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 ...
That's it then. Let's all head down to the pub for one last brew before the earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route!
Obviously the dolphins had not been properly “schooled” in socialism and the welfare state which says that they are victims, stay put no matter what, and the gov’t will provide free housing, food, med. care, etc. Since the anchovies #’s are down, good conservative dolphins will move on to greener pastures.
And no, they are not in the cans of tuna. Dolphins are way to big to fit in those little cans. :) sarc/off
Umm...
Last Sunday my wife, my son, and I went to the beach (Seal Beach CA)... The dolphins were jumping out in the ocean, and the idiots swimming in the water were applauding them like they were watching a show at Sea World...
Plenty of those rascals in the Pacific... I mean dolphins are rascals... People are idiots...
And they are way too smart to get caught in those nets.........
all the dolphins are being secretely converted into weapons for the Bush administration to use in a bogus war to take over the world’s oil fiel....argh they’re coming! someone......help.....mmmmeeeeeeeee........
The Rapture. Looks like we didn’t make the cut.
Tuna should be farm raised and only fed mayonnaise so they can be slaughtered into tuna salad.
didn't Salmon Dave do that song, "Sole Man?"
ba da bing.
Yup ! the Bay of Biscay is a prime Tuna fishing area.
And the rest of the NFL has yet to match.
“Long time passing...”
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