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Carrying the remains of a roughly 30-foot (9-meter) giant squid in her jaws, a female sperm whale, with a calf at her side, swims near the surface off Japan's Bonin Islands (map)in the northwestern Pacific. Taken on October 15, this and other "absolutely sensational" new pictures offer rare proof of the sperm whale's taste for giant squid, said giant squid expert Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. The pictures may also reveal that adult sperm whales, which grow up to 59 feet (18 meters) long, use pieces of their prizes to teach youngsters how to...

It is the greatest animal battle on the planet, and it has finally been caught on camera. A BBC natural history crew has filmed the "humpback whale heat run", where 15m long, 40 tonne male whales fight it out to mate with even larger females. During the first complete sequence of this behaviour ever captured, the male humpbacks swim at high speed behind the female, violently jostling for access. The collisions between the males can be violent enough to kill.

Dead whale in Tampa Bay was hit by shipThe Associated Press Last Modified: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 2:41 p.m. ST. PETERSBURG - The 41-foot-whale found floating in the Port of Tampa last weekend was killed by a ship out in the Gulf of Mexico. That was the word Tuesday from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which performed a necropsy. **SNIP** He said it was "a clear-cut case of a ship strike." The animal was found floating in Tampa Bay Sunday morning. It was towed to Fort DeSoto Park in St. Petersburg, where it was buried Monday.

A 25-foot dead whale washed up in Gloucester on Sunday. If the whale ends up on private land, the landowner likely will be responsible for removing it unless the carcass washes back into the water, WVEC reported

One rule of thumb I generally observe while traveling abroad: Always know what something is before putting it in your mouth. Recently, I broke that rule--and ended up regretting it. I ate whale meat. I didn't mean to. It just sort of happened during an otherwise routine company enkai--office party--at a hole-in-the-wall izakaya called Andy's Shin Hinomoto under the Yurakucho railroad tracks in central Tokyo. I ordered a beer and sat down next to my co-workers, just as the waitress was bringing out plates of food: generous cuts of sashimi, deep-fried chicken nuggets, a sautéed mushroom salad and--what the heck...

A beluga whale saved a drowning diver by hoisting her to the surface, carrying her leg in its mouth. Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralyzed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20-foot arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible with the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China. Beluga whale Mila had spotted her difficulties and using her sensitive dolphin-like nose guided Yun safely to the surface.

Photograph shows whale's first breath The moment a mother humpback whale lifted up her calf to take its first breath has been captured on camera in Australia. By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Jul 23, 2009 The footage is also thought to be the first time a humpback whale has been filmed giving birth in the wild Photo [Pic in URL] Researchers were surveying humpback whales off Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia when they noticed blood around a female. On closer inspection, they noticed a calf struggling to breath before the mother dived beneath the surface to lift up her new...

TOKYO (AFP) – As the International Whaling Commission started its annual meeting in Portugal Monday, a group of bars and restaurants near Tokyo have sought to lure patrons with an exotic new spread of whale dishes. On the menu, alongside local staples such as whale sashimi, were new creations including whale spring rolls, whale bacon and even an Italian cheese whale cutlet -- all served with a dollop of local whaling history. "Whale meat is a very important part of Japanese tradition," said Masanobu Tai, the restaurateur leading the promotional drive in the Noge district of the port city of...

A humpback whale was spotted for several hours Thursday in New York Harbor near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the Coast Guard said. The whale, which was first reported to the authorities by a resident’s phone call around 8 a.m., did not appear to be injured or entangled. “It’s going out toward the ocean,” said Petty Officer David Schulein, a Coast Guard spokesman. “We just established a security safety zone.” Petty Officer Annie Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, said: “It is fairly close to the shipping zone. We want to make sure that not only the animal is not in...

Is a Hippo a Pig or a Whale? March 24, 2009 — Two teams of evolutionists are having a spat over whale evolution. Thewissen and team (Northeastern Ohio U) say the hippo is close to the pig, but Jessica Theodor (U of Calgary) and Jonathan Geisler (Georgia Southern U) say it’s in the whale family tree. Their arguments and counter-arguments were published in Nature last week...

