Sunshine Coast Grey Whale, Humpbacks Returning and More

Just two male whales fathered more than half the calves born since 1990 in the population of southern-resident killer whales, a sign of inbreeding, scientists have learned.

"It was a shocker to find out two guys are doing all of the work," said Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research and an author on a paper published this week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Animal Conservation. The findings are based on a new genetic analysis of the whales that frequent Washington’s Salish Sea and Puget Sound…….
read on

An unusually large group of bottlenose dolphins-a species of cetacean that normally lives in tropical and temperate waters-has been spotted off the coast of British Columbia, write researchers Luke Halpin, Jared Towers, and John Ford in a new paper in a marine biodiversity journal.

Halpin noticed the pod of approximately 200 bottlenose dolphins about 200 kilometres (124 miles) from northern Vancouver Island on July 29, 2017. "It’s about 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) north of where the species is typically found, so it is significant," Towers, a whale researcher for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said in a phone interview from BC…….
read on

A video taken by Ocean EcoVentures and videographer Tasli Shaw shows a young orca calf, probably less than a month old, making its way through the waters of Cowichan Bay.

Do you want this orca to live? Then slow down. As Marvin Gaye once sang: save the children. He was talking about human kids, of course, but it applies to orca calves as well.

Last week, the PWWA, a group of 32 whale watch and ecotourism business operators in Washington and British Columbia, announced an update to its vessel operation guidelines, focusing on safety around whales in the Salish Sea…….
read on

Gov. Jay Inslee’s recent executive order to recover southern resident killer whales is a good start if it sparks a long-term effort to recover both orcas and the salmon they depend on.

The decline of the southern resident killer whale population reflects the decline of chinook across their entire range, including Puget Sound. The orcas have been listed as endangered since 2005 and their numbers continue to drop: from 98 in 1995 to 75 today. Chinook have been listed as threatened under the ESA since 1999 and continue to disappear.

If we want orcas, we need chinook salmon. If we want chinook, we need to make sure they have the right habitat to spawn, grow and thrive…….
read on

This is a composite video of the best whale watching in Monterey Bay! Killer Whales or Orcas, Humpbacks, Blues, Grays, Dolphins, and more in our best of reel we developed for Monterey Whalefest 2018 happening right now! This video includes drone footage as well as underwater GoPro clips from our most amazing encounters with wild whales!…
read on

From 1888 to 1912, a Risso’s dolphin named Pelorus Jack became a tourist attraction in New Zealand for escorting ships from Pelorus Sound to French Pass. The dolphin would ride the pressure waves created by the ships-an activity known as bow riding, which dolphins and other cetaceans have likely been engaging in since ships first set out to sea. The Greeks, one of the great early seafaring peoples, recorded dolphins bow riding in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

Yet in modern times, cetaceans are bow riding alongside motorized vessels. It’s a risky maneuver given that ships and ship noise are harmful to the animals. So why do they do it? ……
read on

If you want an alternative to the video game soundtrack or ambient noise generator you usually listen to at work, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has got you covered. As Mashable reports, scientists there have set up a live stream of the deep ocean sounds recorded 18 miles off the coast of Monterey Bay, California.

The eerie noises of the ocean’s depths are captured using an underwater microphone called a hydrophone, which scientists planted 3000 feet beneath the surface in 2015. For more than two years, researchers have used the instrument to eavesdrop on the activity taking place in the surrounding waters, and now they’re giving the public the opportunity to do the same by streaming the recordings live on YouTube. ……
read on

There’s a buzz around citizen science at the moment with growing numbers of people keen to report on the presence or absence of everything from fish to flowers to frogs. And, the arrival of smartphone apps has empowered individuals to report directly from their sighting location.

But, behind this buzz of activity, data collectors – which are often environmental non-governmental organisations – can face challenges. In their mission to understand natural phenomena better, voluntary groups are sometimes stymied by lack of stable funding and resources.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group hosted a cetacean identification and recording workshop recently in the National Biodiversity Data Centre in Waterford. It’s aim (and another one in Kilrush, Co Clare in July 2018 – see iwdg.ie) is to build numbers of well equipped citizen science recorders.

"We’re not training as many people as we used to but we need citizen scientists because 90 per cent of our records are collected through citizen scientists…….
read on

Tony and Phyll Bartram have been collecting data on the dolphin population around Kangaroo Island (KI) since 2006, and at Victor Harbor since 2011. “At the moment we know so little about these dolphins, and dolphins around the world in actual fact, that …..
read on

A group of rare dolphins was spotted near the island of Magawish in Hurghada.

Abdallah Abed, a researcher at the Red Sea Reserves, said that a patrol headed by him spotted about 10 to 12 “false killer whales’ no less than five meters long each near the island of Magawish, Abu Monqar.

Abed explained that the false killer whale is a rare dolphin that rarely appears in the waters of the Red Sea…….
read on

Pioneering laser photography is being used by scientists on the west coast of Scotland to assess the health of the area’s marine life
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT), established in 1994, is carrying out research into the health of whales, dolphins and porpoises using photogrammetry – the science of taking measurements from photographs.

Silurian, the trust’s specialised research yacht (click here to track the vessel at sea), has been collecting data on cetaceans (the collective name for whales, dolphins and porpoises) since 2002. It was even used during the filming of the BBC’s Blue Planet series. Its photo-identification research has so far catalogued 230 minke whales, some of which have been returning to the same area for more than ten years…….
read on

Stephen Nicol is here to change your mind about krill: They’re not microscopic and they’re far from boring. The biologist is so sick of people misunderstanding his study subjects that he’s even gotten a (slightly botched) krill tattooed on his arm to help enlighten strangers.

In The Curious Life of Krill, Nicol is taking his mission to an even bigger audience. The book is an ode to Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), which are among the most abundant animals in the world by mass. Each several centimeters long, krill cloud the ocean in swarms that can span 20 kilometers. They’re a linchpin of ocean ecosystems – a key food source for whales, penguins and other marine life. And yet, Nicol points out, few people would be able to identify these translucent, red-and-green-speckled creatures with feathery appendages….
read on