There are ongoing efforts to reduce whaling around the world, which is terrific. What’s bizarre about the nations who still whale are some of the arguments being used to justify whaling.

Yeah, because whales eat all of the fish. *rolling my eyes* Say what? In a recent meeting of nations at the World Conservation Congress, this argument came up again, that “controlling” whale “stocks” is meant to increase fish available for human consumption. (I can’t stand the word stocks as applied to whale populations. But maybe that’s just me.) The large baleen whales that have been/are hunted - blues, humpbacks, minkes, fins - eat copepods, krill, sand lance. These are not fish consumed by humans. Sure, toothed whales eat fish, like some orcas that eat salmon, sperm whales, dolphins, etc.

But I feel that the contention that this interferes with human fish consumption is specious. In the early 20th century when whaling was at its vicious, steam and gas powered peak, fisheries for humans were also at a peak. Cape Cod, for example, was amass with fish stocks. Commercial boats worldwide pulled tons and tons of fish out of the oceans on a regular basis (yes, they still do, but there aren’t as many and they aren’t as big). And guess what? Those fish stocks lived in same oceans, side by side, with the world’s cetaceans for millions of years. If whales were such a threat to fish stocks, I’d posit there would not have been any fish to harvest for humans, certainly not at the vast numbers that they were caught. Carl Safina’s book “Song for the Blue Planet” talks about the bluefin tuna fishery collapse as one example of abundance turned scarce by human fishing.

Australia, being one of the largest anti-whaling nations on the front lines of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, deserves a lot of credit for fighting so hard to eliminate so-called scientific whaling. They are being blamed for wanting stronger language condemning whaling as a way to increase fish stocks for humans. So the whaling nations are walking away from the table, rather than concede the fallacy of the fisheries argument. Google “impact of whales on fisheries” and find a bounty of PDFs and pages dedicated to disproving this argument. Rather, the continued depletion of the oceans by humans has far more implications on the availability of food for the whales as ocean ecosystems collapse from the absence of big pieces of the food chain. Not to mention the general condition of the oceans themselves thanks to pollution and acoustic noise.

The time is past for tiptoeing around the egos of the whaling nations. Their arguments get weaker as public awareness increases. Let’s hope that continues and we can finally end whaling for real.

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It isn’t easy. Recently in Australia, officials decided to “euthanize” a sick whale that had stranded. Despite the fact that mother nature has been taking care of whales in all respects for millions of years, despite loads of empirical evidence that there is no humane way to kill a whale (eyewitness reports from those observing whalers, some stories here), the officials decided they could trump mother nature and “humanely” kill this whale.

They were wrong. The dynamite blast only caused pain and thrashing. They then had to shoot this whale. It took another 15 minutes for the animal to die.

I can believe that the animal was in discomfort before hand, but this account indicates it was “simply” lying on the beach. We can’t really know what it was physically feeling. So where do these Australian officials come off trying to step in? Australia is one of the leaders in combating whaling operations by Japan, especially since Japan routinely flouts the established marine sanctuaries established by Australia in the Southern Ocean. They are closer than anyone (besides Sea Shepherd, perhaps) to know what happens to the harpooned whales. Does it really make sense they would use untried, guesstimate methods to attempt to save this whale from suffering?

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There’s actually a very simple yet critical way to save the whales. The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies is the only east coast U.S. organization that is federally permitted to disentangle whales from fishing gear. Yet next year, their funding will be so drastically cut as to jeopardize the whole program. Congress’ inability to get a budget passed is at the root of this, though the belief is that funding will be included in a final budget.

Meanwhile, PCCS continues to go out and disentangle whales on a scarily frequent basis, reinforcing just how critical this program is. A recent disentanglement press release talks about this loss of funding. There is also a story on boston.com about this topic.

Donate to PCCS and help keep the disentanglement team able to keep saving whales. It’s easy, it’s tangible, and it’s critically necessary.

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Have just finished reading The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals by Peter Heller. And for anyone who is interested in what really goes on in Antarctica with Japan’s whaling, this is a must read.

