The Importance of Whale Poop

Asha de Vos is a marine biologist, who studies the impact of whales on ocean ecology. Her TED presentation points up the enormous contribution whales make to the health of Earth's pelagic environment.  Who knew that poo could be such a valuable commodity.

Here is a link to Asha de Vos' TED presentation --- http://www.ted.com/talks/asha_de_vos_why_you_should_care_about_whale_poo?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2015-01-10&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=top_left_image

The Whale Man of Australia

Darren Jew lives a life that I would consider trading for. He spends his time photographing and making videos of whales and other marine life.  His work is the gold standard.  Amazingly beautiful imagery. His photos of whales, particularly Humpbacks, are powerful and beautiful.

I'm so glad that in my lifetime, people like Darren Jew came along at the same time photographic technology made it possible to showcase the beauty of the ocean. Now everyone can see why we need to appreciate the gifts of the sea. In the best of worlds,  the kind of inspiration Darren Jew creates with his camera can inspire people everywhere to become proper stewards of the biosphere.

Here is the link to Darren Jew's website. Be sure to check out the video on the index page...http://darrenjew.com/

How Whales Change the Climate

This is a beautiful video, showcasing some of the Earth's most compelling creatures.  I've always had a thing for whales. I hate the fact that there are people who want to kill and commoditize them. 

I admire humans who choose to put their own lives at risk to protect whales. It's no wonder that 'Whale Wars is one of my favorite TV series. 

Here is the link to 'How Whales Save the Climate... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18HxXve3CM

Humpack Whales from Above

Another gorgeous You Tube video of Humpback Whales in Tonga. This video combines aerial and underwater footage of these magnificent creatures.

Here is the link... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCqxJfuthls. 

Oregon's Whale Wars Veteran

I am a big fan of the Sea Shepard Society, a group of volunteers, who ply the world's oceans battling  Japanese industrial whalers, the people who club harp seal pups in the Canadian Arctic, illegal tuna fishing, etc., etc.  

You have to admire people who are willing put their lives at risk to get between whales and the humans that want to kill them.  The Animal Planet TV show, Whale Wars, is about the Sea Shepard crews operating their own vessels, going to the very treacherous Southern Pacific ocean to confront Japanese whalers.   It makes for great TV.   I find it very satisfying to watch the Sea Shepard crews protecting whales from the exploding harpoons the Japanese use to kill them.

I work with a lot of good people these days on videos designed to reach the public with Move to Amend's  very ambitious and very much needed Constitutional agenda.

One of the Move to Amend supporters  I've gotten to know these past few months is a young man named Ryan Rittenhouse.  Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Ryan's background is in theater and video production. He's now working as an organizer for a non-profit called, Friends of the Columbia Gorge [FOCG].  Ryan is heavily engaged in the current fight to restrict hazardous, oil train traffic through the gorge.

Ryan in the Galapagos Islands

I asked Ryan to work with me on a video that would tie the oil train controversy to the larger Constitutional agenda championed by Move to Amend. Ryan recruited his boss Kevin Gorman, Executive Director of FOCG, to do that outreach video for Move to Amend. Ryan is co-producing that video with me. It was shot this past week and is currently being edited. I will be posting a blog entry about it as soon as it's finished.

I was having lunch with Ryan after we shot the video, when he told me that he had been a Sea Shepard crew member aboard the Farley Mowat, an old ship named after a well-known Canadian naturalist. Of all of the things I have learned about Ryan, that is the most impressive.

 

 

Ryan was quartermaster, and ship's videographer for two seasons in the Southern Pacific Ocean aboard the Farley Mowat.  He also was a Sea Shepard zodiac driver,  often putting himself and his crewmates between defenseless whales and the harpoons of the Japanese whalers. 

When it comes to life, so many people take the path of least resistance, avoiding controversy or anything that even implies some sort of personal risk. That's a big part of why it is so hard to affect positive change on a cultural scale.  Way too many people are self-absorbed and are unwilling to ' stand up'  for anything that involves any kind of assertiveness and substantive commitment.

That's not the way of Sea Shepard, whose crew members volunteer to work without pay. They are people of great courage, conviction, and commitment to Earth stewardship. They travel to the far reaches of the world's ocean's to confront the worst kind of human hubris.

