Encounter with sperm whale

It has been awhile since I last posted so I thought it would be nice to post a video. Below you will find a video of a sperm whale

Unusual number of whale and dolphin deaths in the last few days

There is an alarming number of whales and dolphins that have died in the last week or so. They have either been beached or found floating near the shorelines.

85 dolphins have beached themselves near Cape Cod on Jan. 25, 2012

Several whale beachings - list to linked stories

• Ocean City Finback whale
• FT. PIERCE, Florida
• Cape Lookout National Seashore
• Washington Coast
• New Zealand's South Island
  
• New Zealand's Golden Bay
  

So what is going on? There have been several message boards that are discussing the events but none of them have a marine biologist chiming in yet. Just lay people with opinions that range from "so what" to "it is the end of the world" and "something to do with 2012"

Dolphins and whales playing with each other

Below is a video showing a interaction between dolphins and whales that are not aggressive towards each other.

Scrimshaw

Scrimshaw is the art of carving ivory with pictures. Commonly, the "ivory" used was whale bone. The bone was made into knife handles and other utility items of the day. Thankfully, plastics have replaced the art form, much to the whales' relief. Modern knives like the spyderco endura have wooden handles or form fitting ones.

One does wonder if using plastics and the form fitting foams on the handles really are an improvement on the environment. First us humans destroy most of the whale population for oil and other "products" that could be found in other forms. Then we use fossil fuels to make plastics that take eons to biodegrade. Do we make any sense at all?

Skin conditions of sea mammals

A question was brought up in class the other day by a fellow student that got me stumped. He asked if whales or dolphins could get eczema like land mammals do. Eczema is word that covers a very broad condition with a variety of skin irritations. Even dandruff is a form of eczema. While the class pondered the question, the instructor guided us on a discussion to try and figure out the answer.

Since all skin has the potential to become irritated then the answer would be yes whales and dolphins could have eczema. But since eczema was often characterized with dry patchy skin then maybe dolphins and whales could not get it, while seals and sea lions could. We also pondered if the eczema treatment would be salt water but only if the animal lived in the water 100% of the time. So for an animal not to have eczema we figured out that living in water may or may not have a bearing on the condition but the type of skin might. You see, whales and dolphins have a different type of skin than a seal does, so its personal biology would be a huge factor.

Our discussion was interesting but I still came away with more questions than answers.

Weird ads showing up

I just changed the layout of the blog and for some odd reason I am getting Google ads for fast food places, travel and hoodia diet pills. I guess the Google ad bot can't figure out that this is a sea life blog, not sea food blog. I guess I had better put the words whales, boats, ocean and aquariums in this post so it gets a better idea.

Whales beaching themselves

Most people think that whales never intentionally beach themselves, this is not true. Killer whales often beach themselves to grab a seal from off of the beach. Other whales such as the Humpback often visit very shallow bays and inlets that have stones as the bed instead of sand. The whales will rub against the stones to rid their bodies of barnacles, almost like a body acne treatment for whale skin.

While the smaller whales are use to being close to land and using the shoreline to their hunting advantage, they are not immune to rip tides or extreme under currents of the sea. We, as humans, would worry about drowning but the whales have to watch out for being stranded or land locked in a shallow sea.

Technology and the outdoors

I never thought that having a cell phone would become such an informational device. Recently a local high school was on full alert when a text message went viral throughout the entire student population. A sexual predator had been spotted in the area and not only was it a text message but it came complete with a picture of the suspect.

With Twitter now on cell phones it is becoming a very fast way to communicate such ecology news items such as oil spills in real time but also the progress of whale hunting on the high seas.

I praise such technology improvements but I still can't get use to people wearing those Bluetooth headsets in the grocery store. I remember a time when you had to wait to you got home to make or receive a phone call.

Whale blubber - human uses

The consumption of whale blubber still occurs in this modern age of conservation. One would think that consumption of what amounts to fat of the whale would be injurious to the people who are consuming it, but that is not the case. Whale blubber has been found to be very different from land animal fat. The blubber properties are high in antioxidants and have a tendency to do good to the arteries of the people who consume it.

Blubber is unfortunately still seen as the best fat burner in the terms of oil in some areas of the world. A large whale often produces 50 tons of oil of which cosmetics, candles and some soaps are made from.

Countries that lack other methods of producing fuel for warmth are the one who are most likely to continue whaling.

Whale puke

Pic of whale puke

Do you often wonder what happens when whales puke and poop? I do. The enormous size of the animal is enough to make me wonder what happens to their excrement when they have a bout of diarrhea too. It takes the phrase "colon cleansing" to a whole new level, doesn't it? I do know that whale puke floats and that it is highly prized as an ingredient in perfumes. I really can't imagine putting whale puke on my body as a fragrance but I probably have done it without knowing about it.

Products we have made with the help of sea life

There are literally millions of products that could not have been made without sea life. Over 100 years ago, whale oil lit the dark nights of most of the world. Whale oil was made from the fat or blubber of whales. Even whale throw up is used. It is called "ambergris" and is a foul-smelling substance. When a whale throws up, particularly a big sperm whale, apparently the sound of it travels for miles through the water. The substance is worth millions of dollars and is still used today as an ingredient in perfume.

