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337 whales dead in Chile in one of history's biggest beachings
- hanniabu 11y agoI'm not refuting their claims that this isn't caused by humans, but I'm curious as to how they are able to prove that.
- dfc 11y agoRed tide?
- hoodoof 11y agoPings from submarines.
- Dwolb 11y agoThis is so sad. I'm surprised the team were able to rule out human intervention as whale beachings have been linked to military sonar exercises [1]. A human analogy I've read is to imagine if an alien spacecraft descended into our atmosphere and played noises all day so loud that our ears bled. The trauma would be so bad we might not have another choice but to end the suffering. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/03/whales-flee-military-sonar-strandings http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/03/whales-fl...
- dfc 11y agoMaybe they found evidence for a red tide related stranding? And/Or they did imaging of the whales ear canals?
- mjlee 11y agoCertainly in the UK and, in my experience, around the world, military exercised are programmed, confined to specific areas and certain emitters such as sonar are carefully logged. That said, we know little about how currents and water bodies move so I'm sure these researchers have something more concrete.
- dfc 11y agoYou should check out "War of the Whales" if you are interested in the interaction between whales and naval training exercises.
- erdojo 11y agoThis kind of claim should require more documentation before publication. Not that I don't believe it's possible, but you'd think pictures would be readily available by now, and a more precise location. I can see holding back right after the discovery, but six months later? Also would have loved to know when the mass beaching took place. Lots of tectonic activity in that area. Someone else mentioned sonar...would have liked to see if the event could be cross-referenced with military exercises. Hope this story is further vetted and explored.
- dfc 11y agoDid you read the article? The article seems to demonstrate that the scientist behind the publication wants to wait to discuss the details of the stranding until the paper is released: "She declined to disclose the conclusions, which will be published by a scientific journal later this year."
- knughit 11y agoUgh. Scientific journals are for archiving information, not embargoing news.
- dfc 11y agoThe fact that you failed to even give lip service to peer review is strange maybe speaks to your understanding of professional science.
- hueving 11y agoThe fact that you think that's why people wait speaks to your naive view of how academia works. The only reason they are waiting and not releasing on a preprint like arxiv is because the journal wants to force all citations through them and will reject the paper if they see an early release. It's disgusting.
- jldugger 11y ago
- codezero 11y agoSo, serious question. Why can't Japan use these whales for their research instead of killing more?
- lostlogin 11y agoNot enough anagonism or nationalist sabre rattling in that. Full disclosure: I'm from New Zealand.
- oneJob 11y ago"research" Also. This is sad effin news. And that's your response?
- codezero 11y agoyes, air quotes are implicit, but the Japanese who do this research probably believe whole heartedly in its necessity – it's worth having empathy for others, even if we disagree with their motivations. This is very sad news, indeed. Are you a vegetarian? That may seem out of order, but, if you're eating meat, you're slaughtering animals as well, so, just food for thought... food :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Joof 11y agoWhat research do the Japanese do with whales? Actually curious.
- codezero 11y agoNearby comment in case you missed it posted this link which is helpful: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/opinion/the-big-lie-behind-japanese-whaling.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/opinion/the-big-lie-behind... The short answer is that they don't do real research.
- peteretep 11y agoOne day we're going to find out there are whale apocalyptic cults.
- unreal37 11y agoThe scientist seems to be withholding information until her paper gets published. That seems wrong to me.
- samplonius 11y agoYes, those damn peer reviews are so annoying. I recommend using journals that don't bother to verify anything. - Ranjit Chandra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjit_Chandra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjit_Chandra)
- Farnickal 11y agoNo that is downright stupid and perverse. It's better to disclose the information and debunk it if it is false. Also we're talking about pictures to prove this claim, so calm down, you passive-aggressive, sarcastic prick.
- anaphor 11y agoHave you ever heard of post-publication peer review?
- gcr 11y agoHave you ever heard of any reputable venue that does that?
- Joof 11y agoIt's cool; we can let a small, overworked group of people who may or may not actually be very knowledgeable in that subject peer review it first. Might as well keep the data private forever too because reproducing the work might show something different.
- Joof 11y agoI was up too late and grumpy, but the peer review process (while necessary) does prevent good papers from being published in a reasonable time frame. And acceptance is closer to random than you might expect. Here's a review of the NIPs acceptance process. http://blog.mrtz.org/2014/12/15/the-nips-experiment.html http://blog.mrtz.org/2014/12/15/the-nips-experiment.html Stuff like arXiv is in theory very good for the actual process of science, but so is having free, accessible journals and those don't necessarily exist in every field.
- danieltillett 11y agoI actually see this as a positive as it means the whale numbers are making a great comeback now that (most) nations have stopped hunting them. Here in Australia the humpback whale is back from 200 to 26,000 just on the east coast alone [1]. 1. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-27/humpback-whale-population-shows-no-sign-of-slowing-down/6728660 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-27/humpback-whale-populat...
- riffraff 11y agothanks so much for sharing this information, I had no idea the situation had improved so much.
- danieltillett 11y agoIn Western Australia they are doing even better - back to 90% of the pre-whaling number [1]. 1. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/28/humpback-whales-comeback-australia-numbers-rebound http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/28/humpback-...
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoIsn't the problem with such interventions that returning a species to previous population levels can great an imbalance? What predates this species; are the predators able to keep the levels down such that this species doesn't boom and wipe out its food source? Any sudden dramatic changes in population seem like causes for ecological concern.
- pvaldes 11y agoNot the case here. Only a 25% of the normal population of this subspecies remain currently. About 24.000 Southern Sei whales in total or so. If food sources dissapear, overfishing by humans is a more probable cause.
- SideburnsOfDoom 11y ago> What predates this species? Not much. This is pretty common, large animals are often at the top of the food chain http://www.whateats.com/what-eats-a-whale http://www.whateats.com/what-eats-a-whale http://www.whalefacts.org/do-blue-whales-have-predators/ http://www.whalefacts.org/do-blue-whales-have-predators/
- dclowd9901 11y agoNear Antarctica? Any chance of fluctuation of tide sizes due to global warming?