Last week, a leaping 9-foot dolphin accidently ended up in an 18-foot boat in the Intracoastal Waterway near New Smyrna Beach, Florida. As the panicked animal tried to escape from the vessel, it repeatedly hit the two boaters, 64-year-old Norman Howard and his wife Barbara, with its powerful tailfin.

“It was slapping me pretty hard,” Howard said. “Yeah, it was throwing some good punches. Mike Tyson couldn’t hit harder than that.“

The U.S. Coast Guard arrived to the scene after receiving calls from witnesses of the weird accident, and promptly rushed the couple to Bert Fish Medical Center. Howard says he was smacked in the face and ribs, while his wife received lacerations to her face.

The dolphin could be rolled back into the Intracoastal Waterway after the accident.

Many dolphin species are agile jumpers and the Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is for instance known to leap up to 10 feet (3 metres) or more. The maximal height of a leap depends on the individual animal and the surrounding water, since the dolphin uses its flukes to projectile itself into the air. In shallow waters, dolphins cannot jump very high.

Normally associated with the cooler seas around the poles, Orca whales are now becoming an increasingly common sight off the coast of UK. The Orca whale – also known as Killer whale, Blackfish and Seawolf – is found in all the world’s oceans and in most seas, including the Mediterranean and Arabian Seas. It is however known to prefer the cool waters of the polar regions, which makes this boom in recent sightings around the British Isles quite surprising for marine biologists.

This year alone, Orca whales have been spotted in locations such the English Channel, the Irish Sea, and near Hartlepool in the North Sea. The southernmost sightings in UK waters took place near the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the south-western tip of England.

According to Andy Foote, PhD Student at the University of Aberdeen, pods of over 100 Orcas have been seen around the Shetland Islands this summer.

“That sort of sighting does seem to be on the increase,” says Foote. “The killer whales shift their migration and distribution quite drastically. Fish like herring and mackerel seem to be doing pretty well at the moment, and it makes sense for the killer whales to follow them.”

Orca whales have been a rare sight in UK waters since fishing stocks began to decline dramatically in the mid 1900s, and the perceived increase in sightings has therefore been interpreted as a sign of recovering fishing stocks. It is however hard to know anything for sure yet, since no records of Orca sightings exists from earlier years. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen and the Sea Mammals Research Unit at St Andrews are currently monitoring the waters off Scotland, to investigate if the increase in sightings is correlated to an actual increase in Orca whales in UK waters or if it is simply the result of better recording methods.

During the second half of the 20^th century, Orca sightings in UK waters have normally been viewed as transient animals migrating through the area, but researchers have now been able to determine that the same individuals are in fact recurrently spotted off the British coast, by comparing 2008 sightings with photographs taken of Orca whales over the past decade.

“Until now, very little has been known about them in British waters, Foote explains. They have been considered as being transient and occasional animals that just move through the area. People thought they were very infrequent visitors. The fact that we are seeing the same ones year after year after year shows that that is wrong. Already we have highlighted that we have populations which are resident here for long periods of time, coming back to the same place, year after year after year, while some seem to remain all year around.

Paul Harvey from the Shetland Biological Records Centre agrees with Foote. “We are definitely seeing more. We know we’ve got the same animals returning and we have some occurring here throughout the winter. It is a relatively recent phenomenon. If you talk to fishermen, they just didn’t used to see them. Now, they see them every time they haul their nets. Something has gone on, since about the 1990s, when we first started to see more. We don’t know how many pods we are dealing with. That is the value of the new research.“

As we release more and more carbon dioxide from fossil fuel into the atmosphere, the world’s oceans become more and more acidic. Exactly how this will affect marine life remains unknown, but a paper published this week by marine chemists Keith Hester and his co-authors at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is now shedding some light on how a change in acidity affects sound waves under water.

Beluga Whale

So, why is the speed of sound underwater of any interest to Monterey Bay Aquarium researchers? As sounds travel faster, the amount of background noise in the sea will increase and this could affect the behaviour of marine mammals. Many marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins, and porpoises, relay on sounds for communication and food location.

According to conservative projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the chemistry of seawater could change by 0.3 pH units by 2050. According to Hester and his colleges, such a change in acidity would allow sounds to travel up to 70 percent farther underwater in some areas, especially in the Atlantic Ocean. The paper also states that sound may already be travelling 10 percent farther in the oceans than it did a few centuries ago.

