11-09-2010 04:50:AM
Taiji Campaign Report
Report by Michael Dalton, Taiji Campaign Leader
Taiji town, in Wakayama prefecture, is a sleepy little fishing village on the eastern coast of Japan about four driving hours from Osaka (Kansai) international airport. Taiji is considered the birthplace of traditional whale hunting in Japan, with a history that dates back to the 1600’s.
Travelling down and around the coast from Osaka to Taiji, you will see that the entire coastline is dotted with similar small towns – all with the same style of harbours and small fishing boats.
What sets Taiji apart from other towns is the refusal to accept that there are alternatives to this long held custom of slaughtering small cetaceans. Most of the world was not aware that this was happening until Ric O’Barry brought it to the world’s attention through the making and screening of his award-winning documentary “The Cove”.
“The Cove” was not the first time that the practices had attracted attention here; in 2003 Sea Shepherd activists Alex Cornelissen and Alison Lance were arrested for cutting the nets in the notorious cove and were detained for four weeks before being evicted from Japan.
Arriving in Taiji on 31 August 2010, with a small but select group of Sea Shepherd volunteer activists – all from Brisbane, Australia – we discovered the town was not what we expected. The fleet of fishing boats used in the Dolphin drives, known to us from information readily available on the internet, were sitting lazily in the main harbour. An initial drive past The Cove on our first day in Taiji, the last guaranteed day of safety until April 2011 for the dolphins, yielded no confrontations with pro-hunting militants and no other opposition. In fact, the town was all but deserted.
After checking into our accommodation, one other scuba diver, two scouts, and I headed back to the town to ascertain what preparations were underway for the start of a possible six-month slaughter. We were able to casually walk down to the beach at The Cove, which is visible from the road into town. There was no scrutiny or surveillance from the adjacent car park as we had expected. We donned our snorkelling gear and swam around to the secluded killing cove – this was an unsettling experience – swimming in waters where up to 2,000 Bottlenose and Risso dolphins, False Killer and Pilot whales have been butchered on an annual basis just did not feel right.
Our swim into and out of the killing cove was uneventful, save for the attention it received from a couple that began filming and conducted a short interview with us. This action swiftly brought us to the attention of the local Police. With snorkelling gear in hand, we attempted to walk from The Cove but did not get very far before being questioned by two local [Shingu] Police officers. After some playful banter, and surprisingly no questions as to why we were snorkelling in the cove, we shook hands and left to return to our traditional-style guesthouse in a nearby town.
That night, two of us again headed for the town under cover of darkness, armed with equipment to document any activity either into or out of the harbour and around The Cove, including the secluded killing cove. We nestled into position undetected for the duration of our surveillance activities, and at 3:00am lights started appearing around the town as fishermen woke for their daily routines. At 3:45am, the fishermen started leaving the harbour under the light of the half moon and a star-lit sky. It was not until 5:30am that a procession of the boats involved in the dolphin drives left the sanctity of the main harbour and headed due east under the rising sun.
Shortly before 8:00am the boats returned back from the same easterly direction. This time not in single file but in a long arc of eight evenly spaced boats, slowly driving forward, herding a pod of terrified dolphins or small whales toward their doom. The only noise was the droning of the engines from the distance. Two of the larger boats in the fleet charged ahead to set up positions near the entrance to The Cove, ready to ensure that their quarry did not escape. The dolphins must have gone deep and shifted direction, because within a few minutes all boats broke formation and headed back out to sea. This was a great day for the dolphins with none being caught. A press release was quickly penned to inform the world that the hunts had again resumed with the first one being unsuccessful.
It was not only the world that listened to this first report, but also the fishermen and those holding higher office in the Institute for Cetacean Research, the organisation that ultimately profits from the sales of dolphins for captivity and the annual illegal Antarctic whaling operation. They now knew that representatives of their nemesis, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were in town – watching and waiting!
A pod of bottlenose dolphins were captured the following morning and witnessed in The Cove. The town’s fisheries agency confirmed that twenty had been captured and a number of them had been kept for sale with the remainder released.
Our photographic evidence confirmed this statement. The captured dolphins were manually moved using small boats and hand-held stretchers to the holding pens in the main harbour on Friday, 3 September where they wait for slave owners from aquariums and other captive dolphin enterprises to collect them; they are destined for a life of misery and will be forced to endure an unnatural diet of dead fish laced with antibiotics and anti-depressants in order to survive.
The knowledge that their activities were being closely monitored prompted an immediate heightening of security over the holding pens and around the town by a team of eleven police and two Japanese Coastguard employees. They were growing anxious over the possibility of a rescue attempt on the dolphins. Sea Shepherd did it in 2003, and could do it in 2010!
Throughout our time in Taiji, we were stopped several times by the police, never admitting our true intentions or affiliations. We also encountered the Japanese Coastguard personnel who knew I was leading this charge into their territory and wanted to warn me that if I attempted a second Sea Shepherd action on the nets then I would be charged – the others in my group were warned not to associate with me!
The Coastguard let us leave, but ensured that we were constantly followed by both Police and Coastguard vehicles until we lost them in a series of manoeuvres in the back streets of Kushimoto. They have not found us since, despite attempts to pose as media for bogus interviews and always calling us within minutes of us escaping their surveillance attempts.
To the fishermen of Taiji, the dolphins and small whales are merely big fish to be captured, sold and forced into an unnatural life in dolphin shows and aquariums for the amusement of humans -- or slaughtered inhumanely for their significantly lesser value as meat. These animals are laden with toxic chemicals including PCB’s and methyl-mercury that have permeated the oceanic food chain since the start of the industrial revolution.
Despite scientific evidence highlighting levels of contaminants in the meat that exceed the recommended levels safe for human consumption, it is still sold in supermarkets and served in school lunches. Local Taiji townspeople, and those of neighbouring areas, are being exposed to chemicals that were linked to catastrophic neurological problems (known as Minamata disease) endured by people in Minamata as mercury from industrial waste contaminated their drinking water with poison.
The mayor of Taiji has commented publicly that as long as he holds office the killing of dolphins and other cetaceans will continue. He argues that tradition and custom warrant the continuation of the dolphin drives and refuses to acknowledge that profiteering from these mammals in the name of human entertainment is only a recent phenomenon.
The world must know what is happening in Taiji. We direct no malice towards anyone in Taiji or wider Japan except those involved in these cruel and barbaric slaughters, those capturing dolphins for exploitation, and those that profit from both practices.
We have met and shared laughter with many wonderful locals during our short time in this beautiful, culturally rich area. We have been offered help whenever we have needed it, above and beyond that ever experienced in any other country I have visited or lived. It is unfortunate that a small handful of people continue to bloody these waters and do not seek to find an alternative as many other towns both in Japan and around the world have already chosen to do.
Taiji is not a town prospering from the sale and slaughter of dolphins; instead it too is slowly dying. The lifeblood ebbing slowly out of it by the refusal of younger fishermen to participate in the killings and the profits going to those in higher authority who know only greed without compassion.
Tangalooma Resort, on Brisbane’s Moreton Island, was once the home of one of Australia’s most notorious whaling stations, responsible for decimating the population of humpback whales over such a short period of time that, had they not ceased whaling operations when they did, the humpbacks may have never recovered.
Instead of hiding its 400 years of whaling, Taiji, like Tangalooma Resort, or even Futo in Japan, could be prospering from eco-tourism. After all – who wants to go to a town responsible for the ritualistic murder of cetaceans?
And finally, to those organisations like the Whale Museum in Taiji, the dolphinariums and the Sea World’s of this ocean planet – shame on you! Your greed is the driving force behind the exploitation of these magnificent creatures and the reason that the dolphin hunts continue in places like Taiji. This greed and total disregard for these mammals denies them the freedom of the oceans and forces them into shallow artificial waters where they must perform in order to eat – and where they are denied the opportunity to exhibit natural swimming, hunting, mating and social behaviour.
It is time for people to realise that visiting dolphins and small whales in captivity is directly correlated to the deaths of more than 20,000 cetaceans in Japan every year!
Click here for the original...
]]>Taiji Campaign Report
Report by Michael Dalton, Taiji Campaign LeaderTaiji town, in Wakayama prefecture, is a sleepy little fishing village on the eastern coast of Japan about four driving hours from Osaka (Kansai) international airport. Taiji is considered the birthplace of traditional whale hunting in Japan, with a history that dates back to the 1600’s.
Travelling down and around the coast from Osaka to Taiji, you will see that the entire coastline is dotted with similar small towns – all with the same style of harbours and small fishing boats.
