Bowhead whales - No connection to the incident.

Here’s something you don’t hear everyday… A father, son and a family friend spent four nerve wracking hours staying afloat in the open ocean off the north-west coast of Australia, after their boat sank from hitting, of all things they could possible hit, a whale.

A spokeswoman with the police has stated that the men were making their way from Port Samson to Geraldton in a 14 meter long boat, about 8 clicks west of the Exmouth peninsula, when they rammed into a whale and began taking on water.

The men, a 47 year old, his son of 22, and a 48 year old friend of the family, did the only thing they could do, make the mayday call, activate their beacon, and dive into the waves.

“They hit something hard, solid, they suspect it’s a whale,” Senior Sergeant of WA Water Police, Greg Trew commented.

“They abandoned ship and were in the water for about four hours.”

The police have stated that there were fortunate to have been wearing their life jackets, as none could be classed as Olympic swimmers.

The men, while dazed from the ordeal, were not suffering any ill effects after having spent four hours bouncing on the waves before being found by an oil tender which was a rescue coordinated by the police and volunteer marine rescue in Exmouth.

“They’re all in good health, they were prepared for it and did everything right,” Sergeant Trew went on to say.

“Horrendous seas out there, it was pretty shocking conditions, 35-knot winds and three to four meter swells, it was pretty nasty. It would have been pretty bloody awful.”

Right whale with calf - The same type of whale as in the story

Well, this is interesting.. A whale which was showing off its moves in Table Bay, jumped up out of the water “Free Willy” style, and what happens? The whale lands on top of a sailboat.

The whale flattened the steel mass and brought down the rigging before gallantly sliding back into the water and swimming on its way.

“It was quite scary,” commented Paloma Werner, who had previously been enjoying the trip with her boyfriend come business partner, Ralph Mothes.

“We thought the whale was going to go under the boat and come up on the other side. We thought it would see us.” Ms. Werner continued.

However, this was not the case, as the boat had its engine turned off.

The manager/scientist of the Cape Town Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, Meredith Thornton, shed some light onto the subject for us: “Whales don’t see much by way of their eyes but by sound in the water.”

Given that the whale had such poor eyesight, and that the water was particularly rough, Thornton commented that the whale, presumably a young whale most likely did not even realize the boat was in the way.

The hapless couple first spied the whale when it was a stone’s throw away, from their yacht. It jumped out of the water once, and before they could make a move, the whale was only a hair lengths away from the vessel.

“There was hardly any wind, so we couldn’t get out of the way,” countered Werner. “We didn’t have time to take any evasive action.”

This just goes to show you, when you are out gallivanting around, always keep your engines running.

Two years after destroying part of the Belize barrier reef, an U.S. skipper has been ordered by a Belize court to pay BZ$3.4 million, roughly equivalent of US$1.7 million, for the damage.

On May 2, 2007, the skipper was trying to reach harbour in his double hull catamaran when it ran aground in the Lighthouse Reef Atoll, causing damage to a piece of the reef measuring 125 feet by 75 feet.

Belizean magistrate Ed Usher ruled that the skipper did not exercise due diligence in navigating the atoll. Since the catamaran was so large, 37 feet x 21 feet, the person in charge should have hired a pilot and sufficient crew to navigate the reef safely. By neglecting to do so, the skipper recklessly caused a disaster that resulted in a loss to the environment.

The skipper must pay BZ$50,000 (US$25,000) within two months, but have been given a five year respite for the remainder of the fine. His catamaran, estimated to be worth around US$300,000, will however be held by Belizean authorities until he comes up with the money.

“We are not asking fishermen to stop fishing, only asking them to start releasing their catch,” says marine scientist Edd Brooks.

Brooks is a scientific advisor for the not-for-profit Company Shark-Free Marina Initiative, SFMI, who has just instigated a new strategy for preventing the deaths of millions of sharks belonging to vulnerable or endangered species.

The Shark-Free Marina Initiative works by prohibiting the landing of any caught shark at a participating marina. The initiative is based on the Atlantic billfish model which banned the mortal take of billfish in the 1980’s to give severely depleted populations a chance to recover.

By promoting catch-and-release and working closely with marinas and game fishing societies, SFMI hopes to win over the fishing community. Other important allies in the endeavour are competition sponsors and tackle producers.

Collaborating with the Fisheries Conservation Foundation in the USA and the Cape Eleuthera Institute in the Bahamas, SFMI has already gained the attention of marinas and non-profits nation-wide.