I stumbled upon this today on YouTube. A dead whale is too big to bury. It is rotting and stinking. I know, let's try dynamite! WHALE AND DYNAMITE

EDITOR'S NOTE: Nov. 12 is the anniversary of this famous story.FLORENCE - Even years later, KATU still receives phone calls and emails from viewers interested in re-watching the story KATU's Paul Linnman reported on in November of 1970. Prompted by such demand, we dug into our video archives and resurrected the story about the dead whale, a half ton of dynamite, and bits of blubber falling from the sky. Unable to find a use for it, and unsure how best to dispose of it, the Department of Transportation blew up a dead whale on the Oregon coast in November of...

A new white humpback has been sighted off Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia. The newcomer, which was filmed by a television news helicopter, has excited marine scientists who think it may be related to Migaloo - to date, the only known all-white humpback whale.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The body of a dead whale was discovered today lodged beneath Pier 27 along the San Francisco waterfront, the Coast Guard said.

A 56-foot, 60-ton sperm whale died on a beach in Taiwan in January, 2004. Researchers wanted the carcass to perform an autopsy and for research, so they loaded the whale onto a tractor-trailer and set out through the city of Tainan, heading for the Shi-Tsau Natural Preserve. It took 13 hours, three cranes and 50 workers to get the whale loaded on the truck. Unfortunately, on the way through the city, gasses built up to a critical level in the whale and it exploded, spewing whale guts in the street, on the cars and over pedestrians. According to witnesses, the...

Dolphin and whale mate to create a 'wolphin' By Stephen Adams Last Updated: 6:55am GMT 27/03/2008 If life on Earth was not strange enough, nature occasionally throws a very unusual creation into the genetic mix. Most hybrids tend tend to be sterile, but Kekaimalu the 'wolphin' has given birth to two calfs Although it is extremely rare, animals occasionally succeed in producing offspring with mates from closely related species. Scientists believe some actively try to mate outside their own species to increase the diversity of their wild populations. But most hybrids are born in captivity - which may suggest sexual...

03/17/2008: "Eco-Terrorism On Orcas" ”I did it to punish the rich white people of Orcas Island and make them pay for the death of the whales and the depletion of the rain forests” -Mondragon Gabriel Thomas Mondragon, 29 years old, who recently arrived from New Mexico, explained to Sheriff’s Deputies that in an attempt to make the people on Orcas “suffer just like the whales and trees”, he attempted to use a tree limbing saw -on a metal pole- to cut through a 69,000 volt power line.

Moko is well known locally for playing with swimmers in the bay A dolphin has come to the rescue of two whales which had become stranded on a beach in New Zealand. Conservation officer Malcolm Smith told the BBC that he and a group of other people had tried in vain for an hour and a half to get the whales to sea. The pygmy sperm whales had repeatedly beached, and both they and the humans were tired and set to give up, he said. But then the dolphin appeared, communicated with the whales, and led them to safety....

ANCHORAGE - The white killer whale spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands sent researchers and the ship's crew scrambling for their cameras. The nearly mythic white whale was real after all. "I had heard about this whale but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it." The whale had been spotted once years ago in the Aleutians but had eluded researchers since, even though they had seen many of the more classic black and white whales...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Greenpeace said Monday it has disrupted the Japanese whale hunt off Antarctica by chasing the fleet's whale processing factory ship out of the whaling zone. The six-vessel fleet "scattered and ran" early Saturday when it realized the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza was "heading toward them at high speed," Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas told New Zealand's National Radio. The fleet's three whale hunter vessels "can't operate without the (factory ship) Nisshin Maru there to process the kill," she added.

