Paul is a nine year old fourth grader at Ipalook Elementary School and “is very into his culture. He loves to go whaling with his uncle Qulliuq Pebley, who is the Captian of Panigeo Crew”
“The family was overjoyed in tears when they heard that their 9-year-old Paul harpooned the 32′ 7″ whale.”
Here’s the thing, though…I want you to go find a map of Alaska, look at it, and point to the place where you’d think human beings would be LEAST likely to live. And that’s where Barrow, Alaska is…it’s one of the northernmost cities in the entire world, and the northernmost in the US. Temperatures drop below freezing pretty much every day of the year there, and only get above freezing about 100 days per year.
It’s also a desert, averaging less that five inches of precipitation per year.
According to wikipedia: “On November 18 or 19 the sun goes down, and remains below the horizon for about 65 days until it re-appears, normally on January 22 or January 23.”
The Cook Inlet Beluga Whale population is the lowest it 15 years, down from 653 in 1994 to 321 this year.
One of the theories attempting to explain the decline is noise pollution from Anchorage Port, a busy shipping hub undergoing a lot of new construction. It’s believed that the beluga whales are sensitive to the commercial and construction noise. At four points along the port, hired whale watchers keep their eyes open for belugas, and if any are spotted, construction comes to a halt.
The port construction project won’t be completed until 2014.
You can't change your name from Barack to Barry if your last name is Obama!
Some other whale-related happenings from around the globe:
President Obama, whose favorite book is Moby Dick, has decided NOT cut but a $9 million program to promote the history of whaling in Massachusetts from the budget (Durango Herald)
Back in 2004, researchers from Scripps began working with the fishermen to better understand the behavior by using underwater audio recordings to identify sounds that seem to be attracting whales to fishing vessels. In 2006, they started using video to capture the whales at work stealing fish. It seems the whales pluck the lines to snap the fish free.
Scientists, however, believe the footage will help them understand much more about sperm whales and local whale populations, including both their size and numbers:
The Alaska video allowed Mathias and Thode (researchers) to not only match the size of the whale’s head with its acoustic signal, but permitted them to infer the size of its spermaceti organ, which produces a white, waxy substance previously used in candles and ointments, as well as the so-called “junk” inside the whale’s head. The junk is a large organ that is believed to play a role in transmitting sound from the whale’s head.
Thode said the study could be a first step in the broader use of acoustics to census whale populations as supplements to visual counts of the animals. Currently it is difficult to relate the number of whale sounds recorded to the number of animals present. The ability to tease individuals apart acoustically would be a basic step toward solving the problem.
The sounds sperm whales make as they approach the lines are among the loudest made by any animal.
Recent Comments