Diving Thoughts

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian government has drawn up an agreement that allows Japan to kill more whales in the North Pacific in return for killing less in the waters around Antarctica. The proposal was apparently put together by an International Whaling Commission drafting group consisting of representatives from Australia and Japan and 4 other countries.

According to the BBC, Australia’s environment minister has rejected reports that such a compromise has been reached, claiming that their position has not changed. The foreign minister talks of a range of possible suggestions and proposals being canvassed, but that these that are a long way from a formal proposal or suggestion, or anything that the Australian government has agreed to. So it sounds like there might have been some discussions along the lines of the report in the Sydney Morning Herald but perhaps no formal agreement (yet). We will have to wait and see.

Around 150 whales have died in Tasmania after a mass stranding. The whales are long-finned pilot whales and were discovered on Saturday.  It is likely that they were migrating past Tasmania and, sadly, strandings are apparently not uncommon.

There is an article about it here.

First Encounter (Brian Skerry).

That Natural History Museum’s website has the winners and commended entries from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 competition, and there are some great photos there. You can see the various categories here. If you’re only interested in underwater photos, then the winners for that category are here.

The photograph above was the winner in the Underwater Category is entitled First Encounter, and was taken of a southern right whale by Brian Skerry off the Auckland Islands in New Zealand.

At the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, a deal between whaling nations and conservation groups fell through at the last minute after the Australians pressed for stronger language. Japan and Norway had been persuaded to adopt a resolution which said there was not enough data to support the claim that culling whales could raise fisheries yields. This would have made it more difficult for them to use the “whales eat fish” argument in the future to justify hunting whales.

Australia were involved in the earlier negotiations on the motion, which is why some of the anti-whaling countries were apparently unhappy with Australia for destroying the consensus at the last minute.

At the 2006 International Whaling Commission meeting which included Japan and Norway among its sponsors, a resolution was produced that said: “Scientific research has shown that whales consume huge quantities of fish, making the issue a matter of food security for coastal nations and requiring that the issue of management of whale stocks must be considered in a broader context of ecosystem management.” which they use as an argument for culling the whale population. By the same token, since Japanese and Norwegians also eat huge quantities of fish, does that mean there is an argument for culling their populations too?

More on this from the BBC’s environment correspondent.

A white humpback whale has been spotted off Byron Bay, which is on the east coast of Australia. If confirmed, this would be only the second known all-white whale. The first one, Migaloo (which means “White Fella” in Aboriginal) was first seen in 1991 and it is possible that this new whale is related. The new whale is mainly white but does seem to have some black markings around its head and tail.

“as far as we know, he is globally unique,” – Professor Peter Harrison from the Whale Research Centre, Southern Cross University on Migaloo’s celebrity status.

“There she blows!–there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!“  – Captain Ahab, well-known conservationist and whale lover.

You can read more from Divemaster News, or a website dedicated to Migaloo.

Or even see a video of Migaloo from You Tube: