Category Archives: WhaleTimes Updates

Dr. Dean Grubbs shows off “Big as Life” Thank You for Fintastic Friday!!!

Posted on by whaleweb
A six gill shark takes a selfie in the deep

A six gill shark takes a selfie in the deep

Recently, WhaleTimes Director Ruth Musgrave was invited to visit elementary schools in Oregon City, Oregon to talk about sharks. She discovered the kids in Oregon City LOVE sharks as much as we do.
The kids were inspired to celebrate Fintastic Friday early and send a “Big as Life” thank you to biologists helping sharks.
If you follow the link below you’ll see Dr. Dean Grubbs, Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, showing off his thank you!Take a look! https://www.facebook.com/FSUCML

Thank you kids — and Dr. Grubbs and our friends at Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory! Together we can save sharks!

Don’t forget to mark your calendar, Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks, Skates, and Rays a Voice is just months away.

Oh Baby! Gray Whale Calves Galore

Posted on by whaleweb
Gray whale and calf swimming north.

Gray whale and calf swimming north.

In 2014, researchers counted 431 newborn gray whale calves. The story of the eastern gray whales, from endangered to thriving, is a beacon of hope for other conservation efforts.

Once nearly extinct, conservation efforts lead to the eastern Pacific gray whale population rebounding and its eventual removal from the endangered species list in 1994. Today, about 20,000 of these bus-sized beauties thrive along the Pacific Coast of North America. That’s a definite cause for celebration!

Join us in April to follow gray whale moms and newborn calves heading north to their feeding grounds.

WhaleTimes’  Gray Whales: Celebration of Conservation highlights the astounding success of the gray whale recovery and current research to monitor the gray whale population.

Teachers…enroll today! This program is free to schools, but has limited space. Find out more. Contact us at:  graywhales2015 this URL.

 

A rare find…

Posted on by whaleweb

WhaleTimes Board Member Tamara Frank, PhD from Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center (Dania Beach, Florida) is out to sea and sharing her adventure with us.

A hurricane off the Atlantic coast has created some rough weather, but the science team aboard the NOAA RV Pisces has still had some success. The cruise is the deepwater biodiversity cruise off the Bear Seamount.

Paper nautilus shell brought up from deep

Paper nautilus shell brought up from deep

As they study populations in the deep, one of the trawls brought up a rarely seen paper nautilus with the shell in still intact. Beautiful! Little is known about this delicate cephalopod.

Thanks Tammy for sharing the photos.

more to come…

It’s Hagfish Day! The celebration of the ‘beauty of ugly’

Posted on by whaleweb
Hagfish day HAGFISH Image courtesy of NOAA Ocean Explorer wbsm

The lovely hagfish!

Forget sugarplums and heart-shaped candies, now there’s a real holiday for kids and it’s Hagfish Day!

Celebrate the anniversary of the 5th Hagfish Day Celebration with us!!! Five years of exotic, unusual…okay ugly ocean animals.
WhaleTimes created Hagfish Day (in 2009) to celebrate the beauty of ugly. Hagfish are the perfect example. These deep-sea scavengers ooze slime buckets of slime. They also play an important role in their ecosystem. WhaleTimes believes repugnant and slightly revolting animals like hagfish make great role models for highlighting conservation concerns for all marine animals.
“Sometimes it seems as if ecological causes are popularity contests that exclude the less attractive and less well-known, though equally vulnerable, creatures,” said WhaleTimes Director Ruth Musgrave. “There are species in peril that kids never hear about.”

We hope to have the bios of this year’s Hagfish Day stars up soon. (That darn hacking thing has added a wrinkle to our timeline!) This year’s stars are a combination of unusual, endangered, and beauty challenged.
How do you celebrate Hagfish Day? Classrooms, individuals and families can participate by making hagfish slime, writing a Haiku, vote for your favorite Ugly Beauty, make and send a Happy Hagfish Day bouquet to a friend, or simply learn more about the Hagfish Day stars and the scientists who study them. It’s sure to be a good slime!
More to come….