WORLD WILDLIFE FUND : WORKING IN NATURE'S AQUARIUM - THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA

WORLD WILDLIFE FUND - GULF OF CALIFORNIA

Excerpt: Wedged between the mainland of Mexico to the east and the Baja Peninsula to the west is the GULF OF CALIFORNIA.  

Described by French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau as the world's aquarium, the gulf supports an extraordinary diversity of marine life, which includes endangered marine turtles and dolphins, coral reefs and over 900 different fish species.

The waters are also an important breeding area for the world's largest animal, the blue whale and other whales such as fin, sperm, orca and humpback.

But pressures from unsustainable tourism, development and commercial fishing are threatening the wildlife and the way of life for millions of people who depend on the sea for their livelihoods.

AI IS BEING USED TO DISCOVER THE LANGUAGE OF SPERM WHALES SO WE CAN TALK TO THE WHALES: INTERSPECIES TRANSLATION : THEY HAVE AN ALPHABET!

All of nature is talking....  

Siren here!  I hope you have enjoyed these posts about INTERSPECIES TRANSLATION!

WHALES COMMUNICATED TO ESCAPE WHALERS : THE BIOLOGY OF MAKING THE SOUNDS and CODAS

Excerpt:
Soon after whaling ships began operating in the North Pacific, an interesting trend emerged. Within just a few years, whalers saw a 58% drop in their successful strikes. Sperm whales had suddenly become harder to kill— they had begun fleeing the boats instead of forming their usual defensive circles. Were whales communicating new strategies to each other?

SPOUTING SPERM WHALE

 

SPERM WHALES ARE IN CONSTANT COMMUNICATION WITH EACH OTHER EVEN AS THEY HUNT

BBC COM : SPERM WHALE PHONETICS check out the video too!

EXCERPT: Sperm whales live in multi-level, matrilineal societies - groups of daughters, mothers and grandmothers – while the males roam the oceans, visiting the groups to breed. They are known for their complex social behavior and group decision - making, which requires sophisticated communication. For example, they are able to adapt their behavior as a group when protecting themselves from predators like orcas or humans.

Sperm whales communicate with each other using rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas. It was previously thought that sperm whales had just 21 coda types. However, after studying almost 9,000 recordings, the Ceti researchers identified 156 distinct codas. They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words.

...........................Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the "fine-grain changes" in vocalisations the AI identified. Each coda consists of between three and 40 rapid-fire clicks. The sperm whales were found to vary the overall speed, or the "tempo", of the codas, as well as to speed up and slow down during the delivery of a coda, in other words, making it "rubato". Sometimes they added an extra click at the end of a coda, akin, says Sharma, to "ornamentation" in music. These subtle variations, she says, suggest sperm whale vocalisations could carry a much much richer amount of information than previously thought. 

SPERM WHALE COMMUNICATION CODA'S

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW COM : THE WAY SPERM WHALES COMMUNICATE check out the article and the video!

EXCERPT: But there’s also a lot we don’t know about them, including what they may be trying to say to one another when they communicate using a system of short bursts of clicks, known as codas. Now, new research published in Nature Communications today suggests that sperm whales’ communication is actually much more expressive and complicated than was previously thought.

A team of researchers led by Pratyusha Sharma at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) working with Project CETI, a nonprofit focused on using AI to understand whales, used statistical models to analyze whale codas and managed to identify a structure to their language that’s similar to features of the complex vocalizations humans use. Their findings represent a tool future research could use to decipher not just the structure but the actual meaning of whale sounds.

The team analyzed recordings of 8,719 codas from around 60 whales collected by the Dominica Sperm Whale Project between 2005 and 2018, using a mix of algorithms for pattern recognition and classification. They found that the way the whales communicate was not random or simplistic, but structured depending on the context of their conversations. This allowed them to identify distinct vocalizations that hadn’t been previously picked up on.

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Are  you practicing your clicks?

HAPPY SPERM WHALE

 

HILTON HEAD BEACHED SPERM WHALE : WHALE HELP

ISLAND PACKET :HILTON HEAD BEACHED SPERM WHALE

Excerpt: Like the beached whale on Hilton Head Island, live whales usually only beached themselves if they’re sick, injured, or in otherwise poor health. One common cause of sickness is when the whale ingests marine debris, especially plastic. Whales can get entangled in fishing gear or get struck by boats. Sperm whales are an endangered species, and about four of them strand themselves on beaches across the Atlantic coast per year. George said there has been some increase in the number of whales washing up over the years, but it’s not known whether that’s due to an increase in sperm whale populations or an increase to the threats they face. Lentz said the average person can help endangered whales by making conscientious choices about the food they eat and the products the buy, and picking up their garbage on the beach.

