A rather magnificent specimen of rainbowfish, prized and coveted for aquarium owners around the globe, is staring into the abyss, and could possibly face extinction since their home is drying up, and alien fish seem to be moving in.

The rainbowfish, Melanotaenia parva, was was described by accomplished ichthyologist Dr. Gerald Allen back in 1990. These magnificent rainbowfish hail from Kuromoi Lake on the Bird’s Head Peninsula in West Papua, Indonesia.

Melanotaenia parva

At the time of their discovery, the rainbow fish were abundant, however the water seemed to be receding. The level of the water of the lake had already reached levels lower than the outlet with the Yakati River, however more unsettling was the discovery that a non-native Tilapia had made its way on to the scene. Now, researchers have commenced a new study and have found some good news, and bad news.. Good news, a bright colorful new species of rainbow fish.. Bad news.. Lake Kuromi, where these rainbow fish call home, is almost completely dry.

Now a new study by scientists who have just described a new species of rainbowfish from the Bird’s Head Peninsula have shown that its home – Lake Kuromoi – is now almost completely dry.

These startling discoveries were made back in June 2007, but have only now made their way to the public eye. To top it all off, as if having your home dry out wasn’t bad enough, the rainbowfish now need to compete for survival with a rogue species of Tilapia.

What is to become of these poor rainbowfish?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five percent of the surface water in China is so contaminated that it can’t even be used for industrial purposes. The sad thing about that figure is, while twenty-five percent is that contaminated, less than half of the total supply available is fit for human consumption. This data came from an environment watchdog this past Monday.

Inspectors in China have been painstakingly testing water samples from the major rivers and lakes for the first half of this year, and have proclaimed that just 49.3 percent of the water would be safe for human consumption. This number is actually up from the 48 percent of last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection declared in a public notice from their website.

China has six grades they use for classifying their water supplies, with the first three grades being considered safe for human use, such as drinking and bathing.

Another 24.6 percent of the water supply was said to have fallen in categories four and five, which is only good for industrial or agricultural use. This leaves a total of 24.3 percent in category six, which is not suitable for any use at all.

This is an absolute appalling state of affairs, and despite tougher regulations being implemented over the past 10 years, the ministry is still struggling to keep tabs on thousands of paper mills, cement factories, and chemical plants which are pumping their industrial waste right into the water supplies of the country.

This is a serious problem, but it seems like it will be quite some time before they get a handle on it.

This Saturday, about 55 False killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) stranded on Long Beach, Kommetjie, in South Africa. Both adults and calves began to appear on the shore around 5.30 in the morning, perhaps as a result of the bad weather. This incident is the second large stranding in a short period of time; in March about 80 whales stranded in Hamelin Bay on Western Australia’s southern coast.

Massive whale strandings are however not new phenomenon; Long Beach was for instance the site of a heartbreaking stranding in 1928 when 103 whales beached on Christmas Eve. This was before marine experts and volunteers had figured out how to save stranded whales, so all 103 animals died in the scorching sun. This was also during a period when whales were chiefly seen as something that you hunted; not something worth saving.

So, why do whales beach? Scientists are still in the dark on when it comes to this bewildering question and no hypothesis has been confirmed yet. In his book “Whales and Dolphins of the Southern African Subregion”, whale researcher Peter Best lists a long row of hypotheses – all of the seemingly plausible – and also states that whale strandings may be due to a combination of several factors.

“It is very likely that no single cause is responsible and elements of some hypotheses may have to act in combination to produce the circumstances for a mass stranding to occur”, Best explains.

Here are some hypotheses put forward by marine scientists:

• Parasites infesting the middle ear can cause severe disorientation and make it difficult for whales to navigate. If one or several animals in a group develop middle-ear problems, the other ones might follow them due to their social bonding, even if it means stranding on a beach.
• An injured or sick whale may send out a distress call that the others follow all the way up on the beach.
• If cetaceans navigate using the earth’s geomagnetic field, geomagnetic disturbances could make them disorientated and, if they’re unlucky, even cause them to beach.
• Beachings may be a density-dependent response, where a population approaching its carrying capacity suffers increased natural mortality.
• Whales hunting for food close to the shoreline may accidently strand themselves in the pursuit.
• Whales might end up on beaches after getting caught in a rip current, getting their sonar confused. A rip current (also known as rip tide) is a strong surface flow of water returning seaward from near the shore.
• Beaked whales seem to be extra sensitive to mid-range sonar, so human activities may be to blame for the stranding of beaked whales.

The 2009 whaling season has now started in the waters off Iceland.

Iceland and Norway are the only two countries that openly defy the international whaling moratorium; Japan is instead using a loop whole, claiming their whaling to be carried out for scientific purposes.

Former Icelandic fisheries minister Steingrimur Sigfusson said in February that Iceland would make no changes to its whaling quotas of 150 Fin whales and up to 150 Minke whales per year.

“The first batch of meat will be in stores by the weekend,” says Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, manager of the Minke Whaler Association. He said 50 to 60 per cent of the meat will be sold domestically, while the rest is sold to Japan.

The first whales are usually killed in a bay outside Reykjavik, since whaling is prohibited close to the harbour. The prohibition has been imposed to prevent whalers from disturbing whale watchers, since that may cause damage to the Icelandic whale watching business.

The Icelandic whaling season usually runs from May to late September.

Whale facts
Also known as Little Piked Whales or Lesser Rorquals, Mink Whales prefer icy waters but are found world-wide. Once perceived as one single species, the population has quite recently been recognized as consisting of two distinct species: the Northern Mink Whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, and the Southern Mink Whale, Balaenoptera bonaerensis. Together, the two species are believed to form a population of over 1 million Minke Whales world-wide. Balaenoptera acutorostrata is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, while Balaenoptera bonaerensi is listed as Data Deficient since it was recognized as a separate species so recently.

The Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus) is also found world-wide, with 40,000-56,000 specimens living in the North Atlantic. Unlike the Mink Whale, the Fin Whale is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Photograph created by Erik Christensen. Taken on the Faroe island not Island.