More squid means more elephant seal food. Seeing so many huge animals lying on the beach certainly attests to plenty of life in those waters!
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Squid
Squid are an important part of elephant seals diet. Squid expert Danna Staaf updates recent squid news on her Squid a Day blog:
"In the three months since my daughter's birth, this is what you've pulled: Humboldt squid stranding. Market squid boom. Humboldt squid re-invasion. Giant squid video (finally). Deep-sea squid sex. Giant squid specimen. Flying squid (again)."
I missed some of these stories but enjoyed the Discovery Channel's Giant Squid video. A very dramatic story.
More squid means more elephant seal food. Seeing so many huge animals lying on the beach certainly attests to plenty of life in those waters!
More squid means more elephant seal food. Seeing so many huge animals lying on the beach certainly attests to plenty of life in those waters!
Monday, February 25, 2013
NRDC fights Navy sonar
Thanks, NRDC, for protecting the oceans. I'm not sure even they are much aware of elephant seals, but they live in this same environment and will be affected.
NRDC sued the U.S. Navy and the government agency charged with protecting marine mammals from the Navy’s harmful use of sonar on October 12, 2012. Both the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) have a responsibility to manage, conserve, and protect living marine resources, like whales and dolphins, particularly those protected by the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, the Navy and NMFS failed to meet their obligation to protect whales and other marine life from the harmful impacts of low-frequency active sonar (“LFA”), when they authorized the deployment of LFA in 70-75 % of the World’s Oceans without instituting adequate protective measures.
As we noted when filing our case, the deployment of LFA will harm thousands of marine mammals, including significant numbers of endangered species such as blue whales, humpback whales, sperm whales (all shown in photos here), and other species whose numbers are depleted. Impacts from LFA will occur hundreds of miles from the source of the technology. Indeed, during one test of the LFA system, the Navy calculated LFA sound waves at a level known to disturb gray whales more than 300 miles from the source (the distance between Boston, MA and Philadelphia, PA). And, while the use of this technology for the past ten years has been limited to discrete portions of the northern Pacific Ocean, the Navy is now authorized to introduce use of the LFA system to all of the world’s oceans other than Antarctica’s Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.
Because a single LFA source is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with intense levels of sound, the Navy and NMFS should have restricted the activity in areas around the globe of biological importance to whales and dolphins. Instead, they adopted measures that are grossly disproportionate to the scope of the plan – setting aside a mere twenty-two “Offshore Biologically Important Areas” that are literally a drop in the bucket when compared to the more than 98 million square miles of ocean (yes, that’s 50% of the surface of the planet) open to LFA deployment. The apparent belief that there are fewer than two dozen small areas throughout the world’s oceans that warrant protection from this technology is not based in reality.
Make no mistake, high-intensity sounds can kill, injure, and disturb marine mammals. The Navy and NMFS accept this fact. It has definitively caused or been associated with multiple mass stranding events of whales and other marine mammals around the world.
Our suit, which we bring with other concerned organizations, asks the Court to send the Navy and NMFS back to the drawing board, with instructions to get it right – do your duty under the law, do more to protect marine mammals.
I look forward to keeping you updated on our challenge in the months ahead.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Whale teeth
An interesting story evolution of whale teethe from Environmental News Network:
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order
Cetacea. Whales are mammals, but they don’t look like the mammals
living around us, as they have a triangular fluke for tail, no hind legs
and no body hair. And inside their mouths, their teeth are unfamiliar
too — being much simpler and peg like. A multidisciplinary team of
researchers have now married together the fossil record and the
embryonic development process to investigate how the whale got its
teeth. In most mammals there are wedge-shaped incisors, a pointy
canine, and premolars and molars with bumps and valleys that fit
together like a mortar and pestle when you chew. Not all whales have
teeth, but those that do, such as killer whales, have rows of simple peg
like teeth, each one looking the same as the next. Whales use this
spiked row of teeth to grab prey, but unlike other mammals, whales do
not chew.
In a new study published today in the open access
journal PeerJ, Brooke Armfield and colleagues investigated the
developmental processes that cause the teeth of dolphins, whales'
smaller cousins, to be different, and tracked the evolutionary
progression of their unique dentition across the fossil record.
