Leopard Seal

Crabeater Seal (Lobodon carcinophagus)

Krill

Antarctic Minke Whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis)

Yesterday, the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s boat, the Adi Gil, was struck by a Japanese whaling ship and sank. Both sides claim that it was the other parties fault, but if you check out the video it looks pretty clear to me that the Japanese ship deliberately struck the boat intentionally. The Adi Gil was a speedboat worth $1.5 million dollars. Luckily, and surprisingly, only one crew member was injured. Acting Australian Prime Minister Gillard said, "having watched the video, it deeply concerns me, it seems miraculous that lives were not lost." The crew was rescued by another of the Sea Shepard's boats, the Bob Barker, named after the game show host who donated $5 million dollars to buy the boat.

Japan kills about 600 whales a year in Antarctica through a loophole which allows countries to kill whales for scientific research purposes and sell the surplus meat to the public. Critics say that this 'research' program is a front for illegal commercial whaling. The Sea Shepard Conservation Society send its ships to interfere with the Japanese harvest each season, and is quite successful. According to Wikipedia, Sea Shepherd's activities reduced Japan's catches in 2007 and 2008 to 60–75% of expected figures. The Animal Planet's television series, "Whale Wars", places a camera crew on board the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling activist ship to document the annual interference with Japan's whaling program and has brought a lot of attention to the cause.

Only a few countries still allow whaling. Japan and Norway lead the pack, killing the most each year, mostly Minke whales.

Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)

I seem to be on an aquatic animal kick here, so I've decided to finish out the month with just aquatic creatures. The Baiji is a freshwater dolpin that lives in the Yangtze River in China, in Chinese it's called 白鱀豚; báijìtún) Nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze", the dolphin is also called Chinese River Dolphin, Yangtze River Dolphin, Whitefin Dolphin and Yangtze Dolphin. In 1997, the Guinness Book of World Records labeled the Baiji as the world’s most endangered cetacean when only 13 were sighted after a mass search was conducted. In 2006, the Baiji was declared extinct, after a six week search was made of the Yangtze river with no Baiji were sighted. Since then, in 2007, there was one unconfirmed sighting of a Baiji in the river. Although it is likely there are one or two Baiji left in the river, for all intents and purposes the Baiji is now 'functionally extinct' as there are no longer enough individuals for there to be a sustainable breeding population. If the Baiji really is extinct, then it would be the first cetacean to become extinct directly due to human influence.

The Baiji became extinct because it lives in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Many individuals were hunted during the Great Leap Forward when the Baiji was no longer considered sacred, would get caught in fishing gear, injured by electric fishing, or collide with boats and propellers (the animals are nearly blind and see through sonar, but can become disoriented from boat noise pollution.) Also, in the 1990s the Chinese government started building the Three Gorges Dam, a massive hydroelectric dam which has displaced over a million people, and destroyed some of the Baiji's natural habitat.

Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus)

Yesterday, a temporary six-month ban on Red Snapper fishing went into effect off the coasts of NC, SC, GA, and Eastern FL. This closure, requested by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and instituted by NOAA's Fisheries Department (National Marine Fisheries Service) is in response to a 2008 report that shows that Red Snapper are being overfished at about 8 times the sustainable rate. The NMFS estimates that the Red Snapper population is only at 3% of what it was 60 years ago. Another study found that 80% of what we buy as Red Snapper is mislabeled and is actually other fish, probably because Red Snapper has become so popular that it is overfished. This temporary closure is a stop gap until the SAFMC can institute more permanent rules to rebuild the Red Snapper population and create a long term financially viable and sustainable fishery.

Of course there has been a hubbub raised by local recreational sport fisherman who claim that the fish are not overfished. (See NPR article for more info)

Personally I am so happy to hear that the government is taking steps to save these fisheries. This isn't really a environmental move per se, but more of a financial move. Through the course of human history we have been depleted one fish stock after another, valuing short term profits over long term sustinable fishing. The most glaring of these fishery collapses is the Northern Cod fishery in the Canada/US. For 500 years, the Northern Cod fishery sustained generations of fisherman. Then greed and mismanagement took over and fisherman decimated the populations of cod. In 1992, cod populations plummeted to about 5% of what they had been decades before. Even after a fishing moratorium of 18 years, cod stocks in this fishery have failed to rebound, possibly due to a ecological shift in which Capelin, once one of cod's main prey, have become a dominant species and now feed on juvenile cod. This tale has been repeated over and over again, with humans exploiting a fishery to the point of collapse or near collapse... with Orange Roughy, California Abalone, Long Island Clams, and many more. Without government regulation, more fisheries will collapse. In fact some foresee that all fisheries worldwide will collapse by 2048, unless we do something about it.

Oh and for all those fisherman who constantly claim that their fisheries have not collapsed, here's a quote from a fisheries scientist, "There is always disagreement between fishermen and government scientists... Imagine an overfished area of the sea in the shape of a hockey field with nets at either end. The few fish left therein would gather around the goals because fish like structured habitats. Scientists would survey the entire field, make lots of unsuccessful hauls, and conclude that it contains few fish. The fishermen would make a beeline to the goals, catch the fish around them,and say the scientists do not know what they are talking about. The subjective impression the fishermen get is always that there's lots of fish - because they only go to places that still have them... fisheries scientists survey and compare entire areas, not only the productive fishing spots."

Red Snapper are a reef fish found in the Gulf of Mexico and in the South Atlantic. The one I drew is smiling because he is happy that the ban is taking effect.

Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus)

Call me obsessive.

All this thinking about Colossal Squids had me thinking of the epic battles fought between predator and prey. The Sperm Whale is the largest living predator (if you define predator as preying upon self-functioning animals). As a child I remember seeing the diorama of a Sperm Whale and Giant Squid locked in battle at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This depiction was based not on photos or video evidence, but on the fact that often Sperm Whales bear scars from Giant and Colossal Squid tentacle suckers, and that they often find squid beaks in the Sperm Whales stomachs, leading the super smart people to realize that the Sperm Whales like to eat the squid, and the the squid, not liking this, fight back rather mightily.

Sperm whale: FAST FACTS (from AMNH)

• Size: adults can reach 18 meters (60 feet) in length and weigh 35,000 - 50,000 kilograms (38-55 tons)

• Food: primarily deep-sea squid, also fish and octopus

• Life span: 50 to 80 years

• Closest relatives: pygmy sperm whales and dwarf sperm whales

• Fun fact: Sperm whales can hold their breath under water for up to two hours.

The Sperm Whale's name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm. Herman Melville, in his novel Moby-Dick, famously abbreviated the word to just sperm, leading to such colorful phrases as, "Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!" Actually, Moby-Dick was inspired by a real albino Sperm Whale called Mocha Dick, encountered off of an island called Mocha near Chile. He was large and powerful, capable of wrecking small craft with his flukes.

This drawing features a regular gray Sperm Whale, surfacing and exhaling through his blowhole. He is in the Southern Pacific near Antarctica so I added an iceberg, showing the tip protruding and the rest of it below the ocean surface. Of course he is eying his favorite prey floating many feet below him, a Colossal and Giant Squid.

Before the widespread use of petroleum products for lubricants, spermaceti were used to for a number of commercial applications.

Spermaceti, obtained primarily from the spermaceti organ in the head, and sperm oil, obtained primarily from the blubber in the body, were much sought after by 18th, 19th and 20th century whalers. These substances found a variety of commercial applications, such as candles, soap, cosmetics, machine oil, other specialized lubricants, lamp oil, pencils, crayons, leather waterproofing, rust-proofing materials and many pharmaceutical compounds. Ambergris, a solid, waxy, flammable substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales, was also sought as a fixative in perfumery. American sperm whaling spread from the east coast of the American colonies to the Gulf Stream, the Grand Banks, West Africa (1763), the Azores (1765) and the South Atlantic (1770s). From 1770 to 1775 Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island ports produced 45,000 barrels of sperm oil annually, compared to 8,500 of whale oil.^[84] In the same decade the British began sperm whaling, employing American ships and personnel.^[85] By the following decade the French had entered the trade, also employing American expertise.^[85] Sperm whaling increased until the mid-1800s. Spermaceti oil was important in public lighting (for example, in lighthouses, where it was used in the United States until 1862, when it was replaced by lard oil, in turn replaced by petroleum) and for lubricating the machines (such as those used in cotton mills) of the Industrial Revolution. Sperm whaling declined in the second half of the 19th century, as petroleum came in to broader use. In that sense, it may be said to have protected whale populations from even greater exploitation.