Another product that is widely used today is joint supplements made from shark cartilage. Sea kelp is also found in medicine and supplements for both humans and animals.

Winter storm season is nearly here

The Pacific Northwest will be starting it's winter storm season in the next 24 to 48 hours. Rain will be the norm for many months to come. Personally I love the rain - it keeps everything green here. It will soon be snow season at my house. Last year we had snow for several weeks before Christmas which is unusual. The normal snow season is from January to March.

The Grey Whales along the coast will be soon starting their migration south to Mexico. I might just bundle up in my warm winter jacket and go watch, no need to worry about being just a tad overweight, who needs a new weight loss pill when my jacket can cover it all? Ha, winter and another life cycle begins.

How do you move a whale?

.....very carefully of course. All joking aside, how do you really move a whale? Normally whale transport is done by air. Specialized shipping boxes or containers are used. Sometimes government aircraft is used like the coast guard, but more often, private air cargo companies handle the task. Below is a photo of a UPS plane with the shipping container ready to go on board. The container has a whale shark in it, heading for the Georgia Aquarium.

Whale blubber facts

Did you know that people that eat whale blubber have a lower chance of artery problem and heart disease? Here is a short list of facts about whale blubber-

• Blubber was used after processing into oil for lamps, cosmetics and soaps.
• Blubber insulates the whale against hypothermia.
• When a whale needs energy it uses its' blubber fat burners to turn the blubber into energy
• A Blue whale can have up to 50 tons of blubber
• Since whales are at the top of the food chain, recent studies of blubber have revealed that it contains a high amount of mercury, PCB's and other toxic chemicals. It is thought that industrial pollution is to blame.

Baby beluga whales born in aquariums

Here is the latest birth announcements of beluga whales born in aquariums all over the world. First is a beluga whale born in the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada in June 2009. The female calf is the second beluga born in that aquarium in less than a year. This is a very welcome birth because it is estimated that only 100K belugas are left in the wild. Also infant mortality rates for baby beluga whales are around 50% in the wild and the reason is yet unknown.

Next is another female born June 12 at SeaWorld in San Antonio. They are currently looking for a name for the young female. Here is a picture of her just after she was born:

Whale watching

There is a favorite spot of mine on the central Oregon coast that is not only a great place to eat but looks out right over the Pacific Ocean. I was there last week in Newport during the lowest tides for the year. Since it is not whale migration time I did not bring my binoculars.

It was unfortunate that I did not bring my binoculars during this last trip because while I was at my favorite eating spot over looking the ocean during lunch, a group of people were pointing out something in the water. It looked like seals feeding just beyond the surf but the people kept saying whales which I knew was not likely because of the time of year.

I wish I had my binoculars with me and I would have been able to correctly identify the creatures in the water. I had been looking at getting a newer and more powerful pair of binoculars for my trips to the coast. I heard that Nikon makes a pair of Green Binoculars that has lead free glass. Since I am becoming more of "green buyer" I might look into them.

Fat and happy

In the ocean the fish and mammals depend on their body size to survive. If they are too small for their species then they don't often live long enough to reproduce. Whales, for example, need extra blubber to survive the far northern or southern cold oceans. Their weight loss supplements are in the form of brine shrimp or large schools of small fish. Only the Killer Whales will feast on the larger prey animals like seals, dolphins, tuna and sharks.

It is not only sea mammals that need to have extra body mass but fish do too. A thin under weight fish usually has a health problem going on and lack of energy to escape from larger fish hunting it.

Keiko the killer whale

I happen to be watching a program on TV the other night about captive Killer Whales. The program focused Keiko the whale that was the inspiration for the movie Free Willy. There were many little facts in the show about Keiko that I had not known before. They showed the horrible skin condition he had because of being kept in a small tank while on display in Mexico. The mentioned why his dorsal fin had not developed erect. The show was so fascinating that I did not change the channels during the boring diet pill or mesothelioma ads. I have also found that there is a website devoted to Keiko and it can be found at keio.com

Delicate whale skin

When you think of large mammals you would normally think of elephants and rhinos. As land mammals their skin is rather tough and thick. Now think about whales. Their skin has to be smooth to help them slide through the water.

Whales are victims of whale lice that live on their skin. Their bodies also are host to barnacles that attach themselves to the whales. A mystery in my mind is "how do barnacles catch a swimming whale?"

How do whales rid themselves of their unwanted guests? They can't use skin care products like Willy's lice remover and barnacle cream. What they will do is swim into the mouths of large rivers where the water is less salty. The salinity of the water will often kill or dislodge those parasites.

Hair loss in marine mammals

Hair and fat are the ways that nature insulates both land and sea mammals. Both fat and hair keep the body from losing precious heat during either the colder months or living in colder seas. For sea mammals they either have long hair or extra fat, known as blubber, to insulate their bodies from losing heat.

The larger the sea mammal the less hair they tend to have. Whales and dolphins have very minimal hair while sea otters have plenty of hair. Hair loss in the smaller marine mammals can spell death from exposure. When a large population of marine mammals is suffering from excessive hair loss something is either wrong with the environment or a disease might be the cause. Marine biologists must work fast to see what the underlying cause it and best determine what hair loss treatment to put in place. Can the cause be removed or should the mammals be treated?

Sometimes the cause has been in the environment for years and only time and future prevention can cure the ailment.