Science and facts about whales and whaling

[AvastMH]

Humpback whale spotted feeding in the Firth of Forth



A humpback whale has been spotted feeding in the Firth of Forth. The mammal was first seen on Saturday morning off the coast at Kinghorn in Fife.

Photographer Greg MacVean managed to get shots of its tail and dorsal fin breaching the water on Sunday. Whale watcher Lyndsay McNeill said she could tell from barnacles on its dorsal fin and scratches on its back that the same whale was seen off the Isle of Coll last August.
Ms McNeill, of Scottish Humpback ID, told BBC Scotland: "It is very exciting to see the same whale on both sides of Scotland within such a short period of time. Normally they stick to one area.

"We have a lot of sand eels, sprat and herring in the Forth, which is what their diet is here."

She said they had not managed to get close enough to see if it was a male or a female. However, she believed it could be a juvenile whale because younger whales would not migrate to the breeding grounds in the Caribbean with the adults. Humpbacks feed in colder waters but the adults travel south to give birth throughout winter. Shane Wasik, of Basking Shark Scotland, said he thought it was the first re-sighting of a humpback whale between east and west Scotland.

[Randi]

New DNA-based Technique Allows Researchers to Determine Age of Living Beluga Whales in Alaska

[AvastMH]

New DNA-based Technique Allows Researchers to Determine Age of Living Beluga Whales in Alaska

DNA is the most amazing source of information. Quite incredible. This will increase our knowledge of these beautiful creatures in leaps and bounds

[Maikel]

Sorry to upset you, whale lovers.

Stressful animation shows blue whale dodging hundreds of ships while trying to feed.



Scientists recently animated the hazards of being a blue whale that's trying to avoid collisions with ships at sea.
Full article: https://www.livescience.com/whale-stress-animation.html

[AvastMH]

Shipping's a terrible thing for whales. A friend says it's good to get things by sea rather than by plane, and in many respects that's true. I pointed out that for sea animals the ships are a nightmare.
I'll read the whole article tomorrow.

[Randi]

Fin whale songs can reveal hidden features of the ocean floor

[AvastMH]

Fin whale songs can reveal hidden features of the ocean floor

It had never occurred to me that this could happen - but makes sense. I guess the whales get used to hearing their own voices coming back to them. That opens out an interesting set of thoughts about self-awareness

[AvastMH]

Sperm whales in the 19th Century shared ship-attack information? from the Guardian Newspaper.



Sperm whales are highly socialised animals, able to communicate over great distances. They associate in clans defined by the dialect pattern of their sonar clicks. Their culture is matrilinear, and information about the new dangers may have been passed on in the same way whale matriarchs share knowledge about feeding grounds. Sperm whales also possess the largest brain on the planet. It is not hard to imagine that they understood what was happening to them.

The hunters themselves realised the whales’ efforts to escape. They saw that the animals appeared to communicate the threat within their attacked groups. Abandoning their usual defensive formations, the whales swam upwind to escape the hunters’ ships, themselves wind-powered. ‘This was cultural evolution, much too fast for genetic evolution,’ says Whitehead.

The paper itself: Adaptation of sperm whales to open-boat whalers: rapid social learning on a large scale?

And as if to prove the point I just transcribed this page from the California 1895. They are 286 days out from San Francisco and somewhere near Herald Island I believe. Things are so desperate for her that she's even recording sightings of whales. The Andrew Hicks (AH) is nearby:
'Saw bow head did not lower going to the windward.'


As time goes by these comments, along with 'disappeared into the ice' become noticeable. Catches become rare. The falling numbers of whales, along with the lessons they have learnt, allowing the remaining few to survive. As I comment before in another forum post, and given their enormous brains, this may be the survival not only of the fittest, but of the wittiest

[Michael]

Tracking Orcas with Tech: ‘The Images Took Our Breath Away’.
UBC scientists attached cameras to drones, and the whales themselves. Here’s the result.

[Randi]

Excellent article!

[AvastMH]

Yes it's wonderful Michael Fascinating. I'm very worried for the Southern Group. Modern shipping is so dangerous to the ocean.

[Randi]

A humpback whale swallowed a lobster diver whole and spit him out alive: ‘It tried to eat me’

[Michael]

[AvastMH]

Eric (espross) posted this too. It's a story that you can't ignore. It's the stuff of nightmares

[Randi]

Rare whale spotted off B.C. coast excites researchers


https://www.geonames.org/6115068/haida-gwaii.html

[AvastMH]

Rare whale spotted off B.C. coast excites researchers


https://www.geonames.org/6115068/haida-gwaii.html

Wow - what a stunning animal - it's hard to imagine what it was like when the seas were full of them. So beautiful

[AvastMH]

An interesting article:
Bowhead Whales: Recent Insights into Their Biology, Status, and Resilience
J. C. George(1), S. E. Moore(2), and J. G. M. Thewissen(3)

Highlights
- Bowhead whales can live over 200 years and have unique anatomical and physiological attributes. Their sequenced genome holds promise for the advance of medical knowledge related to cell senescence, bone biology, and fat metabolism in mammals including humans.
- Commercial fishing and associated gear entanglement, industrial shipping, oil and gas activities including seismic exploration, and orca predation are affecting all four bowhead populations to varying degrees. Resilience of the species to these human-induced and natural ecological shifts vary by region.
- Bowhead whales are a useful indicator species that reflect variability in arctic marine ecosystems. Population size of bowheads in the Pacific Arctic has increased in the past 30 years in part due to increases in primary production as well as transport of the zooplankton north from the Bering Strait. The East Canada-West Greenland population has also increased. Conversely, the smaller bowhead populations in the Atlantic and Okhotsk Sea have remained at low numbers and are considered vulnerable or at risk.


Fig. 1. Range of the four recognized bowhead whale regional populations: Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) seas; Sea of Okhotsk (OKH); East Greenland, Svalbard, Barents Sea (EGSB); and East Canada-West Greenland Sea (ECWG). The range of the BCB and ECWG populations overlap slightly in the western Canadian Arctic archipelago. Green - current range; Dark green - areas of high summer density; Dotted - historical distribution. Source: Map by John Citta (modified from: Baird and Bickham 2021).

Note from AvastMH: I added the red circles around two dark green areas
Area 'A': covers the areas, Herschel Island east to Cape Bathurst and beyond, that we see so frequently noted in the later logbooks of the whalers over-wintering on that Canadian coast (for example Beluga 1897-1899)
Area 'B': is close to Herald Island, another popular site for whaling towards the end of the summer when it became accessibly free of ice


1Department of Wildlife Management, North Slope Borough, Utqiaġvik, AK, USA
2Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
3Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Rootstown, OH, USA

[Randi]

[Randi]

Ocean Encounters: Saving the North Atlantic Right Whale (from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

The North Atlantic right whale is one of the most endangered whales in the world, with an estimated 366 left on the planet. These animals are often found on the Continental Shelf of the East Coast of North America, making them vulnerable to human activities including fishing gear entanglements. In recent years, more whales have died than have been born. Join us as we examine the top threats facing North Atlantic right whales, and discuss the crucial efforts by the scientific community, fishing industry, and policymakers to develop the most effective and viable solutions to ensure the long-term survival of this critically endangered species. [Recorded February 10, 2021]

Speakers: Michael Moore, Whale Trauma Specialist, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Rob Martin, Commercial Fisherman; Michael Asaro, Ecological Economist, NOAA Fisheries, and host Véronique LaCapra, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

[AvastMH]

I have my fingers crossed for those whales. I wish we could pay the fishermen to stay at home