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WHALE NEWS
We're always keeping an eye out for whales in the news. Below are a few recent news items we found interesting. To discuss the news items below, or any whale or marine environmental issues, be sure to check out our Whale Talk page, a free message board dedicated to all things whales.

05/11/08
Diplomat lands task of stopping whale hunt - The Age

KEVIN Rudd has selected Labor mate Sandy Hollway to be Australia's first whaling envoy, ending a desperate five-month search for someone willing to confront Japan over its whale slaughter.

An experienced diplomat and chief of staff to former prime minister Bob Hawke, Mr Hollway is known to most Australians as the face of the 2000 Sydney Olympics where he was head of the organising committee.

He is also on good terms with Mr Rudd, appointed by the Prime Minister in March as chief mediator between Canberra and Port Moresby over the future of the Kokoda Trail.

Though the Government is refusing to name its whaling envoy, it is believed Mr Hollway's appointment will be confirmed in this month's federal budget, along with significant funding to allow him to be a roaming international ambassador.

When contacted last night, Mr Hollway would neither confirm nor deny his appointment. "I can't comment on it," he said.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Environment Minister Peter Garrett enthusiastically announced in December that an imminent envoy appointment would be a key part of the Government's strategy to end whale hunting in the Southern Ocean.

But the pair went silent on the subject as the difficulty of the task became apparent, allowing this year's whaling season to come and go without progress.

They have since scrambled to find an appropriate and available person in time for the International Whaling Commission's annual conference in Chile next month.

Mr Hollway's appointment became difficult to secure because of his many current roles, including as an adviser to this year's Beijing Olympics and several company directorships.

His thorough understanding of cut-throat Olympics diplomacy, often marred by accusations of bribery, is thought to have placed him high on the Government's list of candidates for the job.

Japan stands accused of bribing small island and African nations to vote with it at the IWC each year in favour of a return to full-blown commercial whale hunting.

The Government believes Mr Hollway's experience gives him the best chance of tackling such a culture.

However, New Zealand's high-profile whaling commissioner, former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, said this week that former Howard government environment minister Ian Campbell would be best for the job.

Mr Campbell is on the advisory board of radical conservation group Sea Shepherd.

Its founder, Paul Watson, agreed that the former minister would make a good choice. "He has a history of representing Australia before the IWC and he knows the issue, the people and the laws," Mr Watson said.

Mr Watson said the Rudd Government had decided against a bipartisan approach and instead given the job to a loyal party mate. more

05/09/08
Scientists To Examine World’s Weirdest Whale-pygmy right whale - SCOOP

International Scientists To Examine Rare Pygmy Right Whale, The World’s Weirdest Whale, At Te Papa

Scientists from Australia, the United States and New Zealand have gathered at Te Papa for the dissection of a pygmy right whale Caperea marginata to study the anatomy and evolutionary relationships of this unusual species.

Despite having a head that looks like a tiny right whale, scientists do not believe that the pygmy right whale is closely related to its much larger namesake. One peculiarity is the number of ribs the species has - more numerous than other whale species, some of which are flattened and overlap. As there is no fossil record of this species, scientists are intrigued by the opportunity to explain where this species fits into whale evolution.

The pygmy right whale is the smallest baleen whale that grows up to 6.5m long. It is a southern hemisphere species, found most often around New Zealand and southern Australia. The specimen being examined this week (an infant whale about 2m long and weighing 141kg) was stranded in the Far North in May 2007 and sent to Te Papa with agreement by local iwi, Ngäti Kuri and Te Aupouri, and the Department of Conservation.

‘The first major anatomical examination of pygmy right whales was facilitated by Te Papa in 1996’, said Dr Carol Diebel, Te Papa’s Natural Environment director.

‘Twelve years on, there has been renewed interest in the species and this team of scientists will be focussing on questions raised during the first examination,’ Dr Diebel said.

Scientists will be completing a detailed examination of the pygmy right whale’s larynx that will add to the global scientific community’s understanding of low frequency sound production in baleen whales. The specimen’s musculature will be documented in detail to allow for comparisons with other species and a better understanding of the remarkable and unique anatomical features of this species.

Anton van Helden, Te Papa’s marine mammals collections’ manager will lead the dissection in Te Papa’s necropsy room in the Tory St facility starting on Tuesday 6 May. The detailed examination is likely to take three to four days.

‘This is an incredible opportunity for Te Papa to host an international collaboration of leading whale scientists in an investigation of such a rare and unusual species from this region,’ said Mr van Helden.

‘We are pleased that the world’s leading authority on pygmy right whales, Dr Catherine Kemper of The South Australian Museum will be here along with Dr Joy Reidenberg of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; Dr Sentiel Rommel of the University of North Carolina and Otago University’s Dr Ewan Fordyce,’ Mr van Helden said.

The scientists will be documenting the dissection via Te Papa’s blog, http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/ and will present an overview of pygmy right whales and current research in an event organised by the Friends of Te Papa on Wednesday evening at Te Papa. more

05/07/08
New Whale Detection Buoys To Help Ships Take The Right Way Through New England Waters; 'We Need Creative Solutions' - cape cod times

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP) at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have teamed up with an international energy company and federal regulators to listen for and help protect endangered North Atlantic right whales in New England waters.

Building on advances in ocean mooring design, underwater acoustic systems, and telecommunications, the team built and installed ten “auto-detection buoys” to listen for the calls of right whales along the main shipping lanes into Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor.

The array of instruments—conceived by biologist and engineer Christopher W. Clark of the Cornell Lab and engineer John Kemp of WHOI—was largely funded by Excelerate Energy, L.L.C., as part of its environmental compliance associated with its Northeast Gateway deepwater port for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The import facility is set to begin operations in spring 2008.

The new listening system allows researchers to detect the location of whales in real time and alert ship operators and coastal resource managers to their presence. With advance warning, ships can be slowed or re-routed to prevent collisions, which is the most common cause of death for the iconic New England whale.

Marine biologists estimate that only 350 to 400 right whales remain in the North Atlantic.

"North Atlantic right whales migrate through a highly industrialized part of the coastline, and we need creative solutions to help them survive,” said Kemp, an engineer in WHOI’s Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering. “The challenge was to develop a mooring that could stand up to the stresses of harsh New England waters while keeping an acoustically quiet environment for the hydrophones."

Mandated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the whale-detection system was installed along a 55 nautical mile segment of the Boston Traffic Separation Scheme (primary shipping lanes) leading to Boston Harbor.

The Northeast Gateway is located approximately 13 nautical miles south southeast of Gloucester, Mass., and 1.8 nautical miles from the western border of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (which is managed by NOAA).

Since the route to the LNG terminal takes vessels through prime whale habitat, researchers and regulators from the sanctuary and NOAA Fisheries worked with the Port’s licensing agencies (the US Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration) and Excelerate Energy to develop a plan to keep whales and LNG ships out of each other’s way in Massachusetts Bay.

Excelerate Energy then entered into a partnership with the Cornell Lab and WHOI to develop the remote auto-detection system. To further reduce the operational risk of ship strikes, Excelerate Energy has trained its crew members to watch for marine mammals and sea turtles as their vessels travel to and from the port.

Each auto-detection buoy is instrumented with an underwater microphone—or hydrophone—to carry underwater sounds to the surface via specially designed cable that WHOI technicians playfully call it the “Gumby hose.” The stretchy, hose-like cable has data-conducting wires woven into its walls.

More importantly, the Gumby hose can stretch to at least twice its normal length, a special mooring design created at WHOI to overcome harsh sea states and keep the buoy above water. In typical winter storm conditions in the North Atlantic, wave heights in coastal waters can swell to 10 meters (33 feet), putting dangerous strain on traditional mooring lines and creating excessive noise that would make whale detection nearly impossible.

Data from the hydrophones are relayed through the Gumby hose to customized computers on the surface buoy, which continuously analyze underwater sounds to detect possible right whale calls. Every 20 minutes, these acoustic detections are sent by cellular or satellite phone to a server at Clark’s lab, where they are validated by whale call experts.

In the process, researchers can determine whether right whales have been detected within range of each buoy and then alert Excelerate Energy and, perhaps eventually, other ships using maritime telecommunications networks.

“Thanks to these efforts, for the first time, ship captains can receive continuous information on where the whales are so they can slow down and avoid tragic collisions,” said Clark, lead scientist on the project. “Scientific studies indicate that the death of just one or two breeding females a year will lead to the population’s extinction. Slowing down for whales will make a big difference.”

The WHOI Mooring Operations, Engineering, and Field Support Group has been designing, building, and deploying scientific instruments in the sea for decades, making dozens of installations around the world each year for researchers from WHOI and many other institutions and companies.

