Pitch of Blue Whale Songs Is Declining Around the World, Scientists Discover

The sound level of songs blue whales sing across the vast expanses of the ocean to attract potential mates has been steadily creeping downward for the past few decades, and a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and his colleagues believe the trend may be good news for the population of the endangered marine mammal.

Mark McDonald of WhaleAcoustics in Bellvue, Colo., along with John Hildebrand of Scripps Oceanography and Sarah Mesnick of NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center studied blue whale song data from around the world and discovered a downward curve in the pitch, or frequency, of the songs. The decline was tracked in blue whales across the globe, from off the Southern California coast to the Indian and Southern Oceans.
"The basic style of singing is the same, the tones are there, but the animal is shifting the frequency down over time. The more recent it is, the lower the frequency the animal is singing in, and we have found that in every song we have data for," said Hildebrand, a professor of oceanography in the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps.
The study's results are published in the most recent issue of the journal Endangered Species Research.
The researchers examined a list of possible causes for the frequency drop-from climate change to a rise in human-produced ocean noise-and believe it may be explained by the increase of blue whale numbers following bans on commercial whaling activities.
While the function of blue whale songs is not known and scientists have much more to learn, they do know that all singers have been determined to be males and that the high-intensity, or loud, and low-frequency songs propagate long distances across the ocean. Blue whales are widely dispersed during the breeding season and it is likely that songs function to advertise which species is singing and the location of the singing whale.
In the heyday of commercial whaling, as blue whale numbers plummeted, it may have been advantageous for males to sing higher frequency songs, the researchers believe, in order to maximize their transmission distance and their ability to locate potential mates (females) or competitors (other males).
"It may be that when (blue whale) densities go up, it's not so far to get to the closest female, whereas back when they were depleted it may have been that the closest female was a long way away," said Hildebrand.
In the 1960s, when blue whale numbers were substantially reduced and recordings of the animals were first made, there may have been a tradeoff in which the male suitors chose to sing higher frequencies that were louder and heard over greater distances, Hildebrand said. In more recent years, as population sizes have increased, it may now be more advantageous for males to sing songs that are lower in frequency rather than louder.
"When they make these songs they need to use most of the air in their lungs," said Hildebrand. "It's like an opera singer that sees how long he can hold a note. The (male) songs are made to impress the females and/or other males, so I think that's how the boy blue whales are impressing the girls, or are showing off to other boys: by making a loud and long song."
The scientists say the same downward pitch phenomenon may be true in other whales such as fin and humpbacks, but the blue whale song, with a comparatively easier song to analyze, is a good springboard to study other species. Hildebrand says such knowledge about whale songs could be important in monitoring whale populations and recovery efforts.
During the study the researchers analyzed thousands of blue whale songs divided into at least 10 worldwide regions. These include the Northeast, Southwest and Northwest Pacific Ocean; the North Atlantic; the Southern Ocean near Antarctica; and the North and Southeast Indian Ocean. Blue whale songs have been recorded for the last 45 years through scientific and military applications by seafloor seismometers tracking regional earthquakes and dedicated whale acoustic recording packages.
In addition to NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Mesnick is affiliated with Scripps' Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation.
This research was funded by the U.S. Navy, NOAA and the National Science Foundation.