It is estimated that the historic worldwide population numbered 1,100,000 before commercial sperm whaling began in the early 18th century. By 1880 it had declined an estimated 29 per cent. From that date until 1946 the population appears to have recovered somewhat as whaling pressure lessened, but after the Second World War, the population declined even further, to only 33 per cent of the pre-whaling era.

The species was given full protection by the International Whaling Commission in 1985. This species is considered to be threatened.

Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni)

So I've been totally obsessed with Colossal Squid since I heard that the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa put one on display a couple of years ago (on my birthday no less!). The Colossal Squid is the largest known invertebrate in the world; current estimates put its maximum size at 12–14 metres (39–46 feet) long. It also has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. This species was first described in 1925 when two arms of the squid were recovered from the stomach of a sperm whale. Then for many years, very little was learned about the species as only damaged and incomplete specimens were found. In recent years, several whole specimens have been caught, mostly as a result of our fishing the deep ocean for Antarctic and Patagonian Toothfish (the latter is sold and eaten here in US under the name Chilean Sea Bass... on a side note, the Chilean Sea Bass fishery is considered unsustainable as Toothfish grow and mature very slowly. Don't order it at restaurants!)

Here's some fun facts from Wikipedia:

While little is known about the life of this creature, it is believed to hunt prey such as chaetognatha, large fish like the Patagonian toothfish and other squid in the deep ocean using bioluminescence. Based on capture depths of a few specimens, as well as beaks found in sperm whale stomachs, the adult squid ranges at least to a depth of 2200 metres, while juveniles can go as deep as 1000 metres. It is believed to be sexually dimorphic, with mature females generally being much larger than mature males, as is common in many species of invertebrates.

The squid's method of reproduction has not been observed, although some data on their reproduction can be inferred from anatomy. Since males lack an organ called a hectocotylus (a tentacle used in other cephalopods to transfer a spermatophore to the female), they probably use a penis instead, which would be used to directly implant sperm into females.

Many sperm whales carry scars on their backs believed to be caused by the hooks of Colossal Squid. Colossal Squid are a major prey item for Antarctic sperm whales feeding in the Southern Ocean; 14% of the squid beaks found in the stomachs of these sperm whales are those of the Colossal Squid, which indicates that Colossal Squid make up 77% of the biomass consumed by these whales.Many other animals also feed on this squid, including the beaked whales (such as the bottlenose whales), pilot whale, southern elephant seal, Patagonian toothfish, Pacific sleeper shark, and albatross (e.g., the Wandering and Sooty albatrosses). However, beaks from mature adults have only been recovered from those animals large enough to take such prey (i.e., the sperm whale and Pacific sleeper shark), while the remaining predators are limited to eating juveniles or young adults.

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has lots of info on the Colossal Squid and you can even build your own squid on their website!

Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus)

My New Years resolution is that I want to draw more. As a part of this goal I decided to start this blog and draw probably my favorite thing to draw which is little animals and maybe learn a bit about each one as I post about them.

My first animal is an elephant, cause elephants never forget, which i hopefully what I will not forget to do with this project. I guess I drew an Asian elephant, because it lacks tusks and of adult elephants, only the adult Asian female elephants don't have tusks. Also I drew her very small and smallish ears which are other character traits of Asian elephants. I don't know why but as I look at the little drawing I made, I realize she looks either really tired or depressed. I suppose she could be tired because in many countries Asian elephants are domesticated and made to work, hauling logs or cargo, or western tourists, all of which sounds kinda exhausting. Alternatively, if she is a wild animal, she may be depressed due to the loss of her native habitat. She lives in one of the most densely populated areas of the world and her species is threatened due to the loss of forest habitat. Female elephants herd, and the bull elephants are usually solitary. They have a matriarchal society and the group is led by the oldest female. So maybe this elephant is just tired of being bossed around.

More facts from Wikipedia: It is the largest living land animal in Asia. The species is found primarily in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Indochina and parts of Nepal and Indonesia (primarily Borneo), Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Bhutan, and Sumatra. It is considered endangered, with between 41,410 and 52,345 left in the wild.