Posted on 07/30/2017 9:32:58 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Ships are huge and loud, yet they seem to take whales by surprise.
When eight endangered North Atlantic right whales turned up dead in the ocean off Nova Scotia this past June, scientists scrambled to find out why. Early data shows several of the whales had blunt force trauma consistent with a ship strike, with data still pending on others.
Ship strikes are a major cause of injury or death for whales. But why do they happen at all? The ocean is vast, and huge ships don’t exactly travel at freeway speeds—there should be enough noise, movement, and warning for a whale to get out of the way, right? Why whales may remain in dangerous proximity to ships is tough to study, but over the years, some clues have begun to emerge.
One reason is that whales may not know ships are dangerous. After all, as the biggest animals in the ocean, whales may not understand that there are things in the ocean larger and more powerful than they are.
“It’s not something they’re evolved to deal with,” says John Calambokidis, a research biologist at Cascadia Research Collective in Washington State. “It’s also something there’s very little opportunity to learn from. It’s not like you can get struck two or three times and then you know you should avoid them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hakaimagazine.com ...
It’s those stinking Groupers.
They keep telling the whales, “No, go ahead, just ram that thing.”
Sounds like a good idea because it's similar to mine:o)
That has been proposed for areas around Boston Harbor.
I am not sure if proposed route and speed changes were
ever instituted to protect the right whales but many such
regulations were debated a few years ago.
I seem to see the same in din do nuffins too
SPERM Whales ?
Cascadia Research Collective???!!!
Not ‘Research Center’? The lefties are going all out changing our language.
Oh...too bad about those whales.
The whale is swimming along thinking,
“I’m on a course of 260 degrees moving at a speed of 7 knots and that big ship is on a course of 90 degrees moving at a speed of 20 knots which means our courses will intersect at ANCHOVIES!!!!! Look at all those delicious Anchovies!!!!! It’s lunch time! They look so (clunk).”
Whales think with their stomachs.
Whales are like those spandex bike riders who insist they have the right of way....
A Sperm Whale, at least that is what my Sonar Chief said it was from his song, chased us for twenty minutes. He broke off to catch a breath of air and was back with us thirty minutes later. We were doing “going home turns” at the time so he was really really fast.
Ships are not part of a whale’s food chain. They have few predators like Orcas and Great Whites, so they basically fear nothing in the ocean. A ship may as well be floating debris or an ice floe to a whale. It doesn’t register on their radar. Small boats seem to attract their curiosity but large ships I think just strike them as floating debris, and floating depris is not supposed to be moving at 15 knots or more.
“LOL. Does this post come with an interpreter?”
None needed.
He was was referring to Michael Obama, syn. whale.
Why do squirrels run in front of cars? Same thing.
Same in Grand Junction—a Mecca for incompetent cycling. In fact, the local cyclists behave much like whales. In the last two bike vs. car collisions I read about in local media, the bike was cruising on a sidewalk (unsafe) and sailed into a crosswalk (even more unsafe) into the path of a vehicle that had the right-of-way.
“Just like deer running in front of cars.”
Pretty mild stuff when it comes to whitetails.
I’ve seen them start running well behind a vehicle, sprint to overtake it, then cut sharply in front of the machine.
I'm a cyclist, and I hate those guys, too. They make life dangerous for all of us. Not wearing Spandex seems to help, though.
Maybe whales are not as smart as we think they are?
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