Tuesday 28 February 2012

Killer Whales go silent for the 'kill'

Orca hunting in Alaska (Image: Volker Deecke)

Once orcas catch their prey, the noise begins again

Orcas avoid being overheard by their prey by hunting in "stealth mode", according to researchers.

The scientists wanted to know how orcas, commonly known as killer whales, communicate when hunting mammals, which can hear their distinctive calls.
The researchers thought the predators might switch to very high frequency whistles to co-ordinate the hunt.
But the orcas actually go completely silent and are somehow still able to form organised hunting groups.

Volker Deecke from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and Rüdiger Riesch from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, US, carried out the study, which was published in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.
They used hydrophones - underwater microphones - to listen to and record orcas communicating with each other. The team could even hear crunching sounds when the animals were eating their prey.

They communicate while they eat then gradually wander off and go quiet again

Volker Deecke
St Andrews University

The researchers focused on transient orcas, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada and Alaska. These tend to live in smaller social groups and to move around more than resident orcas.
Some scientists believe that the two are distinct sub-species.
"The most striking difference between the two is their diet," explained Dr Deecke.
Residents eat fish, whereas transients hunt and eat marine mammals, including seals and porpoises.
Dr Deecke added: "In the 40 years that these animals have been studied, scientists have never seen a resident eat a mammal and never seen a transient eat a fish."
Hunting trip
Resident orcas hunt for salmon using echolocation. The orcas click, producing waves of sound that travel through the water and bounce off the fish, allowing the predator to sense its location.
"But all marine mammals have excellent underwater hearing," explained Dr Deecke.
"If if a killer whale swam along clicking like mad, all the seals and porpoises would think - here comes a predators, let's get away."
But the transient orcas' solution surprised the researchers.
"They go into stealth mode - completely silent," said Dr Deecke. "This raises the question: how are they communicating?"
It seems that orcas can carry out complex, co-ordinated mammal-hunting trips without "talking to each other" at all.

SOURCES

Read the paper in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology

More on killer whales from BBC Wildlife Finder

"To cover a wider area, they fan out occasionally - travelling hundreds of metres, even kilometres apart, and they come back together again," said Dr Deecke.
Only once they catch their prey, does the noise - whistling and pulsing calls - begin.
"It's a bit like us at a dinner party," said Dr Deecke. "They communicate while they eat then gradually wander off and go quiet again."
The orcas are unlikely to be able to see each other from these distances. Glaciers that descend into the sea on the Alaskan coast give the ocean the consistency of milk.
Dr Deecke thinks that the orcas might "rehearse" their hunting routines, to learn the position of each group member.
"They tend to be very predictable," he said. "I often know exactly where they are going to surface."
How they manage this level of co-ordination is not clear. And the scientists plan to continue their research by fitting sound recording and satellite tracking tags to individual orcas to follow their behaviour much more closely.
Dr Deecke said: "It seems like there's no way for them to communicate without their prey being able to eavesdrop."

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

Two dolphins at a zoo in Duisburg, Germany

Recognising the rights of dolphins would end whaling and their captivity

Dolphins should be treated as non-human "persons", with their rights to life and liberty respected, scientists meeting in Canada have been told.

Experts in philosophy, conservation and animal behaviour want support for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans.
They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify the same ethical considerations as humans.
Recognising their rights would mean an end to whaling and their captivity, or their use in entertainment.

Science has shown that individuality - consciousness, self-awareness - is no longer a unique human property. That poses all kinds of challenges.”

Ethics Professor Tom White Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles

The move was made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada, the world's biggest science conference.

It is based on years of research that has shown dolphins and whales have large, complex brains and a human-like level of self-awareness.
This has led the experts to conclude that although non-human, dolphins and whales are "people" in a philosophical sense, which has far-reaching implications.
'Self-aware' Ethics expert Prof Tom White, from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, author of In Defence of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, said dolphins were "non-human persons".
"A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent of deliberately killing a human being.

Intelligent cetacean behaviour

A baby bottle-nose dolphin with her mother, in a Tokyo aquarium

A member of a group of orcas, or killer whales, in Patagonia had a damaged jaw and could not feed. The elderly whale was fed and kept alive by its companions.
Dolphins taking part in an experiment had to press one of two levers to distinguish between sounds, some of which were very similar. By pressing a third lever, they were able to tell the researchers they wanted to "pass" on a particular test because it was too hard. "When you place dolphins in a situation like that they respond in exactly the same way humans do," said Dr Lori Marino. "They are accessing their own minds and thinking their own thoughts."
A number of captive dolphins were rewarded with fish in return for tidying up their tank. One of them ripped up a large paper bag, hid away the pieces, and presented them one at a time to get multiple rewards.
In Iceland, killer whales and fishermen have been known to work together. The whales show the fishermen where to lay their nets, and in return are allowed to feed on part of the catch. Then they lead the fleet to the next fishing ground.