If you see a stranded or injured marine animal, do not push it back into the ocean, as biologists say it will likely wash up again somewhere else. Instead, call (877) WHALE-HELP to report the animal to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

BEAUTIFUL WHALE : BRYANT AUSTIN PHOTOGRAPHER GETS UP CLOSE TO WHALES

STUDIO COSMOS : BRYANT AUSTIN PHOTOGRAPHER 

Humpback, Sperm, and Minke Whales up close....

A beautiful book!

All those fish hiking a ride...

Such intelligent eyes!

MAURICE and MARALYN IS A RIVITING SURVIVAL STORY and a PAGE TURNER by SOPHIE ELMHIRST

A WHALE A SHIP A LOVE STORY

Halfway to New Zealand, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey's boat got struck by a sperm whale and from then on they struggled to survive. This is a riveting story of of how much humans can endure. Yes, they were rescued, which was improbable after so many ships passed them by without seeing them in the inflatable dinghy that had become their home.  At that point they were skeletal and near death, though they had captured turtles and sharks by hand and had also used the flesh as bait to catch fish. 

Their adventure began in March of 1973. Seven years earlier they'd considered giving up their ordinary suburban lives, their average jobs, to sail instead.  To do so they would sell their house, quit their jobs,  move into a rental in the Southhampton port area, take other jobs, and learn to sail by making runs across the English Channel and such. They were sensible as they made progress to their goal.  Well researched, Maralyn stocked the boat with enough food, rationed, to last their journey, most of which they would not be able to get into the raft or dinghy when the time came. Maurice studied books on life at sea and wanted to navigate by the stars as mariners had done before there were radios. They made a plan that would involve sailing the Pacific to New Zealand, going to the Canary Islands, the Caribbean Sea, and also the Galapagos. They knew that they would find themselves alone without another vessel in sight for days and would have to rely on all their knowledge and personal resources. They had to believe they were ready for the adventure. Their first stop was to be the Canary Islands.

But the challenge they could not have expected came when a sperm whale, likely surfacing, hit their boat. The sperm whale was about forty feet long and had a tail that spanned about ten feet.  Their boat, the Auralyn, was a thirty-footer. The collision between boat and whale was likely fatal for the whale who was bloody and in obvious pain when it dove back down into the ocean. The hole in the boat below the water line was not massive but it allowed ocean water to flood in. The couple quickly took action to seal the hole but their efforts didn't work. As the boat rapidly flooded, they realized they would have to get off their boat or sink with it. Quickly they got the life raft and the dinghy loaded with fresh water and other survival supplies, including nautical navigation tools. Maralyn managed to have her camera and diary. The boat sank before their eyes. 

The couple spent 118 days adrift on the Pacific Ocean and the experienced challenged them in every way, physically, mentally, emotionally.   They lived to get another boat and sail again.

C 2024 Book Review  Siren's Link to Sea

NOAA THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST... Three types of whales .. two types of turtles... 163 ON THE LIST

FISHERIES NOAA GOV : SPECIES

I dare you to check this list, pick one of the 163 whales, turtles, or fish on the list, and do more research!

CORAL TRIANGLE BIDIVERSITY THE MOST AMAZING ON EARTH - 75% KNOWN SPECIES

THE CORAL TRIANGLE MOST IMPORTANT : NHM

The Coral Triangle is a part of ocean spanning six million square kilometres, over Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste.

Although it's far less well-known than other places with abundant corals, like the Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Triangle is home to 30% of the world's reefs. In fact, when it comes to biodiversity, it is like nowhere else on Earth. More than 75% of the known coral species live there, as well as 37% of the world's coral reef fish.

It is home to six of the world's seven species of marine turtle, as well as blue whales, sperm whales, dolphins and dugongs.

ORAGAMI SPERM WHALE

SNEAKY WHALES CAUGHT STEALING MEALS

"Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), which are the largest of the toothed whales, echolocate to pinpoint their prey. Basically, they wmit clicking sounds that bounce off potential meals, including large squid and other fish. Scientists think an organ inside the animal's massive head (which can take up 25 to 35 percent of its body length) plays a role in transmitting the clicks." Jeanna Bryner