Friday, July 05, 2013 4:04:50 AM
Blue and beaked whales affected by simulated navy sonar
One research team fitted tracking tags to 17 blue whales
Naval sonar has been blamed for beaked whale strandings
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
2 July 2013 Last updated at 20:38 ET
Blue and beaked whales' behaviour is disturbed by simulated navy sonar, according to two published studies.
In two experiments, teams of researchers managed to attach tracking and sound-recording tags to 17 blue whales and two beaked whales.
They then played simulated sonar sound through an underwater speaker and measured the animals' responses.
The findings are reported in two Royal Society journals, Proceedings B [ http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1765/20130657 ] and Biology Letters [ http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/4/20130223 ].
Researchers have previously linked mass strandings and deaths of beaked whales around the world to military exercises using what is known as mid-frequency sonar. So scientists have been keen to understand if the sound harmed the animals.
The new study does not explain those strandings - the chain of events that leads to these remains unclear.
But marine mammal expert Patrick Miller, from the University of St Andrews' Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), who was not involved with the new study, said the results showed it would be wise for naval exercises to "avoid critical habitat areas".
Deep divers
The beaked whale study was led by scientists also from the SMRU.
It revealed what researchers had long suspected, that man-made sound had a negative effect on these deep-diving whales. Beaked whales use sound to hunt as well as to communicate. They produce echolocation clicks as they dive up to 1.5km (1mi) in depth, picking up echoes that bounce off the bodies of the squid they are hunting.
When the scientists played the sonar sounds during their experiments, both of the tagged Cuvier's beaked whales stopped hunting and "swam rapidly, silently away".
Perhaps more surprising was that, in the other study, led by Jeremy Goldbogen from the Cascadia Research Collective in the US state of Washington, several blue whales also responded to the sound.
Blue whales communicate with very low-frequency sound - far below that of naval sonar. And because they do not use sound to hunt, the scientists thought they would not be affected.
Yet the whales' responses did vary.
Animals that were feeding close to the surface showed almost no response, but animals that were diving for krill - rather than sifting the surface waters - reacted very differently.
"One animal was diving and feeding repeatedly all throughout the day," recalled Dr Goldbogen.
"And as soon as the sound started, the animal stopped feeding and maintained a directed heading and moved away from the sound source."
These vast animals can scoop up half a million calories' worth of krill in one gulp as they dive, so disturbing their feeding deprives them of large amounts of energy.
"I calculated that in that time, the animal lost a metric tonne of krill," said Dr Goldbogen.
"So if this happens a lot in these feeding hotspots, that could have real consequences."
And currently, naval exercises are carried out in these hotspots.
The blue whales in this study, for example, were feeding in the in-shore waters of California during the summer and autumn of 2010. The study area is where the US Navy carries out regular exercises and where the whales come to build up fat stores for the long migration to their breeding grounds.
Even subtle disturbance to this vital pre-migration gorge, said Dr Goldbogen, "could have real consequences for the population health".
"These are the biggest animals that have ever lived, so they need a huge amount of food," he added.
[...]
BBC © 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23115939 [with embedded videos and multiple related items/sources linked]
*
Whales flee from military sonar leading to mass strandings, research shows
static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/2/21/1329841143814/A-Brydes-whale-007.jpg
Studies are missing link in puzzle that has connected naval exercises to unusual mass strandings of whales and dolphins
2 July 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/03/whales-flee-military-sonar-strandings [with comments]
--
Flesh Eating Gulls Devour Whales Alive
Southern right whale off the Valdez Peninsula, Patagonia, Argentina
(Michaël Catanzariti, Wikimedia Commons)
by Tim Wall
Aug 29, 2012 02:37 PM ET
Right whales (Eubalaena australis) off the coast of Argentina face the gruesome threat of being slowly eaten alive by birds every time they take a breath. The menace has become so great that local officials are planning to declare open season on the gulls and allow hunters to knock problem birds out of the sky, reported the AP [ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/argentines-plan-shoot-gulls-save-whales-201009494.html ].
The macabre torment of the whales sounds like a punishment from vengeful gods in a Greek myth or the plot of a Edgar Allan Poe story, but the real reason gulls have turned on the whales may be a bunch of garbage. Open air trash heaps near coastal cities have fueled a massive population boom in gulls. Fishermen add to the problem when they throw fish parts back into the ocean.
