whaling
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Three Makah tribe members plead guilty in whale hunt
Photo: bbum Three members of the Washington state Makah tribe who were charged with killing a gray whale in the fall have pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In return, prosecutors will recommend probation instead of jail time. The men had originally declined the plea deal because it […]
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Duplicitous sand dollars and tenacious sea worms
A federal appeals court ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have been forced to give up the proceeds from 32 tons of shark fins seized by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002 from the vessel King Diamond II. The 64,695 pounds of shark fins were valued at $618,956 ...
... a three-year study found a thriving reef fish community around three freighters sunk off the coast of Florida ...
... a graduate student discovered that sand dollar larvae can clone themselves in an effort to escape predation ...
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Friendly cetaceans and smelly algae
A federal advisory panel weighed a ban on salmon fishing in California after a dramatic decline in the fishery. "The situation now is unprecedented and off the charts," said the executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council ...
... a University of Tasmania scientist discovered two new types of toxic algae in the Southern Ocean, which he believes must be calculated into fishing quotas to prevent further overfishing ...
... ocean acidification caused the ears of baby damselfish to develop incorrectly ...
... it was discovered that fish that feed on plankton can smell an odor released by algae, and congregate near the source of the scent, since plankton feed on algae ...
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Notable quotable
“Is it all right to hurt humans in order to protect whales? I think whales are cute and important creatures, but even so, hurting humans is unforgivable.” — Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, criticizing anti-whaling activists
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Activist says he was shot in confrontation with whalers
The captain of the radical anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says he was shot in a clash with Japanese whalers on Friday. Paul Watson says he found a bullet in his Kevlar vest; Japan’s fisheries agency disputed the accusation, saying those onboard the whaling ship retaliated with non-lethal flash grenades after activists threw stink bombs […]
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Norway says whale consumption is good for the planet
Eating whale meat is better for the planet than eating beef, pork, or chicken, according to a comparative carbon-emissions calculation by Norwegian lobbying group the High North Alliance. Says the alliance’s Rune Froevik, in what may be a bit of an exaggeration, “Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the […]
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Tracking whaling ships and whale sharks
Anti-whaling activists planted tracking devices on Japanese whaling ships as part of a campaign to disrupt the annual hunt, and the Australian customs ship that had been monitoring the hunt returned to port with photographs and video to use for future legal action ...
... a study showed that commercial fishing forced fish to evolve into meeker, less active creatures that carry fewer eggs. Bolder and more adventuresome fish were more likely to be caught by gillnets ...
... the butterflyfish, a common resident of coral reefs, was in danger of extinction because it could only eat one species of coral, Acropora hyacinthus, which is highly vulnerable ...
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Hungry humpheads and sustainable fish in U.K. groceries
28 cases of ciguatera fish poisoning have been documented since November. Fish such as grouper, snapper, and amberjack eat toxic algae, and people who eat the contaminated fish can suffer from nausea and vomiting. In serious cases, neurological problems can last for months or years ...
... a federal judge rejected President Bush's exemption of the U.S. Navy to rules regulating sonar ...
... scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggested that wind may be behind the sardine and anchovy booms and busts off the California coast over the last century ...
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Aussies release gruesome footage of Japanese whale hunt
There’s a new twist in the twisty tale of Japan’s off-then-back-on-again whale hunt: the Australian government has released gut-wrenching footage of what it says is a mother and baby minke whale being harpooned and hauled aboard a Japanese ship. An unamused official at Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research denied that the large and small whales […]