MINKE WHALE DIES : SANDBAR : BOATS : STARVATION? : WHALE STRANDINGS DRAMATIC INCREASE

It appears that a Minke whale may have been starving, come close to shore, got stranded on a sandbar, and in it's struggle to get free, hit into a boat, throwing a boat occupant.. Here's the coverage by Newsweek.

NEWSWEEK : MINKE WHALES DIES AFTER BOAT COLLISION


Excerpt: However, vessel strikes, entanglement, and habitat disturbances remain significant threats to whales along the eastern seaboard.

U.S. maritime law, specifically the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, prohibits the harassment, hunting, capturing, or killing of marine mammals. The law includes specific rules for recreational and commercial vessels, requiring operators to avoid approaching whales within 100 yards and to reduce speed in certain areas to minimize the risk of collisions.


CBS NEWS: MINKE WHALE DEATH EXAMINATION RESULTS


Excerpts: The whale was 26 feet, 4 inches long and confirmed to be an adult female. The MMSC said the whale's body condition was thin. It also had "superficial cuts" externally and "bruising present in the blubber and muscle in the areas of trauma on the dorsal side." Blood was also present in the whale's lungs, according to the MMSC. .... "GI tract was empty with very little digestive material present, and a scant amount of fecal matter," the MMSC wrote. "Lesions were present in the stomach."

THE ROSS SEA PROJECT : JOHN WELLER ARTIST, ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

UNIVERSITY OF BOULDER (COLORADO) NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM  check out this beautiful site and John Weller

Excerpt:  

John Weller: Artist Statement

It had been a long time since I cried in public. But on October 28th, 2016, I was not the only one openly weeping in a stone fortress in the center of Hobart, Tasmania, as I witnessed 24 Nations and the European Union establish the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea, Antarctica.

I had been a professional photographer for 6 years when I first heard about the Ross Sea. The effort to protect it would consume the next 12 years of my life. It started for me in 2004 when I read a paper by Antarctic ecologist David Ainley, who outlined the story of the Ross Sea, identifying it as the last large intact marine ecosystem left on Earth. This idea—that we had but one pristine place left in the entire ocean—got under my skin. It was an itch that I couldn’t scratch, and I eventually called David. We met some weeks later and committed to work together to build a campaign for a marine protected area in the Ross Sea...

THE LAST OCEAN : ANTARTICA'S ROSS SEA PROJECT : SAVING THE MOST PRISTINE ECOSYSTEM ON EARTH

A fantastic book (think of it when gifting!) full of adventure and amazing photography.  Some of the subjects... way more than I could put in labels... Emperor Penguins, Adelie Penguins, Minke Whales, Killer Whales,  The Ross Ice Shelf, McMurdo Research Station, Shakelton's Hut (circa 1908 - a historical monument to survival), underwater Antarctica, Weddell Seals....

HOW SEALS USE THEIR LUNGS TO DIVE DEEPER AND THIER INCREASED CAPACITY TO USE OYGEN.

THE FORMATION OF SEA ICE... BLUE ICEBERGS... 

BY THE EARLY 1970's THE WHALE POPULATION HAD PLUMMETED BY 90%.

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!

TWENTY THREE RECENT EAST COAST WHALE DEATHS SPARK ALARM : SHIP STRIKES KILLING MINKE, HUMPBACK, and NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALES

NEW YORK TIMES - 23 RECENT EAST COAST WHALE DEATHS 

These whales have washed ashore in recent weeks.  North Atlantic Right Whale - critically endangered. Minke whale.  Humpback whale.  Could it be that we just have to order things on line that are exported by other countries, rather than buying American made products and produce grown in the U.S. so that more ships are coming in and colliding with whales.

Well, my priority is not to buy anything from another country without an exhaustive search for MADE IN THE U.S.A. because most of the things you see for sale we really do not need.

Also windfarms offshore may be a problem for sea life.

BUT THERE IS ANOTHER ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR

Excerpt: The population of humpbacks, hunted legally until 1985, has rebounded, thanks in part to decades of efforts to clean the Atlantic Ocean and heavily polluted tributaries like the Hudson River. As the climate changes and oceans warm, whales and favored prey, menhaden, are migrating and feeding in new locations, often closer to shore.

UN COURT ORDERS JAPAN TO STOP ANTARTIC WHALE HUNTING

CBS NEWS JAPAN ORDERED TO HAULT ANNUAL ANTARTIC WHALE HUNT  link to video:

March 31, 2014, 6:49 PM|

The UN’s highest court has ordered Japan to stop its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic, ruling that the research produced didn’t justify the number of animals killed. Japan is one of the few countries to practice whaling. Seth Doane reports.

PBS : ON UN COURT ORDER plus video and text

"Japan has killed as many as 3,600 minke whales and issued permits for hunting humpback and fin whales within the Whale Sanctuary since the issuing of the JARPA II permits in 2005, The New York Times reports. The U.N. found that not only does Japan lack significant scientific results from their purported studies, but the evidence suggests that Japan has been exploiting the whales for other reasons. The U.N. has determined that Japan has breached its obligations under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling...."