What sets Taiji apart from other towns is the refusal to accept that there are alternatives to this long held custom of slaughtering small cetaceans. Most of the world was not aware that this was happening until Ric O’Barry brought it to the world’s attention through the making and screening of his award-winning documentary “The Cove”.“The Cove” was not the first time that the practices had attracted attention here; in 2003 Sea Shepherd activists Alex Cornelissen and Alison Lance were arrested for cutting the nets in the notorious cove and were detained for four weeks before being evicted from Japan.
Arriving in Taiji on 31 August 2010, with a small but select group of Sea Shepherd volunteer activists – all from Brisbane, Australia – we discovered the town was not what we expected. The fleet of fishing boats used in the Dolphin drives, known to us from information readily available on the internet, were sitting lazily in the main harbour. An initial drive past The Cove on our first day in Taiji, the last guaranteed day of safety until April 2011 for the dolphins, yielded no confrontations with pro-hunting militants and no other opposition. In fact, the town was all but deserted.After checking into our accommodation, one other scuba diver, two scouts, and I headed back to the town to ascertain what preparations were underway for the start of a possible six-month slaughter. We were able to casually walk down to the beach at The Cove, which is visible from the road into town. There was no scrutiny or surveillance from the adjacent car park as we had expected. We donned our snorkelling gear and swam around to the secluded killing cove – this was an unsettling experience – swimming in waters where up to 2,000 Bottlenose and Risso dolphins, False Killer and Pilot whales have been butchered on an annual basis just did not feel right.
Our swim into and out of the killing cove was uneventful, save for the attention it received from a couple that began filming and conducted a short interview with us. This action swiftly brought us to the attention of the local Police. With snorkelling gear in hand, we attempted to walk from The Cove but did not get very far before being questioned by two local [Shingu] Police officers. After some playful banter, and surprisingly no questions as to why we were snorkelling in the cove, we shook hands and left to return to our traditional-style guesthouse in a nearby town.
That night, two of us again headed for the town under cover of darkness, armed with equipment to document any activity either into or out of the harbour and around The Cove, including the secluded killing cove. We nestled into position undetected for the duration of our surveillance activities, and at 3:00am lights started appearing around the town as fishermen woke for their daily routines. At 3:45am, the fishermen started leaving the harbour under the light of the half moon and a star-lit sky. It was not until 5:30am that a procession of the boats involved in the dolphin drives left the sanctity of the main harbour and headed due east under the rising sun.
Shortly before 8:00am the boats returned back from the same easterly direction. This time not in single file but in a long arc of eight evenly spaced boats, slowly driving forward, herding a pod of terrified dolphins or small whales toward their doom. The only noise was the droning of the engines from the distance. Two of the larger boats in the fleet charged ahead to set up positions near the entrance to The Cove, ready to ensure that their quarry did not escape. The dolphins must have gone deep and shifted direction, because within a few minutes all boats broke formation and headed back out to sea. This was a great day for the dolphins with none being caught. A press release was quickly penned to inform the world that the hunts had again resumed with the first one being unsuccessful.
It was not only the world that listened to this first report, but also the fishermen and those holding higher office in the Institute for Cetacean Research, the organisation that ultimately profits from the sales of dolphins for captivity and the annual illegal Antarctic whaling operation. They now knew that representatives of their nemesis, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were in town – watching and waiting!
A pod of bottlenose dolphins were captured the following morning and witnessed in The Cove. The town’s fisheries agency confirmed that twenty had been captured and a number of them had been kept for sale with the remainder released.
Our photographic evidence confirmed this statement. The captured dolphins were manually moved using small boats and hand-held stretchers to the holding pens in the main harbour on Friday, 3 September where they wait for slave owners from aquariums and other captive dolphin enterprises to collect them; they are destined for a life of misery and will be forced to endure an unnatural diet of dead fish laced with antibiotics and anti-depressants in order to survive.The knowledge that their activities were being closely monitored prompted an immediate heightening of security over the holding pens and around the town by a team of eleven police and two Japanese Coastguard employees. They were growing anxious over the possibility of a rescue attempt on the dolphins. Sea Shepherd did it in 2003, and could do it in 2010!
Throughout our time in Taiji, we were stopped several times by the police, never admitting our true intentions or affiliations. We also encountered the Japanese Coastguard personnel who knew I was leading this charge into their territory and wanted to warn me that if I attempted a second Sea Shepherd action on the nets then I would be charged – the others in my group were warned not to associate with me!
The Coastguard let us leave, but ensured that we were constantly followed by both Police and Coastguard vehicles until we lost them in a series of manoeuvres in the back streets of Kushimoto. They have not found us since, despite attempts to pose as media for bogus interviews and always calling us within minutes of us escaping their surveillance attempts.
To the fishermen of Taiji, the dolphins and small whales are merely big fish to be captured, sold and forced into an unnatural life in dolphin shows and aquariums for the amusement of humans -- or slaughtered inhumanely for their significantly lesser value as meat. These animals are laden with toxic chemicals including PCB’s and methyl-mercury that have permeated the oceanic food chain since the start of the industrial revolution.Despite scientific evidence highlighting levels of contaminants in the meat that exceed the recommended levels safe for human consumption, it is still sold in supermarkets and served in school lunches. Local Taiji townspeople, and those of neighbouring areas, are being exposed to chemicals that were linked to catastrophic neurological problems (known as Minamata disease) endured by people in Minamata as mercury from industrial waste contaminated their drinking water with poison.
The mayor of Taiji has commented publicly that as long as he holds office the killing of dolphins and other cetaceans will continue. He argues that tradition and custom warrant the continuation of the dolphin drives and refuses to acknowledge that profiteering from these mammals in the name of human entertainment is only a recent phenomenon.
The world must know what is happening in Taiji. We direct no malice towards anyone in Taiji or wider Japan except those involved in these cruel and barbaric slaughters, those capturing dolphins for exploitation, and those that profit from both practices.
We have met and shared laughter with many wonderful locals during our short time in this beautiful, culturally rich area. We have been offered help whenever we have needed it, above and beyond that ever experienced in any other country I have visited or lived. It is unfortunate that a small handful of people continue to bloody these waters and do not seek to find an alternative as many other towns both in Japan and around the world have already chosen to do.
Taiji is not a town prospering from the sale and slaughter of dolphins; instead it too is slowly dying. The lifeblood ebbing slowly out of it by the refusal of younger fishermen to participate in the killings and the profits going to those in higher authority who know only greed without compassion.
Tangalooma Resort, on Brisbane’s Moreton Island, was once the home of one of Australia’s most notorious whaling stations, responsible for decimating the population of humpback whales over such a short period of time that, had they not ceased whaling operations when they did, the humpbacks may have never recovered.
Instead of hiding its 400 years of whaling, Taiji, like Tangalooma Resort, or even Futo in Japan, could be prospering from eco-tourism. After all – who wants to go to a town responsible for the ritualistic murder of cetaceans?
And finally, to those organisations like the Whale Museum in Taiji, the dolphinariums and the Sea World’s of this ocean planet – shame on you! Your greed is the driving force behind the exploitation of these magnificent creatures and the reason that the dolphin hunts continue in places like Taiji. This greed and total disregard for these mammals denies them the freedom of the oceans and forces them into shallow artificial waters where they must perform in order to eat – and where they are denied the opportunity to exhibit natural swimming, hunting, mating and social behaviour.
It is time for people to realise that visiting dolphins and small whales in captivity is directly correlated to the deaths of more than 20,000 cetaceans in Japan every year!
Click here for the original...
THIS makes me Happy.................. :)
Gunns surrenders over logs
http://www.themercury.com.au/article...ania-news.html
GILL VOWLES | September 10, 2010 08.32am
TASMANIAN timber giant Gunns Limited has conceded the forestry industry has lost the public debate on native forest logging.
At an industry conference in Melbourne yesterday, Gunns chief executive Greg L'Estrange said the sector had been out-thought and out-played by environmental non-government organisations.
Last night, those environmental groups welcomed Mr L'Estrange's comments and said there was now real hope Tasmania's long-running forest conflict would be resolved.
Mr L'Estrange's comments were the latest in a year of turnarounds for Gunns.
In May, long-time chairman John Gay resigned amid intense market pressure and last month the company announced it intended to sell its wine businesses for $32.5 million.
Gunns has also sold its hardware division for $40 million and native bush holdings for $27.5 million in a bid to reduce debt in order to attract finance for a Bell Bay pulp mill.
Yesterday, Mr L'Estrange said environmentalists had used three key leverage points to win broad community support -- public emotion, multi-level government involvement and market action.
