June 8, 2021 — America’s maritime economy is firmly in the black, according to the first-ever ““blue economy” report from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
According to the report, released Tuesday, 8 June, the marine economy generated USD 397 billion (EUR 326 billion) to the United States’ gross domestic product in 2019. That sector grew at a 4.2 percent clip from 2018, nearly double the growth of the country’s entire GDP over the same timeframe.
September 10, 2018 — Scientists have found a reliable gathering place east of Cape Cod for the elusive and little-known True’s beaked whales, following a month’s effort this summer.
“It was huge for us,” Danielle Cholewiak, research ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said. Cholewiak was chief scientist for the trip east of Georges Bank, on the edge of the continental shelf.
Only a dozen sightings of True’s beaked whale had occurred since 1913 when Smithsonian Institution curator Frederick True first identified and named the species from an animal stranded on a North Carolina beach. But the dedicated study in July 200 miles east of Cape Cod yielded dozens of sightings, acoustic recordings, genetic samples and photographs, Cholewiak said.
The repeated sightings of whales during the trip allowed scientists to begin a tracking database. The whales now named Elvis and Trident are the “founding members” of the North Atlantic True’s beaked whale photo identification catalog. With over 300 acoustic detections from a hydrophone towed 24 hours a day across the research area the scientists were able to map out where the animals were living, Cholewiak said. The first-time use on a True’s beaked whale of a suction-cup digital recording tag, for 12 hours, is expected to reveal new information about their movements and acoustic behavior.
“This is a 5- or 6-meter whale that we didn’t know anything about until now,” said Dee Allen, research program officer for the Marine Mammal Commission, who was on the trip. In its oversight role of other federal agencies, the commission wants to make sure that the best available science is used for decision-making. There is great value in new or more information on a species that is little-known, Allen said.
“It shows that it can be done,” Allen said. “We can continue to learn more about beaked whales.”
July 27, 2016 — A stroll on the beach of a remote Bering Sea island two years ago has produced a scientific breakthrough — the discovery of a previously unidentified species of beaked whale that dwells in the deep waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
The conclusion, described in a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science of the California-based Society for Marine Mammalogy, stems from the 2014 discovery of a beached whale carcass by a local monitoring program called Island Sentinel. Karin Holser, a teacher on St. George Island in the Pribilofs, alerted authorities, and Michelle Ridgway, a Juneau-based biologist involved with a Pribilof science camp, responded quickly.
“She was the one who said, ‘This looks like a Baird’s beaked whale, but it doesn’t,'” said Phillip Morin, a research molecular geneticist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lead author of the new study.
The whale was about two-thirds the size of a Baird’s beaked whale, which typically grows to 35 or 40 feet, Morin said. It was clearly not a juvenile, as its teeth were worn and yellow, “so they were not baby teeth,” he said. Its skull had a distinct slope and its dorsal fin was different from that of the typical Baird’s beaked whale.
Tissue samples were sent to the Marine Mammal and Turtle Division of NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in California, where Morin works and where the world’s most extensive collection of cetacean tissues is kept. The whale’s skull was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington — and students from the Pribilofs visited the lab there to take part in the examination.
DNA analysis showed it was a species different from the 22 previously known species of beaked whales in the world and the two known to swim in the North Pacific.
September 24, 2015 — PROVINCETOWN — A necropsy is planned for today at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on a rare beaked whale that was stranded and then died Wednesday afternoon in the west end of Provincetown Harbor.
The 14-foot beaked whale was reported by beach walkers to the U.S. Coast Guard as it was thrashing around at about 1:45 p.m., according to Doug Sandilands of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown. The harbormaster staff, the police and the center’s staff went to the scene to assess the situation. At that time, the whale was alive and about a half mile east of the west end breakwater. At around 2:15 p.m the whale stopped breathing, but the rescuers waited more than an hour to see if it was actually dead. The whale’s body was then brought closer to shore, and then towed by boat to the east side of MacMillan Pier by Provincetown Harbormaster Rex McKinsey and his staff.
Read the full story at Cape Cod Times