Hunted, rammed, poisoned, whales may die from heartbreak too

[villager]

Source: AFP

Hunted, rammed, poisoned, whales may die from heartbreak too

by Marlowe Hood

<snip>

Nor is commercial hunting the only threat.

"It is a mistake to factor out the single issue of hunting," said Asmutis-Silvia. "You need to look at the cumulative impact of vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing nets, pollution, destruction of habitat and acoustic disturbances."

Climate change is also looming as a danger. Acidification of the oceans, driven by global warming, could sharply reduce the number of krill, shrimp-like creatures that are the mainstay of the whale diet.

An adult blue whale can eat up to 40 million krill in a day.

And even if the tiny crustaceans resist acidification, whales are now competing with fish farms that scoop up krill by the tonne for feed.

For Yves Paccalet, a French naturalist and philosopher who helped push through the 1986 moratorium, the intelligent and highly-social creatures may be so exhausted from their centuries-long combat with humankind that they have simply have given up the fight.

"The psychological consequences of our aggression have compromised their will to live," said Paccalet, who worked extensively with French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

"To reproduce, whales need a large number of individuals to ensure that they meet, and then to frolic and excite each other. Otherwise, a species may give in to a kind of sexual melancholy and simply stops breeding," he told AFP.

The giant blue whales are so few, he added, that they rarely cross paths.

"The balance remains very fragile: if we leave whales alone, it is not impossible that they will prosper. If we don't, the decline could be rapid," he said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080622/sc_afp/environmentwhalingiwcwhales_080622030528

[Tektonik]

1. I've heard a lot about global warming, etc recently and the news just gets worse and worse

According to Greenpeace we have about seven years to massively cut down our emissions via legislation or else we're really fucked.

[flvegan]

2. Flip that "aggression" script

To the side of the whales...

[Cronopio]

3. No, no ... remember, Capt. Watson is *crazy*!

Many Canadians claim to believe that, even some Canadians on this forum.

The difference between moral passion/compassion/righteous anger and mental illness seems to be lost on a lot of people these days.

[flvegan]

4. Consider the source.

That's all I can say.

[villager]

8. The Soviets always called those who rejected their version of reality "crazy," too...

n/t

[truedelphi]

10. I am so tired of trying to take care of "crazy"

Crazy just gets more and more pervasive these days.

[cboy4]

6. That is a great ship named after a wonderful man

who helped intensify my love of wildlife with everything he did during his short life.

[undergroundpanther]

5. Animals have emotions

Animals can get depressed ,angry or happy.Anyone can see they feel emotions. My cats are emotional.
Thus if they can feel ,they can become suicidal too.

It is true.I have seen it happen myself. I was sitting by a campfire surrounded by rocks with my freind..Two toads hopped onto the rocks near us.They sat there a minute, suddenly,one toad jumped in the fire.I was too slow to try to catch him and couldn't find a decent stick to get him out of the fire before he was burned beyond hope.The other toad meanwhile sat there watching the other toad until it was dead,than he hopped off the rock into the grass, into the half ass woods nearby.The land around us was being plowed up,a pond drained .
Did that toad kill himself? Maybe.Maybe that toad had lost everything that meant something to him? Pooh pooh it,but that tells me the idea of animal emotions somehow threatens you.

What is so threatening about accepting that animals can and do feel emotions?Even sometimes deeply .Animals mourn,can get hurt psychologically,they can go nuts being isolated while their human works all day(many dogs do),they are emotional creatures too just observe them..Why is that such an impossibility for some people to accept animal emotions ?
Ever get to know a cat? Cats are very emotional if you can read their emotions,they express it by body language,facial expressions and by their eyes.A cat asking you what's up,will curl his tail into the exact shape of a question mark,wonder if that's why humans made question marks look like inquiring cat's tails(unconsciously?)? Cats can give out such compassion,love..they express such tenderness,it is emotional all over. Cats are very emotionally perceptive of your emotions and they feel things deeply.Mistreat a cat and they will seek vengeance they will express they are pissed off at you.Don't empty the cat box and they will get irritated at you and annoy you until you scoop it out..Cats do feel embarrassed if you laugh at them when they are clumsy, fall or look funny.Cats are very self conscious and vulnerable that way they know what our laughing means especially laughter at their expense.I read somewhere that cats are as intelligent as 4 or 5 year old humans,they just express it differently that's all.

Rats used in experiments to see how trauma effects the behavior of a traumatized creature.These poor rats were put in cages with electrified bottoms that shocked their tender feet. Unable to escape the shocks after exhausting themselves by jumping,they laid there and took the pain,when the cage was opened they stayed there, they learned helplessness and exhibited behavior like clinical depression.They behaved like traumatized people do.

Also animals mourn for lost mates,pack/pride mates,and even human companions that die.It's not far fetched to consider animals who have lost their homes to developers,lost their kin to hunters or cars,lost everything due to space greedy humans that do not give a shit about how their lifestyles,parking lots,cars,closely clipped grassy open space yards that no animal except grub worms could live there,and malls..Human spaces for the most part do not provide nesting spaces etc.for animals like beavers woodchucks,foxes deer bobcats,human civilization with it's deadly roads criss crossing all over ,street lights that never cease to light up everything, the noise and pollution..and humans that develop land do not even think twice about the fact they are destroying who knows how many homes,nests, natural foods for the woodchucks squirrels and other critters that may have lived there before some greedy human asshole decided to build yet another minimall..maybe the animals are feeling the stress feeling they cannot escape our destructive development and space hogging brush clearing ,so they do feel traumatized,depressed and certainly socially defeated by our greed and some may even want to die.
http://www.la-spca.org/dedication/talk/grief032907.htm
http://jop.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/2/115
//network.bestfriends.org/oregon/news/25357.html
http://animalsuicide.com/

[Omaha Steve]

7. They are only mammals

We are terrible stewards of our planet. K&R!

[lonestarnot]

9. Poor poor things.