The Whale Who Thought He Could Fly

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Hello there: A humpback whale threw itself out of the water off the eastern coast of South Africa, waving to amazed onlookers in a tour guide's boat

The Whale Who Thought He Could Fly: Amazing Moment Humpback Is Captured Leaping Out Of The Water (And Even Manages A Wave) -- Daily Mail

* Marine tour guide Steven Benjamin captured the spectacular sight while whale-spotting off the coast of South Africa
* The 31-year-old was 'blown away' by the humpback, which disappeared for 20 minutes before leaping from the water
* The majestic animal even 'waved' his fin at the stunned onlookers in a rare close encounter with the huge creatures

These jaw-dropping images show the moment a humpback whale leapt majestically from the ocean, 'waving' to a tourist boat before crashing back down with an almighty splash.

The photos, taken off the coast of South Africa by marine tour guide Steven Benjamin, captured a sight rarely seen at such close proximity.

The 40 ton humpback put on an incredible aerial display, soaring through the air just yards from a boat as shocked onlookers screamed.

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My Comment: These people were lucky .... to see something like that in front of them .... it must have been incredible.

Whale Sets Record For Deepest Ever Dive After It Plunges 9,816ft (2,992 Metres) Below The Waves

A study has revealed that the shy Cuvier's beaked whale performs the deepest dives made by any mammal on the planet at 9,816ft (2,992metres) below the waves - the equivalent of just under seven Empire State Buildings - and stays below for 138 minutes

10,000 FEET Under The Sea: Whale Sets Record For Deepest Ever Dive After It Plunges Seven Empire State Buildings Deep -- Daily Mail

* One Cuvier's beaked whale dived 9,816ft (2,992 metres) below the waves and stayed below for 38 minutes
* The equivalent of 6.75 Empire State Buildings placed on top of one another
* Biologists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California tagged eight of the whales off San Nicholas Island in southern California
* They are interested in whether the whales display unusual behaviour when they hear sonar emitted from ships

Whales are capable of swimming vast distances across oceans, but they are also expert divers.

And now a study has revealed that the shy Cuvier’s beaked whale performs the deepest dives made by any mammal on the planet.

Scientists were surprised to record one of the mammal's dives, which was 9,816ft (2,992 metres) below the waves.

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My Comment: Wow .... I never knew that they can dive that deep and stay underwater for that long.

New Sensory Organ Found In Whales

A baby humpback whale plays at the surface. Biologists recently discovered that humpback whales have a sensory organ in their chin. Credit: iStockphoto

New Sensory Organ Found In Whales -- Cosmos/AFP

PARIS: Biologists have discovered a new sensory organ on blue, humpback, minke and fin whales that helps explain why these mammals are so huge.

In a study appearing in the journal Nature, researchers in the United States and Canada said the organ is located at the tip of the whale's chin, in a niche of fibrous tissue that connects the lower jaw bones.

Comprising a node of nerves, the organ orchestrates dramatic changes in jaw position that are essential for "lunge" feeding by the rorqual family of whales, Earth's biggest vertebrates.

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My Comment: We learn something new everyday.

Whaling Peace Plan To Go Forward This Year

From The BBC:

A proposal aimed at bridging the split between whaling nations and their opponents will almost certainly come to governments for decision this year.

Sources say it could involve Japan accepting quotas below current levels; but Iceland is opposing proposed catch limits and an international trade ban.

Some anti-whaling countries see such a "peace package" as the only way to constrain whale hunting.

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Mysterious Whale Die-Off Is Largest On Record

From Live Science:

Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.

Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.

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The Whale Whisperer: Astonishing Bond Between Diver And Scar The Giant Sperm Whale

Friends: Andrew Armour and Scar the sperm whale consider one another solemnly as they swim in the waters off Dominica last weekend

From The Daily Mail:

Peering solemnly nose-to-nose at each other, this is the Whale Whisperer and his friend - Scar the 10-year-old giant of the sea.

These spectacular images show Andrew Armour bonding with the colossal sperm whale in the warm Caribbean waters off the island of Dominica.

Taken on the weekend, the photographs offer stunning insight into the lives of other pod members travelling with Scar.

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Whales Get Support On Sonar Ban

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

NOAA May Limit Sonar Tests, though Another Case Heads to Court.

Whales and the U.S. Navy have tangled repeatedly over the past years over charges that the Navy’s sonar exercises disorient or injure whales and other marine mammals. Now, whales in the Pacific appear to have a new champion: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is considering limiting the Navy’s sonar tests in certain marine mammal “hot spots.”

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Whale Activists Say Their Catamaran Was Sunk By Japanese Vessel

Whale Wars: How Was The Sea Shepherd's New Ship Sunk? -- Christian Science Monitor

Paul Watson, star of "Whale Wars," and his eco-vigliantes at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have been sailing close to the legal wind for some time, harassing Japanese whalers. Wednesday the Sea Shepherd's $2.5 million speedboat Ady Gil was sunk.

The reaction of Paul Watson, the controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to the destruction of the crown jewel in his tiny anti-whaling fleet on Wednesday was swift. But Watson also managed to get a plug in for his reality TV show, "Whale Wars."

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Fin Whales, Once Rare, Crowd Calif. Coast

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From CBS News:

(CBS) Tracking a mystery, Alisa Schulman-Janiger and other marine biologists follow an ocean footprint looking for the second largest mammal in the world, the fin whale.

Sightings of the fin whale - part of the family that includes the humpback and big blue whales - used to be a rarity in the Santa Monica Bay but not anymore. They're everywhere, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes.

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Blue Whale Song Mystery Baffles Scientists

From Wired Science:

All around the world, blue whales aren’t singing like they used to, and scientists have no idea why.

The largest animals on Earth are singing in ever-deeper voices every year. Among the suggested explanations are ocean noise pollution, changing population dynamics and new mating strategies. But none of them is entirely convincing.

“We don’t have the answer. We just have a lot of recordings,” said Mark McDonald, president of Whale Acoustics, a company that specializes in the sonic monitoring of cetaceans.

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Whaling: The Beginning Of The End?

From Discovery News:

Japan's whaling fleet left port for the Antarctic last week. Japanese authorities defended the hunt, as usual, as legitimate scientific research. I and others have dealt with that contention almost ad nauseam, and the basic outlines of the argument are well known.

What makes this whaling season different from recent ones, however, is that environmentalists are allowing themselves to feel cautiously optimistic that the end of this seemingly endless battle may be near.

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Love Songs Of Bowhead Whales: Whales Sings With 'More Than One Voice'

Bowhead whale. (Credit: Photo by John Jacobsen, University of Copenhagen)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2009) — It wasn’t that many years ago that the bowhead whale was written off as extinct in the waters around Greenland and especially in Disko Bay in northwest Greenland where University of Copenhagen has its Arctic Field Station.

But now the situation has changed and adult bowhead whales, which can grow up to 18 metres long and weigh 100 tons, have returned to the bay. This is probably because global warming has opened up the Northwest Passage, making it ice free at certain times of the year for the first time in 125,000 years. This gives bowhead whales from the northern Pacific a chance to reach Disko Bay and mate with the small local population.

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