About eight years ago, the burgeoning gull population around the city of Puerto Madryn learned that they can get fresh meat from the whales. As more gulls learned the trick, the problems for whales increased. The gulls wait until a whale surfaces for air, then tear holes in the whales’ flesh and rip off pieces of skin and blubber. Each time the whales come back up, the gulls go in for more.
“It really worries us because the damage they’re doing to the whales is multiplying, especially to infant whales that are born in these waters,” Marcelo Bertellotti, of the National Patagonia Center, a government-sponsored conservation agency, told the AP.
The whales have had to change their behavior, according to Bertellolli. The whales no longer leap from the water or display their massive tails. Instead they break the surface just long enough to gulp in some air and then retreat to the safety of the depths.
Bertellotti advocates gunning down the gulls to protect the whales. By culling out the birds that have learned the whale bushwhack technique, he hopes to erase the habit from the population.
Don’t cry for gulls, Argentina, say some in response to this plan. The gulls are only a symptom of the open air garbage pit problem, they say. Reducing, reusing and recycling along with covering up the trash heaps would stop the gull population from booming. Less gulls would mean less threat to the whales.
“At year’s end, we’re going to inaugurate garbage-separation plants,” regional environmental minister, Eduardo Maza said in the AP. “All the garbage in the protected Peninsula Valdes area that isn’t recyclable will be properly disposed of, which will enable us to mitigate the open-air garbage dumps.”
Copyright © 2012 Discovery Communications, LLC
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/flesh-eating-seagulls-devour-whales-alive-120829.htm [no comments yet]
*
In this Aug. 19, 2012 photo, a seagull pecks at a whale in the southern Atlantic Ocean near Puerto Piramides, Argentina. As seagulls have become a hazard for whales in one of their prime birthing grounds, provincial authorities are planning to have police shoot the gulls. Environmentalists are crying foul, saying officials should instead close a nearby garbage dump and stop fishermen from dumping scraps to reduce the gulls' numbers.
http://finance.yahoo.com/photos/aug-19-2012-photo-seagull-pecks-whale-southern-photo-201009091.html ; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/argentines-plan-shoot-gulls-save-whales-201009494.html [with comments]
*
http://www.sportdiver.com/article/news/gunning-whales
--
Seagulls Terrorize British Town
A resident in Cornwall fends off a seagull.
Credit: South West News Service
by Alyssa Danigelis
Jul 3, 2013 02:23 PM ET
The Hitchcock classic “The Birds” became a little too real in a British seaside town this week. Seagulls there are attacking residents and dive-bombing mail carriers.
Perranporth, a small town on Cornwall’s northern coast, has seen its share of angry gulls, but attacks on residents seem to be worse than ever. Seagulls are currently nesting and actively protecting their chicks. Apparently bright colors aggravate the birds, causing them to swoop down and target people’s heads.
“In the past five years the seagulls have become more aggressive,” 67-year-old resident Eric Hardinge told the South West News Service [ http://swns.com/news/postmen-refuse-deliver-cul-de-sac-attacked-seagulls-37235/ ]. “The birds need to be culled.”
However, most gulls are protected and require special permitting to target.
The Royal Mail postal workers, with their bright red uniforms, have been particularly vulnerable to attack. It’s gotten so bad that the service just stopped delivering mail there because a postwoman was attacked repeatedly by birds. A spokesperson told SWNS that they’d resume deliveries as soon as it’s safe again.
Seagulls can cause serious injury, sending people to the hospital with blood gushing from their heads. As the Guardian’s Jon Henley pointed out [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/shortcuts/2013/jul/02/how-to-survive-seagull-attack ], a diving gull has attack talons on each heel, a sharp two-inch beak, a four-and-a-half foot wingspan, more than two pounds of heft and high speeds. Thriving on food scraps, the urban gull population is growing by 20 percent each year, Henley added.
The birds are brazen about targeting food. A teenage tourist in nearby Newquay just had a seagull steal an ice cream cone [ http://swns.com/news/seagull-steals-ice-cream-teenage-tourists-mouth-37335/ ] right out of his mouth as he was eating it. I feel you, kid. When I was little, a seagull in San Diego stole my sandwich before I could take a bite.
For the time being, Perranporth residents have to bravely pick up their own mail from the post office. They’re also being advised to heed the seagulls’ warning calls and try to shield their heads if dive-bombed. The chicks are usually out of the nest later in July. After that, the gulls will probably go back to being a mere nuisance.
Copyright © 2013 Discovery Communications, LLC
http://news.discovery.com/animals/seagulls-terrorize-british-town-130703.htm [no comments yet]
--
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One research team fitted tracking tags to 17 blue whales
Naval sonar has been blamed for beaked whale strandings
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
2 July 2013 Last updated at 20:38 ET
Blue and beaked whales' behaviour is disturbed by simulated navy sonar, according to two published studies.
In two experiments, teams of researchers managed to attach tracking and sound-recording tags to 17 blue whales and two beaked whales.
They then played simulated sonar sound through an underwater speaker and measured the animals' responses.
The findings are reported in two Royal Society journals, Proceedings B [ http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1765/20130657 ] and Biology Letters [ http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/4/20130223 ].
Researchers have previously linked mass strandings and deaths of beaked whales around the world to military exercises using what is known as mid-frequency sonar. So scientists have been keen to understand if the sound harmed the animals.
The new study does not explain those strandings - the chain of events that leads to these remains unclear.
But marine mammal expert Patrick Miller, from the University of St Andrews' Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU), who was not involved with the new study, said the results showed it would be wise for naval exercises to "avoid critical habitat areas".
Deep divers
The beaked whale study was led by scientists also from the SMRU.
It revealed what researchers had long suspected, that man-made sound had a negative effect on these deep-diving whales. Beaked whales use sound to hunt as well as to communicate. They produce echolocation clicks as they dive up to 1.5km (1mi) in depth, picking up echoes that bounce off the bodies of the squid they are hunting.
When the scientists played the sonar sounds during their experiments, both of the tagged Cuvier's beaked whales stopped hunting and "swam rapidly, silently away".
Perhaps more surprising was that, in the other study, led by Jeremy Goldbogen from the Cascadia Research Collective in the US state of Washington, several blue whales also responded to the sound.
Blue whales communicate with very low-frequency sound - far below that of naval sonar. And because they do not use sound to hunt, the scientists thought they would not be affected.
Yet the whales' responses did vary.
Animals that were feeding close to the surface showed almost no response, but animals that were diving for krill - rather than sifting the surface waters - reacted very differently.
"One animal was diving and feeding repeatedly all throughout the day," recalled Dr Goldbogen.
"And as soon as the sound started, the animal stopped feeding and maintained a directed heading and moved away from the sound source."
These vast animals can scoop up half a million calories' worth of krill in one gulp as they dive, so disturbing their feeding deprives them of large amounts of energy.
"I calculated that in that time, the animal lost a metric tonne of krill," said Dr Goldbogen.
"So if this happens a lot in these feeding hotspots, that could have real consequences."
And currently, naval exercises are carried out in these hotspots.
The blue whales in this study, for example, were feeding in the in-shore waters of California during the summer and autumn of 2010. The study area is where the US Navy carries out regular exercises and where the whales come to build up fat stores for the long migration to their breeding grounds.
Even subtle disturbance to this vital pre-migration gorge, said Dr Goldbogen, "could have real consequences for the population health".
"These are the biggest animals that have ever lived, so they need a huge amount of food," he added.
[...]
BBC © 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23115939 [with embedded videos and multiple related items/sources linked]
*
Whales flee from military sonar leading to mass strandings, research shows
static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/2/21/1329841143814/A-Brydes-whale-007.jpg
Studies are missing link in puzzle that has connected naval exercises to unusual mass strandings of whales and dolphins
2 July 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/03/whales-flee-military-sonar-strandings [with comments]
--
Flesh Eating Gulls Devour Whales Alive
Southern right whale off the Valdez Peninsula, Patagonia, Argentina
(Michaël Catanzariti, Wikimedia Commons)
by Tim Wall
Aug 29, 2012 02:37 PM ET
Right whales (Eubalaena australis) off the coast of Argentina face the gruesome threat of being slowly eaten alive by birds every time they take a breath. The menace has become so great that local officials are planning to declare open season on the gulls and allow hunters to knock problem birds out of the sky, reported the AP [ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/argentines-plan-shoot-gulls-save-whales-201009494.html ].
The macabre torment of the whales sounds like a punishment from vengeful gods in a Greek myth or the plot of a Edgar Allan Poe story, but the real reason gulls have turned on the whales may be a bunch of garbage. Open air trash heaps near coastal cities have fueled a massive population boom in gulls. Fishermen add to the problem when they throw fish parts back into the ocean.