Blue whales reclaim old feeding grounds

BLUE whales, the world's largest animals, are reappearing in parts of the oceans where hunting once wiped them out, signalling that they may finally be returning from the brink of extinction. Marine scientists have recorded the animals roaming migratory routes and feeding grounds in the Pacific from which they had vanished for much of the past six decades. Research also suggests that the Antarctic population of blue whales may now be growing at 6% a year. In the Atlantic, sightings are also increasing. "The overall numbers are still tiny compared with the original populations before whaling started, but the trend is at last in the right direction," said John Calambokidis, a marine scientist whose research on whale movements and populations has just been published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Blue whales, which can exceed 100ft in length and weigh up to 200 tons, were once common, with an estimated global population of between 350,000 and 400,000 in 1900. Previously, they had not been targeted by whalers because they were too large and fast for the ships and harpoons available. After the invention of steam-powered whaling ships and exploding harpoons, fleets came to favour blue whales because a single animal could provide 120 barrels of valuable oil along with vast amounts of meat. The animals' tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant. By the 1960s, when blue whale hunting was banned, there were only around 5,000 animals left. For most of the past five decades since then, blue whale numbers have hardly changed. This has baffled most researchers, because other species such as humpbacks saw populations surge once they were protected. Some researchers feared blue whales might become extinct. One problem was that the remaining blue whales seemed to have split into separate populations whose numbers risked being too small to be viable. In the Pacific, these included one group in the Gulf of Alaska and another off California. Calambokidis tracked these groups using photo-identification to spot individual blue whales from fin shapes and other markings. In recent years, however, he was surprised to see the populations growing and mingling. "This may represent a return to a migration pattern that existed in earlier periods for the eastern north Pacific blue whale population," he said. One reason for the increase in sightings could be growing competition for food on existing routes, driving whales further afield. Alternatively, changes in ocean currents may have shifted the concentrations of krill, the tiny shrimp-like animals on which blue whales feed. Either change would force the animals to start moving around more, recolonising the same migratory routes and feeding grounds favoured by earlier generations. Other researchers have recorded similar trends. Richard Sears, founder of the Mingan Island Cetacean Study in Canada, who studies blue whale populations in the north Atlantic, said sightings there had risen in the past few years. About 200 animals have been recorded in the eastern Atlantic and 440 in the west, including large numbers off Iceland. These are likely to be just a fraction of the total. Sears is cautiously optimistic, but warns that the increase in sightings may be partly due to more people looking for whales. "There is still no room for complacency," he said. There may be a more sinister reason for the failure of whale numbers to recover after the ban was imposed. Files handed to the International Whaling Commission by Alexey Yablokov, environmental adviser to Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president from 1991-9, showed that the Soviet Union illicitly killed more than 9,000 blue whales from the time of the ban until 1972. Dan Bortolotti, author of Wild Blue, a new book looking at blue whale populations worldwide, said: "These revelations go some way towards explaining why blue whale populations stayed low for so long. "It also suggests that they may now have a chance to recover — but only if the ban on hunting all large whales stays in place." Jonathan Leake

Seismic surveys disturb Blue Whales

Seismic surveys used for oil and gas prospecting on the sea floor are a disturbance for blue whales, the world's biggest animal and one of its rarest species, biologists reported on Wednesday.Lucia Di Iorio of Zurich University, Switzerland, and Christopher Clark, an acoustics specialist at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in New York, recorded the calls of blue whales at a feeding ground in Canada's St. Lawrence estuary in August 2004.The 11-day experiment was conducted during a period when a survey vessel was using a "sparker", a low-to-medium power device that sends an acoustic pulse to the sea floor and picks up the reflected signal to get a picture of the topography."On the days when the vessel was operating, the whales called more than two and a half times more frequently than on days when the vessel was not operating," Di Iorio told AFP.For humans, "it would be the same as if you were next to a roadworks hammer and have to shout or repeat what you say," she said.Di Iorio said further work would show whether blue whales suffered stress or other problems from the acoustic kerfuffle."Blue whales are rather solitary whales which swim all the time, are highly dispersed and always travelling, and feeding areas are places where they have the chance to get together in a small range and with a lot of social activity as well."Being disturbed during social interactions that don't occur very often could have an influence, perhaps in mating, but we can't really say for sure, or what kind or if it is short term or long term."One concern is that oil and gas prospecting is venturing out into ever-deeper water, and little is known about the impact this might have on whales' feeding and migratory patterns.The paper appears in Biology Letters, a journal of Britain's Royal Society.In April, an experiment reported in the same journal found that very loud, repeated blasts of sonar caused an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin to temporarily lose its hearing.Numerous beachings of whales, dolphins and porpoises have occurred over the past decade, prompting a finger of blame to be pointed at warship exercises.Measuring up to nearly 33 metres (100 feet) and weighing as much as 180 tonnes, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) was hunted almost to extinction until it was given international protection in 1966.Estimates of this species' population today vary widely. A 2002 Canadian study put the global numbers at between 5,000 and 12,000.Before large-scale whale hunting, there may have been more than a quarter of a million of the giant mammals.

