Will Kristján Loftsson's whaling vessels head back whaling this summer? Are they ready for sea? #whaling #Iceland 🐳🌍🦑

Interesting piece by Prof Karen Stockin in @aunz.theconversation.com on the reaction to Timmy the whale's plight. What would be most useful if the empathy shown by so many could be focused on addressing the impact that created his problems in the first place - entanglement in fishing gear 🐳🌍🦑🧪

Wait until Emma Beddington learns that US military & former military sign off emails with v/r Abbreviation for Very Respectfully Irony, lost? I always responded to v/r with mvh, Norwegian abbreviation for med vennlig hilsen No-one ever asked me what it meant

Piece in the @sydmorningherald.bsky.social on whales off Sydney, and how to deal with vessel strike. In 2018 when I led @fisheries.noaa.gov Northeast whale team, we won a US Public Sector Innovation Award for taking bleeding edge tech & making it simple to use for mitigating ship strike 🐳🌍🦑🧪 1/🧵

Many pieces appearing on the US decision to remove protections for Balaenoptera ricei, the whale endemic to the Gulf of Mexico. All still call it Rice's Whale, the name given it by NOAA scientists. For example, this good piece by @tjwebber.bsky.social Rice's whale? The American whale. 1/🧵 🐳🌍🦑🧪

Good article in @gardenandgun.com @alaskaraven.bsky.social - “They should all be living this long and calving into their fifties, sixties, and seventies.” "Ghost" has only ever had one entanglement. What really makes her rare is that she doesn't live off the east coast of North America 1/🧵

Intriguing how messages conveyed by the drone strikes on the ports at Duqm and Salalah appear not to have sunk in. Certainly not to the media. Or the commentariat? Just reports, like this one from @reuters.com Now, let's see this post disappear without a trace...

This looks bad @fisheries.noaa.gov Amendments to the North Atlantic #RightWhale Vessel Strike Reduction Rule "The goal of this initiative is to reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens on the regulated community by replacing current seasonal speed restrictions with... 🐳🌍🦑🧪 1/2

Good piece by @attackerman.bsky.social in @thenation.com Problems with US JSOC "Special operations must be reconfigured under one that can be trusted to obey the law" At one point the chief of ISR for SOCAFRICA was working for a major #conservation org *while chief of SOCAFRICA ISR* 🌍 1/2

Amusing that in this piece, @rbreich.bsky.social appears to be under the impression that #kristinoem understands what a possessive pronoun is.

Interesting piece by @petrastock.bsky.social in @theguardian.com on the slowdown of calving in the Southern #rightwhales at the Head of the Bight, South Australia. From a new scientific paper led by Claire Charlton Open Access link in the article. 🐳🌍🦑🧪

As mentioned in the article, the #IWC turned 80 this year. The whaling moratorium turned 40 So, for the first half its existence it was a whalers' club. For the second half it's been driven by the moratorium, which has minimized commercial whaling. What comes next? 🐳🌍🦑

Looks like bad news for #vaquita

TIL a new term for those in a similar situation to me*: "refugee scientist". Guess I can add that to "US government scientific whistleblower". "'the media in the USA has taken no interest" rings true h/t @wpmueller.bsky.social for the story *But obviously flying much higher than me 🐳🌍🦑🧪

If you need a happy science story today - another piece how male dolphins who bond better with their mates* age slower @aunz.theconversation.com piece by @liviagerber.bsky.social @kjpeters.bsky.social and Lee Rollins *Aussie dolphins, so the Aussie meaning of mates 🐳🦑🧪

Happy science story: Dolphins with good mates* age slower. More awesome work from @researchdolphin.bsky.social Led by @liviagerber.bsky.social @stephanielking.bsky.social @kjpeters.bsky.social 🐳🦑🧪 *the Australian meaning of mate - after all, they're Australian dolphins

Good news from Minjerribah / Straddy: "The Quandamooka Truth Embassy has welcomed confirmation that the Yalingbilla whale skeleton will not be placed on the Point Lookout headland" 🐳

International scientific conferences are organized years in advance. Some scientific societies need the money from US-based conferences to remain operational. Then there's US scientists losing jobs & funding so not attending Increases the risk of the end of some scientific societies 🧪

Good to see some realism in the discussion of the latest (detected) #rightwhale entanglement '“Division’s entanglement is significant and life-threatening,” said Heather Pettis,' (New England) 'Aquarium scientists said fishing gear and ropes deeply embedded in Division’s blowhole... 1/2 🐳🌍🦑

This latest entanglement - and partial disentanglement - makes the news. Interesting piece by Mary Landers. From the photos this juvenile whale is in poor condition 🐳🌍🦑

Apparently there's a been an entangled right whale sighted recently. New entanglement is what I hear. Let's see if that gets confirmed and if so makes the news any time soon. 🐳🌍🦑

"The wild" is a daft idea. 5 animals I saw in my neighbourhood (Townsville example) Snubfin dolphin (seen while at Kokoda Poo) Bush stone-curlew (nest in the backyard) Olive backed sunbird (nest on the front verandah) Black flying fox (inside the house once) Great bowerbird (bower down the street)

New paper by @marcusreamer.bsky.social & @emilyyeager9.bsky.social One aspect of this conversation that goes missing - what if everyone referred to them as "The American Whale" - another possible name. How would that affect this attention cycle? Or even the "Gulf of Mexico whale"? 🐳🌍🦑

New Publication: Discovering the world’s most endangered great whale species did not advance an issue-attention cycle in news media: Implications for Rice’s whale conservation and management Open access link: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This. And, speaking for a friend, obviously - I really, really hate it when as a scientist, someone points to this trust in science problem and other scientists in their field attack them for being a too negative about the concerns of stakeholders

Vaquitas "hanging on" is a fair description. Describing this as a modest increase is not following the science. From the survey report summary - "There is too much uncertainty in visual estimates to make strong conclusions about a trend in vaquita numbers..." more quotes to come 🐳🌍🦑 1/2

As @tommysoutdoors.com has reposted this (thanks Tommy!) I thought I would too. For those who came in late...

