There goes the plot for The Voyage Home

[Phaser666]

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080522_humpback.html

New Study Finds Most North Pacific Humpback Whale Populations Rebounding
Some Humpback Populations Still Slow to Recover
May 22, 2008

The number of humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean has increased since international and federal protections were enacted in the 1960s and 70s, according to a new study funded primarily by NOAA and conducted by more than 400 whale researchers throughout the Pacific region.

However, some isolated populations of humpbacks, especially those in the Western Pacific Ocean, have not recovered at the same rate and still suffer low numbers.

The new research reveals that the overall population of humpbacks has rebounded to approximately 18,000 to 20,000 animals. The population of humpback whales in the North Pacific, at least half of whom migrate between Alaska and Hawaii, numbered less than 1,500 in 1966 when international whaling for this species was banned. In the 1970s, federal laws including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act provided additional protection.

“NOAA is proud to have played a key role in initiating and funding this study,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “It is only through this type of international cooperation that we can gauge our success and measure what additional work needs to be accomplished to protect highly migratory marine mammals.”

The results of this new report come from SPLASH (Structure of Populations, Levels of Abundance and Status of Humpbacks), an international effort involving more than 50 organizations. Launched in 2004, the project determined whale migratory patterns and estimated population sizes by using a library of 18,000 photographs of whale flukes to identify 8,000 individual whales.

Cascadia Research in Olympia, Wash., the central coordinator for the SPLASH project, matched photographs from six different feeding and breeding areas. By matching whale flukes photographed in their feeding areas with those photographed in the wintering areas, researchers were able to determine the patterns of individual whale movements, as well as estimate the sizes of different populations.

In addition to whale fluke photographs, SPLASH researchers collected more than 6,000 biopsy samples for studies of genetics and pollutants, along with thousands of additional photographs to determine how levels of scarring from line entanglement and ship strikes vary among regions. The samples, which are yet to be analyzed, will provide valuable insights into the complex population structure and current threats to further recovery.

Funding for the SPLASH project comes from NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Pacific Life Foundation, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, along with support from a number of other organizations and governmental agencies.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

 

[AlboOfBorg]

Well, at least the Probe will create a lot less havoc when it gets here...

 

[WalkinMan]

Hey it's a good thing, maybe even TVH helped raise awareness of the plight of the humpback whales. These days though there should also be concern about the fishing supply...however it's almost certain the Probe doesn't find as much intelligence there as the singing cetaceans...

 

[Sci]

Hey it's a good thing, maybe even TVH helped raise awareness of the plight of the humpback whales.

Yep! I for one am very happy that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has turned out to be based on an inaccurate premise, and may have even contributed to making the world a better place. It's exactly the sort of thing that good art ought to do.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

Good deal. Of course Star Trek:IV was made 22 years ago, go figure. Maybe humanity did have some sort of positive impact since then?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Oh, sure. They're doing fine now. Let's see how the whales are doing after the Eugenic Wars and World War III.

 

[Gepard]

Oh, sure. They're doing fine now. Let's see how the whales are doing after the Eugenic Wars and World War III.

You mean once most technological centers have been nuked and most countries are going to be more concerned with not having the flesh melt off their citizens then they are with overfishing the oceans?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yep! I for one am very happy that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has turned out to be based on an inaccurate premise, and may have even contributed to making the world a better place.

Mind you, the whole campaign suffered a setback with the unexplained disappearance of Dr Gillian Taylor in the 1980s.

 

[USS KG5]

If the Japanese get their way one day they will have harpooned their way through all of them by the 23rd century despite any of this, so the film's prediction might still come true.

Lets not even touch the morality of brutally killing beautiful creatures who provide virtually nothing that cannot be obtained synthetically and estimates of whose intelligence are constantly being revised upwards...

 

[Wonderlust King]

If I'm not mistaken we still have what another 15 years or so to wipe out the whales?

 

[EmoVulcan]

Actually these numbers may be misleading. That's because while there's enough food to sustain them there's barely enough. We've got a lot of skinny bone-showing whales out there. The amount of food out in the oceans that whales can eat is either shrinking fast or relocating. As plankton and the like lessing in population they stay equally as spread out. So if you've got 1000 plankon per mile now you've got 200.
Aka the whales now have less to eat. Some people think that the whales will hit the cap soon and stop growing in population with a good possibility of their food sources becoming too scarce to support them (not because they're eating too much but because of climate change). Then they'll start starving and slowly die off. lol

 

[Therin of Andor]

Then they'll start starving and slowly die off. lol

How is that a lol moment?