Kemp and Clark have been working together on the whale-detection system since 2003, testing several different hydrophones and mooring designs. The team recently deployed three whale detection buoys in Cape Cod Bay for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and two off the coasts of Georgia and Florida. more

05/05/08
Whales back in Moby-Dick's pond - la times

In Chile's coastal waters, the discovery of two whale populations has raised hopes their numbers are growing.

STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, CHILE

From the earliest days of exploration, mariners in Chile's cool southern waters marveled at the abundance of whales. A Jesuit naturalist wrote of the sea "boiling" with the spouts of the leviathans.

Among 19th-century Nantucket boatmen, the island of Mocha was notorious as the stamping grounds of "Mocha Dick," an ill-tempered sperm whale riddled with harpoons. Why Herman Melville opted to substitute "Moby" for "Mocha" remains unclear, but literary detectives believe the vengeful whale helped inspire his dark classic.

Now, almost two centuries after the commercial carnage of Melville's era and 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium went into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fjords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline.

In recent years, researchers combing remote crannies of this elongated coast have confirmed the presence of two seasonally resident populations of whales, including 100 to 150 humpbacks in the glacier-rimmed Strait of Magellan.

Farther to the north, closer to the seas once frequented by Mocha Dick, they've tracked several hundred blue whales, believed to be Earth's largest-ever animal, at 100 feet long and more than 100 tons -- bigger than any dinosaur.

"The likelihood is that they were not completely hunted out, and these are remnant populations," says Bruce Mate, who heads the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University and who worked to tag Chilean blue whales and track them via satellite. "It just wasn't commercially viable to hunt till the very last whale."
The bleached bones of butchered whales, sea lions, elephant seals and other ocean mammals still litter some Patagonian beaches like driftwood. Forest and surf have reclaimed whaling stations such as the long-abandoned plant at Eagles' Bay (Bahia de los Aguilas), not far from Cape Forward, the southernmost point on the South American mainland.

Although encouraged, conservationists say it's too early to celebrate the comeback of a creature pursued to the verge of extinction. Oil from sperm and right whales hunted off Chile's coast was once a prized staple, a globalized commodity with parallels to today's petroleum.

"It could be we're just seeing more whales now because of increased interest and tourism," says Barbara Galletti, who heads Chile's Cetacean Conservation Center.

With the International Whaling Commission scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Santiago in June, activists are pushing for a law that would declare a permanent whale sanctuary throughout Chile's territorial waters, where Yankee whalers once confronted Mocha Dick.

"This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength," J.N. Reynolds Esq. wrote in 1839 in the Knickerbocker, a New York magazine. "From the effect of age, or more probably from a freak of nature, as exhibited in the case of the Ethiopian Albino, a singular consequence had resulted -- 'he was white as wool!'"

Today, scientists here are trying to unlock the secrets of the whales' migratory odysseys and assess the latest potential threats -- not harpoon-wielding Homo sapiens, but global warming and pollution. Of special concern are the salmon farms that have proliferated along Chile's dismembered coast, befouling sheltered stretches favored by whales and other sea life.

Little is known about the ecological fallout from the ongoing boom in the production of salmon, an introduced species mostly exported to the United States, Europe and Asia. Researchers worry about contamination, disease and parasites spreading from the tightly packed fish pens, as well as competition for food stocks. Whales could also become entangled in salmon nets or be injured in collisions with boats.
Researchers have been using darts to collect whale fat samples to study them for potential contaminants and other information.

"Our hope is that this can tell us more about the animals' health, their gender makeup, their genetic diversity," says Juan Pablo Torres, a marine biologist at Chile's Blue Whale Center who is collaborating on genetic testing with the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Conservationists are pressing the Chilean government to grant some measure of protection to the blue whale habitat off Chiloe Island, a vast swath of ocean that serves many interests: salmon farmers, fishermen, shipping companies. No consensus has emerged.

"I believe in protecting the whales, but the fact is we can't live on whales," says Luis Miranda, mayor of tiny Melinka, a salmon-farming center facing the Gulf of Corcovado, a vital blue whale haunt.

During the Southern Hemisphere summer and fall, binocular-equipped spotters in Melinka seek out blue whales' signature spouts, which sometimes send spray jetting 30 feet into the air. The hilltop lookouts radio word to waiting Blue Whale Center researchers, who soon board boats to rendezvous with the goliaths.

Offshore, the surprisingly sleek blue whales -- their skin seems closer to a leaden gray-black -- undulate through the water like enormous snakes, their booming respiration like rhythmic bellows in the salt air. The whales survive on krill, a tiny crustacean that, in a paradox of nature, sustains the world's largest creature. Some studies have suggested that global warming could be reducing krill populations, threatening whales.

More than 1,000 miles to the south, near the tip of the continent, biologist Juan Capella carries on his mostly solitary research in a far-flung corner of the Strait of Magellan, known for its gale-force winds and mountainous swells.
The treacherous channels between the Atlantic and Pacific have long attracted adventurers, from the passage's Portuguese namesake (Ferdinand Magellan) to Sir Francis Drake to Charles Darwin, who, near Tierra del Fuego, described a pair of sperm whales "jumping upright quite out of the water," then falling back with a noisy splash "like a distant broadside."

In summer months, the waters of tiny Carlos III Island hold a profusion of marine life: sea lions frolicking in the water and lounging on the rocks, curious dolphins and a riotous mass of seabirds: cormorants, skuas, giant petrels, albatross and penguins, which stand guard over nests excavated in the roots of gnarly, wind-bent trees. Condors coast on the thermals.

And the star attraction: humpback whales. Unlike the krill-devouring blue whales, the humpbacks here feed on plentiful sardines. They sometimes work in groups, herding the fish against forests of kelp, drawing sea lions and birds eager for a treat.

"A juvenile," Capella says of a humpback that has suddenly and startlingly leaped out of the water, like a submarine-launched missile. "He's here with his mother. It's good to see her back."

For more than a decade, Capella has studied the resident whale population, identifying most by tail marks. He has tracked their migration more than 4,000 miles north, to breeding grounds off the Colombian coast.

"The whale has generated legends since antiquity, like the story of Jonah," Capella says. "It was the base of an industry that generated wealth for hundreds of years. But we know very little about the whale. Here we have a natural laboratory."

more

05/03/08
New Whale Detection Buoys To Help Ships Take The Right Way Through New England Waters - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

04/29/08
'Baffling' rise in beached whales in Ireland - Independet.Ie

WHALE and dolphin watchers are puzzled and alarmed at an unprecedented spike in the number of deep-water species being stranded and found dead on Irish beaches in the last 14 weeks.

There has been a similar worrying increase in the number of strandings on UK coasts -- especially in Scotland -- according to Mick O'Connell of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG).

The species involved include pilot whales (Globicephala melas) Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris), and Sowerby's beaked whales (Mesoplodon bidens).

The IWDG has received an unusually high number of reports of strandings since the beginning of the year mostly on western and northern coasts.

Between January 1 and April 17, the organisation received reports of 12 separate pilot whale strandings around the Irish coastline including Cork, Kerry, Sligo, Mayo and Donegal.

It's a shockingly high figure compared with an average over the last four years of 2.6 separate pilot whale strandings for the same three-and-a- half month period of each year.

"We have also received reports of five strandings of either Cuvier's beaked whales (2) or unidentified beaked whales (3) in Co Cork, Streedagh near Sligo town, Fanad in Donegal and at Sherkin Island, Co Cork.

The average number of stranding incidents involving these beaked whale species in the years 2003 to 2007 was just 0.6 during the same period annually.

"It's certainly worrying and we are monitoring the situation," Mr O'Connell told the Sunday Independent.

Beaked whales are mysterious creatures of the deep ocean and feed, it is believed, on or near the sea floor.

They have the ability to dive for extraordinarily long periods and to great depths of more than a mile, making them the deepest diving air-breathing animals known.

Beaked whales are found in all oceans, but most species rarely venture into the relatively shallow water of the continental shelves. They feed primarily on deep water squid, but also on fish and sometimes on crustaceans.

Because they prefer the deep waters, they are very difficult to observe and little is known of most species.

"In effect, what we are seeing so far this year is that beaked whale strandings are running at about 8.3 times average, and pilot whale strandings are running at about 4.6 times the average," Mick O'Connell has reported on the IWDG website.

"Since February, the west coast of Scotland has also seen a significant increase in strandings of these species with a minimum of 11 Cuvier's beaked whales, three Sowerby's beaked whales and 10 pilot whales recorded so far.