The toothed whales (systematic name Odontoceti) form a suborder of the cetaceans, including sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins, and others. As the name suggests, the suborder is characterized by the presence of teeth rather than the baleen of other whales. he teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws. At the other extreme are the Narwhal with its single long tusk and the almost toothless beaked whales with bizarre teeth only in males.
Whales evolved from land mammals and so Armfield and co-workers first went to the fossil record to trace when and how whales evolved their simple teeth. The fossil record shows that, 48 million years ago, whales had the same four kinds of teeth just like most other mammals. Gradually, the teeth of whales became simpler and acquired their characteristic peg-like appearance around 30 million years ago, well after the time that they had acquired an array of adaptations for living in the water.
Next, Armfield and her colleagues explored just how teeth are shaped during development. Specific proteins in the embryo cause developing teeth to grow into certain shapes. Armfield and colleagues zeroed in on two proteins, BMP4 (Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4) and FGF8 (Fibroblast Growth Factor 8). BMP4 expression leads to teeth developing into simple prongs, and this occurs near the tip of the jaws, where the incisors form. Prior to teeth forming in the embryo, FGF8 expression in the back of the jaw leads to development of molar teeth with their complex hills and valleys in mice and other mammals.
Armfield and her co-workers studied FGF8 and BMP4 in pig embryos, relatives of whales and dolphins. Pigs have the four typical types of teeth, and, sure enough, the two proteins are distributed in the same way as they are in other mammals, showing that whales’ ancestors likely had this distribution of gene expression too. Next, the authors moved on to examine dolphin embryos.
Here, the pattern was different: FGF8 is present in the back part of the jaw, but BMP4 is present along the entire length of the jaw, including where FGF8 is found. The authors hypothesize that the overlapping presence of BMP4 in these new areas causes the teeth all along the jaw to be simple in shape, like incisors, and to be similar to each other. Interestingly, other researchers had shown that in mouse embryos in which BMP4 is experimentally introduced in the back of the jaw, the back teeth also take on this simplified appearance.
"It is exciting to identify a molecular change that occurred in nature and that so dramatically influenced the way in which a mammal can thrive in the ocean and to then trace the evolution of that change in the fossil record," says Armfield.
"The simple shift in the location of proteins that influence tooth shape found in whales may help us to better understand how mammals evolved their complex tooth in the first place." Says co-author Thewissen: "This shows that major changes to the design of an animal can result from small changes in early development, by simply shifting the region where an already existing protein occurs. It’s a beautiful, detailed example of a small developmental change having a big effect in evolution."
For further information see Whale Teeth.
Whale Chewing
ADVERTISEMENT
The toothed whales (systematic name Odontoceti) form a suborder of the cetaceans, including sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins, and others. As the name suggests, the suborder is characterized by the presence of teeth rather than the baleen of other whales. he teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws. At the other extreme are the Narwhal with its single long tusk and the almost toothless beaked whales with bizarre teeth only in males.
Whales evolved from land mammals and so Armfield and co-workers first went to the fossil record to trace when and how whales evolved their simple teeth. The fossil record shows that, 48 million years ago, whales had the same four kinds of teeth just like most other mammals. Gradually, the teeth of whales became simpler and acquired their characteristic peg-like appearance around 30 million years ago, well after the time that they had acquired an array of adaptations for living in the water.
Next, Armfield and her colleagues explored just how teeth are shaped during development. Specific proteins in the embryo cause developing teeth to grow into certain shapes. Armfield and colleagues zeroed in on two proteins, BMP4 (Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4) and FGF8 (Fibroblast Growth Factor 8). BMP4 expression leads to teeth developing into simple prongs, and this occurs near the tip of the jaws, where the incisors form. Prior to teeth forming in the embryo, FGF8 expression in the back of the jaw leads to development of molar teeth with their complex hills and valleys in mice and other mammals.
Armfield and her co-workers studied FGF8 and BMP4 in pig embryos, relatives of whales and dolphins. Pigs have the four typical types of teeth, and, sure enough, the two proteins are distributed in the same way as they are in other mammals, showing that whales’ ancestors likely had this distribution of gene expression too. Next, the authors moved on to examine dolphin embryos.
Here, the pattern was different: FGF8 is present in the back part of the jaw, but BMP4 is present along the entire length of the jaw, including where FGF8 is found. The authors hypothesize that the overlapping presence of BMP4 in these new areas causes the teeth all along the jaw to be simple in shape, like incisors, and to be similar to each other. Interestingly, other researchers had shown that in mouse embryos in which BMP4 is experimentally introduced in the back of the jaw, the back teeth also take on this simplified appearance.
