endangered whales

Save the Whales, Boycott Japan

By dfunzy on 7/7/10 5:20pm
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Japan keeps slaughtering whales. The Japanese slaughter about one thousand whales a year — primarily minke whales — as part of a government-sponsored and financed program that the Japanese government claims is for so-called scientific purposes. People concerned about this slaughter rightly call it for what it is -- commercial whaling, which has been banned worldwide since 1986. Japan is thumbing her nose at the world.

Today, Wednesday, Peter Bethune, an antiwhaling activist from New Zealand, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was convicted by a Japanese court of trespassing, vandalism, assault and obstructing Japan’s whaling fleet in the Antarctic. His sentence was suspended, and is expected to be booted out of the country

Various groups confront the Japanese whaling fleet to interfere with the whale hunts. These confrontations have led to some violence.

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Blue Whale Songs: Changing Pitch

By lisala on 12/16/09 7:05am
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Scientists and the curious, have been paying attention to the songs of whales, especially to those of "Big Blue," the blue whale, since the 1960s. The blue whale, known to scientists as Balaenoptera musculus, a member of the baleen whale group, and the largest animal known to have existed on the Earth, ever. They were close to extinction, after years of over-hunting, and their future was seriously in doubt. But of late, there's been some good news.

Scientists Mark McDonald of WhaleAcoustics in Bellvue, Colo., John Hildebrand of Scripps Oceanography, and Sarah Mesnick of NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center, haven been studying data regarding the songs of blue whales from around the world, and noticed a pattern. The pitch, that is the audio frequency of the songs, has been steadily curbing downward.

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Thar She Blows!

By macallister on 5/11/09 8:22pm
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There's some excellent news about the endangered blue whale, this week. Blue whales seem to be re-establishing a regular migration pattern along the west coast of the U.S., as far north as the Gulf of Alaska.

The Marine Mammal Science journal published research documenting fifteen individual blue whales identified between B.C. Canada and Alaska. These would have been regular seasonal territorial waters for the blue whale, before commercial whaling drove the species to the brink of extinction.

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