"In response, the industry maintained a stance that science will prevail and feudal lords will maintain the 200-year tradition of licensed access to crown land," he said.
Mr L'Estrange conceded the vast number of Australians supported the environmental groups, meaning Gunns needed to work with them to create a future without conflict.
"This may well mean transitioning to plantations but move we must, for the conflict must end," he said.
"Through this inclusive approach we will find joint solutions to age-old conflicts and move beyond a real, sustainable forest industry.
"Over the past year we have made a clear, directional statement that our future will be in the development and use of plantation-based products because we must change in order to achieve broader community and investor support."
Environment Tasmania convenor Phill Pullinger said it was extraordinary the CEO of Tasmania's biggest logging company had finally agreed most Australians wanted native forests protected.
"This does reflect a significant shift in attitude when you think that just six years ago this was a company taking a law suit against 20 of its biggest critics," he said.
"This major change in thinking gives Tasmania its best opportunity in 30 years to resolve this conflict and it is vitally important for Tasmania's future that we do resolve it because the conflict has done much damage to our community and our natural heritage."
Greens forests spokesman Kim Booth said Mr L'Estrange's comments were refreshingly frank.
"There is awareness globally that we must live sustainably," he said.
"It took the removal of John Gay from the Gunns board for shareholders to replace him with a CEO who understands global markets."
Mr Booth believed yesterday's comments would go a long way to healing wounds.
The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania did not return calls from the Mercury
]]>Gunns surrenders over logs
http://www.themercury.com.au/article...ania-news.html
GILL VOWLES | September 10, 2010 08.32am
TASMANIAN timber giant Gunns Limited has conceded the forestry industry has lost the public debate on native forest logging.
At an industry conference in Melbourne yesterday, Gunns chief executive Greg L'Estrange said the sector had been out-thought and out-played by environmental non-government organisations.
Last night, those environmental groups welcomed Mr L'Estrange's comments and said there was now real hope Tasmania's long-running forest conflict would be resolved.
Mr L'Estrange's comments were the latest in a year of turnarounds for Gunns.
In May, long-time chairman John Gay resigned amid intense market pressure and last month the company announced it intended to sell its wine businesses for $32.5 million.
Gunns has also sold its hardware division for $40 million and native bush holdings for $27.5 million in a bid to reduce debt in order to attract finance for a Bell Bay pulp mill.
Yesterday, Mr L'Estrange said environmentalists had used three key leverage points to win broad community support -- public emotion, multi-level government involvement and market action.
"In response, the industry maintained a stance that science will prevail and feudal lords will maintain the 200-year tradition of licensed access to crown land," he said.
Mr L'Estrange conceded the vast number of Australians supported the environmental groups, meaning Gunns needed to work with them to create a future without conflict.
"This may well mean transitioning to plantations but move we must, for the conflict must end," he said.
"Through this inclusive approach we will find joint solutions to age-old conflicts and move beyond a real, sustainable forest industry.
"Over the past year we have made a clear, directional statement that our future will be in the development and use of plantation-based products because we must change in order to achieve broader community and investor support."
Environment Tasmania convenor Phill Pullinger said it was extraordinary the CEO of Tasmania's biggest logging company had finally agreed most Australians wanted native forests protected.
"This does reflect a significant shift in attitude when you think that just six years ago this was a company taking a law suit against 20 of its biggest critics," he said.
"This major change in thinking gives Tasmania its best opportunity in 30 years to resolve this conflict and it is vitally important for Tasmania's future that we do resolve it because the conflict has done much damage to our community and our natural heritage."
Greens forests spokesman Kim Booth said Mr L'Estrange's comments were refreshingly frank.
"There is awareness globally that we must live sustainably," he said.
"It took the removal of John Gay from the Gunns board for shareholders to replace him with a CEO who understands global markets."
Mr Booth believed yesterday's comments would go a long way to healing wounds.
The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania did not return calls from the Mercury
http://new.vagaportal.fo/pages/posts...dvagi-3781.php
Tonight 50-70 pilot whales have been killed in Miđvag on the island Vagoy in Faroe Islands
update to follow as more details are known
Turns out that it's a little over 80 whales
Last update says their were 102 whales 720.5 skinn a total of 51876 kg of whale meat and blubber. each part is 1/2 a skinn
so according to computations in my letter to all politicians in Faroe Islands.
A family of 4 would need to eat this within 4.5 years to not consumer more mercury then what is recommended to be safe of just the meat.
Blubber should not be eaten at all for it's high containment of DDT and PCB.
And 102 fewer CO2 filter for our world
]]>Tonight 50-70 pilot whales have been killed in Miđvag on the island Vagoy in Faroe Islands
update to follow as more details are known
Turns out that it's a little over 80 whales
Last update says their were 102 whales 720.5 skinn a total of 51876 kg of whale meat and blubber. each part is 1/2 a skinn
so according to computations in my letter to all politicians in Faroe Islands.
A family of 4 would need to eat this within 4.5 years to not consumer more mercury then what is recommended to be safe of just the meat.
Blubber should not be eaten at all for it's high containment of DDT and PCB.
And 102 fewer CO2 filter for our world
Quote:
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Sea Shepherds Find Healthy Whale Sharks in the Gulf!
Report from Bonny Schumaker
This Labor Day weekend, Sea Shepherd crew joined their fellow crewmember and pilot in the Gulf since last May, Bonny Schumaker Board Director of Sea Shepherd and founder of OnWingsOfCare.org, to help scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi and Gulf Coast Research Laboratory to find and tag whale sharks. Bonny has been flying over the Gulf on a near-daily basis since May, tracking oil and wildlife for a broad base of scientists, and has logged over 250 hours 'flying low and slow' from the coastal waters to 150 nm off shore, from waters of western Louisiana to Florida. Here is Bonny's report from this fruitful weekend with some very industrious Sea Shepherd volunteers and supporters.
One of the high points for Sea Shepherds working in the Gulf the past weeks occurred again this past weekend, when we were able to find whale sharks on 21 occasions (comprising at least 12 distinct individuals) between Saturday and Sunday. On previous missions with scientists from USM and GCRL, there has been one boat plus one or two airplanes spotting. On our August 09 trip to the Ewing Bank area, about 70 nm southwest of Port Fourchon, LA, we found only two whale sharks, an adult and a sub-adult, and the scientists were able to get two tags on one of them. We witnessed five dolphins apparently playing with the sub-adult whale shark -- they seemed to be taking turns chasing each other. The dolphins, if not the young whale shark, appeared to be having quite some fun with it all; the scientists were quite excited about this, as it is yet another feature of whale shark behavior about which we know very little. On that trip and some subsequent ones, we were joined by Sea Shepherd supporters and fellow environmentalists Samantha Whitcraft and Deb Castellana of OceanicDefense.org. We also spotted a pod of seven Orcas, several large schools of bottlenose dolphin (two with 40-50 individuals), and some leatherback turtles. But all trips in that area since then have revealed a stark absence of life. This area is south west of the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well and, although it is far enough offshore to be in blue water, I had documented significant oil sheen there since last May.
This past Labor Day weekend, Sea Shepherd volunteers and supporters supplied a second boat and crew for both Saturday and Sunday. The new search grid was about 75 nm wide (roughly west to east) and 25 nm tall, with the western sector overlapping the Macondo rig. No whale sharks were seen in the western sector, and the eastern one started out to be disappointing. In the eastern sector, we had more success finding marine life. We spotted well over 15 beautiful large leatherback turtles, a large manta (or devil?) ray, many schools of cobia, bonita, tuna and dolphin (both bottlenose and spinner), and even a lone sperm whale traveling westward. But by 4pm we still had not found whale sharks. The scientists' boat called and said they were starting back to port (Venice), and the other spotting plane was also turning back. But the Sea Shepherds refused to be defeated! After refueling in Gulf Shores, AL, our plane (affectionately known to all as "Bessie") headed back out, and the Sea Shepherds' boat promised to remain out with us.
I had two very special passengers in Bessie: Jim Franks, a longtime marine biologist at GCRL, who by end of day had acquired the nickname "Professor," and Jerry Moran, photographer extraordinaire, who occupied the entire back seat 'office with 360-deg windows' and who earned the nickname "General." Jerry has definitely earned himself a place as an esteemed Sea Shepherd volunteer on any mission we undertake. I admit we were getting a little bit punchy from ten hours of flying at 200 feet above the water with windows wide open staring down. We had done the shark dance several times -- a ritual taught me back in August by Samantha Whitcraft and we found an AM radio station on my ADF instrument that came in for about a half-hour -- just in time to play for us the old song "Baby baby don't get hooked on me....." which we decided just had to be our new theme song.