"It is exciting to identify a molecular change that occurred in nature and that so dramatically influenced the way in which a mammal can thrive in the ocean and to then trace the evolution of that change in the fossil record," says Armfield.
"The simple shift in the location of proteins that influence tooth shape found in whales may help us to better understand how mammals evolved their complex tooth in the first place." Says co-author Thewissen: "This shows that major changes to the design of an animal can result from small changes in early development, by simply shifting the region where an already existing protein occurs. It’s a beautiful, detailed example of a small developmental change having a big effect in evolution."
For further information see Whale Teeth.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Entangled seal rescued
You can just imagine the logistical challenges of helping a large injured elephant seal hauled out at a rookery crowded with other elephant seals - each weighing half a ton or more! How do you avoid disturbing the other animals and keep all the humans safe while you investigate the animal’s injuries? It’s a challenge, to say the least!
Dr. Lorraine Barbosa uses a pole syringe to sedate a sub-adult male elephant seal so she can examine the wound on his neck.
© Sharron Jackman - The Marine Mammal Center
Dr. Lorraine Barbosa, the Center’s veterinary intern, decided to try a non-intrusive approach. Alone, she very slowly snuck up on the sleeping animal, estimated to weigh 1,100 lbs, and used a pole syringe to administer a sedative. Her plan worked! Without disturbing any other seals, he was sedated within 15 minutes after receiving the sedative. Then the team moved in to get a closer look at the wound on his neck.
The
orange tag pictured above is attached to the elephant seal’s rear
flipper and identifies him as “Green Tie,” an animal that The Marine
Mammal Center had disentangled in 2011.
© The Marine Mammal Center
Each animal that we treat receives an orange flipper tag like this one to help with re-sight identification in the wild. Elephant seals like to cover themselves with sand when hauled out, and the very small tag was not visible until rescuers got close to him. While the team knew there was going to be more to the story, they had to work quickly, without knowing the animal’s full history, as he was already sedated.
Dr. Lorraine Barbosa examined the wound on the animal’s neck.
© Sharron Jackman - The Marine Mammal Center
Dr. Barbosa carefully examined the animal’s neck and concluded that while it was crusty and had some discharge from the wound, there was no current entanglement or serious problem. Based on his flipper tag number, we now know that the Center disentangled this animal before, when he stranded just down the road from this beach. His name is “Green Tie” due to the green plastic packing strap found deeply embedded in his neck back in December 2011.
This time around, Dr. Barbosa found “skin fold dermatitis” in the neck wound. The packing strap that was embedded in Green Tie’s neck in 2011 was so tight that as he grew, it cut through blubber and muscle, creating a very deep wound that caused the skin to fold over itself. Moisture and bacteria can collect in these skin folds, causing the type of irritation that had caused people to think this might be a new entanglement.
All of this is very good news for Green Tie, as his dermatitis shouldn’t pose any serious problems for him. After his “house call” he awoke from the sedation, still in the same spot on the beach. In fact, there is a good chance he wasn’t even aware that he had been examined by The Marine Mammal Center for a second time.
You can read the complete story of Green Tie’s 2011 disentanglement in our news archives.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Navy sonar and explosions comments
Video of abnormal dolphin behavior off San Diego in the vicinity of Navy sonar.
Noise affects behavior: “Noise drives many species of whales, dolphins, and other marine animals to change their behavior markedly—their calling, foraging, and migration patterns—even when it’s not enough to drive them onto a beach. Cod and haddock in the Barents Sea have been found to flee the area when air guns start firing, drastically reducing fish catches for days. Large baleen whales are of special concern. They communicate over vast distances in the same frequencies, around the lowest C on a piano, that ship propellers and engines generate. On most days, says Christopher W. Clark, director of the bioacoustics research program at Cornell University, the area over which whales in coastal waters can hear one another shrinks to only 10 to 20 percent of its natural extent. “
Acoustician Michael Stocker writes:
Marine animals have figured out ways to cut through this noise. One strategy used is by inhabiting “acoustical niches” – communicating in frequency bands that are not otherwise used by other critters.
