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 ...
Isn’t Maryland a tropical paradise now due to global warming? Water temps should be particularly pleasing. Your brother is obviously wrong.
He didn’t get the memo
Wrong Adams. :)
So long and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all, but oh dear
You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that grow around you
So long, so long and thanks for all the fish
Your world’s about to be destroyed
There’s no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve around you
Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long and thanks for all the fish
If I had just one last wish
I would like a tasty fish
If we could just change one thing
We would all have learned to sing
Come one and all
Man and mammal
Side by side
In life’s great gene pool
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long
So long, so long and thanks for all the fish
“The tuna doesn’t taste as good as it used to.”
Oops. I was mistaking Bewitched with Flipper. Flipper only lasted 88 episodes until 09/01/1968. Since the bottlenose dolphin has a lifespan of less than 30 years, I can safely say that Flipper only exists in reruns...
Same place all the salmon went . . .
They went through a lot of dolphins making that show. They kept dying because they didn’t know how to care for them.
Miami!
You beat me to it! LOL.
Psst.....there’s a dolphin....in my backyard.
Are they dangerous? Should I just run up and grab it?
Didn’t he catch their farewell song?
I can tell you that the Pacific Salmon that Americans spend millions on in habitat protection, dam ameliorization, etc are being scooped out of the ocean illegally by Russian, Japanese, Chinese and other Asian trawlers.
Eventually, envirowhacko socialists will force the dams to be remove and we can all live in darkness (and still no salmon).
The question that now needs to be asked is how do the tuna/dolphin/other fish determine in which direction to move? North, south, east, west, etc.........
Mike
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