A new study shows that with increasing ocean temperatures, that whales could be pushed closer and closer to shore.  A large heatwave coined as "the blob" created increasingly warming ocean temperatures from 2013-2017.  During these years krill was in short supply, leaving anchovies as the primary food source for humpback whales.  Due to habitat compression, these anchoives were pushed closer to shore and the humpbacks followed their food source into prime crab fishing habitat.  

Read more from the Los Angeles Times here.

On Sunday, The National Development and Reform Commission on Sunday introduced a new policy that will be implemented over the next five years.  This policy will ban the use of non-biodegradable bags and stop the resteraunt industry from using single use straws.  There are many otehr plans that will be implemented in the next frew years.

Read more here!

 

 

It is already a common phenomenon for marine mammals and sea turtles to be the victims of entanglement due to humans and their careless waste disposal, but recently hundrededs of sharks have also been recorded with entanglement issues.  Including one juvinile shark in Aptos, that has been recorded swimming with a rope around its tail.  This entanglement can be a huge issue for these sharks, not only by creating more drag while swimming, but it can also become more hazardous as the shark grows.  Entanglements can cause the shark discomfort, pain, deformities, and even death.

 

Read more here

On Saturday, April 24th, the San Fransico bay had it's fifth whale stranding in 3 weeks. Our team, alongside The Marine Mammal Center, and California Academy of Sciences, identified a 46-foot juvenile male fin whale that washed ashore on Fort Funston beach. During the necropsy, we detemined the potential cause of death to be a vessel strike because we saw bruising and hemorrhaging to the muscle around the whale's neck vertebrae. 

 

 

Read more about the fin whale stranding here.