According to Hester et al, a change by 0.3 pH units by 2050 will have the greatest effect on sounds below about 3,000 cycles per second. This range includes most of the low frequency sounds that marine mammals are known to use, but it also includes a lot of sounds produced by human activity, such as boating, shipping, and certain military activities. As if acidification of the ocean wasn’t enough, the amount of underwater sound produced by human activities has increased dramatically over the last 50 years. So, even if acidification would make it possible for sound produced by marine mammals to travel farther than ever before, it might also cause these sounds to be effectively drenched by a cacophony of human generated low frequency noise. In such a noisy sea, a marine mammal’s ability to locate prey animals and a suitable mate and could be severely impinged on.

The paper will be published in the October 1, 2008 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

A 23-year old Beluga whale at the Kamogawa Sea World aquarium in Japan has been trained to emit different noises for different items. As of now, the whale – whose name is Nack – emits a short, high-pitched sound to identify diving fins, a long and even more high-pitched sound for diving goggles, and a short, lower sound for bucket. When the sounds are recorded and played back to Nack, he is able to identify the corresponding object.

Takashi Murayama, a professor at Tokai University, has been training Nack for the last five years. He is now trying to teach Nack to emit different noises for different people, and he also wishes Nack to be able to express opinions, e.g. use sounds to tell his trainer about his likes and dislikes, or if something is boring or painful.

Divers enjoying the waters off Darwin, the northernmost island in the Galapagos, suddenly realised the presence of an amazing 33 feet (10 meter) albino whale shark (Rhincodon typus), and as if one sighting of an albino giant wasn’t enough, a snow-white southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) calf has now been spotted off the coast of Western Australia.

Common whale shark in the georgia aquarium. See picture of albino here

The whale shark encountered in Galapagos is and adult female and was first observed by naturalist Antonio Moreano as he guided a group of scuba diving tourists. “I told everyone to keep a distance and not disturb it so we all jumped in the water and followed it for five minutes.” says Moreano who also managed to get a few pictures of the awe-inspiring creature.

The young albino southern right whale lives in the whale nursery waters off Western Australia together with its 60-tonne mother. It has been given the name Wilgi Manung, which means “white whale” in one of the indigenous Australian languages. According to Doug Coughran, a senior wildlife officer with the department of environment and conservation, Wilgi Manung might not be a pure albino since its eyes and nose does not display the characteristic pink flesh normally seen in albino whales.

Albinism is a hypopigmentary congenital disordered. It can be partial or total, i.e. characterized by a partial or total lack of melanin pigment. Albinism is caused by recessive alleles and must therefore be inherited from both parents to manifest. Albinism has been observed in many different animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. The name albinism is derived from albus, the Latin word for “white”.

See the albino Whale shark here

See albino Whale picture here

Today I thought I would report on some happy news, animal babies being born in aquariums around the country.

The first happy occasion is that a beluga whale in the Vancouver Aquarium has given birth to a health young female. The whale gave birth during open hours and the staffs as well as visitors watch the calf being born. This is the mothers’ first birth.

Breeding whales and dolphins in captivity is important to avoid having to catch new specimens in the wild: many aquariums including the Vancouver Aquarium have a policy against obtaining new whales ad dolphins in the wild.

You can read more about this birth here:

Another happy occasion is about to take place in the Georgia Aquarium where a rare weeded se dragon is pregnant. The male (yes you read right, It is the male that carries the eggs) carries about 70 fertilized eggs and he is expected to give birth in early to mid-July. The Georgia aquarium have been trying to breed this species and recently made a number of different changes to the setup to try and trigger spawning. Apparently it worked. This is only the 3^rd time this species is breed in an aquarium in the US.

Read more here

The Bolivian Amazon (picture by: Thomas van den Berk)

The Bolivian River Dolphin has finally been graced with the acknowledgement that it is, in fact, a separate species from its close relative, the Amazon River Dolphin. Lighter in color, smaller, and having more teeth, are only a few of the things that separate this newly named species apart from the others. It is able to move its head side to side; something other dolphins can not do,  to manuever through flooded forests during heavy rains and flooding.

