I admit it, I have not necessarily always been a big shark fan. That had largely been a result of lack of information and awareness. My personal experiences with sharks are mostly limited to things like seeing a basking shark on a whale watch some years ago, and the new touch tank at the New England Aquarium (they feel like very very fine and slightly slimy sand paper). Turns out, sharks are pretty awesome. They are the apex predators of our oceans, keeping ecosystems in check. Yeah, they scare people (thanks, Jaws!) but toasters kill more people than sharks. That’s right – toasters.

And sharks are facing incredible peril in the oceans right now. The link above talks about how a handful of people are killed by sharks in an average year. Conversely, humans and human activity take the lives of over 70 MILLION sharks each year.

The primary cause is the deplorable act of shark finning, where live sharks are pulled aboard a boat, their fins are cut off, and their still living bodies are dumped back in the ocean where they are sentenced to die either by predators or drowning. Without their fins they cannot swim, and because they cannot swim, their gills are unable to extract oxygen from the water. This is about as undignified a death as any animal could suffer. And for what are their fins used? Soup. Time Magazine had an article called Extinction in a Bowl of Shark Fin Soup which talks about the high price to the consumer (at least $100 per bowl) and ultimately to all of us as sharks are killed and ocean ecosystems worldwide are critically altered as a result. Continue Reading »

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I am still way behind on whale related posts – last whale watch of my 2011 season was in early August – not to mention overdue photo galleries. But today, I want to talk about something completely different: sea turtles!

In mid-November, I had the good fortune of taking a short cruise with one of my favorite bands, Eddie From Ohio. We were, the lot of us, a little pocket of people on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas and we had the best of both worlds. We got private concerts from a terrific folk rock band, and also got to utilize all that the ship had to offer. This included excursions for our one day at port, in Cozumel. I had spent some time looking at the excursion possibilities before going on the trip. While there were many intriguing choices, the one that kept simmering in the back of my mind was the Sea Turtle Snorkel. Still, I didn’t want to make any decisions until on board the cruise ship, to see what other Edheads might be doing. In the end, the opportunity to do something I would not be able to do here at home won out and I booked the excursion very early during the cruise.

The whole excursion was something of an adventure: we were off the cruise ship by 8 AM, onto a ferry from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen on the mainland. This led to about 30-40 minutes of a very rough ride (luckily, I don’t get sea sick). From there, our tour guide/naturalist, Jorge of Wild Tours, led us to a bus for another 30 minute ride to our destination, Akumal (Mayan for Place of the Turtles). Along the way, he pointed out a large eagle’s nest atop a roadside electrical tower. Alas, the birds did not appear to be in residence at that moment.

At the end of our drive, our van turned down a narrow, tree lined road. Its condition was so rough that, while paved, we moved at about 3 miles per hour and very carefully over potholes, hugging the tree line. After a brief stop at a guard post, we drove into the parking lot of a facility that appeared both well maintained and completely deserted. Where *were* we? The grounds were gorgeous, full of lush green trees and plants, and the building we entered was in very nice shape though not another soul could be seen. We stopped in a room full of tables and chairs, but no lockers. Jorge assured us that all of our stuff was safe and we could leave it there (he was right). He handed out our snorkels, masks, and flippers, told us how to adjust the straps to put everything on, and then showed us the hand signals he would use in the water to indicate when a turtle had been spotted. I was the only one in our small group of 5 (including a couple from Ft. Lauderdale and a couple from Wales) who had never really been snorkeling before.

Time to hit the water! We left our empty building, and wow! We emerged onto a long, beautiful white sand beach, complete with lounge chairs, a small snorkel shop/hut, and people all over the place. Given how deserted the building seemed to be, I was not expecting this at all. It was like we had stepped right into the pages of one of those vacation brochures that shows the impeccable beaches, impossibly blue skies and warm, turquoise waters.

