31 May 2007

Whales visiting Manly - still

Whales are passing again on their long journey. Wednesday two Humpbacks were sighted. Today at around 5 pm two were sighted from North Head. As it was already dusk, it was too hard to distinguish if it was a Humpback or a Pilot Whale. Many of the motorised speeding boats did not seem to notice anything. At least there was no marina developer 'buzzing a humpback whale in a speedboat'.
These mammals have been doing their routes for 15-36 million years of their evolution and can become some 200 years old and have a language/dialect. Like a lot of other species they are being forced out of their habitat by us.This giant megafauna 'cloggs up' the shipping routes. Good news for human beings is, it is cheap meat with low production costs and 'advances science'. Additionally they can also be monetarised 'as a resource for tourism'. Paying audiences can have a good commercialised look from a noisy motorboat.

Just like in our motorised traffic it becomes near impossible to communicate to each other over motor noise. So with the whales, the noisy motors shred the syntax and block any of their cool remix mating songs. "A blue whale, which lives 100 years, that was born in 1940, today has had his acoustic bubble shrunken from 1,000 miles to 100 miles because of noise pollution".
Sonar military communication...”Causes hemorrhaging in their brains and lungs. They've found them bleeding from their ears, bleeding from their eyes...It kills them." Planned oil and gas mining in the ocean “Would expose whales to noise pollution, oil spills, chemical pollution, vessel collisions and entanglement with or ingestion of marine debris

About whalewatching, NSW
Leaving some personal space for them if you have to go near them
Learn more about marine mammals
Greenpeace
Video: Destruction of 3000 whales p.a.
Whalesong
Update: 010607, 11:30 am Humpbacks of different sizes passing North Head/Manly.

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