Stranded Whale Dies; Calf Euthanized

A whale that was stranded in shallow waters off Hollywood Beach Monday afternoon has died, and animal experts euthanized its calf.The whales were spotted in the water off the coast between Michigan and Johnson Streets.Photos: SlideshowVideo The Marine Animal Rescue Society sent animal specialists to help the mammals, which they believed to be a mother and her calf.Beachgoers rushed into the water to help the mother whale, which came ashore around noon. Hal Wallace, of Pembroke Pines, said he was forced to become a marine biologist for a few hours."She was acting pretty calm, and then when everybody was around him and he was on shore, he didn't want to breathe. So I told everyone, 'Let's just let him swim away from shore,' and he started moving on his own," Wallace told Local 10's Roger Lohse.A few blocks down the beach, the beaked whale calf wandered in the shallow water, looking for its mother after the two apparently became separated. Beachgoers were excited by the encounter with wildlife, but rescue workers were concerned."They usually come ashore for a reason. They're here because they're not well. It's their instinct to come to the beach when they're in that situation," said Blair Mays of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.Biologists said the animals were beaked whales, a rare deepwater species that scientists know little about. The mother was full-grown at about 16 feet long.Eventually, rescuers corralled the calf and took it to its mother, which had come ashore for a second time. The sick mother whale did what a mother of any species would do: It tried to break free of its rescuers to save its calf. The calf, too, was clearly eager to get close to its mother.But in a matter of minutes, the joy beachgoers felt when the two mammals reunited turned somber when the mother began to thrash violently in the water and then became still."A lot of times, whales go into something called death throes right before they die, and we were witness to that, unfortunately," Mays said.Beaked whales will not survive in captivity, and the calf was too young to fend for itself in the wild. Workers decided it would be most humane to put the calf down. Beachgoers were saddened by the way their encounter with the wild came to an end."It breaks my heart because I'm a mom and I know how moms feel about their babies," said beachgoer Phyllis Collins, who fought back tears as she spoke.The two mammals will be taken to the Marine Animal Rescue Society's laboratory on Key Biscayne, where biologists will perform necropsies in the hope of learning more about the rare species of whale.

Bonanza of blue whales spotted off O.C.

Newport Beach whale-watchers say large numbers of blue whales have been seen this week off the Orange County coast. At least 28 of the massive creatures, typically 65-70 feet in length, were seen during the week, including mothers and calves, said Thor Brisbin, manager at Davey's Locker Sport Fishing and Whale Watching.The whales are only 1 1/2 to two miles off the coast, mostly seen between the Newport Pier and Laguna Main Beach."We're definitely seeing a lot more than were seen last year," Brisbin said. "And last year was a very active year."Since the 1990s, more blue whales have been showing up off the California coast, including Orange County's — possibly part of a shift in their movement patterns that could signal a return to pre-whaling migration patterns, said John Calambokidis, a senior research biologist at Cascadia Research in Washington state.But in the past three to four years, there have been a larger number of blue whales off Southern California from Los Angeles southward, while fewer have been seen elsewhere on the California coast.Brisbin said he thought the blue whales were part of a general increase in activity for marine life off the coast. The whale watching cruises also are encountering many dolphins."It seems like kind of an influx of sea life, a whole food chain thing going on out there," he said. "Risso's (dolphins) feeding on giant squid, giant squid and all the other fish feeding on krill and bait fish. It's just a real dynamic environment right now."OCRegister Pat Brennan, green living, environment editor

Blue Whale Discovered Singing In New York Coastal Waters

For the very first time in New York coastal waters, the voices of singing blue whales have been positively identified. Acoustic experts at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) confirmed that the voice of a singing blue whale was tracked about 70 miles off of Long Island and New York City on Jan. 10-11, 2009, as the whale swam slowly from east to west. At the same time, a second blue whale was heard singing offshore in the far distance.