Ryan Rittenhouse put his ass on the line many times over as a Sea Shepard provocateur. He is a person of character and substance. These days, he sports a bushy red beard. He likes the distinct look it gives him.   It's his style, and he has earned the right to express it, unlike so many people who are all about style, with little or no substance behind it.

Here is a link to the Sea Shepard Society...  http://www.seashepherd.org/

Here is a link to Ryan's current employer, the Friends of the Columbia Gorge...  http://www.gorgefriends.org/

Humpback Whales in Tonga

Just ran across this short video that features some incredible underwater video of humpback whales in Tonga in the South Pacific. It was shot by an Australian photographer named Darren Jew. Darren works for Canon, which happens to be the brand of camera that I use.    This guy is really living the life.

I have spent time in Tonga. The life there is laid back, so much different than the pace of life here.  I have a friend, Richard Chesher, whom I first met in Tonga. He is a remarkable fellow; a marine biologist, who spends his time immersed in marine photography. His photos are amazing. Chesher lives in New Caledonia these days.  We didn't see any whales while I was in Tonga,  but we did hang out in one of Chesher's clam sanctuaries. That's an adventure I've already written about in an earlier blog about Chesher.  Click on his name in the subject column on the right side of the page.

Anyway,  this video of Darren Jew hanging out with humpbacks in Tonga is worth the admission.  Check it out.

Here is a link to the video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y2JfZC5X7M

Court Ends Japanese Whaling in the Antarctic

I have done several postings about the TV show, Whale Wars, that chronicle the ongoing struggle of the Sea Shepard Society to confront Japanese factory whaling in the Antarctic ocean.  Sea Shepard has been fighting this battle with Japanese whalers for about the last ten years.

The International Whaling Commission had imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in the 1980s.  To get around that ban, Japan had been claiming that their whaling activities were based on research that required them to kill and slaughter hundreds of whales every year.  Of course, all of the whale meat taken this way has ended up in Japanese meat markets.

Australia and New Zealand went to the UN's International Court of Justice to challenge Japan's 'research' whaling.    This past week, a panel of judges ruled 12-4 that Japan's 'research' whaling was a sham. It ordered an immediate end to the practice. Though it has publicly regretted the court's decision, Japan agreed to comply.

This is a huge victory of the Sea Shepard Society and those of us who believe that whales should be protected from human exploitation.

Even with this very positive step, there is much that needs to be done to mend humanity's relationship with our oceans. Beyond our continued overexploitation of the ocean's fisheries, humans are responsible for billions of tons of plastic and other kinds of toxic materials being dumped into the oceans. Making this right will take a massive effort by humanity. Accepting responsibility for the mess we've made means new policies that prohibit  our waterways and oceans from being used as dumping grounds. We must also aggressively develop technologies that will allow us to clean up the mess we've already made.   Rather than seeing this as a financial burden, we should be looking at it as an important pathway to sustainability that will create jobs and improve the quality of life of all the world's people.

Time to get busy and take care of our planetary home.

Drones do Dolphins and Whales

Drones are becoming more and more ubiquitous in our world.   Here is a video that shows whales and dolphins at sea from the viewpoint of a drone flying a few hundred feet above.  The best part come spatter in the video when the drone follows a humpback whale mom and her youngster.  Wonderful video.  It makes you wonderful about people who could hunt them and shoot exploding harpoons into their bodies.  Anyway, this is beautiful video. Enjoy.

Here is the 'You Tube' video of drones doing whales and dolphins...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo_f8mV5khg

Alaska Fishermen Rescue Orca Whale

It's always heartening to run across a story of humans being kind to an animal in distress.  In this case, three Alaskans, Jason Vonick and two friends,  were out in a remote area of shoreline on their boat when they came across a pod of orca whales.  They noticed that one of the smaller whales was stuck on some rocks and unable to move.  

The easy course for the fishermen would have been to keep on going. Instead, they anchored their fishing boat and tried to help.  They recorded some video of the event. The stranded whale remained calm and actually seemed to take comfort from the efforts of Vonick and his colleagues to keep her cool and reassure her.  The other orca remained just a few feet away. They were not even a little aggressive.  They seemed to understand that Vonick and his friends were there to help.

