Death of a Hump Back Whale

This is disturbing. If we don't watch out for the whales who will. I can't believe that a company as large as Princess Cruises would try and hide such a thing. I am glad that they in the end pleded guilty. It is also nice to see that policies have been put into place to protect these wildlife areas. The whales are an amazig site, and I don't think the ocean's should be off limit to cruise lines, however you are responsible for your actions.

Cruise line fined in wake of humpback death

$750,000: A Princess ship was going too fast near Glacier Bay where a dead whale was found.
By MARY PEMBERTONThe Associated Press
Published: January 30, 2007 Last Modified: January 30, 2007 at 01:34 AM


Princess Cruise Lines was sentenced Monday for failing to operate one of its ships in a slow, safe manner near Glacier Bay National Park where a humpback whale was later found dead of massive skull fractures.

The body of the 45-foot, pregnant humpback whale was found floating in Icy Strait near the mouth of Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska in July 2001. Humpback whales are an endangered species.
"Our marine mammals are national treasures to be preserved for future generations. We must protect them from criminal and negligent acts committed by individuals or large corporations," said Nelson Cohen, U.S. Attorney for Alaska, describing the case as a first-of-its kind prosecution.

While not agreeing Monday that one of its ships hit the whale, Princess Cruise Lines paid a maximum $200,000 fine, plus $550,000 in restitution to the National Park Foundation, with the funds specifically dedicated to Glacier Bay National Park conservation efforts.

"We take our responsibility to be good stewards of the environment very seriously," said Princess Cruises chief executive Peter Ratcliffe. He said the company regretted "the circumstances involving Dawn Princess."

The company pleaded guilty to knowingly failing to operate the cruise ship at a slow, safe speed while near two whales on July 12, 2001. The federal regulation on speed was implemented in 2001.

Princess spokeswoman Julie Benson said this was the first time this type of encounter had occurred involving one of its ships visiting Glacier Bay National Park. Princess made 75 calls at Glacier Bay last year and plans on 84 this year.

The humpback whale that was found dead was first identified by researchers in 1975 and was named "Snow" because of her fluke markings. Her injuries were consistent with being struck by a ship, said Tomie Lee, superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park.

Princess said after the encounter with the whale it implemented guidelines for how its ships should operate when whales are near. It also instituted procedures and speed restrictions for the Icy Strait area, with ships not to exceed 11.5 miles per hour when in the strait south of the national park.

According to prosecutors, passengers and crew on the ship's bridge spotted two humpback whales on the afternoon of July 12, 2001. When first spotted, the whales were between one-quarter and a half-mile off the left side of the ship. They were headed on a course that could intersect the ship's route.

The Dawn Princess continued accelerating and did not change course. Within 100 yards of the cruise ship, one of the whales dove deep, but the other did not, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Alaska.

As the other whale passed out of sight under the vessel's prow, some people aboard the cruise ship reported feeling the ship shudder. The captain ran to the right bridge wing to look for the whales. He noted that the vessel was traveling at 16 miles an hour at the time. The whales were not seen again, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

The Dawn Princess made no report of a possible collision to the National Park Service or any other government agency. The close encounter also was not mentioned in the ship's log. The captain also did not preserve the recording of what occurred on the bridge, federal officials said.

However, the next day the on-board ship's naturalist e-mailed a colleague saying the ship may have struck a whale. She wrote that the whales seemed to be unaware of the ship and as the ship passed there was no sign from the bridge that contact had been made. She estimated the ship's speed at between about 17 and 20 miles per hour.

The naturalist, who was not identified, said friends below deck told her they heard a "resounding thud."

The dead whale was found July 16, 2001, near the area where the Dawn Princess had earlier been traveling.

There are approximately 20,000 humpback whales worldwide. Of those, about 6,000 humpbacks make up the North Pacific population, most of which feed in Alaska during the summer. They migrate to Hawaii in the fall where they give birth.

Whales have tangled with ships several times in the busy Alaska cruising lanes. Last August, a ship owned by Celebrity Cruises pulled into port in Seward with a whale carcass pinned to its bow. In 2003, a humpback carcass was found floating near the mouth of Yakutat Bay. After an exam, veterinarians determined it was killed by a ship strike. In 1999, the cruise ship Westerdam reported hitting a whale in Stephens Passage in Southeast, according to news reports.

Daily News reporter Julia O'Malley contributed to this story.

