Plants and Animals

There was some discussion earlier this year at this blog about polar bear numbers. We couldn’t seem to agree whether numbers were increasing or decreasing and what would happen to bears if all the sea ice melted.

Well according to Dr. Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has just completed a three-year survey, polar bear populations along the Davis Strait are healthy and their numbers increasing.

According to Stephanie McDonald writing for The Northern News Service:

“Taylor and co-worker Dr. Lily Peacock have been working for the past three years on a polar bear inventory in the Davis Strait, the first in the area in 20 years. The Davis Strait encompasses the area from Cape Dyer on the eastern side of Baffin Island, through Cumberland Sound, and continues on to the area surrounding Kimmirut.

“Parts of Ungava Bay in Quebec and sections of Labrador are also included in the Davis Strait.

“The results of their study have yet to be released, but Taylor revealed last week that the numbers would be contrary to those released by the U.S. Geological Survey.

“Results will confirm hunters’ impressions, that the polar bear population is productive,” Taylor said.

Last year 841 polar bears were counted in the survey area and halfway through this year’s survey, approximately 600 have been counted. Taylor estimates that this year’s number could be as high as 1,000.

“When he started working for the Department of Environment 12 years ago, Sowdlooapik said that only one or two polar bears would wander through Pangnirtung in a year. Now, he receives almost daily reports of polar bears in popular camping sites, in outpost camps, and in the vicinity of the community.

“We could be looking at the possibility of increasing (hunting) quotas,” Taylor said. “We are seeing high densities of bears in great shape.”

According to Paul Watson from anti-whaling NGO Sea Shepherd, traditional Makah whalers had no plans to resume whaling. Then Watson’s mate Wayne Johnson went out one Saturday morning and killed a gray whale:

According to Lynda V. Mapes reporting for the Seattle Times:

“It was about 6:30 on a beautiful summer morning, with gray whales all around, when Wayne Johnson decided he had waited long enough: It was time to hunt whales again.

Within minutes Saturday, Johnson and four other Makah tribal members were on the downtown dock at Neah Bay, boarding two motorized boats. By the end of the day, the men were in handcuffs and a whale was dead.”

“Sunday, even as tribal council members strongly denounced the hunt, Johnson said he had no regrets. “If anything, I wish I’d done it years earlier,” he said.”

“Johnson confirmed that the hunt that shocked his own tribe and anti-whaling activists Saturday was carried out without the permission of his Tribal Council or Whaling Commission”

“And it was done without conforming to conditions of the federal permit that controlled that 1999 hunt — permission from the tribe; prior notification to a federal observer who had to be in place at the time of the kill; restricting the hunt to the outer coast to protect “resident” whales in the Strait of Juan de Fuca; approaching the whale in a traditional canoe; and using first a harpoon and then a .50-caliber gun to dispatch the whale.

On Saturday, there was no permit, no observer, no canoe; no restricting the hunt to the coast. Just five whalers, four from the 1999 hunt, casting loose from the downtown dock.

“Why mess around with a canoe?” Johnson said. “It would have been more people in jail, and we would have lost the canoe.”

“Saturday night, after the whalers were taken into custody, tribal officials met with community members for more than two hours to talk about what had happened. Some were concerned the rogue hunt would complicate and slow their efforts to legally hunt whales again.”

Journalist Ken Schram is even harder on Wayne Johnson:

“Don’t call it a hunt.”

“Never mind that they didn’t have permission from the Makah tribal council to hunt the whale.

Never mind that they didn’t have the necessary federal permit.

Never mind that the spiritual and cultural elements of a whale hunt were no where to be found.

Never mind any of that.

Wayne Johnson, the guy who says he’s got whaling in his blood, just felt the time was right to go out and kill.

No blubber shared with the elders and the young.

No ancestral stories.

No respect for the whale or for Indian heritage.

It took 12 hours for the gray whale to die.

Meanwhile …

An American animal rights activists has take responsibility for the sinking of the Norwegian whaling ship:

“On the night of august 30th we decided to celebrate the end of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of cooling pipe in the engine room of the norweigan whaler Willassen Senior.

“After ensuring that the vessel was unoccupied the salt water intake valve was opened unleashing a torrent of water into the heart of the killer ship that two years earlier took 14 minutes to brutally murder a threatened minke whale.”

“The sinking of the whaler and the silencing of its deadly harpoon is dedicated to the memory of the yangtze river dolphin who because of humankinds greed will never again grace the waters of our blue planet”

Of course now the whaler has been sunk due to anti-whaling activists, Norwegians will probably once again unite to defend whaling as was proved in the late 90’s. Indeed, the local Labour Party Chair has now stated this is a terrorist attack on Norway and wants political reaction.

Ann Novek,
Sweden

———————
Apologies to Ann for not posting this sooner.

In the year 2000 I posted an image on wikipedia of a growth that I found on a Ryparosa javanica hoping to get it identified.

Seven years older, but no wiser, I thought it worth giving it another shot.

I think it’s part of the growth of the tree. The stem looks similar, but it is not the normal fruiting body and with hundreds of trees to look at daily, I have not seen it again.

I am asking Neil, most humbly, if he will post my image on the blog, since I remain unempowered in the blogging process.

Step into the rainforests of the Daintree lowlands at the moment and you’re likely to whiff the pervasive scent of the rare Javan Ash (Ryparosa javanica). The abundant flowering emits a sweet, slightly off-smell, like five-day-old socks or raw hamburger mince.

The Javan Ash is found in both Java and Australia. This forms evidence of the mixing of the continental biota of the Australian and Asian plates, which are believed to have collided about fifteen million years ago, in the vicinity of what is now the Timor region.

As a defence against herbivores, these plants emit the poisonous gas Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN), through a process called ‘cyanogenesis’.

HCN is poisonous, not only to animals that the eat plants, but to the plants themselves. To prevent poisoning themselves, the plants limit the production of HCN through the strategic storage of both cyanogenic glycosides and an enzyme in adjacent vacuoles of the cell. When the cell is damaged the compartment walls are breached and the reaction takes place. In this way, HCN is produced only when needed.

In the beginning of the Northern hemisphere spring , I asked if

1) Iceland would export Fin whales to Japan
2) Norway would fill its whaling quota

Now we know the answers to these questions.

Iceland will not renew its permits for commercial whaling due to lack of an export market to Japan .

And what about Norway?

According to Reuters:

“Norwegian whalers caught just over half their quota of 1,052 minke whales in 2007, a small rise from last year, but hunters and their opponents dispute whether regulations or dwindling demand cut back the catch”

Rune Frövik from the High North Alliance stated that whalers could have killed about 200 more minke whales if the Government haven’t imposed restrictions on whaling. ( Restrictions to whale in coastal areas).

According to Greenpeace Norway, few whales were hunted due to a lack of demand from Norwegians.

“Environmental group Greenpeace, which condemns whaling, said declining demand explained why fewer whales had been caught than the quota set by the Norwegian government allowed.

“Whalers have been stopped by economic interest because there is no market for whale meat in Norway or elsewhere. Even if they could catch more … they chose not to,” said Truls Gulowsen, manager of Greenpeace Norway”

But Rune has said that despite the regulations, 2007 had still proved to be a better season than 2006 for the whalers.

“Prices have increased, more volume has been caught. Weather conditions have been good compared to 2006.”

[from Ann Novek, Sweden]