Finally, after four hours, the tide came in enough that the fishermen were able to use a pair of oars to lever the stranded whale free of the rocks.

It's a wonderful story, with a happy ending. I just wish the brand of kindness displayed by Jason Vonick and his two colleagues was the rule rather than exception.  

Here is the link to the You Tube video shot by the fishermen....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrqcmDHY9xo

IPSO State of Our Oceans 2013

This report on the perilous condition of the world's oceans just came out yesterday.  When I read something like this - which is based on unimpeachable science - I ask myself, what is it going to take to restore sanity and put humanity on a corrective course. Right now, many of our elected leaders are pathologically indifferent to the damage we are doing. 

The Earth is our nest. It is the only one we have. We need to start taking proper care of it.

___________________________


Published on Thursday, October 3, 2013 by Common Dreams

Human Assault Pushes Ocean to Limit Unseen in 300 Million Years

'We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change,' warns report. 'The next mass extinction may have already begun.'

- Jon Queally, staff writer

The news, the evidence that supports it, and the warning that accompanies it could hardly be more dire.

 

The latest audit by an international team of marine scientists at the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) found that the world's oceans and marine life are facing an unprecedented threat by combination of industrial pollution, human-driven global warming and climate change, and continued and rampant overfishing.

According to the report, The State of the Ocean 2013: Perils, Prognoses and Proposals, the degradation of the ocean ecosystem means that its role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is being seriously compromised. As a result, the authors of the report call for "urgent remedies" because the "rate, speed, and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster, and more imminent than previously thought."

"[Last week's] UN climate report confirmed that the ocean is bearing the brunt of human-induced changes to our planet. These findings give us more cause for alarm – but also a roadmap for action. We must use it." -Prof. Dan Laffoley, IUCN

Driven by accumulations of carbon, the scientists found, the rate of acidification in the oceans is the highest its been in over 300 million years. Additionally, de-oxygenation--caused by both warming and industrial runoff--is stripping the ocean of its ability to support the plants and animals that live in it.

The combined stressors, according to the report, are "unprecedented in the Earth's known history. We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change, and exposing organisms to intolerable evolutionary pressure. The next mass extinction may have already begun."

Professor Alex Rogers of Somerville College, Oxford, and Scientific Director of IPSO said: “The health of the ocean is spiraling downwards far more rapidly than we had thought. We are seeing greater change, happening faster, and the effects are more imminent than previously anticipated. The situation should be of the gravest concern to everyone since everyone will be affected by changes in the ability of the ocean to support life on Earth.”
Among the report's comprehensive findings, the panel identified the following areas as of greatest cause for concern:

• De-oxygenation: the evidence is accumulating that the oxygen inventory of the ocean is progressively declining. Predictions for ocean oxygen content suggest a decline of between 1% and 7% by 2100. This is occurring in two ways: the broad trend of decreasing oxygen levels in tropical oceans and areas of the North Pacific over the last 50 years; and the dramatic increase in coastal hypoxia (low oxygen) associated with eutrophication. The former is caused by global warming, the second by increased nutrient runoff from agriculture and sewage. 

• Acidification: If current levels of CO2 release continue we can expect extremely serious consequences for ocean life, and in turn food and coastal protection; at CO2 concentrations of 450-500 ppm (projected in 2030-2050) erosion will exceed calcification in the coral reef building process, resulting in the extinction of some species and decline in biodiversity overall. 

• Warming: As made clear by the IPCC, the ocean is taking the brunt of warming in the climate system, with direct and well-documented physical and biogeochemical consequences. The impacts which continued warming is projected to have in the decades to 2050 include: reduced seasonal ice zones, including the disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice by ca. 2037; increasing stratification of ocean layers, leading to oxygen depletion; increased venting of the GHG methane from the Arctic seabed (a factor not considered by the IPCC); and increased incidence of anoxic and hypoxic (low oxygen) events. 

• The ‘deadly trio’ of the above three stressors - acidification, warming and deoxygenation - is seriously effecting how productive and efficient the ocean is, as temperatures, chemistry, surface stratification, nutrient and oxygen supply are all implicated, meaning that many organisms will find themselves in unsuitable environments. These impacts will have cascading consequences for marine biology, including altered food web dynamics and the expansion of pathogens.

