Nature News
California humpback whales start heading out to sea
May 28, 2007, 23:26 GMT
San Francisco - Two humpback whales started heading out to sea Monday, with about 55 kilometres left to return to the Pacific Ocean, reports said.
The mother and baby, Delta and Dawn, have been stranded on California's inland waterways for more than two weeks, despite repeated attempts and methods to get them to return to safety.
Bernadette Fees, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said in broadcast remarks that she would be administering antibiotics - one dose for the calf and three doses for the mother - to help them deal with skin infections that apparently resulted from cuts delivered by passing boats.
She also said she would work to take a biopsy from the calf.
The whales left the ocean more than two weeks ago as they participated in the annual humpback migration from the coasts of Baja Mexico to their summer feeding grounds in Alaska.
The pair last week circled the Rio Vista bridge, 120 kilometres from the ocean, but finally got up the speed to cross under the bridge on their way back to sea.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Because they are being repeatedly injured by all of the passing boats. They are only trying to keep them alive and get them back in salt water where they belong.
i was there in 1985 when the other hump back came up the river and stayed 25 days and left when he got ready. and i said the same for these two when the other one was there i was runing a route in the delta for frito-lay and he caused me alot of lost time. for so maney people would be on the roads you had a hard time geting from town to town. the only one that made money from it was haps bait in rio-vesta for he sold t-thirts for $20 the woman fron texas that was riding with me at the time bought 2 of them to take back home with her. so as you mite know i was glad to see him go but i dont like seeing them get hurt. so now i live in the hills of arkansas retired so they cant cause me any troubly. all i got to worrey about is the hill billys.
thank you
Luther Rowe in Heber Springs arkansas lived 22 miles east of reo-vesta for 44 years served the town for
30 years. a nice little town thank you.
Okay, this is rediculous. Whales beach themselves, and everyone's like oh no, must be global warming making them beach, it's our fault, let's save them! (hint of scarcasm) Stop humping trees and trying to save these whales. They do what they want, this is like trying to stop a chief from making his final trip to the desert. Maybe these animals wanted to die in the river, go ahead tree humpers, bang your sticks under water. The whole thing is kinda like the freaking manatees, they're nothing but lardy aquatic mammals living on government welfare... seriously, think about it.
I would have to agree with David... some of the highly educated of our time left their brain at the door when entering college....
stderr
don't be such an idiot!
Did it ever occur to anyone that these whales may have come to fresh water to shed parasites? Or that despite all the tormenting by the so called scientists with their sound recordings and fire hose blasts that the whales returned to the sea when they were ready and not before? Did any of the so called scientists collect blood or fecal samples before administering medication? What gives any of us the right to administer antibiotics or medication of any kind to wild animals? What kind of science is that?
It's the kind of science that is spurred on by politics, by elected officials, community leaders, and administrators trying to appear to be to be making a difference in front of an uneducated and uninformed public. It's the same kind of science that creates mythical diseases in order to justify the use of methylphenidate and the like on children with above average energy and intelligence levels simply because the average adult doesn't have the time, energy, or intelligence to cope with and nurture them.
Like it or not the human species is a natural phenomenon. Unlike many other species humans have a lot more choices to make about how they interact with the others. Hopefully some day we will begin to make more intelligent decisions. Hopefully that day will come before Mother Nature decides she has had enough of us.
page: 1
DavidMay 29th, 2007 - 00:10:28
Hey, these guys are autonomous creatures. Who are we to suggest that they ought to behave the way we would be comfortable with them behaving?
DJP
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