Animals
S


Fish

'OMG' - Child portion fish & chips coming your way due to climate change!

Joanne Nova
Joanne Nova
Sat, 08 Jul 2017 19:29 UTC
Fish & Chips
© The Independent, UK
Last December British Fish and Chips was going to become Squid and Chips thanks to Climate Change. This year, cod will become anchovies. Battered anchovie anyone? British Fish and chips have been dying for a decade.

Now, apparently, fish are shrinking, thanks to falling oxygen levels in the seas:
By 2050, the size of fish could shrink by 10 - 20 per cent, Dr William Cheung, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, forecast.

Dr Cheung, who gave a keynote address at the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles at Exeter University this week, said some fish in the North Sea, including haddock, were already getting smaller.
Some might say the shrinking Haddock might have more to do with over-fishing.
He predicted the trend would continue with common species such as cod shrinking by up to a fifth within our lifetime.
Get ready for "child's portions" of fish and chips. No really, that's the headline, not the punchline.
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Bullseye

Carnivore orcas hunt down and kill 12-meter whale in dramatic rare footage from Russia (VIDEO)


RT
Tue, 04 Jul 2017 15:25 UTC
Orcas hunt whale
© Team Trip / YouTube
Russian scientists have captured rare footage of a group of orcas hunting down and killing a 12-meter whale just off the Kamchatka peninsula. There are only about 200 carnivore orcas in the Russian Far East, TASS reported, citing biologist Tatiana Ivkovich, a researcher from St. Petersburg State University.

"It's an amazing event. Over the course of all our work, we have once seen orcas finish eating a whale. And here we are, watching the hunt itself. Orcas ate a minke whale, it's not a big one, up to 12 meters in length," the scientist said.

In the video, the orcas are seen chasing the whale to exhaust and drown it, the researcher noted. They then seemingly tear the whale apart, with blood appearing on the surface and being seen in the whale's throat.

Comment: See also: Killer whales go on unprecedented killing spree off coast of Monterrey, California

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Attention

Bryde's whale carcass discovered on beach in Phuket, Thailand


Pattaya Mail
Tue, 04 Jul 2017 12:14 UTC
DEAD WHALE
A Bryde's whale carcass has been found on a beach in Phuket province. It is believed that the mammal died of sickness.

Marine biologists from the Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Institute inspected the carcass found on Phuket beach in front of Trisara Phuket Hotel. According to their preliminary inspection, the 18-meter-long whale was around 15 years old and had been dead for more than 4 weeks before it washed ashore.

The marine biologists indicated that the Bryde's whale, whose sex remains unclear, could have been killed by an infection. The carcass will be taken to Layan National Park where it will be buried.

Bryde's whales are the largest mammals in Thailand. An adult Bryde's whale could weigh up to 20 tons and grow to lengths of up to 15 meters long.

It is reported that there are around 50 Bryde's whales in the Gulf of Thailand.

Source: National News Bureau of Thailand
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Attention

Dead humpback whale calf found on beach in Queensland, Australia

Jacob Carson
The Gympie Times
Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:25 UTC
There have been more whale sightings this season than usual.
There have been more whale sightings this season than usual.
It's the sight no whale-watcher wants to see -with a beautiful baby humpback whale washing ashore and dying during the night.

But ironically, according to a popular Cooloola Coast tourism operator - it's a sign that things are steadily improving for the once seriously endangered species.

"Yeah it wasn't too good to see unfortunately," Tyron Van Santen from Rainbow Beach's Epic Ocean Adventures says of the calf's discovery on Teewah Beach yesterday.

"A couple of our team members saw it when they were making the trip from Noosa to Rainbow."
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Attention

Man attacked by grizzly bear near Water Valley, Alberta

Anna Junker
Calgary Herald
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 17:50 UTC
Bear attack
A geocaching enthusiast managed to fight off a grizzly bear that tried to drag him into the bush near Water Valley on Sunday, before driving himself into town for help.

