Guest guest Posted January 19, 2002 Report Share Posted January 19, 2002 * SWK and List Info In Footer * ...... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000004302jan17.story?coll=la%2Dheadline s%2Dcalifornia Gray Whale Birth Rate Posts Decline Gray whales are in the midst of their annual migration along the California coast, but with fewer calves in tow. Biologists have estimated that only 260 calves were born last year to the 26,000 gray whales that migrate 5,500 miles each year between Alaska's Bering Strait and Mexico's Baja Peninsula. =========== http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?rub={B1311FD3-FBFB-11D2-B 228-00105A9CAF88} & sub= & doc={B7A44B89-BCD2-41AF-BF4E-A00471F30A76} Whaling Blues: What to Do With the Carcasses of Stranded Mammals By Susanne E. Kaiser BERLIN. " Lord, have mercy, " Martin Luther, the reformer of the German Protestant Church, is reputed to have exclaimed, when he found himself standing before the carcass of a beached sperm whale in The Netherlands on June 13, 1522. Indeed, the sight of a giant mammal, more than 10 meters (33 feet) long, washed up onto the beach to die is pretty impressive. Only a few hours after stranding, the gray colossus begins to swell up, its front flipper pointing up into the air. Back then as today, the question is: What do you do with around 15 tons of fat, 10 tons of whale meat, more than 3 tons of bones and 1,500 kilograms (3,307 pounds) of spermaceti wax found in the head of a young sperm whale bull? Following the beaching of three sperm whales on the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein earlier this week, the authorities there are still arguing about how to dispose of them. In Luther's day, the answer was easy. Whales were cut up by the inhabitants of the nearby villages and made into lamp oil, soap and perfume. Today, however, the Washington agreement for the protection of endangered species prohibits the processing of animals that are on the endangered species list, even if they are washed up dead onto a beach. The reasoning behind this regulation is that would-be whalers would otherwise probably engage in a kind of modern piracy, killing the whales out at sea and then allowing the current to wash them up onto the beach, where they could be legally collected as carcasses. There is no standard procedure for recovering and disposing of a dead whale. Leaving it lying near an important dike is potentially dangerous, however, for in the event of a storm the waves would smash the giant carcass against the walls of the dike like a battering ram -- a force that even a modern dike would be unable to withstand. Allowing it to float back out to sea is no solution either, because it could ram holes into the hulls of passing ships underwater. Recovering a whale carcass is almost always a difficult operation. Whales are usually beached on the North Sea coast between November and March, so the first problem is generally the weather. Often the rescue team stands knee-deep in ice floes, ships are unable to reach the shore, and recovery overland is frequently impossible. The three sperm whales now stranded near Friedrichskoog are no exception. They have been washed up in a place that is inaccessible to heavy rescue equipment. A further problem is that whales start to decay quickly. During its death throes on land, the whale's internal body temperature reaches a level of more than 50 degrees centigrade, (122 degrees Fahrenheit) providing a favorable environment for bacteria even with sub-zero temperatures outside. The microorganisms in a whale's digestive tract multiply at an explosive rate and the carcass begins to decompose rapidly. The gases emitted during the process of decomposition eventually cause the whale's body to burst open along the backbone, releasing foul-smelling solid, liquid and gassy substances. Hardly surprising, areas that depend on tourism for their livelihood can generally do without stinking giant carcasses on their beaches. Moreover, it is not only the inside of the whale that is teeming with microorganisms. There are also a large number of bacteria on the surface of the skin that can be dangerous for humans if touched or inhaled. So-called " seal finger " syndrome used to be a frequent occurrence among whale and seal hunters. A seal bite or an injury suffered while cutting up a dead seal or whale can lead to an infection of the skin or flesh caused by anaerobic bacteria -- i.e., bacteria that multiply when deprived of oxygen. The wound soon begins to fester and if left untreated the infection spreads over the whole hand and arm. A hundred years ago, the only way to save an unfortunate sailor from deadly blood poisoning was to amputate his finger. Today, the infection can be treated with antibiotics. Nevertheless, it is advisable to keep your distance from dead sea mammals. All the more