A novel rescue by 50 emergency staff and marine specialists has saved a stranded whale and seen it safely out to sea.
Firefighters dug a trench in mudflats on the Humber estuary and then worked with other specialists to turn the 15-tonne minke whale round and gently heave it loose.
Boats were used alongside the rescuers to create wakes that helped the 30ft (9 metre) mammal's escap e after eight hours on the edge of Immingham, one of the UK's largest docks.
The alarm was raised when the stranding was spotted by a passing ship at 8am on Tuesday, an estimated four hours after it is thought to have grounded. A second, larger whale was seen circling nearby and rescuers believe that ship movements may have confused the younger one.
Torrential rain also eased the animal's plight although it stretched the rescue team and monitors who are now stationed round Immingham in case the minke turns back inshore. This has happened previously with disorientated whales and the RSPCA said the minke had initially tried to resist the turn-round effort.
A witness of the operation, a 58-year-old local man who did not wish to be named, said: "The teams waited until high tide but that was still quite low so there wasn't enough water. They turned the whale to face the sea but it kept wanting to come back in.
"To make the water deeper, they had boats running up and down alongside the whale to make a wave so the water was high enough to get it out. They then basically walked it out towards sea and then it just swam out. Hopefully, it will able to make its way down the Humber now."
Geoff Edmond, of the RSPCA, said: "We got on the scene this morning when coastguard and RNLI crews were already in attendance with a vet. We waited until about 1.30pm when it was high tide to attempt to re-float the whale.
"With a lot of effort and advice from the vet everyone managed to re-float it. It hung about for a bit before finally disappearing from view. It still needs to get back into the North Sea so I think the next 24 hours will be crucial."
Earlier Mike Puplett, of Humber coastguard, said low tide had hampered initial approaches and raised concern that the whale might be crushed by its own weight as water levels sank to cover only some 10% of its bulk. But rescuers were heartened by continuing signs of life as the tide came back in.
Minkes prefer the open sea but are occasionally drawn close to land where they become vulnerable to unfamiliar tidal movements.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/06/whale-rescue-stranded-humber
Showing posts with label minke whales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minke whales. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
articles on misidentifications of mystery aquatics (2) (Via Chad Arment)
Orleans man delves into sea serpent `mystery'
Wicked Local Cape Cod
Posted Jul 20, 2011
ORLEANS —
During the 1800s and early 1900s eyewitness reports and newspaper articles about a sea serpent in the waters off Gloucester and the South Shore abounded. The serpent, said to be 100-feet in length, so fascinated folks that a scientific commission was formed to study it.
No credible explanation for the accounts ever surfaced and in the last 60 years there has been little mention of the creature.
But a man looking out his enormous plate glass windows that provide a panoramic view of Nauset Beach may have unraveled the mystery late last month.
Edward "Kin" Carmody, who lives on Callanan's Pass on a bluff overlooking the beach, is a talkative, engaging man who has found time for various hobbies since he retired as a top marketing man for Kraft Foods 10 years ago. And if he isn't working in his garden or creating new varieties of day lilies he'll relax by sitting in a particular white wicker chair in his living room, look out at the Atlantic and watch for whale spouts. And on June 29 around 3 p.m. he saw something that is now etched in his memory.
"I saw, slightly to left," he said pointing, his binoculars on the table beside him. "Quite a commotion of whales."
He knew they were minke whales because they have a dorsal fin.
That was when he saw a common animal exhibit and uncommon behavior. It was a behavior that just may explain why people over the centuries have sworn they have seen a snakelike creature swimming in the water.
"As soon as I saw it I said `Oh my God, that may be the answer to a 1,000-year old mystery'," Carmody recalled.
Then taking out a pad of paper on a recent sunny morning he sketched out what he saw that day: a chain of minke whales, nose to tail, whose backs looked much like the coils of the iconic sea serpent.
"They were in a chain line, they curved. It was synchronized exactly," he said. "It was just like a gigantic snake."
And then he pulled out another drawing.
"That is the classic sea monster that people see," Carmody said, having quickly sketched the undulating body and dragon-like head.
The obvious difference between the two pictures is the missing head and tail in the whale drawing, but, said Carmody, the mind is a powerful thing. It will often create what you want to see, as evidenced by various mind games where your brain fills in missing words and the famous unreliability of eyewitness accounts.
First he thought the six, maybe eight, whales were playing, but then thought that was something that happened often. This ritual would need to be unusual, so he believes it may determine who the leader of the pod will be.
"That's my hypothesis," he said.
Scott Landry, director of the disentanglement program for Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said there are an abundance of minke whales around. But, he explained after the caveat that the whales are poorly studied, they are usually solitary creatures – mainly because they have to eat so much a day – and don't have a herd structure.
Still, it's quite possible that the minke whales were in a group because there was a lot of fish or sand lance around. The line could have been "coincidental," Landry said.
Sightings such as Carmody's are probably one of the reasons myths develop, he added.
