Whales in Chesapeake Bay?

'Behemoths in the Bay'

A whale of a change in attitude was needed for species to stay afloat

Past is Prologue / By Dr. Kent Mountford - Bay Journal

Let's go back millions of years 10, maybe 14 million years, to the Miocene and Eocene epochs. What ultimately became the Chesapeake was then a shallow, subtropical sea, stretching along a sandy coast with barrier islands and embayments, perhaps like the Baja California today.

This nameless sea in the distant past was a calving ground for several species of cetaceans: baleen or filter-feeding whales, fish-capturing toothed whales, porpoise and even manatees. Their relatively defenseless young were easy prey for many species of sharks. Some sharks, like the giant Charcaradon megalodon, were 35 feet long with phalanxes of teeth, the largest of which reached 7 inches.

Shift scenes to the present where the eroding cliffs and shorelines of the modern Chesapeake still relinquish millions of fossil shark's teeth-and the ribs, vertebrae and other bones of those long extinct cetaceans. They've been the delight of children and of serious fossil collectors since the 19th century. But to early colonists, who had no concept of geologic time, these fossils, and the shells embedded in the cliffs were a great puzzlement.

"Within the shoares of our rivers, whole bancks of oysters and scallopps, which lye unopened and thick together, as if there had bene their natural bedd before the sea left them."

- George Percy
"Discourse of Virginia," 1606

Whales were an important resource in a world before oil wells and cheap petroleum supplies. Whale hunters took the rich, fatty insulating tissues surrounding the whales' bodies and "tryed" -melted in cauldrons-them to extract fine oils to be used for lubrication or to burn in lamps.

Apart from the occasional natural strandings, these marine mammals had to be hunted. However angrily we view whaling today, in the 16th and 17th centuries this fishery provided valuable products and was a true contest between species. It required great courage and respect to conquer these massive creatures in a small boat with simple, hand-thrown harpoon and lance.

John Smith's first sentence on marine living resources in the Chesapeake reads: "Of fish we were best acquainted with sturgeon, grampus (a small toothed whale -perhaps the pilot whale) porpoise, seals (and) stingrays whose tails are very dangerous."

Will Japan Halt Antarctic Whale Hunt?

Australia Lacks Confirmation Japan Will Halt Antarctic Whale Hunt

Phil Mercer | Sydney February 17, 2011 - VOA

Australian officials say they have received no formal word that Japan plans to call off its annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. Japan says it is suspending the controversial hunt because of interference from environmentalists. However, Japan’s fisheries agency says its whaling operations had been suspended because of safety concerns.

According to Australia’s Environment Ministry, it is not clear if the hunt will resume or if the Japanese fleet will head home soon.

What is apparent is that this year’s hunt has not gone smoothly. Although precise figures are not available, it is thought the Japanese have caught fewer than 100 whales out of a target of more than 900.

Boats operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a U.S. activist group, have tailed and harassed the whaling fleet. Anti-whaling activists say their strategy of placing vessels in the way of Japanese factory ships has hampered the hunt.

Sea Shepherd spokesman Peter Hammarstedt says their persistence has paid off.

"I think it's a combination of things that have led to victory down here in the southern oceans," Hammarstedt noted, "one is our efforts to blockade them here and every day we prevent them from whaling we're costing them literally millions of dollars in lost profit. And we speak the only language that these poachers understand and that's the language of profit and loss."

The activists were quoted as saying they would "continue following the fleet until it was clear it had headed north to Japan."

Commercial whaling is banned worldwide, but Japan conducts what it calls "scientific" whaling. The Japanese fishing authorities say up to 900 whales are hunted a year, so they can be studied. The meat, however, is sold back in Japan.

Some Japanese consider whale meat a delicacy, and many object to the hunting ban as interference in the country’s traditional fishing activities.

Australia calls the practice an "unnecessary slaughter" and New Zealand has also voiced its objections.

Last year, Canberra filed suit against Japan at the International Court of Justice in a bid to stop the Antarctic hunt. A decision could be years away.

Australia Lacks Confirmation Japan Will Halt Antarctic Whale Hunt

Artile from VOA

Japanese Whaling - Early Halt Could Mark Permanent End to Hunt in Antarctic Waters

Early Halt to Japanese Whaling Could Mark Permanent End to Hunt in Antarctic Waters

Washington, DC - 02/16/2011 - Josh Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, issued the following statement today in response to the announcement of the withdrawal of the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean one month before it normally heads home:

"The Pew Environment Group welcomes the early departure of the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Commercial whaling does not belong in the 21st century. We hope that the removal of the fleet marks the end of all whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and that Japan confirms this exit is permanent at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in July.”


Pew Environment Group
Information sourced: from http://www.pewsharks.org/
Contact: Dan Klotz, 347.307.2866