Enlisting the aid of anglers
By practising catch-and-release, sport fishers can not only decrease their impact on shark species; they can also actively aid ongoing research studies by collecting valuable data.

“Although the number of sharks killed by recreational fishermen each year is dwarfed by commercial catches, the current crisis facing shark stocks requires action wherever possible.” says Brooks.

During the last five years, the average number of sharks harvested annually by sport- and recreational anglers in the United States exceeded half a million. The outlook for these shark populations seem even graver when you take into account that many of the sharks targeted by fishermen are large, breeding age specimens belonging to endangered or vulnerable species. Removing so many sexually mature specimens from a population each year naturally has a major impact on its chances of long-term survival.

“Shark-Free Marinas is a necessary response to the culture of mature shark harvest” says SFMI’s Board Director, Marine Biologist Luke Tipple “Our effect will be immediate, measurable and, together with saving millions of sharks, will establish a new global standard for responsible ocean management. There’s a lot of talk about the atrocity of shark fining and fishing worldwide, but not a lot of measurable action towards reversing the damage. The time has come to stop simply ‘raising awareness’ and start implementing sensible management techniques to protect vulnerable species of sharks from inevitable destruction.”

You can find more information at www.sharkfreemarinas.com.
Help the project!

“The ‘underwater turbulence’ the jellies create is being debated as a major player in ocean energy budgets,” says marine scientist John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology.

Jellyfish are often seen to be aimless aquatic drifters, propelled by nothing but haphazard currents and waves, but the truth is that these gooey creatures continuously contract and relax their bells to move in desired directions.

The jellyfish Mastigias papua carries algae-like zooxanthellae within its tissues from which it derives energy and since the zooxanthellae depend on photosynthesis, the jellyfish has to stay in sunny locations. Research carried out in the so called Jellyfish Lake, located in the island nation of Palau 550 miles east of the Philippines, shows that this jellyfish doesn’t rely on currents to bring it to sunny spots – it willingly budges through the lake as the sun moves across the sky.

In Jellyfish Lake, enormous congregations of Mastigias papua can be found in the western half of the lake each morning, eagerly awaiting dawn. As the sun rises in the east, all jellyfish turn towards it and starts swimming towards east. The smarmy creatures will swim for several hours until they draw near the eastern end of the lake. They will however never reach the eastern shore, since the shadows cast by trees growing along the shoreline cause them to stop swimming. They shun the shadows and will therefore come to a halt in the now sundrenched eastern part of the lake. As the solar cycle reverses later in the afternoon, millions of jellyfish will leave the eastern part of the lake and commence their journey back to the western shore.

Together with his research partner, marine scientists Michael Dawson of the University of California at Merced, John Dabiri have investigated how this daily migration of millions of jellyfish affects the ecosystem of the lake.

What the jellies are doing, says Dabiri, is “biomixing”. As they swim, their body motion efficiently churns the waters and nutrients of the lake.

Dabiri and Dawson are exploring whether biomixing could be responsible for an important part of how ocean, sea and lake waters form so called eddies. Eddies are circular currents responsible for bringing nitrogen, carbon and other elements from one part of a water body to another. The two researchers have already shown how Jellyfish like Mastigias papua and the moon jelly Aurelia aurita use body motion to generate water flow that transports small copepods within jellyfish feeding range; now they want to see if jellyfish movements make any impact on a larger scale.

“Biomixing may be a form of ‘ecosystem engineering’ by jellyfish, and a major contributor to carbon sequestration, especially in semi-enclosed coastal waters,” says Dawson.

A research boat used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency charged with protecting the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, collided with one of the whales off the Massachusetts coast this Sunday.

The NOAA vessel Auk was on its way back from a research journey when a Right Whale surfaced just 10 feet in front of the boat. The boat collided with the whale and the propeller cut into the animal’s left tail fluke. According to NOAA spokesman David Miller, the lacerations on the left tail fluke did not appear to be life-threatening. Researchers followed the whale for about 45 minutes after the accident and it appeared to be OK.

The accident highlights how difficult it is to avoid whale collisions and how we must work even harder to learn new ways of keeping these animals safe from boats. Even with the special precautions taken by NOAA vessels, the calamity still happened.

“To me, if it can happen to NOAA, it can happen to anybody,” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a Plymouth-based biologist with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. “Therefore, everybody needs to up the ante and up their vigilance and take the issue much more seriously.“

Ship strikes are currently the major threat to the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis). This year, a record number of calves were born in U.S. waters, but the population still comprises no more than roughly 400 animals.