Heller goes out with the Sea Shepherd, led by Captain Paul Watson and with a largely volunteer international crew, to pursue the Japanese whaling fleet and interfere with their mission of “scientific” whaling. (The only people who actually seem to think it is scientific are the Japanese involved with the mission. But I digress… a little). The book maintains a fast pace and flows very well. The descriptions, especially, of the conditions at sea with 30 plus foot swells are vivid. You’ll just about feel the cold spray as it crashed over the bow of the ship, the Farley Mowat.

Paul Watson was one of the founders of Greenpeace, but broke away to form Sea Shepherd in the late 1970s. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is an organization surrounded by controversy but possessing more chutzpah than anyone else in conservation on the high seas. Heller has his eyes wide open with an outsider’s perspective, seeking to determine both the reality and philosophy of the Sea Shepherd’s approach, and wonders more than once what he has gotten himself into by undertaking the voyage. He draws all aspects of the situation: the accusations of piracy against Sea Shepherd due to its willingness to use its ships to physically interfere with whaling ships (and, historically, other fishing vessels), the determination of the entire Farley Mowat crew from seasoned veterans to first timers, the viciousness that is comprised of the hunt for whales, and the lack of temerity of governments to directly confront the Japanese whaling fleet to end the slaughter. In the season when Heller was aboard, they engaged the Japanese whalers twice, and the drama of each encounter is captured vividly.

I had known of Sea Shepherd before reading this book, on the fence as to how I felt about their very direct form of action. Reading this book brings you right into the midst of the Sea Shepherd mindset, and I come away with enormous respect for the dedication and amount of risk involved. I am not sure I could do it, and yet it is so incredibly critical that someone does, since Japan continues to kill whales undeterred by increasing worldwide criticism. Heller does not go into enormous detail about what the whalers do, but the descriptions he does include of just what it takes to kill a whale should make anyone even remotely interested in whale conservation sit up and take notice. Suffice it to say here that there is nothing humane in how it takes 15-30 minutes or more of violent attack against a whale before it dies brutally and painfully. If any other animal taken for its meat was killed this barbarically, there would be mountains of uproar. Because these whale killings happen so far away from the public eye (though Iceland and Norway also undertake whaling), the chilling details of the kill are largely unknown. The Sea Shepherd may employ unorthodox methods in its direct means of intervention, but without them, many more whales would be lost. And since global whale populations after massive commercial whaling have left large whale populations at 5% or less of their original numbers (depending on the species), any whale lost is a blow to their overall survival.

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It is not a secret that the current US administration is no friend to the environment, and here’s just one more example. I had heard about this in May on the Earth Day whale watch, but there is now a story on CNN.com as well: Plan to save whales strangling in red tape. As if they don’t have enough trouble with fishing gear!

Basically, a plan was submitted to the OMB about regulating speed of ships through right whale habitats. OMB is supposed to rule these things in 90 days, but in this case they have sat on it for over a year and a half. Why? Because Dick Cheney wants to kowtow to industry and not have any concern whatsoever on the critically endangered whales. Apparently, a potential 1% increase in fuel is worth more than our natural heritage, especially when humans are the reason that natural heritage is in the brink of extinction in the first place.

This is just one more pathetic example of profit overruling science. This administration’s term cannot end soon enough. Call his office, 202-456-1111, or send an email and let him know it is time to stop this ridiculousness. And don’t forget to contact your own send an email and let him know it is time to stop this ridiculousness. And don’t forget to contact your own Congresspeople and Senators as well to ask them to speak up on this.

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My attention was brought today to this story about the impact of proposed legislation which is intended to protect right whales but is being challenged by ferry lines running from the southern coast of Massachusetts to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The story is really an interesting example of how to balance commerce/business with conservation and protection of endangered animals.  In this case the endangered animal is the North Atlantic right whale, numbering 350-400 (estimates vary) and extremely vulnerable to death by ship strike.  The reporter seems to favor the ferries, who are concerned about the impact that an ongoing reduction speed would have on their schedules.  This is certainly a legitimate concern.  Published timetables would be compromised by speed restrictions.  But, as is also pointed out in the story, there is no history of right whales ever being found in Nantucket Sound, so it seems a specious argument to make until there has been a real impact.

