Entangled Humpback KC, Biggs, NRKW, Sea Otter and More

WEST COAST

Ship strikes are a major cause of injury or death for whales. But why do they happen at all? The ocean is vast, and huge ships don’t exactly travel at freeway speeds-there should be enough noise, movement, and warning for a whale to get out of the way, right? Why whales may remain in dangerous proximity to ships is tough to study, but over the years, some clues have begun to emerge.

One reason is that whales may not know ships are dangerous. After all, as the biggest animals in the ocean, whales may not understand that there are things in the ocean larger and more powerful than they are.

"It’s not something they’re evolved to deal with," says John Calambokidis, a research biologist at Cascadia Research Collective in Washington State. "It’s also something there’s very little opportunity to learn from. It’s not like you can get struck two or three times and then you know you should avoid them."

Calambokidis is trying to better understand why whales get hit through his ongoing….

Victor Littlefield of Sitka says the killer whale repeatedly rammed the boat, yanked the anchor line and slapped the bow with its tail.

He said the 33-foot aluminum boat initially lurched to one side while it was anchored Sunday near Little Biorka Island.

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

It seems that never before has a recording been made of an adult humpback whale leaping entirely out of the water! A very rare event, indeed.

Dolphins and even Great White Sharks have been seen flying out of the water, but this is a first for an adult humpback whale!

Back in the mid-1990s, those whales were singing a completely different tune-a melody known to researchers (for arbitrary reasons) as the pink song. But in 1995, a small number of humpbacks from the west of the continent made it over to the east, bringing a foreign tune with them. That tune-the black song-was a viral hit. Within three years, it completely replaced the pink one, which has never been heard again. It then dominated the humpback charts for another couple of years. It was remixed, creating the gray song. And it too was eventually ousted by another tune.

Michael Noad from the University of Queensland discovered these musical revolutions in 2000 by analyzing recordings of singing humpbacks…

Researchers first saw this unusual sleep behavior in sperm whales in 2008, describing it in a study published in January of that year in the journal Current Biology. The scientists in that study found that sperm whales dozed in this upright drifting posture for about 10 to 15 minutes at a time, and the whales did not breathe or move at all during their naps, the study authors reported….

The whale was spotted by a charter vessel just outside the inlet. The whale was towing two bright orange buoys, but still was able to dive and travel through the water. People aboard the charter vessel asked for rescue assistance.

The Marine Animal Entanglement Response team from the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) in Provincetown arrived to free the whale. The rescuers discovered that the whale had heavy line looped through its mouth and twisted across its back. It also had tangled line and buoys that trailed about 100 feet behind its tail….

The group believes a group of transient male dolphins have been swimming between Gippsland and eastern Tasmania to breed with two different populations of female dolphins.

MMF executive director and head researcher Kate Charlton-Robb said it would be the first time a migration of the kind has been recorded.

“What we are thinking is the same transient boys that are coming up every single year are potentially migrating from Tasmania to the Gippsland Lakes which would be the first time we have had that kind of a migration going on with a dolphin species,” Dr Charlton-Robb said….

"The Role of Cetaceans in Ecosystem Functioning: Defining Conservation Policies in the 21st Century" explored the growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating that cetacean feces enhance marine productivity by fertilizing ocean waters, which, in turn, sequesters large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. In addition, the workshop discussed how cetacean carcasses contribute to biodiversity and carbon sequestration on the ocean floor.

The workshop included presentations on the various ecosystem services provided by cetaceans and examined methods on how to economically quantify those services. Presenters and attendees also discussed how to integrate this value within decision-making, not only in regard to whale management, but within global conservation efforts generally, including ocean health and climate change policy.

"I’m thrilled to see that the ecological role of great whales is finally getting attention from policy-makers and conservationists," said presenter Dr. Joe Roman of the University of Vermont, who leads research on the ecosystem services of whales. "We’ve long known the value of whales on the flensing deck, but this symposium allows us to think about the enormous value of cetaceans in the oceans. This work is essential as we see many species recover after centuries of relentless harvest."…

While the species can be seen in the UAE waters, it is unusual for a whole pod to be caught on camera.

The spotting of the group is a positive sign for marine conservationists, indicating that the dolphins continue to thrive even in a congested shipping channel.

"Dolphins are good indicators of the condition of the overall marine environment they inhabit" said Rob Chinman, from the Jalboot Marine Network, which runs tours of the islands off the coast of the capital.

Mr Chinman was aboard one of the sightseeing cruise company’s vessels when he filmed the dolphins almost two weeks ago.

"The dolphins were spotted in the channel running through the island, whilst one of our 40 passenger catamaran fast ferries was out on a private charter.

"I caught the footage on my smartphone, with a deckhand stepping out on the bow of the boat to get the best video possible", he said.

The footage was shared with the UAE Dolphin Project, which researches the dolphin population along the UAE coastline.

This species is perhaps one of the most endangered animals in the world, with fewer than 530 individuals left alive. Such a toll may be unsustainable for the future of the right whale – especially if any of those eight individuals were breeding females. Many appear to have been hit by ships or become entangled in fishing gear: casualties of human activity. As one Canadian whale rescue team member, Jerry Conway, observed, this is an unprecedented event. "The number of deaths haven’t been seen like this since the days of whaling".

The deaths of such huge animals – like the 29 sperm whales that died on North Sea coasts last year…