Drone Footage Reveals Over 100 Whales Trapped In Secret Underwater “Jails”

By Rosie McCall

12 NOV 2018, 16:31

More than 100 cetaceans have been found cooped up inside a series of tiny enclosures off Russia's Pacific coast near the southeastern city of Nakhodka. 

In total, 11 orcas and 90 beluga whales are being housed in what activists are now calling a "whale jail", potentially illegally. That is the largest number of marine animals to be held in such a way, reports Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), a UK-based wildlife charity.

It is thought that the cetaceans have been caught and kept to be sold off to ocean theme parks in China at a hefty price, with businesses doling out up to $6 million (or more) for their very own Free Willy. The country has more than 60 marine parks and at least 12 more are under construction, The Telegraph reports.

While the operation of buying and selling cetaceans for entertainment is strictly illegal – they can only be captured for scientific and educational reasons – the international law banning the activity is routinely flouted. Just take the four companies responsible for these 101 jailed cetaceans, which between them exported 13 orcas to China between 2013 and 2016, an investigation led by local media and the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta found. Other companies reportedly utilize a loophole in the law that doesn't explicitly forbid "renting" whales.

Readon  

Beluga whales and narwhals go through menopause

August 27, 2018, University of Exeter

Scientists have discovered that beluga whales and narwhals go through the menopause—taking the total number of species known to experience this to five.

Aside from humans, the species now known to experience menopauseare all toothed whales—belugas, narwhals, killer whales and short-finned pilot whales.

Almost all animals continue reproducing throughout their lives, and scientists have long been puzzled about why some have evolved to stop.

The new study, by the universities of Exeter and York and the Center for Whale Research, suggests menopause has evolved independently in three whale species (it may have evolved in a common ancestor of belugas and narwhals).

"For menopause to make sense in evolutionary terms, a species needs both a reason to stop reproducing and a reason to live on afterwards," said first author Dr. Sam Ellis, of the University of Exeter.

"In killer whales, the reason to stop comes because both male and female offspring stay with their mothers for life—so as a female ages, her group contains more and more of her children and grandchildren.

"This increasing relatedness means that, if she keeps having young, they compete with her own direct descendants for resources such as food.

"The reason to continue living is that older females are of great benefit to their offspring and grand-offspring. For example, their knowledge of where to find food helps groups survive."

The existence of menopause in killer whales is well documented due to more than four decades of detailed study.

Such information on the lives of belugas and narwhals is not available, but the study used data on dead whales from 16 species and found dormant ovaries in older beluga and narwhal females.

Read more at: 

World’s first sanctuary for beluga whales to open in Iceland

21 June 2018

By Chris Baraniuk

An open water sanctuary for two beluga whales is to be opened in Iceland next year – the first project of its kind.

Conservation charity Sea Life Trust has spent six years developing a plan to bring the 12 year-old belugas, nicknamed “Little White” and “Little Grey”, from captivity in China to an open water refuge.

Last year, Klettsvik Bay in Iceland’s Westman islands, the location for the film Free Willy, was chosen as the site for a 32,000 square-metre sea pen that will become home to the whales. Building work in the bay has already begun and is expected to be completed in March next year.

Sea Life Trust says it has recently received the crucial authorisation it needs to move the whales in spring 2019 from Changfeng Ocean World in Shanghai, where they are still performing for visitors.

A presentation about the sanctuary project posted online says the whales, which have a life expectancy of between 35 and 50 years in the wild, will always be restricted to the sea pen: “Our Belugas will never be able to be released due to their dependency on humans, we simply want to retire them from public performances in line with our values.”

The whales are currently being introduced to equipment such as stretchers to prepare them for transportation. They are also being trained to hold their breath under water for longer and swim faster so that they will better cope with tides and currents at the sanctuary.

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Research shows diet shift of beluga whales in Alaska inlet

June 16, 2018 by Dan Joling

Beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet may have changed their diet over five decades from saltwater prey to fish and crustaceans influenced by freshwater, according to a study by University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers.

An analysis of isotopes in beluga bone and teeth showed belugas formerly fed on prey that had little contact with freshwater. More recent generations of belugas fed in areas where rivers pour freshwater into ocean habitats.

New information on Cook Inlet belugas is important because the species is endangered and its numbers have not increased despite hunting restrictions and other protections. Mark Nelson, a wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the lead author of the study, called it a little piece of that puzzle.

"If there's something we can do to help them recover, we might start to know what that might be," he said in a phone interview from Fairbanks.

A population of 1,300 belugas in Cook Inlet dwindled steadily through the 1980s and early 1990s. Alaska Natives harvested nearly half the remaining 650 whales between 1994 and 1998. Subsistence hunting ended in 1999 but the population remains at only about 340 animals.

Read more at: 

Like human societies, whales value culture and family ties

Groundbreaking genetic kinship study of beluga whales

Date:  April 5, 2018

Source:  Florida Atlantic University

In a detailed genetic kinship study, an international team is the first to reveal that just like human societies, beluga whales appear to value culture and their ancestral roots and family ties. They have demonstrated that related whales returned to the same locations year after year, and decade after decade. Not only do these whales know where to go and where not to go, they are passing on this information from one generation to the next.

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Beluga whales dive deeper, longer to find food in Arctic

Date:  February 20, 2018

Source:  University of Washington

Summary:

Beluga whales that spend summers feeding in the Arctic are diving deeper and longer to find food than in earlier years, when sea ice covered more of the ocean for longer periods, according to a new analysis.

     

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Impacts of climate warming, declining sea ice on Arctic whale migration

Date: November 16, 2016

Source: Florida Atlantic University

Declines in the Arctic sea ice are arguably the most dramatic evidence of the effects of current climate warming on ocean systems. Native peoples of the far north have long appreciated and relied upon the migrations of animals with the changing seasons, including some of the largest and least studied, the Arctic whales. While sea ice is perhaps the most defining feature of their habitat, the relationship between Arctic whales and sea ice is still largely a mystery, and there is increasing concern over how these species will adapt to climate related changes in sea ice.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and a team of scientists working in collaboration with Native hunters in Alaska and Canada have just published results of a study in the Royal Society Biology Letters titled, "Genetic Profiling Links Changing Sea Ice to Shifting Beluga Whale Migration Patterns," assessing the relationship between changing sea ice and beluga whale migration as well as summer residency patterns of a number of populations over two decades of dramatic sea ice changes in the Pacific Arctic. The researchers found that beluga whales, often known as the white whale, (Delphinapterus leucas) exhibited a tremendous ability to deal with widely varying sea ice conditions from one year to the next over a 20-year time frame in their return to traditional summering grounds each year.

"It was not clear how sea ice influences beluga whale migration patterns and their summer habitat use, and climate change has added urgency to determining how environmental factors might shape the behavior and ecology of this species," said Greg O'Corry-Crowe, Ph.D., lead author and a research professor at FAU Harbor Branch, whose research focuses on combining molecular genetic analysis with field ecology to study the molecular and behavioral ecology of marine apex predators.

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Rare beluga data show whales dive to maximize meals

Date: February 12, 2016

Source: University of Washington

As the Arctic continues to change due to rising temperatures, melting sea ice and human interest in developing oil and shipping routes, it's important to understand belugas' baseline behavior, argue the authors of a new paper published this winter in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. Its authors drew upon a rare dataset that spans 15 years of dive information for 30 whales to produce a comprehensive analysis of beluga migration and feeding patterns in the Arctic.

"This study gives us a benchmark of the distribution and foraging patterns for these two beluga populations," said lead author Donna Hauser, a doctoral student in the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "However, there still needs to be additional work to see how beluga behavior has changed in concert with changing sea ice conditions in the Arctic."

Beginning in 1993, researchers worked with Alaska Native communities in Northwest Alaska and Aboriginal tribes in Canada to tag beluga whales. The whales often swim close to shore during early summer, making it possible to capture a whale and attach a satellite-linked tag to the dorsal ridge along its back.

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Belugas blow bubbles based on mood

Date: December 7, 2015

Source:Canisius College

A newly-released study by Canisius College Professor of Animal Behavior Michael Noonan, PhD, is providing insight as to why Beluga whales blow bubbles underwater and how their different shaped bubbles may be indicative of a Beluga's mood. The eight-year study, conducted at Marineland of Canada in Niagara Falls, Ontario, examined more than 11,000 bubbling events recorded over nearly 5,000 minutes of observation.

"Underwater bubbling is a fairly common behavior in Beluga whales," explains Noonan, chair of the college's animal behavior, ecology and conservation program (ABEC). "It's an enigmatic and delightful behavior but also a very complex behavior."

Read on ...

Environmentalists Call for 10-Year Moratorium on Arctic Shipping Increase to Protect Endangered Beluga Whales

Maggie Dewane / 4 hours ago

Environmentalists today called on the eight Arctic nations of the Arctic Council to enact a ten-year moratorium on any increase in Arctic shipping to protect endangered beluga whales from the threat of growing ship traffic in their habitat. The moratorium will enable nations to finalize and implement the “Polar Code,” an agreement currently being negotiated under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), that aims to establish environmental, safety, and shipping controls, in order to constrain industrial accidents and ecosystem impacts in the Arctic.

A new report released today by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Endangered Belugas and the Growing Threats of Climate Change, Arctic Shipping and Industrialization, comprehensively documents the plight of the beluga whale, a species that was hunted to near extinction throughout its range. Today it continues to face a barrage of threats, including poorly-regulated subsistence hunting, climate change, oil and gas drilling, ship traffic, pollution, and live capture for aquariums.

The report’s publication coincides with the opening today of the semi-annual meeting of the Arctic Council in Yellowknife, Canada whose members include the United States, Canada, Greenland-Denmark, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland. Senior Arctic Council officials meeting this week will consider the impacts of climate change and expanding industrial exploitation on the fragile Arctic ecosystem, its biodiversity, and the communities on the front line of rising global temperatures.

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Quebec's whale population faces catastrophe

Beluga calves are dying at an unusual rate around St Lawrence estuary, Quebec

The beluga whale population in St Lawrence estuary, Quebec, is facing troubling times, with an unusually high number of beluga whale calves turning up dead.

2012 was the most difficult year for the calving season on the estuary, with a total of 16 beluga calves found dead. So far during this years’ calving season – which officially ends on 15th October – five young whales have been found dead.

Stephane Lair, a veterinary professor at University of Montreal, undertook the autopsies of the carcasses to try to determine the cause of death. He says, “What we think is that either the calf is too weak to follow the mother, or there is a bonding problem between the calf and mother.”In addition, autopsies revealed that the whales were dying of cancer at unusually high rate.Richard Michaud, scientific director of Quebec’s Marine Mammals Research and Education Group, says that the beluga population in the area has been in a slow decline for the past decade. “It’s a catastrophic trajectory we’re observing,” he says, “and we don’t yet know exactly what [the causes are] for that.” In order for the population to recover, Michaud argues that effort must be made to reduce the sources of stress on the mammals, particularly in areas that mothers and calves frequent.

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Georgia Aquarium heads to court to get wild-caught beluga whales sought by SeaWorld

The Georgia Aquarium went to court Monday in hopes of saving its bid to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia through a consortium that includes Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment Inc.

The complaint, filed in federal court in Georgia, seeks to overturn a ruling issued last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, in which the agency denied the aquarium's application for an import permit.

It is the first time in more than 20 years that any U.S. facility has attempted to import marine mammals captured from the wild specifically for the purposes of public display. Records show that 11 of the 18 whales would likely be transferred to marine parks owned by Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment through breeding-loan agreements.

