Killer whale devours great white shark

As if to show the world which ocean predator is actually in charge, a killer whale annihilated a great white shark–in front of a boat-load of people. Just off the coast of San Francisco, the surprise killing caught whale-watchers off guard. According to National Geographic, the whale came to the water’s surface with a great white shark hanging from its mouth.

The interesting part? The whale is said to have held the shark in its mouth for about 15 minutes. And, to thicken the already unlikely plot, biologist Peter Pyle was in the area and able to get underwater footage, which revealed two whales feeding on the shark.

This unbelievable twist of nature was dubbed ‘The Whale That Ate Jaws’ by National Geographic and the footage was aired on the National Geographic channel for the Nature Untamed series. Check out the original story here.




[Thanks, National Geographic ‘Nature Untamed’]

A mid-season whale wars update from the Sea Shepherd

The Sea Shepherd’s Southern Ocean season – dubbed “Operation No Compromise” — is more than half over and reports so far it may be having its best season of protest ever.

How to measure? Very few whales taken by the Japanese whaling fleet and no ships sunk on either side. Yet.

Of course there’s been plenty of verbal slugging since the season began in December, as well as the tossing of some literal bamboo spears, by the Japanese!

Lead-Shepherd Captain Paul Watson accused the Japanese of making a false “Mayday” distress call from the Southern Ocean last Friday, claiming it was “under attack” by the anti-whalers.

Watson admits he and his gang had deployed its typical weaponry: prop foulers (wire ropes intended to damage engines), and a fair number of stink and paint bombs – resulting in the return fire of those bamboo spears — but that they were hardly close to ramming the Japanese whaling ship.

“They said they were in distress and we were standing by,” Watson told the AP. “The ‘Gojira’ [the Shepherd’s new attack ship, named after Godzilla] is right beside them and they refuse to answer our calls.”
Truth is, according to Watson, it was the Japanese ship “Yushin Maru No. 3” which nearly cut the “Gojira” in half, coming just 10 feet from its hull.

Given the remoteness of the battleground, for now all we have is the he-said/she-said issuances of the two fighters. But all will be made clear later in the year, since for the fourth consecutive season a film crew from Animal Planet is on board documenting the campaign for “Whale Wars.”

It would appear that this year’s campaign strategy has paid off. Utilizing thee ships, a helicopter and 88 crewmembers the Shepherd’s have successfully chased the Japanese whaling fleet over 5,000 miles. Early in the season they isolated and cut off its refueling vessel – the “Sun Laurel” – even while being harassed by two of the Japanese’ three harpoon boats – which have focused on trailing the Shepherd’s rather than hunting whales.

Watson checked in from port in New Zealand, where he’d taken the Shepherd’s lead ship, the “Steve Irwin,” for fuel and supplies. He is optimistic about the season, suggesting it may be “our most successful yet.”

“They have taken very close to zero (whales),” he says, hoping this may be the last season the Shepherd’s presence will be required off Antarctica, hoping its non-stop harassment will finally encourage the Japanese to give up its “scientific” hunt.

Where whaling commission edicts and international protest have failed, a combination of the seaborne fights, new Japanese tax laws, falling meat sales and having been caught running a whale-meat black market, may succeed in stopping whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Success has apparently been felt on the fundraising front as well, since the Shepherd’s have recently raised a giant electronic billboard in Times Square depicting a breaching whale about to be harpooned. It is the media savvy non-profit’s first stab at outdoor advertising.

Read more from Jon Bowermaster’s Adventures here.

[Flickr image via gsz]

Whale Wars continue — despite Wikileaks

That the Sea Shepherd’s and Japanese whalers are skirmishing again — a recent tête-à-tête included the sling shotting of stink bombs (by the Shepherds) and false attempts to ram (by the Japanese) — the bigger news was the Wikileaks release of conversations between representatives of the U.S. government and their Japanese counterparts about how to shutdown the increasingly popular conservation group.

On the eve of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in November 2009, a U.S. representative, Monica Medina, apparently broached the idea with senior officials from Japan’s Fisheries Agency of the possibility of revoking Sea Shepherd’s tax-exempt status.

On what basis? According to the leaked cable, first published on Wikileaks website and then in the Spanish daily El Pais, it was because the group “does not deserve tax exempt status based on their aggressive and harmful actions.”