"We're saying the science has shown that individuality - consciousness, self-awareness - is no longer a unique human property. That poses all kinds of challenges."

They can look in a mirror and say, 'Hey, that's me'”

Dr Lori Marino Psychologist

The declaration, originally agreed in May 2010, contains the statements "every individual cetacean has the right to life", "no cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude, be subject to cruel treatment, or be removed from their natural environment", and "no cetacean is the property of any state, corporation, human group or individual".

It adds: "The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this declaration should be protected under international and domestic law."
Psychologist Dr Lori Marino, from Emory University in Atlanta, told how scientific advances had changed the view of the cetacean brain.
She said: "We went from seeing the dolphin/whale brain as being a giant amorphous blob that doesn't carry a lot of intelligence and complexity to not only being an enormous brain but an enormous brain with an enormous amount of complexity, and a complexity that rivals our own."
Dolphins had a sense of self which could be tested by the way they recognise themselves in mirrors, she added.
"When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that's you, you have a sense of 'you'," said Dr Marino.
"They have a similar sense. They can look in a mirror and say, 'Hey, that's me'."

Scuba dive blogger jackie Hutchings Q and A .

7 Questions – Paul ‘Max’ Lomax, Founder of Whalesong Art

1. Where did the idea for Whalesong Art come from?

I found it in The Daily Telegraph. A sonic engineer in San Francisco called Mark Fischer of Aguasonic Acoustics and commercialised it.

2. How do you turn the sounds into images?

Mark uses a known mathematical technique for creating complicated intricate structures from sound known as Wavelets.

3. What is your vision for the company?

The existing products (canvasses, prints and t-shirts) are great quality and I am working on multiple images for wallpaper, surfboard art and fabrics. I want to start people on the journey of awareness about cetacean causes through conversation about the art.

4. I love the fact that the t-shirts are made from organic cotton. Where do you source your fabric?

It is a multiple award winning brand of organic t-shirts called Earth Positive. 100% cotton (nothing man made added). They fit like a dream and wash well – no shrinkage and the seems don’t skew. Perfect!

5. Tell me a bit about your printing methods.

The canvasses, in particular, use a sublimation method which prints into the fabric and is super-durable. (This basically means that the image is fused INTO the fabric, not ONTO it).

6. I see you give a share of your profits to WDCS – out of all the charities you could have chosen, why them?

They were really quick to respond and Mark liked their work. We aim, and have already agreed, to give more as the company grows.

7. It’s 5 years time, how has Whalesong Art developed?

We have been active for cetacean causes, globally developed new and funky products and had a good time with my daughter Mimi.

Whalesong Art is stunning ocean art made from hydrophonic recordings of individual whale and dolphin song.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Cornwall Today Magazine feature- March issue

Headline: For the love of whales (and dolphins)

Standfirst: With Whalesong Art, surfer Paul ‘Max’ Lomax is onto a winner

Words by Alex Wade, photographs by Mike Newman/www.ocean-image.com

There’s an old saying in surfing, one which expressly privileges riding waves above just about everything: “Only a surfer knows the feeling.” To talk to Paul ‘Max’ Lomax, the remarkably healthy-looking founder of Whalesong Art, is to get an insight into one of the key reasons for this sentiment.

“I’ve surfed for 30 years or so,” says Lomax. “Surfing itself is a magical experience but it’s at its best when you surf with dolphins. It’s just wonderful – the feeling of joy never leaves you.”

Lomax’s antennae – orientated so fulsomely to surfing and cetaceans after a lifetime of catching waves – made him sit up and pay attention when he read a Daily Telegraph article in 2009 about Californian artist Mark Fischer. “I can remember seeing the piece as if it were yesterday,” says Lomax, from the home overlooking the sea at the north Cornwall village of Porthcothan. “It was accompanied by this wonderful splash of colour, which turned out to be a hydrophonic recording of a humpback whale song taken by Fischer in the waters off Hawaii. I was mesmerised and immediately set about finding out more.”

