A Clockwork Naturalist
Biologist-in-training, alien of letters.
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Image credit: www.thesun.co.uk
- Jennifer Vieges, Discovery News; Friday, June 24
“According to multiple media reports, a 55-foot-long marine animal recently washed up dead on a beach at Guangdong, China. You can see its decaying body in the above image. Now the question is: What’s this species that beach goers are calling a ‘sea monster?’
Live Science showed the photo to three marine biology experts: Scott Baker of Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute, Bill Perrin, senior scientist for marine mammals at the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Bob Brownell, senior scientist for international protected resources with NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
All three said they think it’s a whale. As to the exact species, they’re not certain, but Live Science quoted Baker as saying, ‘it’s a balaenopterid.’”
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From Discovery News
- Kieran Mulvaney, Wed Jun 15, 2011 12:01 PM ET
Japanese officials have announced that at least two minke whales caught by whalers off the coast of Hokkaido have been found to contain levels of radioactive cesium, likely as a result of the accident at Fukushima nuclear plant that was set in motion by the March 11 tsunami.
The whales were caught, not by the “research” fleet that recently returned to the North Pacific, but by vessels conducting so-called small-type whaling, which operate closer to shore and which this year pursued a self-assigned quota of 100 minke whales…
…Either way, the discovery of any level of radioactivity in whale meat, and the fact that the government has elected to release the contaminated meat into the marketplace*, is hardly likely to inspire consumer confidence, or revive demand for a food that has been less and less attractive to the Japanese populace in recent years. Whale meat stockpiles in the country were reported to have reached a record 6,000 tonnes last year; this latest news seems unlikely to help reduce those those stockpiles any time soon. [full story]
* emphasis mine
So, in this equation,
(Whale meat is radioactive) + (people no longer want to eat whale meat, anyway) surplus of whale meat already rotting away, uneaten = CONTINUED WHALING
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From The Epoch Times:
March 6, 2011 - Engine exhaust from boats may be having significant adverse health effects on endangered killer whales off the West Coast, a Canadian zoologist has found.A two-and-a-half year study by Cara Lachmuth suggests that the orcas may be struggling with carbon monoxide emissions five times higher than those found 100 meters (328 feet) from Los Angeles freeways.
…”“Killer whales are the sentinels of the eco-system. If our top predators are doing well it generally speaks to the health of everything below them. And we definitely have a problem with our top predators.”
