Posted on 08/22/2007 1:31:26 PM PDT by oblomov
Sightings by marine scientists of dolphins in the north Atlantic's Bay of Biscay have dropped off by 80 percent compared to the same period in 2006, a wildlife conservation group said Wednesday. The alarming drop in numbers of the Bay's three most common species of dolphin -- the striped, bottlenose and common -- can be attributed to one or both of two causes, Clive Martin, senior wildlife officer for the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme, told AFP.
"We know for a fact that by-catch is killing thousands of dolphins every year," he said, referring to commercial fishing operations in the bay, which is formed by the northern coast of Spain and the eastern French seaboard up to the tip of Brittany.
Martin singled out French "pair trawlers" that sweep the ocean with huge nets twice the size of a football pitch strung out between them as being especially lethal to the marine mammals.
"Dolphins are sometimes trapped hundreds at a time, and are asphyxiated" when they cannot come up for air, he said. Most dolphins typically replenish their lungs with fresh air every five minutes or so, he explained.
The second -- and probably more important -- reason that dolphins have disappeared is that there is simply very little left for them to eat.
"Anchovy fishing in the Bay of Biscay has progressively failed, and this year there is a complete ban by Spain, France and the United Kingdom on the fishing of anchovies," a principal food source for dolphins, Clive said.
He speculated that the roving sea mammals -- which swim in pods numbering in the dozens for bottlenose dolphins, and sometimes in the thousands for the common dolphin -- had moved west toward the mid-Atlantic looking for food.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Dang. Missed the Adams reference by *this* >< much! :-)
Eaten by all the polar bears who are now swimming the seas....
Perhaps the honeybees have spirited them away to save them from the nasty US Navy... /s
Dammit it was so easy no far using it in the comments
Where have all the dolphins gone?”
Kpax?
There have been here millions of years and have evolved off the planet.
Into lunch boxes all over the world.
Rove and Bush eat dolphin calves 3X a day?
...purely for their lib repellant properties.
The "tards" are the ping list members - not necessarily the subject of the thread.
WE HAVE PLENTY OF DOLPHINS HERE!..................PERHAPS THEY ARE ON VACATION!........
mmmmmm.......yummy dolphins.....I mean...uh, I have no idea where they went.
My brother enjoys deep sea fishing off the coast of Maryland. He mentioned to me that this year the water is especially cool and so there isn’t as many tuna as there normally is at this time of year. My guess is that the temperatures are also keeping the dolphins down south as well.
Lyrics for: Where Have All The dolphins Gone?
Where have all the dolphins gone
Long time passing
Where have all the dolphins gone
Long time ago
Where have all the dolphins gone
Young girls have picked them, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Where have all the young girls gone
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone
Gone for husbands, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Where have all the husbands gone
Long time passing
Where have all the husbands gone
Long time ago
Where have all the husbands gone
Gone for soldiers, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Where have all the soldiers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone
Gone to graveyards, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Where have all the graveyards gone
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone
Gone to dolphins, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Where have all the dolphins gone
Long time passing
Where have all the dolphins gone
Long time ago
Where have all the dolphins gone
Young girls have picked them, every one
Oh, when will they ever learn
Oh, when will they ever learn
Tastes like chicken
Every one!
Well, I don’t know about the rest of them but after 252 episodes, Flipper’s last television show ran on September 1, 1972.
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