The whale's back and fin were out of water and exposed to the sun Whale with swimmers A 5.5m long minke whale has been spotted more than 1600km (994 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, deep inside the Amazon rain forest. The whale ran aground earlier this week but after being freed with the help of vets and biologists it disappeared shortly afterwards. It is the second time this week in Brazil that a lost animal has been spotted in an unexpected location. The minke whale ran aground on a sandbar deep inside the Amazon. Local people had been splashing...

Makah whalers plead not guilty 05:28 PM PDT on Friday, October 12, 2007  By ROBERTA ROMERO / KING 5 News and Associated Press  SEATTLE - The five Makah Indian whalers accused of illegally killing a gray whale off of Neah Bay pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Tacoma. A federal grand jury in Seattle indicted the five on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy, unlawful taking of a marine mammal and unauthorized whaling. They could face up to a year in jail and $100,000 fine if convicted. They also face prosecution in tribal court. #main-video { background:#000; position:relative; top:0px; left:0px;...

Makah tribesman "feeling kind of proud" he shot whale  01:20 PM PDT on Monday, September 10, 2007  KING5.com Staff and Associated Press Makah tribe members shoot, harpoon gray whale NEAH BAY, Wash. - The Coast Guard and National Marine Fisheries Service says the California gray whale killed by rogue whalers off Neah Bay could refloat as it decays. If it is found, the carcass would likely be evidence in a case against Makah tribal members. Coast Guard spokesman Shawn Eggert says buoys were cut from the whale when it sank Saturday, but it still carries a harpoon. National Marine...

Many fear effort to legalize new hunt may be derailed NEAH BAY -- One day after a group of frustrated Makah tribal members asserted treaty and historic rights by harpooning and killing a protected gray whale, tribal leaders condemned the hunt and vowed to prosecute the men. "Their action was a blatant violation of our law, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Debbie Wachendorf, the Makah Tribal Council vice chairwoman. "The Makah Tribal Council denounces the actions of those who took it on themselves to hunt a whale without the authority of the...

NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) — An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known. Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service. A preliminary report said...

Today: September 09, 2007 at 5:5:7 PDT Calif. Gray Whale Shot With Machine Gun NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) - An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known. Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for...

A gray whale died Saturday night, several hours after Makah tribal members harpooned and shot the animal. The men shot the whale without federal permission. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker confirmed the harpooning by five tribal members. The whale was one mile east of Neah Bay, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about a half-mile off shore The Coast Guard detained the five tribal members and questioned them, said Mark Oswell, a National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman. They later were released to the tribe, who placed them into custody at the tribal jail, according to the mother of...

SAPPORO -- Eco-tourists on a whale-watching vessel, looking forward to observing the mighty creatures in their natural habitat, were instead greeted by the sight of a harpooned whale being dragged in by a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday. At about 10:44 a.m. on Friday, a whale was spotted spraying water from its blowhole near a whaling boat, about 3.5 kilometers away from the whale-watching vessel off the coast of Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula. But when the vessel approached, the passengers on board found that the whalers had harpooned the Baird's beaked whale, and it was hauled in by the whaling boat...

BOSTON - A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. "No other finding has been this precise," said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It's rare...

RIO VISTA – Two whales lost in the Sacramento River have made progress toward their ocean home, but rescuers were concerned Monday about encounters they might have with large ships as they near San Francisco Bay. The mother humpback whale and her calf were spotted Monday morning near the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, about 45 miles from the Pacific, said Carol Singleton of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. The pair had traveled about 24 miles in 24 hours, but their pace had slowed. They were first spotted May 13 and got as far as 90 miles inland to the Port of...

As co-host of ABC’s The View, Rosie O’Donnell has used her daytime perch to push an array of extreme left-wing and anti-American views. Soon after her debut in September 2006, O’Donnell used the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to insist that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam." In a similar vein, she advised her audience: "Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers," while suggesting that "the Patriot Act has robbed us of us our civil liberties in this country, that fear has taken over from faith in democracy, in the Constitution?" In March, O’Donnell even suggested...

