Green Group discussion

Ten interesting whale facts:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2017...

Very cool, Jimmy! I'm a member of WDC, and they have some fascinating resources about whales, too, for those who are interested:

FACTS ABOUT WHALES

Thanks Jimmy, I enjoyed those!

And thanks to Brian as well.

Leaking pipelines and beluga whales:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07...

I just published a review of Diane Ackerman's The Moon by Whale Light. The book's an oldie but it's still good, and relevant. I don't think her writing ever goes out of style.

https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/...

Gizmodo has some interesting articles about prehistoric whale fossils - fossil ancestors of whales in other words. Including this large ancestor of baleen whales - which doesn't have baleen (the sieve) but teeth.
https://gizmodo.com/the-ancient-ances...

An offshoot from toothed whales became a sort of dolphin. But without teeth.
https://gizmodo.com/bizarre-toothless...

Any update, Jimmy?

"Federal regulators have given oil and gas operator Hilcorp until May 1 to permanently repair a pipeline spewing more than 200,000 cubic feet of gas a day into Alaska's Cook Inlet or shut it down, citing public safety and environmental risks."

https://fuelfix.com/blog/2017/04/14/h...

The last line of this article is important: "Self policing does not work." I am so into that philosophy. There is always some self policing, but it has to be backed up with solid regulatory powers.

Thanks for that. Glad it has been mended.

"They measured the hole at less than 0.5 square inches (32 sq. centimeters)."
Oh no they didn't. Centimetres are not that small. 30 cm = 1ft. Possibly the article meant to say millimetres.

In the original article, I noticed we were being told that sea water was corrosive especially in the rough tidal inlet with sand in the water. So, they put a pipe down and then they discovered sea water was corrosive?

Many of us were horrified to learn that Iceland had harpooned a blue whale. These have been protected worldwide for the past 50 years to try to restore their population.
We know only because of these photos taken by whale advocates and at the processing plant ashore. Not for the nervous.
Blue whales are filter feeders so do not eat cod, for instance.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/11/commer...

Iceland still kills fin whales which are much smaller and a different colour. Whale advocates are trying to get killing whales banned completely.

A petition from Care2.com which asks Iceland to stop killing whales, in the wake of the illegal blue whale death.
http://www.care2.com/dailyaction/home...

Interesting cetaecean news, the melon-headed whale has hybridised with a rough-toothed dolphin.
https://jezebel.com/congratulations-t...

The article mentions that the melon-headed whale is a type of dolphin, but doesn't speculate as to whether a crossbreed is sterile, like most mules.

The pink river dolphin of the Amazon is an endangered cetaean. Naturally scientists go there and study them. When the river floods miles of land, the dolphins swim among submerged tree trunks. How to find them? Try drones....
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/cate...

Here is a fiction book featuring pink dolphins.
Twelve Mile Limit

Scientists studying the brains of whales have recently discovered spindle cells in a few species of whales. These cells are associated with emotion and romance in humans and apes.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environ...

This is not a new novel... but (thanks to my wife coming across it in a library donation box) I just finished the novel Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore. This is a wonderfully quirky, funny, twisted vision of marine biology featuring a cetacean researcher / expert as its protagonist. It's pure (and weirdly imaginative) fiction, but it does present some cool scientific underpinnings along the way. I highly recommend it!

Interesting!

If I am reading this correctly, not only did Japan fail to legalise commercial whaling, but the IWC has changed its role from minding stocks of whales for whaling, to preserving whales.

https://www.care2.com/causes/japans-a...

"While there is more to be done to end the slaughter of whales entirely, there’s even more reason to celebrate with the passage of a competing proposal brought by Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Peru.

"The ‘Florianopolis Declaration,’ changes the role of the IWC from focusing on managing whale populations to conserving them, in addition to stating that commercial whaling is no longer a necessary economic activity, and that killing whales for scientific research is unnecessary.

"“Following yesterday’s most welcome Florianopolis Declaration, this defeat of the Japanese Proposal has made the 67th meeting of the International Whaling Commission an awesome historical event for the world’s whales,” said Sea Shepherd’s founder Captain Paul Watson."

A gorgeous clip of a pod of belugas with an adopted narwhal.
https://www.care2.com/causes/beluga-w...

Now a beluga, that's the white Arctic whale, has appeared in the Thames river.

https://www.ecowatch.com/whale-in-uk-...
This river opens to the North Sea between England and Holland/ France; it is silty and warm compared to Arctic waters. I saw a clip of the whale breaching and looking fine yesterday but apparently today it is lethargic.
The last whale that swam up the Thames went right to the city and died; it was a minke, much smaller.