• Continued overfishing is serving to further undermine the resilience of ocean systems, and contrary to some claims, despite some improvements largely in developed regions, fisheries management is still failing to halt the decline of key species and damage to the ecosystems on which marine life depends. In 2012 the UN FAO determined that 70% of world fish populations are unsustainably exploited, of which 30% have biomass collapsed to less than 10% of unfished levels. A recent global assessment of compliance with Article 7 (fishery management) of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, awarded 60% of countries a “fail” grade, and saw no country identified as being overall “good”.

Regarding the urgency of the crisis, the marine scientists issued a stark warning to world governments, called on leaders to take immediate action, and offered the following steps they said "must" be taken:

• Reduce global C02 emissions to limit temperature rise to less than 2oC, or below 450 CO2e. Current targets for carbon emission reductions are insufficient in terms of ensuring coral reef survival and other biological effects of acidification, especially as there is a time lag of several decades between atmospheric CO2 and CO2 dissolved in the ocean. Potential knock-on effects of climate change in the ocean, such as methane release from melting permafrost, and coral dieback, mean the consequences for human and ocean life could be even worse than presently calculated. 

• Ensure effective implementation of community- and ecosystem-based management, favouring small-scale fisheries. Examples of broad-scale measures include introducing true co-management with resource adjacent communities, eliminating harmful subsidies that drive overcapacity, protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems, banning the most destructive fishing gear, and combating IUU fishing. 

• Build a global infrastructure for high seas governance that is fit-for-purpose. Most importantly, secure a new implementing agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the auspices of UNCLOS.

In response to the IPSO study that arrived just one week after the IPCC report on climate change which also highlighted the threat of global warming to the oceans, Professor Dan Laffoley, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said: “What these latest reports make absolutely clear is that deferring action will increase costs in the future and lead to even greater, perhaps irreversible, losses. The UN climate report confirmed that the ocean is bearing the brunt of human-induced changes to our planet. These findings give us more cause for alarm – but also a roadmap for action. We must use it."


 

Humpback Whales Startle Kayakers

I love video clips like this. Here we have a team of filmmakers from the Discovery Channel in Alaska getting up close and personal with a pod of humpback whales.

 

 

One of the ways humpbacks feed is by blowing air bubbles in a circle below a school of herring or other fish. The circles rise like a curtain, confusing the fish, causing them to cluster together inside the ring of bubbles. Then, the humpbacks come up from below, mouths agate, and swallow tons of water and fish at a time. The whales use their tongues to push the water out of their mouths, while retaining the fish.  It takes a lot of fish to slake the appetite of a 50 ton whale. This technique of feeding is very effective and remarkable to witness.

Here is a link to an amazing close up experience with humpbacks feeding in the Gulf of Alaska...  http://on.aol.com/video/north-america--humpback-whales-startle-kayakers-517860640

Iceland - Be a Nice Land

So, Iceland,  an island nation in the North Atlantic, located between Greenland and Norway has begun killing whales again.  After almost two decades of abiding by the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on whaling,  Iceland is following the Japanese in defying the international consensus that prohibits the slaughtering of whales.

Whale Killing Boats - Reykjavik Harbor, Iceland

It's true that Iceland is a seafaring nation with a whaling tradition. It is also true that Iceland has no economic or nutritional need to kill these magnificent warm-blooded creatures. Nearly all of the meat that comes from the whales killed by Icelanders is sold to Japan.

I have been to Iceland. It is beautiful, volcanically active, and largely untamed.  The people there are lovely:  friendly, well educated, and sophisticated.  Why they are so defiant on the morality of killing whales is a mystery to me. It has to be expensive to operate those whaling vessels.  It can't be a very profitable, if at all. 

Icelandic whaling, like Japanese whaling, is nothing but industrial scale slaughter in the cruelest fashion.  The preferred method of killing has not changed for nearly a hundred years.  Imagine for yourself, a pod of fin or minke whales, the species most commonly killed in Icelandic waters.