Carmody's fascination with the sight may have stemmed in part from his knowledge of paleontology, another of his hobbies. (In fact he has a few fossils in his basement.) He knows there is no fossil record of anything resembling a sea serpent and he also knows that when snakes swim they swim left to right, just as they coast across the land. They don't propel themselves up and down as a sea serpents have been depicted.
Carmody isn't professing that he is made one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the century; he is in fact concerned, he admitted with a chuckle, that his wife will be less than pleased that he has given folks the opportunity to say he is a little nutty. But there has been nothing that has been able to explain why so many people have thought they have seen a sea serpent.
Until now perhaps.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/capecod/news/cape_cod_news/x1797075497/Orleans-man-delves-into-sea-serpent-mystery#axzz1T2aAEAfN
Wicked Local Cape Cod
Posted Jul 20, 2011
ORLEANS —
During the 1800s and early 1900s eyewitness reports and newspaper articles about a sea serpent in the waters off Gloucester and the South Shore abounded. The serpent, said to be 100-feet in length, so fascinated folks that a scientific commission was formed to study it.
No credible explanation for the accounts ever surfaced and in the last 60 years there has been little mention of the creature.
But a man looking out his enormous plate glass windows that provide a panoramic view of Nauset Beach may have unraveled the mystery late last month.
Edward "Kin" Carmody, who lives on Callanan's Pass on a bluff overlooking the beach, is a talkative, engaging man who has found time for various hobbies since he retired as a top marketing man for Kraft Foods 10 years ago. And if he isn't working in his garden or creating new varieties of day lilies he'll relax by sitting in a particular white wicker chair in his living room, look out at the Atlantic and watch for whale spouts. And on June 29 around 3 p.m. he saw something that is now etched in his memory.
"I saw, slightly to left," he said pointing, his binoculars on the table beside him. "Quite a commotion of whales."
He knew they were minke whales because they have a dorsal fin.
That was when he saw a common animal exhibit and uncommon behavior. It was a behavior that just may explain why people over the centuries have sworn they have seen a snakelike creature swimming in the water.
"As soon as I saw it I said `Oh my God, that may be the answer to a 1,000-year old mystery'," Carmody recalled.
Then taking out a pad of paper on a recent sunny morning he sketched out what he saw that day: a chain of minke whales, nose to tail, whose backs looked much like the coils of the iconic sea serpent.
"They were in a chain line, they curved. It was synchronized exactly," he said. "It was just like a gigantic snake."
And then he pulled out another drawing.
"That is the classic sea monster that people see," Carmody said, having quickly sketched the undulating body and dragon-like head.
The obvious difference between the two pictures is the missing head and tail in the whale drawing, but, said Carmody, the mind is a powerful thing. It will often create what you want to see, as evidenced by various mind games where your brain fills in missing words and the famous unreliability of eyewitness accounts.
First he thought the six, maybe eight, whales were playing, but then thought that was something that happened often. This ritual would need to be unusual, so he believes it may determine who the leader of the pod will be.
"That's my hypothesis," he said.
Scott Landry, director of the disentanglement program for Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said there are an abundance of minke whales around. But, he explained after the caveat that the whales are poorly studied, they are usually solitary creatures – mainly because they have to eat so much a day – and don't have a herd structure.
Still, it's quite possible that the minke whales were in a group because there was a lot of fish or sand lance around. The line could have been "coincidental," Landry said.
Sightings such as Carmody's are probably one of the reasons myths develop, he added.
Carmody's fascination with the sight may have stemmed in part from his knowledge of paleontology, another of his hobbies. (In fact he has a few fossils in his basement.) He knows there is no fossil record of anything resembling a sea serpent and he also knows that when snakes swim they swim left to right, just as they coast across the land. They don't propel themselves up and down as a sea serpents have been depicted.
Carmody isn't professing that he is made one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the century; he is in fact concerned, he admitted with a chuckle, that his wife will be less than pleased that he has given folks the opportunity to say he is a little nutty. But there has been nothing that has been able to explain why so many people have thought they have seen a sea serpent.
Until now perhaps.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/capecod/news/cape_cod_news/x1797075497/Orleans-man-delves-into-sea-serpent-mystery#axzz1T2aAEAfN
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Blood-sucking fish feed on whales
Blood-sucking sea lampreys feed on prey as big as minke whales, according to new research.
Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".
Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.
Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.
Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.
In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.
Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.
Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.
Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.
However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.
The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.
Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.
"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."
Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.
"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.
"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."
The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.
"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.
Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.
Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.
Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm
By Ella Davies
Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621
Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".
Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.
Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.
Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.
In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.
Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.
Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.
Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.
However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.
The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.
Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.
"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."
Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.
"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.
"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."
The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.
"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.
Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.
Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.
Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm
By Ella Davies
Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621
Blood-sucking fish feed on whales
Blood-sucking sea lampreys feed on prey as big as minke whales, according to new research.
Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".
Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.
Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.
Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.
In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.
Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.
Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.
Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.
However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.
The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.
Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.
"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."
Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.
"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.
"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."
The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.
"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.
Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.
Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.
Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm
By Ella Davies
Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621
Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".
Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.
Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.
Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.
In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.
Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.
Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.
Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.
However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.
The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.
Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.
"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.
"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."
Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.
"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.
"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."
The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.
"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.
Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.
Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.
Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm
By Ella Davies
Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621
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