[HN Gopher] A new population of blue whales was discovered hidin...
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A new population of blue whales was discovered hiding in the Indian
Ocean
Author : rustoo
Score : 100 points
Date : 2020-12-26 07:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| McMini wrote:
| God I hate news sites that hide behind some kind of
| localstorage..
| a012 wrote:
| You know, just like a population of blue whales who're hiding
| in the ocean, NYtimes article contents are hiding in somewhere
| in browser's local storage too
| choeger wrote:
| Wait a second. Are you telling me their paywall works by
| downloading the content to my browser and _then_ hiding it?
| That would be ... ridiculous.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| My God, don't tell anyone, we'll find some reason to go kill
| them...
| fakedang wrote:
| Japan: We would like to research these whale populations for
| "scientific purposes".
| cpursley wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u_G8L-BIHU
| LandR wrote:
| I doubt they were hiding.
| studius wrote:
| While I thought the same thing, some whales hid from hunters in
| Iceland[1].
|
| [1]- https://www.idausa.org/campaign/cetacean-advocacy/latest-
| new...
| xwdv wrote:
| Does word of killer humans travel within the whale community
| somehow?
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| Whales have a large vocabulary, large brains, social
| structures, and extremely old ages. Many simpler animals
| communicate dangers, some even have particular words for
| humans. It's entirely reasonable that whales might have
| learned at some point that whaling ships were dangerous,
| maybe even assuming that all ships are dangerous, and then
| communicate that to other whales, even for a hundred years,
| which is less than the lifetime of some whales.
| xwdv wrote:
| So this is why some whales will jump out of water and
| fall backwards on to kayakers, killing them with their
| gross tonnage.
| randoramax wrote:
| Never heard of whale killing a kayaker with a jump.
| Source?
| xwdv wrote:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2019/02/06/kayake
| r-s...
| plumeria wrote:
| The linked article says: "Whales are thought to come out
| of the water to communicate with others, and colliding
| with boats and kayaks is an accidental consequence of
| this".
| bigbubba wrote:
| Something to consider; why don't orcas ever bite humans in
| the wild? The standard answer is we're too bony and taste
| bad. Maybe that's the reason, but it doesn't sit right with
| me. Sure we might be bony compared to seals, but how do
| orcas know we taste bad if they won't even take a nibble?
| Orcas seem to have zero curiosity for how we taste.
| Contrast this with sharks, which are known for taking a
| taste once in a while. Are sharks, glorified fish, really
| more curious than these hyper intelligent mammals? Maybe,
| but that seems suspect to me.
|
| Here is what I believe; whales are capable of passing
| knowledge down through their generations, just like us. The
| power of their language is not yet fully understood, but I
| think it reasonable to assume they are able to express at
| least simple ideas like _" Can I eat this?"_, _" Do not eat
| that!"_ and _" Those are dangerous to us."_ A language
| which can convey those ideas may be sufficient for whales
| to have memory of industrial scale whaling. I believe Orcas
| likely remember that humans are very good at killing
| whales, and subsequently know not to fuck with us. (They
| may also be able to reason this out by observing our
| capabilities today, even if they have forgotten what we
| once did.)
| pasabagi wrote:
| Eh - most predators don't eat new and weird looking
| stuff. The reason is, if you can't digest something and
| get sick, you can't hunt, and so you'll probably die. I
| think sharks are the weird one here - one factor probably
| being they're pretty dumb, and the other being they have
| a pretty tough digestive tract.
|
| They are also cold blooded so it takes longer for a shark
| to starve.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Aren't pretty much all warm blooded large land predators
| known to eat humans on occasion? Bears, tigers, wolves,
| etc. Perhaps that happens because the opportunity arises
| more often.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Actually I think the only large warm blooded predator
| that hunts humans actively is a polar bear. Maybe also
| leopards? Could be wrong. I think other large mammals
| typically do it when they're old, infirm, stressed, or
| otherwise unable to hunt normally.
| bigbubba wrote:
| I think the closest land analogue to orcas is probably
| wolves, since they also live in packs, which I assume
| means older/weaker wolves/orcas use their social
| connections to other pack members to get food. This, I
| would expect, makes these two sorts of predators less
| likely to attack humans out of individual desperation.