Jorge had explained to us that this is one of the few places in the world where sea turtles can be found all year. Protected by a barrier reef, turtles come into Akumal just about every day to eat sea grasses and jelly fish in the shallow bay. After donning our gear, we backed up into the water and away we went. It took me a few minutes to get past over-focusing on breathing through my mouth, and then having to swap masks with Jorge since I could not see anything (thanks again, Jorge!) and hey! Turtles! I was amazed at how quickly we started to find them, and how relatively close to the beach we always were. We spent about 45 minutes in the water, and all told saw probably 8-10 turtles, mostly adult females and also one younger turtle (smaller than the rest). Several turtles had remora fish on or under their shells also. One turtle wasn’t so keen on all of us water tourists so swam away, but the rest were pretty comfortable just ignoring us and going about their business. My most exciting moment came when one of the turtles came up for air and literally came within inches of touching me as she passed by. It doesn’t really work to try to back pedal with swimming fins, but I tried my best to stay out of her way, not thinking just to be still and give her enough credit for knowing full well how to avoid me. I was definitely caught up in the moment. Several times, Jorge went deeper into the water and waggled his fingers in front of some turtles and one southern stingray that we saw because that will sometimes prompt them to move around a little. They pretty much ignored him completely (and he was very careful never to make contact with them or harass them. If they didn’t react, he let them be.)

Jorge then led us over to a small reef area, and tried to find a barracuda for us. No luck there, but I loved feeling like I was swimming through a National Geographic program, watching various fish in a wide array of colors swimming around. The water in the bay is relatively shallow, and the one anxious moment here was passing rather closely over a taller section of reef. I stopped kicking and just did a breaststroke to move past that point. The largest fish we saw was a puffer fish (un-puffed).

Too quickly, our time in the water was through. The couple from Ft. Lauderdale had their own gear so went back in the water for a while which made me a little envious. I should have checked the gear shack right on the beach, but I was feeling like I had been spendy enough for the day so wandered around instead. I was glad I had decided not only to splurge on the excursion but also to pay onboard ship premium prices for disposable waterproof cameras (it wasn’t enough that I was a gawky American tourist in Mexico, but I also had to be a gawky American tourist in the water, with two of those things dangling from my wrists). Wish I had listened to my friend, Susan, with whom I had dinner the night before the cruise in Ft. Lauderdale, when she offered to take me to Walgreen’s to get a couple of cameras. While the photos I got with them were far below Brian Skerry or Flip Nicklin caliber (get their new books, Ocean Soul and Among Giants, respectively. Seriously – AMAZING), I am glad I had something with me. Naturally, I am eager now to recreate the experience but with a better camera. Where’s that winning lottery ticket??

After a couple of hours relaxing on the beach, and lunch at a burger shack nearby, we climbed back into the van to head back to Playa del Carmen. Coming from New England where late fall was deeply in place and our world was increasingly brown and dreary, it was nice to see all of the lush vegetation, and also sobering to see the wide range of quality of living quarters we passed on the road. Poverty was easily evident, and I was reminded of just how very fortunate I was to have this experience at all. We also were able to catch a glimpse of activity in the eagle’s nest on the return trip. After getting drenched in rain in the short walk from the covered dock to the ferry, it was nice to sit and reflect on the day. Being a big music fan, having the right tunes with which to think helps a lot. I listened to Carrie Newcomer‘s “Everything is Everywhere” on that ferry ride, and it was the perfect soundtrack for my thoughts. We were dropped off “downtown” (as opposed to the ship’s pier from where we started). I made the valiant effort to walk back to the ship and got maybe 75% of the way back before my feet gave out and I finally hailed a cab (I had been walking for over an hour at that point). Along the way, I saw a crab on a waterside bench, probably washed there by waves crashing up against the sea wall. Tried to figure out a way to flick it back into the water, but it was having none of that, skittering away on the bench any time I got close. It was a little comical, really.