But the broadband noise from ship traffic, or seismic airgun surveys (or the roar of crashing waves) does not lend well to the frequency-band selection implied in an “acoustical niche.”
Dr. Colleen Reichmuth and her shoal of grads and undergrads at the UCSC Pinneped Cognition and Sensory System Lab is working with Arctic seals to determine the effects of masking signals on their hearing acuity. Buy running unmasked auditory threshold tests on the seals, and then testing their thresholds in the presence of a masking signal they can determine how the masker affects their hearing. Her lab environment demonstrates the seals’ sensitivity to noise that can interfere with their behavior.
Dr. Clark was quoted in a CNN interview:
“In the ocean's very quietest moments, blue whales singing off the Grand Banks of Canada can sometimes be heard more than 1,500 miles away off the coast of Puerto Rico. But on most days, that distance is a mere 50 to 100 miles.
“Ocean noise is a global problem, but the U.S. should step up and lead the way.
NOAA seeks comment on regulations to protect marine mammals during Navy training and testing in waters off California and Hawaii
| Contact: |
Connie Barclay
 (301) 427-8003 (202) 441-2398 (Cell) |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 25, 2013 |
NOAA’s Fisheries Service is seeking
comments for a proposed rule requiring the United States Navy to
implement protective measures during training and testing activities off
the coasts of California and Hawaii and on the high seas of the Pacific
Ocean to reduce the chances of harming marine mammals.
The
Navy has requested an authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection
Act, because the mid-frequency sound generated by active sonar, the
sound and pressure generated by detonating explosives, and other
associated activities may affect the behavior of some marine mammals,
cause a temporary loss of their hearing sensitivity or other injury.
NOAA’s
Fisheries Service recently made a preliminary determination that these
effects would have a negligible effect on the species or stocks
involved. Based on that preliminary determination, it does not
necessarily expect the exercises to result in serious injury or death to
marine mammals, and proposes that the Navy use mitigation measures to
avoid injury or death.
However, exposure
to sonar in certain circumstances has been associated with the
stranding of some marine mammals, and some injury or death may occur
despite the best efforts of the Navy. Therefore, the proposed
authorization allows for a small number of incidental mortalities to
marine mammals from sonar, as well as vessel strikes and explosions.
Under the authorization, the Navy would have to follow mitigation measures to minimize effects on marine mammals, including:
- establishing marine mammal mitigation zones around each vessel using sonar;
- using Navy observers to shut down sonar operations if marine mammals are seen within designated mitigation zones;
- using mitigation zones to ensure that explosives are not detonated when animals are detected within a certain distance;
- implementing a stranding response plan that includes a training shutdown provision in certain circumstances, and allows for the Navy to contribute in-kind services to NOAA’s Fisheries Service if the agency has to conduct a stranding response and investigation; and,
- designating a Humpback Whale Cautionary Area to protect high concentrations of humpback whales around Hawaii during winter months.
These
measures should minimize the potential for injury or death and
significantly reduce the number of marine mammals exposed to levels of
sound likely to cause temporary loss of hearing. Additionally, the
proposed rule includes an adaptive management component that requires
that the Navy and NOAA’s Fisheries Service meet yearly to discuss new
science, Navy research and development, and Navy monitoring results to
determine if modifications to mitigation or monitoring measures are
appropriate.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service
and the Navy have worked to develop a robust monitoring plan to use
independent, experienced vessel-based marine mammal observers (as well
as Navy observers), and passive acoustic monitoring to help better
understand how marine mammals respond to various levels of sound and to
assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Additionally, an
Integrated Comprehensive Monitoring Plan being developed by the Navy
(with input from NOAA’s Fisheries Service) will better prioritize
monitoring goals and standardize data collection methods across all U.S.
range complexes.
The proposed rule is posted on our website: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental.htm#hstt
NOAA Fisheries will accept comments through March 11, 2013. Comments should be addressed to:
P. Michael Payne, Chief, Permits and Conservation Division
Office of Protected Resources
National Marine Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring MD 20910-3225
Electronic comments can be sent via the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov, using the identifier 0648-BC52.
NOAA’s
mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's
environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and
to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on
Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels
at http://www.noaa.gov/socialmedia.
These are the comments I submitted. You are welcome to excerpt from them in writing your own. I was unable to get the eRulemaking portal to work, so I sent a hard copy via regular mail.
