Tag Archives: fin whale

Whales are facing a deadly threat along West Coast: container ships

One day last May, a container ship entered the San Francisco Bay with extra cargo. A 45-foot-long dead female fin whale was draped across the ship’s bow. The impact with the ship had broken her back, ruptured her organs and caused severe internal bleeding. Ten whale deaths were attributed to ship strikes in 2018 – the highest number on record in California since NOAA Fisheries began tracking in 1982. The mortality rate represents an enormous increase from the average 3.4 ship strike victims recorded annually in the five previous years. Five of the 10 whales that died with boat collision injuries in 2018 were endangered or threatened fin, blue and humpback whales. >click to read<15:29

New England Set Gear Fishermen – Final Rule – Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan. Are you Affected?

Whale management areasNMFS issues this final rule to amend the regulations implementing the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction. This rule revises the management measures for reducing the incidental mortality and serious injury to the North Atlantic right whale, humpback whale, and fin whale in commercial trap/pot and gillnet fisheries to further the goals of the MMPA, and the ESA. . Read final rule in the Federal Register 18:49

Big mammals vs. big oil: New pipeline puts humpback whales at risk

In a deep fjord in British Columbia called the Douglas Channel, where the Kitimat River pours runs of Chinook salmon into the Pacific Ocean, fishermen see singing humpback whales fling themselves into the air. Now the humpbacks are the flashpoint of an environmental battle. Environmentalists cried foul last month when the Canadian government stripped the whales of protections,,Read more here  20:58