I want to do some more digging on this story.  Senator John Kerry introduce a Senate bill, S.2657, with Senator Olympia Snowe, and it seems to have been submitted on February 15, 2008.  What’s new since then? This year for the first time, Cape Cod Bay has been populated with a series of acoustic buoys designed to listen for and detect the presence of right whales in real time.  This allows fast dispatch of information to vessels so they can be on the alert.  I wonder, as data from this project accumulates, if it will also make unnecessary a codified, and potentially arbitrary since whales are always on the move, period of time where speeds must be adjusted.  And if successful, and funding permits, buoys could then be deployed in other “hot spots” for right whales.

But really in the end, do the ferry lines really warrant the fuss they are making when the rules only when right whales are in the area, and they are not known to be in that area?

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Yes, it happened a little while ago, May 3 to be exact, but I’ve been busily getting this site set up so have some post-catching up to do!

On to the good stuff. I went out for my first trip of the year from Gloucester, MA on an Earth Day whale watch fundraiser for the Whale Center of New England. The trip was on the Capt. Bill and Sons boat on which I went out several times last year. We wound up with an early spring New England day: overcast, chilly, and with some rain. Still, we were off to see whales! We left the dock at 9 AM and got back in around 4:30. Many of the Whale Center staff were on board, including Mason Weinrich, the exec director who did much of the narration. Mason can ID whales faster than anyone I’ve seen, so it’s always a treat to be out on one of his trips.

The day of watching started like the whales were feeling the weather, too… the first group we came upon as we reached the northern part of Stellwagen Bank were not “doing” much, i.e. not being very surface active. Still, it’s always nice to see whales!

By noon, we had found a much more active whale, identified as Springboard. She thrilled us with a show that included breaching and flipper slapping. We were in the vicinity of the BE Buoy by this time. For me, nothing is more thrilling than seeing a whale breach.

As the day went on, we did find several other clusters of whales. Among the whales ID’d was Zeppelin, most typically see in the Great South Channel. This was the first time she had been seen in the Stellwagen Bank area for several years. Later in the day, in a separate group, a calf of Zeppelin’s, Milkweed, was “cavorting” with some others.

New fact for me on the day - I love that, no matter how many whale watches I’ve been on (I think I am up to 30-40 by now), I always learn something new. Since it is early in the season and the whales are just returning to these feeding grounds, Mason commented that he can tell some of them are looking a little thin after the long fast. And how can he tell? The appearance of a shoulder blade on the side, just behind the blowholes. I managed to catch it on film when Springboard did a chin breach. You should be able to see it in this photo.

All in all, cold and wet but still and always amazing. Named humpbacks that were announced during the trip included: Hancock, Falcon, Rapier, Glo (easy to identify since she is missing much of her left fluke), Photon, Springboard, Reflection, Zeppelin, Crystal (first known calf of Stellwagen Bank’s grand dame, Salt, who I still have yet to see!), Milkweed, Glowstick, Buzzard. There was an announced sighting of a fin whale, but I did not see it.

Gallery to be posted soon. Will make a post when it is up. Plus, I’ve done more whale watches since so will be making new posts on those.

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Within the last 5 years or so, after going out on countless whale watches from Provincetown, MA, I came to realize that this “whale thing” was more than a passing fancy. I started going out on more whale watches from additional locations (still in the Northeast US) and taking ever more photos. I was reading whatever I could get my hands on. When I talked about whales and whale watching, it was transformative - people commented on how much more animated I became. Then one day, a friend cut me off in mid-sentence to say, “you’re a whale geek!”. She’d professionally videotape whale watches so she had a trained eye. I took special glee in stumping the naturalists with my questions.

So, yep, I’m a whale geek. Decided I should start a blog to more properly chronicle my whales watch experiences, post photos, talk about news in the world of whale conservation and protection, etc etc.

And when I grow up *grin*, I want to be a professional whale watcher. (Ok, this means doing things along the lines of naturalist on whale watch boats, research, education - whatever way I can be more immersed in the world of whales. If I am really lucky, I can also help contribute to our learning of whales. To that end, I’m trying to prepare myself for grad school. Will possibly talk about that here too).

In 2007 I set a personal record of 13 whale watches in a season, which is no small feat given that I live 2.5 hours from the coast. And I would have done more if I could. Let’s see what happens in 2008.

In any event, whale fans - welcome!

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