"In the majority of cases, the animals died at sea and washed ashore in an advanced state of decomposition, which raises the question of how many others stranded in inaccessible locations or did not wash ashore at all," he said.

In previous incidents involving mass strandings of beaked whales, concerns have been raised over the effects of naval sonar during military exercises. "At present, we have no evidence of the cause of death of these cetaceans. It's curious that pilot whales are also involved," he said.

The IWDG have been in contact with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US as well as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (UK) and the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, to determine if military or seismic operations were being carried out during the first few months of this year.

One theory is that beaked whales are vulnerable to new ultra-loud anti-submarine sonar, which may force them to surface too quickly and then die from the bends. However, the large number of Pilot whales stranded may suggest there is another reason for the increase in dead cetaceans washed up on our shores.

more

04/27/08
Royal Navy denies sonar stranded whales -

The Royal Navy has denied sonar noise from warships caused whales to strand themselves on beaches.

The service was responding to concerns from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) ahead of the start of a major military exercise.

Society officials said 43 marine mammals have died since February.

Joint Warrior, to be staged off the west coast of Scotland, will involve 36 warships and about 70 aircraft from the UK and 16 Nato countries.

Royal Navy assault ship, HMS Bulwark, Type 23 frigates, mine-hunters, two submarines and Royal Marines will take part.

So far, we have received a less than satisfactory response from the MoD, which indicates that sonar-related whale deaths are not being taken seriously
Sarah Dolman, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

Live firings at ranges and simulated bombing runs against island airports will be among the activities.

WDCS said there have been strandings of Cuvier's, pilot and Sowerby's beaked whales.

It and the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in February to find out whether the first strandings of Cuvier's off the islands of Islay, Tiree and Harris coincided with the use of military sonar.

Sarah Dolman, of WDCS, said: "So far, we have received a less than satisfactory response from the MoD, which indicates that sonar-related whale deaths are not being taken seriously and does not ease our suspicions that these events were indeed associated with naval activities."

The Royal Navy told BBC Scotland that no whale strandings have been attributed to its use of sonar.

No vessels were in that area using sonar at time of the February strandings, a spokesman added.

Highly sensitive

The navy said it could not dispute sonar noise has an impact, but the service regarded itself as a world leader in using it responsibly.

Low frequency active sonar - the loudest used by the Royal Navy - will not be used outside of war-time when marine mammals were close by, the spokesman said.

He said specialists on board submarines can detect whales and dolphins using highly sensitive hydrophones.

Held twice a year, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force-run exercise will involve the US, France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and Norway. more

04/23/08
Navy denies sonar stranded whales - BBC

04/21/08
Australia renews call to end whaling - AFP

Sydney - Australia said it remained determined to end Japanese whaling in the southern Ocean on Tuesday as the whaling fleet returned to port in Tokyo after harpooning barely half its planned haul.

Canberra said it was disappointed the Japanese fleet killed 551 minke whales during the 2007-2008 season and remained committed to ending the hunt, which in 2008 had aimed to kill 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

"It remains Australia's firm view that there is no scientific justification for Japan's whale hunt in the Southern Ocean," Foreign Affairs Minster Stephen Smith and Environment Minister Peter Garrett said in a joint statement.

"The government's objective continues to be the cessation of whaling by Japan in the Southern Ocean."

Japan kills whales using a loophole in a 1986 whaling moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals despite protests led by Australia. Only Norway and Iceland defy the moratorium outright.

The low number of whales killed was because the fleet was harassed by militant environmentalists in Antarctic waters, resulting in a number of high-seas clashes.

Protesters on the Sea Shepherd ship threw what they described as stink bombs filled with rancid butter onto the decks of whalers. Japan says the bombs contained acid that stings the eyes.

In January, the group also sent two protesters to board a whaling factory ship, sparking a two-day standoff.

The Japanese responded during one clash in March by throwing flash grenades at the activists.

Australia sent a customs vessel to monitor the Japanese fleet for several weeks during the whaling season but Canberra said the vessel acted in "a safe and non-confrontational manner".

"Over the course of the whaling season, the Australian government called repeatedly for all vessels in the Southern Ocean to exercise restraint and condemned all violent or illegal activities that could endanger safety or lives at sea," Smith and Garrett said.

"Despite these calls, several incidents occurred which clearly could have led to injuries or fatalities."

Japan said on Tuesday it would launch an investigation into the environmentalists' activities.

Canberra said Australian police were also examining several incidents involving the Sea Shepherd, adding that it "welcomes the continuing close cooperation between Japanese and Australian law enforcement authorities on these matters." more

04/20/08
Japanese crew, whaling ship return to port - Shingo Ito, AFP

TOKYO -- Japan's whaling fleet returned to port on Tuesday as authorities prepared to launch an investigation into forceful harassment by activists in the Antarctic.

Escorted by patrol boats, the 8,044-ton Nisshin Maru mother ship with 143 crew on board docked at a heavily guarded Tokyo port early in the morning after a five-month voyage.

The fleet of six vessels killed a total of 551 whales, nearly half of the initially planned haul.

Japan plans to probe the attacks by militant activists in the Antarctic with a view to legal action.

Protestors on the Sea Shepherd ship threw what they described as stink bombs filled with rancid butter onto the decks of whalers. Japan says the bombs contained acid that stings the eyes.

In January, the group also sent two protesters to board a whaling factory ship, sparking a two-day standoff.

"The disturbances were an unforgivable act," said Shigeki Takaya, assistant director of Fisheries Agency's whaling bureau.

"We will take preventive measures, resorting to legal procedures and gaining international cooperation," he told AFP.

At the port, coastguard officials boarded the black and beige mother ship whose hull was scratched and slightly dented, although it was unclear whether the damage was related to the high-seas clashes.

Dock workers unloaded leftover ammunition for harpooning ahead of frozen whale meat already processed in the ship to be sold at fish markets.

No major protests were staged at the harbour with only several environmentalists showing up to monitor the arrival, which was guarded by police and coastguard officers.

An inspection of the fleet and questioning of the crew over the incident is likely to begin as early as Wednesday, an official said.

Japan had aimed to kill 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales on its annual hunt, but the total catch for the year came to 551 minke whales with no fin whales due to a series of offshore protests.

"But we can call the mission a success as we were able to pursue our research," Takaya said. "We want to firmly continue whaling which is based on an international treaty and scientific grounds."

Japan kills whales using a loophole in a 1986 whaling moratorium that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals despite protests led by Australia. Only Norway and Iceland defy the moratorium outright.

Greenpeace, whose vessel also followed the whaling fleet for two weeks, urged Japan to end the annual hunt.

"Japan will lose international trust if it continues to lie that (whaling) is for research and selling whale meat at home," it said in a statement.

Whale meat holds sentimental value for some Japanese baby-boomers who ate it after the devastation of World War II. more

04/17/08 Whale feeding frenzy in the bay - cape Cod Times
	please visit the Cape Cod Times website for lots of pictures of the large numbers of visiting right whales in Cape Cod Bay. Use this URL http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080417/NEWS/804170311/-1/NEWS01 more

04/15/08
Right whales arrive in droves - cape cod times

After finding what it called "unprecedented" numbers of right whales, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries expanded its high-risk area to include all of Cape Cod Bay yesterday.

Right whales, especially when feeding on the surface, tend to be slow moving and oblivious to ship traffic. Mariners within the designated high-risk area are prohibited by state and federal law from approaching within 500 yards of a right whale. Fishermen are also prohibited from setting or hauling gear (nets, lobster pots, long lines) within 500 yards of a right whale. The state agency expected these conditions could last for the rest of the week.

Aerial and vessel surveys found that between 50 and 100 right whales may currently be in the bay, spread from the Cape Cod Canal to Race Point near Provincetown, said Erin Burke, a marine endangered species specialist working with the marine fisheries division. Around 70 were counted over the weekend.

A typical year might see 35 to 50, Burke said.

Right whales migrate north in the late winter and early spring to feed on big blooms of zooplankton. There's been an unusually heavy bloom in the bay, Burke said, and whales have been diving and skimming along the surface, filtering water past their baleen plates screening out the tiny animals to eat.

For more information go to www.mass.gov/marinefisheries. more

04/12/08
Appeal suggested by lawyer of one of two whalers convicted in federal 'bench trial' - Peninsula Daily News

Their defenses quashed by a magistrate and having no argument over facts of the case, the remaining two Makah whaling defendants Tuesday accepted a guilty verdict in U.S. District Court.