According to Jorge, we saw mostly loggerhead turtles, but possibly also one green turtle. I tried to see if I could glean the distinctions from my photos but I am just not accustomed to photo IDs of turtles at this point, especially from fair quality photos taken with disposable cameras. We also saw a southern sting ray and a skate I can’t quite identify. I am grateful to Jorge for being a funny, well informed and terrific guide/naturalist, my fellow snorkelers for good company, and the turtles themselves, for being so naturally awesome.

You can learn more about efforts to protect the bay and its marine visitors by visiting the website for Centro Ecológical Akumal (site is in English).

And feel free to check out the photos I did get, keeping in mind the ‘equipment’ I was using. Might not have been high end, but it was better than nothing!

Over the course of the whole cruise weekend, I saw pelicans, fish, crabs, a reef and turtles. This has lead to a strong desire to watch “Finding Nemo” again.

Duuuuuuuuuude. Turtles rock.

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This won’t be as long a post as the title might have you think. While I have indeed been out on 6 trips now, the first four were not terribly newsworthy.

My season kicked off, as it often does, in Provincetown over Memorial Day Weekend. I did three trips over as many days with the Dolphin Fleet. While whale activity had been pretty good in the month leading up, a big nor’easter off the coast a bit before the weekend seemed to have moved much of the activity quite a ways off shore. We also had a fair bit of fog that weekend which made things a little challenging. Notable sighting of the weekend was Bayou, the 2006 calf of Trident. Bayou now sports a damaged right fluke from a propellor injury, making it an easy fluke to ID. I saw Bayou as a calf but didn’t know until this trip about the injury.

Next trip, July 1, on Yankee Fleet out of Gloucester. We went north to Jeffreys Ledge where there had been reports of a fair amount of activity. We didn’t find any of that on this day, and spent time with some fin whales instead. While they tend to be notoriously hard to watch because they move quickly and don’t ‘do’ as much at the surface, we did get some good looks.

Things finally got exciting on July 16. I did two trips out of Gloucester that day, the first on Cape Ann Whale Watch (with naturalists from Ocean Alliance) thanks to a Groupon and the second on Capt Bill and Sons (naturalists from the Whale Center of New England). The big action is down off Provincetown right now, so that’s where both trips went. True to form for whale watching, each trip was quite different while also being quite good.

In the morning on Cape Ann WW, we spent most of our trip with a couple of  juvenile humpbacks who pretty much mugged the boat. We were unable to move for about 45 minutes because they were hanging out right under the back end of the boat. Not that we minded – we were getting great looks! Got my first close up photo of a whale’s eye (too bad the eye was closed) and Greenbean, one of the juvies, made a point of splashing the boat with its flukes from only about 20-30 feet away, if that.

Later that same day on Captain Bill’s, we returned to the SE corner of Stellwagen. Didn’t see any of the same whales from the morning, but we did have some active adults, including Echo and Tectonic traveling togeher. They seem to be one of Stellwagen’s great enduring ‘friendships’, coming together often over the years like Salt and Cardhu are known to do. Leah, the naturalist, reported that National Geographic had worked with the Whale Center to attach a critter cam to Echo and the resulting footage showed her and Tectonic (a male) working very well together under water in their hunt for food. Echo treated us to a breach too, which I managed to catch (even if distantly).  Other whales we found on this trip included Pele, Alphorn, Jabiru and Sloop.

Photos coming soon, I promise, as well as another post about a trip on 3 August.

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In the last few days, I have seen several stories posted about what’s being called the world’s loneliest whale. The story, first out in 2004 from New Scientist and also covered by Andrew Rivkin at the New York Times, concerns a whale call first heard in 1989 and tracked since 1992. Theories abound about this whale. It seems that no one has seen it, or at least seen it in conjunction with its calls so that they can be conclusively connected, so its species is unknown.

What’s so different about this whale’s song? Different species of whales make sounds or calls within their own range of frequencies. Fin whales’ calls are at about 20 hz. Blue whales, the largest mammals ever, call out in the 10 – 20 hertz range. Most of us have heard the haunting sounds of humpback whales, initially made famous by recordings made by Roger Payne. Those fall in the 30 hertz to 8 kilohertz range.