Fin Whale

A killer boat approaches at high speed forcing the whales to flee. But they cannot outrun the boat, and when the whales are exhausted, a man stands at a cannon sized gun high on the killer boat's bow, and shoots harpoons loaded with explosives into their bodies.  The exploding tip shreds the internal organs of the targeted whale, causing an agonizingly cruel death.  

If there were a survival need for whale meat,  such a slaughter might be justifiable.  There is no such need. This is about the cold-hearted exploitation of living creatures - the largest on Earth - purely for economic gain.   In fact, this kind of thing is happening in so many ways all over the Earth.  Humans reducing the planet's living treasures to resources ripe for plunder.

The killing of whales is a throwback to another era. It is unnecessary. It is cruel.  It is an obsession unworthy of the people of Iceland.  It is also a reflection of the entrenched mindset that favors exploitation over stewardship.  That kind of cold-blooded, profit-centered thinking must be marginalized. We have only one planetary home.  We all must learn to protect it, for our own sake as well as for creatures like the great whales that live here with us.

I would love to return for another visit to Iceland, but. I will not. I will not go to Iceland again until they repudiate their whaling tradition for good.  If every potential tourist took that step, they would be forced to stop whaling, because whatever money their whale slaughter generates is surely small compared to the money that flows to Iceland from tourism.

Here is a link to the International Whaling Commission's page on Icelandic whaling... http://iwc.int/Iceland






  

Blue Whale Encounter

Years ago, I was out with friends on a boat a few miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.  We were there to see blue whales.  We were not disappointed. 

Blue whales are the biggest animals that have ever lived; bigger even than the largest dinosaur.  They grow to nearly 100 feet in length and 190 tons, that's tons, in weight.  They are baleen whales, which means they feed on tiny crustaceans called krill.  Less than an inch long, the krill that morning were countless in number, thick like a blanket at least a foot deep just below the water's surface.  The whales swam with their mouths agate, taking in huge amounts of krill, then straining out the seawater with the baleen that they had instead of teeth.  We couldn't see much of the whales, just their backs as they skimmed the water's surface. What we could see, just that small portion of their backs, was probably twelve feet or more across, giving some indication of how large these animals were.

Blue Whale

Blue whales were hunted relentlessly by whalers in the late 19th through the mid 20th centuries. Now, they are protected.  Though their numbers are a fraction of what they were before humans began to exploit them,  they do seem to have rebounded to levels that assure their survival.

I was in awe of the blue whales that I saw in the ocean near Santa Barbara that day.  I just wished then that I could have seen more of them than a small portion of their backs.  Recently, I stumbled across a video on You Tube that features underwater video of a blue whale. It's wonderful.  I don't know how big this particular whale is. I like to think it's really big, close to 100 feet in length.  We are the first generation to be able to see these creatures as they are. I hope that means we will always protect them.


Here is a link to an wonderful video with underwater footage of a blue whale... http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_897791&feature=iv&src_vid=9pjI2XkmoL0&v=WAwzjnhTsjI

Dolphins Know Each Other by Name

Animal communication is something that runs far deeper than most people care to think about.  Scientists have known for sometime that sperm whales and dolphins have distinct whistles that equate to their individual identity.  They have names.  Further confirmation comes with the just announced finding that dolphins use these whistle 'names' to call to each other in the wild.

 A large share of the human population on Earth has an affection for cetaceans; the mammalian family that includes whales, purposes, and dolphins. They are exceptionally intelligent creatures. Despite being viewed favorably by most people, these animals that name themselves are subjected to constant assault on their marine habitat. Overexploitation of the ocean's living and mineral resources by humans puts all cetaceans species at grave risk.  We need to show more respect for all the species with whom we share our earth.    No doubt, that's what we would want and expect if the tables were turned and we were dolphins and they were us.

Here is a story that reports on this latest finding...   http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/20/172538036/researchers-find-that-dolphins-call-each-other-by-name?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Whale Wars - Update

 A couple of stories that just popped up on the net suggest that the Japanese Whaling industry is on life support.  One report indicates that the Japanese people have lost their appetite for eating whale meat.  Allegedly, there are warehouses in Japan with frozen whale meat stacked to the rafters, unsold. 