The action taken by Wayne Johnson and Andy Noel amounted to a "no contest" plea when they waived a jury trial and agreed with the prosecution's account of how they conspired to hunt and eventually kill a gray whale Sept. 8 in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Three other defendants pleaded guilty March 27 to the charge of killing the whale.

As part of that plea bargain, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Oesterle dropped the conspiracy count and agreed not to recommend that they serve prison terms.

The charges are misdemeanor violations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, each of which carries a fine up to $100,000 and a year in prison.

Not the same sentences
After Tuesday's "bench trial" before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold, Oesterle said he thought it would not be fair for Johnson and Noel to receive the same sentences as the other defendants, Frankie Gonzales, Theron Parker and William Secor Sr.

The three also agreed to perform 100 hours of community service in the first of their five years on probation.

Sentencing for all five is set for June 20. Until then, they are free on their own recognizance.

"My mom's going to kill me," Johnson joked as the hearing ended.

The action leaves unresolved the men's trial in Makah Tribal Court, where the five face charges with combined panalties of $5,000 and a year in jail.

The charges had been dropped against Gonzales, Parker and Secor as part of their original guilty plea.

When the deal was changed to remove in-home monitoring and a ban on whaling during their five-year probation, the tribal case was reinstated, said Makah Tribal Prosecutor Ruth Hahn, who attended Tuesday's trial.

No date has been set for the Tribal Court proceeding.

Right to appeal
Although they may receive stiffer sentences, Johnson and Noel preserved the right to appeal that Gonzales, Parker and Secor forfeited in their plea bargain.

Jack Fiander of Yakima, Noel's attorney, had hinted last week that his client and Johnson might seek a bench trial.

He called Tuesday's trial "a polite way of saying, 'Just declare us guilty so we can go on with filing an appeal.'"

The appeal almost certainly would be of Arnold's rulings that the Makah's treaty right to whale, the tribe's ancient whaling culture and whaling as a religious practice could not be argued to a jury that would have been impaneled today.

"There was nothing else we could do," Johnson said.

"We couldn't bring up the treaty [that gave the Makah, alone among tribes in the Lower 48 states, the right to kill whales].

"We couldn't bring up the culture, and we couldn't bring up religion.

"That's what Indians are about."

Fiander added:

"I could see this going on for many more months.

"There was no reason to go through a several-day jury trial when the jury wasn't going to be able to hear their defense."

Pre-empted testimony
The bench trial also pre-empted what anti-whaling activists had hoped would show the Sept. 8 events as a brutal attack on the whale and a painful, lingering death.

The five men harpooned the whale at least four times and tied the harpoons to buoys that prevented it from diving.

They also shot it at least 16 times without killing it.

The whale died and sank more than nine hours after the attack and never resurfaced.

After whaling for centuries and reserving the right to whale in the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, the Makah ceased hunting in the 1920s after commercial whaling left nearly no gray whales left to hunt in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

They did not hunt when Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 or listed gray whales in the Eastern Pacific Ocean under the Endangered Species Act of 1972,

After gray whales flourished in protection and were removed from the endangered list, the Makah resumed hunting in 1998 amid heavy anti-whaling protests.

They successfully killed a 30-ton female gray whale in 1999.

Anti-whalers blocked hunts with lawsuits, and triumphed in 2004 when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the tribe must seek a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which enforces the law, began processing an environmental impact statement with hearings in the fall 2005 in Neah Bay, Port Angeles, Seattle and Silver Spring, Md.

An impact statement was expected by late 2006, but the fisheries service only recently said it may be ready in draft form next month.

Many Makah — especially members of families who led whaling journeys before 1920 — have grown impatient with the process.

Johnson has called the Sept. 8 hunt an act of frustration with the slow pace of a process that tribal leaders say is specious on its face, given the treaty's guarantee that whaling could continue.

Had the case gone to trial, it might have lasted four to five days. At least 44 potential jurors had been summoned to hear it.

The case has attracted international attention, especially among Native Americans and other nations that either engage in whaling or hope to see it discontinued.

In Washington, anti-whalers have promised to seek state animal cruelty charges if they feel the Makah whalers have been punished too leniently.
more

04/05/08
Japan Courts Poorer Nations in Bid to End Whaling Ban - National Geographic News

For years the fate of the world's whales has swung with the vote count at meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Anti-whaling countries, led by Australia and New Zealand, say the marine mammals still number too few to make commercial harvesting sustainable and have so far blocked a resolution led by Japan to end the commission's 1986 whaling moratorium.

But at an IWC meeting in Saint Kitts in 2006, Japan won a simple majority for the first time in 20 years after the last-minute arrival of delegates from Togo and Gambia.

And early this March Japanese officials invited representatives from 12 developing countries to Tokyo for a special meeting to obtain "understanding of Japan's position on sustainable whaling."

Some of those nations, such as Cambodia and Palau, are already IWC members. Others, including Eritrea, Congo, Tanzania, Angola, and Micronesia, are not—yet.

Anti-whaling advocates charge that the move is just the latest example in Japan's decade-long campaign to buy the votes it needs to reach the necessary three-quarters majority to overturn the ban.

"It seems to me that there is an implied threat to maintain the same old pattern of recruiting new members to try and overturn the moratorium," said Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's whaling commissioner.

"But I have to say that recruitment efforts go on on both sides."

Global Resource

In the past decade Japan has recruited 21 allies at the IWC.

Most are poorer Pacific and West African countries that seem unusually willing to pay the substantial membership fees of between U.S. $8,500 and $17,000 a year, anti-whalers note.

A number of Caribbean states were originally drafted by anti-whaling nations but crossed the floor to vote with Japan, allegedly after discussions about development assistance.
Many of these allies have been recipients of Japanese aid money, including the landlocked nations of Mongolia and Mali.

"Anyone can join the IWC," said Chris Howe, executive director for the New Zealand office of the international conservation group WWF.

"They don't have to prove a history of whaling. All they have to do is pay their membership, and they have voting rights."

Howe added that he has no problem with non-whalers or landlocked nations joining the IWC.

"Whales are a global resource, they're of interest to everybody, so everybody should have a say. We think there should be more members, but of a revised IWC that has proper representation."

New Zealand's Palmer agrees.

"You cannot say that coastline is the test [of IWC membership]," Palmer said. "There are some like-minded nations that don't have any coastline as well."

No Strings Attached?

Japan has never openly admitted that its aid payments come with any conditions attached.

But a report from a 1987 symposium of Pacific island countries recorded a representative of the Fisheries Agency of Japan telling participants that money to support fisheries comes with certain stipulations.

"When the Japanese government selects the countries to which it provides fisheries grants, criteria include that the recipient country must have a fisheries agreement with Japan, and it must take a supportive position to Japan in various international organizations," the report states.

And at a joint press conference with Australia earlier this month, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Derek Sikua explained why the Solomons had not sent a representative to the most recent IWC meeting in London.

(Related news: "Japan May Be Ready to Deal on Whaling, Insider Hints" [March 26, 2008].)

"We are not attending because usually Japan pays for our attendance, but we refused their assistance and therefore we have not gone because we can't afford it," he said.

Japan denies offering such support for countries that join its pro-whaling stance.

"The government of Japan does not fund fees, travel, or accommodation expenses through the ICR [Institute of Cetacean Research] or any other agencies," said the First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy to New Zealand, Ryosuke Hirooka.

"I am not aware of any payments … to IWC members."

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research is a body that conducts whaling under an exemption for scientific research. ICR's spokesperson, Glen Inwood, did not respond to an interview request for this story.

Ministers and officials from nations that have accepted Japanese aid are similarly tight-lipped about any link between the funding and IWC membership.

For example, representatives from Tuvalu, Nauru, and Palau declined to comment for this story on the phone and did not reply to e-mails.

Kiribati, a nation composed of 30 small Pacific islands, relies mostly on tourism and exports of dried coconut and fish to support a shaky economy hampered by skill shortages, weak infrastructure, and remoteness.

Financial aid from the U.K., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and China currently accounts for 10 percent of Kiribati's gross domestic product of about 73 million U.S. dollars.

Japanese aid money has helped refurbish Kiribati's power networks and bridges, buy ambulances, and improve fisheries infrastructure.

Officials there deny that the Japanese funding came with any conditions.

"All Japanese grant aid and other technical assistance has no link with our IWC membership," said Ribanataake Awira of Kiribati's Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

"We will continue to support the idea that if whales are part of any country's traditional diet, we do not have the right to tell those countries to get it out of their menu," Awira added.

"Our only concern is that these whales are harvested sustainably like any other marine mammals."

Uncertain Results

Atherton Martin, the former environment minister for the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, resigned his post in 2000 over his country's position at the IWC.