“These endangered blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on this planet, and their voices can travel across an ocean. It’s just amazing to hear one singing out there on New York’s ocean stage only tens of miles from Carnegie Hall and Broadway!” said Christopher Clark, director of Cornell’s BRP. “This opens a whole new universe of opportunities for all of us to learn more about and appreciate these species and the vitality of New York’s marine environment.”
New York State’s DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis added, “This is a very important moment in the environmental history of New York State. Blue whales were almost hunted to extinction by the middle of the 20th Century, and the fact that now we're finding them migrating not far off our shores is truly remarkable. Although whaling no longer occurs in U.S. waters, whales still face numerous threats including vessel strikes and marine debris, and this latest finding will enable DEC and its partners to develop science-based management plans to protect these magnificent creatures.”
During 2008-2009, ten of Cornell’s acoustic recorders were deployed about 13 miles from the New York Harbor entrance and off the shores of Fire Island to study the acoustic environment of New York waters and examine whether noises, including shipping traffic, are affecting the whales. By knowing the whales’ seasonal presence, New York state policymakers can make critical conservation decisions to help protect blue whales by developing management plans to avoid ship collisions with whales and reduce noises that interfere with their communications.
The acoustic monitoring was initiated from March through mid-May of 2008 to record the northward migration of right whales from their calving grounds off the Florida eastern coast to their feeding grounds off Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Cornell scientists and DEC are able to monitor and provide specific data on the species that are detected, including when and where they occur in New York waters throughout the year.
Adapted from materials provided by Cornell University.

Rare Blue Whale found dead on New Zealand beach

The carcass of a rare Blue Whale washed ashore in southern New Zealand after it apparently died of old age, a marine expert said Thursday.The body — with bite wounds and its tail chewed off — already had been attacked by scavengers ahead of the rare stranding on New Zealand's South Island, Te Papa National Museum expert Anton van Helden told National Radio."It's ... probably the biggest recorded to have come ashore on the New Zealand coast," he said.Fewer than 2,000 Blue Whales — the largest mammals known to have lived — remain from a population of 200,000 in 1900.A local fisherman found the massive 88-foot (27 meter) carcass south of Cape Farewell."It's the biggest one (whale) I have seen," Abalone fisherman Philip Walker said. "It was huge."He said most of the tail had been chewed off, and the body had bites that Department of Conservation staff said were likely from great white sharks.The department will take tissue samples for a whale database at Auckland University, van Helden said.But he said the carcass will be left to rot, as it washed up in a place too inaccessible for its removal.