The ongoing campaign by the Sea Shepard Society to interdict the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic ocean has dramatically reduced the number of whales slaughtered. In fact, the current killing season has been a wash for the Japanese. Not one whale killed, due to the constant harassment of the Sea Shepard Society's presence.

The killing of whales was banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. The Japanese have continued a limited whale hunt, shamelessly claiming that the killing they are doing is 'research'.  That is bullshit and the whole world knows it.

The hundred plus volunteers that staff the Sea Shepard Society's vessels come from all over the world. They courageously put their own lives at risk in confrontations with Japanese whalers in the severe conditions of the Antarctic ocean in order to stop the whale slaughter.

The Japanese government has tried to shut down Sea Shepard's efforts in the courts. They have tried to make Paul Watson, the Sea Shepard leader, an international criminal. So far, nothing the Japanese have done to save their whaling industry has worked. The government of Japan is now subsidizing their whalers at a cost of something like $130 million a year.   There is no way for them to win this fight. The moral high ground is held by those defending the whales.   

 Here is a link to the Sea Shepard Society website  http://www.seashepherd.org/

Further update. Here is a link to a video posted by teh Sea Shepard team in February, 2013  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4Ep45gKJbQ&feature=player_embedded

Saving a Humpback

It's a beautiful thing to see humans show compassion for another species. In this video shot in Mexico's Sea of Cortez in February, 2011, a group of people cross paths with a giant humpback whale, barely alive, trapped in a tighly wrapped cocoon of nylon gill net. At some personal risk, the humans worked with a knife to cut away the netting. After an hour, they restored the great whale's freedom. The humans were then treated to a joyful display of breeching and tail slapping by a magnificent creature, grateful to be free.

Here is the link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490

Ingrid Visser - Champion of New Zealand's Orca

In New Zealand, a marine biologist, Dr. Ingrid Visser has focused the last 20 years of  her life on studying and protecting the orca whales that spend their lives along the coastline of that island nation in the South Pacific.

Ingrid Visser, PhD, with wild orca

Orca is a more scientific name for the whale species commonly called killer whales.  People who appreciate their exceptional intelligence and generally benign relationship with humans prefer to call them orca.

On August 21st, I published a blog entry titled Great White Versus Orca.  One fact in that story was that sea lions and seals are the principle diet of the orca based locally off the Northern California coast. Apparently, they also kill and eat sharks.

The New Zealand orca whales have a very different diet.  Ingrid Visser, who was the first person to study New Zealand's resident orca, discovered that they depend to a large degree on hunting, catching and eating sting rays that they find very often in shallow inlets along the New Zealand coastline.

Sting ray

 People may recall that the well-known TV naturalist, Steve Irwin, was killed a few years ago while swimming in shallow water by a sting ray hiding in the sand.  Rays have a sharp barbed extension atop their tails that they use to defend themselves.  Ingrid Visser discovered that the New Zealand orca  have evolved a very effective technique for hunting sting rays, while avoiding the deadly tail barb.  The orca work together. When they locate a sting ray hiding in the sand, one whale seizes the ray by its tail so it can't use its deadly dangerous barb, and the other whale bites the ray, killing it. Then the two whales and sometimes their friends share the meal.




Orca with freshly caught stingray

Because many of the places where the whales hunt stingrays also serve as industrial harbors, Ingrid Visser was concerned that toxic chemicals like poly-chlorinatred biphenyls (PCP) left over from human industrial activity could be present in the resident sting rays. That posed an even bigger threat to the orca, because PCPs tend to accumulate in the fatty tissues of predators ingesting tainted fish.

Long story short,  Ingrid Visser used tissue samples from locally caught sting rays and also from one of the resident orcas to prove the rays were indeed carrying high levels of PCPs and other toxic industrial chemicals.   

Ingrid Visser is more than a marine mammal scientist. She is also a champion for New Zealand's orca and her nation's  marine environment in general. She founded the Orca Research Trust to advance her work and to report it to the public. She also successfully petitioned the New Zealand government to change its designation for its resident orca to critically endangered.

Because of  Ingrid Visser's tireless efforts, the people of New Zealand know a lot more about the marine mammals that live close at hand with them. Because of Ingrid Visser,  prospects for New Zealand's resident orca are far better than they would likely be othewise.  In my book, that makes Ingrid Visser a hero of the highest order.

