NATURE VS MAN – THE CETACEANS
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
JUNE 10, 2018


https://www.google.com/search?q=cetaceans+definition&oq=CETACEANS&aqs=chrome.1.0l6.6250j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

CE·TA·CEAN
səˈtāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
plural noun: cetaceans
a marine mammal of the order Cetacea ; a whale, dolphin, or porpoise.


https://www.newscientist.com/article/2171142-sperm-whales-are-tracking-fishing-boats-and-stealing-their-fish/

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL 2018 NEW SCIENTIST ARTICLE CALLED “INCOMING THIEF,” BY ADAM POPESCU, JUNE 9, 2018; BUT IT IS UNAVAILABLE ANYWHERE THAT I’VE FOUND WITHOUT PAYING NEW SCIENTIST FOR A MEMBERSHIP. THERE MAY BE A NEW STUDY, BUT I BELIEVE THAT IT ISN’T AN ENTIRELY NEW PATTERN AMONG SPERM WHALES, SO I HAVE FOUND SEVERAL OTHERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE EMBOLDENING OF SPERM WHALES, NOT IN ATTACKING HUMANS, BUT IN BRAZENLY STEALING THEIR CATCH RIGHT UNDER THE FISHERMEN'S NOSES. OF COURSE, A MALE SPERM WHALE IS 40 FEET LONG AND WEIGHS 130,000 LBS. “SURE, FELLA. IT’S YOURS! TAKE IT ALL!” AND THEY DON’T COME ALONE. THEY HUNT IN GROUPS.

SPERM WHALES HAVE CAUGHT ON TO THE FACT THAT FISHING BOATS CARRY ENOUGH COD, OR WHATEVER, TO FEED THEIR ENTIRE POD ONE GOOD MEAL, AND THEY ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE BOATS AND WAIT UNTIL THEY HEAR THE SOUND OF THE MACHINERY THAT LIFTS UP THE BAITED LINE FROM THE SEA BOTTOM (BLACK COD ARE BOTTOM FEEDERS) AT WHICH POINT THEY DIVE IN AND CHOW DOWN.

ONE FISHERMAN’S REPORT SPEAKS OF A LARGE MALE WHICH PLACED HIMSELF RIGHT BESIDE THE BOAT, AND EVEN ALLOWED A SAILOR TO TOUCH HIM WITH A BRUSH USED TO CLEAN THE DECK. NO FEAR AND NO AGGRESSION, BUT NO RETREAT EITHER. COULD THE LARGE MALE BE A SENTRY OR THE COMMANDER GIVING ORDERS TO THE POD? THERE IS NO DOUBT AMONG SCIENTISTS NOW THAT WHALES, DOLPHINS AND ORCAS ARE INTELLIGENT, LIVE IN GROUPS AND COMMUNICATE BY SOUNDS. ON ONE OF THE VIDEOS WITH THIS ARTICLE, THE SOUND OF A HUNTING SPERM WHALE WAS NOT ONLY AUDIBLE, BUT LOUDLY SO. IT IS THAT CLICKING SONAR SOUND THAT YOU ALL HAVE SEEN ON NATURE SHOWS.

EVEN THOUGH NEW SCIENTIST ISN’T GOING TO LET ME HAVE ACCESS TO THAT PARTICULAR STORY, THE OTHERS BELOW ALSO TELL A GREAT DEAL ABOUT SPERM WHALES, ORCAS, AND PEOPLE. ONE ORCA IN THE WILD DID ACTUALLY BITE A HUMAN ON THE LEG, BUT THERE IS NO SIGN OF THEIR HUNTING US FOR FOOD, OR EVEN EATING HUMANS. THEY DO EAT MARINE MAMMALS IN THE WALRUS AND SEA OTTER FAMILY, THOUGH. THE FOLLOWING PIECE FROM THE ALASKA DEPT. OF FISH AND GAME IS FASCINATING, AND IF YOU CONSIDER HOW LARGE THESE ANIMALS ARE, A LITTLE SCARY. ENJOY!

http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=61
ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME
Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
August 2003
Sperm Whales Awe and Vex Alaska Fishermen
By Riley Woodford

caption follows
A sperm whale surfaces in the South Pacific. Sperm whales are found worldwide, and in recent years Southeast Alaska longline fishermen have had a number of encounters with sperm whales in the Gulf of Alaska. Photo courtesy Dave Armstrong of Kaikoura

Fisherman Sean Tracey was working aboard the Connie M when the big sperm whale surfaced and settled in next to the boat. The 50-foot whale rested against the 42-foot fishing boat while three smaller whales picked black cod off the longline gear.