This unknown whale calls out at 52 hertz. Think lowest note on a tuba. Sounds pretty low, right? But if you listen to the clip here at NOAA. It’s quite different from other recorded whale sounds (you can hear samples of several whale calls on Wikipedia.) It’s comparatively a fairly high sound.

There is much speculation about its origins and being lonely, unable to be heard and therefore find mates (or even ‘colleagues’?). Its migrations and travels are unlike other known whales. None of the stories mention if the calls have ever been heard in the vicinity of other active whale calls so it’s impossible to know if this whale has ever met another whale (aside from its mother), given how vast the oceans are. Perhaps somewhat ironically, that this whale has been heard at all is thanks to the US Navy’s hydrophone arrays, installed to track enemy submarines. Declassified recordings allowed the discovery of this solitary whale, as well as information about known species like blue and fin whales.

As a human with a hearing loss, which results in my interactions with the world being somewhat different from most, I kinda wish I could just go give this whale a hug. And since whales are primarily acoustic animals and not visual, not being able to interact in this primary fashion is not a good thing. Whether or not this singular whale hears any others would be a fascinating question to answer, but I’d guess that if it could hear others, it might seek them out. I’m not finding any reports that this has happened, at least not when .

What bothers me about most, if not all, of the stories I have seen about this whale is the constant comment that it sings at the ‘wrong’ frequency. Without knowing anything about this whale aside from the sounds it makes, wrong seems to be overstating things a bit dramatically. Better, I think, to call it a unique frequency, one never heard before by our ears (and apparently the ears of other whales currently swimming about in the Pacific Ocean).

This is just another example of the many mysteries still held by our oceans. Let’s hope we have time to understand them before we kill the oceans altogether.

(This post was greatly aided by stories posted by Gizmodo, Kur5hin, and Good.)

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Well! I can’t believe I haven’t updated this blog in so long. My apologies. Quick run down of last summer: 8 whale watches taken. I have photos and will try to get them up before the 2011 season kicks off. Now that I finally have a digital camera, that means lots more to sort :-)

So, good news? Sort of! Let’s start with the news that Japan has ended its Antarctic whaling season early this year! They are, of course, blaming Sea Shepherd for keeping their quota of 1000 whales down to less than 200. And yes, there have been clashes (no injuries reported). But there’s also been mounting international pressure which has to be making an impact. Not to mention the fact that there is something like 5000 tons of whale meat sitting in freezers already because the population just is not eating it.

What almost made me laugh for its ludicrously blatant chess puffing is an editorial from Japan about the end of the Antarctic season. The most telling line in it is this, at the end: “And we tend to react with anger when foreign countries tell us we shouldn’t eat it.” The editorial acknowledges foreign pressure. It also acknowledges the lack of stomach for the meat: “Demand for whale meat is not growing at all in Japan, and the nation’s ocean-going whaling industry is effectively dead. Given this reality, there is little justification for Japan’s stated need to resume commercial whaling in the Antarctic.”

And yet, the crux of it all comes down to the defensiveness of the “don’t tell us what to eat” position. They refer to whales as “utilizable resources” (using the quotation marks themselves) as opposed to the intelligent marine mammals that most of the rest of the world sees them as, seeking their protection. If Japan had no other resources for food, zero other means for feeding their population, that position might hold more credibility. It does not. I get not wanting to be told what to eat. But this is larger than that. This is their refusal to actually learn anything from their so-called scientific research aside from, theoretically, how many whales they can kill without devastating the populations, much less learning from the massive and growing bodies of research from around the world which bolster the many reasons why whales should be protected and not eaten.

Why is this all only sort of good news? There has been no permanent cessation of commercial whaling by Japan (not to mention Iceland and Norway). There is still the vicious dolphin hunting that occurs every year in Taiji, Japan. Whaling for this year might be over (including an early end to the dolphin slaughter), but the matter is still unresolved. I wish we could find a way to help Japan end these programs while also allowing it to save face culturally as it appears to desperately want. That would be a win on all sides.