Martin said in 2005 that he had convinced his cabinet not to vote with Japan at the time, but the prime minister overturned the decision because Japan had threatened to withdraw aid money.

"I don't think the international legal community has yet come up with a term to describe this blatant purchasing of small-country governments by Japan," Martin told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners program.

"That has to go down in legal history as being … the high-end of public-sector extortion."

For now, though, none of the experts can predict whether Japan's alleged charm offensive will have the desired results.

"No one is sure how the numbers will fall going into the next IWC meeting at Santiago, Chile, in June," New Zealand's Palmer said.

"It's like a game of Russian roulette—you can never tell until the first vote." more

04/01/08
Plea deal with 5 Makahs whalers fails - Seattle Times

A plea agreement with five members of the Makah Tribe who killed a gray whale during a rogue hunt last September fell apart Monday after federal prosecutors said in court that they might seek to curtail the defendants' ability to hunt whales.

The whalers -- who consider their hunt an assertion of tribal treaty rights -- were taken into custody by the Coast Guard after they harpooned the whale and shot it several times with large-caliber rifles. They did so lacking the permit the federal government requires before it will allow Makahs to whale.

Wayne Johnson, Andy Noel, Theron Parker, William Secor Sr. and Frankie Gonzales are each charged with violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $100,000 fine. If they are also found guilty of violating tribal laws, they could face time in a reservation jail.

Under the terms of a plea agreement settling the case, the defendants would have gotten no jail time, but expected that they might get a term of supervised probation and community service.

During a Monday hearing in which the men were expected to plead guilty, U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Kelley Arnold asked for clarification about the plea agreement's terms. U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan of Seattle stepped forward to say the government might seek to curtail the men's whaling rights during their probation.

The judge turned to the defendants and asked if this was news to them. Three of them said it was, including Andy Noel, who declared: "I don't agree with it."

Arnold announced that the case would reconvene on Thursday, when prosecutors and the defendants will either have resurrected the plea deal or have decided to go to trial in April.

Attorney Jack Fiander, who represents Noel, called the hunting prohibition "a deal breaker. The tribe reserved the whaling right in the treaty" with the U.S. in 1855. "Only the tribe can suspend it, not the government."

Prohibiting the men from whaling is a hot button issue that goes to the core of the issues underlying the criminal case. And if the U.S. Attorney's Office does not relent on the issue, the case will likely go to trial, Fiander said.

In fact, Fiander, a member of the Yakama Nation, said the defendants so distrust the government that the plea deal may be dead even if prosecutors give up trying to curtail their ability to hunt.

"They had very little faith in the government to begin with," Fiander said.

Sullivan said after the hearing that the prosecution would consider giving up the option of imposing a whaling ban on the men as part of their probation. And in any case, Sullivan said, his lawyers first plan to research the matter before deciding to ask the court to impose it.

Asked why he agreed to a plea bargain that excludes jail, Sullivan characterized it as a hunting crime. "This is a misdemeanor offense for hunting a whale out of season, without a permit. Nobody is given jail time for a first (hunting) offense."

The Makah hunt has been in legal limbo since a whale was taken legally in 1999 because of court challenges by animal-rights groups that resulted in a ruling that the U.S. government must first conduct a full environmental study before permitting the hunt.

When the men set out to kill the whale in September, it underscored the Makahs' frustration at the slow pace of the U.S. government in granting the tribe a permit.

The case has profound political implications not only for the Makahs' ancient whaling way of life, but also for the sanctity of all tribal treaties in the United States.

The prosecution "has the potential to put the treaty in a much more vulnerable position," Makah Tribal Chairman Micah McCarty told the Seattle P-I recently. McCarty and the tribal council having been pushing for an eleventh-hour plea bargain to reduce legal jeopardy to the treaty.

When the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in 2004 to put the hunt on hold, it was a huge blow to the Makahs' treaty. The ruling meant the executive branch must regulate the Makahs' right to hunt whales under the treaty without explicit approval by Congress.

The ruling could be applied to other treaty tribes in the West covered by the 9th Circuit. The Makahs decided in 2004 that they could not risk appealing to the Supreme Court, fearing that the ruling could become a national mandate.

But if the five whalers lose in U.S. District Court in Tacoma, they could bypass the tribal decision and appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

It wasn't easy to get the men, who view themselves as treaty warriors, to go along with a plea bargain, Fiander said. They did it as a courtesy to the Makah Tribal Council.

In return, the council agreed to drop tribal charges against the men when the federal plea bargain is consummated.

"I don't think the level of trust is there to even get (the hunters) back to the table," Fiander said.

Said Makah whaling captain Wayne Johnson after the hearing: "I have no choice but to go all the way now. You can't trust Uncle Sam."
more

03/29/08
Can dolphins help beached cousins? - cape cod times

A fascinating story out of New Zealand has captured the attention — and sparked the imagination — of marine mammal experts here on Cape Cod and beyond.

On March 13, a bottle-nosed dolphin was credited with "rescuing" a pygmy sperm whale and her calf, which had stranded on a sand bar off North Island.

"As far as I know it's the only documented instance of this happening," Malcolm Smith, a local Department of Conservation officer, told Reuters.

According to Smith, he and other rescuers were unsuccessfully attempting to drag the whales into deeper water when they noticed a dolphin nearby.

"Quite clearly the attitude of the whales changed when the dolphin arrived on the scene," Smith said. "They responded virtually straight away. The dolphin managed in a couple of minutes what we had failed to do in an hour and a half."

With the dolphin apparently leading the way, the whales navigated safely to deeper water.

Was the dolphin communicating with the whales or was it just a coincidence? Are there lessons here for scientists and the Cape Cod Stranding Network, a nonprofit that tries to save beached marine mammals?

Listening or hearing?
"I would not call this a case of 'communication' but of hearing," said Peter Borrelli, retired director of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. "We really don't know if there is interspecies communication."

However, experiments that have triggered behavioral responses from whales and dolphins have helped bracket their hearing in similar ranges.

"So it is possible that the whales in New Zealand heard and responded to the dolphin," Borrelli said.

Darlene Ketten, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a specialist in marine mammal hearing, said she does not know if the dolphin saved the whales, but she confirmed that the hearing ranges of bottle-nosed dolphins and pygmy sperm whales are similar.

"It is extremely likely that the hearing range of the dolphin and the whales overlap," she said. "The dolphin is capable of making sounds that are likely to be in the same range that the whales can hear, but it could also be making sounds that the whale could not hear."

Writing in the April 2005 edition of Oceanus, a magazine published by WHOI, Ketten said whales and dolphins have sophisticated hearing systems, not unlike bats.

"...Whales and dolphins rely primarily on hearing and sound rather than sight to sense their environment and communicate," she wrote. "The Odontoceti — toothed dolphins and whales that hunt fish, squid, and other prey — evolved parallel abilities with bats, actively using clicks and pulsed sounds for underwater echolocation."

Too many unknowns
But Ketten said it has not been proved that the dolphin in New Zealand was communicating with the whales by sound, or that the dolphin was using sounds in a range that the whales could hear.

"It's not at all known whether it was acoustical," she said. "It could have been visual."

And it could have been just a coincidence.

Even if there were acoustical communication between the species, that doesn't mean that dolphins can always help other marine mammals in distress.

"I have seen dolphins in Wellfleet Harbor both help and hinder one another during strandings," Borrelli said. "Because they are so social, if a dolphin in deep water hears a struggling buddy in the shallow grass, he will turn back into shallow water to assist him." That means the responding dolphin could then endanger himself.

"I was on a Coast Guard skiff on one occasion when we herded a small group of dolphins into deep water despite their efforts to turn back for their pals who had already stranded," Borrelli said. "I have also seen disoriented dolphins respond to a distant call and follow it into deep water."

No one knows why marine mammals strand, but there are several theories. Because the species that typically mass strand on Cape Cod — the long-finned pilot whale, common dolphin and Atlantic white-sided dolphin — form tight social groups, the entire group may beach itself when just one becomes sick or disoriented.

Topography may play a role as well. When animals come near shore, possibly to feed, they become trapped by the complex inlets and hooklike shape of Cape Cod. In addition, strandings often coincide with full and new moon tidal cycles. The extreme high and low tides during full moons allow animals to swim farther inshore than normal, leaving them high and dry when the tide turns.

A diverse toolbox
Katie Touhey, emergency relief manager of the Cape Cod Stranding Network, said the organization has been using a variety of techniques, including sound, to prevent strandings for many years.