Prehistoric whale found in inland Italy By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago ROME - Italian researchers have excavated the skeleton of a 4 million-year-old whale in the Tuscan countryside, a discovery that could help reconstruct the prehistoric environment of the sea that once covered the region, officials said Tuesday. The 33-foot skeleton, dating to the Pliocene epoch, was found in almost perfect order, with only the jaw bones out of place, said paleontologists with the Museum of Natural History in Florence. Nearly all of Italy was once under water, and it is not unusual to find cetacean...

Rosie O'Donnell, hosting ABC's popular "The View" morning show, came to the defense of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed today, suggesting the government elicited a false confession from the 9/11 mastermind by using torture, robbing him of his humanity and treating him like an animal. O'Donnell then argued terrorists are people too, and asserted the U.S. "robs them of their humanity." "They've been treating them like animals … they have hoods over their heads, they torture them on a daily basis," she said. In November, O'Donnell told Hasselbeck in an exchange on "The View" that Americans shouldn't fear terrorists. "Faith or...

An 85-year-old vial of oil from a whaling ship has revealed that a mysterious group of organic chemicals resembling human-made compounds are naturally produced in the sea. A SHIP'S SECRET. The Charles W. Morgan, one of the last whaling ships operating during the 19th and early 20th centuries, still carried whale oil from a late voyage. Analysis of the oil showed that some mysterious compounds that resemble DDT and PCBs are naturally produced. E. Peacock A decade ago, scientists monitoring marine mammals' flesh for pollutants began finding unknown organic compounds containing the halogen atoms bromine and chlorine. More than 20...

Paleontologists have uncovered a 25-million-year-old whale fossil with a monstrous set of teeth and enormous eyes on the coast of Australia.The discovery has researchers rethinking whales’ evolutionary history.Scientists were surprised to find that the vicious-looking specimen is an ancestor of modern baleen whales, gentle giants of today’s seas. The fossil suggests a creature that grew to a little more than 11 feet with teeth about an inch-and-a-half long. Baleen whales, which include the blue and humpback, feed by filtering plankton and small fish from seawater through hair-like fibers in their jaws. Their ferocious forebears, on the other hand, appear to...

Sure looks like that Hunger strike has taken an awful toll on her....

June 06, 2006 Alaska Rescuers Trying to Untangle Whale ASSOCIATED PRESS ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Rescuers were unable to free a young humpback whale Tuesday who became caught in the lines and buoy of a crab pot in Glacier Bay National Park. Attempts to free the whale would begin again on Wednesday, Chief Ranger Chuck Young said. The whale swam about eight miles, to the entrance of Glacier Bay, since it was first spotted Tuesday morning. Crews had attached two buoys and a sea anchor onto the tangled lines to slow the whale down so they could go in and...

April 14, 2006 Somewhere in the North Atlantic Whaling season started this week, so Scooter and I headed to Norway to join some of our Greenpeace friends in protest against this barbaric event. One of these friends is my buddy "Cappy," and he graciously offered the use of his old 75-foot trawler he uses for ecological tours. We were touched by his generosity, and looked forward to an effective protest. We arrived at Sandefjord and proceeded to the docks where we met up with Cappy. His boat "Sea Slug" wasn't the most beautiful vessel there, but it was adequate for...

"...The next minute, Luna was sucked into a tube containing a propeller powered by a 1,700-horsepower engine. It chopped the whale into bits."

WASHINGTON -- I cannot rid from my mind the name Alioto, Judge Samuel Alioto. That is the name of Judge Samuel Alito as pronounced by the delightful Sen. Edward Kennedy, or is it Eduardo Kennedino? No, it is simply Teddy, and he is as entertaining as any U.S. Senator since the days of the soused Southerners, who would tipple their way through the dreamy days on Capitol Hill, rousing themselves for histrionic oratory in the mid-afternoon and then slumping back into their seats, awaiting the late afternoon hour when they would all gather in one or another's chambers for a...