Blue whales returning to former Alaska waters

Blue whales are returning to Alaska in search of food and could be re-establishing an old migration route several decades after they were nearly wiped out by commercial whalers, scientists say.The endangered whales, possibly the largest animals ever to live on Earth, have yet to recover from the worldwide slaughter that eliminated 99 percent of their number, according to the American Cetacean Society. The hunting peaked in 1931 with more than 29,000 animals killed in one season.The animals used to cruise from Mexico and Southern California to Alaska, but they had mostly vanished from Alaskan waters.But several sightings of California whales in recent years off the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia suggest that the massive animals are expanding north again in search of tiny shrimp-like krill to eat, scientists contend in a recent article published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.Blue whales can grow up to 100 feet long and typically eat 4 tons of krill a day during the summer.Researchers got an inkling of the trend in 2004 during a humpback whale survey in the Gulf of Alaska, said Jay Barlow, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Three blue whales were spotted in the Gulf of Alaska."No one had seen blue whales in these waters since the end of whaling," Barlow said.A total of six whales were spotted in Alaska waters in 2004. The other three were in the Aleutian Islands in far western Alaska, but those belonged to the western Pacific group nearer to Russia.Researchers compared photographs of the six whales with those in a photo identification catalog dating back to the mid-1980s. Positive matches were made by looking at the distinctive pigmentation of the skin on the whale's back and the shape of its dorsal fin.One of the Gulf of Alaska whales matched a California whale. That whale had been seen five times in 1995 and 1998 near the Santa Barbara Channel off southern California.After the 2004 sightings, John Calambokidis, a research biologist at Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Wash., who works with NOAA and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said one or two blue whales were spotted each year off British Columbia in 2005 and 2006.In 2007, researchers spotted five in one day, including a mother and calf, near the Queen Charlotte Islands off British Columbia. Three more were spotted the next day.Calambokidis, who compiled the blue whale photo identification catalog, said before that there had been only a couple of blue whale sightings in that area in the past 50 years.Researchers eventually documented 15 blue whales off the coast of British Columbia and in the Gulf of Alaska that they believe are part of the California group of about 2,000 animals. Four were matched with photos in the catalog.Calambokidis said it appears blue whales are going farther north."We speculate that this represents the re-establishment of a traditional migration pattern for an eastern North Pacific blue whale population," the scientists say in the journal article written by Calambokidis, Barlow and others.Scientists aren't certain why blue whales are beginning to migrate again to the north. One theory is that ocean conditions have changed and pushed krill farther north. The changes are believed to be part of a normal shift in ocean temperature that occurs every decade or so. There were an estimated 350,000 blue whales before whalers hunted them to near-extinction in the 20th century. The International Whaling Commission banned hunting of blue whales in 1966, but recovery has been slow. According to the American Cetacean Society, there are an estimated 8,000 to 14,000 blue whales. The biggest number is off the California coast. Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, said he suspects that what researchers are seeing now has been the case all along. "When the food dries up, these animals wander over enormous ranges," he said. He thinks the migration is getting noticed now because there are more blue whales and more effort is being made to find them. "I think what we are looking at now is what has always been," he said.

Rare Blue Whales on the Move

Blue whales, the world's largest animals, are on the move. These marine mammals migrated from California waters to areas off Canada and Alaska for the first time since commercial whaling ended in 1965, researchers announced recently.The researchers identified 15 blue whales that have appeared off the coast of British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska since 1997. Four of these whales were recognized as ones that were also sighted off California shores (in Santa Barbara Channel and at Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco), suggesting that the whales are returning to an old migration pattern between the coasts. Before commercial whaling began in the early 1900s, blue whales were found extensively throughout the North Pacific and California waters. But from the 1920s to the 1960s, whaling severely reduced the whale populations. Blue whales never recovered in the northern Pacific, making sightings in this area rare. However, much larger groups of whales have been observed close to California since the 1970s. The scientists had previously thought that the California population was separate from the population that had historically resided in north Pacific waters. But the current study indicates that whales off the coast of British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska are likely part of the California population. To identify the blue whales, the researchers looked at photographs of the cetaceans taken in the North Pacific Ocean and compared them with a library of blue whale pictures taken along the West Cost of the United States and southern Pacific. The scientists matched the whales by looking at their skin pigmentation patterns and dorsal fin shape. The researchers are not sure why the whales are shifting their migration patterns, but they speculate that the whales may be following their food. Changes in ocean conditions may have alerted the availability of krill, the whale's main food source, and moved it farther north.Blue whales are the largest animals ever know to have existed on the planet, and they can grow to lengths of 100 feet and weigh more than 330,000 pounds. There are only an estimated 5,000 to 12,000 of these creatures remaining today, and they are currently considered endangered by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Blue whales, due soon off SoCal, might be rediscovering historic territory