"We utilize pingers (acoustic deterrents) and the herding motion of boats to drive groups of dolphins out of stranding hot spots, such as Wellfleet, and into the safety of deeper water," she said. "We have had good results, preventing over 200 dolphins from stranding to date. Obviously, sound can play a huge role in mass strandings, both positive and negative."

Touhey said she has never seen an animal approach a group that was about to strand and lead them out, nor has she seen an animal already in deeper water draw the others out to safety.

"It sounds like speculation to me," she said.

Train dolphins to help?
Scientists are the first to admit they still have a lot to learn about how marine mammals communicate, but we do know that dolphins can be trained to respond to human commands. So could one or two dolphins be trained to help the network move stranded dolphins or whales off beaches? If the dolphin "rescuers" stray too close to shore and endanger themselves, they could be called back into deep water by their human trainers.

"It is appealing to think we could train dolphins to save the whales and dolphins that mass strand in our region," Touhey said. "In theory, it may be achievable; in practice, much more daunting."

Touhey said training dolphins to save others would require their captivity, something the stranding network, a project of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, opposes. "There are also many legal ramifications, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act, that would make this endeavor challenging to say the least."

Gregory Krutzikowsky, director of the whale disentanglement program at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said the logistical issues associated with keeping dolphins in captivity for this purpose are substantial.

"First, just having a facility to keep live dolphins and provide food, veterinary care, training, and a suitable environment is a major and expensive undertaking," he said. "Then there is the issue of transporting the animals to the site of the stranding and placing them in adjacent waters in a timely, safe manner and then recovering them."

Besides, it is far from clear how any individual animal involved in a stranding would respond to calls from a trained dolphin. For example, some species of dolphins make signature whistles that identify them as individuals within a group. As a result, the "whistle" of a trained dolphin may not affect the movement of a stranded dolphin.

Try recorded sounds
Nevertheless, Krutzikowsky, Ketten and Touhey said that using recorded sounds from the species that is stranded might be a first step in experimenting with the concept of using marine mammals to help stranded animals.

"Using certain sounds to drive the animals out, such as pingers/boat engines, and others to lead them, such as sounds of the same species of dolphin being played back under water, are both realistic approaches to mass stranding prevention," Touhey said.

Although using the recorded sounds of dolphins has not been used yet by the network, Touhey said it is on their agenda. "We're looking for partners and funding to obtain the right equipment and recordings to do the job," she said.

As a result, the stranding network should partner with the New England Aquarium in Boston, the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay, a nonprofit hospital for stranded marine animals, and the Marine Research Facility at WHOI to fully explore the feasibility of using the sounds of marine mammals to help prevent the stranding of other animals.

After all, an average of 226 animals have stranded on beaches from Plymouth, across the Cape and Islands, to the Rhode Island border since 1999, when the stranding network was formed.

Touhey said the network welcomes every possible solution to strandings. "You never know where the solution may lie."

more

03/29/08
Plea deal with 5 Makah whalers falls apart - Seattle Times

A plea agreement expected from five Makah whalers this afternoon fell apart when the whalers realized that the U.S. government planned to restrict their future whale hunts.

Federal authorities expected the five tribal members who killed a gray whale during an unlicensed hunt last September to sign off on the plea — which would have kept the whalers from serving jail time.

Because they declined to take the plea deal, the whalers still face up to one year in custody, a $100,000 fine, up to five years of probation and possible community service. The five men will return to court Thursday with either a new plea agreement worked out or to make plans for the case to go to trial.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said today that his office will continue working with the whalers in the hopes of reaching a resolution.

But Jack Fiander, attorney for the whalers, said a future plea would be difficult to reach.

"It's going to be difficult to get them back to the table," Fiander said. "It's going to be difficult for them to trust the government again, given what they've been through."

Fiander said the men have been waiting since 1999 for the federal government to sign off on a whaling permit. He said frustration at Neah Bay "is going to reach critical mass."

The tribal members — Frankie Gonzales, Wayne Johnson, Andrew Noel, Theron Parker and William Secor Sr. — were expected to plead guilty to one count of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a misdemeanor, in return for two years of probation.

But they did not because the government had the option of preventing them from whaling while they were on probation.

"That's a deal-killer," Johnson said.

Sullivan later said he'd be willing to take the potential whaling-rights restriction off the table as the sides continue negotiations.

Gonzales, Johnson, Noel, Parker and Secor were scheduled to go on trial next month on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy, unauthorized whaling and unlawful taking of a marine mammal. Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Kelley Arnold dismissed another charge stemming from the Whaling Convention Act, saying the act did not apply to criminal cases.

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The tribe has a treaty right to kill gray whales and legally did so in 1999, when it secured a permit.

But the five whalers did not have a permit for the hunt on Sept. 8, when they harpooned and shot a whale in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Neah Bay, Clallam County. The whale died slowly before sinking.

The whalers had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, arguing that treaty rights are the supreme law of the land. The men also faced charges in tribal court, but those proceedings had yet to get started.

After the rogue hunt, both the tribe and the U.S. attorney's office vowed prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. If convicted of all tribal charges, the defendants face a sentence of a year in the Neah Bay jail, $5,000 fines, and temporary suspension of their treaty right to hunt and fish.

Animal rights activists were outraged when the plea deal was offered as part of a global settlement involving the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Makah Tribe.

The Tribe would have dismissed all charges against the whalers in exchange for them pleading guilty to one count of violating the Marine Mammals Protection Act.

That was adequate punishment, the tribal council said in a statement released this afternoon.

But animal rights activists disagreed.

"That's it? That is not adequate, I don't see a deterrent," said Kitty Block, vice president of the Human Society of the United States in Washington, D.C. "We were hoping there would be strong action, and swift action, and there is neither."

She said the animal rights group will step up its opposition to the federal waiver.

"It means we have to fight harder on not letting the Makah Tribe have a waiver. It means they aren't taking this seriously, they can't manage their own people and they can't enforce their own laws."

If found guilty under the federal charges, the men face up to a year in prison and up to $100,000 in fines. more

03/26/08
Death of a whale - Seattle Times

Let last September's botched, illegal whale hunt by five members of the Makah Tribe in the Strait of Juan de Fuca be the last for a long, long time.

The application of the federal criminal-justice system to the killing of the gray whale has been a work in progress for months. A plea deal was close on Monday, and then collapsed. Another agreement might be forthcoming Thursday, or maybe the case will go to trial next month.

Either way, the tribe's separate and ongoing request for an exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act to hunt another whale, after one was legally taken in 1999, ought to be buried under a tall stack of paper.

The defendants were headed for a plea deal with no jail time and two years probation when they reportedly learned that pleading guilty to one count of violating the federal protection act might prevent them from whaling while on probation. They refused.

One might have imagined the five men would have embraced the restriction given the absolute muddle of their arrogant and inept behavior last September.

Stranger still, the Makah Tribe had jurisdiction to enforce its own rules, but opted to avert its eyes and remain silent, if the five pleaded guilty to the one count of the federal law.

In November, the Makahs' tribal biologist issued a 13-page report of findings and drawings that ought to have mortified all associated with that sad day. In addition to not having a permit, the five men were apparently clueless about how to properly take a gray whale. Sixteen bullet holes and four harpoons did not kill the whale. Perhaps the hunters might have succeeded if they had brought a sufficient amount of the appropriate ammunition and not lost the primary rifle over the side.

Once the hapless event had begun, the mortally wounded whale struggled for eight to 10 hours before it died. As a Times headline noted, euthanasia was held up by red tape. There was much regulatory hemming and hawing after the hunt was halted by authorities.

Sending the bungling hunters to jail serves no purpose. But denying them the right to hunt whales during probation would fit the crime perfectly, and serve to elevate and hold a tradition in fitting reverence.

Taking a whale in the 21st century is about spiritual sustenance. The tragic folly on the Strait of Juan de Fuca mocks that sacred value. The moment has passed.
more

03/24/08
Rare White Killer Whale Spotted In Alaskan Waters - Science Daily

Scientists aboard the NOAA research vessel Oscar Dyson in the North Pacific have sighted a creature of great rarity and even myth: a white whale.

The white killer whale was spotted with its pod about two miles off Kanaga Volcano, part of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, on February 23. At the time, Kodiak-based Oscar Dyson was on a research expedition for NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, assessing pollock fish stocks near Steller sea lion haulout sites.

The white whale is a fish-eating type of killer whale, as were all the killer whales photographed on the expedition. Fish-eating killer whales are the most frequently seen whales around the Aleutian Islands during the summer. The winter sightings represent important evidence that they may be common year-round.

Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist at NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, was able to photograph the whale’s white fin and back. “With hundreds of killer whales documented around the Aleutian Islands, this was equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack,” she said.