Blue Jellyfish Invade Australia Beaches

January 24, 2007—It's summer down under, and at many Australian beaches the sands have turned as blue as the water.

Huge armadas of toxic bluebottle jellyfish are swamping Australia's east coast in record numbers, putting the sting on peak beach season.

More than 30,000 people were stung by the translucent blue jellies on this coast last year—more than twice the number of incidents in 2005—according to Australia's lifeguard group, Surf Life Saving (SLS).

And in a single weekend earlier this month, beachgoers reported more than 1,200 stings, several requiring hospitalization.

The recent influx is the result of a wind shift that has pushed flotillas of the invertebrates ashore, scientists say. But the overall trend suggests that the 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) jellyfish are growing in number due to warming ocean waters.

"[Their] numbers are closely tied with environmental changes, and last year was obviously a very aggressive year for them," Lisa-Ann Gershwin, a jellyfish expert with SLS, told Reuters news service.

The bluebottle surge coincides with growing droves of other jellyfish worldwide, including a recent spike in giant Nomura's jellyfish in Japan and rafts of jellies that swamped Mediterranean shores last summer.

Those infestations have also been linked to warmer waters, suggesting that this will not be the last beach season to be ruined by marine stingers.

"Jellyfish have been around for 600 million years," Gershwin told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"They have perfected the art of survival and are very good at taking advantage of changing conditions."

—Blake de Pastino

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070123-blue-jellyfish.html

Acid oceans spell doom for coral

Professor Katherine Richardson said sea organisms that produced calcareous structures would struggle to function in the coming decades as pH levels fell

The expert, based in Denmark, told the EuroScience Open Forum 2004 that human-produced carbon dioxide was radically changing the marine environment.
Ice cores show current carbon dioxide levels are higher now than they have been in the last 440,000 years.

Most of it will eventually be absorbed by seawater, where it will react to form carbonic acid.

The oceans currently have a pH of about 8, but experts predict this could drop to pH 7.4.

Scientists fear this increasing acidification could have a particularly detrimental effect on corals and other marine organisms, because it reduces the availability of carbonate ions in the water for them to make their hard parts.
Record readings

As climate change research has primarily concentrated on the impacts on land and in the atmosphere, our knowledge of what the rise will mean is uncertain.

However, as there are 78,000,000 gigatonnes of carbon locked up in ocean sediments compared with 750 gigatonnes of carbon in the atmosphere, the rise could have very serious implications for the carbon cycle, Professor Richardson believes.

"It makes sense that the component of the Earth's system we need to understand the most is the biggest," said the researcher from the Department of Marine Ecology in Aarhus, Denmark.

"But it just happens to be the one that's most difficult for us humans to explore."
CO2 levels in the atmosphere, driven up by the burning of fossil fuels, currently stand at about 380 parts per million (ppm) - up from their pre-industrial mark of around 280 ppm.
Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by microscopic ocean-dwelling plants called phytoplankton, through photosynthesis. But one group, called the coccolithophorids, also produce calcium carbonate platelets, called liths.

Each lith is only about 2.5 micrometres (millionths of a metre) across but a very great many are produced each year.

It is estimated that blooms of the dominant species, Emiliania Huxleyi, annually cover about 1.4 million sq km of the ocean.

When they die, they rain down to the ocean floor, in the process locking carbon away in a vast sediment store. This biological pump helps to control the exchange of carbon between the oceans and atmosphere.
Knowledge search

"E. Huxleyi has dominated the world's oceans since the Holocene, but prior to that a different species was responsible for moving all the carbon to the bottom," explained Professor Richardson.

"It's anyone's guess if another species would step in if E. Huxleyi can't tolerate the more acidic conditions."

Scientists are beginning to address the gaping holes in our knowledge. Last week, the UK's academy of science, the Royal Society, announced a study concentrating on the impact of increased acidity on marine life.

An extra reason for the concern is that scientists have considered exploiting ocean processes to help mitigate rising CO2 levels.

The idea is that by artificially "fertilising" phytoplankton at the ocean surface, it might be possible to stimulate the take-up of CO2 - locking away some of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere that is believed to be forcing global temperatures to rise.

If increased acidity begins to hinder the natural removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, however, then we may lose one opportunity to reverse any damage induced by human activity.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3605908.stm

Rare Prehistoric Shark

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/world/2007/01/24/vo.japan.rare.shark.rtv

Click on the link above to go to a video clip

of the shark.

