Saving Valentina. A group of five friends out boating on the Sea of Cortez discovered a young humpback
whale entangled in fishing net and possibly near death. After about an hour of hard work they were able to free the whale, who proceeded to put on an amazing show for her rescuers.
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Jul 14, 2011 -
43 comments
"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction." A
report (pdf) released Thursday by
Ocean Alliance noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. Concentrations of chromium found in some whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish. Mercury in some whales was 16 times higher than a typical shark or swordfish, both known for their high mercury levels.
Beyond whales, "You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species."
posted by stbalbach
on Jun 24, 2010 -
68 comments
Visualizing Whale Songs "
Mark Fischer, an expert in marine acoustics, has come up with another way to
illustrate whale song. He uses a more obscure method, known as the wavelet transform, which represents the sound in terms of components known as wavelets: short, discrete waves that are better at capturing cetacean song."
posted by dhruva
on Jan 29, 2010 -
12 comments
When whales die: Yesterday,
a 20-30 foot whale washed up a shore in New Jersey. Officials are going to deal with it by cutting it up into small parts and burying it. In previous incidents, officials tried to explode it into bits that were meant to fall in the ocean and get eaten by seagulls, but that
didn't work out [YT] so well, especially for nearby spectators. Even if you want to let it decompose naturally, you have to be careful for
spontaneous explosions due to gassy buildup. Especially when transporting it in busy city streets. Oops. When whales die in the ocean, on the other hand, their bodies eventually fall to the sea floor and can start mini ecosystems, where female
pink glowstick-like sea worms that harbor the male pink glowstick sea worms inside their bodies live, eat whale bones, and propagate. (Previously on Metafilter:
Taiwan explosion)
posted by Salamandrous
on Jul 28, 2009 -
46 comments
A new whale anti-collision system "A remarkable feature of Andre's system is its ability to single out and track an individual whale among all its “family” members in the same area – a breakthrough made with the help of a West African musician. In attempting to unravel the chaotic rhythms of the sperm whale clicks, he was struck by the similarity between his underwater recordings and African tribal music. A Senegalese griot (drummer) confirmed the likeness and – amazingly – was able to pick individual whales from André’s recordings through their distinctive rhythmic structures."
[via]
posted by dhruva
on Sep 12, 2008 -
11 comments
A photographic catalog of a traditional whale hunt. (Flash, photos include whale hunting in all its bloody detail) In order to develop an experimental interface for storytelling, photographer Jonathan Harris accompanied a family of Inupiat Eskimos on a subsistence whale hunt. During his week long journey, he took 3,214 photographs, including pictures taken every 5 minutes while he was sleeping. The navigation allows for for very quick navigation through the series, using a heartbeat metaphor and a number of filtering constraints so that you can narrow your search to cast members, locations on the journey, and even something as loose as a photo's "concept".
via
posted by mkb
on Dec 10, 2007 -
21 comments
Yarrrr/Banzai! All you
"Talk like a pirate day" keyboard swashbucklers take heed: The
Sea Shepherd Society's flagship Farley Mowat
is now officialy a pirate vessel after Canada, Britain, and Belize revoked their registration. As the Japanese winter Antarctic whale hunting season begins
(previously), the M/V Farley Mowat is setting sail to meet them, armed with a
hydraulic "can opener" battering ram, a
pie cannon, and
moral conviction. With the Japanese whaling fleet now
majority owned by the Japanese government, a subject of international
diplomatic intrigue, and after last year's
confrontations,
this could get ugly!
posted by anthill
on Jan 14, 2007 -
54 comments
"Old Tom is the most famous of the Eden killer whales". The story of a pod of
killer whales who enlisted the help of fishermen in NSW, Australia to hunt
baleen whales. The pod would corral the whales, while Old Tom would tow the fishing boats out to sea by pulling the anchor ropes in his teeth. The reward? The fishermen left the whale overnight and the orcas got to eat the tongue. Alas, it seems Old Tom may have met his end when the
covenant was broken and a fisherman named Logan tried to take the whale to shore before the feast. Tom tried to hold the boat back with the rope, but it broke a tooth which infected and led to his death. Tom's skeleton is now on display at the
Eden Killer Whale Museum. His story inspired a young girl to become a biologist and
investigate the story for herself.
posted by qwip
on Nov 16, 2005 -
8 comments
OrcaLive is a
series of webcams and underwater microphones placed off of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. They are part of
OrcaLab started by Dr. Spong in 1970 to study wild orca. It appears the cameras are manned and observations of behavior and movement are made
here in the left-hand column. Combined, it makes for some good viewing--today alone I saw and heard different pods greeting each other, saw
spyhops, stomach rubbing along the shore, and tailslaps. Ken Balcomb at the
Center for Whale Research has been studying the orca around the San Juan Islands, Washington since 1976. They also have a
webcam and
still shots. You may remember the
story of Springer being reunited with her pod. (
discussed here) There is also a young male named
Luna L98 who has been separated from his pod for two years.
His situation has reached a crisis while Canadian officials have taken a wait-and-see approach. In the last few days,
Luna was wounded by a boat propeller and has a 6-8inch long 1.5inch deep gash above one eye. Maybe Canada will act now. With only 79 individuals in the Southern Resident population, down from 92 in 1991, every individual is important.
posted by lobakgo
on Aug 28, 2003 -
9 comments
It was known as "dragon's spittle perfume" by the ancient Chinese and encountered by Sinbad in "The Thousand and One Nights". It was recorded by Marco Polo and mentioned in the literature of Shakespeare. Called "floating gold", "Neptune's niece", and a process of "divine chemistry",
Ambergris, or "Grey Amber", was once harvested as a rare and costly perfume additive and coveted as an aphrodisiac. But...
posted by taz
on May 2, 2003 -
9 comments
Kill Willy? The headline of this CNN story is a bit of hyperbole, since it's just one guy advocating euthenasia. But it's depressing enough that Keiko, the orca from the "Free Willy" films who was later released into the wild, has recently appeared on the Norwegian coast, apparently looking for human contact after getting dissed by his killer-whale brethren. God ...
posted by risenc
on Sep 3, 2002 -
13 comments
Very high level of PCBs in whale raises alarms. "The orca found dead on the Olympic Peninsula earlier this year carried a level of contaminants that was among the highest -- if not the highest -- ever measured in killer whales, laboratory tests show".
If that is the case with free ranging whales then I shudder to think what similar measurements on city dwelling humans will reveal. Does anyone know of similar contaminant research on humans? (via
Baloney.com)
posted by talos
on May 13, 2002 -
10 comments
Japan To Host IWC Meeting in Whaling Port . . .the sheer volume of food they [whales] need has actually become a threat to the ocean environment.
Apparently they feel that when the rest of the world gets to taste whale bacon, or whale soup, they will suddenly realize who stupid we've been in banning commercial whaling.
Am I hypocritical in eating tuna or salmon, but being horrified with the potential resumption of commercial whaling?
posted by Danf
on Apr 18, 2002 -
16 comments
Shades of Gray. "Environmental groups sent out a worldwide call to save the gray whale from a Mexican salt plant. They got millions of dollars and thousands of new members. But scientists found no threat to the whales." From part six of a series that explores the ecology of the gray whale, as well as the many different ways it touches various cultures, and some of the moral dilemnas that have emerged as a result.
posted by bingo
on Mar 4, 2002 -
9 comments