Lomax’s research soon put him touch directly with Fischer, a former sonar engineer for the US Navy. A field trip to Baja California with whale researchers had proved serendipitous for Fischer: he changed his career, opting to merge art and science. Utilising what he had learnt about acoustics while working for the navy, Fischer began creating visual art from wavelets – a technique for processing digital signals. “The maths is complicated,” chuckles Lomax, “but in practice what happens is that microphones are placed deep in the ocean to capture the haunting songs of whales and dolphins. In effect, wavelets is a branch of maths which then enables the sounds to be converted into extraordinarily beautiful, colourful and intricate structures.”

Wavelets are deployed in applications as diverse as JPEG image compression, high definition television and earthquake research, but Lomax at once saw a business opportunity in their use in Fischer’s arresting art. “As a surfer I found Mark’s artwork stunning. I felt that I just had to bring his images to the world market, because so many people are rightly concerned about the plight of cetaceans. I want to help make sure that they’re here for future generations to enjoy. If people walk into a room and see a canvas of a minkewhale’s song, they’ll start talking about it, about how the art was made, where it came from, what’s happening to whales and dolphins.”

Fischer – also a surfer and windsurfer – was impressed by Lomax’s vision. Soon enough, he had granted Lomax exclusive merchandise rights outside the United States, enabling him to design a new, dedicated website and to set about creating a range of products which include original canvases, framed prints and T-shirts and even run to gift bags, coasters and wallpaper. Better yet, all Lomax’s suppliers are Cornwall-based, from The Print Environment in St Columb to The Little Red Octopus in Wadebridge. As Lomax proudly says: “It’s a world first. This kind of artwork is unique and I’m thrilled both to have been given the opportunity to bring it to people and to use Cornish businesses to do so.”

Lomax launched Whalesong Art in September last year. He says that business has been good, despite the recession: “Trading conditions are tough, yes, and the art market relies on disposable income when there’s not a lot of it around at the moment, but orders have been steadily rising. The main thing now is to make the products the best they can be and to try and disseminate them and the message as widely as possible.” He’s been successful in these aims already: the canvases look gorgeous, and they’re to be found in any number of places, from boutique hotels and spas to an estate agency and eco lodges as well as many family homes. He also forged links with key groups such as Greenpeace, the Whale and Dolphin Conversation Society and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Doubtless Lomax’s career in retail and distribution will help him develop Whalesong Art yet further. Now 51, Lomax took a business studies degree at Plymouth Polytechnic before becoming a regional manager with warranty underwriters for Honda/Volkswagon. He then joined Sola Wetsuits in late 1980s, working as a sales manager and attending all manner of European tradeshows in the surfing industry, which was then enjoying a boom. Wanderlust took Lomax – who was once featured on the cover of Surf Scene, one of Britain’s first surfing magazines - to Australia, but this was not just a surf trip: he returned home with the exclusive distribution rights for Finch bikinis. Further distribution deals with Antipodean companies followed, among them contracts with Liive sunglasses and Earth Nymph, which makes children’s apparel. Lomax has also worked with Sanuk, the Californian flip-flop company, and Hawaii-based windsurfing business Simmer.

His has been a wide-ranging and diverse career, but throughout it there has been one constant: surfing. “As soon as my mates and I turned 17 we’d head off from Taunton, where we lived then, to Croyde and Saunton in north Devon. It was a rite of passage, inspired first by watching the brilliant surf film The Endless Summer. Since then I’ve been on surf trips all over the world but the best have been to France, Indonesia and Australia. I still surf as often as I can.” Not only that, but Lomax’s daughter, Mimi, is also a surfer. “She’s nine but stood up and rode her first wave aged three,” he says, with a broad smile.

Whalesong Art makes for a breath of fresh air in the Cornish art scene, something new and different. Its founder would appear to have the conviction and drive to make it work. Why, though, is he known as ‘Max’?

“It’s a rugby thing,” replies Lomax. “While I was in Plymouth I played rugby for Saltash and Cornwall juniors before joining Plymouth Albion. I loved those days, playing as a full-back against many Cornish sides as well as playing Bath when they were in their pomp. But ‘Lomax’ is difficult to say when you’ve got a mouthguard in, so the lads just called me ‘Max’.”

No wonder Paul ‘Max’ Lomax looks so fit: he’s a former rugby player as well as a lifelong surfer. His eclectic career and passion for cetaceans, allied with the steel in his character that comes of playing rugby at a high level, means that Whalesong Art could well be onto a winner.

Ends/

For more information, visit www.whalesongart.com or call 01841 520840.

Friday 17 February 2012

Dolphins are non-human persons

Dolphins: Smarter Than Your 3-Year-Old?