Blue whales, due soon off SoCal, might be rediscovering historic territoryMarine mammal enthusiasts in the San Pedro and Santa Barbara channels are encountering sporadic humpback whales and anticipate the arrival of blue whales, which generally arrive in late spring and linger through the summer.Southern California whale lovers are thrilled to have the world's largest creature in their midst, albeit seasonally, and most will be pleased to learn there's good news regarding an endangered species once hunted to the brink of extinction: Blue whales appear to be reestablishing historic migration routes beyond California to the Pacific Northwest and even the Gulf of Alaska.The journal Marine Mammal Science cites 15 cases in which blue whales were seen off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska. The research, by several groups, marks the first known migration of blue whales off California to the northern areas since the end of commercial whaling in 1965. (Blue whales migrate to and from California from a vast offshore region beyond Costa Rica.)Four of the 15 whales were identified as animals previously observed off California, suggesting a reestablishment of the great leviathans' historical migration pattern. That's good news, to be sure, but count me among those hoping enough of the 2,000 or so West Coast blues will continue to linger at least long enough for SoCal whale-watchers to get a few good looks.-- Pete ThomasPhoto by Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

Blue Whales Re-establishing Former Migration Patterns

The planet's largest animal may be returning to pre-whaling feeding grounds. Scientists have documented the first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to areas off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska since the end of commercial whaling in 1965.In the scientific journal Marine Mammal Science, researchers from Cascadia Research Collective in Washington state, NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in California, and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans identified 15 separate cases where blue whales were seen off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska. Four of the whales were identified as animals previously observed off the coast of California, suggesting a re-establishment of a historical migration pattern.Researchers made this identification by comparing photographs of blue whales taken in the north Pacific Ocean since 1997 with a library of nearly two thousand photographs of blue whales off the West Coast. A positive match was determined based on pigmentation patterns in skin color and shape of the dorsal fin.Blue whales were severely depleted during commercial whaling activities during the early 1900's in the north Pacific and along the West Coast as far south as Baja California.Formerly large populations of blue whales in the north Pacific never rebounded after commercial whaling ended while those animals off southern California have apparently fared much better.Scientists are still not certain exactly why blue whales are now beginning to migrate from southern California to the north Pacific Ocean although changing ocean conditions may have shifted their primary food source of krill further north.Blue whales are thought to be the largest animal ever to have existed on earth, reaching lengths of nearly 100 feet. They were nearly hunted to extinction throughout the world and are currently listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and as endangered on the red list of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. There are an estimated 5,000 to 12,000 animals remaining today, with the largest population of approximately 2,000 off the U.S. West Coast.NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service.

Blue whales return to coast

After avoiding B.C.'s coast for decades, blue whales are returning to our waters to feed in the areas where they were once hunted to near extinction.Scientists hoped the recent sightings meant an increase in the population of the highly endangered whales, but an article to be published this month by the U.S. Marine Mammal Science journal suggests the whales have migrated north from California, following the tiny shrimp on which they feed.It's a pattern the massive whales might have followed for decades, chasing krill that move with the 20 or 30-year cycle of cool ocean water."It's good news to see these whales back in our waters," said John Ford, co-author of the article and a whale researcher with the federal fisheries and oceans department."It's encouraging that the whales are out there using this habitat. Now we have to find out what areas are important to them and then try to protect them."Accidental collisions with ships pose the biggest threat to blue whales, he said.In August 2007, Ford was part of survey team that spotted five blue whales off the Queen Charlotte Islands. Researchers believe about 2,000 of the sleek, steel-grey whales live off the west coast, between Alaska and Mexico. Worldwide, there are only about 10,000 blue whales.

Blue whales follow food, increase sightings in B.C.

