Next Basic Rescue & Rehabilitation Training scheduled for September 13, 2008.
Pictopia.com, a premier photo commerce provider to the world's top media companies, has selected a photo of Donna Clements, of the Marine Animal Rescue Society, as a "staff pick of 2006", from the Miami Sun-Sentinel newspaper, taken by pohotographer Joe Amon.
See Donna's photo as Pictopia
Dolphin fitted with new tail
video
SHARKWATER: Documentary movie & lectures at the International Fishing Hall of Fame
Anti-whaling activist, from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, are still at it.
MARS in the news!
"What is MARS?"
by Sergeant Bobby Randazzo, Supervisor Marine Operations, SIB Police Dept.
Manatee Ocean Reef and calf released
Indian River Lagoon Dolphins Diseased
Manatees to lose "Endangered' status?
Marine Animal Die-Off
Save the Manatee Club Offers Free Sign to Florida Shoreline Property Owners
Humpback Whale strands on Cocoa Beach
Dolphins strand in Boston Harbor
Chilean President awards marine centre for blue whale conservation
Congress Passes Ocean Legislation
Mutilated Manatee in Biscayne Bay
Manatee Biology - New York Times
Dolphin with 2 extra fins!
Dolphin Freed from Speedo
NOAA SHIP NANCY FOSTER ASSISTS IN WHALE RESCUE
Manatee loses its status as 'Endangered' in Florida
FWCC coordinates manatee law enforcement--Jan. 2006
Daring rescue of whale off Farallones
Humpback nuzzled her saviors in thanks after they untangled her from crab lines, diver says
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A humpback whale freed by divers from a tangle of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands nudged its rescuers and flapped around in what marine experts said was a rare and remarkable encounter.
"It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun."
Sunday's daring rescue was the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback, said Shelbi Stoudt, stranding manager for the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County.
The 45- to 50-foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpbacks' usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots.
It was spotted by a crab fisherman at 8:30 a.m. Sunday in the open water east of the Farallones, about 18 miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Mick Menigoz of Novato, who organizes whale watching and shark diving expeditions on his boat the New Superfish, got a call for help Sunday morning, alerted the Marine Mammal Center and gathered a team of divers.
By 2:30 p.m., the rescuers had reached the whale and evaluated the situation. Team members realized the only way to save the endangered leviathan was to dive into the water and cut the ropes.
It was a very risky maneuver, Stoudt said, because the mere flip of a humpback's massive tail can kill a man.
"I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it," said Moskito, a 40-year-old Pleasanton resident who works with "Great White Adventures," a cage-diving outfit that contracts with Menigoz. "I really didn't think we were going to be able to save it."
Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale's mouth.
The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal's blubber and leaving visible cuts.
At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow- hole out of the water.
Moskito and three other divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife. The whale floated passively in the water the whole time, he said, giving off a strange kind of vibration.
"When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me," Moskito said. "It was an epic moment of my life."
When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.
"It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that's happy to see you,'' Moskito said. "I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience."
Humpback whales are known for their complex vocalizations that sound like singing and for their acrobatic breaching, an apparently playful activity in which they lift almost their entire bodies out of the water and splash down.
Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific, but the population was severely reduced by commercial whaling. In the 20th century, their numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000. An international ban on commercial whaling was instituted in 1964, but humpbacks are still endangered. Between 5,000 and 7,500 humpbacks are left in the world's oceans, and many of those survivors migrate through the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
Whale experts say it's nice to think that the whale was thanking its rescuers, but nobody really knows what was on its mind.
"You hate to anthropomorphize too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it," Menigoz said. "I don't know for sure what it was thinking, but it's something that I will always remember. It was just too cool."
Humpback whales hold a special place in the hearts of Bay Area residents ever since one that came to be known as Humphrey journeyed up the Sacramento River in 1985. The wayward creature swam into a slough in Rio Vista, attracting 10,000 people a day as whale experts tried desperately to turn it around. Humphrey went back to sea after 25 days of near-pandemonium and worldwide media attention.
In the fall of 1990, Humphrey turned up again inside the bay in shallow water near the Bayshore Freeway, finally beaching on mud flats near Double Rock, just off the Candlestick parking lot. He remained stuck for 25 hours, until volunteers, helped by a 41-foot Coast Guard boat, pulled him free and sent him back to the ocean. He has not been seen since.
Humpbacks like Humphrey do seem to relate to people more than other whales, according to Stoudt.
"You do hear reports of friendly humpbacks, whales approaching boaters, especially in Baja California," Stoudt said, "but, for the most part, they don't like to be interacted with."
