Polar bears get all the press, but climate change may be even harder on the narwhal, says new research. Narwhals, the whales whose long spiral tusks kick-started the myth of unicorns, top a list of 11 at-risk Arctic marine mammals published in the journal Ecological Applications. Hooded seals, bowhead whales, and walrus rounded out the top five, while ringed seals and bearded seals, which are being considered for endangered-species protections, were at the bottom of the list. Narwhals are "not that cute," says lead author Kristin Laidre, and thus don't get the attention that polar bears do. And speaking of polar bears (sorry, narwhals), an independent committee has advised the Canadian government that the bears, while probably not at their happiest in a changing climate, are not threatened with extinction.
source: Associated Press, Reuters
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
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caniscandida Posted 6:55 pm
25 Apr 2008
The close relatives of narwhals are the belugas, the smallish white whales without dorsal fins and with baby faces, who are often exhibited in aquariums. Are they "cute"?
Because of the huge divide between life in water and life in air, we may never quite appreciate aquatic animals in terms of cuteness or cuddliness. We do not feel affection for underwater animals, as for dogs and cats and birds and horses and all the rest who breathe air. And similarly, nor do they below have any affection for us above. And so the great Danish story-teller Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" is at once a poignantly tragic love story, and a lie.
But, no!, that cannot be right! That cannot be right at all! Of course the Little Mermaid is a true story! Of course there can be love between those below the surface, and those above!
To which inestimable hours of labor of human cetacean-lovers give evidence: most notably, the valiant sea-going members of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd; but by no means to be forgotten, all the cetacean experts in many countries, looking out for the well-being of whales and dolphins everywhere, ESPECIALLY the whale-rescue teams, on shore, in the air, and on the sea, whose mission it is to find whales who are dangerously entangled, and to save them.
When they see a right whale whom they recognize, after years of separation, despite all the callosities formed by whale lice on its head, to them it is the most beautiful animal on Earth.
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litesong Posted 9:20 am
26 Apr 2008
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caniscandida Posted 8:57 pm
26 Apr 2008
if your wife has made any of her images available, I would love to see it.
One of the most poignant facts of life about cetaceans and pinnipeds is that, being tetrapods, descended from air-breathing mammals and themselves still air-breathing, they must still surface in order to breathe, in spite of their excellent adaptations to live in the ocean.
In the Arctic, where there is sea ice, the availability of open water where an air-breathing mammal may breathe is very limited. Hence, predators -- polar bears in the first place, then Inuit, and Euro-American hunters -- can often have them trapped.
Narwhals are one of many Arctic marine mammals (and other animals) who are adapted to living with sea ice, at greater or lesser extent. They have thrived thus far with abundant sea ice; what the disappearance of sea ice will mean for them, we shall have to observe carefully. It no doubt has more to do with their food sources, than with their immediate conditions.
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caniscandida Posted 9:12 pm
26 Apr 2008
Secondly, the good old Mediterranean Greek Bible, with no knowledge of Arctic wildlife, was already using "monokeros" to translate a word designating an animal in the Hebrew Bible; it means "a being which has one horn," and was translated into Latin as "unicornis."
The animal who had been referred to in the Hebrew Bible might have been a rhinoceros (though in fact African rhinos have a second smaller horn behind the prominent nose horn), or else, by one conjecture, an oryx, seen in profile (which strikes me as insulting to a pastoral people, who surely knew their wildlife well).
On the other hand, it is fairly well established that in European society of the Middle Ages, dominated intellectually by Christian ecclesial and biblical ideas, men from the North came with products of animal origin, including narwhal horns, which they tried to pass off as unicorn horns, and which presumably were purchased by gullible customers.
I wrote, "men from the North." I did not write, "men and women from the North." For all I know, the guys had some women along with them, to wash their underwear and socks; or else, they did not, and they just stank.
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