14 killer whales spotted in the Canaries
June 24th, 2009
14 killer whales were observed yesterday for almost eight hours by scientists in the Canaries off Tenerife.
El Pais
Tag:
Articles in ‘Spanish sea mammals’
Cetaceans in the Bay of Biscay
January 22nd, 2009
Some of you will have read on iberianature Dylan Walker’s excellent summary of whale watching in the Bay of Biscay. Now I’ve managed to get hold of a copy of his book (co-written with Graeme Cresswell) on whale and dolphin watching in the European Atlantic. This is an attractive and excellent practical guide which manages to condense in 88 pages a great deal of useful information through very clear and efficient use of text, tables, photos and images – one of the best uses of space I’ve seen in any guidebook.
The book features an introduction to cetaceans and the region covered (much of which can be accessed from the coasts of Northern Spain) and great practical tips and know-how on how to watch whales and tell them apart, something many of us know very little about. The introduction also includes sections on watching whales from ferries and boats, typical whale behaviour and the influence of sea conditions. They clearly have years of experience behind them and have decided to share this with the rest of us.
The book then moves onto the illustrated profiles of the 18 regularly occurring and 13 rare cetaceans found in the region. Each profile includes a description of behaviour, status and distribution and is illustrated by an image of the species and computer enhanced photographs annotated with useful tips on identifying the species. There is also a colour distribution map accompanied by a monthly frequency bar chart, and an original image depicting the species side on in the water helpfully including a gannet for scale. The book also includes articles on identifying Mesoploden beaked whales (the toughest challenge of them all) and rare species, and finishes with a glossary. I also liked the handy size and the plastic cover reminding us that this is a practical guide and tempting us to get out on a boat and use it on a blustery day somewhere in the Atlantic.
On a final note, the book is published by WILDguides. This is a non-profit publisher which gives all of its profits to conservation organisations that work on the area or organisms treated by each guide.
I wonder if they’ll get round to translating it into Spanish. Top photo is of a school of common dolphins sent to me by Dylan.
Biscay bay whales
October 20th, 2008
Dylan Walker of planetwhale has sent iberianature this great guide to whale watching in the Bay of Biscay Highly recommended! (Above photo is a fin whale)
Just how rich the Bay is for cetaceans can be assessed with a quick number crunching session of the ORCA database. This database includes over 50,000 km of survey effort from volunteers working aboard both ferries between February and November 1996 – 2008. During the period 1996-2004, for example, cetaceans were encountered on 3,429 occasions involving 15,725 individuals of 21 species. This equates to an average of one encounter every 44 minutes of ferry cruising – a very high return for any whale watcher! Read
Also well worth reading see is piece on the 2008 Plymouth – Santander Big Whale Watch
Monk seal spotted off coast of Mallorca
June 17th, 2008
Remarkable news. A diver from Palma claims to have seen (and taken photo above) a possible monk seal (foca monje – Monachus monachus) in the marine reserve of Isla del Toro. The monk seal is considered to be extinct is the Balearic Islands (where it was known popularly as the vell marí – old man of the sea) since the late 1950s, and is among the ten most endangered mammals in the world, with colonies divided between Mauritania and the Eastern Mediterranean, the former being far the stronger. If true, I imagine we are talking about an animal in dispersion or just plain lost. The Balearic government periodically considers the possibility of attempting to reintroduce the animal. Whether it would fare well in an area of sea so popular with pleasure craft is another question. See more in El País
Update: this version of the story from Libertad Balear is much better researched.
There is also a half plan to reintroduce the animal along the Costa Brava (La foca monje volverá a Cadaqués – El País)
A small group of monk seals survived in Cabo de Gata, Almeria until the 1960s.
See also
- The Monachus Guardian
- La foca monje
- Monk seal (Wikipedia)
- Caribbean Monk Seal Gone Extinct From Human Causes Jun. 9, 2008) — After a five year review, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has determined that the Caribbean monk seal, which has not been seen for more than 50 years, has gone extinct — the first type of seal to go extinct from human causes.
Loggerhead turtles hatch in Almeria
October 21st, 200740 eggs of loggerhead turtles (tortuga boba – Caretta caretta) hatched last week on a beach in Cabo de Gata, Almeria. Another 40 are expected to hatch these days. The eggs came from Cabo Verde and form part of a reintroduction programme of the Junta de Andalucía and CSIC. The aim is for the same turtles to return to lay their eggs on the same beach, though the high mortality of the species means that very few if any of these young hatched in Almeria will reach adulthood.1000 eggs were taken from Cabo Verde, where a third of the world’s population lives. 800 were left in the Canary Islands and 200 were brought to Andalucia. 120 have been raised in incubators in Sevilla. Small populations of loggerhead turtle in the Mediterranean exist in the Turkey and Greece.
El Mundo
Possible dolphin epidemic
August 26th, 2007Experts are on the alert to a possible dolphin epidemic after numerous dolphins have been found dead on the coast of Valencia. In the last two months 29 striped dolphins(delfín listado – Stenella coeruleoalba) have been found dead with a a virus known as cetacean measles, similar to a virus which caused a high death rate among Risso’s dolphin (calderones tropicales) in the Mediterranean last winter. An epidemic decimated striped dolphin populations in the Mediterranean in the early 1990s . Experts hope that this will not occur this time. Many cetaceans in the Mediterranean have very low immunity levels due to pollution. El Mundo
Striped dolphin in Almeria
The rainfall records for Spain keep tumbling. According to the latest provisional figures 
I’ve just come across 
Three Iberian lynxes of the captive breeding programme have died in recent weeks from a renal disease. Lynxes in the wild are thought not to suffer from this disease.