Free Republic

A newly discovered fossil of a four-legged whale in Peru sheds new light on the evolution of whales and their journey across the oceans. ***************************************************************** A fascinating new discovery has been made off the coast of Peru, where paleontologists have unearthed the remains of a previously unknown four-legged whale species. This remarkable find, which was made about 42.6 million years ago during the middle Eocene, is shedding new light on the evolutionary transition of whales from land-dwelling mammals to the aquatic giants we recognize today. As reported in Current Biology, the whale species, named Peregocetus pacificus, was found in the...

HEARTSTOPPING footage shows the moment two giant whales move in to protect a diver from a bloodthirsty shark. Benoît Girodeau was diving off the coast of Mauritius when he was approached by an oceanic whitetip shark - a species known for its aggression. VIDEO AT LINK..................... The whales fiercely defended the terrified diver from the sharkCredit: Caters The two sperm whales got in between Benoit Girodeau and the sharkCredit: Caters The reggae-dancehall artist known as Natty Gong shared underwater footage of the shocking moment he was circled by two 45-tonne sperm whales who chased off the "curious" shark. He shared...

Multiple reports over the weekend indicated that President-elect Donald Trump is promising near-immediate action to shut down offshore wind farm projects throughout the Northeast United States, which were widely unpopular with locals who feared the industrialization of their natural shorelines and environmental destruction. The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden had prioritized funding and support for offshore wind projects during its four years in power, including major wind farm subsidies in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” and relying on leftist governors in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts to back the projects. The projects attracted loud opposition from local tourism...

Sperm whales communicate with each other using rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas. It was previously thought that sperm whales had just 21 coda types. However, after studying almost 9,000 recordings, the Ceti researchers identified 156 distinct codas. They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words. Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the "fine-grain changes" in vocalisations the AI identified. Each coda consists of between...

Marine biologists are taking a closer look after the remains of a young minke whale washed ashore in New Jersey Friday — less than 24 hours after another dead whale was found floating off Staten Island. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard spotted a 16- to 18-foot-long whale “floating in the Lower Bay/Raritan Bay area.” A tracking tag was planted on the carcass, which federal investigators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipate will land near Sandy Hook, NJ, within days. Once ashore, the deceased animal will be examined.

Ayacht navigating the Strait of Gibraltar recently sank after a pod of orcas launched a dramatic attack, marking the latest incident in a series of troubling encounters with these killer whales. Robert Powell, the British yachtsman affected, said that "these (orcas) were not playing" and described the attack as "well-organized and coordinated" in a social media post. Powell and two other occupants of the yacht, called Bonhomie William, had to be rescued by Spanish coastguards on Wednesday 24 after orcas disabled the vessel's steering and subjected it to severe buffeting. However, Volker Deecke, a professor of wildlife conservation at the...

Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. ... they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it... “Their sole intention was to sink the boat ... The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits .. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves. ... The pod of five first focused on the rudder,...

A recent study on beaked whales showed that even the reclusive giants are negatively affected by a host of anthropogenic activities. What's happening? The paper, published in Royal Society Open Science in April, documented 14 human-caused threats to the cetaceans, which Phys.org dubbed "one of the least encountered mammals." Climate change, including ocean acidification and marine heatwaves; plastic pollution; and whaling were among the dangers categorized as serious, intermediate, moderate, or unknown. The study of "gray literature" was led by Laura Feyrer, a research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Military sonar was listed as a serious threat to beaked...

A sailing vessel off Gibraltar has become the first this year to be sunk by orcas that have been targeting boats in the area since 2020. Crew members of the Alboran Cognac boat called rescue services for help around 9am on Sunday, saying that their ship had been damaged by orcas 14 miles from Cape Spartel, at the southern entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, in Moroccan waters. The sailors said they had felt hits on the hull, before their rudder was damaged and they noticed a leak threatening to sink their 50ft boat, local outlet El Pais reports. They...

Rare cases of exploding whales from the inside out have been captured in terrifying videos in recent years. Dead whales are not just a pongy nuisance, but a threat to life and limb due to their known propensity to explode with force. In 2021 a dead whale on the California coast near Tomales Bay was filmed right before it exploded. Warning: Graphic Video Whale Explodes! As the blood circulation and respiration stop in a dead whale, it leads to the decomposition of cells and tissues by the microbes already present in the body, which leads to the further proliferation of...