Paramedics were called to the hamlet some 80 kilometres northwest of Calgary about 12:45 p.m. and found a man in his 50s suffering from serious soft-tissue injuries throughout his body.

Didsbury RCMP said the man was geocaching — a treasure-hunting hobby using GPS co-ordinates — in the Harold Creek area west of the town when he was attacked by the bear.

A brief struggle ensued between the unidentified man and the bear, which attempted to drag him into the bush. He was eventually able to escape in his vehicle and drove himself into Water Valley.
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Attention

Decomposed fin whale washes up in Southampton, New York

Lisa Finn
Southampton Patch
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 13:30 UTC
The whale had evidence of shark bites, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society says
© Atlantic Marine Conservation SocietyThe whale had evidence of shark bites, the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society says
A deceased whale was found floating in the water near Gibson Lane in Southampton Friday night, experts said.

According to the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, a call came in at approximately 7:30 p.m.

The whale beached around 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning, AMCS representatives said.

The whale is a female fin whale, between 40 to 50 feet in length; fin whales are commonly seen around and near New York waters, experts said.

The whale had evidence of shark bites, but no other signs of injury had immediately been found. In addition, the whale was fairly decomposed, and had initially been sighted floating approximately 9 miles off Shinnecock Inlet on Tuesday, AMCS representatives said.
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Attention

Dead fin whale seen east of Prince Edward Island, Canada


Journal Pioneer
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 09:30 UTC
fin whale
Fin whale
Another dead whale has been sighted by a recent aerial patrol carried out by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).

The carcass of a fin whale has been located east of P.E.I.

"The cause of death is unknown at this time and the Department is determining next steps," said DFO in a news statement.

Recently, the DFO has confirmed the deaths of six North Atlantic Right whales.
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Wolf

Meet the rare 'sea wolves' who prey on sea animals and can swim for hours

Iveta
Bored Panda
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
BC wolf
Along the wild Pacific coast of British Columbia, there lives a population of the sea wolves. "We know from exhaustive DNA studies that these wolves are genetically distinct from their continental kin," says McAllister. "They are behaviourally distinct, swimming from island to island and preying on sea animals. They are also morphologically distinct — they are smaller in size and physically different from their mainland counterparts," says Ian McAllister, an award-winning photographer who has been studying these animals for almost two decades.

McAllister captured the magic of these wolves in breath-taking pictures. As he swam towards them, "the curious canines approached him so closely that he could hear them grunting into his snorkel. He took several frames, then pushed back into deeper water without daring to look up," writes the bioGraphic.
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Attention

Shotgun-toting 11yo boy kills attacking bear to save family in Alaska


RT
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 15:29 UTC
Brown bear
© Patrick Pleul / Global Look Press
An 11-year-old boy toting a shotgun saved three members of his family from a charging brown bear in Alaska.

Elliot Clark was returning from a fishing trip with his uncle, great-uncle, and cousin when the animal appeared from the woods near Game Creek in Port Frederick on Chichagof Island.

"There was four of them in a line... my son was third," Lucas Clark, Elliot's father, told the Juneau Empire. "The bear came down the trail at them, fella in the front, who was his uncle, the bear was on him so quickly that he didn't have time to take his rifle off his shoulder."

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Teenager bitten by shark off Hilton Head, South Carolina

Jackie Salo
New York Post
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 13:28 UTC
Shark attacks
A teen from Ohio had a terrifying encounter with a shark earlier this month while boogie boarding in South Carolina.

Reagan Readnour, 14, was on vacation in Hilton Head when she was bitten by a shark twice, the Island Packet reported.

The teen said that she was boogie boarding at the beach with her family when she felt something tug at her leg.

"I thought it was my brother messing with me when I felt something grab at my leg," Readonor told the Island Packet on Friday. "I felt a terrible sting and didn't know what it was."

Readonor only realized that she had been attacked after her brother saw blood.

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