"That one didn't ever dive, he just hung out while the others were eating," Tracey said. "It was just sitting at the surface, lying right up against the boat. I was cleaning the deck and I touched him with the broom handle, then I started scratching him with the deck brush. He was really dark charcoal gray, almost black."

It was amazing to see a sperm whale within arm's reach, Tracey said, but the crew of the Connie M was not happy about losing fish. Tracey said the whales took about a third of the black cod they brought up that day in the Gulf of Alaska northwest of Sitka.

"They've gotten smart. You turn on the hydraulics to operate the gear puller and it's like the dinner bell," Tracey said.

Encounters with sperm whales have left fishermen such as Tracey with a mixture of awe and frustration. Longline fishermen targeting black cod (also called sablefish) in the Gulf of Alaska have encountered sperm whales with growing frequency over the past decade.

No one knows how many sperm whales inhabit Alaska waters. They are deep-water, open-ocean whales and are found throughout the world - killer whales are the only other whale so widely distributed. Males and females form separate groups as adults, females and young usually remain in tropic and temperate waters year-round while males are thought to move to northern waters -such as the Gulf of Alaska and the deeper waters of the Bering Sea - during the spring and summer. Males reach 50-feet in length and females average 36-feet.

Close to 1,000,000 sperm whales were killed worldwide by commercial whalers between 1947 and 1987. Sperm whales are listed as an endangered species, but actual population size is unknown - guesses range between 200,000 and 1,500,000 animals worldwide. There is evidence that some populations of sperm whales have been growing since sperm whaling halted.

Interactions with fishermen in Alaska waters are certainly increasing. There have been no injuries to the whales, and fishermen have not been forced to quit fishing, although some are spending more time, fuel, bait and money to work around the whales and catch their quota of black cod. Fishermen, working with marine mammal biologists, have been documenting the impact of the whales to gain an accurate picture of this phenomenon.

Ernie Eggleston has fished out of Pelican since the mid-1970s. He first encountered sperm whales in 1986 and he's seen them almost every year since, most recently in April. Over the years he's come to recognize one group of four or five whales, particularly one large, distinctive, scarred whale. He doesn't consider them a problem, although occasionally they do eat black cod off his fishing gear.

"They don't seem to be afraid - they come close to us when we're fishing," Eggleston said. "They get right next to the boat, on the surface. Sometimes they're not interested in our gear; other times a bunch of hooks are straightened out and they've eaten the fish."

caption follows
A sperm whale shows its flukes as it dives in the North Atlantic. Courtesy Lisa Foerster-Fox of the Center for Oceanic Research and Education.

In longline fishing for bottom-dwelling black cod, hundreds of short leaders, each bearing a baited hook, are fastened to a long ground line that is lowered to the sea floor. Each end is attached to a marking buoy and the line is left to "soak." After several hours the set is picked up and winched aboard, hauling in a catch of fish weighing seven-to10-pounds apiece.

Tracey said the day the sperm whales showed up, they brought up a lot of fish heads.

"These great big whales bite off these little fish perfectly, right at the head," he said. "It's like a grapevine. They're plucking grapes. All the way from 200 fathoms (1,200-feet). If you have a fish even every fifth hook, you can imagine how many fish are suspended off the bottom."

Eggleston said it seems to him that sometimes a whale will strip a section of the 3/8th-inch ground line by running it through its mouth.

"Sometimes they're not nipping the fish, but something else, the hooks are all straightened out," he said. "I think they go down the line with the gear in their mouth, although the line isn't frayed."

In some cases, the first sign of whales is a tightening of the main fishing line as whales begin feeding off the gear. In other cases, whales show up as soon as the fishermen haul anchor, apparently tuning in to the sound of the hydraulic motor.

Mike Sigler, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau, has kept tabs on the sperm whale situation since the 1980s. Early on, he said it seemed the whales were simply following boats and feeding on the discarded offal and fish waste. That's still the case today about half the time sperm whales are around longline boats. The other half of the time, fishermen see straightened hooks and mangled and partial fish - evidence the whales are getting into their catch.

"Sometimes they don't take fish, but when they do, they can get about a quarter of the fish," Sigler said.

Sitka whale biologist Jan Straley has begun studying these interactions between sperm whales and fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska. She stressed that fishermen report a gamut of experiences - whales are present but not interacting with fishing activity, they approach some boats more than others, they hit one set and not the next, and they have different feeding strategies.

"We have all these different stories," Straley said. "What are the similarities and differences?"

The North Pacific Research Board has granted about $185,000 for a project to study these interactions. Straley hopes to learn how many vessels are affected and where and when interactions most often occur, how many whales and specifically, which animals are involved, and what their patterns of behavior and feeding strategies are.