18 February, 2013
P. Michael Payne, Chief, Permits and Conservation Division
Office of Protected Resources
National Marine Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring MD 20910-3225
Electronic comments can be sent via the Federal eRulemaking
Portal: http://www.regulations.gov,
using the identifier 0648-BC52.
Dr. Payne:
Regarding the proposed rule requiring the United States Navy
to implement protective measures during training and testing activities off the
coasts of California and Hawaii and on the high seas of the Pacific Ocean to
reduce the chances of harming marine mammals, 2014-2019:
Thank you for giving the public an opportunity to comment on
this proposed rule. The amount of noise in the oceans is already making it
difficult for the animals that live there and depend on sound for communication
to engage in their normal and necessary life activities. Several of the areas
in question are especially biologically sensitive. Please impose limits and
conditions that will protect these animals and their habitat.
Sonar and the blasts from detonations create pressure waves
that can of themselves affect marine life. The cumulative effects of adding
more noise to an already increasingly noisy environment is making the ocean habitat of marine
mammals, fish and invertebrates in hospitable to them. Many ocean inhabitants
rely on sound for navigation and social interactions. If they can’t hear each
other, they can’t find each other, their food resources and other necessities
of life.
NOAA’s Underwater Sound Field Mapping Working Group, http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/cetsound/, has produced graphic maps that reveal the
extent of disruptive noise in the oceans. Dr. Leila Hatch, co-chair of the
Working Group, said too many areas of the ocean surface (where sea mammals and
whales spend most of their time) are orange in coloration, denoting high
average levels.
National Geographic documented the problem in an article in its Big Idea
column in 2011, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/big-idea/noisy-ocean.
The article points out that many areas of the ocean have experienced a
hundredfold increase in noise since 1960. “The problem is getting steadily
worse for another reason. As we’re making more noise, we’re also making the
ocean better at transmitting it. Seawater is absorbing less sound as carbon
dioxide from fossil-fuel burning seeps into the ocean and acidifies it,” the
article states.Noise affects behavior: “Noise drives many species of whales, dolphins, and other marine animals to change their behavior markedly—their calling, foraging, and migration patterns—even when it’s not enough to drive them onto a beach. Cod and haddock in the Barents Sea have been found to flee the area when air guns start firing, drastically reducing fish catches for days. Large baleen whales are of special concern. They communicate over vast distances in the same frequencies, around the lowest C on a piano, that ship propellers and engines generate. On most days, says Christopher W. Clark, director of the bioacoustics research program at Cornell University, the area over which whales in coastal waters can hear one another shrinks to only 10 to 20 percent of its natural extent. “
Acoustician Michael Stocker writes:
Marine animals have figured out ways to cut through this noise. One strategy used is by inhabiting “acoustical niches” – communicating in frequency bands that are not otherwise used by other critters.
But the broadband noise from ship traffic, or seismic airgun surveys (or the roar of crashing waves) does not lend well to the frequency-band selection implied in an “acoustical niche.”
Dr. Colleen Reichmuth and her shoal of grads and undergrads at the UCSC Pinneped Cognition and Sensory System Lab is working with Arctic seals to determine the effects of masking signals on their hearing acuity. Buy running unmasked auditory threshold tests on the seals, and then testing their thresholds in the presence of a masking signal they can determine how the masker affects their hearing. Her lab environment demonstrates the seals’ sensitivity to noise that can interfere with their behavior.
Dr. Clark was quoted in a CNN interview:
“In the ocean's very quietest moments, blue whales singing off the Grand Banks of Canada can sometimes be heard more than 1,500 miles away off the coast of Puerto Rico. But on most days, that distance is a mere 50 to 100 miles.
“Ocean noise is a global problem, but the U.S. should step up and lead the way.
“Finally, federal regulation on ocean noise must be
changed. For decades, regulators have focused entirely on the short-term
effects of one action at a time. A more holistic and biologically relevant risk
assessment system, centered on the concepts of ocean acoustic habitats and
ecosystems, is sorely needed. Emerging trends in marine spatial planning are
encouraging signs, as is NOAA's support of two groups that are developing
geospatial tools for mapping underwater noise and marine mammal distributions
in U.S. waters.
“The loss of acoustic habitats for marine species
that rely on sound to live and prosper is increasing. Solutions are available.
