🚀 go-pugleaf

"Bill Mulcajhy" <rockaway2@hvi.net> wrote in message
news:tjajoc525js580@corp.supernews.com...
>
> If  we can put transponders on planes to avoid collisions, why not whales.
> There are only 300 right whales left before total extinction!!!  Bill
> Mulcahy
>
>
> Marine scientists alarmed over year's fourth right whale calf death
>
>
> By Theo Emery, Associated Press, 06/23/01
>
>
> BOSTON -- A baby North Atlantic right whale has been found dead off Long
> Island, N.Y., the fourth calf of the endangered species to perish this
year,
> and the second believed killed by a ship strike.
>
> The four deaths represent more than 10 percent of the record 30 right
whale
> births reported this year, and a 1 percent decline in the total right
whale
> population of about 300.
>
> "Every death is significant," said Scott Kraus, the New England Aquarium's
> director of research, who announced the death Saturday. "Right whales are
> currently in a crisis and we really have to look at developing a strong
plan
> for coexisting with right whales."
>
> A necropsy of the whale corpse, found Monday, indicated that the 6- to
> 7-month-old calf was slashed with propeller cuts from head to tail and its
> skull was crushed, apparently the result of a collision with a mid-sized
> boat, Kraus said.
>
> Officials have no information about the boat, Kraus said.
>
> Another death this year has also been attributed to a ship collision.
Causes
> of the other two deaths are undetermined, Kraus said.
>
> The death was reported even as a team of marine biologists planned a
> first-of-its-kind rescue of a distressed 50-ton adult right whale with
> fishing line embedded in its upper jaw.
>
> On Friday, a federal judge denied an environmental activist's request to
> stop the planned rescue, clearing the way for the operation that could
> involve sedating the whale.
>
> Of the 300 or so North Atlantic right whales remaining, about 70 are
> breeding females.
>
> The whales are vulnerable to often deadly ship collisions because their
> migration patterns closely follow East Coast fishing lanes, Kraus said. In
> addition, the whales move slowly and may be hard of hearing.
>
Could actually be that they are 'not' hard of hearing, but their 'sonar'
communication functions have been 'scrambled' or rendered ' disfunctional'
because of the Military's testing with great blast of sound through the
oceans?

I bet it is!

> Teri Frady, spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said
> marine officials hope to augment an existing plan to reduce whale deaths
> with new technologies, such as sonar that would allow boats to detect
whales
> on the surface and change course.
>
> "This is a problem we've been wrestling with in a systematic way for some
> time now, and we have been making some progress," she said.
>
> The 30 calves born this year delighted marine scientists after several
years
> of few calf sightings. Births fell from 22 in 1996 to 18 in 1997. In 1998,
> only five calves were reported. Last year, just one was sighted.
>
> Kraus said scientists can't explain why births declined so sharply before
> this year, and hypothesized that disease, famine or natural birth cycles
> could be the reason.
>
> "It's very worrisome," he said. "No one has any answers."
>
>
>
>
>
>

<snip>
> On Friday, a federal judge denied an environmental activist's request to
> stop the planned rescue, clearing the way for the operation that could
> involve sedating the whale.
</snip>

What I want to know is, why would the environmental activists wish to stop the rescue operation?

I would also like to know how this issue can possibly be on-topic to the various news groups it is
posted in.

"JStrickland" <jdoe@ez2.net> wrote in message
news:tjf7v0gkv842a3@corp.supernews.com...
> <snip>
> > On Friday, a federal judge denied an environmental activist's request to
> > stop the planned rescue, clearing the way for the operation that could
> > involve sedating the whale.

> What I want to know is, why would the environmental activists wish to stop
the rescue operation?
>

I'm all for sedating the whale to save it.

> I would also like to know how this issue can possibly be on-topic to the
various news groups it is
> posted in.

I don't know, I thought an environmental issue posted on environmental
newsgroups was on
topic. I guess I was wrong.

Bill Mulcahy, editor of the Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter
http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm

I am in favor of sedating and attempting to save the animal also. I am confused by the part where
the "judge denied an environmental activist's request to stop the planned rescue ..." I read this to
mean that an enviro group was opposed to the planned rescue, but the judge allowed the rescue to to
go forward. What could they be opposed to here?

I guess I don't see this as an enviro issue as much as an animal rights issue, which makes it
on-topic for the audubon society group, however I always thought they were concerned with birds
specifically, and land animals in general. This could very well be on topic for all of these groups,
and I just don't get it.

My real question is what the enviro groups could have against the rescue plan. The other question
was more rhetorical, and really it was a snide remark that I probably should not have made.




"Bill Mulcahy" <rockaway2@hvi.net> wrote in message news:tji54pb1lm0f45@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "JStrickland" <jdoe@ez2.net> wrote in message
> news:tjf7v0gkv842a3@corp.supernews.com...
> > <snip>
> > > On Friday, a federal judge denied an environmental activist's request to
> > > stop the planned rescue, clearing the way for the operation that could
> > > involve sedating the whale.
>
> > What I want to know is, why would the environmental activists wish to stop
> the rescue operation?
> >
>
> I'm all for sedating the whale to save it.
>
> > I would also like to know how this issue can possibly be on-topic to the
> various news groups it is
> > posted in.
>
> I don't know, I thought an environmental issue posted on environmental
> newsgroups was on
> topic. I guess I was wrong.
>
> Bill Mulcahy, editor of the Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter
> http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm
>
>

"Bill Mulcajhy" <rockaway2@hvi.net> wrote in message
news:tjajoc525js580@corp.supernews.com...
>
> If  we can put transponders on planes to avoid collisions, why not whales.
> There are only 300 right whales left before total extinction!!!  Bill
> Mulcahy

OK, Bill. Climb into the fuselage and set up
the damn thing. We'll watch you from the safety
of the Land Rover and talk about Mutual of
Omaha Insurance...

Regards,

Marlin Perkins

In article <9huctg$qrv$2@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>, 
rothwell@ix.netcom.com says...
> 
> "Bill Mulcajhy" <rockaway2@hvi.net> wrote in message
> news:tjajoc525js580@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> > If  we can put transponders on planes to avoid collisions, why not whales.
> > There are only 300 right whales left before total extinction!!!  Bill
> > Mulcahy
> 
> OK, Bill. Climb into the fuselage and set up
> the damn thing. We'll watch you from the safety
> of the Land Rover and talk about Mutual of
> Omaha Insurance...
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Marlin Perkins

One article I read recently about the right whales (in the Boston Globe
I think, about 2-3 weeks ago), mentioned that scientists don't know
much about right whales' migration habits, etc. because if they attach
radio transponders (the usual way of tracking large animals in the 
wild), the transponders don't stay attached very long.

I don't know if this is because they annoy the whales who then actively
try to remove them or if there is no good place to loop a harness around
right whales or if they surgically implant them and the whales reject
them.

I think you would have the same problems trying to attach, for instance,
a sonar responder that would let ships know there were whales near by.

There are so few right whales left, that the easiest method might be to
track them individually and force ships to sail around the areas where
the whales currently are.  Again, the problem is finding them.

-- 
John

"John Santos" <john.santos@post.harvard.edu> wrote in message > One article
I read recently about the right whales (in the Boston Globe

>if they attach
> radio transponders (the usual way of tracking large animals in the
> wild), the transponders don't stay attached very long.

I'm sure the EPA could figure a way to make a device that could be implanted
in a multi-ton whale that would stay on and not hurt them.

But with President Polluter in power, the EPA probably spends their time
figuring
ways to allow oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

--
Bill Mulcahy, editor of the Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter
http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm