The Snubfin dolphin (Orcaella heinsohni), recognized as a species as recently as 2005, have been spotted while utilizing a rare hunting technique previously only noted in the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), a close relative of the Snubfin.

The unusual group hunting technique involves chasing the prey fish to the surface of the ocean and rounding them up by spitting jets of water at them. Once the fish is packed together in a reasonably small “cylinder”, the dolphins move in to devour them.

According to WWF Australia’s marine and coasts manager Lydia Gibson, the behaviour was first noticed in Australia off the Kimberley Coast.

We still know very little about the Snubfin dolphin, which lives along Australia’s northern coast in a number of locations off the Queensland and Northern Territory coasts, as well as the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, chiefly due to habitat destruction. Since Snubfin dolphins live close to shore, they are also more likely to end up in gill nets and drown compared to more pelagic species of dolphin.

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.

A group of scientist from UK, Australia, the US, Sweden and France are arguing that we need to rethink how we protect our marine environment if we want to protect our reefs. The way we protect vulnerable areas today will not suffice to save the coral reefs from the threat of global warming.

The type of small protected areas that we use today were designed by researchers in the 60s and 70s and is good to prevent species from going extinct due to fishing etc but are not enough to protect against the treats reefs are facing today like global warming. This is the conclusion they have reached after extensive studies carried out in over 66 sites across seven countries over more than a decade. The team has published their result in the journal PLoS ONE. The study is the biggest of its kind done to date.

It is however important to stress that they don’t think the present protected areas are to be removed or that new such areas shouldn’t be protected. What they are saying is that this work has to be complemented with a new type of protected areas that need to be located in the right places.

Lead researcher Nick Graham, of Newcastle University’s School of Marine Science and Technology, said: “We need a whole new approach – and we need to act now.

The research the scientist did shows that the location of the protected areas are very important and that many of the world’s existing protected areas are in the wrong place to protect the reefs. New protected areas need to be setup in new locations and the focus need to change from protecting small areas to protecting entire reef systems. It is important to minimize the human impact on the reefs from actions such as over-fishing, pollution and sedimentation as coral dies if they are put under to much stress. If we remove other sources of stress the reef becomes more likely to survive the stress caused by increased water temperature caused by global warming.

Although the research seems to show a grim future with a lot of reef being damaged and showing signs of long-term degradation there were also good signs with some reefs remaining healthy or even recovering from earlier damages.