Good news for whale admirers: Iceland has shut down its whaling industry due to lack of profits. Only six minke whales were killed in June and none in July, the smallest harvest since the country resumed whaling in 2003. The scarcity of whales required the hunters to go farther offshore consequently costing more to operate. Iceland and Norway openly defy the international ban on whaling while Japan uses the thinly disguised "scientific research" exception to continuing its whaling activities. The EU threatened economic sanctions against Iceland in 2014 for continuing the hunt. Is it truly inexplicable that a giant male sperm whale rammed and sank the
Essex after witnessing the tortuous death of so many of his extended family at the hands of merciless humans?
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| credit: K. Balcomb |
News that adds to the mounting evidence of whale intelligence and sentience is a resident female member of the Puget Sound orca (
Orcinus orca) community, has carried her dead calf for eight days say observers.
[photo] The grieving mother is falling behind her J pod, but relatives are staying close to her and may be bringing her food. Tahlequah (J35) gave birth to the female calf on July 24th. It only lived for a half hour. Since its death, she has carried the infant by a fin or pushed the body through the water on her head. The twenty year old female is a breeder, and therefore essential to the pod's survival. Researchers have documented a decline in the number of resident orcas in the Puget Sound region. Morning for her offspring must be exhausting, since she has to dive deeply to retrieve the body if she looses her grip. Conservation advocates are attempting to keep gawkers at a respectful distance while they monitor the situation. The crisis with J35 comes as another member of J pod, J50, appears to be starving to death.
NOAA is mounting a rescue attempt to aid J50, a four year old female before it starves to death according to the
Seattle Times. The agency hopes to feed the orca with live chinook salmon dosed with medicine. J50 has lost about 20% of her body weight, and may be suffering from a serious infection. The Lummi Nation is helping to obtain a source of fresh fish that could be fed to the ailing whale from a sluice on a jet boat. A health assessment is planned which includes taking samples of blood, breath and scat.
The agency has successful track record intervening to save sick orcas. Springer, or A73, a young northern-resident orca whale, turned up in
Puget Sound near the Vashon ferry dock in 2002, malnourished, ailing and
orphaned. The agency captured her and rehabilitated her back to health in a cove enclosure near Manchester, Washington. Six weeks later, a healthy Springer was released back to the wild. She has thrived in the wild, bearing two calves as of last year. This tragic drama in Puget Sound should remind us that humans, as the planet's dominant animal, have a responsibility to respect and care for our fellow inhabitants, and should limit our predation and exploitation to only what can be sustained within natural limits.
