Wild Cetacean News

Cargo Vessels Are Killing More Whales — and a New Effort Aims to Save Them

Collisions between whales and ships have increased, but an effort to hear, see and predict whale behavior could help reduce fatalities.

A blue whale can weigh as much as 200 tons and consume 12,000 pounds of krill in a single day. But even the largest animal on Earth doesn’t stand a chance against a fast-moving cargo ship.

Collisions between whales and shipping vessels are especially prevalent in areas where whale habitat overlaps with busy port traffic, such as the Santa Barbara Channel. This 70-mile stretch of water between mainland California and the Northern Channel Islands is a thoroughfare for thousands of cargo ships going to and from the busy ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. It’s also a hotspot for endangered and threatened whales.

Cargo Vessels Are Killing More Whales — and a New Effort Aims to Save Them • The Revelator
 
"Help protect southern resident orcas from harmful sonar activities!

We need your help to stop a proposal that could allow serious harm to over two thirds of the entire southern resident population of endangered orcas.

A proposed rule from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) would let Naval activities in the Northwest Training and Testing area cause serious harm to up to 51 of these orcas (68% of the entire population!), putting the recovery and even survival of this population in jeopardy.

Those sonar activities could disrupt critical natural behaviors like feeding, nursing, surfacing, migration and more – and with these orcas already fighting for their lives, this disruption could push them over the brink."

Protect orcas from dangerous sonar disruption!
 
India's Gangetic Dolphin Count Rises To 41

In a major boost to the efforts to save the Gangetic dolphin, the latest studies have shown that their numbers are increasing.

The recently concluded census of Gangetic dolphins has shown an increase in their numbers, showing healthy population growth.

The census has found that there are a total of 41 dolphins in the Ganges from Bijnor Barrage to Bulandshahr Narora Barrage.

In 2019, this number was 35. The latest data showed that there has been an increase of four calves and two adults, from the previous year.

From Only 22 In 2015 to 41 Now, Population Of 'Endangered' Gangetic Dolphins Has Almost Doubled
 
As their population plummets, right whales are on verge of extinction

In dire news for a critically endangered species, federal regulators on Monday substantially reduced their estimate for the number of remaining North Atlantic right whales.

Officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service estimated there were just 366 whales alive in January 2019 — an 11 percent decline from the year before. There are likely even fewer alive today.

Worse, the agency estimated the population included only 94 breeding females.

“Given the low population numbers … it is essential that we work together to protect every North Atlantic right whale in order to avoid extinction for this endangered species,” Colleen Coogan, the agency’s marine mammal take reduction team coordinator, wrote in an e-mail to members of a federal advisory board tasked with finding ways to reduce risks to the whales.

As their population plummets, right whales are on verge of extinction - The Boston Globe
 
Whale poo is powering the world's rainforests

Big animals have the power to change the face of our planet: they sculpt woodlands, power ecosystems and can even help to fertilise the interior of rainforests.

Conservation is working to prevent the largest animals on Earth from sliding into extinction - and saving them could be more important than we ever realised.

Humans have been altering the environment for tens of thousands of years. One of the starkest consequences of this is the loss of many large animals, known collectively as megafauna, from much of the planet.

When people spread out of Africa and first arrived in places like the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, the land was dominated by some truly huge animals.

Giant ground sloths and armoured glyptodons roamed across the savannas of South America, huge mammoths and cave bears were trampling around the chilly landscapes of Europe, while truly enormous wombat-like diprotodons and moas were to be found across much of Australia and New Zealand.

These species had a significant impact on the habitats in which they lived, and when they were driven to extinction, they left an ecological hole. But this wave of extinction is not over.

Those large animals that did survive the first round are now facing a similar threat. Elephants, rhinos, and some species of whales are all balancing on the edge of extinction.

It is only relatively recently, however, that we have begun to understand just how wide reaching the influence of these animals is on the natural world. Once we know more, it could change the way we go about protecting them.

Whale poo is powering the world's rainforests.
 
At Sea and in Court, the Fight to Save Right Whales Intensifies

As numbers of North Atlantic right whales keep declining because of entanglements with fishing gear and fatal ship strikes, conservationists are using acoustic technology and waging an escalating legal battle to push for more aggressive action to protect the world’s rarest cetacean.

Artie Raslich has been volunteering for seven years with the conservation group Gotham Whale, working on the American Princess, a whale-watching boat based in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. In that time Raslich, a professional photographer, has glimpsed a North Atlantic right whale, the world’s rarest cetacean, only twice. The first time was an unseasonably warm December day in 2016, when he managed to snap a striking image of a right whale’s dark tail against the backdrop of the New York City skyline. “That was a beautiful shot,” Raslich says, proudly. The second was just a few weeks ago, in early October, roughly 3 miles east of Sea Bright, New Jersey.

At Sea and in Court, the Fight to Save Right Whales Intensifies
 
Operation Fake Gold – the Totoaba Cartels and the Vaquita Extinction

The Totoaba Supply Chain – From Mexico’s Totoaba Cartels to China’s Totoaba Maw Wholesalers

An Illegal Trade Killing the Vaquita
Earth League International (formerly Elephant Action League) is proud to release a new public report detailing another expansive, covert operation. In response to the dire circumstances facing the vaquita as by-catch of the illegal totoaba trade, Earth League International commenced an investigation and intelligence gathering operation called Operation Fake Gold. After 14 months of work on two continents, our organization has mapped the entire illicit totoaba maw (swim bladder) supply chain. The investigation took our Wildlife Crime Division from the Baja California peninsula to Southern China’s Guangdong Province.

The Totoaba Cartels & the extinction of the Vaquita - Operation Fake Gold
 
Blue whales return to South Georgia after near extinction

An international research team led by UK scientists has revealed the return of critically endangered Antarctic blue whales to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, 50 years after whaling all but wiped them out. The new study follows recent research that humpback whales are also returning to the region.

The discovery, based on analysis of 30 years’ worth of sightings, photographs and underwater sound recordings, is crucial evidence in learning how the species is recovering following a ban on commercial whaling in the 1960s. The findings are published today (19 November) in the journal Endangered Species Research.

Blue whales return to South Georgia after near extinction - British Antarctic Survey
 
New Zealand government to defend kaimoana exports in US lawsuit over Māui dolphins.

Up to $247 million of New Zealand seafood exports to the United States are under threat because of ongoing court action.

Conservation group Sea Shepherd says recent measures to protect Māui dolphins don't go nearly far enough, and is pursuing a lawsuit in the US seeking a ban on New Zealand kai moana.

The US Marine Mammal Protection Act requires countries selling seafood in to the United States to have comparable levels of protection for the likes of Māui dolphins, to what it does.

The same act was successfully used to ban seafood imports from Mexico due to endangered vaquita dolphins becoming caught in nets.

Sea Shepherd New Zealand director Michael Lawry said while this year's updated threat management plan brought in protections along the entire North Island West Coast, it did not restrict fishing far enough out to sea, where the remaining 57 Māui were known to roam.

"Not fulfilling that 100-metre depth contour which the scientists of course have been asking for for years - as well as the IWC and the IUCN have all been saying since about 2012 or 2013, you need to protect these native dolphins out to the 100m depth - and we're not getting that."

On the East Coast of the North Island, fishers are largely able to carry on as before.

Māui dolphin expert Professor Liz Slooten, who was providing evidence for Sea Shepherd's case, said MPI had yet to prove there were no Māui there, meaning they could be missing out on much needed protection.

NZ government to defend kaimoana exports in US lawsuit over Māui dolphins
 
Nearly a century after being extirpated, blue whales are moving back to South Georgia Island

Now that whaling has been outlawed for decades, populations are beginning to heal—but they face new threats.

The blue whale—the largest animal to have ever lived—subsists almost entirely on krill, one of the smallest. A blue whale scarfs about 2,500 pounds of krill every single day. It takes a special place to support such a diet, and one such spot is South Georgia island, in the southern Atlantic. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the ocean around South Georgia housed an incredible density of these massive cetaceans, along with humpbacks, fins, seis, southern rights, and sperm whales.

Nearly a century after being extirpated, blue whales are moving back to South Georgia Island
 
Humpback whales could be breeding less amid climate crisis, study says

Researchers observe decline in calf sightings at major summer feeding ground in Canada

Humpback whales could be struggling to reproduce amid rapid environmental change in the world’s oceans, a new study suggests.

Researchers found a significant decline in the breeding success of humpback whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence, a major summer feeding ground for humpback whales in Canada, from 2004-2018.

https://www-independent-co-uk.cdn.a...hales-climate-change-crisis-b1783163.html?amp
 
Left stranded: US military sonar linked to whale beachings in Pacific, say scientists

Islands surrounded by US military study area, including Guam and Saipan, call for activity that harms the whales to stop


In the midst of the western Pacific, flanked by the world’s deepest ocean trench, the waters off the Mariana Islands are home and habitat to whales, dolphins, and countless other marine mammals as they breed and feed.

It’s also where they encounter the might of the US military.

The US territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which includes Saipan, Tinian, and 12 other islands, are surrounded by the US military’s Mariana Islands Training and Testing (MITT) study area.

Almost the size of India, the MITT is strategically important to the Department of Defence as a proving ground for new weapons systems and for live-fire training.

But some on the neighbouring islands, including indigenous Chamoru people, hold grave concerns for the military’s impact on their environment, especially the use of sonar for anti-submarine warfare training, which may be causing whales to beach themselves and die.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...-to-whale-beachings-in-pacific-say-scientists
 
Shrewsbury River Dolphins Signal Cleaner Rivers, More Fish

Dolphins are now frequent visitors to the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers in New Jersey, indicating a healthier environment.

In what has become an increasingly common occurrence, bottlenose dolphins have taken up seasonal residence in New Jersey’s Shrewsbury River. Dolphins were observed in the river throughout this past summer. Since November 2020, sightings of three dolphins, which are small and possibly juveniles, have been reported to our Marine Mammal Stranding Network partner for New Jersey, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. As of January 14, these dolphins are reportedly swimming freely and in good body condition.

Shrewsbury River Dolphins Signal Cleaner Rivers, More Fish
 
Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Experience Highest Birth Rate Since 2015

Endangered North Atlantic right whales gave birth in greater numbers this winter compared to the past six years — a promising sign for a species that's been driven to the brink of extinction due to human activity.

From December through March, an aerial survey team reported 17 calves swimming with their mothers between Florida and North Carolina, AP News reported. This overall calf count is equal to the total number of births for the past three years and is a hopeful sign compared to 2018, when no right whale births were recorded.

North Atlantic right whales — which can grow to be 52-feet long, weigh up to 140,000 pounds and live about 70 years — each have unique callus patterns on their backs, helping scientists to track and identify individual whales and estimate total populations, according to NOAA Fisheries. But after being decimated by human hunting by the 1890s, right whales continue to be threatened by human activity, making them one of the most endangered large whale species in the world, with less than 400 individuals remaining.

Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Experience Highest Birth Rate Since 2015 - EcoWatch
 
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