Marine Mammals, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 1, 2019

Japan Resumes Commercial Whaling After Decades of Slaughtering Whales 'for Science'

Japan has officially resumed commercial whaling today (July 1) after more than 30 years of limiting whale hunts to scientific purposes — a policy that still resulted in the deaths of hundreds of whales every year, Reuters.com reported. In December 2018, Japan announced that it would withdraw from the International...

Jul 17, 2019

Dozens of Pilot Whales Washed Up on Georgia Beach, and Beachgoers Came to the Rescue

After dozens of pilot whales beached themselves on St. Simons Island, Georgia, yesterday evening (July 16), concerned beachgoers, lifeguards and wildlife officials sprang into action, doing their best to maneuver the whales back into the water. While stranding is a known natural occurrence, the only thing we can do is...

Jul 31, 2019

Stunning Photo Captures the Moment a Sea Lion Was Nearly Swallowed By a Whale

A photo posted by on A group of sea lions in Monterey Bay, California were chasing fish alongside a pod of humpback whales when the hunt took an unexpected turn. As a whale hurtled up from the deep to swallow fish near the surface, it nearly swallowed a sea lion...

Oct 16, 2019

Watch Rare Footage of Whales Blowing 'Bubble Nets' to Capture Prey in a Vortex of Doom

Blowing bubbles at the dinner table is generally considered to be very bad manners by human standards. But for humpback whales, it's a necessary part of trapping their dinner; humpbacks blow streams of spiraling bubbles to form nets of air around groups of the tiny marine creatures that the whales...

Nov 26, 2019

A Blue Whale Had His Heartbeat Taken for the First Time Ever — And Scientists Are Shocked

When the largest animals on Earth grab a snack, their hearts skip a beat — or sometimes 30. That's what a team of marine biologists found after recording a blue whale's heartbeat for the first time ever. After suction-cupping a pulse monitor to the back of a blue whale off...

Dec 2, 2019

220-lb. 'Litter Ball' Found Inside a Dead Sperm Whale's Belly

When workers with a whale strandings agency in Scotland performed a necropsy on a recently beached sperm whale, they found a gruesome surprise: The animal had died with around 220 lbs. (100 kilograms) of trash in its stomach. The young male sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) washed ashore on Nov. 28...

Jan 10, 2020

Solar Storms Might Be Causing Gray Whales to Get Lost

AUSTIN, Texas — Migrating animals that live in Earth's oceans may have a closer relationship with the sun than we thought. New research shows that healthy gray whales are nearly five times more likely to strand when there is a high prevalence of sunspots, and therefore high levels of radio...

Jun 18, 2020

'Exploding Whale Memorial Park' honors whale that went out with a bang

A newly-named Oregon park commemorates an important (and gory) piece of local history: the dynamiting of a dead whale that took place 50 years ago. Exploding Whale Memorial Park in Florence, Oregon, is named for the explosive event of Nov. 12, 1970, when local officials blew up a beached and...

Aug 10, 2020

2 captive beluga whales finally freed to a seawater sanctuary in Iceland

After a 30-hour journey by land, air and sea, two young beluga whales that were on show in an aquarium in Shanghai for years have now arrived at a new home — a cool seawater sanctuary off the coast of Iceland. This is the first time the cuties have dipped...

Sep 23, 2020

Mass stranding event beaches 450 whales in Tasmania

More than 450 pilot whales have become stranded off of Tasmania's west coast, in what is the worst whale stranding event the Australian island has ever seen. Earlier this week, 270 pilot whales were found stranded on sandbars and along the beach at Strahan, a coastal town in Tasmania around...

Sep 24, 2020

Beaked whales can hold their breath for over 3 hours (and possibly longer)

How long can you hold your breath? Even your best efforts can't come close to the breath-holding superpower of a Cuvier's beaked whale. These whales were already known to dive deeper and longer than any other mammal, but new research shows that their marathon dives can last even longer than...

Nov 19, 2020

Antarctica's blue whales return to South Georgia a century after they were nearly wiped out

The critically-endangered blue whale — the largest animal known to have ever existed — has returned to the waters near the remote island of South Georgia near Antarctica, almost 100 years after the mega-mammal was nearly made extinct by industrial whaling. Researchers say a recent survey of the waters around...

Dec 17, 2020

2 calves of one of world's most endangered large whales spotted

Two rare newborn North Atlantic right whale calves were recently spotted in U.S. waters, according to news reports. This is hopeful news, as the North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are critically endangered with only about 400 of them left in the wild, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

Jan 23, 2021

Dead whale in the Mediterranean probably 'one of the largest' ever found

The carcass of an enormous finback whale (Balaenoptera physalus) was discovered near the Italian port of Sorrento earlier this week, the Italian Coast Guard said in a Facebook post. Officials discovered the carcass on Sunday (Jan. 17), before towing it to the nearby port at Naples. The whale measured about...

Feb 4, 2021

Whale that stranded off Florida is completely new species (and already endangered)

A 38-foot-long (11.5 meters) whale that washed ashore in the Florida Everglades in January 2019 turns out to be a completely new species. And it's already considered endangered, scientists say. When the corpse of the behemoth washed up along Sandy Key — underweight with a hard piece of plastic in...