Great piece by @pelagicblue.bsky.social and Andrea Capurro on #krill management issues in the #Antarctic 🐳🌍🦑

When subeditors write headlines like this, who needs @theonion.com, @chaser.com.au or pick your parody site Massive acoustic monitoring effort, vaquita numbers stable this year at 7-10. "1,228 detectors at 497 sites, acoustic monitoring recorded 254 encounters" 🐳🌍🦑 h/t @vaquita911.bsky.social

Great piece by @fieseler.bsky.social Given that the flattening of the #rightwhale decline coincides with offshore wind development's increase, those who use the cherry-pick-a-corelation-to-suit-my-story (aka Shellenberger's Dictum) would conclude that offshore wind is good for whales /snark 🐳🌍🦑

So on the one hand, the Trump admin is talking about $50 million for polar bears in Greenland. Greenland only, not Svalbard, Canada, Russia, US. While Repubs want to gut the MMPA that protects polar bears in the US apnews.com/article/seal... US intelligence using conservation as an excuse 🐳🌍🦑

New piece on the ongoing attempts by Republicans in the US Congress to destroy the US Marine Mammal Protection Act. Per the new bill "the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community”" In @apnews.com by Patrick Whittle 🐳🌍🦑

Interesting development - $50 million for "polar bear conservation" in Greenland. My articles about how some conservation NGO projects are not what they seem - www.int-res.com/abstracts/es... www.commondreams.org/opinion/war-... show how this will play out 🌍 1/n 🧵

Another great paper on baleen whales & calving 🐳🌍🦑🧪

Great paper led by Martin van Aswegen from @lbejder1971.bsky.social's lab - @meps-ir.bsky.social Age-specific body length, mass, and energetic cost of growth in humpback whales "... lactating females, who must support one-third of their offspring’s lifetime growth costs in just 1 yr." 🐳🌍🦑🧪

For some light relief - Whale oil is a cure-all better than snake oil! "Mice treated with whale oil developed thicker, denser hair follicles" plus People reported "sharper focus, greater resistance to fatigue, and improved sleep quality" "even slow the aging process" #whaling 🐳🌍🦑

Great piece in @australia.theguardian.com by @petrastock.bsky.social on all the entanglements in shark nets off Queensland this year. Sensible commentary from @robharcourt.bsky.social and @jessicabolin.bsky.social The only way to stop entanglement, really, is to take the nets out: Rob Harcourt 🐳🌍🦑🧪

Meanwhile, in conservation reality and #whales - A good article by Sue Arnold in Independent Australia on the population crash of Western Pacific gray whales. "The latest estimate of 13,000 animals is less than half of the 27,000 population ten years ago." 🐳🌍🦑🧪 1/3

Nice piece by 60 Minutes Australia on the status of #humpback #whales in Australian waters. Featuring @drvanessapirotta.bsky.social with the #scicomm and some interesting #citizenscience Well done all

Well this seems apropos.

The process to the demise of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act. Jane Davenport from @awionline.org, pithy and accurate as usual: “The overall thrust is going to essentially put a stake through the heart of the statute.” 🐳🌍🦑

Farewell Tony Thulborn He taught vertebrate biology when I was an undergraduate. He was kind.

Well this is unfortunate - extend the pause on regulations on #lobster fishing to protect #rightwhales until 2035? ""Lobstermen will have insufficient time to work in a good faith way to plan for new regulations, and may well find themselves unable to comply," Golden said Tuesday" 🐳🌍🦑

And finding good (or any) reviewers is hard enough... @theguardian.com piece by @joshtaylor.bsky.social Seems from the final paragraph that someone at @theguardian.com is a @vizcomic.bsky.social fan? 🧪

New paper Exploring the biodiversity of cetacean communities along the western North Atlantic Ocean shelf-break led by Samara Haver. One finding: "beaked whale species [were] the most significant driver of differences among cetacean communities" 🐳🌍🦑🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Canadian government taking steps to protect North Atlantic #rightwhales this year: Patrick Whittle for @apnews.com "Canada is enforcing mandatory protection measures for the whale this summer... All vessels of 42.7 feet (13 meters) in length or more must comply with speed restrictions" 🐳🌍🦑

So much of what's wrong with #rightwhale science for conservation in one short article: "These whales used to follow a fairly steady path." When we started using passive #acoustics to monitor whales they invariably turned up in unexpected places. It became a rule of thumb 1/n 🐳🌍🦑

Interesting development in the whales-and-wind saga. Someone's playing this one very smart. Repeating - anyone who tries to shut down offshore wind for right whale conservation and does nothing about entanglements is either a fool or has a motive other than whale conservation. 🐳🌍🦑 1/2

New piece out in @mongabay.com on #whaling - the zombie idea that whales need culling for fisheries management is coming back. "a cartoonish oversimplification of complex ecological processes". It's "disinformation, disseminated by vested interests intent upon reviving commercial whaling" 🐳🌍🦑

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." As someone once said