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I post collections of news stories that I think may interest divers periodically to a local scuba site here...I'm about to put together another post. Here are some of the more interesting posts from the past.... On Ecology & Nature Whales: (first the bad news) The Soviets have admitted to lying about the number of whales slaughtered for several decades. The actual kill was probably twice as much, if not more. In the 1960's, one Soviet ship claimed it had killed 152 humpback, and 156 blue whales, when in fact they had killed 7,207 humpbacks, and 1,433 blue whales, and illegally killed 717 right whales, an endangered species that has been protected by the whaling commission since the 30's. Eanst Chearny, a former whaler who now directs Russia's Union of Independent Fishery Workers told the commission that in the '61-'62 whaling season, his ship reported only 270 humpbacks killed, when in fact 1,568 had been killed, along with 1,200 right whales. He also described how the Russian ships had been specially designed to have their decks covered by steam, so as to hide from outside view any of the carcasses of protected species. The KGB was also involved, using special military radio frequencies and coded information on all fleet communications. ---"The [secret coded] cipher tables contained, for example, such concepts as 'foreign fleet is in sight', and, most significantly, 'sink the prohibited whales'." In Science: The meeting of the AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science, in San Francisco recently has led to several interesting stories. At on session, marine scientists discusses that fact that many areas of the earth's oceans have biological diversity that rivals that of rain forests, and unlike rain forests, the general public is unaware of the oceans importance and large scale decline. The scientists also discussed the fact that tropical reefs cover 20 times as much area as rain forests, and have been the least studied of ecosystems. Of the 1.4 million species listed in biological reference books, apparently only 10 percent are marine aquatic species, a fact attributed to are great ignorance of the sea. In New Guinea and Southeast Asia, logging practices and development are dumping huge amounts of sediment, choking, and killing large regions of reef. In shipping lanes, the constant presence of fuel and oil pollution has altered the bacterial and plankton populations. Second..ANCIENT WALKING WHALES... Paleontologists in Pakistan have unearthed what appears to be the missing link between the walking ancestors of the current whale evolutionary line. The 50 million year old sea lion sized fossil is the first whale type found with functional hind limbs and feet, and has been names Ambulocetus natans - early walking ceacean. Speaking of big fish, KAYAKER TAKES A SHORT FLIGHT, AND THEN A WALK, ON THE WILD SIDE..... A Sonoma coast kayaker experienced a "spiritual renaissance" after being thrown 10 feet in to the air (probably an exageration) and then LANDING ON THE BACK OF A 15 foot, 1500 pound GREAT WHITE SHARK. (Experts made the size estimates by the > inch long triangular teeth marks on the kayak) The woman thought she had "hit some kind of sandy rock", and couldn't understand why her four companions where screaming like mad for her to get back into her kayak. It is the third attack along the Sonoma coast this year. She was unhurt, and some coastal rangers jokingly asked her to buy them some lottery tickets. The horrific coral bleaching (dying), which has been ravaging coral reefs around the world since the early eighties has been baffling scientists as to its exact cause. A recent finding by marine scientists Daniel F. Gleason at the University of Houston may suggest the reason. On warm, calm days the damage is the greatest which falsely led scientists to believe that warming water was the cause. Instead it is believed that these especially calm summer days cause the water to clear, allowing a much greater percentage of ultra violet rays to penetrate the depths and "sterilize" the corals' symbiont, the algae. (When the water surface is without ripples or waves, the amount of sunlight that can penetrate the water is exponentially increased, due to the lessening of refraction/reflection from large light/water incident angles.) The scientists exposed some portions of a coral reef to UV, and shielded others, and saw a corresponding bleaching effect in the coral that was not shielded. This effect was seen in waters up to 60' feet deep. It seemes that shallow water corals have the ability to excrete UV absorbing compounds into the water to protect themselves. (Certain Australian coral species that become exposed to air at low tides even produce their own inherent sun blocking agents, and scientists are working feverishly to reproduce these "natural" sun tan compounds in the test tube.) The deeper water species, however, lack this ability, and are the most vulnerable to UV exposure. The full research report was published in a recent issue of Nature. Some intersting behavioral observations taken from excerpts of "Mind in the Waters" (pub 70's): A crew from Marineland reported that while attempting to capture a female killer whale near Bellingham, their lasso got caught in the ship's propeller, and the trapped, struggling orca emitted a high-pitched, penetrating vocalization. Twenty minutes later a large male orca arrived, and with the female, charged the boat at full speed once, veering off at the last minute. They charged again and struck the boat. The crew killed both whales to save the boat. At Sea Life Park a young false killer whale and a young Pacific bottlenose dolphin shared adjoining tanks and preferred to share the same tank. The porpoise developed the ability to jump over the partition into the less agile whale's tank and did so frequently. Since the animals had to be separated frequently and with great difficulty for their performances a barrier was set up between the tanks. The barrier was continually found moved just enough to allow the porpoise to jump into the whales tank and for a while the trainers assumed some sympathetic employees were responsible until a trainer, unseen by the animals, observed the false killer whale, with his great strength, move the barrier himself allowing the dolphin to jump into his tank. Dolphin etiquette/discipline: A famous dolphin trainer (John Lilly) who was responsible for giving antibiotic shots to some dolphins reported that one dolphin, named Elvar, hated the shots and began to show discomfort in the presence of the trainer. (This behavior was the opposite of another dolphin he had seen, who would actually swim over to the trainers when he felt sick, and volunteer for an antibiotic shot.) On one particular day, while Lilly was in the tank with Elvar (a young male) and an older female dolphin, Chee-Chee. Elvar had been avoiding the trainer at the opposite end of the tank, when he suddenly turned, barked (underwater), and charged towards the trainers arm. Just before Elvar jaws impacted his arm, Chee-Chee intercepted him at a right angle and slammed the bottom of her beak down on the top of his head so hard "that I could feel the resulting jar at the side of the tank". Elvar never attempted to charge the trainer again.
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