Straley and her colleagues will be working with fishermen, fisheries managers and other scientists to develop possible solutions to lessen the impact on fishermen and prevent any potential harm to the whales.


THIS ARTICLE ABOUT ORCAS IS EVEN MORE DISTURBING. THE PATTERN OF CHANGE IN THEIR BEHAVIOR HAS SCIENTISTS ON THE ALERT. IT STATES THAT THEY HAVE TAKEN TO “HARASSING” THE FISHERMEN. THIS ARTICLE IS FROM JUST ONE YEAR AGO. ORCAS ARE THE MUCH LARGER OCEANGOING COUSINS OF THE DOLPHIN AND SOME OTHER SMALLER RELATIVES AROUND THE WORLD. THEY ARE CALLED CETACEANS, AND ALL ARE INTELLIGENT. IN ONE OF MY DISCOVERY CHANNEL VIDEOS THERE IS ONE IN WHICH ONE OF THESE CETACEANS, A SMALL ONE, WAS COMING UP AMONG SOME PEOPLE NETTING FOR FISH AND WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO GRAB AND EAT. IT SEEMS THAT THE VILLAGERS ALLOW THE DOLPHIN TO “HERD” THE FISH UP TO THE HUMANS, WHO THEN GAVE THEM SOME OF THE CATCH. IT IS AN INTERSPECIES COOPERATION. I HAD LONG HEARD OF DOLPHINS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN “RESCUING” DROWNING HUMANS BY PUSHING THEM UP CLOSER TO THE SHORE. THERE’S MORE THAN INTELLIGENCE HERE. THERE’S GOOD WILL AS WELL.


“A REMARKABLE 2006 VIDEO BY THE AVOIDANCE PROJECT* CAPTURED ONE OF THE 50,000 KG WHALES DELICATELY SHAKING FISH LOOSE FROM A LINE.”

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/gangs-of-aggressive-killer-whales-are-shaking-down-alaska-fishing-boats-for-their-fish-report
Gangs of aggressive killer whales are shaking down Alaska fishing boats for their fish: report
The animals have learned to target individual boats, and are leading fishers on high-speed chases to get away
Tristin Hopper
June 19, 2017
5:21 PM EDT

Last Updated
June 21, 2017
1:22 PM EDT


PHOTOGRAPH -- A 2015 photo of an orca in the Salish Sea near Washington State's San Juan Islands. The Alaskan cousins of this whale are being blamed for a wave of harassment against halibut and cod fishers.

The orcas will wait all day for a fisher to accumulate a catch of halibut, and then deftly rob them blind. They will relentlessly stalk individual fishing boats, sometimes forcing them back into port.

Most chilling of all, this is new: After decades of relatively peaceful coexistence with cod and halibut fishers off the coast of Alaska, the region’s orcas appear to be turning on them in greater numbers.

“We’ve been chased out of the Bering Sea,” said Paul Clampitt, Washington State-based co-owner of the F/V Augustine.

Like many boats, the Augustine has tried electronic noisemakers to ward off the animals, but the orcas simply got used to them.

“It became a dinner bell,” said Clampitt.

John McHenry, owner of the F/V Seymour, described orca pods near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands as being like a “motorcycle gang.”

“You’d see two of them show up, and that’s the end of the trip. Pretty soon all 40 of them would be around you,” he said.

A report this week in the Alaska Dispatch News outlined instances of aggressive orcas harassing boats relentlessly — even refusing to leave after a desperate skipper cut the engine and drifted silently for 18 hours.

“It’s gotten completely out of control,” Alaska fisherman Jay Hebert told the paper.

Fishing lines are also being pillaged by sperm whales, the large square-headed whale best known as the white whale in Moby Dick.

“Since 1997, reports of depredation have increased dramatically,” noted a report by the Southeast Alaska Sperm Whale Avoidance Project.

[https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/72/5/1598/780563 --
Southeast Alaska Sperm Whale Avoidance Project* (SEASWAP): a successful collaboration among scientists and industry to study depredation in Alaskan waters
Janice Straley Victoria O'Connell Joe Liddle Aaron Thode Lauren Wild Linda Behnken Dan Falvey Chris Lunsford]

A remarkable 2006 video by the Avoidance Project* captured one of the 50,000 kg whales delicately shaking fish loose from a line. After a particularly heavy assault by sperm whales, fishers are known to pull up lines in which up to 90 per cent of the catch has disappeared or been mangled.

Some skippers will try to outrun a hovering pod, but the time and fuel needed to dodge a persistent gang of whales can wreak havoc on a trip’s profitability.