Once I realized that this late in the day the boats might not be able to reach us to tag the whale shark anyway, I decided to abandon the grid search and spend the rest of the daylight hours following our own hunches. After spending this much time flying so low over the ocean, it is easy to feel like a shark yourself! Your eyes and brain identify bait balls, schools of jumping tuna, the flash of a fin or strange shape in the water, all quite readily. We decided to head for the deep shelf and an area known on the fishing charts as "The Steps", following fronts and convergence lines. And then things started to happen. We saw dark patches in the water, which were areas of large concentrations of fish that appear dark because they change the surface properties of the water. We started to fly from patch to patch, wherever the tuna and other fish were jumping the most. And in the middle of most of them, we found what we had been looking for! If it wasn't a whale shark, it was a tiger shark or two. By 6:30pm, in just two hours, we had found, followed, and photographed nine distinct whale sharks. After each one, I would say "Okay Professor, find us the next bait ball." And the General would issue his commend "Whale Sharks! Reveal yourselves!" And then a round of our new theme song and maybe a shark dance or two.... and eyes riveted out the windows.
With this success, we were disappointed to find out that the scientists did not have the funds to schedule another charter boat for Sunday! Undaunted, after docking their boat, the Sea Shepherds found another boat and captain, explained what we were trying to do, made a few phone calls to some wonderful Sea Shepherd supporters in the Gulf who offered to cover fuel costs, and we were on for Sunday! One of the scientists, Jennifer McKinney, who had permits to tag the whale sharks, eagerly accepted the invitation to join us for Sunday. I typed up my notes and sent out all the coordinates and other information to the crew, and we prepared to get about five hours' sleep and start back out on Sunday.
There was just the one boat and my plane on Sunday. One of the Sea Shepherd boat crew volunteered to ride with me in Bessie as photographer and fellow spotter, and off we went. We spotted 12 whale sharks on Sunday. Again, they were always near or in the middle of a school of jumping tuna and lots of baitfish. Some of those bait balls had tiger sharks with them; we never did see both tiger and whale sharks together. And of course we also were delighted to find more leatherback turtles and dolphins. Sea Shepherd volunteer Brock Cahill and Jennifer were in the water several times near whale sharks, and came very close to tagging one very large one, but just as they neared her, she dove. (I'm sure it was a her -- her mouth was rose-colored! Perhaps from bruising by the jumping tuna?) Despite not getting many whale sharks tagged, we counted it a very successful weekend. We are all relieved to know that there is still a variety of healthy marine life out there, at least in the area 100 miles or so east of the April oil spill. But this is offset by the realization that the absence of life noted around the area of the spill is probably a consequence of the spill.
Many lessons were learned, some the hard way, which will make future trips more efficient and successful. To name a few:
Look for the whale sharks near the bait balls and jumping tuna.
There is not much feeding frenzy activity before midday, but it continues as long as the warm sun is shining.
Have a powerful aviation transceiver on the boat and a good marine antenna and handheld on the spotter plane, for assured communication.
Save costs by tailoring the search grid size and number of spotter planes to the number and speed of the boats, to be sure that the divers can reach the spotted sharks in a timely way.
Use a plane like Bessie that can fly low and slow for six hours or more, with windows wide open
Have an air crew like us who have the developed flight skills and spotting eyes of pelagic birds
Use volunteers like the Sea Shepherds who will not give up early!
NOTES:
On Saturday, two boats went out. One carried the GCRL scientists and State of Louisiana Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) representatives on a chartered boat out of Venice, LA. Unlike other such trips, funded entirely by the scientists' own research grants, this time the costs for this boat and the aerial spotters for this day's mission were, for the first time ever, going to be taken care of by NRDA. The second boat was crewed by Sea Shepherd volunteers. The boat and its skipper ("Captain Steve") were donated by Mississippi fisherman Lenny Maiolatesi, and fuel costs were donated by an individual from Mississippi who is deeply interested in supporting the general well-being of the Gulf.
Aerial spotting was carried out by pilot Bonny Schumaker and a second pilot and his plane, Burt Lattimore, contracted out of New Orleans' Lakefront Airport.
GCRL supplied several expert spotters to ride in the spotting planes. Bonny also brought along the extraordinary photographer and dedicated native New Orleanian Jerry Moran. It is to Jerry that we owe these stupendous photos. Yes, he still modestly assert that he could never have gotten them without Bonny and "Bessie" (Bonny's plane) performing their hovering helicopter impersonation, where we slow to 55 kts with flaps and fly a circle tight enough that the only time we lose footage is when the sun angle is wrong. But the real genius is that Jerry spends most of his time (from the back seat of Bessie -- his private office fully surrounded by windows) hanging out the side windows hand-focusing his cameras and ready at every moment to get the shot.
On Sunday, there was no boat in the budget for GCRL. But Sea Shepherd crew were donated a second boat, this one a high-speed (60-kt) fishing boat, and we took GCRL scientists Jennifer McKinney along so that we could tag any whale sharks we found. Bonny flew aerial spotting on Sunday with Sea Shepherd volunteer Charles Harmison along to man the videocamera and handle communications with the boat via marine-frequency VHF handheld.
Here is what we found:
On Saturday, the search grid comprised a large roughly-rectangular area about 75 by 25 nm, that more or less followed the blue water line and deep shelf, from about 75 miles south of Gulfport, MS to about 60 nm south of Gulf Shores, AL.
The day started slowly. Nothing but a few dolphins, small rays, and leatherback turtles were found by Burt and his crew in the western part of the sector. This part of the sector overlapped the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well ("The Source"). They saw a large oil sheen southwest of the Macondo well.
The eastern part of the sector was richer in turtles, but still no whale sharks. Not to be discouraged, Bonny and her airplane team decided to refuel in Gulf Shores, AL mid-afternoon and returned to the Gulf to the east of the grid. Since Eric's boat was going to have to turn back shortly, they decided to quit searching the grid pattern and instead to follow their own hunches about what areas looked promising. Heading southeast from Gulf Shores, AL, they immediately found several leatherback turtles, often together with dolphins. As they went farther offshore, they noticed various dark patches, which turned out to be tuna jumping wildly after smaller 'bait' fish. They began to look for these 'bait balls' and to follow any birds they saw. And so we came to find the whale sharks.
Almost every single area of jumping tuna had at least one whale shark near its center! By the time we headed home, almost 7pm Saturday, we had logged coordinates for nine (9) whale sharks. In one place we spotted two whale sharks, one very large (~40 ft) and one much smaller (~25 ft).
On Saturday, we also sighted a single sperm whale longer than 30 feet, traveling westward at a good clip -- at least 25 kts. And on the order of ten or more large leatherback turtles, most of them floating serenely, but some of them on occasion working their fins hard, or diving from our view. Many of the turtles we saw Saturday were near schools of fish -- sometimes bonita but often cobia (lemon fish). One of the largest of the turtles -- ~6 ft across and at least 500 lbs -- was right next to a red subsurface patch. We were drawn to that thinking we were seeing oil again, but close up it looked more like a plankton bloom. We also saw several bottlenose dolphins, a fair amount of healthy-looking sargassum patches, and a large manta (devil?) ray.
On Sunday, we had the single boat head directly to the most recent of those sightings, and we headed out in the plane to look for more jumping tuna!
The morning was quiet on Sunday, as it had been on Saturday. Chalk up one lesson: those early morning launches may not be so necessary. Seems maybe the tuna and whale sharks like to sleep in a little, or at least are not that hungry until about midday. Another lesson was that when the sun starts to go down, and especially if clouds appear and things get shadier, not only does the lighting grow worse for photography, but the wildlife tend to stop eating, and dive.
But shortly after noon, the 'bait balls' started to appear, and we got so our eyes could pick out those jumping fish a mile or more away.
On Sunday we took mostly video. Jerry's is such a tough act to follow, that when he couldn't come along on Sunday, we just gave up on photography and relied on the high-quality video camera that Sea Shepherd provided us to try to make up for our lack of expertise. We'll upload those to the web in a day or two.
We found a total of 12 whale sharks on Sunday, somewhat to the east of where we had found them on Saturday. Some may have been the same individuals as those we saw on Saturday, but some were different. Many of the bait balls we found had not whale sharks -- but in those cases, there were usually one or two tiger sharks joining in. Unfortunately, by the time the boat got to where we were, we were only able to position them next to one whale shark. The divers were in the water and ready to tag her, when she suddenly dove.