Unfortunately the Bolivian River Dolphin, like all dolphins, is facing a questionable future do to pollution, fishing, industrialization, damming, and deforestation. 1,500 dolphins are caught and killed each year by fishermen to be used as bait. Hopefully, unlike the newly extinct Yangtze River dolphin in China, the Bolivian River Dolphin will be able to saved by awareness and conservation efforts.

for a complete article on the Bolivian River Dolphins visit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/29/eadolph129.xml

picture provided by: NOAA Ship DELAWARE II

Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has developed a new Right Whale listening buoy for the Massachusetts Bay. The buoys are designed to recognize the distinctive call of the Atlantic Right Whale which migrates throughout the bay. When heard, the buoys emit a signal to a web-site and marine warning system that lets ships know that the whales are in the shipping lanes; thus, they are able to avoid collisions with the endangered species.

These 50 ton ocean wonders were hunted to near extinction, leaving their numbers today, at less than 400 whales. During the winter and spring months the Right Whales gather at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary; near the Boston Harbor. Over 1,500 vessels pass through this area, and collisions with the whales are the leading cause of the animals deaths each year.

The 10 buoys are placed strategically along the inbound and out going shipping lines. Each buoy has a 5 mile radius of listening and alerts analysts of the whale calls its hearing. This gives the workers time to inform ship captains that the whales are in the area they are headed, with time to avoid accidents. The warning call remains in effect for a 24 hour period after the Right Whales have been detected, to further protect them during times where they are being non-vocal. Ships must slow to 10 knots and post whale/sea turtle look outs during an alert.

The buoy alert system is expected to stay operational for the next 40 years while the Liquefied Natural Gas terminal is expected to stay in business. Hopefully, but protecting the whales now, during this vital time in their attempt to reestablish their numbers, they will still be around for future generations.

You can here the whales live through the public alert website at : http://listenforwhales.org

for the complete article about how buoys are being used to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whales visit science daily at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428104518.htm

In December 2007, the Baji dolphin of the Yangtze river was declared extinct. A study has now revealed that the Yangtze finless porpoise might face the same destiny if no protective measures are taken, National Geographic News reports.

A new study has shown that Yangtze river porpoises are dying in part due to exposure to insecticides and mercury. The Yangtze River in China is home to the planet’s last river-dwelling finless porpoises. As a part of the study, researchers also investigated the organs of porpoises living in China’s Dongting Hu Lake (which is connected to the Yangtze River) and found high concentrations of PCBs and other pollutants.

According to study co-author Wang Ding of China’s Institute of Hydrobiology, the Yangtze finless porpoise population has decreased sharply each year during recent decades. He states that pollution, dam construction, fishing and transportation all contribute to the problem.

WWF China has helped maintain a natural preserve for the Yangtze porpoise along an oxbow of the Yangtze River and the Institute of Hydrobiology is running a captive breeding program where a third calf is expected to be born in the summer of 2008. These measures are however far from enough we want to keep the Yangtze river porpoises from going extinct.

“Urgent measures need to be undertaken to save this porpoise. Pollution control is one of the most important, but this will take time and huge efforts by the government and companies,” says Li Lifeng, director of WWF China’s freshwater program.

You can read the full article here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080423-yangtze-porpoise.html

According to an article published by The Guardian, scientists believe that krill have declined 80 per cent since the 1970s. Why this has happened remains unknown, but it might be due to global warming. According to estimates made by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), there is roughly 100 million tonnes krill left, while krill harvesting companies place the figure at 400-500 million tonnes. The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources allows 4 million tonnes of krill to be caught in the Southern Ocean per year. Until now, this number has seldom been reached; in a normal year, less than 20 percent of the permitted 4 million tonnes have been caught.

Today, the emerging interest in health products such as Omega 3 oil and Omega 3 fortified food is causing a boom in krill fishing. A majority of the fished krilled is used to produce Omega 3 oil and other health supplements, or as fish-farm feed. So called “suction harvesting” is now used to meet the demand for krill.

So, why care about a tiny crustacean? The truth is that entire ecosystems depend on krill and krill are also able to help us remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some species, such as the gigantic Blue Whale, feeds directly on krill. Other species, such as penguins and seals, are indirectly depending on krill since they feed on animals that feed on animals that eat krill.

If you want to learn more about krill and hear different experts explain their view on the current situation, read the full article at The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/fishing.food