“I’ve had the same sperm whale follow me 70 miles,” Michael Offerman with the F/V Kristiana told the National Post by email.

While fishing boats all across Alaska have reported harassment by orcas, the worst incidents all seem to be occurring in the Bering Strait, the body of water separating western Alaska from Russia.

In a 2014 study of Alaska fisheries, orcas snatching fish from lines were estimated to cost boats as much as US$500 per day. Compare that to Uruguay, where a 2015 study of boats using similar fishing techniques found that “the presence of killer whales in the fishing ground seems not to affect the catch per unit effort.”

Whale predation on fishing boats is increasing in part due to a rebound of North Pacific whale populations brought about by the 1980s moratorium on commercial whaling.

Up until then, cod and halibut fishers were moving amongst whale populations that had been decimated by whaling fleets — and where survivors had learned to fear the approach of a boat engine.

“When I started fishing in the early 80s, when we saw a whale it was an event,” said Clampitt. “Now, they circle the boat.”

This is not the first time that Alaskan waters have been suddenly thrown into disorder by the changing appetites of killer whales. In the 1990s, researchers found that orca predation was responsible for a sudden collapse in Pacific sea otter populations not seen since the animals were driven to near-extinction by the fur trade.

Orcas have remarkably complex social structures, with regionally distinct languages and hunting strategies. They’re also innovative; orcas have frequently been observed inventing new hunting tactics and then teaching them to others.

The cod are coming back to Newfoundland — and they’re eating the shrimp that had taken over

Killer whales are ‘terrorizing’ narwhal as melting Arctic ice gives them easier access to prey

In April, orcas off Monterey Bay, Calif., killed four grey whale calves over eight days in what was described as an unprecedented “killing spree” by local media. Biologists attributed the episode to a single nine-member pod of orcas that had simply become unusually skilled at hunting grey whales.

Similarly, harassed Alaska fishers say they are seeing increased numbers of juvenile whales — a possible sign that adult orcas are teaching their young to seek out fishing vessels for their meals.

McHenry describing pulling in lines cleared of fish, only to notice that some fish near the end of the line were merely gnawed.

“That was them teaching the little ones; it’s unfortunate the orcas are putting us out of business, because they’re really a phenomenal mammal,” he said.

File -- The only surefire way to ward off a pod of hungry orcas is pot fishing. Rather than fishing with exposed lines, boats convert to “pots”; essentially giant crab traps that trap fish rather than hook them.

It’s not a cheap fix. A pot conversion on the F/V Augustine, for instance, cost $600,000 USD ($800,000 CDN). And while the method works for now, Clampitt suspects that orcas might innovate a way around them.

“It’s possible at some point they might start hitting the pot,” he said.

Alaska fishing boats wouldn’t be the only northerners to be seeing more orcas lately. As polar ice cover melts, it has allowed pods of orcas to swim ever-deeper into the Arctic ocean, where Inuit have observed the newcomers wreaking havoc on the slow-moving local fauna.

An Inuit interviewee for a 2012 study on the phenomenon said orcas would sometimes kill “hundreds” of belugas at a time.

“When the killer whales had left the kill site, Inuit would collect the maqtaq (blubber) from the numerous dead belugas,” it noted.

Tommy Palliser
Aside from humans, orcas are the world’s top apex marine predator. Found in all seven of the world’s oceans, pods of orcas have been seen handily killing other top marine predators, including great white sharks, walruses and leopard seals.

Unlike any other of the world’s large hunters, however, orcas have spared humans. Although captive orcas have caused human deaths, to date there is no record of a human ever being killed by an orca in the wild.

In fact, the only widely accepted account of an orca attack on a human occurred in 1972, when California surfer Hans Kretschmer suffered an orca bite to his left thigh.

National Post
• Email: thopper@nationalpost.com



[TO SEE MEN AND DOLPHINS COOPERATING TO CATCH FISH, GO TO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42MpfPqWkhk / “Dolphin Assisted Fishing”]


THIS ARTICLE CONCERNS STUDIES OF DOLPHINS WHICH AID HUMANS IN CAPTURING FISH. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT ED YONG, THE WRITER, MENTIONED THAT IT HAPPENED AT A KNOW TIME, 1847, AND HE DIDN’T SAY ANY MORE ABOUT THAT. WHO WOOED WHOM INTO THE INTERACTION? DANG!!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/05/01/dolphins-that-help-humans-to-catch-fish-form-tighter-social-networks/#.Wx2qldVKj5o
Dolphins that help humans to catch fish form tighter social networks
By Ed Yong | May 1, 2012 7:00 pm

PHOTOGRAPH – MEN WAIT IN LINE FOR THE DOLPHINS TO DRIVE THEIR MUTUAL MEAL INTO THE NET.

