Word: cetacean
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...regional network of marine-mammal experts says the Langseth may have done more harm than good during its nearly four-month tour. The area where the ship was sailing is home to about 34 cetacean species, of which seven are fragile marine-mammal species, like the critically endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin that lives along a 60-mile (100 km) stretch of Taiwan's west coast. "Seismic airguns are very loud, and under certain circumstances they can cause actual physical damage," says Rose. "When a species such as the humpback dolphin is already facing many threats and is hovering...
...turns out he's Ric O'Barry, a forgotten face from 1960s pop culture. As a young man, he captured and trained Flipper--or rather, the five dolphins that played that beloved cetacean. He became a passionate opponent of keeping dolphins in captivity after the death of one of the Flippers, a bottlenose named Kathy. Now he's a crusader on a mission: In a small, isolated cove in Taiji, Japan, where O'Barry has become a part-time resident (and pest), thousands of dolphins are being trapped and slaughtered every year. Since 2003, O'Barry has been desperately trying...
...Indeed, baiji aren't the only animal facing extinction. Wang says the finless porpoise, another large cetacean native to the river, has also seen its population plummet because of shipping and hydrological engineering. When Wang surveyed the river in the early 1990s, he found about 1,200 of the porpoises; 15 years later, there were fewer than half that number left. But Wang says it may not be too late to save the species. Galvanized in part by the baiji's disappearance, Chinese scientists are taking aggressive steps to rescue the finless porpoise, including breeding the animals in a lake...
...Chilean Navy SEALs, the expedition leader was in command of Augusto Pinochet's bodyguards, and Gian Paolo Sanino, the scientist who leads the ecotours, wrote Chile's new law on whale and dolphin watching. His payoff? He gets to conduct baseline research in an area where very little cetacean research has been done. "We always complain the private sector doesn't sponsor science," says Sanino. "Now they...
Among the seven orcas who play Shamu in the famous killer-whale extravaganza at San Diego's SeaWorld, Kasatka is not the one to mess with - whether you're human or cetacean. At a mere 5,000 lb., she isn't the largest whale in the pod (the heaviest is 9,500 lb.), nor, at 30, is she the most senior. But she is what's called the dominant female. And in the matriarchal killer-whale society, that means she's the boss. On Wednesday, she decided to remind her trainer of that...