A Wikipedia page about the Beluga Boeing Airbus which looks extraordinarily like the beluga whale. Google images and see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_...

Two brave fishermen rescued an entangled humpback whale.

https://www.care2.com/causes/fisherma...

More about Amazonian river dolphins; sounds are being recorded and studied.
https://gizmodo.com/rare-recordings-o...

A calf is born to the endangered Pacific orca pod.

https://www.care2.com/causes/new-baby...

This article from 2016 tells us an entirely new species of beaked whale was found in the Pacific.
Sadly, not alive.
https://www.care2.com/causes/entirely...

A Google search tells us there are many types of beaked whale. Japanese fishermen had referred to the new black whale as 'karasu' which appears to mean raven. This is from a much more detailed Nat Geo article:

" Even before receiving the samples from St. George, Morin had been trying to hunt down more specimens.

He went through NOAA's tissue collection, pulling all 50 or so that had previously been identified as a Baird's beaked whale. Using DNA testing he found that two were actually a closer genetic match to the small black whales tested by Japanese scientists in 2013. One of those was from a whale that washed ashore in 2004 and now hangs in a school gym in Dutch Harbor. Scientists there had long assumed it was a younger Baird's beaked whale.

Morin also took the suggestion of one of the Japanese scientists, who had identified a skeleton from 1948 with an unusual shaped head at the Smithsonian Institution. And he tracked down another skeleton from the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History with body measurements that suggested they were the small black form. Morin took bone powder from both, and tested their DNA. They, too, were a match for karasu.

Along with the whale from St. George, Morin now had found five new specimens that were similar to the three found in Japan.

To describe a new species, however, "you build up lines of evidence, but that's very hard with an animal we've never seen alive," Morin says. But body measurements between Baird's beaked whales and the smaller black creature proved vastly different, as did their DNA. "
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...

And here is the extremely exciting news that a new subspecies, type or species (yet to be determined) of orca has been identified and filmed; several animals in a pod in the subantarctic waters.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...

" These orcas, referred to as type D killer whales, were previously known from amateur photographs, fishermen’s descriptions, and one mass stranding—but never encountered in their natural state by cetacean experts. Unlike the other known types of orcas, they have a more rounded head, a pointier and narrower dorsal fin, and a very small white eye patch. They’re also several feet shorter in length, Pitman says. "

" The region where they are found, between latitude 40 and 60, has some of the most inhospitable weather on the planet, with strong winds and frequent storms that have earned them the nicknames of the “roaring 40s” and the “furious 50s.”

Their choice of home, combined with the fact that they live in the open ocean, explains why the killer whales are so little known.

“If you’re a large animal trying to hide from science, that’s exactly where you’d want to do it,” Pitman says. "

Author Robin Barefield blogs this time about the strange deaths of many grey whales.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Humpback whales delighted a pair of whale watchers off Ireland's west coast. Some great footage was captured so it made the main evening news.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news...

If you can't watch the footage at the top of this page go down to the lower version. Marine mammals are protected in Irish waters.
https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2019/...

20 years ago the first whale identification recording was made off Irish coasts - and the same two humpbacks are back.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news...

Whale numbers are rising but not all deaths and threats are being taken into account. This survey looks at humpbacks.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-new-stu...

Stranded (and probably dead) whales can now be seen from space.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientist...

A new study on narwhals, the tusked Arctic whale. They have very low genetic diversity, but it doesn't seem to be a problem.

https://gizmodo.com/narwhals-are-thri...

New fossils of the four-legged amphibious creature that became the race of whales. I like that we see reconstructions of walking and swimming.

https://gizmodo.com/unknown-species-o...

You may have read Big Miracle

about a community that lives by killing and eating whales at the top of Alaska.

They haven't seen any whales this autumn.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31...

The bowhead whales are way off and out at sea. Wisely, I would say. But this is the first time, so something's changed.

That's not all.

" Heat waves in the Bering Sea over the past two years have eradicated a "cold pool" at the bottom of the ocean, which has major implications for the ecosystem. "Basically the whole Arctic part of the Bering Sea ecosystem has been replaced by the southern fish," said Rick Thoman, a climatologist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"Thoman documented changes across Alaska in a new report, "Alaska's Changing Environment," telling the story of wildfires, drought, dwindling sea ice, changes in species, thawing permafrost and more. The Alaska he documents is burning, melting and changing in unprecedented ways.