In the coastal waters of Laguna, Brazil, a shoal of mullet is in serious trouble. Two of the most intelligent species on the planet – humans and bottlenose dolphins – are conspiring to kill them. The dolphins drive the mullet towards the fishermen, who stand waist-deep in water holding nets. The humans cannot see the fish through the turbid water. They must wait for their accomplices.

As the fish approach, the dolphins signal to the humans by rolling at the surface, or slapping the water with their heads or tails. The nets are cast, and the mullet are snared. Some manage to escape, but in breaking formation, they are easy prey for the dolphins.

According to town records, this alliance began in 1847, and involves at least three generations of both humans and dolphins. Today, there are around 55 dolphins in the neighbourhood, and around 45 per cent of them interact with the fishermen.

Now, Fabio Daura-Jorge from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil studied Laguna’s dolphins to learn how their unusual collaboration has shaped their social networks. He spent two years taking photographs of the local dolphins, and noting where they travelled and who they were associated with. As is typical for bottlenose dolphins, the Laguna individuals formed a ‘fission-fusion’ society – they all belonged to the same large group, but they had specific ‘friends’ whom they would spend more time with.

The dolphins roughly split into two separate groups, based on their tendency to hunt with humans. Those that co-operated with the fishermen were more likely to spend time with each other than the uncooperative individuals. Likewise, the uncooperative dolphins showed a tendency to stick to their own clique.

One individual even seemed to act as a “social broker” and spent time with individuals from both groups.

Of the two groups, the human-helpers seemed to form stronger social ties. It is not clear if helping humans means they spend more time together, or vice versa. But certainly, their close associations increase the odds that one dolphin will learn the hunting technique from its peers.

This fits with what we know about bottlenose dolphins. They are extremely intelligent animals and different populations have developed their own quirky foraging traditions by learning from one another. Some use sponges to guard their snouts when they root about the ocean floor for food. Others can prepare a cuttlefish meal by sequentially killing and stripping them.

Daura-Jorge now wants to understand why only some of the dolphins help the fishermen, given that doing so clearly provides them with benefits, and all of them have the opportunity to help. By analysing the dolphins’ genes, he hopes to piece together their family trees, and work out if mothers pass on the behaviour to their calves.

Reference: Daura-Jorge, Cantor, Ingram, Lusseau & Simoes-Lopes. 2012. The structure of a bottlenose dolphin society is coupled to a unique foraging cooperation with artisanal fishermen. Biology Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0174

Bonus: There are several cases around the world where dolphins feed on the discarded remains of fish thrown away by humans. But the Laguna animals do far more than that – the fisherman wouldn’t catch any fish at all without their help. A similar alliance takes place half a world away in Burma, where Irrawaddy dolphins also fish cooperatively with humans.

More on dolphin behaviour:

Will we ever… talk to dolphins?
When meeting up at sea, bottlenose dolphins exchange name-like whistles
Dolphin detects electric fields with ex-whisker pits
Dolphins stay alert after five straight days of round-the-clock vigilance
How dolphins prepare the perfect cuttlefish meal
Sponging dolphins keep it in the family
Boto dolphins woo females with chat-up vines
CATEGORIZED UNDER: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR, ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, ANIMALS, COOPERATION, DOLPHINS AND WHALES, MAMMALS
Comments (7)

mfumbesi
Incredible, I never knew of such corporations and it is old (1847 wow).

May 2, 2012 at 1:59 am

Odin
What if hunting with humans is supposed to be a secret shared only with their closest friends?

May 2, 2012 at 5:20 am

Paulino
I remember seeing, in a documentary, a similar cooperation happening on the west coast of Africa. I think it was in Namibia, but I’m not sure.

In Rio (at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas), there a similar, but perhaps not as efficient, cooperation between herons and fishermen. But in this case the herons profit the most, I think.

May 2, 2012 at 10:43 am

Jestbill
Would there be any fish left if all the dolphins took part?
Does the one group drive the other away?

Are the dolphins monitoring fish population?

Lotsa questions here.

May 2, 2012 at 12:42 pm

Social
Are the dolphins calling the shots?

May 4, 2012 at 2:03 pm

DennyMo
Social, sort of. They are the ones who herd the fish in, then slap their tails to tell the humans when to cast their nets.

BTW, is it just a coincidence that I commented on this relationship here a couple weeks ago, and now there’s a blog post on it? My ego would like to think not… :)

May 4, 2012 at 3:59 pm

AdrianS
Mermaids. Mermaids are the reason.

October 29, 2012 at 1:31 am


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