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It seems somewhat unfathomable to me that here in 2010, this is still an open question! Yet, on the eve of what will be a critical meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco beginning on June 21, the fate of whales still hangs in the balance.

One thing that is maddening about this proposed compromise process is that in the last few days, numerous stories have been published that all undermine Japan’s thin veneer of legitimacy. First, there’s the whaler who has stepped forward to talk in detail, from first hand knowledge, about the pilfering and reselling of whale meat. There are the reports that Japan is bribing countries to vote with them, using not only money but entirely false arguments about the impact of (re)growing whale populations. And now, there is a story about new research – not into learning about whales but to find new ‘applications’ for whales’ bodies.

And still I wonder – are these stories too late? Will there be enough momentum against sanctioned commercial whaling to make a difference? How deeply entrenched and backwards are the politics at the IWC?

South Korea has indicated that if commercial whaling is restored for Japan, Norway and Iceland, it will also start to issue whaling permits. I think it is folly to think that this can truly be a controlled return to sanctioned whaling.  It cannot wind up with a reduction in whale catch if other countries start killing whales as well. And while Japan is the most visible villain in this battle, this compromise also involves Norway and Iceland, whose combined whaling catch exceed Japan’s.

Meanwhile new and legitimate research is producing stories all the time about whales, including a recent story about long term ‘friendships’ formed by humpback whales. A simple Google search on whale-human encounters will yield seemingly countless anecdotes which only bolster the growing theories of intelligence, sentience, and community amongst whales. These are not simple fish. There is no humane way to kill a whale. This should not even be a subject of debate any longer!

Oh and I want to add – as this was pointed out to me today by the fine folks at the Whale Center of New England – this proposed compromise does NOT guarantee an end to whaling in 10 years. It merely attempts to add limits to catches over the next decade. Once that decade concludes, we could well be back at the drawing board and having to fight from scratch to end whaling. Again.

So what do we do? I have sent more than one message to Obama at the White House (the guy who promised to end whaling). I will send another. Wherever you live, regardless of how your government stands on the issue, tell them you are against whaling. If your government is against whaling, the reinforcement that this is the right position is important. If it supports whaling, it needs to hear opposition.

As I said, the IWC meeting starts on June 21. There are multiple avenues for tracking new from it: IWCblogger, the IWC itself, even through a Japanese site (which could be painful yet interesting for an alternate perspective). WCDS also has a Twitter feed, AllEyesonIWC, which will have information about the meeting.

I’m on the edge of my seat!

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I’ve been hearing from several friends that they are also frustrated with the current state of whaling affairs, and want to know how to help. So this post is designed to suggest some actions we can all take. It will not be exhaustive, but hopefully will prove to be a useful starting place.

There are three things that are bringing attention to these matters to the fore: the death of the SeaWorld trainer, Dawn Brancheau, the recent Small Group meeting of the International Whaling Commission to discuss a fundamental shift in whaling (basically going from “banned” to permitted commercial whaling), and the Oscar win for Best Documentary to The Cove (congrats to all involved in that film!).

What can we do, those of us who are not working for marine organizations or right on the front lines?

At the moment, the most urgent thing we can do is to contact our government representatives. There is a serious effort being made to create a plan that allows for some commercial whaling towards the goal of ending all commercial whaling. The US is one of the countries working on this – it is critically important to increase public pressure to say that this is NOT acceptable. Killing whales on a commercial level needs to end, period.  This proposed compromise simply rewards Japan, Norway and Iceland – who have been flouting the ban on whaling for decades and even increased their kill numbers – by given them legitimacy without an enforceable way to ensure that the killing DOES end. Meanwhile, thousands more whales will suffer inhumane deaths. President Obama has promised not to allow whaling – contact the White House and make sure he does not become the president who DID move towards killing whales.

In the case of The Cove, which works to expose the slaughter of thousands of dolphins in Japan, you can send the text DOLPHIN to 44144. Be aware that this will place you on a text alerts list (from which you can easily opt out) and will be subject whatever text charges you have on your cell plan.