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A species of shark rarely seen alive because its natural habitat is about 2,000 feet under the sea was captured on film by staff at a Japanese marine park this week.

The Awashima Marine Park in Shizuoka, south of Tokyo, was alerted by a fisherman at a nearby port on Sunday that he had spotted an odd-looking eel-like creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth.

Marine park staff caught the 5 foot (1.6 meter) long creature, which they identified as a female frilled shark, sometimes referred to as a "living fossil" because it is a primitive species that has changed little since prehistoric times.

The shark appeared to be in poor condition when park staff moved it to a seawater pool where they filmed it swimming and opening its jaws.

"We believe moving pictures of a live specimen are extremely rare," said an official at the park. "They live between 1,968 and 3,280 feet (600 and 1,000 meters) under the water, which is deeper than humans can go."

"We think it may have come close to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters," the official said.
The shark died a few hours after being caught.

Frilled sharks, which feed on other sharks and sea creatures, are sometimes caught in the nets of trawlers but are rarely seen alive.

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

%0

Killer Whales—Killing Other Whales

During April and May transient killer whales frequent Monterey Bay, and that's when Black, an independent marine biologist who also runs the Monterey Bay Whale Watch, sees the highest numbers of predatory attacks.

That's because gray whales are gliding through these waters during their migration from Mexico to the Bering Sea. The transients ambush them—they have a taste for the gray whale calves' high-energy blubber and protein-rich tongues. Black's goal is to catch a glimpse of the feeding frenzy.
Researchers have identified three types of killer whales, or orcas, along the U.S. Pacific coast: offshores, residents, and transients. Little is known about offshores, rarely seen deep-sea denizens. Residents are the most familiar—their gregarious socializing and aerial acrobatics thrill whale-watchers.
Transients are "a breed apart"—elusive killers that rove over 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of coastline from California to Southeast Alaska.
"The transients are so different in behavior, diet, and even genetically from fish-eating residents that many scientists believe they could be a distinct species altogether," said Black.

I found it amazing that these whales were killing other whales even more than that, they believe that they may be a different species altogether. I love ocean life and the Orca's are probably one of my favourite ocean mammals. They are the kings of the sea with no natural predators except for HUMANS. I will continue to check to see if these transient whales are in fact a new species

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0324_030324_tvkillerwhales.html

Wild Manatees Captured in Florida River

January 16, 2007—A young manatee named Pilo rests placidly on the deck of a research ship as scientists give him a physical on Florida's Crystal River in November 2006.

The five-year-old male was captured during the first of three planned expeditions to the northwest Florida river, where manatees migrate every fall to take advantage of the warm, spring-fed waters.

The expeditions, which resumed this month, will amount to one of the most comprehensive studies yet done of Florida manatees in the wild.

During Pilo's half-hour-long checkup, biologists collected all manner of data from their peaceful patient—from pulse readings taken with a portable heart monitor to urine caught in a Frisbee placed under his genitals.

Pilo weighed in at 916 pounds (415 kilograms) and measured 9 feet (280 centimeters) long. The scientists gave him a clean bill of health.

"I'd give him a [rating of] perfectly normal, excellent condition," said Robert Bonde, a marine biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who coordinated the expedition.

"He's a great-looking manatee."

—Blake de Pastino

Source:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070116-wild-manatees.html

Giant Squid

The movie in class was really interesting. You had to feel bad for the scientist who finally got the discovery channel out on his ship and then killed his 17 baby squid. Giant squid, once believed to be mythical creatures, are squid of the Architeuthidae family, represented by as many as eight species of the genus Architeuthis. They are deep-ocean dwelling animals that can grow to a tremendous size: recent estimates put the maximum size at 10 m for males and 13 m for females from caudal fin to the tip of the two long tentacles. The tentacles are covered in suction cups, each cup has a ring of sharp teeth, therefore when they catch their prey they are both suctioned and perferated. The giant squid is dinner for the sperm whale and it is not uncommon to find circular scares on the whales who have tried or succeed in eating these squid. Another interesting thing is that the giant squid has the largest eyes of any living creature (over 1 foot). They are fasinating creatures and as we heard in class more research is being done to find out even more about these wild creatures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid

Top Picture:
Live_giant_squid_video_December_4_2006.jpg‎ (35KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Still image from the first video of a live giant squid. Filmed on December 4, 2006 by researchers from the National Science Museum of Japan led by Tsunemi Kubodera.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,238263,00.html
Copyright: Associated Press/Tsunemi Kubodera