"On the ground in Utqiagvik, Ahsoak said he missed the summer walrus hunt entirely because they migrated weeks earlier than expected. "

Another look at how whales sequester carbon and keep nutrients in the sea; if they are not being eaten by people, that is.

https://www.treehugger.com/animals/st...

This has seemed obvious to me and the article leaves out that whales transport nutrients around the ocean by eating in a nutrient rich area and travelling, then releasing waste (or dying) in a nutrient poor area. This helps keep ecosystems healthy.

Whale carcasses feed an incredible variety of life from arthropods and bone-eating worms to six-gill sharks. They don't stay in one piece for long.

Humans and their livestock are now 98% of all the vertebrate life on the planet, and this has been caused by eating the wildlife or destroying its habitat.

That last sentence is quite alarming.

What settlers did across America, Chinese settlers and soldiers have done across Tibet. Humans are the most populous mammal on the planet.

A new subspecies in fin whales.

https://www.ecowatch.com/new-fin-whal...

Beaked whales enter group stealth mode to feed - this keeps them safe from orca predation.

https://gizmodo.com/beaked-whales-use...

The British National Museum tells me this weekend is World Whale Weekend.
Here's an article from them about how whale earwax plugs collected and curated are proving, through the hormones they contain, that whales were most stressed when whaling was at its height, and again, during WW2; after a period of relief, the stresses have again soared probably due to other human-caused stressors like shipping traffic.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2...

More great humpback whale footage including from nursing calves.

https://gizmodo.com/incredible-video-...

Endangered Ganges river dolphins were spotted due to sudden reduction in pollution.

https://www.siasat.com/endangered-gan...

Robin Barefield tells us on her GR blog about the whales she watches as they travel on migration off the California / Washington / Alaska coast.

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Pilot whales are the cousins of orcas.
Seventeen of them were stranded in shallow rocky coast water off Scotland. The locals helped to rescue them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...

Not looking good for the right whale.

"Only 400 right whales are left in existence, and fewer than 250 of them are mature, leading the IUCN to drop its "endangered" classification for the whale and add it to its "critically endangered" Red List.

According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), NOAA has access to extensive science showing the danger in which humans have placed the whales, but internal emails show the agency aimed to put a positive spin on the outlook for the creatures.....

"According to PEER, 100% of North Atlantic right whale fatalities are caused by boats striking them and by entanglements in fishing gear.....

""In reportedly bowing to political pressure and altering required scientific analysis in the policymaking process, NOAA appointees may have violated federal law and NOAA's own regulations, and jeopardized the very survival of the North Atlantic right whale," said Democracy Forward senior counsel Michael Martinez at the time. "The Trump administration's practice of injecting politics into the scientific decision-making process risks NOAA's credibility as a fact and science-driven agency. An investigation is warranted."

PEER called for a similar probe in 2019 when the National Marine Fisheries Service reportedly omitted scientific research about endangerment in its reporting on the right whale, but neither investigation has been completed.

NOAA has also failed to aggressively restrict the activities of fishing boats even when the agency is aware of right whales in a particular offshore area, PEER said Thursday.

In June, one of just 10 calves born this season was struck by a boat and killed off the coast of New Jersey, where officials had not issued a speed warning to vessels."

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-noaa-r...

Vaquita. The UN:

"While optimism can be in short supply when it comes to wildlife conservation, the spotting of three vaquita calves in October 2019 in the Upper Gulf of California in Mexico was a particularly exciting moment.

A glimmer of hope in the struggle to save the world’s smallest marine mammal, that is careening towards extinction. The calves survival will be the make or break for the species, whose number stands no more than 22, according to the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA)."

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-an...

I previously saw a documentary about orcas killing a grey whale calf off California.
Now Australian fishermen filmed a pod of orcas killing a humpback whale calf.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2020...

Boomerang is a humpback with a bendy dorsal fin who has been hanging around Irish waters for 20 years. Here he meets up with fin whales.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2020...

This story actually does my heart good. Two belugas were rescued from a Russian whale research centre in 2011 and have been living in Iceland. They are now being transferred to a marine sanctuary. The photos show them being moved and released into a sea pen until they get acclimatised enough to go further.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0810/115...

Well done Iceland.

Meeting more fin whales off Ireland. This one was filmed with a drone. The story contains details of how this may be permitted and some of the hazards.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2020...