#sei whale

[reasonsforhope]

"GNN has reported several times over the last three years about large baleen whales returning to waters in which they haven’t been sighted for decades.

Now again, news from Argentina shows that the benefits of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling are still compounding, with sei whales returning to the South American nation’s coastal waters for the first time in nearly a [century].

Overhunting during the 1920s and 1930s led these massive blue-grey giants to abandon their ancestral waters in Argentina.

“After nearly a century of being hunted to near extinction, sei whale populations are now bouncing back and returning to their former habitats,” said Mariano Coscarella, a biologist and marine ecosystem researcher at Argentina’s CONICET scientific agency, who added that the whales “reproduce every two or three years, so it nearly took 100 years for their population to reach a level where people could notice their presence.”

The third largest whale in the world, the sei can grow up to 64 feet (20 meters) in length and weigh up to 31 tons (28 tonnes). It’s also among the fastest whales in the world, and is certainly the fastest for its size group. It can swim 31 mph over short distances.

Despite being recognized on the IUCN Red List as Endangered, there are estimated to be 50,000 sei whales in a global population that is trending up.

Apart from sei whales and Argentina, a recent survey in the Seychelles sighted 10 groups of at least a few blue whales, the first such observations since 1966.

Back in March, a New England Aquarium aerial survey team sighted a gray whale off the New England coast last week, a species that has been extinct in the Atlantic for more than 200 years.

The largest animal on Earth, the blue whale, is returning to coastal Californian waters in numbers not seen since before the whaling industry, GNN reported in 2023 based on a 2014 survey.

And down in Antarctica, where many different whale species come to feed and breed, recent surveys have found the Southern Ocean is once again becoming a Sarengetti for whales, with an estimated 8,000 Southern fin whales found between 2018 and 2019."

-via Good News Network, May 16, 2024

[respect-the-locals]

🐋Daily Cetacean Fact:🐋

Sei Whale: Sei whales occur in subtropical, temperate, and subpolar waters around the world. Often found with pollock in Norway, the name "sei" comes from the Norwegian word for pollock, "seje." At the water's surface, sei whales can be recognized by a columnar or bushy blow that is about 10 to 13 feet high. The dorsal fin usually appears at the same time as the blowhole when the animal surfaces to breathe.

[wachinyeya]

Majestic Sei Whales Reappear in Argentine Waters After Nearly A Century https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/majestic-sei-whales-reappear-in-argentine-waters-after-nearly-a-century/

[a-minke-whales-tale]

Sei Whale and her calf.

Source: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/sei-whale

[hydrias]

sei it ain't so!

(sei whales - 5/11/24)

[rjzimmerman]

A whale makes a comeback off Argentina's coast 100 years after vanishing. (Reuters)

Giant blue-grey sei whales that vanished from Argentina's Patagonian coast a century ago due to hunting are starting to flourish once again, demonstrating how species can recover when measures to protect them are put in place.

In the 1920s and 1930s regular whaling ships along the shores of Argentina, and beyond, saw populations dwindle. In the last 50 years, global bans on commercial whaling have helped populations of sei and others revive.

"They disappeared because they were hunted, they did not become extinct but were so reduced that no one saw them," said Mariano Coscarella, biologist and researcher in marine ecosystems at the Argentine state science body CONICET.

Coscarella added that it had taken decades for numbers to recover enough that the whales had again been sighted, which only started to happen again in recent years.

"In this case it took over 80 years," Coscarella said. "They breed every 2 or 3 years and so it took almost 100 years for them to have appreciable numbers for people to realize they were there."

[a-book-of-creatures]

Whoa hold on, I’ve never seen a Fin Whale breech. If I was an ancient sailor and I saw that I’d definitely just go “yup there’s the leviathan.”

Makes one wonder how many sea serpent sightings were from seeing unfamiliar whale species breaching, honestly. And we’re used to rorquals as typical whales nowadays, but with speed being their answer to everything they would have been less familiar to your average sailor.

If you’re interested in whale breaching (and why wouldn’t you be?) the Eyewitness Handbook of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises has art of the known breachers, from the right whale somersault to the majestic sei whale belly-flop.

