By Lynda V. Mapes 2 August 2018 (The Seattle Times) – Is it her grief … or ours? As she carried her dead calf for the ninth straight day, Tahlequah the mother orca whale has captured the world’s attention. People have responded to her plight with poems. Paintings. Songs. Cascades of phone calls, emails and […]
By Manuel Bojorquez 2 August 2018 MIAMI (CBS News) – Thousands of fish, eels and turtles are dying, sometimes as far as the eye can see, in parts of southwest Florida. Just this week, one of several lifeless manatees was pulled from the water. The suspected culprit is a toxic algae bloom known as “red […]
By Marcie Grabowski 1 August 2018 (UH News) – Several greenhouse gases are emitted as common plastics degrade in the environment, according to researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).Mass production of plastics started nearly 70 years ago, and the production rate is expected to […]
By Paul A. Eisenstein 2 August 2018 (NBC News) – The White House announced Thursday that it is moving ahead on its much-anticipated plan to roll back the fuel economy mandate set by the Obama administration. The previous guidelines, which were reached during Obama’s first term, call for automakers to each reach a fleet average […]
By Paul Nelson 30 July 2018 (Cascadia Magazine) – (For David McCloskey)Tahlequah is daughter of Princess Angelinebrother of Moby, sister to Kiki, motherto Notch. Her second offspring was notborn but born still and still un-named &un-numbered. For five days Tahlequahpushed her still-born calf around theSalish Sea, perhaps a hope that she’dnot be a parent to […]
1 August 2018 (CBC) – Members of a pod of endangered killer whales now appear to be taking turns floating the body of a newborn calf that died more than week ago.As It Happens reported on Friday about J-35, a mother orca from B.C.’s endangered killer whale population that has been balancing her dead calf […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 30 July 2018 SAN JUAN ISLANDS (The Seattle Times) – She carries it delicately, carefully, by the fin, or on her head, so as not to make a mark on the tiny body of her calf that lived only half an hour. J35, a mother orca in the southern-resident clan, was […]
By Cliff Mass 30 July 2018 (Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog) – The smoke is back over western Washington and it is about to get worse, as California wildfire smoke pushes northward over our area. This morning’s sunrise clearly showed a smoke layer, with the reddish glow so familiar from last summer’s sunrises and […]
By Cheryl Katz 25 July 2018 (Hakai Magazine) – Plastics, those indestructible relics of our throwaway culture, are omnipresent in the oceans, making their way into everything from sea salt to seabirds. Now, a new study finds seabirds may be giving back, shuttling particles from ocean garbage gyres back to shore in their poop. Around […]
5 July 2018 (EGU) – The Baltic Sea is home to some of the world’s largest dead zones, areas of oxygen-starved waters where most marine animals can’t survive. But while parts of this sea have long suffered from low oxygen levels, a new study by a team in Finland and Germany shows that oxygen loss […]
