Visitors at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World sure got their money’s worth recently! Visitors at the New Zealand aquarium witnessed a shark perform an unplanned and unconventional “cesarean section” on another shark!
Acting as midwife, the smart shark apparently knew what the Auckland aquarium’s staff did not – another shark in the aquarium was pregnant. Although it is common for sharks to nip at one another, this particular shark took a great big bite out of the pregnant shark’s side.
However, because the hooks for these fish are set just below the surface it attracts albatrosses who think they’ve spotted a nice free meal and dive into the water to get it.
Instead they get hooked and tangled in the line, dragged under the water, and drowned. In many cases the bait has been dislodged meaning that hook will now catch nothing.
Earlier this week, an ocean survey vessel reported feeling a “shudder underneath the ship” in the waters of northern California. Soon after, a whale was spotted “bleeding profusely.” A few hours later, an endangered blue whale washed ashore in a rocky cove in California. According to reports, the apparent strike probably occurred about 7 miles from shore.
A class of young school children from Alaska found a dead beluga whale on the beach during a weekly field trip. The Winterberry Elementary School second graders came across the whale along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. According to their teacher, Meg Eggleston, the children saw the whale moving its tail and were convinced the whale will be fine. But the whale, dead for hours, had already begun to decompose.
A donation of three tons of grapes has been converted, via wine, into funds for the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) project to save endangered dolphins endemic to New Zealand.
A Hector’s Dolphin showing the characteristic round dorsal fin.
The Wine
It started with Gemma McGrath who had moved from a job on Whale Watch boats to a barmaid in the small Otago village of Bannockburn which is about as far away from the sea as one can get in New Zealand.
Sirocco, a male Kakapo, is grinning from ear-to-ear as he makes a play for a very unusual partner.
While filming the BBC’s “Last Chance to See” series, filmmaker Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine have a surprising encounter with an amorous Kakapo named Sirocco.
Sirocco, one of just 124 of his kind, appears eager to increase the population of his species - whether or not there’s another Kakapo around.
In the meantime, however, a human head will do just fine.
Cat got your tongue? Well, not in this case! According to the BBC, a strange-looking parasite was recently discovered inside the mouth of a weaver fish off the Minquiers. Attracted to fish, the parasite, an isopod, eats the fish’s tongue then takes up residence inside its mouth!
Last Tuesday, EcoWorldly Staff Writer Bryan Nelson wrote an article on the suspension of dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. The suspension came off of Japanese local media swarming on Taiji, after the award winning documentary film “The Cove” put the spotlight on the small Japanese village that slaughters thousands of dolphins every year.
Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer and activist who brought the location to the attention of filmmakers, returned to the site of the slaughter this week, just as the annual “hunt” would normally begin. However, this time with all of the media attention, no dolphins were killed in the first 2 days of the season.