surprising, then, that in Denmark, busloads of curious spectators travel to view beached whales, and parents with small children can be witnessed clambering around on the carcasses. So why not just bury the whale? One problem is that sperm whales, which feed on squid and fish, are at the end of the food chain and are therefore contaminated with large amounts of heavy metals and other environmentally harmful substances. A 1999 study conducted by an environmental institute in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, confirmed that burying a whale at the spot where it has been washed up introduces about a kilogram of heavy metals and other poisons into the soil -- a volume of toxins enough to make any ecologist's hair stand on end. Nevertheless, this is often the only way of putting the whale out of harm's way. A sperm whale found dead on the German island of Norderney in the winter of 1994-95 was simply hoisted onto the sand dunes and buried there. A large gap in the dunes still marks its resting place. The other states bordering on the North Sea face the same problem time and again. In Britain, any whale that gets washed up on her majesty's beaches is considered the personal property of the queen (as is, incidentally, every swan in the kingdom). Records of the number of beached whales are kept by the Natural History Museum in London. Between 1991 and 2000, 3,428 beachings of the zoological order Cetacea were registered, although one should bear in mind that this order includes all species of whales and dolphins, even the smaller pig whale, which is only 1.5 meters long. If a whale is washed up on the rocky part of the British coast and does not endanger shipping, it is simply left there. In other cases, the carcasses are salvaged and handed over to an animal processing agency. A practical method of cutting up whales at the place where they land, which is prohibited in Germany, has been practiced in Denmark for some years now. Denmark faces a greater problem of mass beachings of large whales than any other European country. In 1996 and 1997, groups of 16 and 13 whales, respectively, were washed up on the island of Röm. In order to deal with such large quantities of animal material, the Danes chopped up the beached whales on the spot using a large chisel of the kind normally used to break up the concrete surface of sections of autobahn in need of repair. The more manageable portions of only a few hundred kilograms were picked up by dump trucks and deposited in a landfill, where they were left to rot. In another case, a whale found in an isolated spot far away from inhabited areas was blown up using dynamite. The German laws and regulations leave few options open. The most recent complicated dissection of a beached sperm whale took place in 1998 in the port area of Cuxhaven. The animal was first towed into the harbor dock using barges, then chopped up by hand over a makeshift basin of thick plastic sheeting and sand bags designed to catch the debris. It was a messy operation and a rather dangerous one, too, since the knives needed to be razor sharp to cut through the thick, rubbery skin of the whale. One major advantage for the public of this labor-intensive disposal method, however, is that the whale's skeleton is preserved as an attraction for museum visitors. Jan. 18 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2001 ========= Coast Guard Rescues Elephant Seal Fri 18 Jan 2002 HONOLULU (AP) - A U.S. Coast Guard plane Thursday rescued an injured elephant seal from the waters off Hawaii Island, nearly 2,400 miles from his California home. It was unknown how the 250-pound male yearling ended up off the Hawaiian coast, said Margaret Akamine Dupree, spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Elephant seals are native to cooler waters and are rarely found in Hawaii. ``This is a really unusual case here,'' Dupree said. The last confirmed sighting of the giant sea mammal in Hawaiian waters was in the 1970s, she said. The seal was found near the Kona Village Resort with about a dozen shark bites, but none life-threatening, Dupree said. He was first spotted near Kawaihae several days ago, and wildlife officials tracked him until he could be captured, she said. The Coast Guard airlifted the seal to Honolulu. ``We're going to bring him in for further testing to see if he has any systemic conditions,'' Dupree said. The seal was to be flown Friday to The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, Calif. =========== http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134392117_makah17m.html Makah plan for cutter riles activists By Luis Cabrera The Associated Press It lists for $1.2 million, has an oceangoing range of 200 miles and comes equipped with twin 450-horsepower diesels, a global-positioning satellite system and radar that scopes to 36 miles. The Makah Tribe says