We missed the tag by seconds. And by that time, it was growing dark, the lighting was much poorer, the tuna activity had diminished, and the sun was going down.
How promising tomorrow and the next day seem. With the lessons learned, we think we can do this better and in more cost-effective ways, so we look forward to many more whale-shark sightings and tagging.
1. 3053. 29.40150. 087.38461
2. (2 whales) 3056. 29.39450. 087.34805
3. 3058. 29.40200. 087.34350
4. 3060. 29.40296. 087.35119
5. 3062. 29.41315. 087.36313
6. 3064. 29.40516. 087.36524
7. 3065. 29.40256. 087.35696
8. 3066. 29.39832. 087.35600
I was in a store recently and overheard a girl in there talking about how she just got back from a trip to Finland(I think she said Finland) and that while she was there she ate whale....and said it was really good and tasted like chicken.
I overheard her saying this to someone else in the store.
I felt sad and left the store. :(
Should I have said something to this person? I don't like what she was talking about there but I admit that conflict really worries me. I'm a very shy person to begin with face to face with people...and to bring up a controversial topic is even harder for me.
I've seen this person around my neighbourhood before so it's fairly likely that I'll see her again at some point when I'm out in the local stores here.
I'm really unsure about how to actually confront people about this issue. I'm not sure how to phrase it if I do bring it up with someone and I'm a pretty emotional person so I fear that I would just start crying.
Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I wasn't quite sure where to actually post this.
]]>I overheard her saying this to someone else in the store.
I felt sad and left the store. :(
Should I have said something to this person? I don't like what she was talking about there but I admit that conflict really worries me. I'm a very shy person to begin with face to face with people...and to bring up a controversial topic is even harder for me.
I've seen this person around my neighbourhood before so it's fairly likely that I'll see her again at some point when I'm out in the local stores here.
I'm really unsure about how to actually confront people about this issue. I'm not sure how to phrase it if I do bring it up with someone and I'm a pretty emotional person so I fear that I would just start crying.
Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I wasn't quite sure where to actually post this.
A fisherman of Albany Western Australia was attacked by a Great White I kilometer off the beach at Cosy Corner, 30 kilometers west of Albany when the shark attacked from underneath, the massive shark 4.5 metres long chomped the kayak, and found it was inedible, and thouroughly scared the crap out of the kayaker.
The man said he brought the kayak to get closer to nature when he was fishing, but not that close, and vowed never to return to that place again.
]]>The man said he brought the kayak to get closer to nature when he was fishing, but not that close, and vowed never to return to that place again.
Recently I posted a thread questioning the strategy of the SSCS, and suggesting an alternative strategy that might be more effective.
While I admit that I made fun of the SSCS characters from "Whale Wars", my post did not violate any of the rules, other than the apparent unwritten rule that dissent is not allowed. Everyone must apparently tow the line and no new ideas are needed nor welcome. We rule. Everything we do is right and good and working. No diverging thoughts are welcome.
For violating this apparent unwritten rule, I was banned from the site. Of course, it is comically easy to get back in (as evidenced by this post). My question for the crowd is this: Are you committed to saving the whales enough to entertain new ideas, even if those ideas fall outside your current mental models? Or, are you so wedded to the course of action you are on that you care more about perpetuating the status quo than you do about actually being effective?
Case in point - if I told you that the SSCS campaigns as shown on "Whale Wars" were hurting, rather than helping the whales, would you even consider the idea? Or, would you ban me from your forum, preferring to talk with only those who think as you do and agree with you?
I doubt I'll be able to participate in a discussion beyond this post since it is the policy of the forum overlords to ban anyone who doesn't agree - sort of like Nazi Germany that way.
In any case, I hope that this post will at least provoke some serious thought, even in absentia.
Regards,
M.R.
]]>While I admit that I made fun of the SSCS characters from "Whale Wars", my post did not violate any of the rules, other than the apparent unwritten rule that dissent is not allowed. Everyone must apparently tow the line and no new ideas are needed nor welcome. We rule. Everything we do is right and good and working. No diverging thoughts are welcome.
For violating this apparent unwritten rule, I was banned from the site. Of course, it is comically easy to get back in (as evidenced by this post). My question for the crowd is this: Are you committed to saving the whales enough to entertain new ideas, even if those ideas fall outside your current mental models? Or, are you so wedded to the course of action you are on that you care more about perpetuating the status quo than you do about actually being effective?
Case in point - if I told you that the SSCS campaigns as shown on "Whale Wars" were hurting, rather than helping the whales, would you even consider the idea? Or, would you ban me from your forum, preferring to talk with only those who think as you do and agree with you?
I doubt I'll be able to participate in a discussion beyond this post since it is the policy of the forum overlords to ban anyone who doesn't agree - sort of like Nazi Germany that way.
In any case, I hope that this post will at least provoke some serious thought, even in absentia.
Regards,
M.R.
PLRS: Undercover at a Product-Testing Laboratory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItM2ptst4u8&feature=sub
]]>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItM2ptst4u8&feature=sub
http://topnews.co.uk/212520-horrendo...-faroe-islands
A discovery into atrocious, unlawful and superstitious whaling practices has been made in the Faroe Islands by two activists.
The two activists, who guised themselves as fishermen, found no less than one pilot whale being hunted on the island of Sandoy.
Talking about their witnessing of the hunt, they termed it as something horrifying.
Giving details of the same, they said that at first, the peapod of pilot whales that was driven to the town was really big to have been killed in just one sitting by the town’s populace that mainly comprised senior citizens.
Consequently, the whales were slaughtered in a matter of two days.
On the second day, when the whales had to be slaughtered, they were tied via their tails to the boats, which is against the law.
As informed by the activists, the captive whales thrashed all night out of panic, as they desired to reach for their family members.
After suffering for the whole night in blood red water whilst being tied to the end of boats, the rest of the whales were murdered on the subsequent day.
It has been challenged by the island dwellers that pilot whales hunting is a customary practice that has no commercial façade to it.
]]>Quote:
A discovery into atrocious, unlawful and superstitious whaling practices has been made in the Faroe Islands by two activists.
The two activists, who guised themselves as fishermen, found no less than one pilot whale being hunted on the island of Sandoy.
Talking about their witnessing of the hunt, they termed it as something horrifying.
Giving details of the same, they said that at first, the peapod of pilot whales that was driven to the town was really big to have been killed in just one sitting by the town’s populace that mainly comprised senior citizens.
Consequently, the whales were slaughtered in a matter of two days.
On the second day, when the whales had to be slaughtered, they were tied via their tails to the boats, which is against the law.
As informed by the activists, the captive whales thrashed all night out of panic, as they desired to reach for their family members.
After suffering for the whole night in blood red water whilst being tied to the end of boats, the rest of the whales were murdered on the subsequent day.
It has been challenged by the island dwellers that pilot whales hunting is a customary practice that has no commercial façade to it.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americ...ex.html?hpt=C2
An American couple in Belize struggled Tuesday to figure out their future, their dreams literally up in smoke after a mob of indigenous Mayans burned down their animal sanctuary in the belief the foreigners fed two missing children to crocodiles on their property.
Cherie and Vince Rose moved to the tiny Central American nation in 2004 to form a 36-acre sanctuary for two species of endangered crocodiles found in Belize -- the American and Morelet's crocodiles.
Bit by bit, their hope turned into reality. They built a two-story octagonal-shaped house that rested on stilts and reached 30 feet into the air. They constructed two smaller cottages for researchers and students to stay in. They dug out two acres of canals for the crocodiles. They acquired two boats.
They called the place the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.
Most of it vanished Sunday morning, when a throng of angry villagers from a settlement about 10 miles (16 km) away torched the buildings on their property. The villagers had been told by a local psychic that the Americans had fed the two missing children to the 17 crocodiles at the sanctuary, police say.
The Roses were rescuing three crocodiles on a distant island at the time, so were not home to ward off the attack -- or possibly suffer a gruesome fate.
"It was like something out of a Frankenstein movie," Cherie Rose said Tuesday. "If we'd been home, they would have killed us. They said they were going to chop us up and feed us to the crocodiles."
National police confirm that the indigenous Maya villagers were acting on the advice of a psychic who said the Roses had something to do with the August 7 disappearance of 9-year-old Benjamin Rash and his 11-year-old sister Onelia.
"They have their own superstitions," deputy police commissioner James Magdaleno said about the Maya, who make up about 10 percent of Belize's population. "Because of their beliefs, they decided to take the law into their own hands."
No arrests have been made, the deputy commissioner told CNN.
"We don't know who burned the house," he said. "That is still under investigation."
