Mark Caney's Blog, page 23

Aquarium To End Animal Shows, Focus Instead On Releasing Them

In a move that is centered on rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing injured marine animals back into the wild — not holding them captive for display — Clearwater marine Aquarium (CMA) in Florida has announced plans to drop animal shows from their roster.

Every year, the aquarium rescues dozens of injured dolphins, turtles and other animals from the Florida coast, providing them with the care they need before setting them free. Despite this noble mission, animal welfare activists have voiced criticism over the aquarium’s handling of animals deemed unfit for release, likening their “educational” dolphin viewings to thinly veiled entertainment performances. But those performances appear to be coming to an end.

As the aquarium hopes to move forward with plans to build a new $68 million facility in downtown Clearwater, CEO David Yates says that it will be designed to embrace a different approach to dealing with the animals housed there.

“We don’t rescue them so we can have them to show to guests. Our goal is to release them back into the wild,” Yates told the Tampa Tribune. “We’re not about the big shows and stuff like that. The whole essence of this thing is no matter what animals we have or don’t have, the experience of getting behind the scenes of our work, that’s going to be the draw long-term.”

While the decision to end its animal shows may come as welcome news among people who see them as inherently exploitative, their continued presence at the aquarium is likely to remain a point of controversy. Gigi Glendinning, from animal welfare group 22 Reasons, is critical of the aquarium for showcasing rescued dolphins in pools at all, arguing that if they are unable to return to the wild, they should at least be moved to sea pens and not be put on display for profit.

Full story: The Dodo

Beached dolphins rescued by selfless fishermen

Three Irish fishermen sacrificed a day’s work to rescue a dolphin family that had got into difficulty in shallow waters. The fishermen noticed a pod of up to 60 dolphins in Smerwick Harbour in west Kerry as they made their way out to sea at dawn. The spectacle had never been witnessed before in their lifetimes and they set about rescuing about 15 calves and their mothers that had already beached themselves on Beal Ban strand. Edward Moore, Declan Kennedy and Maurice Lynch immediately notified fisheries expert Kevin Flannery and the four men lifted the calves onto their boats and brought them to deeper waters.

 

They then herded the mothers, too heavy to lift, and didn’t rest until the entire dolphin family had been reunited. “I never saw the like of it in all the years I’m fishing,” Mr Moore told Independent.ie. “Sometimes you’d see one or two dolphins but this was a whole family. “The juveniles were very small, only about two feet long, so we managed to lift them onto the boats.”

Full story and video: Independent.ie

 

Dolphin plays with surfers

From Carl Casey’s on the Inertia site

Myself and the boys rocked up to our local break — McCauley’s Beach, Thirroul, NSW Australia — on a Saturday back in may as we do every Saturday. Except this time we found a lone dolphin swimming out in the lineup. As the boys grabbed their boards to go out and get a few small waves, I opted to leave my board in the car and instead grabbed my GoPro to swim out and film him/her for a while.

To our surprise, this dolphin was extremely friendly — it was swimming up to everyone and letting us touch it. It was dropping in on the boys and following the line of their boards along the waves only inches below them, even swimming up and tugging on one mate’s leg-rope. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience; none of us boys have ever seen anything like it before in all our combined years of surfing. I hope you all will enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed spending time with this beautiful animal.

Drone captures baby whale and its mother on video

Humpback Whales in Maui From a Drone from Justin Edwards on Vimeo.

In yet another example of how new technology is helping to reshape the way we see the world and its many inhabitants, a whale-watching drone has captured a sweet scene of a mother humpback and her young calf swimming free in wild. Using a Phantom quadrocopter mounted with a GoPro camera, Justin Edwards managed to film this unique footage of a whale family swimming off the coast of Maui —- offering a rare, up-close perspective that would been unachievable just a few years ago.

Source: The Dodo

Win a copy of Dolphin Way in free competition

Goodreads Book Giveaway


Dolphin Way
by Mark Caney

Giveaway ends September 30, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

 

New Dolphin Way website

The Dolphin Way website has a whole new look and is especially easy to view on mobile phones and tablet style devices now. Lots of dolphin news, a section on facts about dolphins, information on where to see them, downloadable virtual dolphin players and of course, information about the novel Dolphin Way including the video trailer and a chance to download a free sample of the book.

Fourteen people detained trying to prevent Faroe island dolphin hunt

Fourteen animal rights activists have been detained on the Faroe island of Sandoy in the North Atlantic while trying to stop a controversial dolphin hunt, their organisation has said.

The activists were detained on Saturday when attempting to save a pod of 33 pilot whales, members of the dolphin family, as the mammals were driven to shore to be killed by waiting hunting parties, according to environmental group Sea Shepherd.

“The 14 have been under arrest since Saturday, and three of our boats have also been seized,” Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, told AFP.

Large numbers of pilot whales are slaughtered each year on the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark.

The method involves the mammals being forced into a bay by flotillas of small boats before being hacked to death with hooks and knives.

Source: Telegraph

Dolphin hunting season kicks off in Japan

The controversial six-month dolphin hunting season began on Monday in the infamous town of Taiji, but bad weather would delay any killing, a local official told AFP.

The annual catch, in which people from the southwestern town corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay and butcher them, was thrust into the global spotlight in 2010 when it became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove”.

“The dolphin hunting season started today and will last until the end of February,” said an official of the Taiji fisheries association, adding the season for hunting pilot whales, which also begins today, will last until April.

But bad weather on Monday meant there would be no hunting on the day, he said.

Environmental campaigners are already in situ to watch the hunt, the official said.

Last season, activists from international environmental group Sea Shepherd, who call themselves “Cove Guardians”, streamed live footage of the dolphin capture.

Earlier this year, the slaughter sparked renewed global criticism after US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy tweeted her concern at the “inhumaneness” of the hunt.

Defenders say it is a tradition and point out that the animals it targets are not endangered, a position echoed by the Japanese government.

They say Western objections are hypocritical and ignore the vastly larger number of cows, pigs and sheep butchered to satisfy demand elsewhere.

But critics of the practice say there is insufficient demand for the animals’ meat, which in any case contains dangerous levels of mercury.

They say the hunt is only profitable because of the high prices live dolphins can fetch when sold to aquariums and dolphin shows.

On Sunday around 30 people marched in Tokyo to protest the hunt, which they say sullies Japan’s reputation abroad.

Source: Business Insider 

Dolphins working with fishermen

Fascinating case of dolphins choosing to help people. A relationship that has lasted many years.

Dolphin facts courtesy of the BBC

There’s some great general information about dolphins on this site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Cetacea