All Entries Tagged With: "marine mammals"

Steller Sea Lion Numbers Still Declining In Some Areas

Researchers from NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center have published the results of their 2009 count of Steller sea lion pups in Alaska, which shows improvement in some areas and further decline in numbers in others.

Legal Effort to Protect Endangered Blue Whale Underway

The National Marine Fisheries Service, the agency charged with the stewardship of the U.S.’s living marine resources, may be sued for failure to implement the 1998 Blue Whale Recovery Plan. Friends of the Earth, Pacific Environment and the Center of Biological Diversity have joined the notice of intent to sue submitted by the Environmental Defense Center last week.

Study Shows Human Interaction Alters Dolphin Behavior

Researchers are studying the impacts human behaviors, as innocent as they may be, can have on bottlenose dolphins.

In a paper published in the Journal of Marine Animals and Their Ecology, Antonella Arcangeli from the Accademia del Leviatano, Rome and ISPRA, Dipartimento Difesa della Natura, Rome, Italy and Roberto Crosti from the School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia present their findings of interactions between bottlenose dolphins and a dolphin-watching tour boat in Bunbury, Western Australia.

New Discoveries in Humpback Whale Communication

Studying humpbacks with new methods Cholewiak, a researcher with the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, has uncovered the first known instances of what looks like whales responding musically to each other’s songs.

Two of the Three Spotted Seal Populations Are Safe From Endangerment or Extinction

Of the three distinct populations of spotted seals, that inhabit the North Pacific Ocean, two total more than 200,000 individuals and are not currently in danger of extinction or likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future, but NOAA’s NMFS is proposing to list a third smaller population as threatened.

Full Review of Endangered Manatees’ Critical Habitat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that new critical habitat protections may be warranted for the Florida manatee, meaning they will conduct a full review of scientific information to determine whether additional critical habitat protections are needed.

Ocean Acoustics-Does Navy Sonar Really Affect Whales?

(This article was originally published on OceanLines on September 5, 2008.) NOAA has recently released a new study about a research effort in Hawaii to determine how marine mammals react to sonar. NOAA’s Fisheries Service, along with top international scientists and the U.S. Navy are leading the research. From the NOAA research vessel Oscar Elton [...]