They are the behemoths of the deep, the largest mammal on the face of the earth and, until now, a rare sighting off the coast of British Columbia. But the blue whales, which can be the length of two school buses and weigh 200 tonnes, are once again returning to where they were slaughtered to near extinction in the last century. Research that will soon be published in the journal Marine Mammal Science shows the whales are increasingly being spotted off the coasts of British Columbia, Alaska and Mexico's Baja. Experts say the massive mammals are following the krill, the tiny shrimp that are its main source of food, as they follow a cool water phenomena known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The El Nino-like pattern of Pacific Ocean climate changes is bringing the krill, and the whales along with them, both north to British Columbia and Alaska and south to Mexico, thousands of kilometres away from their usual home off the California coast. The report was co-authored by John Calambokidis, of the fisheries science centre Cascadia Research in Washington State, and John Ford, with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "We think it's the fact that blue whales are highly-specialized feeders and that they feed only on krill and it looks like there are variations and conditions that kind of create better areas for feeding in different cycles," Calambokidis said. "And we show how some of these shifts seem to match the timing of shifts in this Pacific Decadal Oscillation. " Once thought to number about 300,000, its believed there are only about 10,000 blue whales left, more than 40 years after commercial whaling was stopped. One census of the blue whales spotted in shipping lanes says the population is dwindling, but Calambokidis believes the whales have just moved on and aren't being spotted by the ships. He said about 2,000 blue whales ply the waters between Alaska and Central America. Over more than two decades of study, Calambokidis has documented distinctive features of the whales off the California coast. Ford said "mug shots" confirmed the same whales being spotted up and down the coast are those same whales. Ford began offshore surveys off the B.C. coast in 2002 and said when they started looking the blue whales were there. "Whether they just weren't there in the past or whether they were there and nobody was out looking at them to document it is a little uncertain. We do know, from the many thousands of kilometres that we surveyed, that they're very scarce off our coast." They're labelled as endangered under the Canadian Species At Risk Act. Blue whales still haven't recovered from commercial whaling like the grey and humpback whales, and experts can't say why. Part of the problem is very little is known about the world's largest creature. Ford said another two-week survey will be conducted again this July off the West Coast and they hope to find more clues to help the whales thrive. "If there's such a thing as critical habitat that might be needed for their recovery so that those habitats can be protected from threats," Ford said. "It's finding out where and how many there are and how well they're doing, if they're increasing their numbers, what their habitat use patterns are like." Few people have been lucky enough to see a blue whale in person, which Ford said is "incredibly impressive." Calambokidis agreed that it was impossible to describe how large the whales really are until you're up close and personal. "When you get that close, you get a new appreciation."