Police also questioned Vince Rose about the missing children but no connection was established, Magdaleno said Tuesday.
For the Roses, the drama unfolded in excruciating slow motion from far away.
They traveled August 29 to rescue some crocodiles on Ambergris Caye, a Caribbean Sea island off the northeastern coast of Belize. Their sanctuary in Punta Gorda is on the Caribbean coast in southeastern Belize, more than five hours away by land and airplane.
On Friday, September 3, the couple received phone calls from friends saying that truckloads of people from the village of San Marcos were on their way to the sanctuary to burn it down. The Roses sent their caretaker to the compound, but everyone was gone by the time he got there. The area around the two cottages had been trashed, though.
The Roses got more calls from friends Saturday, again telling them that villagers with shotguns and machetes were on their way to the sanctuary. The caretaker was afraid to got out there, Cherie Rose said, so they called police that night. The police said they couldn't go on the property because the Roses' two mixed-breed dogs were barking and would not allow them to enter, Cherie Rose recounted.
"By 9 a.m. Sunday, we were receiving frantic calls and texts," Cherie Rose said.
By the time police got there, it was too late.
"They told us, 'Oh, we're sorry. Your place is burning to the ground as we speak,' " Cherie Rose said.
Life has been numbingly painful since.
"We're in shock," she said. "We're totally devastated."
Vince Rose still found it difficult to talk about Tuesday, having to stop several times during a phone interview to compose himself.
"They lost everything," deputy commissioner Magdaleno said Tuesday.
Well, maybe not quite everything. Their two dogs -- Rio and Maya -- survived.
So did their spirit. They don't know quite how, but they vow to stay in Belize and start all over.
"We love what we do and the adventure is just incredible," said Cherie Rose, who is 44 and said she has a biology degree from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. "We do more in one day than some people do in a lifetime.
"We are going to stay in Belize. We are going to fight this. I'm not abandoning those crocodiles down there."
Her 48-year-old husband agrees.
"What we created was absolutely beautiful," Vince Rose said. "No, I'm not going. We're not letting them run us out of this country."
]]>Quote:
An American couple in Belize struggled Tuesday to figure out their future, their dreams literally up in smoke after a mob of indigenous Mayans burned down their animal sanctuary in the belief the foreigners fed two missing children to crocodiles on their property.
Cherie and Vince Rose moved to the tiny Central American nation in 2004 to form a 36-acre sanctuary for two species of endangered crocodiles found in Belize -- the American and Morelet's crocodiles.
Bit by bit, their hope turned into reality. They built a two-story octagonal-shaped house that rested on stilts and reached 30 feet into the air. They constructed two smaller cottages for researchers and students to stay in. They dug out two acres of canals for the crocodiles. They acquired two boats.
They called the place the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.
Most of it vanished Sunday morning, when a throng of angry villagers from a settlement about 10 miles (16 km) away torched the buildings on their property. The villagers had been told by a local psychic that the Americans had fed the two missing children to the 17 crocodiles at the sanctuary, police say.
The Roses were rescuing three crocodiles on a distant island at the time, so were not home to ward off the attack -- or possibly suffer a gruesome fate.
"It was like something out of a Frankenstein movie," Cherie Rose said Tuesday. "If we'd been home, they would have killed us. They said they were going to chop us up and feed us to the crocodiles."
National police confirm that the indigenous Maya villagers were acting on the advice of a psychic who said the Roses had something to do with the August 7 disappearance of 9-year-old Benjamin Rash and his 11-year-old sister Onelia.
"They have their own superstitions," deputy police commissioner James Magdaleno said about the Maya, who make up about 10 percent of Belize's population. "Because of their beliefs, they decided to take the law into their own hands."
No arrests have been made, the deputy commissioner told CNN.
"We don't know who burned the house," he said. "That is still under investigation."
Police also questioned Vince Rose about the missing children but no connection was established, Magdaleno said Tuesday.
For the Roses, the drama unfolded in excruciating slow motion from far away.
They traveled August 29 to rescue some crocodiles on Ambergris Caye, a Caribbean Sea island off the northeastern coast of Belize. Their sanctuary in Punta Gorda is on the Caribbean coast in southeastern Belize, more than five hours away by land and airplane.
On Friday, September 3, the couple received phone calls from friends saying that truckloads of people from the village of San Marcos were on their way to the sanctuary to burn it down. The Roses sent their caretaker to the compound, but everyone was gone by the time he got there. The area around the two cottages had been trashed, though.
The Roses got more calls from friends Saturday, again telling them that villagers with shotguns and machetes were on their way to the sanctuary. The caretaker was afraid to got out there, Cherie Rose said, so they called police that night. The police said they couldn't go on the property because the Roses' two mixed-breed dogs were barking and would not allow them to enter, Cherie Rose recounted.
"By 9 a.m. Sunday, we were receiving frantic calls and texts," Cherie Rose said.
By the time police got there, it was too late.
"They told us, 'Oh, we're sorry. Your place is burning to the ground as we speak,' " Cherie Rose said.
Life has been numbingly painful since.
"We're in shock," she said. "We're totally devastated."
Vince Rose still found it difficult to talk about Tuesday, having to stop several times during a phone interview to compose himself.
"They lost everything," deputy commissioner Magdaleno said Tuesday.
Well, maybe not quite everything. Their two dogs -- Rio and Maya -- survived.
So did their spirit. They don't know quite how, but they vow to stay in Belize and start all over.
"We love what we do and the adventure is just incredible," said Cherie Rose, who is 44 and said she has a biology degree from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. "We do more in one day than some people do in a lifetime.
"We are going to stay in Belize. We are going to fight this. I'm not abandoning those crocodiles down there."
Her 48-year-old husband agrees.
"What we created was absolutely beautiful," Vince Rose said. "No, I'm not going. We're not letting them run us out of this country."
Australia has entered a new era, a Ranga rules, andn 4 new proper nouns have entered our vocabulary with her.
KATTER, a angry cowboy, a person who thinks he is the smartest country bumpkin in the room, to be skatter-logical is to purge logic from even the simplest of ideas, to make a simple task as ordering fish and chips, a long and confused affair.
OAKSHOTT, a rustic pumped up windbag, to oakshott somebody, is to put somebody to sleep by simply talking and without the assistance of drugs or anaesthesia.
WINDSOR, a blathering gumby, a dork, a dufus, cheerfully irrelant.
BROWN, REFER TO reference point 3. to be OAKSHOTTED.
]]>KATTER, a angry cowboy, a person who thinks he is the smartest country bumpkin in the room, to be skatter-logical is to purge logic from even the simplest of ideas, to make a simple task as ordering fish and chips, a long and confused affair.
OAKSHOTT, a rustic pumped up windbag, to oakshott somebody, is to put somebody to sleep by simply talking and without the assistance of drugs or anaesthesia.
WINDSOR, a blathering gumby, a dork, a dufus, cheerfully irrelant.
BROWN, REFER TO reference point 3. to be OAKSHOTTED.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news...906-14xlu.html
A South Australian man has been fined $4000 for getting too close to two whales off the state's south coast.
In the first such prosecution in SA, Phillip Kluske, of Victor Harbor, was convicted in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court on Monday of using a vessel within 100 metres of two southern right whales in August last year.
The court heard Kluske became fascinated when the whales approached his boat and pursued them as they swam off.
His offending carried a maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine or a two-year jail sentence.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources regional conservator Laurence Haegi said the regulations were important for both animal welfare and public safety.
"Southern right whales are a vulnerable species, protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act," Dr Haegi said in a statement after the case.
"Today, the greatest threats to whales are entanglements and boat strikes resulting from human interference.
"The regulations are in place to ensure these magnificent animals are not harassed and stressed, often at a time when they are nurturing young calves."
Dr Haegi said there was also a risk to public safety, with whales at times behaving unpredictably.
"A flick of the tail can prove very dangerous for boats and swimmers that are too close," he said.
He urged people wanting to observe whales to use the many designated viewing points along the South Australian coast.
]]>Quote:
A South Australian man has been fined $4000 for getting too close to two whales off the state's south coast.
In the first such prosecution in SA, Phillip Kluske, of Victor Harbor, was convicted in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court on Monday of using a vessel within 100 metres of two southern right whales in August last year.
The court heard Kluske became fascinated when the whales approached his boat and pursued them as they swam off.
His offending carried a maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine or a two-year jail sentence.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources regional conservator Laurence Haegi said the regulations were important for both animal welfare and public safety.
"Southern right whales are a vulnerable species, protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act," Dr Haegi said in a statement after the case.