The question is whether we humans value and will invest in a healthy ocean
ecosystem that supports life, and in doing so, sustain our own health and
future.”
We appreciate the Navy’s need to prepare for
military conflict. However, this addition to ocean noise and destruction is excessive
and unjustified when weighed against the damage to ocean life. We ask NMFS to
deny this authorization.
Points 1, 2, and 3: Mitigation zones are inadequate
to protect marine mammals from noise that can be heard over hundreds or
thousands of miles. Noise that does not kill or deafen outright adds to the
cumulative noise burden that plagues the marine environment, making it ever
more difficult for animals to communicate. Detonating bombs under water cannot
be tolerated. It’s bad enough that it happens during war. Shall peace be just
as damaging? The shock waves are deafening and the destruction damages the
marine environment.
4. Stranding responses after the fact do not
compensate for the loss of life and habitat. No.
5. Making special provisions for Humpback Whales
cannot protect them adequately from masking noise or from bomb blasts. No.
Thank you for giving the public the information and
opportunity to comment.
Christine Heinrichs
1800 Downing Ave.
Cambria, CA 93428
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Rehabbing pelicans
International Bird Rescue has asked elephant seal docents to keep an eye out for pelicans with blue bands. I haven't seen one, but this is the background information on them.
They explain the meanings of the tags:
Understanding each column
Metal Bands: A metal federal band number is placed on each bird upon release. The numbers on these bands are not easy to read but they consist of a prefix and a suffix, such as 0669-38711.
Blue Plastic Bands: Prior to late 2009, we only banded our pelicans with metal federal bands. Now we put blue plastic bands on all of our pelicans. Each blue band has a letter and two numbers. The last two numbers on the federal band are typically the two numbers on the blue band. For example: Federal band number 0669-38711 will be blue band A11. The letter is changed for every 100 bands. So far, we have used letters A, C, E, H, J, K, M, P, R, S and T. This field is where we list the blue band information. Sometimes we just get the blue band reported, but we can match it up with the federal bands that are on our records.
Reason for Rehab: We wanted to provide a basic overview of why the bird came into our care. (For example, "fishing tackle injury.") After a brief explanation, we also include the age of the bird in the following categories: "HY" means hatching year, "SY" means second year, "ASY" means after-second-year and "ATY" means after-third-year. So, you may see something like "Injured ASY," which means it was an after-second-year bird that came to us and was treated for an injury.
Release Site: Most of our Brown Pelicans are rehabilitated at one of our two wildlife care centers and are released nearby. However, we do occasionally rehabilitate pelicans in oil spills elsewhere in North America. For instance, you may notice that we have some encounters from birds that were rehabilitated during an oil spill in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico on the lower coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We were able to go back to Mexico to look for these birds a few years after the spill, and some of those birds have been sighted in a few of the Gulf states.
Encounter Site: Individuals who have encountered a banded pelican provides us with information on where and when they encountered the bird. The information that we receive is sometimes general and sometimes specific.
Days After Release: This field indicates the time from release to the latest encounter. You will see that some birds are encountered very soon after release, others many years later and some numerous times.
Dates: To get an idea of each bird's journey, we have included the date the bird was brought into care, the date of release and the encounter date.
Additional Sightings: Some birds have been sighted multiple times. Rather than creating a new field for each sighting, we created this field so that we can record encounters for each bird as they occur.
I haven't seen one, but I'll take notice if I do!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Superweaners
The weaners look especially large this year. Lost of them are candidates for Superweaners, the pups that steal milk from other mothers after their own mothers have left them and reach really large size, over 500 pounds. Normal weaners are about 300 pounds.
.JPG)
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.JPG)
Ocean noise
The notice below describes an ocean noise issue and how the public can comment on it. There's also a petition to sign. Submitting thoughtful comments to the agency is the most direct way to influence policy. That's what I'll be doing. I'll post my comments soon for others to use.
NOAA seeks comment on regulations to protect marine mammals during Navy training and testing in waters off California and Hawaii.
| Contact: |
Connie Barclay
(301) 427-8003 (202) 441-2398 (Cell) |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 25, 2013 |
NOAA’s Fisheries Service is seeking
comments for a proposed rule requiring the United States Navy to
implement protective measures during training and testing activities off
the coasts of California and Hawaii and on the high seas of the Pacific
Ocean to reduce the chances of harming marine mammals.
