’s death last year.

Members of the organization, which comprises fishermen, a biologist and other volunteers, rescued a baby humpback whale just off the coast of Brier Island, N.S.

Director Mackie Greene said they received the call around noon on Saturday and it took the rescue team about an hour and a half to reach the bay in Nova Scotia.

What they found was a whale calf with rope bound twice around its head, which would have eventually killed the animal as it grew. Greene said it took members of the team nearly four hours to remove the rope.

Greene, who co-founded Campobello Rescue with Joe Howlett in 2002, said his late teammate was definitely on his mind as he headed out Saturday….
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Tour companies are preparing to phase out trips involving swimming with whale and dolphin calves in a drive to crack down on disturbance to the ocean creatures by humans.

For watchers on board boats, new guidance suggests there should be no more than three vessels within 300m of a whale or dolphin at any one time, and that lone whale calves should not be approached closer than that distance. Encounters should be limited to 30 minutes, it suggests….
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Whales and dolphins depend on sound to stay together in their family groups and whales used to be able to go on large hunting expedition to find their food, calling each other when they found it.

However, according to a new study underwater noise pollution means they can only hear each other for around 10 miles.

UK marine biologist Dr. Steve Simpson says that shipping noise causes stress in whales and, by looking at the hormones of the whales we can see that they are chronically stressed by noise. When they encounter very loud noises it can even cause damage in their ears and lungs.

He is now working with shipping companies to design boat engines that make less noise. However, noise pollution is just one among many threats for whales and dolphins. Oil and chemical spills, plastic pollution and rising sea temperatures are also big concerns….
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From the deck of a boat, you might spot them surfacing for air, exhaling from their blowholes, or perhaps performing a fluke-up dive as they return to the deep. But what about all of the whales that pass by without surfacing? Or the ones that are too hard to see in rougher waters? For whale and dolphin researchers, detecting all of the animals is imperative to gaining a true measurement of the population. That is why they don’t just look-they listen.

From July 9 to Aug. 1, NOAA researchers will depart Guam to conduct the Mariana Archipelago Cetacean Survey or MACS project aboard the NOAA Oscar Elton Sette. Scientists will use the data they collect to understand the connections between whales and dolphins found offshore and nearshore to the Mariana Islands. They will also discover connections to other populations of the same species in other parts of the Pacific Ocean and around the world….
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About 50 killer whales were spotted in the waters off Botany Bay yesterday, July 12.

Whale watchers on the boat tour about six nautical miles out to sea found themselves surrounded by at least 50 Orca whales from different pods.

The whales are believed to be type c Orcas – the smallest type, and are usually seen in the Ross Sea – a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica.

They are known to migrate long distances but are not usually seen this far north and this close to shore.

Orcas are one of the most powerful predators, and are known to feast on sharks and seals.

Several humpback whales were also splashing around at the same time, appearing to harass the whales, whale watchers said….
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Gray whales are only found in the Pacific Ocean these days, and the few remaining North Atlantic right whales hang out along the coast of the U.S. But before whaling devastated their populations, both species roamed the seas more widely, and a new study suggests they were even present in the Mediterranean Sea.

As Ruth Schuster at Haaretz reports, bones of both cetaceans were found near Gibraltar, indicating that the whales ranged much further afield, even using the Mediterranean Sea as a calving ground. What’s more, the bones suggest that the Romans may have participated in commercial whaling, more than 1,000 years before the Basques did off the coasts of the Gulf of Biscay in the 11th century.

According to a press release, ecologists believed that the Mediterranean was outside the historical range of gray and right whales. However, when an international team of scientists tested the DNA of bones and collagen found at five ancient fish-salting and fish-processing factories around Gibraltar, they found that both species, as well as a dolphin and elephant, were present and likely common in the region. Their findings are presented in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B….
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