Whales

Harbour porpoise in Denmark.
Harbour porpoise in Denmark.

How toothed whales use echolocation to hunt

Can hunting by echolocation be as fast as hunting by sight?

As visual animals, we may find this a peculiar question—not so if one applies it to animals that hunt using echolocation, like bats, dolphins and whales. These animals emit clicking sounds and use the reflected echoes to determine the location of objects and other animals.

Can animals that hunt using echolocation lock onto their prey and track their movements, and how fast can they react? These were questions that an international team of researchers sought to answer.

Photo of humpback whale breaching.
Humpback whales have been increasingly spotted in the New York Bight.

Is New York Bight now a supplementary feeding site for baleen whales?

An increased presence of baleen whale species has been observed in the waters off New York and New Jersey, suggesting that they may be using the area as a supplementary feeding ground.

In boat surveys conducted from 2017 to 2019, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Columbia University observed humpback, fin and minke whales foraging in the New York Bight. A paper on their findings was published in the Marine Biology Research journal.

Conscious Breath Adventures Returns to the Silver Bank in 2022

Every winter the Silver Bank is home to the largest gathering of humpback whales found anywhere in the North Atlantic, and Conscious Breath Adventures is exceptionally positioned to lead visitors there. 

The Silver Bank, part of the Sanctuary for the Marine Mammals of the Dominican Republic, is one of the few places on earth where swimming with humpback whales is officially sanctioned, permitted, and properly regulated. 

Photo by incidencematrix / Flickr Commons / CC BY 2.0
Whales at Dana Point, California, USA. Photo by incidencematrix / Flickr Commons / CC BY 2.0

Business rivals worked together to make Dana Point a Whale Heritage Site

In late January 2021, the World Cetacean Alliance (WCA) named Dana Point, California as a Whale Heritage Site, the first such site in the Americas.

The reasons were obvious: As one of the world's top whale-watching destinations, it hosts a variety of whales all year round, including the blue whale. It has more dolphins per square mile than anywhere in the world. Dana Point also has a small non-commercial harbor, community support, and undertaken public outreach and education, advocacy and research efforts. 

Common dolphin (NOAA NMFS/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
Common dolphin (NOAA NMFS/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

Share your views on Scotland's first cetacean conservation strategy

Focusing on nine of the most commonly found dolphin, whale and porpoise species in UK waters, the strategy has been developed by the Scottish Government, in collaboration with the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.

Its objective is to ensure the effective management to achieve and maintain the current favourable status of the nine species. It highlights certain pressures where further research or extra management measures may help to improve the conservation of marine mammals.

Mmo iwdg / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Long-finned pilot whale cow with her calf, off the coast of Ireland. Photo by Mmo iwdg / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

Buoy in Celtic Sea tracks oceanic noise

Equipped with an autonomous hydrophone, the buoy's function is to conduct for the first time real-time acoustic monitoring of the water's cetaceans to assess how oceanic noise pollution affects them. 

Deployed as part of the Smart Whale Sounds project, it will also track the distribution and behaviour of whale species in real-time and be used to train machine learning models to identify different species' calls. 

The fin whale, also known as the finback whale, is the second-largest species on Earth after the blue whale.

Whales expand their distribution

Four of the six baleen whale species found in the western North Atlantic Ocean (humpback, sei, fin and blue) have changed their distribution patterns in the past decade.

Using 281 passive acoustic recorders moored to the sea floor from the Caribbean Sea to Greenland, researchers from the United States and Canada monitored the movements of the whales from 2004 to 2014. The findings of their study was published in the Global Change Biology journal.

Rice’s whales already considered endangered by the US with a population estimated at fewer than 100

Rice's whale confirmed as a new species

Rice's whale (Balaenoptera ricei), previously believed to be a population of Bryde’s whales, is an intermediate-sized species of baleen whale.

“I was surprised that there could be an unrecognized species of whale out there, especially in our backyard,”

—Lynsey Wilcox, geneticist with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

North Atlantic right whale
North Atlantic right whale

Good news for north Atlantic right whales in southeastern US

As at the end of January 2021, 68 north Atlantic right whales have been spotted in the waters off the coast of southeastern United States, a number that wildlife officials in Florida describe as “encouraging.”

Three of these are young calves that have been spotted for the first time.

The mothers of these calves are a 12-year-old whale named Champagne, a 19-year-old named Infinity and a 14-year-old with no recorded name (but is known simply as Catalog #3720).