[leoparduscolocola]

Hundreds of cetaceans have been spotted off the coast of Massachusetts, including two killer whales!

[inatungulates]

Northern sei whale “Balaenoptera” borealis borealis

Observed by mettehhh, CC BY-NC

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

Giant blue-grey sei whales, absent for over a century, are reemerging along Argentina’s Patagonian coastline. Relentless hunting in the 1920s and '30s threatened their existence, but over the past five decades, worldwide bans on commercial whale hunting have spurred their recovery. Biologists laud this resurgence as a triumph for global conservation efforts, yet stress the necessity for nations to safeguard whale moratoriums. Biologist Mariano Coscarella heads the Proyecto Sei research initiative, which has equipped select sei whales with satellite trackers to chart their migration routes. Coscarella notes that it has taken years for their population to rebound to observable levels, a trend that has only become apparent in recent times.

[fernrisulfr]

FGO Summer 2023 has been a Rollercoaster of excitement and regret. I got all 3 of them.

But not without Cost. I spent more than I wanted or intended, but I'll call it worth it for Summer Kama. In the process I unintentionally rolled Caenis 5 times.

[respect-the-locals]

🐋Daily Cetacean Fact:🐋

Bryde's Whale: In Japan, early whalers called it "anchovy" or "skipjack whale". It preys on the anchovy and it was commonly associated with the skipjack. As modern whaling shifted to the Sanriku area, whalemen confused the sei whale with it; They are now called "look-alike whale", for their resemblance to the sei whale. A later study revealed that Bryde's caught off Japan exhibited lateral ridges on their rostrum, whereas sei whales lacked this feature.

[mudwerks]

(via 44-Foot Whale Found Dead on Bow of Cruise Ship Coming Into New York - The New York Times)

As the cruise ship approached New York on Saturday, it was found to be carrying a grim, and unexpected, catch: The carcass of a 44-foot-long endangered whale, draped across its bow.

The whale, which marine authorities described as a sei whale, is known for its rapid swimming and preference for deep waters, far from the coast. Its body was discovered as the ship neared the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, and the authorities were “immediately notified,” said MSC Cruises, which owns the ship.

what the actual FUCK

[hexjulia]

another candidate for my omens of 2024 list

"A cruise ship has journeyed into New York City’s harbor bearing a gruesome cargo in the form of a huge, dead whale sprawled across its bow. [...] The 44ft-long whale corpse was an endangered sei whale and was caught on the ship’s bow when it arrived at the Port of Brooklyn."

'avatar of pointless pollution and excessive consumption carries the carcass of an endangered animal like a hunter's trophee on its bow' a little on the nose as far as omens go....6/10.

[rjzimmerman]

Cruise ship drags dead whale into New York, prompting investigation. (Washington Post)

A cruise ship arrived in New York Harbor with a dead sei whale pinned to its bow, a revelation that has spawned a federal investigation and has led biologists to examine the whale’s carcass to determine the cause of death.

The MSC Meraviglia was returning Saturday from a Bermuda cruise when it sailed into the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with the 44-foot-long sei whale affixed to its front. MSC, a Geneva-based cruise line, confirmed the incident “with deep regret”in a statement and said it had immediately notified authorities. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement is investigating.

On Wednesday, the whale was towed to Sandy Hook, N.J., for a necropsy. According to NOAA, officials discovered broken bones in the right flipper, tissue trauma in the right shoulder blade region and a belly full of food. Biologists took samples for biotoxin and histopathologic analyses. NOAA spokeswoman Andrea Gomez said the tissue and bone samples can help biologists determine whether the whale died before the collision with the ship or because of it.

Based on the findings released so far, Andy Rogan, science manager at Ocean Alliance, a whale research and conservation nonprofit, said the cruise ship probably caused the whale’s demise. If so, it would have been a sudden death.

“Whales are huge animals, but compared to a ship that size, it’s still a massive impact. So much weight and power is hitting that whale,” he said. “It’s almost certain that a ship strike killed that whale.”

According to NOAA, vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the biggest threats to sei whales, an endangered species that inhabits deeper waters off the coastline. Population figures are elusive, but NOAA documented roughly 6,300 sei whales between Florida and Nova Scotia from 2010 to 2013.