Northern Resident Orca in Upper Georgia Strait

… investigations called for a number of changes, including better rules on what kind of safety measures should be in place for non-federal employees working on a DFO work site.

In the future, Burns said, volunteer whale rescuers will be made to wear helmets if they find themselves on a DFO vessel, working to free a whale.

“We’ve implemented a number of improvements to our protocols to ensure that in each and every circumstance, human safety is taken into account as paramount, that responders have the appropriate equipment.”

The department will also unveil a national disentanglement program by March 31 that will ensure “human safety takes top priority and safety equipment is available.”…
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Federal authorities have designated three groups of West Coast humpbacks as endangered or threatened.

The suit by the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation, a non-profit that represents Native American tribes, was settled Friday in federal district court in San Francisco.

The National Marine Fisheries Service agreed to designate critical habitat for the animals by mid-2019 and finalize those boundaries a year later.

The environmental groups say endangered species with protected critical habitat are twice as likely to show signs of recovery as those without it….
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A whale-watching tour operator and one of her customers say they are concerned nothing was done to stop herring seiners after two North Atlantic right whales were spotted in the Bay of Fundy off Brier Island, N.S.

Ontario tourist Dan Blackman saw a right whale as the Mariner Cruises Whale and Seabird Tours boat was getting near the North Point lighthouse early Thursday afternoon.

“There was a whale coming out the water … we witnessed personally, a North Atlantic right whale. It had no dorsal fin so it was quite recognizable.

“It came up a second time and then we saw the tail.”

Blackman, who has been on more than 30 whale-watching tours said those onboard recognized it as a right whale immediately.

Blackman said another whale-watching tour operator saw another right whale earlier in the day halfway down Long Island on the Digby Neck and reported the sightings to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans….
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Gordon Price is having a whale of a time on a project that will help connect more people with an endangered giant of the deep.

The associate professor in the engineering department at the Dalhousie University Agricultural Campus is part of a team of researchers working to preserve the skeletal structure of a 63-foot female blue whale found dead off Nova Scotia’s south shore last year.

By composting and degreasing the bones belonging to the Earth’s largest animal in a way that doesn’t involve toxic or harmful environmental contaminants, the team is creating a material that can safely be used in agriculture.

It will also hopefully lead to broader applications, like the development of what Price calls "community packages" that could help coastal communities deal more expeditiously with the issue of large carcasses that wash ashore and are typically buried underground, usually at a high cost….
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Whale surprises passengers on the whale watching boat the TAZ.
TAZ Whale Watching out of Gustavus, Alaska.
Pleasant Island Reef, Alaska….
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Incredible sequence of events led us to be in a privileged position to get some incredible footage of how a Humpback Mother will defend her calf by all means necessary, including using our vessel as a protection barrier and the help of some heroic Dolphins. There are some erroneous opinions that Humpback Whales will abandon their calves which this footage explains why they will fight to the death to protect their young. The males do not wish to harm the calf at any stage but do want to mate with the Mother and in the competition the calf can become separated which is fatal.

The footage from Flinders Bay, Augusta today shows what we have experienced before but never as intense as the Mother brought her calf time and time again close into our vessel, even pushing herself and the calf slightly into our hull where the males could not go. For 40 minutes the Mother and calf kept very close to our vessel and as the intensity and focus diminished from the males until one left the area and the lone male then behaved himself enough to be welcomed as an escort….
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A dolphin-spotting trip to the Black Isle led to this image of a weeks old bottlenose dolphin leaping from the sea with two adults.

John Orr, who works for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), took the photograph from Chanonry Point, on the Moray Firth near Fortrose.

One of the adult dolphins is thought to have been the calf’s mother.

SNH photographer Lorne Gill said: “It’s never easy to capture leaping dolphins at Chanonry Point even on really good occasions when you may be lucky enough to see many of them leaping close by.

“They randomly appear with a sudden burst of energy from the deep, making it difficult to know where to look.

“John has done extremely well to capture not just one but a trio of leaping dolphins, including a rarely seen young calf, beautifully framed and looking straight at his camera.

“He should be delighted with his photograph as I know I am.”…
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