NOAA has ruled that issuing the import permit would contribute to the decline of the wild population from which the beluga whales were captured. But Georgia Aquarium argues that its permit met all the criteria laid out under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and that bringing the whales to the U.S. would ensure a genetically sustainable population in captivity.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-georgia-aquarium-beluga-whales-20130930,0,5839744.story

Endangered Beluga Whales See Slight Population Uptick

A rare group of beluga whales in Alaska saw a slight increase in numbers last year, a survey showed. Scientists estimated that the population of Cook Inlet belugas stood at 312 in 2012, compared with a record low 278 in 2011, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced.

This small uptick is not scientifically significant, researchers noted. Long-term trends have shown Cook Inlet beluga whales in decline over the past two decades. According to NOAA estimates, the population may once have been as big as 1,300 but it shrank dramatically during the 1990s and has continued to fall.

The whales' home, Cook Inlet, stretches some 180 miles (290 km) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage. Scientists conducting the 2012 survey were surprised to see a group of the endangered population swimming just offshore of West Foreland swimming north into upper part of the inlet.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/26001-cook-inlet-beluga-whales.html

18 Beluga whales in captivity for shipment to Georgia Aquarium

Help WDCS stop 18 whales being condemned to imprisonment and an early death
September 2012. The US Georgia Aquarium is seeking to import 18 wild-caught belugas from the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia. Belugas in this area were subject to intensive hunting until the early 1960s and the population is still recovering. 

The Aquarium's excuse for the import request is that the captive beluga collection makes an important contribution to marine conservation and public education and is necessary to maintain the captive breeding population in the US.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) rejects these excuses
The commercial display industry plan to use Russian transport planes to carry the whales to Belgium - where the whales will undergo multiple transfers between shipment containers and airplanes before flying to the US and becoming the property of the Georgia Aquarium. This will subject the whales to considerable stress. Man-made noise like jet engines is a known stressor for whales, which have very sensitive hearing. It is simply not acceptable to put the whales through this - it is inhumane and violates the US Marine Mammal Protection Act.

They will be subjected to attempts at ‘breeding.' Yet, despite five decades of effort, the captive beluga breeding programme has been unsuccessful. As a result, the commercial captive industry seeks new whales to replenish its ‘stocks'.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/georgia-aquarium-belugas.html#cr

Ancient Beluga Whales Enjoyed Warm Waters

An ancient beast related to today's Arctic-loving beluga whales and narwhals seemed to prefer toasty, tropical waters.

Called Bohaskaia monodontoides, the new species of toothed whale lived some 3 million to 4 million years ago during the Pliocene in warm water. Researchers aren't sure why modern belugas have left these tropical destinations and strayed pole-ward, where life would seem to be more difficult.

The fossil had been sitting in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History since its discovery in a mine near Hampton, Va., in 1969. The nearly complete skull represents the only fossilized remains known of the new species. Before it was closely examined, the skull's discoverers loosely identified it as a beluga whale and left it in storage.

In 2010, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, Smithsonian pre-doctoral fellow from Howard University, finally took a close look at the skull. He compared it with the skulls of closely related toothed whales, like modern Arctic belugas and narwhals (also called unicorns of the sea for their twisted horn). While the skull shared many features, particularly in the face and snout, with modern toothed whales, the researchers say there are enough unique features to merit its placement in a new genus and species.

"We realized this skull was not something assignable to a beluga, and when we sat down, comparing the fossil side by side with the actual skulls of belugas and narwhals, we found it was a very different animal," study researcher Nicholas Pyenson, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.

This and a second temperate example of a beluga-related whale indicate that the love of frosty water developed recently in these whales. [Image Gallery: Life at the North Pole]

"The fact is that living belugas and narwhals are found only in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, yet the early fossil record of the monodontids extends well into temperate and tropical regions," Pyenson said. "For evidence of how and when the Arctic adaptations of belugas and narwhals arose we will have to look more recently in time."