| However, although it's rare, groups of wolves attacking
| humans as prey is not unheard of. Children are
| particularly at risk from what I understand, since the
| wolves know they're weaker. (To an orca, I think any
| human in the water would be weak.)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| usernamebias wrote:
| Great. Now leave them alone.
| rasz wrote:
| Did Japan sent their scientific mission to investigate yet?
| bigbubba wrote:
| Two points: 1) Japan does not presently hunt blue whales and
| hasn't for some years. 2) For the past few years Norwegians
| have killed more whales than the Japanese, yet the Japanese
| receive the lion's share of criticism for it.
|
| https://iwc.int/total-catches
| echelon wrote:
| I have _never_ heard of Norwegians conducting whaling. Why
| aren 't they being reamed for it too?
| Retric wrote:
| A significant difference is Norway was only hunting minke
| whales which are still in the least concern category. Japan
| however was hunting actually threatened Sperm whales and
| Fin Whales.
|
| Further, they where doing it under the auspices of research
| far from Japan vs Norway which was more brazen, but also
| more local.
|
| PS: Alaskan whale hunting by Inuit also largely gets a free
| pass.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Per that chart, Japan predominantly hunts minke whales,
| and last took a single sperm whale in 2013. Indonesia
| kills approximately 20 sperm whales every year.
| Thetawaves wrote:
| Inuits taking a few whales a year as a traditional food
| source is in no way comparable to the commercial
| endeavors operated by the Japanese.
| PostOnce wrote:
| Who is it giving the Inuit a pass? Why do they have a say
| in it? Someone shows up thousands of years after the fact
| and starts telling the Inuit what they can and can't eat?
| I don't see that as a defensible position to hold. The
| Inuit should be able to eat their own whales if they want
| to.
| User23 wrote:
| The Japanese are indigenous to Japan and have been
| hunting whales for a thousand years and maybe over ten
| thousand[1] so I guess we don't get to tell them what
| they can and can't eat either.
|
| [1] https://japanwhaling.weebly.com/history.html
| alistairSH wrote:
| That Norwegians (and Inuit) hunt whales doesn't make it any
| less awful that Japan hunts whales.
|
| In all cases, were talking about killing animals that are
| known to be highly intelligent and social. Nobody should be
| killing them.
| twic wrote:
| The table there introduced me to the notion of stinky whales:
|
| https://phys.org/news/2016-10-stinky-whale-whiff-wafts-
| whali...
| porknubbins wrote:
| Thats terrifying and probably out fault. Who knows how many
| chemicals are dumped into the ocean that we unknowingly
| consume because they don't smell bad.
| cpursley wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u_G8L-BIHU
| OpticalWindows wrote:
| Hide and seek champions of 2020?
| djtriptych wrote:
| Really hope someone is thinking about the ethics of releasing
| this information.
|
| In birding for instance, there's often an unwritten rule of
| obscuring locations of rare species when it's reasonable to think
| additional traffic would threaten the bird.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I believe that endangered species data in the USA is routinely
| hidden, due to actual cases of real-estate developers finding
| and killing the last remaining species in order to clear a
| development project. Note- _college educated American citizens
| with financial responsibilties have been caught and found
| guilty of this_
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Where can I read more about this?
|
| In California at least, there is a prohibition on picking
| carcass of birds and animals even if it's on your own
| property. They have to be surrendered to sanitation Dept if
| in an urban area or fish and game outside city limits.
|
| This is mostly to discourage trade in animals and birds
| captured for medicinal purposes or for selling to
| taxidermists looking for specimens. Even roadkill is
| prohibited.
| bigbubba wrote:
| From what I understand, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes
| it federally illegal in all of America to do nearly
| anything with even roadkilled birds.
| TRcontrarian wrote:
| Can confirm this is real. It happens with the tiger
| salamander subspecies we have here blocking developments.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Damn.. talking about being morally bankrupt.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This is a byproduct of the scientifically bankrupt
| implementation of the endangered species act.
|
| If we as a society care about endangered species, there
| should be an option to make or improve habitat for such
| species to offset development.
| djtriptych wrote:
| Yeah college educated has been meant ethical. Really that
| would have been my guess for who would do this sort of thing.
| Easy to justify on a spot basis.
| djtriptych wrote:
| *never meant
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(page generated 2020-12-27 23:01 UTC)