Here is a link to Ingrid Visser's webpage.
http://www.orcaresearch.org/

Whale Wars Update

It seems the Japanese government is using up a lot of diplomatic chips trying to take down Paul Watson, leader of the Sea Shepard Society. For nearly a decade,  Watson and his band of whale defenders have been a massive thorn in the side of the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters. 

There is an international ban on commercial whaling. The Japanese have finessed the ban by conducting what they characterize as research whaling.  Of course, it's a sham. The Japanese whaling is commercial, covered by a fig leaf with the words research printed on it.  Over the past eight years, Watson and his Sea Shepard band have seriously disrupted the Japanese 'Southern Ocean' whaling operation.  They have made it a big time money loser for the Japanese, while documenting their campaign as a reality TV offering on the Animal Planet Cable Channel.

The Japanese government is now trying to get the governments of Costa Rica and Germany involved in an extradition process that would deliver Watson, a Canadian citizen, into Japanese hands.  Thus far, it hasn't worked.  What it has done is prevent Watson from rejoining his crews for another season of disruption of Japan's whaling agenda.

I first wrote about Whale Wars in a blog dated  July 12, 2012.  I applaud Watson and his crews for their tenacious defense of whales from Japanese harpoons.   What the Japanese are doing is not research. It's commercial killing designed to turn a profit. Few Japanese people actually eat whale meat. The whale slaughter is not about feeding people.  It has one purpose: making money.  Watson and his whale defenders have killed that prospect. What we have now is the Japanese government pumping millions in subsidies into their sham research whaling operation in order to save face.   They have unleashed a diplomatic shit storm against Paul Watson.  What they cannot and never will get around is the fundamental decency of Watson's relentless defense of whales.

Here is a piece penned by Paul Watson that just appeared in the Guardian (U.K.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/31/paul-watson-clients-whales

Great White Versus Orca

This incident happened a few years ago. National Geographic later did a one hour piece on the whole relationship between orca, aka killer whales, and great white sharks in the Farallon Islands, off San Francisco.

Orca dining on a Great White

In this video, a tourist boat comes across an orca swimming with its calf.  Then, a great white shark came along.  The next thing the tourists saw was the orca coming to the surface holding the shark upside down in its jaws.  The shark never had a chance.

Two interesting bits of understanding emerged from this incident.

Interesting bit #1 - Researchers have long known that turning a shark upside down induces a form of torpor,  rendering the shark totally defenseless.  The scientists knew this, but this incident appears to prove that at least some orcas know it as well and use it in their hunting technique with sharks.

Interesting bit #2 - The orca killed the shark at a time of year when there were a lot of seals in the area. Because of that, lots of great white sharks were also there, looking to score a seal for dinner.  Some scientists were working in the Farallons with tagged great whites at the same time the shark was killed by the orca. The scientists recorded some totally unexpected behavior. The great whites took off. In one case, a radio tagged shark dove deep and fled the area. It didn't stop until it was thousands of mles away.  Somehow, the sharks seemed to know one of their own had been killed.  The mechanism remains unknown, but, at a time of year when the waters around the Farallons are normally teeming with great white sharks feasting on seals, there were no sharks to be found.

I just thought this whole episode was fascinating. If the tourist boat hadn't been on scene when the orca killed the shark; if that incident had not been witnessed,  shark researchers would still be trying to figure out why all the other great whites in the area suddenly dissappeared. 

Here is the link to the video that shows the orca dispatching the Great White Shark..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQ5qCJEEwc&feature=related

Adolescent Humpback Does an 'In Your Face'

This is an amazing photo shot by some guys out fishing in a small boat off the coast of British Columbia.  This young humpback whale suddenly breached exactly wherer the camera was pointed.

Even more remarkable is the video that was shot on an iphone at the same time.  Look for the surprise just over thirty seconds into the video.  

http://youtu.be/B10rHSW4OIA

Here's another video that has the same kind of unexpected excitement...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udm2YjKPKsE&feature=related

Here's yet another very cool close-up  whale video...

http://now.msn.com/humpback-whale-surprises-two-kayakers-in-viral-video