Stay up on the news. If you’re on Twitter, there are loads of marine, whale and conservation groups you can follow which post stories and developments. For ideas of some, check my follow lists for oceans, whales, and green/nature. You do not have to be on Twitter to see what people are saying, and you can often find websites for organizations by clicking on their @ nicknames to reach their individual pages.

Greenpeace is another organization that posts current news and offers e-petitions that can be signed and shared. These e-petitions do NOT replace direct individual contact from us to our representatives. Individual letters still hold more weight.

I keep a list here on the blog of whale research and conservation orgs. Again, it is not comprehensive but is a good start. Go to their sites, read up on their work, and support them however you can.

In the end, there are  countless matters of concern for ocean conservation: ending shark finning, establishing marine parks, ending destructive fishing methods like bottom trawling and long lining, cleaning up pollution. There are countless organizations involved in many of these causes. Use the web – find out who is working on the issues that matter to you most, and get involved. All it takes is one voice to get the ball started.

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First, my deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Dawn Brancheau. She was clearly a dedicated and well loved person and she will be missed by many.

I’ve been following a lot of the stories and commentary about this latest incident of a captive orca’s killing a human trainer. Not surprisingly, that leads to having thoughts of my own.

I used to have a strong aversion to orcas, or killer whales. When I was 9 years old, I went to see a movie called Orca, a thriller. My one enduring image from the film is of a large orca surging up onto a beach, trying to grab some human(s) there. We left the movie before it was over because it was so terrifying to us. I have also once been to SeaWorld in Florida, around the same time, and seen a killer whale show, though I don’t honestly remember much about it. I knew just about nothing about the reality of orcas.

Then, as an adult with a growing interest in and passion for whales, I finally picked up a book (that I had passed over multiple time before) called “Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us” by Alexandra Morton. This is a highly engaging and accessible book which demystified orcas for me and made them much more intriguing animals. They were no longer in my head as mindless, vicious killers, but as intelligent, complicated animals. Part of the book talks about how she started by working in marine parks and then moved to study orcas in the wild as she became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea and practice of orcas in captivity. Continue Reading »

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Let’s think about that sobering number for a moment.

2,000,000 – two MILLION whales – killed in the 20th century.

That’s a lot of whales. Present populations of different species vary around the world, with some like the Atlantic grey whale’s being completely gone, the Pacific grey whale and North Atlantic right whale very close to it. But two million… that was a number that made me sit up and take notice all of a sudden.  I’ve read different accounts of whaling with estimates of number killed, but never an aggregate total. Of the largest whales, populations were so drastically reduced as to result in single digit percentages (as little as 1-2% of blue whales, 5% or less of humpback whales) remaining from the original, naturally healthy and abundant populations. Continue Reading »

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This is probably blog post # 567,893 on this topic since the destruction of the Ady Gil in the Antarctic. The internet has been abuzz with postings: news, videos, opinion pieces all over the map. Here’s one more.

I will start by saying that I’ve long had a sort of mixed feeling about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). For one thing, I respect people who are willing to put their lives on the line for a matter for which they feel such passion. Because this matter is whales and their survival, it’s certainly on my radar more prominently than many other conservation concerns. And I respect that people ARE willing to go to these lengths to stop whaling. I don’t think I could make the sacrifices that they do.

I also know that the SSCS can be a source of consternation for other conservation groups, too, with the mixed blessing of calling attention to an important issue but doing so in a frequently very dangerous manner. The TV show Whale Wars has certainly brought the activity of whaling before a lot more people than would have otherwise been aware of it. There’s also a very good book on the same topic, from the whaling season before the TV show began, The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals by Peter Heller. He went out with them for a season and wrote about the experience, from the perspective of relative objectivity so it’s not all “rah rah SSCS” but still with respect for them and their devotion. Through all of these avenues,  I think that SSCS is calling valuable attention to a serious issue, even though their tactics are heavy handed. Continue Reading »

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