About eight years ago, the burgeoning gull population around the city of Puerto Madryn learned that they can get fresh meat from the whales. As more gulls learned the trick, the problems for whales increased. The gulls wait until a whale surfaces for air, then tear holes in the whales’ flesh and rip off pieces of skin and blubber. Each time the whales come back up, the gulls go in for more.
“It really worries us because the damage they’re doing to the whales is multiplying, especially to infant whales that are born in these waters,” Marcelo Bertellotti, of the National Patagonia Center, a government-sponsored conservation agency, told the AP.
The whales have had to change their behavior, according to Bertellolli. The whales no longer leap from the water or display their massive tails. Instead they break the surface just long enough to gulp in some air and then retreat to the safety of the depths.
Bertellotti advocates gunning down the gulls to protect the whales. By culling out the birds that have learned the whale bushwhack technique, he hopes to erase the habit from the population.
Don’t cry for gulls, Argentina, say some in response to this plan. The gulls are only a symptom of the open air garbage pit problem, they say. Reducing, reusing and recycling along with covering up the trash heaps would stop the gull population from booming. Less gulls would mean less threat to the whales.
“At year’s end, we’re going to inaugurate garbage-separation plants,” regional environmental minister, Eduardo Maza said in the AP. “All the garbage in the protected Peninsula Valdes area that isn’t recyclable will be properly disposed of, which will enable us to mitigate the open-air garbage dumps.”
Copyright © 2012 Discovery Communications, LLC
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/flesh-eating-seagulls-devour-whales-alive-120829.htm [no comments yet]
*
In this Aug. 19, 2012 photo, a seagull pecks at a whale in the southern Atlantic Ocean near Puerto Piramides, Argentina. As seagulls have become a hazard for whales in one of their prime birthing grounds, provincial authorities are planning to have police shoot the gulls. Environmentalists are crying foul, saying officials should instead close a nearby garbage dump and stop fishermen from dumping scraps to reduce the gulls' numbers.
http://finance.yahoo.com/photos/aug-19-2012-photo-seagull-pecks-whale-southern-photo-201009091.html ; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/argentines-plan-shoot-gulls-save-whales-201009494.html [with comments]
*
http://www.sportdiver.com/article/news/gunning-whales
--
Seagulls Terrorize British Town
A resident in Cornwall fends off a seagull.
Credit: South West News Service
by Alyssa Danigelis
Jul 3, 2013 02:23 PM ET
The Hitchcock classic “The Birds” became a little too real in a British seaside town this week. Seagulls there are attacking residents and dive-bombing mail carriers.
Perranporth, a small town on Cornwall’s northern coast, has seen its share of angry gulls, but attacks on residents seem to be worse than ever. Seagulls are currently nesting and actively protecting their chicks. Apparently bright colors aggravate the birds, causing them to swoop down and target people’s heads.
“In the past five years the seagulls have become more aggressive,” 67-year-old resident Eric Hardinge told the South West News Service [ http://swns.com/news/postmen-refuse-deliver-cul-de-sac-attacked-seagulls-37235/ ]. “The birds need to be culled.”
However, most gulls are protected and require special permitting to target.
The Royal Mail postal workers, with their bright red uniforms, have been particularly vulnerable to attack. It’s gotten so bad that the service just stopped delivering mail there because a postwoman was attacked repeatedly by birds. A spokesperson told SWNS that they’d resume deliveries as soon as it’s safe again.
Seagulls can cause serious injury, sending people to the hospital with blood gushing from their heads. As the Guardian’s Jon Henley pointed out [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/shortcuts/2013/jul/02/how-to-survive-seagull-attack ], a diving gull has attack talons on each heel, a sharp two-inch beak, a four-and-a-half foot wingspan, more than two pounds of heft and high speeds. Thriving on food scraps, the urban gull population is growing by 20 percent each year, Henley added.
The birds are brazen about targeting food. A teenage tourist in nearby Newquay just had a seagull steal an ice cream cone [ http://swns.com/news/seagull-steals-ice-cream-teenage-tourists-mouth-37335/ ] right out of his mouth as he was eating it. I feel you, kid. When I was little, a seagull in San Diego stole my sandwich before I could take a bite.
For the time being, Perranporth residents have to bravely pick up their own mail from the post office. They’re also being advised to heed the seagulls’ warning calls and try to shield their heads if dive-bombed. The chicks are usually out of the nest later in July. After that, the gulls will probably go back to being a mere nuisance.
Copyright © 2013 Discovery Communications, LLC
http://news.discovery.com/animals/seagulls-terrorize-british-town-130703.htm [no comments yet]
--
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