The
Navy has requested an authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection
Act, because the mid-frequency sound generated by active sonar, the
sound and pressure generated by detonating explosives, and other
associated activities may affect the behavior of some marine mammals,
cause a temporary loss of their hearing sensitivity or other injury.
NOAA’s
Fisheries Service recently made a preliminary determination that these
effects would have a negligible effect on the species or stocks
involved. Based on that preliminary determination, it does not
necessarily expect the exercises to result in serious injury or death to
marine mammals, and proposes that the Navy use mitigation measures to
avoid injury or death.
However, exposure
to sonar in certain circumstances has been associated with the
stranding of some marine mammals, and some injury or death may occur
despite the best efforts of the Navy. Therefore, the proposed
authorization allows for a small number of incidental mortalities to
marine mammals from sonar, as well as vessel strikes and explosions.
Under the authorization, the Navy would have to follow mitigation measures to minimize effects on marine mammals, including:
- establishing marine mammal mitigation zones around each vessel using sonar;
- using Navy observers to shut down sonar operations if marine mammals are seen within designated mitigation zones;
- using mitigation zones to ensure that explosives are not detonated when animals are detected within a certain distance;
- implementing a stranding response plan that includes a training shutdown provision in certain circumstances, and allows for the Navy to contribute in-kind services to NOAA’s Fisheries Service if the agency has to conduct a stranding response and investigation; and,
- designating a Humpback Whale Cautionary Area to protect high concentrations of humpback whales around Hawaii during winter months.
These
measures should minimize the potential for injury or death and
significantly reduce the number of marine mammals exposed to levels of
sound likely to cause temporary loss of hearing. Additionally, the
proposed rule includes an adaptive management component that requires
that the Navy and NOAA’s Fisheries Service meet yearly to discuss new
science, Navy research and development, and Navy monitoring results to
determine if modifications to mitigation or monitoring measures are
appropriate.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service
and the Navy have worked to develop a robust monitoring plan to use
independent, experienced vessel-based marine mammal observers (as well
as Navy observers), and passive acoustic monitoring to help better
understand how marine mammals respond to various levels of sound and to
assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Additionally, an
Integrated Comprehensive Monitoring Plan being developed by the Navy
(with input from NOAA’s Fisheries Service) will better prioritize
monitoring goals and standardize data collection methods across all U.S.
range complexes.
The proposed rule is posted on our website: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental.htm#hstt
NOAA Fisheries will accept comments through March 11, 2013. Comments should be addressed to:
P. Michael Payne, Chief, Permits and Conservation Division
Office of Protected Resources
National Marine Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring MD 20910-3225
Electronic comments can be sent via the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov, using the identifier 0648-BC52.
NOAA’s
mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's
environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and
to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on
Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels
at http://www.noaa.gov/socialmedia.
This prompted a petition from SignOn.org:
Dear Friend of Whales, Dolphins and other Sea Creatures,
Despite the outcry of 625,000 of us who signed the previous petitions and are passionate about saving the last of the endangered whales, as well as thousands of other whales, dolphins and sea creatures, the Department of Fisheries/NOAA has decided to allow the US Navy to proceed with their plans to decimate our ocean populations with sonar sounds, exploding bombs and sinking of ships. In the Navy's estimation there will be 31 million incidents of harm over the next 5 years to our ocean friends. The harm can range from disrupting their migratory patterns, ability to get food, communicate with their young, permanent hearing loss or bleeding to death. This figure is staggering!
This is our last opportunity to have our voices heard; to let them know we are not going to quietly go away, and that we are aware of their irresponsible decision. Our strength lies in our numbers when we act together. If each one of us shares this information with a few friends, we can create a groundswell of people willing to say "that's enough"!
Please sign this petition, post it on social media sites and get at least 3 or more of your friends to sign. We need to make this a major media event. If we stand by and do nothing we may loose a vital part of our natural ocean species. Is one click of your mouse too much to ask to save our oceans? Department of Fisheries/NOAA is accepting comments only until March 11, 2013. Please act now by clicking on the link to add your voice.
http://signon.org/sign/stop-
Thank you,
Lyndia Storey, Kim McDermott, Lance Leonard, Wes Jordan
The Whale and Dolphin Watch Team
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