“Despite the typical stormy weather that makes research operations very difficult in the winter, the scientific team on Oscar Dyson has been pulling in a huge amount of planned research data,” said Alaska Fisheries Science Center director Doug DeMaster. “Extraordinary sightings like this white whale are icing on the cake.”

Few white killer whales have ever been seen, according to Fearnbach, much less scientifically documented.

This whale is likely not a true albino because it still has signs of darker pigmented areas on its body. However, because of its prominent coloring, the white whale serves as an indicator for movements of killer whales in the North Pacific.

White killer whales have been sighted previously in the Aleutian Islands as well as in the Bering Sea and off the Russian coast. Scientists are working to confirm whether or not the whale sighted Feb. 23 is the same animal as any of those previous seen.

Besides fish and marine mammal researchers from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Oscar Dyson also carried a bird observer from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. All added to scientific knowledge about the marine ecosystem of the Aleutian Islands in winter.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. more

03/22/08
Horseshoe Crab Conference - massaudabon

Saturday, April 5, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary

This free conference is open to the public and will feature presentations by local experts, a panel discussion, and posters and exhibits that highlight horseshoe crab biology, their role in the environment, population status on the Cape, and the human issues surrounding their harvest and conservation. Additionally, Wellfleet Bay will be recruiting volunteers to help with spawning censuses and a tagging project in Wellfleet Harbor. Details on how to get involved with this project will also be shared.

To register contact the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary at 508-349-2615 or wellfleet@massaudubon.org

9-9:10 a.m. Arrival and Refreshments

9:10-9:30 a.m. Opening Remarks:
Bob Prescott, Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary
Brenda Boleyn, Committee for the Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs

9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Presentations
9:30-10:10 a.m. The Biology, Development , and Ecology of Horseshoe Crabs: Dr. Dan Gibson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

10:15-10:55 a.m. Horseshoe Crab Fisheries: Past to Present: Alison Leschen, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries

11-11:15 a.m. BREAK (view posters, exhibits)

11:15-11:55 Horseshoe Crabs in the Bio-Medical Industry:
Dr. Michael Dawson, Associates of Cape Cod

Noon-1 p.m. LUNCH BREAK
Special showing of PBS film "Crash: A Tale of Two Species"

1-1:10 p.m. Q & A with the producer, writer and director of PBS film "Crash: A Tale of Two Species": Allison Argo, ArgoFilms

1:10- 1:20 p.m. Survey of Horseshoe Crab Observations:
Barbara Waters, Committee for the Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs

1:20-2 p.m. Researching Local Populations of Horseshoe Crabs:
Dr. Mary-Jane James-Pirri, University of Rhode Island

2-2:30 p.m. Panel Discussion & Time for Questions

2:30-3 p.m. Exhibits, Posters, and Volunteer Recruitment

Among those presenting posters are: Monica Williams, Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge; Katherine Terkanian and Sarah Martinez, Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary; Denise Ellis, UMASS Boston; and Associates of Cape Cod.

Chatham artist Louise Russell will be displaying her horseshoe crab-inspired art work.

more

03/22/08
Japan blame 'sabotage' for low whale catch - Japan

Japan has blamed sabotage for limiting their expected whale catch.

Japan's Fisheries Agency says the country's whaling operation now under way in the Antarctic Ocean is likely to fall far short of the targeted catch as a result of "sabotage" by a US anti-whaling group, reports say.

The operation is aimed at catching some 900 whales - 850 southern minke whales and 50 fin whales - by the end of March.

But Kyodo news agency has credited an official from the agency who says the total catch will be 500 to 600 this year, as the operation was suspended for about a month following action by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace in January.

The Sea Shepherd group has been involved in a number of confrontations with the Japanese whalers in recent months, culminating a week ago when Steve Irwin skipper Paul Watson claimed to have been shot by the Japanese.

Japan sent the ships last November under its scientific research program.

International criticism forced Japan to give up a plan to catch 50 humpback whales in the operation.

As the operation is partly financed by revenues from the sale of meat from whales that are caught, the expected shortage will deal a financial blow to the operation as well.

Japan's whaling expedition last failed to catch enough whales because of protest activities by Greenpeace members in 1988. more

03/21/08
Unknown Population of Blue Whales Discovered in Waters of Southern Chile - Chile

Three scientists stand on a hillside on the remote island of Melinka in Southern Chile. In the distance, across the shimmering waters of the Gulf of Corcovado, are the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Andes mountains.

All three are peering through high-powered binoculars, scanning the horizon methodically.

Suddenly, biologist Yacquiline Montecinos spots a spray of water piercing the horizon, six miles or so off shore.

"There … whale. Blue whale," she says excitedly. Montecinos has seen hundreds of these spouts, but she still gets excited when she finds one.

And why not? She is part of a team researching a previously unknown population of blue whales, the biggest mammal on the planet, bigger than the biggest dinosaur. They can be up to 100 feet long and 100 tons.

It is thrilling to see, but it is also serious science.

Over the hill on the water's edge sits the tiny fishing village of Melinka. One of the buildings houses the modest research station of Centro Ballena Azul: The Blue Whale Center, home to 11 scientists who share a passion for the sea. Several have been waiting all morning for a sighting from the team on the hill.

The job is tedious at times, until the radio call comes in that two blue whales have been spotted.

"We have whales," crackles the voice on the radio. Researcher Juan Pablo Torres writes down the details.

In a well-rehearsed routine, Torres and two other scientists head for the fishing docks to retrieve their research boat, load up their gear and steer to the waters of the Gulf.

Marine Biologist Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete, director of the Blue Whale Center, oversees the research at the center. When you see him standing in the prow of the center's 20-foot research boat he looks like a modern-day Captain Ahab, but he is not out to kill the whales, he's out to catalogue them.

"I think there are two whales," says Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete as the boat bounces through the waves, "but we'll confirm everything when we're closer."

Spotting those spouts at sea level takes a trained eye.

"There are two there!" says Hucke-Gaete.

It is a spectacular sight: animals so big, moving with such grace. It is almost as if they are swimming in slow motion.

"I find it beautiful," said Hucke-Gaete, who has seen hundreds of blue whales in Corcovado, but still gets excited. "It's one of the most beautiful spectacles I could have ever dreamt of. They're amazing."

Especially because a century of commercial whaling almost pushed the blue whale to extinction. The slaughter peaked in 1931, when 29,000 were killed in one season. By the time hunting blue whales was outlawed in 1966 it is estimated that the population had been reduced by 99 percent, from perhaps half a million to just a few thousand in all the world's oceans.
"The numbers that were left after the commercial whaling was so low that everybody thought that it was over for the blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete.

Almost as amazing as these whales themselves is the story of how this population was discovered. In 1997, a group of scientists boarded two ships to comb the 2,500 miles of Chile's pacific coastline and do a count of blue whales. In that entire time, they found just 40 whales — "it was bad news," says Hucke-Gaete. But then a small group of those scientists decided to soak up the stunning scenery. They hopped on a cruise ship to enjoy the trip home. That ship passed through the Gulf of Corcovado.

"When they were entering the gulf, they started seeing blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete, his voice filled with excitement as he recounts the unexpected discovery. "And they saw another one, and then they finally saw 60 in less than four hours."

It seemed the scientists had stumbled on a large and unknown population of blue whales, but it wasn't easy to confirm their findings. It took Hucke-Gaete six years to raise the money to come back the Gulf to confirm that what they saw in 1997 wasn't just a one-time occurrence. Each year since 2003 the scientists have been in Corcovado from January to April — the Southern Summer — and so have the whales. They have learned that the whales come to this vast Gulf to feed and nurse their young. Corcovado is a previously unknown refuge that may help save the species.

"The significance of the place is that this is a place they feed; this is a place that is important to them and not only for the adults, it's for calves," explains Hucke-Gaete. "If we find calves, that means the population is recovering and that carries on a big responsibility for us: we need to take care of this place."

Normally whales have to be studied at deep sea and great expense. Corcovado offers a unique opportunity to track the whales close to land for an extended time.

Hucke-Gaete says it's difficult to study whales in part "because they spend 90-98 percent below the surface. So it's really, really difficult. It takes lots of time and lots of patience." With meager budgets that are mostly consumed by gas that costs $9 a gallon, the scientists spend their days studying the habits and habitat of the whales, photographing and indexing each whale — no two dorsal fins are the same — and collecting tiny samples of their skin. The samples, he says, are "enough to tell us what population this whale belongs to, to know the sex of the animal, to identify it genetically like a forensics lab, that we identify these animals."
Large and Loud

They hope to travel to the Museum of Natural History in New York this summer to conduct genetic tests on the samples to see how the Corcovado whales are related to others in the oceans.