it needs the latest-model cutter - the kind the Coast Guard is ordering - to take part in marine-mammal research and fisheries enforcement around its reservation on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. But anti-whaling activists contend the vessel would simply make the Makahs more efficient hunters and killers of whales. " We have stated from the beginning that the tribe intends to step up their 'cultural' whaling activity and to include other species of whales, " said Sandy Abels, president of U.S. Citizens Against Whaling. " Now it appears they want the U.S. government to pay for it. " Five anti-whaling groups have denounced the boat request. The Makahs have been under siege by animal activists since they moved to resume traditional whaling after gray whales were removed from the federal endangered-species list in 1994. Tribal hunters killed their first and only gray whale in May 1999, using a canoe and harpoon, as well as a big gun and a motorboat. The tribe made its boat request in November to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service. The cutter would be used to find gray-whale populations and study whale migration patterns and food sources, said David Sones, tribal fisheries manager. " We would be looking at their movements, their general health - a lot of the type of general science that is needed to better understand the species, " he said. The boat, which has a top speed of 25 knots, also would be used to enforce rules on Makah fishermen in the 1,120 square miles of tribal waters, Sones said. 2002 The Seattle Times Company ============= http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2002/01/17/FFXFNDPDIWC.html Whaling votes 'bought' By SELMA MILOVANOVIC Thursday 17 January 2002 A warrior returns: Mel McCosker welcomes home Mikey Rosato, on board the Arctic Sunrise. The Japanese Government had spent more than $US320 million ($A618 million) buying votes from other countries in its campaign to bring back full-scale commercial whaling, Greenpeace activists said yesterday. The group said that if international governments didn't act immediately to stop vote-buying in the International Whaling Commission, Japan was three or four votes away from modifying the international moratorium on whaling, which has been in place since 1986. Greenpeace ship MV Arctic Sunrise docked in Melbourne yesterday after following the six-vessel Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica since November 6 last year. Expedition leader Kieran Mulvaney said the crew of 30 on board the 50-metre Greenpeace icebreaker frequently placed inflatable boats between harpoons and whales in icy conditions. But during the six-week expedition, Japanese fishermen killed a minke whale in front of Greenpeace cameras for the first time in 13 years. On January 1, Australian research icebreaker Aurora Australis came across the fleet near Prydz Bay in eastern Antarctica, in Australia's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone off the coast of Australian Antarctic Territory. Sharman Stone, federal parliamentary secretary responsible for the Australian Antarctic Program, is meeting Japanese government officials in Tokyo. She said the Australian Government opposed whale hunting. Under Japanese laws enacted last year, fishermen are no longer required to free whales accidentally trapped in their nets. Japan is a signatory to the moratorium on whaling, but its fishermen take up to 440 minke whales a year using a scientific whaling permit. In the lead-up to a whaling commission meeting in July last year, it was revealed Japan had used its Overseas Development Aid program to buy the votes of a key bloc of Caribbean nations (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines). New Zealand will push for a coalition of anti-whaling South Pacific nations at the commission's annual meeting in Shimonoseki, Japan, in May. The move follows the failure of Australia and New Zealand to secure a South Pacific sanctuary at the last two annual meetings. US prosecutors will not seek jail sentences for Australian Greenpeace activists Nic Clyde and Stuart Lennox. The pair was facing up to six months in a federal prison for their part in a Star Wars missile protest at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base last year. The US District Attorney's office said yesterday it would not ask the Federal Court to jail the two Australians and six other activists at tomorrow's sentencing in Los Angeles. ==================== Gray Whales with Winston http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Jungle/1953/index.html _______________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com To change list options, or , go to http://www.topica.com. Or send e-mail to swk-, swk-. Visit our site: http://www.stopwhalekill.org .... 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