A federal lawsuit pits green energy against saving endangered whales, as three conservative groups are suing the Biden administration to stop what they say would be the largest wind energy project in the world. The Virginia Offshore Wind project could cause significant harm to the North Atlantic right whale, according to the 61-page complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia filed by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the Heartland Institute and the National Legal and Policy Center against federal agencies as well as Dominion Energy. The lawsuit names the Interior Department, the Commerce Department, the...

* It's the first photographed instance of humpback whale mating behavior * Both whales were male, one healthy and one in poor condition * Many species of animals are known to engage in homosexual behavior ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (NewsNation) — Scientists captured images of humpback whales mating for the first time ever and discovered the two whales in question were both males. The photographs, published in “Marine Mammal Science,” are unique because copulation between humpback whales has never been photographed during decades of research on the species. The animals were spotted off the coast of Hawaii by two photographers on a private...

A Native American tribe in Washington state has been allowed to once again hunt gray whales - following a decades-long effort to resume the ancient practice. The tradition has existed for more than 2,000 years, though the last time the tribe was able to hunt a member of the species was in 1999. That hunt was allowed after a more than 70 year-stop during a rebound in the gray whale population, and saw Makah whalers successfully hunt a gray whale in the waters off the Olympic Peninsula.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Traveling on a different trajectory, its twin, Voyager 2, entered interstellar space in 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NASA’s Voyager mission team is addressing challenges to ensure prolonged functionality of the two spacecraft. They’re mitigating thruster fuel residue issues and implementing a software patch to rectify a previous Voyager 1 glitch. The efforts should help extend the lifetimes of the agency’s interstellar explorers. Engineers for NASA’s Voyager mission are taking steps to help make sure both spacecraft,...

Former President Donald Trump said recently that "windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before."(Illustration by The Epoch Times)His comments, made at a campaign rally in South Carolina, were quickly ground through the fact-checking mills of legacy media outlets such as The Guardian and the BBC."They’re washing up ashore. I saw it this weekend, three of them came up. You wouldn’t see it once a year. Now they’re coming up on a weekly basis," President Trump said.The Guardian called his allegation a "lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to...

Whales, dolphins and seals living in U.S. waters face major threats from warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice volumes associated with climate change, according to a first-of-its-kind assessment. Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined more than 100 stocks of American marine mammal species and found more than 70% of those stocks are vulnerable to threats, such as loss of habitat and food, due to the consequences of warming waters. The impacts also include loss of dissolved oxygen and changes to ocean chemistry. The scientists found large whales such as humpbacks and North Atlantic...

That's how The Science™ works, boys and girls. Respect it, or be made to answer to the Department of Homeland Security, bigot.If you live on the East Coast of the U.S., chances are you've seen and/or heard tell of the increasing-in-frequency local news reports on the dead-whale-washing-up-on-shore phenomenon.Via Michael Shellenberger:"A new documentary, 'Thrown To The Wind,' by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz, proves that the US government officials have been lying. The full film, which is at the bottom of this article, documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows...

In a less than 24-hour span this weekend, two more dead whales have been discovered off the northern Atlantic coast of the U.S., and pro-cetacean activists are blaming Joe Biden’s offshore wind initiative. One whale washed up on Rockaway Beach in New York, while the other was filmed floating off of Chatham, Mass. While the connection between whale fatalities and offshore wind power development hasn’t been rigorously studied, some environmentalists believe that loud sonar mapping, high boat traffic, and other disturbances to whales’ natural habitat are contributing to the surge in deaths. ... New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) said...

The race is on to try and save 46 pilot whales stranded on a West Australian beach after 51 died overnight. An image showed the mammals huddling in the shape of a heart near the shore before the mass stranding on Cheynes Beach in southern Western Australia on Tuesday, making international headlines. Authorities on Wednesday morning said volunteers would help to get the surviving whales back out to deeper water throughout the day. The public has been asked to stay away from the popular tourist spot.

Team JAJO had some special –– and terrifying –– visitors while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar as part of the 2023 Ocean Race on Thursday. A group of orcas, otherwise known as killer whales, surrounded the Dutch crew’s yacht, first circling the boat and then ramming into it. “This was a scary moment,” Jelmer van Beek, Team JAJO skipper, said, according to the Associated Press. “Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team.” Some of Team JAJO’s crew banged...