"Today, the greatest threats to whales are entanglements and boat strikes resulting from human interference.
"The regulations are in place to ensure these magnificent animals are not harassed and stressed, often at a time when they are nurturing young calves."
Dr Haegi said there was also a risk to public safety, with whales at times behaving unpredictably.
"A flick of the tail can prove very dangerous for boats and swimmers that are too close," he said.
He urged people wanting to observe whales to use the many designated viewing points along the South Australian coast.
http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?19483...n-oil-gas-boom
Russian oil and gas company Rosneft is conducting oil and gas exploration work that may have caused the critically endangered western gray whale to flee its main feeding ground.
Tests and offshore installment of equipment by Rosneft for a major seismic survey began in late August, despite repeated calls from 12 governments, NGOs, scientists and the public to postpone the survey because of potential risks to the whales.
Rosneft started preparations for the survey last month near Sakhalin Island even though a small number of western gray whales mothers and calves were feeding in the area. Only an estimated 130 western North Pacific grey whales are left in the world, with around 30 breeding females.
Seismic surveys are done by blasting the water with acoustic noise to detect oil and gas deposits under the ocean floor.
Observers from WWF and other NGOs began monitoring Rosneft’s activities and the whales in mid-July. It appears that as of Aug. 20, only weeks after Rosneft’s activities started, whales feeding in the area had already been affected.
Before those activities began, observers registered 10 to 15 of the whales feeding in the area. Now whales have only been seen migrating across the area – not feeding.
“This is a critical problem as the whales have only a short time in which to consume enough food to last them through the year when they migrate to their breeding and calving grounds,” said Wendy Elliott, WWF’s whale expert.
The company also has twice conducted seismic surveys at night, which is in violation of international standards, and even Rosnefts’ own guidelines.
On August 23, WWF-Russia issued a letter of concern to Russian environmental authorities, requesting an immediate stop to Rosneft’s testing.
As part of a WWF initiative, nearly 20,000 people have sent Rosneft emails requesting that the surveys be postponed. However, Rosneft continues to shut out public opposition to its actions with some WWF members reporting that their emails to Rosneft's outgoing President Sergei Bogdanchikov had been blocked.
Scientists from the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP), a group of eminent whale scientists, have also repeatedly asked the company to postpone the surveys until the whales have left the area. A letter sent from 12 governments to the Russian government asking them to make Rosneft postpone the survey also went unheeded.
"Rosneft is irresponsibly insisting on conducting this survey when they could easily postpone the survey until next year and hold it before the whales arrive," said Aleksey Knizhnikov, Oil & Gas Environmental Policy officer, WWF Russia. "Rosneft may be ignoring public outcry but their negligent behavior will not be forgotten, and they will have to be held responsible for any harm that comes to the whales as a result of these surveys."
Postponing the surveys would also enable Rosneft to develop the precautionary monitoring and mitigation measures that are essential to minimize the impact of the seismic survey on the whales. Monitoring and mitigation measures have already been developed by the WGWAP, and are being used by another company in the same area.
WWF and other NGOs have dozens of observers and boats on Sakhalin Island this year and will be monitoring the test and how it affects the feeding whales.
In addition, WWF is planning this week to approach Rosneft's new president, who started today, about postponing the seismic surveys.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010...xploration.php
A press release from World Wildlife Fund states that despite the opposition of 12 governments, NGOs, scientists and the public to postpone exploration until after the whales left the feeding ground, the company commenced anyway, blasting the water with acoustic noise to detect oil and gas deposits. They've even conducted tests at night in violation of international standards and their own guidelines. And it looks like it drove the whales, including mothers with calves, away from their food. Before the testing, 10-15 whales were spotted feeding in the area. Now, only a few are migrating through, but not stopping to feed. With only about 130 western North Pacific grey whales left in the ocean, this is a big deal.
Even though everyone from WWF supporters to global governments have requested the company to cease the testing during this important time of year, the company has essentially ignored them.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have been concerned about the company's plans for exploration since June. According to IUCN, the threats facing the whales include ship collisions, underwater noise, entanglement in fishing gear, and of course, offshore oil and gas activities.
This is of particular concern off of eastern Russia because it is the only known feeding ground for this particular whale population. If whales are passing up their only source of food during their migration because of noise, their odds of survival are significantly reduced.
]]>Quote:
Russian oil and gas company Rosneft is conducting oil and gas exploration work that may have caused the critically endangered western gray whale to flee its main feeding ground.
Tests and offshore installment of equipment by Rosneft for a major seismic survey began in late August, despite repeated calls from 12 governments, NGOs, scientists and the public to postpone the survey because of potential risks to the whales.
Rosneft started preparations for the survey last month near Sakhalin Island even though a small number of western gray whales mothers and calves were feeding in the area. Only an estimated 130 western North Pacific grey whales are left in the world, with around 30 breeding females.
Seismic surveys are done by blasting the water with acoustic noise to detect oil and gas deposits under the ocean floor.
Observers from WWF and other NGOs began monitoring Rosneft’s activities and the whales in mid-July. It appears that as of Aug. 20, only weeks after Rosneft’s activities started, whales feeding in the area had already been affected.
Before those activities began, observers registered 10 to 15 of the whales feeding in the area. Now whales have only been seen migrating across the area – not feeding.
“This is a critical problem as the whales have only a short time in which to consume enough food to last them through the year when they migrate to their breeding and calving grounds,” said Wendy Elliott, WWF’s whale expert.
The company also has twice conducted seismic surveys at night, which is in violation of international standards, and even Rosnefts’ own guidelines.
On August 23, WWF-Russia issued a letter of concern to Russian environmental authorities, requesting an immediate stop to Rosneft’s testing.
As part of a WWF initiative, nearly 20,000 people have sent Rosneft emails requesting that the surveys be postponed. However, Rosneft continues to shut out public opposition to its actions with some WWF members reporting that their emails to Rosneft's outgoing President Sergei Bogdanchikov had been blocked.
Scientists from the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP), a group of eminent whale scientists, have also repeatedly asked the company to postpone the surveys until the whales have left the area. A letter sent from 12 governments to the Russian government asking them to make Rosneft postpone the survey also went unheeded.
"Rosneft is irresponsibly insisting on conducting this survey when they could easily postpone the survey until next year and hold it before the whales arrive," said Aleksey Knizhnikov, Oil & Gas Environmental Policy officer, WWF Russia. "Rosneft may be ignoring public outcry but their negligent behavior will not be forgotten, and they will have to be held responsible for any harm that comes to the whales as a result of these surveys."
Postponing the surveys would also enable Rosneft to develop the precautionary monitoring and mitigation measures that are essential to minimize the impact of the seismic survey on the whales. Monitoring and mitigation measures have already been developed by the WGWAP, and are being used by another company in the same area.
WWF and other NGOs have dozens of observers and boats on Sakhalin Island this year and will be monitoring the test and how it affects the feeding whales.
In addition, WWF is planning this week to approach Rosneft's new president, who started today, about postponing the seismic surveys.
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A press release from World Wildlife Fund states that despite the opposition of 12 governments, NGOs, scientists and the public to postpone exploration until after the whales left the feeding ground, the company commenced anyway, blasting the water with acoustic noise to detect oil and gas deposits. They've even conducted tests at night in violation of international standards and their own guidelines. And it looks like it drove the whales, including mothers with calves, away from their food. Before the testing, 10-15 whales were spotted feeding in the area. Now, only a few are migrating through, but not stopping to feed. With only about 130 western North Pacific grey whales left in the ocean, this is a big deal.
Even though everyone from WWF supporters to global governments have requested the company to cease the testing during this important time of year, the company has essentially ignored them.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have been concerned about the company's plans for exploration since June. According to IUCN, the threats facing the whales include ship collisions, underwater noise, entanglement in fishing gear, and of course, offshore oil and gas activities.
This is of particular concern off of eastern Russia because it is the only known feeding ground for this particular whale population. If whales are passing up their only source of food during their migration because of noise, their odds of survival are significantly reduced.
http://www.thestar.com/article/85762...ugh-to-believe
he advent of genetically modified fish will be yet another example of meeting the enemy and discovering it’s us.
Late last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began the process of approving genetically modified salmon, likely to be the first GM animal for human consumption in North America. The GM salmon grows twice as fast as wild salmon.
If the FDA gives engineered North Atlantic salmon the green light, as seems likely, the product decried as “frankenfish” by critics will be on supermarket shelves within two to three years.
