February 11, 2016 - INDIA - A 28 feet long dead whale was washed ashore on the remote rocky coast of
Aagari village of Dapoli taluka in Ratnagiri district.
The dead whale
was spotted on Wednesday night, said N Vasudevan, chief conservator of
forests, in charge of marine bio-diversity.
The whale species is yet to be confirmed.
This is the third incident this year when whale have been washed
ashore. While the whale at Juhu too was dead and the body washed
ashore, at Dapoli, a blue whale that had come close to the shores, was
directed back into the sea by local forest officials and villagers. At
Juhu the body was buried in the sand.
Vasudevan said the site where the dead whale was found is rocky and
difficult to reach. "We have collected tissues to ascertain the cause of
the death but will not be able to bury it,'' he said. He said there was
also no expertise to conduct a post-mortem.
"The body was highly disintegrated which indicates that it had died in the sea," he said. - The Times of India.
February 4, 2016 - EARTH - The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the appearance of rare creatures.
Dead sperm whale washed ashore at Ganjam, India
The sight of dead body of a 35 feet long and 10 feet round sperm whale
washed ashore shocked locals on Tuesday near Kantiagada village that
under Ganjam block.
The whale is suspected to have died five days back.
Informing about the body that washed ashore, Khalikote Forest Ranger,
Dilip Kumar Martha, said, "We doubt that the whale died four or five
days back. Initial investigations suggest that the whale died after
being hit by a ship. The Odisha museum has also been informed about the
whale if they ever want to preserve it. If they don't, the whale will be
buried near the coast." - Iamin.
Blue whale rescued off Dapoli, India
The whale, weighing approximately 25 tonnes, was seemingly stranded
in the shallows during the night because of the high tide and was then
trapped in the sand.
Sightings of whales along the coastline of Maharashtra seem to
have become a common occurrence. Three days after a 45-feet-long Bryde's
Whale was found dead on the Juhu beach, another behemoth whale was
spotted around 200 km away from Mumbai.
A 40-feet-long blue whale was spotted stranded in the shallow waters of
Dapoli beach in Ratnagiri district by members of the Sahyadri Nisarg
Mitra on February 1,who successfully rescued it and sent it back into deeper seas.
According to the environmental group, on a chilly morning at around 6
am, a volunteer of the group saw the whale struggling to keep itself in
the waters, almost 100 metres from the shore.
The whale, weighing approximately 25 tonnes, was seemingly stranded in
the shallows during the night because of the high tide and was then
trapped in the sand.
"Immediately, the volunteer alerted other members of the group and we
informed the forest officials," Project Director, Mohan Upadhye from
Dapoli said. The distress call by the group was heeded by around 25 men
of the village, alongside a strong force of forest officials as well.
Upon reaching the spot, they saw that the whale stuck in the
sand. Efforts started to keep it in water, while a veterinarian checked
the mammal for any injury.
"The vet found that the whale was suffering from some infection, he
administered an injection and then the whale started beating water with
its tail," Upadhye added.
A herculean task involving watering the whale and checking its vitals was carried out for more than five hours.At
5 pm, during the high tide, the group brought two trawlers to tow the
whale back into deeper waters. They safely attached a thick rope to the
tail of the whale and started to tow it into the deep sea.
"The rope broke twice because of the sheer weight of the whale. However
on the third attempt, we were successful in putting it in deep waters," Upadhye told.
Swimmers untied the rope from the whale which gracefully dived in the Arabian Sea, before surfing up once. - DNA India.
Rare wild jaguar spotted living in U.S.
Researchers
in Arizona have released video showing jaguar living near Tucson. It is
thought to be the only living jaguar in the United States.
November 16, 2015 - JAPAN - A shocking new
report defies the chronically underestimated impacts of the Fukushima's
triple meltdown on the risk of cancer in exposed populations, which does
not just include Japan, but arguably the entire world.
