HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS THAT THING?

That is a Vaquita, it is small species of porpoise that lives in the northernmost part of Gulf of California. There are only about 150 Vaquitas left so it is safe to say that they are CRITICALLY ENDANGERED!!! Eight Hundred fishermen in the gulf are being paid to either stop fishing with gill nets or stop fishing completely in order to save the Vaquita who have been wiped out by the commercial Shrimp, Mackerel, and Shark fishing industries.

“We have one or two years,” said Omar Vidal, the director of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico and a biologist who has studied the vaquita for 25 years. “We’re on the brink.”

[New York Times]

Omar Vidal must have the Mexican government's ear. They have spent $20 million over the past two years and is planning on spending $13 million in payoffs to the fishermen to save the Vaquita.

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Sharks, Mackerel, Vaquitas, Porpoises, Mexico, Gulf of California, Shrimp, Endangered Species

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For more recent Dolphin not Cute,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Hayden Panettiere, South Park, Japan, Dolphins, Taiji, Dolphin Slaughter

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We've said it before, but it bears repeating:

It is Dolphin killing season in Taiji, Japan again, so it is only fitting that two Japanese universities have announced research proving that Dolphin meat is extremely dangerous for human consumption. Citizens of Taiji, about the only people on earth who voluntarily eat Dolphin and Pilot Whale have levels of mercury 10 times higher than the Japanese national average. And, the Japanese have one of the highest mercury levels on earth due to their seafood consumption. The hair of three of the participants tested had mercury levels higher than 50 parts per million. How high is this? The level of mercury accepted as safe by the Japanese Ministry of Health is .4 PPM. At 50 PPM, this basically means that they have Minamata Disease. But what is Minamata Disease?

Here, have a wikipedia party:

Minamata disease (水俣病, Minamata-byō?), sometimes referred to as Chisso-Minamata disease (チッソ水俣病, Chisso-Minamata-byō?), is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect foetuses in the womb.

Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan in 1956. It was caused by the release of methyl mercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which when eaten by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig and human deaths continued over more than 30 years, the government and company did little to prevent the pollution.

All the people tested with high levels of mercury reported eating Dolphin or Pilot Whale at least once a month. After two months of not eating the poison meat, their mercury levels were halved.

Every year the local fishermen of Taiji trap thousands of Dolphins into secluded coves where they--over a period of time--beat them to death with metal rods. The international community has been condemning the Dolphin kill for years but the Japanese government has ignored the international community for economic reasons. Each year a few of the Dolphins are spared and sold to water parks in the United States and Europe--Hooray!

Want to read more from last year's Dolphin kill?

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Japan, Taiji, Dolphins, Pilot Whales, Mercury, Minamata Disease, Dolphin Meat

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Did you know Dolphins Jam people too? Well, not really Jam, they slam.

On Thursday morning a 400-pound Dolphin leaped from the waters off Edgewater, Florida and landed into the ample laps of Barbara and Norman Howard as they sat in an 18-foot boat.

"That thing had a good punch," Mr Howard said. "Mike Tyson does not hit that hard."

[source]

Here is the best part. They were both treated at...you guessed it...Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach! Even the Dolphins like to harass tourists at New Smyrna. Both Barbara and Howard were released from Bert Fish after being treated for cuts and bruises. The Dolphin was rolled off the boat and is now at large.

Since Barbara and Howard are not the prettiest things on the beach I will cleanse your palates with this lovely pic:

Pretty, Pretty,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Dolphins, Dolphin Attacks, New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, Florida, boating accidents, Bert Fish, Volusia County

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...that this is even a Shark at all.


Pictures have been circulating--mostly in the British tabloids--of a surfer supposedly "sharing" a wave with a Great White Shark. The surfer, Fergal Smith, a 21-year-old from Ireland, was surfing off Perth, Australia when this picture was taken. No one noticed the object in the water with him until they looked at the picture later. The tabloids are calling the circled object a Great White Shark, but to me it looks like a Dolphin. I can't say for sure as the picture is not clear enough, but Dolphins are known to share waves with surfers. Sharks, however, get more web traffic and sell more tabloids than Dolphins.

--Sharky

technorati tags: Sharks, Great White Sharks, Dolphins, surfing, British tabloids, Ireland, Australia, Perth

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Remember This?

It looks like Marineland, a Sea World style family fun park in Napier, New Zealand will no longer be allowed to imprison and force Dolphins to perform for fat and giggling crowds. Marineland will not be granted the necessary licenses to capture any more Dolphins and once their last elderly Dolphin Kelly dies, Marineland will close. More than four million people have visited Marineland since it opened in the mid-1960s, but attendance has been shit since dolphin Shona died in April 2006, leaving Kelly alone and miserable in the Dolphin pool. It looks like New Zealand's environmental select committee understands that capturing Dolphins and keeping them in captivity is cruel. Bravo!

Unfortunately for Marineland, Kelly the 38-year-old has passed. A necropsy discovered a tumor the size of a Mandarin inside her stomach. What a Chinese person was doing in her stomach is anyone's guess. One thing is for certain, Kelly is finally out of her misery, and will no longer have to perform unnatural flips and kiss fat Kiwi children. Do not cry for Kelly, cry for the employees of Marineland, who will likely lose their jobs because New Zealand's environmental select committee looks like they have evolved since 1974 and will probably not allow Marineland to continue exhibiting Dolphins.
Kelly is now in Dolphin Heaven.

Thanks to the Kiwi Mafia for *ahem* bringing the matter to our attention,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Dolphins, Marineland, Napier, New Zealand, captive Dolphins, Common Dolphins, cancer, Mandarin

Research by New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research suggests that New Zealand's Great White Sharks may be swimming to Australia every spring in order to feed on baby Humpback Whales. New Zealand has been running an extensive satellite tagging program of White Sharks since 2005 in order to determine whether the Sharks were native to Kiwi waters or whether they were coming in from somewhere else.

"We think they may be searching for newborn humpback whale calves, because all the tags have surfaced in or near known humpback calving sites."

[Dr Malcolm Francis]

The current hypothesis is this: White Sharks spend the winter feeding on Seals in New Zealand, but when the weather warms and only the stronger Seals remain the Sharks move to more tropical waters in search for more exotic fare.

We often piss on Japan, Norway, and Iceland for commercially hunting Whales. We are not making light of the death of these Australian baby Humpbacks. We are stating that Great Whites are taking them by natural predatory action. Human Whaling--especially conducted by Death Star-size factory ships--while predatory, is not natural and we will piss on it with great vigor at any given opportunity.

This Baby Humpback was drowned in Australian Shark nets. Each year several Whales are killed off Australia in nets meant to kill Sharks in order to stop Sharks from cruising beaches and scaring the pretty people.

The Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund has recently called for the removal of Shark nets from New South Wales beaches, because they are ineffective at protecting swimmers and kill too much marine life.

"Dolphins, dugongs, turtles. We also get stingrays, we also get rare and endangered sharks being caught up. We've had occasions whereby we've had our rare and endangered grey nurse shark get caught up, and we can ill afford to lose any."

[Colin Henrisson]

And in other tragedies:

Sarah Palin, the undergraduate years...all 6-to-10 of them. She may be broke, but she ain't flat busted. NOT PHOTOSHOPPED!

Thanks to Shannon for poking us in the ass about the Humpbacks,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Sharks, Whales, Whaling, Great White Sharks, Shark Nets, New Zealand, Australia, Photoshop, Sarah Palin, Republicans, Alaska, GOP, Dolphins, Dugongs, Stingrays, Colin Henrisson, Malcolm Francis, Humpback Whales, Shark Tagging, New South Wales

Cetacean on Cetacean violence.

Scientists who autopsy cetaceans that wash up dead on British beaches have come to a grim conclusion: some are being killed by Bottlenose Dolphins.

Dead Porpoises and other cetacean species are washing up on British beaches. According to reports by the people who record these sort of things, the majority of the Porpoises have died due to physical trauma--caused by Bottlenose Dolphins. Some believe that Dolphins are killing other species because of food competition for declining fish stocks. But not all the species murdered by Bottlenose Dolphins share the same diet. There is another, more chilling hypothesis.

"We can't state confidently that the killings are tied to declining fish stocks," says dolphin expert Nick Tregenza, who advises the Marine Strandings Network in Cornwall. His guess? "They could be doing it for fun."

[new scientist]

It is known that Dolphins spread their behavior culturally within pods, from one Dolphin to another. Dolphins have even been seen throwing stones at Seals. Dolphins never eat the cousins that they kill, so it is possible that Bottlenose Dolphins are teaching each other to kill just for the lulz.
This is a Risso's Dolphin that was jammed HARD by a Bottlenose.

So people and Dolphins seem to have a lot in common.
Sarah Palin also loves to kill.

Still, humans got it all over their flippered "friends." Every year, Japanese Fishermen round up 20,000 Dolphins and beat them to dead with lead pipes. Then they sneak them into the school lunches of underprivileged children. Why so serious about this? Dolphin meat has 10-to-16 times more mercury than it takes to make kids retarded. Last Wednesday, environmental groups held a die-in in from of the Japanese embassy in Washington to protest the slaughter and serving up of these Heavy Metal Marine Mammals. The Japanese public knows very little of the Dolphin slaughter as the Japanese government, in the pocket of the Japanese fishing industry tries to cover it up. It is called the internet guys, Google it.

Or just keep reading The Chum Slick.

--El Tiburon

Mercury, Sarah Palin, hunting, Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins, Great Britain, Porpoises, Japan, Japanese Food, Dolphin Slaughter, Google, Cornwall, Heavy Metal, Washington, animal rights

Pic somewhat related

PETA has sent an official letter to InBev the multinational conglomerate that just bought out Anheuser-Busch, claiming that they have an anonymous donor with extremely deep pockets that wants to purchase at least one of the SeaWorld theme parks in order to free all the captive marine animals. PETA says that the park would not be closed and the animals would be replaced with virtual-reality or animatronic displays. While we applaud PETA for their balls on this one, and we do think it is evil to keep large and intelligent marine mammals in relatively small enclosures for the amusement of fat type-2 diabetics and their bedwetting hyperactive children, but virtual-reality and animatronic displays? Forget all the early 1990 pre-internet sci-fi talk, just free the animals and turn the place into a hippie theme park.

Their anonymous donor is going to need really deep pockets. SeaWorld could be worth $5 or 6 Billion. SeaWorld Ohio--formerly the shittiest SeaWorld--was sold at a fire sale in 2001 for $110 million.

Read.

Free all the Willys,

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Orcas, Killer Whales, Dolphins, SeaWorld, PETA, InBev, Anhueser-Busch, anonymous, Ohio

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There has been a shortage of Common Dolphins in Algoa Bay, near Port Elizabeth, South Africa and divemaster Rainer Schimpf found out why. He found a pod of Dolphins being stalked by five Orcas. Orcas or Killer Whales, are not really Whales at all but are really large a bad ass black and white Dolphins. Apparently, they have no problem jamming the shit out of their smaller gray cousins. Rainer Schimpf witnessed a male adult Ocra jamming a Dolphin and then feeding it to his young. Holy Shit!

Read.

Is it better to be respected or feared? Ask the Jam Master.

--El Tiburon

technorati tags: Whales, Killer Whales, Orcas, Dolphins, South Africa