E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com
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Palm Beach Post, Friday, July 01, 2005
Tumors plague local dolphins
By Rachel Harris
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Researchers this week said they're finding fewer dolphins in local waters, but a greater proportion with tumors.
"What we're finding supports that there is some kind of environmental distress," said Greg Bossart, director of marine mammal research and conservation at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution near Fort Pierce. "It's quite disturbing."
In their third year studying dolphins in the Indian River Lagoon, scientists with Harbor Branch and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined 17 dolphins over 10 days this month between Stuart and just north of Merritt Island. Eight of the animals had tumors, including six of the 10 dolphins studied in Stuart this week.
Last year at this time, the scientists examined 39 dolphins in the study area, finding four with tumors. In 2003, none of 43 dolphins studied had tumors.
Bossart, the study's lead scientist, said researchers are alarmed not only by the growing number of dolphins with tumors but the increasing difficulty of finding dolphins in local waterways, particularly in the lagoon near the St. Lucie River.
"Quite a few animals just high-tailed it out of there," said Bossart, a veterinarian and pathologist.
Last year's hurricanes might have played a role, he said. The researchers believe environmental factors — such as pollutants, water temperature and salinity — also might explain the apparent drop in the local dolphin population.
Those factors might explain, too, why more dolphins seem to be developing tumors on their tongues and genitals. The tumors likely are a symptom of a latent virus that only emerges when the dolphins are under stress, Bossart said.
It will take several months for final test results on the urine, blood and blubber the researchers collected from the dolphins this month.
Bossart said scientists will compare the results to other data, like weather conditions and the amount of water being discharged at the time from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie Canal, which empties into the St. Lucie River near Stuart.
The brackish river has been plagued recently with high bacteria levels, low salinity and algae blooms. Aside from more rain than usual, the river has taken on discharges of nutrient-laden fresh water from Lake Okeechobee several times this year.
The latest releases, which started just after scientists wrapped up their study Wednesday, are sending about 18,700 gallons per second into the St. Lucie Canal.
"I can tell you, just visually looking at it, the water quality in the south of the lagoon is just abysmal," Bossart said.
In August, the team of scientists will move north to Charleston, S.C., where they've found two dolphins with tumors in the past two years.
Scientists will continue to study and compare dolphins in Charleston and the Indian River Lagoon for the next two years.
Bossart said the group also plans to investigate where local dolphins might have gone. Preliminary reports suggest that the dolphin population in the Banana River, near Merritt Island, might have grown.
Three Highly-Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Strand This Year
Virginia , North Carolina , Florida , 2004: This was a tragic year for right whales, a species desperately trying to survive in the North Atlantic . Of the roughly 340 known individuals left, two pregnant females and a live newborn calf were found on beaches between February and November. In all, a total of five animals—including the two near-term fetuses—were lost.
Breeding females, especially young animals like the 15-year-old stranded this Thanksgiving in the Outer Banks, NC, are extremely valuable; the species is expected to reach extinction in the next 100-200 years. Despite some hopeful signs of reduced intervals between breeding cycles in recent years, there is little expectation for recovery of this plankton and krill-eating giant that inhabits major ports and shipping lanes from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Boston Harbor , and similarly busy ports and fishing grounds in Northern Europe .
Right whales spend summers off Canada and New England , and calve in the winter off the Florida/Georgia coasts . In between, they migrate through the mid-Atlantic, which carries heavy commercial and Navy ship traffic. Six right whales and two fetuses have been killed by ships between New York and Cape Hatteras , N.C. in the last four years.
The latest victim stranded Thanksgiving weekend as a late Code 3 (“Moderately-Severely Decomposed”). She had lost the left lobe of her fluke in a boat strike by a US naval vessel reported on November 17. The wound was assumed to have been the cause of death through massive blood loss. A near term female fetus was found lodged in the thoracic cavity. (This is consistent with other moderately decomposed rorquals in which the stomach and other organs are expelled into the caudal oral cavity.) The animal's identity was soon confirmed to be that of #1909, born in 1989, and believed to have been in her first or second pregnancy.
The necropsy teams included personnel from the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center and the University of North Carolina . The team found the 1490 cm animal ventral side up and secured it at the peduncle with a heavy wire cable which was attached to a bulldozer and hoe. The next morning, a large excavator was used to roll over the carcass and get it out of the surf. Ten team members conducted the necropsy in 2 ½ hours. About 75% of the skin was missing and most organs were completely decomposed or missing, as was all the baleen. Unfortunately, this animal's condition did not lend itself to histopathology studies. The remains were buried the following day in two trenches, one for soft tissue, one for bones.