A new report from Fairewinds Energy Education (FEE), "Cancer on the Rise in Post-Fukushima Japan,"
reveals that the ongoing multi-core nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant that started in March 2011 has produced approximately 230
times higher than normal thyroid cancers in Fukushima Prefecture, and
could result in as many as one million more cancers in Japan's future as
a result of the meltdown.
According to the new report,
data provided by a group of esteemed Japanese medical professionals and
TEPCO, confirm a direct link of numerous cancers in Japan to the triple
meltdown. As transcribed by Enenews.com, Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds stated, Nov. 4, 2015:
"It's been almost 5 years from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns, and the
news from Japan is still not good. Two reports recently released in
Japan, one by Japanese medical professionals and the second from Tokyo
Power Corporation – TEPCO – acknowledged that there will be numerous
cancers in Japan, much greater than normal, due to the radioactive
discharges from the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi... I believe,
as do many of my colleagues, that there will be at least 100,000 and as
many as one million more cancers in Japan's future as a result of this
meltdown... [T]he second report received from Japan proves that the
incidence of thyroid cancer is approximately 230 times higher than
normal in Fukushima Prefecture... So what's the bottom line? The cancers
already occurring in Japan are just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sorry
to say that the worst is yet to come."
WATCH: Cancer on the Rise in Post-Fukushima Japan.
The content of the new report defies what are chronically
underestimated radiation exposure levels and effects produced by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, TEPCO, and the Japanese government.
As we have reported previously,
the present day radiation risk model is based on outdated science and a
dataset extracted from Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors, and which was
arrived at before the discovery of DNA, and knowledge of up to six orders of magnitude higher genotoxicity
caused by what is known as photoelectron induction associated with
low-dose radioisotope exposure, i.e. the incorporation into our tissue
of extremely low doses of radionuclides such as plutonium-239, uranium-238, and over one hundred others produced as a byproduct of the nuclear reactions that produce nuclear power.
For those unafraid of confronting the truth, I highly recommend reading the 2001 paper published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry titled, "Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle decay,"
produced by the Army's own Radiobiology Research Institute, in order to
fully comprehend the implications of photoelectron induction. In a
nutshell, it implies that the adverse health effects associated
with nuclear fallout may be tens of thousands times worse than present radiation risk models used by the nuclear industry, medical establishment, and government presently project.
The nuclear radiation risk models used by the
nuclear industry and the medical establishment and harped upon by the
mainstream media and world governments, were created largely by nuclear
physicists in the 1950's, before the discovery of DNA, and are based
upon the type of high energy external radiation exposures associated
with the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima.
This "old
world" risk model, which underpins the policies and recommendations of
would-be authorities on radiation safety such as the International
Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), though relevant in the
case of external radiation exposure, severely misrepresents both the
type and degree of radiotoxicity associated with the internalization of
radioisotopes like Radioiodine 131, Cesium 137 and Uranium 238, and
subsequent "non-linear" adverse effects in the human body. The ICRP not
only conditions the world's perception on the relative safety of nuclear
energy, but is also responsible for underwriting the risk associated
with the use of munitions containing depleted uranium (DU) in places
like Iraq, and now Libya. The genotoxic Uranium-238 residues left behind
will likely cause pain, suffering, birth defects, miscarriages and
premature deaths for countless generations to come.
Although
radioisotopes like Uranium-238 give off relatively low doses of
ionizing radiation when compared to "high dose" external radiation
exposure (such that may occur in a nuclear blast), following inhalation
or ingestion these alpha particle emitters remain in affected tissues
and cells for days, months, years and in some cases, a (subsequently
shortened) lifetime, e.g. Strontium-90.
On a cellular
level, particles of Uranium-238, which are weak emitters of alpha
particle radiation (and therefore considered relatively non-radiotoxic),
strongly bind and incorporate into the DNA in affected cells. Once a
DNA-Uranium complex is formed it is capable of amplifying the
genotoxicity of natural background gamma radiation (or medical
radiation) to the affected DNA though a phenomenon called "photoelectric
enhancement" by up to 55,000 TIMES HIGHER than normally occurs. See Chris Busby PhD's video or this document for details.
Ocean shores specialist Calum Stevenson said the appearance of a whale of this scale was rare in the area.
Calum Stevenson/Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept
November 14, 2015 - OREGON, UNITED STATES - The 78-foot long blue whale that washed up on the Oregon Coast is the first in more than a century,
researchers from the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute
said… It’s still unclear how the whale died, but [Bruce Mate from the
OSU Marine Mammal Institute] said one clue is it’s size: it weighed less
than 100 tons, which is more typical for blue whales. “It eats things
that are no longer than 2 inches long: krill. And that’s why this animal is probably on the beach because that’s been in short supply last summer and again this summer,” Mate said. (emphasis added), Nov 9, 2015 - KVAL.
The massive marine mammal is very rare
in Oregon, a state natural resources specialist said. “We don’t usually
see blue whales this close in,” said Calum Stevenson, ocean shores
specialist with the state Parks and Recreation Department. “They are not even on our radar for Whale Watch because they are so uncommon… The blubber layer was emaciated — 4 inches or less,” compared with up to 12 inches in a healthy blue whale, Stevenson said. Nov 7, 2015 - The Register-Guard.
Volunteer workers are stripping the carcass to preserve the skeleton. Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept
A colossal blue whale weighing 100 tons washed up on Oregon's Gold Beach. Calum Stevenson/Oregon Parks and Recreation Dept
Volunteers work to strip blubber, meat and muscle from the carcass of a blue whale that washed ashore north of Gold Beach.
Bruce Mate/Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University
A rare blue whale washed up along the Oregon coast… 100
tons and measuring 78 feet long… Blue whales are the largest animals to
inhabit the Earth and are considered an endangered species… The
appearance of a whale of this size is unprecedented in the area… Nov 8, 2015 - NY Daily News.
Bruce Mate, who serves as marine mammal director at Oregon
State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, said this is the first time he’s seen a blue whale on Oregon beaches. He’s been doing research in the state since 1968… Mate said the environment may have also played a role… Mate described the whale as emaciated and said it had a “very sick blubber layer.” Nov 5, 2015 - OPB.
Blue whales generally stay away from the coast, making the event extremely rare.
They feed solely on krill, Bruce Mate, the marine mammal director at
Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, tells KOIN. “I think we are going to see more of this,” he says. Most of the whales Mate has been tracking for the past two years have not been doing well. Nov 6, 2015 - KOIN.
This specimen was in rough shape and may have been malnourished [with] pitifully thin blubber. Nov 9, 2015 - 9 News.
WATCH: Rare blue whale washed up along the Oregon coast.
“The very first blue whale to wash up on the Oregon coast… Animal experts say they are still looking into the cause of death… they do say many sea creatures are being affected by weather patterns rights now… [it] is killing off the krill population, which is what these animals eat.” Nov 6, 2015 - KDRV transcript.
The organs are being removed by Mate’s team and taken back to the lab in Newport to be studied… “The whale was very emaciated
when it washed up” [Calum Stevenson of Oregon Parks and Recreation]
said. “We don’t know what killed it — warming water from El Nino, disease, who knows.” Nov 10, 2015 - Curry Coastal Pilot.
Yesterday, I highlighted news of 14 dead penguins found washed up on the East Coast of New Zealand. Today, news breaks about the discovery of the first massive blue whale in 30 years, washing up dead on another New Zealand beach.
Waiinu Beach in South Taranaki was the final destination for huge sea monsters as two giant whales washed ashore in the past three days. Residents of Waitotara were surprised to discover what is believed to be a dead 22.3m-long pygmy blue whale washed up on the beach, about 1.5km south of the river mouth, sometime on late Friday night or early Saturday morning. A Wanganui Department of Conservation spokesman said if this was a pygmy blue whale, it was a rare specimen and the only one of its kind to have washed up on this coastline for at least 30 years. Then overnight Sunday a large sperm whale stranded itself on the beach. Unable to re-float the large mammal, DOC staff had to put the sperm whale down. - Stuff.
