Right Whales, Blue Whales, and Orcas; oh my!

Right whales got some CNN love with the help of the New England Aquarium's Right Whale Aerial Survey Team. Check out the team's blog for more on their visit with CNN. Apparently the whales were called "ugly" by CNN, but I don't think that's true at all! Right whales are very, very pretty. Don't you think?

Blue whales were featured in an article in the latest National Geographic magazine. The article -- called "Still Blue" -- takes readers on a journey to the Costa Rica Dome, an area of the ocean which, due to upwelling, brings the thermocline and lots of tasty critters up to the surface. The blue whales come to feast on nutrient-rich phytoplankton, and the researchers come to feast on knowledge. It's a win-win situation for all.

The Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) passed by the Port Townsend Marine Science Center last Tuesday. Coincidentally, I was teaching a class of third graders about sound underwater and, as we listened to our hydrophone, we heard the orcas and reported to Orca Network. Since we were the first to report, we were even mentioned on the evening news! See the Port Townsend Marine Science Center's blog for more information on the experience.

Whew! How's that for your cetacean news download for the day?

121 Years

Is it really 2009 already? I've been so swamped with work lately, writing curricula on orca communication and sound underwater, that I've hardly had time for anything else. As I type this I'm catching up on all my favorite marine science blogs and watching the live dissection of a great white shark. (Have you watched that yet?)

Philip over at the New England Aquarium's Right Whale Aerial Survey Blog reports that a North Atlantic Right Whale has been seen in the Azores by biologists at the University of the Azores Dept. of Oceanography and Fisheries. This observation marks the first time a right whale has been seen around there since 1888. That's 121 years since the last sighting! Also, it turns out that this specific whale had been seen and cataloged by the folks at the New England Aquarium as recently as September of 2008. Whoa. So cool!

As exciting as this news is -- and it is very exciting -- I'm even more impressed with the Right Whale Catalog that the New England Aquarium has put together. Maintaining this resource must be a huge undertaking, and I'm glad to see it readily available online. You know what they say: "Sharing is caring!"

Disentangling Whales

I love the Internet. I love awesome websites. What I love most is when people on the Internet send me awesome websites. So, when Jives over at The New Blue sent me the link to the New England Aquarium Research Team site, I was pretty darn excited! Here's a group of people, so driven to help protect Right Whales, that they get out on the water and disentangle fishing gear from the whales. Let me say that again, they disentangle fishing gear from whales. Wow! How do I get a job like that?

With so many human-created dangers out there, it's a wonder the worldwide whale populations are not even worse off. With abandoned fishing gear littering the ocean and starving Southern Resident Orcas, there is so much set against the mystical megafauna. I'm thankful that there are people making an effort to even out the playing field. One whale at a time is much, much better than nothing.