Groups to monitor whales in Beaufort Sea

Endangered humpback and fin whales swam hundreds of miles north of their usual habitat this summer in what environmentalists say is another sign of the effects of global warming and the shifting Arctic ecosystem. Humpbacks were spotted over the summer in the Beaufort Sea east of Barrow, the northernmost community in the United States, and last year in the Chukchi Sea, west of the Beaufort and north of the Bering Strait, said Robin Cacy, a spokeswoman for the federal Minerals Management Service.The agency oversees lease sales for offshore petroleum drilling in federal waters, including sales scheduled for 2008 in the Chukchi Sea and 2009 in the Beaufort Sea.Some of the whales were spotted by observers involved with the oil industry, others by observers involved with barge traffic.Cacy also said fin whales were detected this summer by acoustic monitoring in the Chukchi Sea, more than 300 miles north of their normal range. Both humpback and fin whales normally stay south of the Bering Strait in Alaska waters.Environmental groups are calling for more study of the endangered animals' habits before industrial activity is allowed to expand off Alaska's northern shores.No one was expecting humpbacks near the activity connected to Outer Continental Shelf lease sales, said Brad Smith, a protective resources biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service."We didn't anticipate that they'd been encountered in any of the OCS exploration activity that we're doing this year," Smith said.Minerals service spokesman Gary Strasburg said a sighting of an endangered species in a new area would not mean an immediate change in how the agency regulates petroleum exploration. It will take more time to determine whether the presence of humpbacks is a trend, and if so, for the agency determine the appropriate response, he said.Brendan Cummings, ocean programs director for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said the humpback sightings may indicate a recovering population expanding its range — or desperate animals in search of food.Deborah Williams, a former Department of Interior special assistant for Alaska and now an advocate for finding solutions to climate change, said the presence of humpback and fin whales so far north has significant implications."We now have even more compelling reasons to protect the Arctic Ocean and the species dramatically affected by climate change," she said.Other species that use the Chukchi Sea are behaving differently because of climate change, Cummings said. He cited gray whales seeking new feeding areas, and walrus congregating on Alaska's northwest shore this summer instead of on pack ice that had receded far beyond the continental shelf."It looks like the populations are suffering from it," he said. "All signs point to global warming. That would be the first suspect of why the whales are there."Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in December proposed listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Environmental groups had filed a petition stating that polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century because their sea ice habitat is melting away due to global warming. A final listing decision is due in January.Sheela McLean, spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service in Juneau, said humpbacks range widely and have been previously spotted on the Russian part of the Chukchi Sea. However, humpbacks are not usually associated with pack ice, so sightings farther north might be shifts in distribution caused by climate change, she said.This year was a record low year for pack ice. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder in September recorded 1.65 million square miles of sea ice. That's 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000.Permits issued in 2007 for exposure of marine mammals to noise from seismic activities in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas covered neither humpback nor fin whales, said Smith, the fisheries service biologist. He added, however, that whales including grays and bowheads are covered, and that adding the other species might not increase the conditions placed on exploration. The sensitivity of bowhead whales, which remain close to sea ice and are hunted in limited numbers by Eskimo whalers, is considered equal to or greater than the sensitivity of humpbacks, Smith said. Cummings does not agree with that assessment of humpbacks — or with the government's protective measures in general. "These are animals that are entirely dependent on sound," he said of humpbacks. Permits issued don't take into account the federal government's own research indicating how easily whales can be deflected from their intended paths, Cummings said. The noise could have consequences for whales' feeding behavior, especially mothers migrating with their young. "We don't believe that permits issued to date in the Beaufort Sea comply with the spirit or the letter of the Marine Mammal Protection Act or the Endangered Species Act," Cummings said. Full-grown humpback whales average more than 40 feet long and weigh 25 to 35 tons. Fin whales are longer and more slender, growing to nearly 88 feet — second only to blue whales.

Dead whale washes back to California shore

Getting rid of a dead blue whale is proving no easy feat. More than a week after a 70-foot whale carcass was hauled out to sea, the creature's putrid remains washed back to shore. The whale was initially found last month floating in the Santa Barbara Channel. Scientists pulled it ashore to test the remains and establish how it died. On Sept. 22, after declaring the rare sea giant died in a collision with a ship, they towed the carcass about 10 miles out to sea.But on Sunday, the dead whale washed onto Broad Beach in Malibu. Lifeguards quickly towed the stinking remains back into the ocean, but were concerned the carcass could wash ashore again."We just wish the darned thing would sink," wildlife biologist Joe Cordaro said.Oils from the whale spread about a mile up and down the coast, Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Dan Atkins said. The whale was one of at least three to have died off the coast of Southern California in recent weeks.Blue whales are listed as a federally endangered species.

Chilean president awards marine centre for blue whale conservation

Valdivia, Chile - Blue whale conservation in Chile has received a boost with
a seal of approval from the country's president.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelete conferred the Bicentennial Seal - a
national award recognizing initiatives that have made a significant
contribution to Chile's development as it approaches its Bicentennial in
2010 - to the WWF-supported Blue Whale Centre for its work in the Gulf of
Corcovado.

"This award proves that protecting our ecosystems and flagship species such
as the blue whale is a matter of interest not only for scientists and
environmentalist, but for Chile as a whole," said Dr Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete,
Director of the Blue Whale Centre.

"It is our obligation to protect and develop the mechanisms to conserve our
natural heritage."

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