February 22, 2011

(ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE) Dolphins are brilliant — the second smartest beings on the planet. Scientists have just declared that dolphins are so intelligent, they should be treated as “non-human persons.” As such, to imprison dolphins in tanks, exploit them in amusement parks, or slaughter them (such as the tragic Taiji killings) is as morally atrocious as slavery and torture. Read on to learn the implications of this fascinating and important discovery. — Global Animal

wild dolphins mother and calf dolphin 400x263 Dolphins: Smarter Than Your 3 Year Old?

New research states that dolphins speak as much as humans do, and don't whistle as was previously thought. Photo Credit: Getty Images

The Sunday Times, Jonathan Leake

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.

“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” she added.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.

It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.

In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, showed that bottlenose dolphins could recognise themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and great apes.

In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn a rudimentary symbol-based language.

Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.

In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.

After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick spreading among wild dolphins who had learnt it from the former captive.

There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off Western Australia learnt to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.

Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must underlie them.

Size is only one factor. Researchers have found that brain size varies hugely from around 7oz for smaller cetacean species such as the Ganges River dolphin to more than 19lb for sperm whales, whose brains are the largest on the planet. Human brains, by contrast, range from 2lb-4lb, while a chimp’s brain is about 12oz.

When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important than its size relative to the body.

What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and neocortex of bottlenose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the bottlenose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with human intelligence.

Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino said.

Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.

Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.

“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.

Additional reporting: Helen Brooks

More Sunday Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6973994.ece

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Wednesday 8 February 2012

Great buzz for this guy !

Diver frees entangled orca

MICHELLE COOKE

Last updated 09:16 08/02/2012

Text Size

106 comments

Supplied by Rhys Cochrane

A young Hahei man rescued an exhausted and bloody orca yesterday after it was entangled in a cray pot.

TRAPPED: The orca held under the surface by a craypot rope.

TO THE RESCUE: Rhys Cochrane.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Rutger Hauer supports Cove activists.

Dolphin Defender Supported by Rutger Hauer Film Star

By Steven Thompson

Rutger Hauer Actor and Activist

Rutger Came Through! The discussion on Taiji Dolphin Action Group on Facebook for Erwin Vermeulen and the dolphins hit a wonderful breakthrough. Rutger Hauer, actor and activist, came through with a message for Erwin that we will deliver this week. Rutger clearly supports Cove Guardians.
Thank you TDAG'ers! As always, it is a team effort: the suggestions, the brainstorming, the creativity, the hard work!
Rutger has been deeply affected by fellow Dutch countryman's sacrifice in a Japanese prison and the unjust de facto 70 day jail sentence till at least Feb. 22nd and risk of two more years in a damp cold cell.
For the dolphins and for us...Till the end of the hunt!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/taijiactiongroup/

Friday 3 February 2012

Hectic week for Sea Shepherd

Both sides in the Antarctic whaling conflict are today locked in a marathon pursuit across the Southern Ocean.
Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said the anti-whaling group's two ships had covered more than 5000 nautical miles as some of the Japanese fleet's ships tailed them, while others were on the run.
"It's been a hellish week," Mr Watson said from the flagship Steve Irwin. "The weather has been horrendous."

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The chase has moved along the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory and through the Ross Sea to waters off Marie Byrd Land, about midway between New Zealand and South America, and now back towards the Ross Sea.
Mr Watson said the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker were being followed by two Japanese harpoon ships, alternating with the fleet's security ship, Shonan Maru No.2.
The faster Japanese vessels are able to warn the key factory ship, Nisshin Maru, of Sea Shepherd's location, allowing it to steer clear.
A plan by the Bob Barker to once more shake off its pursuer inside the territorial waters of Australia's Macquarie Island had to be abandoned when the activists' ship was forced away by severe weather.
"On the positive side we have been chasing the Nisshin Maru continuously and, more importantly, we have been keeping the refuelling vessel Sun Laurel on the run to keep it from the Nisshin Maru," Mr Watson said.
"We are in helicopter and drone range of the Sun Laurel. The Nisshin Maru will need to fuel soon.
"This entire fleet has been on the run for over a month and a half, burning lots of fuel and catching very few whales."
However the conservationists are still handicapped by the loss of the fast scout vessel Brigitte Bardot, undergoing repairs in Fremantle, Western Australia, after being damaged in a storm.
"Without the Brigitte Bardot, I can't close the gap on the Nisshin Maru, but we can keep the fleet running," Mr Watson said.
"I have started a fund-raising effort to secure another ship," he said. "I need a third large vessel that can go faster than the harpoon ships. One more ship down here would stop this fleet cold."
Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research does not comment on the movements of the whaling fleet. The ICR has reported no recent clash between the two sides.