Blue whales are not just the largest animals on the planet, they are also the loudest. Researcher Susannah Buchan has come all the way from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland to study the sounds these whales make. Like all the science here it takes extraordinary patience, but what she is recoding and hearing is itself extraordinary.

"They vocalize," Buchan explains. "They do talk to each other. Why exactly, we're not entirely sure."

She's also not entirely sure that the sounds she's recorded really are from the blue whale, because they are unlike anything anyone has heard before. Buchan describes it as "sort of like a whistle, like a high whistle."

Buchan played some of the sounds for us. At first we heard a very low repetitive sound usually associated with whale, like a jackhammer. Then an extraordinary high sound.

"We're very cautious about saying that this is a blue whale vocalization. This is what I have been recording near the whales. But I really can't say if this is blue whale vocalization just because the sound is so high."

If the sounds can be confirmed they may help match this population with others — like an acoustic DNA.

"It is really exciting," says Buchan. "It's fascinating because so little is known about this animal. It astounds me how little is known, how little we know about this area about these animals here but also blue whales all over the world. "

If the species is to survive and rebuild its stocks, the Gulf of Corcovado could be critical. But this pristine habitat here that survived almost unscathed through the 20th century is being invaded by industry, in particular salmon farms. Salmon are not native to the Southern Hemisphere, but about 25 years ago Norwegians discovered the cold waters of the South Pacific are ideal for farming salmon from the North Atlantic. Now Chile is about to overtake Norway as the biggest producer of salmon in the world — providing 60 percent of the salmon Americans eat. But at huge environmental costs: contaminating the waters with feed and harmful chemicals and spreading disease.

Keeping People, and Whales, Happy

It is not just the whales who are threatened by the salmon invasion. There is concern that the entire fragile eco-system is being destroyed. Which is why the Blue Whale Center, the World Wildlife Fund and others are lobbying the government of Chile to declare the Gulf of Corcovado — all 10 million acres of it — a Marine Protected Area. That would allow traditional fishermen and salmon farming to continue, but would restrict growth and strictly monitoring environmental impact.
"It's absolutely extraordinary," says Cathy Plume of the World Wildlife Fund as she describes the incredible diversity of the ecosystem here, "we don't even know what's under these waters."
The World Wildlife Fund is looking at ways to balance the proposed protected area with the much-needed jobs in this remote region.

"If we don't control this area, the salmon industry will continue to grow here. Fishing will continue to grow here and you won't have the whales coming in here anymore, they won't have their food stocks, they won't be bringing their young in. We've got to keep that happening and the way to do that is just to create a marine protected area that's multiple use — keep people happy, and keep the whales happy."

Not just blue whales but also a population of Humpback Whales. Not nearly as big, but just as breathtaking. These waters are so rich with life and so unexplored the scientists continue to uncover new secrets of the sea here. Protecting the blue whale would protect all the other creatures here too.

"I love animals," says Hucke-Gaete, "I love the sea. Particularly I love whales. I usually work with species that have been very close to extinction and now they are recovering somehow. I like to think that they will recover fully someday and if I can help, if we can help, that's the best thing I can do in my life, just to right the wrongs. "

To give a species on the verge of extinction a second chance. more

03/19/08
Young whales’ communications recorded - usatoday

Researchers say they have shown for the first time that humpback whale calves make sounds. The nonprofit Cetos Research Organization, which studied humpbacks off Maui and Kauai, says the grunts and squeals emitted by the young whales are messages for their mothers, possibly expressions of curiosity or warnings of danger. The sounds are not as complex as the repetitive, highly structured phrases of older males, says the research in March's Journal of he Acoustic Society of America. Before Cetos’ research, scientists had recorded sounds from whale pods that included calves but had difficulty pinpointing the particular animals responsible for the noises.
more

03/17/08
Protesters claim 500 whales saved - New Zealand

Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has ended its pursuit of Japan's whalers in the Southern Ocean, claiming it saved more than 500 whales.

The organisation's ship, Steve Irwin, is sailing back to Australia after running low on fuel, ending a three-month campaign in the Southern Ocean highlighted by allegations of shootings, hostage-taking and espionage.

Sea Shepherd boss Paul Watson said he had wanted to tail the whaling fleet till it left the Southern Ocean.

"We have just enough fuel to make it back to port. We've done everything we can do down here for this season and it has been an enormous success. I believe we have saved the lives of over 500 whales."

Japan had probably killed less than half its stated quota of 935 minke and 50 endangered fin whales, he said. Japan has refused to release the number of whales killed by its fleet this season, citing security reasons.

Mr Watson said he had no regrets about the group's aggressive tactics, which included crew boarding a whaling ship, throwing dozens of stink bombs at the whalers and planting a tracking device on a harpoon ship.

The campaign started in December with the Steve Irwin and Greenpeace's Esperanza both tailing the whaling fleet but refusing to work together.

Both ships returned to Australia at the end of January, but the Steve Irwin refuelled and returned for a second stint.

Mr Watson said about nine days were left for whaling, before icy conditions put a stop to the hunt.

Sea Shepherd is already planning December's campaign, planning to launch a two-ship assault when it returned to the Southern Ocean.

Two ships would allow Sea Shepherd to have one always tailing the whaling fleet, Mr Watson said.

Each ship would spend three weeks in the Southern Ocean before returning to Australia for refuelling.

More than $4 million would have to be raised for a second ship. more

03/14/08
Scientists monitor whales entangled in rope - cape Cod Times

PROVINCETOWN — Whale researchers found two female right whales with rope stuck in their jaws Tuesday but the rope poses no immediate threat to the whales, according to a spokeswoman for the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

The first whale, known only as No. 2645, was spotted in Cape Cod Bay at about 1 p.m. Tuesday during an routine aerial survey, according to PCCS spokeswoman Tanya Gabettie.

A disentanglement team from the center was launched to assess the whale's condition. While the disentanglement team was at sea, the aerial observers spotted the second entangled whale, known as "Wart" or No. 1140, southwest of Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown. Both whales were feeding with about 10 other right whales. The disentanglement team gathered a small sample of the rope from the first whale, Gabettie said.

So far this year, four right whale entanglements have been reported, including the pair spotted Tuesday, she said.

The North Atlantic right whale is an endangered species with a worldwide population of not more than 400. The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, which receives funding from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, coordinates whale disentanglement efforts along the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada.

more

03/12/08
Thar She Blows: Ships to Get Whale Warnings - New Scientist

Ship captains setting sail will soon have an extra kind of forecast to check – the likelihood of whales.

Satellite predictions of where whales are likely to be will help ships avoid the area, and so reduce the chance of striking a whale or snagging one in fishing nets.

The forecast will be particularly important for finding – and avoiding – critically endangered right whales, which were hunted nearly to extinction in the North Atlantic and have failed to recover.

So many animals have been struck by ships or entangled in fishing gear that wildlife managers are desperate to keep whales and humans apart. Fewer than 400 right whales remain.

Nick Record of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland, US, has helped develop the satellite detection method, and described it at the 2008 Ocean Sciences meeting in Orlando, Florida, which ended March 7.

Plankton Feast

The technique uses satellite measurements of sea temperature, and images of chlorophyll, which indicate the concentrations of phytoplankton in different parts of the ocean.

Together the measurements can predict when and where a particular type of zooplankton, called a copepod, will hatch and grow to edible size. Across the Gulf of Maine right whales gather at dense patches of copepods to feed.

Record says that if you can find the copepods, you can find the whales. Right now, managers use airplanes to spot them, but these flights can only sample a small fraction of the gulf. Satellites take in the entire basin.

Using a computer model that combines the satellite information with that of typical patterns of currents in the gulf allows conservation managers to predict where dense patches of copepods will form, says physical oceanographer Bruce Monger of Cornell University, New York, who helped to develop the model.

Improving Forecasts

Ships towing nets have confirmed that the whale forecast works, and sightings of whales also match up with the predicted locations of their prey, Monger and Record both report.
As a start, the team has posted their prediction of when the whales will first arrive in the south channel of the gulf this spring, based on when the first batch of copepods will mature, says Andrew Pershing, who is leading the project.

Eventually they plan to link in data from the satellite soon after it flies over and plug the information into a model that includes detailed forecasts of the currents and eddies in the gulf. That will allow them to say with greater precision where the whales are likely to be found. more

03/09/08 Photo-monitoring Whale Sharks: Largest Fish In The Sea Appear To Thrive Under Regulated Ecotourism - Science