In the past the Japanese have suggested if the Shepherd’s would stop chasing them, they might actually slow down their annual whale hunts. The group’s charismatic leader Paul Watson, for one, doesn’t trust them. “This is not about politics, it’s about economics,” he has said. “They will stop until they realize it is bad business, not because some government tells them to.”

In the cables both governments labeled the conservation group’s annual anti-whaling campaign an “irritant” in international relations.

Contacted by the AP aboard his ship Steve Irwin in the Southern Ocean, you could almost hear the glee in Watson’s reaction to the leaked cables, saying the secret talks proved Sea Shepherd was having an effect.

“We have had our tax status since 1981, and we have done nothing different since then to cause the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) to change that,” he said by telephone.

Meanwhile the daily cold war continues off the coast of Antarctica. For the past week the Sea Shepherd ships have been pursuing the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru ever since finding the whaling fleet on December 31st. The pursuit has now covered a thousand miles.

If things continue like this – lots of harassment and engagement, few whales taken, no loss of life or ships and lots of media coverage — the Shepherd’s and Watson will be satisfied. As will the “Whale Wars” camera crews onboard documenting a fourth season.

This season’s campaign motto? “Operation No Compromise.” Watson’s goal is to cause enough distractions to force the whalers to give up and go home. For good.

Read more from Jon Bowermaster’s Adventures here.

[Flickr image via gsz]

Rocker Tommy Lee angered over whale masturbation *UPDATED*

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is angry — really angry — about the way Shamu is being treated at SeaWorld.

In a letter to SeaWorld Orlando, Lee complains about the methods used by the theme park to obtain sperm from Tillikum – the orca responsible for the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau this spring.

Tillikum was brought to SeaWorld Orlando specifically for breeding purposes in 1998. He continues to appear in Shamu shows there and to be used in killer whale breeding programs.

PETA, an organization which Lee has long supported, has called for the whale’s release back into the wild.

Lee calls Tillikum SeaWorld’s “chief sperm bank.”

“We know from SeaWorld’s own director of safety (as well as videos on the web) that the way you get his sperm is by having someone get into the pool and masturbate him with a cow’s vagina filled with hot water,” Lee wrote in the letter obtained by TMZ.

“Even in my wildest days with Motley Crue, I never could’ve imagined something so sick and twisted.”

As bizarre as it may sound, manual stimulation of animals is a regular breeding method used by zoos and aquariums for certain species.

Thomas French’s 2010 book Zoo Story documents the manual stimulation of a bull elephant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom to obtain the sperm used to impregnate a female elephant at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa.

UPDATE: SeaWorld Orlando has responded to the breeding methods mentioned in Lee’s letter, and they say he’s got it all wrong.

Fred Jacobs, vice president of communications for SeaWorld told E! News that 25 of the 27 orca calves born at the theme park were conceived naturally, and the process of collecting semen for the two calves born through artificial insemination is similar to that used in breeding livestock or in programs at zoos.

Lee “contends that semen is collected from Tilikum using a ‘cow’s vagina filled with hot water.’ This is beyond ludicrous. Whatever his views on SeaWorld, Mr. Lee would be wise to spend more time checking his facts,” Jacobs said.

[Image credit: Flickr user Hyku]

Cruise ship hits whale off Alaska

For the third time in the past decade a Princess Cruises luxury ship has struck and killed a whale in the waters off the coast of Alaska. That latest incident occurred last Tuesday evening just south of Juneau, where the ship the Sapphire Princess apparently hit the creature, whose corpse was discovered attached to the hull on Wednesday morning. Last year, the same ship arrived in Vancouver following a routine voyage, with a fin whale stuck to its hull.

This current whale was an adult female humpback that measured more than 43 feet in length. Humpbacks are found in waters all over the world, but in the summer months they tend to feed in colder, polar waters. The species is an endangered one and the giant mammals are protected under U.S. law, with stiff fines levied against those who do them harm. It is unclear at this time whether or not Carnival Corp., the parent company of Princess Cruises, will face any fines for this latest incident. They paid out a settlement of $750,000 for a similar incident that occurred in 2001.

On Friday, investigators were still studying the whale’s carcass to determine the exact cause of death. They have not ruled out the possibility that the beast was already dead when the ship struck it, and that the Sapphire Princess played no role in killing it.

[Photo credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson via WikiMedia Commons]