LONDON -- The bottlenose whale spotted swimming past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben captivated thousands with its appearance in the River Thames. The death of the ailing animal, wounded and swaddled in blankets, brought a sad end to the saga of London's most unlikely tourist. Around 3,000 people lined a stretch of the Thames on today, cheering as marine wildlife experts used a crane to haul the 20-foot-long whale onto a rusting salvage barge. The rescue crew then faced a race against time to reach deeper waters on England's southern coast -- as the whale's internal organs suffered...

A huge beached whale has been dumped outside the Japanese embassy in Berlin. in a Greenpeace anti-whaling protest. The controversial environmental activists hauled the fin whale to Berlin from the Baltic coast after finding it beached on a sandbank. The dead whale measured 17 metres (56 ft) long and weighed 20 tons. Activists are trying to demonstrate that there is no need to kill the mammals for research - as Japan does - because cadavers can be found. Japan is expected to kill 935 minke whales in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary during the first four months of 2006....

Sen. Kennedy to Publish Children's Book NEW YORK - Meet the latest children's author, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and his Portuguese Water Dog, Splash, his co-protagonist in "My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington, D.C." Scholastic Inc. will release the book in May. "I am very excited about the opportunity to create a book for young readers and their families that will deepen their understanding of how our American government works," Kennedy said in a statement Monday issued by Scholastic. According to Scholastic, Kennedy's book "not only takes readers through a full day in the Senator's life, but also...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A supersonic explosive has begun to replace Yankee whaling-era black powder as Alaska Natives seek more humane weaponry in the traditional hunt for bowhead whales. "It's a lot safer," said Eugene Brower, a Barrow whaling captain who chairs the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission's weapons improvement program. Brower trains Native whaling captains to handle a harpoon-launched grenade loaded with penthrite, a World War I-era explosive used in demolition. "They love it," Brower said of captains from the North Slope villages of Kaktovik, Nuiqsit and Barrow who have converted to the penthrite device for the spring and fall hunts....

On the flight home this morning, I was unfortunate enough to have a bleeder sit next to me. By bleeder, I mean he was invading my space because he was large and his body was spilling over into my seat. I've seen worse cases than what I had today but let's hear your experiences.

Sep 12 8:29 PM US/Eastern TOKYO A public junior high school in Japan's northern port town of Kushiro had a new item on the menu for its students Monday _ rice topped with whale curry. The meat is from minke whales the local whalers had caught just off the coast of Kushiro on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, Kyodo News agency reported. Whale meat returned to public school lunches in Kushiro, the former whaling hub about 560 miles northeast of Tokyo, last year for the first time in 38 years as part of the city-sponsored campaign to promote whale meat....

KETCHIKAN, Alaska - Whale researchers say it was highly unusual for a killer whale to bump a 12-year-old boy splashing in shallow water near Ketchikan. Ellis Miller found himself face-to-face with an orca charging at him in 4 feet of water Saturday in Helm Bay. The animal, estimated to be more than 25 feet long, bumped but did not bite him. "I looked underwater and there was this huge head right in front of me," Ellis told the Ketchikan Daily News. Biologists said whale may have been curious or it may have aborted an attack. "If it had wanted to...

'City of Whales' to regain former glory with festival, museumBy Kim Tae-shikSEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- Ulsan, an industrial city and symbol of Korea's modernization, was originally known for its whales and rich cultural legacies that harked back to more primitive ages. Although the city 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul has been transformed into an industrial hub with world-class Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hyundai Motor Co., Ulsan was a center for Korea's whaling industry until 1986, when commercial whaling was banned around the world to protect the biggest mammal on Earth. A farmers band perform in front of the...

Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out forcibly preventing Japanese whaling ships from entering Antarctic waters. Pressure is mounting on the government to do more to halt the hunting of whales, including the famed humpbacks, in Antarctic waters. Japan is believed to have killed more than 400 whales, ostensibly for scientific research, in the Antarctic since a sanctuary was declared to protect the mammals. Documents submitted to the Federal Court by the government showed it had deliberately refrained from trying to stop Japanese whalers in its exclusive economic zone, newspaper reports said. Among the reasons given were that the whalers...