The Earth didn’t move for the global news media with the FDA’s announcement, but it should have. The profit motive being what it is, pressure will intensify for approval of GM cattle, bacon, dairy products and grains, which like GM salmon will be cheaper to produce and in much greater quantity.
The GM salmon began as a research project at Newfoundland’s Memorial University and is now promoted by publicly traded AquaBounty Technologies Inc. of Waltham, Mass. On Friday the FDA said it’s “as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon.”
In fact, there’s no way of knowing that. Time and again, products approved by the FDA and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have been found to cause harmful side effects that become evident only after several years on the market.
Until a new product is introduced into the general population, there’s no way to know how it will react over the long-term to every other substance a user may be consuming. That’s the story of Vioxx, pulled from markets years after approval when dangerous side-effects became apparent.
It’s hardly reassuring that the proposed engineered North Atlantic salmon has a slightly elevated level of “insulin-like growth factor 1,” a hormone related to growth hormone that has been linked in some studies with higher cancer risk.
Yet the momentum for GM products is unstoppable, for the basic reason of supply and demand.
The world population will soar 50 per cent, to nine billion, in just 20 years. On the supply side, chronic overfishing and rising sea temperatures have played havoc with spawning and slowed fish growth, reducing their size.
After a millennium of overfishing, we’ve managed to deplete the oceans of cod, halibut, marlin, skate, swordfish, halibut and other species to the point where fish stocks are unsustainable.
“Eventually,” Elizabeth Kolbert writes in a sobering New Yorker analysis of the dying global fishery, “all that will be left in the oceans are organisms that people won’t or can’t consume, like sea slugs and toxic algae.”
That’s not alarmism. “Peak fish,” the point when world fish catches topped out at 85 million tons, occurred without notice in the late 1980s. Fish stocks are now dropping by about 500,000 tons a year.
Prices have soared, of course. At a recent Tokyo auction the increasingly scarce Pacific bluefin tuna fetched a stunning $340 (U.S.) per pound, up from just pennies a pound as recently as the 1960s.
The tragic, abrupt end of a way of life when the Grand Banks cod fishery died in 1992 held no lessons for Japan, Spain and other nations with marine-based diets. Fishers and wholesalers just moved on to the next soon-to-be-endangered species. In Tokyo and other Asian cities, eel and jellyfish are the current vogue.
Economics teaches that such phenomena trigger alternatives to goods in dwindling supply. The fish industry responded instead with fish farms. But since most farmed fish are fed on wild-caught fish, this “solution” has only heightened the crisis.
Otherwise the industry has kept scooping up what aquatic life remains in the seas. Just as Ottawa, St. John’s and outport fishers ignored decades of warnings about a jeopardized Grand Banks, the Japanese government successfully lobbied in March to defeat a proposed U.N. initiative to protect the bluefin tuna. In November, Japan will host a summit of pro-whaling nations.
Stuck in denial, Japanese researcher Akihiro Ono notes Tokyo’s recent musings about somehow maintaining a sustainable fishery. “Accepting fishing bans is only the last resort.”
At this critical stage, tough quotas and outright bans should be the first resort. But if past is prologue, Japan and Mediterranean nations with fish-based diets will accept reduced catches when Newfoundland finally did – when the fish are gone.
And spare a thought for the fish in this grossly unequal contest. The fearsome image of sharks post-Jaws is a tragic-comic one. Every year, as author David Helvarg points out in his Saved By The Sea: A Love Story With Fish, sharks kill between five and eight people worldwide.
And we kill about a hundred million sharks.
Is it any wonder we’ll eventually be harvesting genetically modified ones?
Fish facts
• What happened: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a 60-day approval process on Friday for genetically modified North Atlantic salmon. If approved, it would be the first animal to be engineered as food for human consumption in North America.
• How it’s done: Growth hormones from two salmon varieties, Chinook and ocean pout, are added to conventional Atlantic salmon, which grows twice as fast as similar fish. That lowers the cost and greatly increasing production.
• What’s next: The FDA holds a meeting for public input Sept. 21. If approved, GM salmon will be in stores within two to three years. A 31-member coalition of consumer, animal welfare, environmental and fishery groups has formed to oppose approval.
]]>Quote:
he advent of genetically modified fish will be yet another example of meeting the enemy and discovering it’s us.
Late last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began the process of approving genetically modified salmon, likely to be the first GM animal for human consumption in North America. The GM salmon grows twice as fast as wild salmon.
If the FDA gives engineered North Atlantic salmon the green light, as seems likely, the product decried as “frankenfish” by critics will be on supermarket shelves within two to three years.
The Earth didn’t move for the global news media with the FDA’s announcement, but it should have. The profit motive being what it is, pressure will intensify for approval of GM cattle, bacon, dairy products and grains, which like GM salmon will be cheaper to produce and in much greater quantity.
The GM salmon began as a research project at Newfoundland’s Memorial University and is now promoted by publicly traded AquaBounty Technologies Inc. of Waltham, Mass. On Friday the FDA said it’s “as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon.”
In fact, there’s no way of knowing that. Time and again, products approved by the FDA and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have been found to cause harmful side effects that become evident only after several years on the market.
Until a new product is introduced into the general population, there’s no way to know how it will react over the long-term to every other substance a user may be consuming. That’s the story of Vioxx, pulled from markets years after approval when dangerous side-effects became apparent.
It’s hardly reassuring that the proposed engineered North Atlantic salmon has a slightly elevated level of “insulin-like growth factor 1,” a hormone related to growth hormone that has been linked in some studies with higher cancer risk.
Yet the momentum for GM products is unstoppable, for the basic reason of supply and demand.
The world population will soar 50 per cent, to nine billion, in just 20 years. On the supply side, chronic overfishing and rising sea temperatures have played havoc with spawning and slowed fish growth, reducing their size.
After a millennium of overfishing, we’ve managed to deplete the oceans of cod, halibut, marlin, skate, swordfish, halibut and other species to the point where fish stocks are unsustainable.
“Eventually,” Elizabeth Kolbert writes in a sobering New Yorker analysis of the dying global fishery, “all that will be left in the oceans are organisms that people won’t or can’t consume, like sea slugs and toxic algae.”
That’s not alarmism. “Peak fish,” the point when world fish catches topped out at 85 million tons, occurred without notice in the late 1980s. Fish stocks are now dropping by about 500,000 tons a year.
Prices have soared, of course. At a recent Tokyo auction the increasingly scarce Pacific bluefin tuna fetched a stunning $340 (U.S.) per pound, up from just pennies a pound as recently as the 1960s.
The tragic, abrupt end of a way of life when the Grand Banks cod fishery died in 1992 held no lessons for Japan, Spain and other nations with marine-based diets. Fishers and wholesalers just moved on to the next soon-to-be-endangered species. In Tokyo and other Asian cities, eel and jellyfish are the current vogue.
Economics teaches that such phenomena trigger alternatives to goods in dwindling supply. The fish industry responded instead with fish farms. But since most farmed fish are fed on wild-caught fish, this “solution” has only heightened the crisis.
Otherwise the industry has kept scooping up what aquatic life remains in the seas. Just as Ottawa, St. John’s and outport fishers ignored decades of warnings about a jeopardized Grand Banks, the Japanese government successfully lobbied in March to defeat a proposed U.N. initiative to protect the bluefin tuna. In November, Japan will host a summit of pro-whaling nations.
Stuck in denial, Japanese researcher Akihiro Ono notes Tokyo’s recent musings about somehow maintaining a sustainable fishery. “Accepting fishing bans is only the last resort.”
At this critical stage, tough quotas and outright bans should be the first resort. But if past is prologue, Japan and Mediterranean nations with fish-based diets will accept reduced catches when Newfoundland finally did – when the fish are gone.
And spare a thought for the fish in this grossly unequal contest. The fearsome image of sharks post-Jaws is a tragic-comic one. Every year, as author David Helvarg points out in his Saved By The Sea: A Love Story With Fish, sharks kill between five and eight people worldwide.
And we kill about a hundred million sharks.
Is it any wonder we’ll eventually be harvesting genetically modified ones?
Fish facts
• What happened: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a 60-day approval process on Friday for genetically modified North Atlantic salmon. If approved, it would be the first animal to be engineered as food for human consumption in North America.
• How it’s done: Growth hormones from two salmon varieties, Chinook and ocean pout, are added to conventional Atlantic salmon, which grows twice as fast as similar fish. That lowers the cost and greatly increasing production.
• What’s next: The FDA holds a meeting for public input Sept. 21. If approved, GM salmon will be in stores within two to three years. A 31-member coalition of consumer, animal welfare, environmental and fishery groups has formed to oppose approval.