The attached New York Times article, with an entertaining and informative video clip, provides some of this information in the latter part of the story. You’ll also learn about the ‘aroma’ that follows whale biologists after they’ve done a necropsy.

The featured researcher, Dr. Joy Reidenberg, was in Middletown, RI, when KOBO was hauled ashore. She took his larynx, all eight feet of it, in three plastic garbage bags, back to her lab at Mt. Sinai Medical Center.

A lecture on this topic will take place here at the New Bedford Whaling Museum on Thursday, March 29, at 6:30 pm. Capt. Stacy Pedrozo, USN, C.O. Naval Justice School and Capt. Tom Fetherston, USN Retired, will present “Whose Homeland Security Is It: Protecting Marine Mammals While Protecting National Security” For more information visit http://www.whalingmuseum.org/programs/speakers-series/man-and-whales

The problem doesn’t seem to be limited to cetaceans and pinnipeds. Cephalopods, the squid, octopus and cuttlefish that are favored foods of whales and their kin, also appear to be negatively impacted by human generated noise. Check out this Discovery News article from April 2011.

An article published yesterday in CNN Opinion, by Cornell’s Chris Clark and Brandon Southall, formerly of NOAA, offers some thoughtful suggestions as to how we can combat this problem that we’ve created. We created the technology that makes the noise. We can create the technology that minimizes the noise.

The animal shown in the article is a Risso’s Dolphin.

May you have a quiet weekend, except while you’re cheering on the New England Patriots.

Gary Jobson (photo: Billy Black)

Gary Jobson, world-class sailor and president of US SAILING will be the first of 12 distinguished speakers in a combined lecture series beginning on Thursday, February 2 at the Whaling Museum.

Gary Jobson will present “Sailing: Speed and Passion.” A world class sailor, television commentator and author, Jobson is President of US SAILING, the national governing body of sailing in the United States. He has authored 17 books on sailing, is Editor-at-Large of Sailing World and Cruising World magazines and has been ESPN’s sailing commentator since 1985. In October 2003 he was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame by the Herreshoff Marine Museum. In 1999, Jobson won the Nathanael G. Herreshoff Trophy, US SAILING’s most prestigious award. He currently races a Swan 42, Mustang, and an Etchells, Whirlwind.

Jobson’s illustrated talk is the first of 12 programs scheduled this winter and spring – February 2 through May 10 – part of the Whaling Museum’s three signature lecture series now combined: the Sailors’ Series (5 programs), Man and Whales (3 programs), and the Old Dartmouth Lyceum (4 programs). Held on Thursday evenings, all programs include a reception at 6:30 p.m. in the Jacobs Family Gallery followed by the lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Cook Memorial Theater.

Admission to each lecture: member, $15; non-member, $20. Select any number of programs when you confirm. Subscription to the combined series: members, $165.00 for all 12 lectures; non-members, $225.00. For tickets please call (508) 997-0046 Ext. 100.

The Sailors’ Series (SS) celebrates its 22nd year with illustrated lectures presenting a wide variety of experience and adventures by individuals with lifelong commitments to sailing, boats, and the sea. Thursdays: February 2 and 16, March 22, April 12 and 19.

The Man and Whales series (M&W) examines our changing views of marine mammals with science-themed lectures that bring focus to important whale conservation topics through the expertise of those who dedicate their professional lives to these issues. Thursdays: March 1, 15 and 29.

The Old Dartmouth Lyceum series (ODL) illuminates broader historical themes with fine and decorative arts by examining significant holdings in the Museum collection, including 19th century landscape painting, ceramics and glassware. Thursdays: April 5 and 26, May 3 and 10.

Schedule:

February 16 – John Rousmaniere: “The Golden Pastime,” an illustrated history of American yachting history. (SS)

March 1 – Dr. Peter Capelotti: “The Whaling Expedition of the Ulysses 1937–38.” (M&W).

March 15 – Dr. Stephen Godfrey: “When Whales Walked the Earth: Fossil Whales and Olfactory Evolution.” (M&W)

March 22 – Douglas Adkins: “Dorade; the History of an Ocean Racing Yacht.” (SS)

March 29 – Capt. Stacy Pedrozo, USN, C.O., Naval Justice School, and Capt. Tom Fetherston, USN Retired, “Whose Homeland Security? Protecting Marine Mammals While Protecting National Security.” (MW)

April 5 – Stuart P. Feld, Hirschl & Adler Galleries: “Museum acquisitions during the tenure of Director and Curator Richard Kugler.” (ODL)

April 12 – Capt. Sean S. Bercaw: “Full Sail into Cuba on the Amistad.” (SS)

April 19 – Rich Wilson: “Race France to France, Leave Antarctica to Starboard.” (SS)

April 26 – Kirk J. Nelson: “New Bedford Glass and Its Context.” (ODL)

May 3 – Keith Kauppila: “Visual Culture of the Civil War,” (ODL)

May 10 – Chris Gustin: “Finding Form.” (ODL).

The 2012 lecture series is presented by BayCoast Bank, and sponsored in part by C. E. Beckman, and Hampton Inn Fairhaven/New Bedford.

Zoologia Danica Pattedyr XVI by Lovendal. From NBWM Kendall Collection.

For those of you with an interest in whale vocalizations and a keen ear, you might be interested in this opportunity to aid in whale research.  ” The collective wisdom of the crowd is being called upon to help scientists decipher the language of pilot and killer whales in a project that could help us operate our machines in harmony with the ocean giants.”

After reading about unusual strandings and deaths of Cuvier’s Beaked Whales in the waters off of Italy over the last 36 hours, presumably in the same areas as sonar testing, this type of research and new knowledge is critically important. Let us know if you do choose to participate. Call Bob Rocha at extension 149.

Entanglement in gillnets, traps, weirs, purse seines, longlines and trawls are having a negative impact on 62 of the 72 species of toothed whales, dolphins and porpoises in our global ocean.  Unfortunately, if they steer clear of the nets and lines, they have to contend with water-borne pollution (including heavy metals, PCBs, DDT) and noise pollution.

We may have stopped deliberately hunting whales, but we haven’t stopped killing them.

Residents of Barrow are sensitive to how their culture is portrayed, especially if that portrayal is going to be the only information those readers will ever receive. The depiction also has the potential to have an impact when subsistence hunting quotas are brought up for review with the IWC.