A right whale that did yield healthy tissues for examination was the neonate calf that live-stranded in Nassau County , FL on Fernandina Beach last winter ( February 3, 2004 ). Sadly, the calf died during transport to rehab.
The necropsy report showed the calf to be in good condition, though thin for its 478 cm length (approximately 1800 kg, weight). It was determined to have been less than 48 hours old. Low glucose and blood serum globulins, and the absence of milk in its stomach, suggest that this full term calf had failed to feed. Whether the infant was abandoned by its mother or whether it drowned before it could ingest colostrum may never be determined. However, the genetic information, blood analysis, brain and histolic studies resulting from this animal's death are invaluable to a better understanding of this precious species.
These right whale deaths, including the one of another pregnant female in February (also necropsied by the UNC and VA teams) have spurred the National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this year to announce its intention to propose speed limits and routing changes for ships entering and leaving ports as researchers are encouraging the federal government, commercial shipping lines and the Navy to talk about what could be done immediately.
Japanese Dolphin Gets Prosthetic Tail From Tire Company Okinawa , Japan , Churaumi Aquarium:
Fuji , a 34 year old mother dolphin lost 75 percent of her tail due to a mysterious disease that killed cells in the dolphins fluke. Bridgestone Tire Company spent over 10 million dollars and two years developing the 2 kg, 48 cm smooth rubber fluke.
After trainers worked with Fuji for five months, the dolphin finally accepted the fin which she now wears about 20 minutes a day allowing her to jump and to swim at the same speed of other dolphins .
U.S. Commission on Oceans Report Includes Recommendations for Marine Mammals
The Oceans Act of 2000 charged the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy with making the first complete study of ocean-related issues and laws in over 30 years. This 2004 Commission report presents over 200 recommendations to assist federal agencies and others in identifying actions most relevant to them. Among these are 10 recommendations for protecting marine mammals. Some of these are:
Congress should amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act to revise the definition of harassment to cover only activities that meaningfully disrupt behaviors that are significant to the survival and reproduction of marine mammals.
An interagency team should be created to recommend a system for granting permits to programs that clearly distinguishes, (based on scientific investigations), programs that are “inappropriate” from those that are “appropriate” and that enforcement efforts and penalties for such permitting be strengthened.
An expanded program, coordinated through the National Ocean Council, to mitigate the effects of human activities on marine mammals and endangered species. This program should focus on two areas:
1) Research, monitoring, assessment…and enhancing the capacity to respond quickly to strandings and unusual mortality events.
2) A technology and engineering program to eliminate or mitigate human impact on marine mammals…
Expanded research on ocean acoustics and the potential impacts of noise on marine mammals.
Identifying Kogia s: Simus vs. Breviceps
After dolphins, the most common marine mammal to strand on the coasts of Florida is one of two members of the Family Kogiidae with its single genus Kogia , smallest of the species of “whales.” These are commonly referred to as the Dwarf and Pygmy Sperm Whales. They are called “Sperm” because they possess a spermaceti organ; yet unlike the giant Sperm Whale, they also have a unique “ink” sac of dark abdominal fluid used to cast a cloud around them when frightened by an enemy. These animals each have been confused with sharks because they have under slung jaws, a false “gill” between the eye and flipper, and a falcate dorsal fin.—oh, and sharp teeth!
The teeth are one clue to determining if the animal is a smaller, “Dwarf” or larger, “Pygmy” species of Kogia. The first, the Simus has 7-13 pairs of teeth in its lower jaw and can have are many as three pairs in its upper jaw. The second, Breviceps usually has 12-16 pairs of lower teeth and no upper ones.
The dorsal fins can also be a clue. The little Simus has a relatively higher, more upright dorsal fin set closer to the middle of the back; whereas the Breviceps has a less pronounced falcate dorsal set more caudally.
Head shape, though it tends to broaden as the animal matures, can also be helpful. The Dwarf species has a slightly slimmer, pointier head when mature than that of the mature Pygmy Sperm Whale.
Size can not be counted on as a distinguishing characteristic unless the age of the animal can be determined with accuracy because a small Pygmy could be confused with a mature Dwarf or the other way around. At birth, the average length of the Dwarf species is 3'4” (1 m), whereas the larger Pygmy is 3'11' (1.2 m) inches—a good half foot longer! The mature animals are even more distinctive, with the Dwarf at about 8'10” (2.7 m) and the Pygmy at 11'6” (3.5 m), with weights varying accordingly.
Frequency of strandings is perhaps your best bet . Kogia simus are much more rare in our waters. Six to one, it's likely to be a Breviceps! | 
