wildlife

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Ady Gil, formerly Earthrace, joins Sea Shepherd fleet

Thanks to a $1 million donation from its namesake, US multi-millionaire Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace, the Ady Gil has become the latest addition to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's protest fleet. The Ady Gil will bear down on whalers at 40 knots, blaring Maori-inspired war cries through a 9000W speaker system. "They're going to think 'what the f..k have we got here?' " laughed Ady Gil's skipper Pete Bethune.

"It deflects radar signals, so it's very hard for radar systems to pick us up. It's effectively a stealth boat. Made of carbon, with carbon flecks in the paint you can have a big boat with a 20kW radar 400m away and they won't see you. In the past, the Steve Irwin has only been fast enough to keep up with the processing ship, the Nissan Maru, but not the harpooners. We can keep up with the harpoon vessels.” "The point of conflict will shift to include the harpoon vessels now, so it gives us a chance to stop the whales being harpooned." The boat holds the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe.  read more »

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Dolphins save surfer from becoming shark’s bait - a pod of bottlenose dolphins helped protect the severely injured boarder

Surfer Todd Endris needed a miracle. The shark - a monster great white that came out of nowhere - had hit him three times, peeling the skin off his back and mauling his right leg to the bone. That’s when a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around Endris, allowing him to get to shore, where quick first aid provided by a friend saved his life. “Truly a miracle,” Endris told TODAY’s Natalie Morales on Thursday.

Dolphin answers whales' SOS call  read more »

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Shocking gigantic sight of ocean debris is found in the Pacific. The Texas-sized Pacific Ocean garbage patch is a vortex formed by ocean currents & collects human-produced trash. Plastic sea trash doesn't biodegrade and often floats at the surface. Bottlecaps, bags and wrappers that end up in the ocean from the wind or through overflowing sewage systems can then drift thousands of miles. "Seeing that influence just floating out here in the middle of nowhere makes our power painfully obvious, and the consequences of the industrial age plain." Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish, and one paper cited by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates 100,000 marine mammals die trash-related deaths each year.  read more »

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2009 documentary The Cove.
For nearly 10 years, Ric O'Barry trained dolphins playing "Flipper" on the popular '60s TV show, and, in the process, popularized dolphins as entertainment. For the last 35 years, he's tried to undo all of that. Wherever dolphins are held captive, O'Barry is there -- protesting, cutting nets and getting arrested. He's a longtime critic of Florida attractions that feature captive dolphins, including Key Biscayne's Seaquarium, "like these dolphins volunteered to be in this concrete box."

His biggest splash may be the new documentary The Cove, a nail-biting film about dolphin slaughter in Japan. The movie, opening Friday in South Florida, has snagged a slew of festival awards, including the Sundance Audience Award, and has created Oscar buzz in its wake.

O'Barry, 69, of Coconut Grove, leads an unusual cast of daredevils to a secluded cove in Taiji on Japan's coast. Here, capturing and killing dolphins is legal. But trespassing isn't.  read more »

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A Burmese python measuring 17 feet in length was caught on the grounds of the Okeechobee Veterinary Hospital - the male snake weighed 207 pounds and measured 26 inches in diameter. The snakes are often abandoned by disgruntled pet owners when they become too large to handle and too expensive to feed. 150,000 snakes "out of control" & spreading - they can reproduce rapidly with female pythons laying up to 80 eggs at a time, and have no natural predators in Florida.

Fla. trapper captures 14-foot python near day care center  read more »

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Eight endangered Rothschild giraffes, the rarest (only a few hundred left in the wild) on earth second only to the Niger Giraffe, are free to roam their 140-acre estate and are regular visitors at their English-style manor built in the colonial era. Back in 1794, the grandson of a Scottish earl, Jock Leslie Melville, and his American wife Betty bought the stately home. Later that year they moved two highly endangered Rothschild giraffe into the estate. The ones at the site grow up to more than 16ft tall, weigh two tons & have a life expectancy of up to 30 years. Every day shortly before 9am, the mammoth beasts stroll up to the house and poke their heads through the windows and doors in search of morning treats. Now, married owners Tanya & Mikey Carr-Hartley literally share their dining table with them.

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