Velez-Juarbe said the narwhals and belugas may have changed habitats due to oceanic changes that affected the food chain: Either competition with other animals or the movement of a preferred prey species could have driven them north.  

The new analysis of the whale skull is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-beluga-whales-enjoyed-warm-waters-140606913.html;_ylt=AqmmT.dtJjLh3HNOyFbfjQV2hMgF;_ylu=X3oDMTRhdmZzNjFxBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBTY2llbmNlU0YgQW5pbWFsUGV0c1NTRgRwa2cDNzdhZTQxZTQtYTg1Yi0zOWFjLTg1MDMtZjUyNzI5ODY3MDgxBHBvcwM1BHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzc2NmQ0MTZiLTc4MWEtMTFlMS05ZjczLTRmZGExYjRiZWY5ZQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTFrM25vcXFyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnMEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

Dozens of beluga whales trapped among Bering Sea ice floes

Russian authorities say 10cm-15cm blocks of ice are preventing the endangered creatures from reaching open waters


Russian agencies are scrambling to save 100 beluga whales – an endangered species – trapped among large chunks of polar ice floating in the frigid Bering Sea. Russia's nature protection watchdog believes the whales might perish. Authorities say the ice is 10cm-15cm thick and is preventing the whales from reaching the open sea where they can swim freely.


Russia's ministry of natural resources and ecology said on Thursday that it has asked the transportation ministry for help and that an inter-departmental group is working on how to save the whales.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the beluga whale as an endangered species in 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/dozens-beluga-whales-trapped-ice

Hong Kong drops plan to import rare whales

AFP - A Hong Kong theme park has dropped a contentious plan to buy and import rare wild-caught beluga whales, in a decision lauded Friday by conservationists who had protested against the bid.Activists opposed Ocean Park's plan to import the whales, classified as "near threatened", from Russia, saying they are often injured or killed during capture and mortality rates are high among those in captivity.

The park had wanted to use the belugas, usually found around the Arctic circle, to raise public awareness of climate change through its new Polar Adventure attraction to open next year.

"After due consideration, we have decided not to pursue an acquisition from the wild even though the removal of some beluga whales has been shown to be sustainable," Allan Zeman, Ocean Park's chairman, said in a statement.

The popular 34-year-old theme park and aquarium is owned by the Hong Kong government and has set out ambitious plans to boost visitors. The park recorded five million tourists last year.

The beluga, or white whale, is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "red list" of "near threatened" species, while the US and Canada have effectively banned the whales' capture from their waters.

"The park did the right thing. We certainly welcome the decision," Samuel Hung, chairman of the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, told AFP.

"It's not right to confine a large intelligent mammal inside a tank, this is harming their chance of survival and send a wrong message to the public -- that whenever we need them for entertainment purpose, we can go out to catch them."

The park has previously come under the spotlight over its conservation and protection of rare animals.
Last year, Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute has said Ocean Park was trying to capture some 30 dolphins in the Soloman Islands, possibly in breach of animal conservation rules -- a claim which was later rejected by the park.

Any dolphin imports from the cluster of islands near Papua New Guinea would breach the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

In 2009, three rare sturgeon -- which were among a group of 10 sturgeon donated to the theme park to mark China's hosting of the Olympics in 2008 -- died in the park.

The endangered fish died because of different reasons including head injury, blood clotting, infection while one was killed by a bite from barracuda in the aquarium.

Outside the park, conservation groups such as the WWF have consistently appealed to restaurants in Hong Kong -- the largest importer of shark fin globally in 2007 -- to stop using the fins in the popular soup delicacy.

Scientists blame the practice of shark-finning for a worldwide collapse in shark populations.

http://www.france24.com/en/20110902-hong-kong-drops-plan-import-rare-whales