Researchers with the New England Aquarium, Wildlife Trust and Florida Conservation Commission have started their annual aerial survey to monitor the movement of endangered right whales. The focus of their attention in a calving area in the Southeastern United States. (See area map.)

Researchers from the New England Aquarium are blogging about the experience on a site called Right Whale Aerial Survey Blog. The team of bloggers is including plenty of great whale photos to go with their observations.

One of the researchers, identified as Jonathan, posted this today about an event that took place yesterday:

Kara and I were flying the southern part of our survey when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a whale about one mile north of us. We broke from our track line and headed for the whale. As we approached, we noticed a very long piece of fishing line (approx. 350 ft) trailing behind the whale. Our team reacted quickly; Kara grabbed the camera and began photographing the whale and the trailing fishing line; I took a position of the whale and immediately called our ground contact …

Our images show there is line wrapping around the whale’s head and body and there appears to be fresh peduncle scars that may be from this entanglement…

We stayed with the whale for over an hour. During which the whale moved almost true north 4 miles! The whale was racing diving - A forceful and fast dive in which the flukes are typically lifted out of the water at a shallow angle. Racing dives are often observed in a quick series with each dive being performed after a single respiration…

The weather conditions were too poor for a disentanglement effort to be launched yesterday. All the survey team are aware of the entangled whale and we are hoping to see it again when we can deploy a research vessel to attempt to disentangle the animal.

Another aquarium researcher, Monica Zani, is said to be the first person to observe the birth of a right whale. In a question-and-answer interview on the New England Aquarium’s Web site, she described it this way:
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released conclusions this morning showing that October probably was the second-warmest month since records began in 1880. That finding results from a combined average of land and sea temperatures across the globe.

Here’s a copy of the news release sent out this morning. Further discussion of the findings are available at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

NOAA: Second Warmest October for Global Temperatures

The combined global land and ocean surface average temperature for October 2008 was the second warmest since records began in 1880, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Temperature Highlights

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for October was 58.23 degrees F, which is 1.13 degrees F above the 20th century mean of 57.1 degrees F.

Separately, the global land surface temperature was 50.72 degrees F, which is 2.02 degrees F above the 20th century mean of 48.7 degrees F, ranking as the warmest October on record. Much of the unusual warmth occurred over Asia, Australia, and Eastern Europe.

The global ocean surface temperature of 61.41 degrees F tied October 2005 as sixth warmest on record and was 0.81 degree F above the 20th century mean of 60.6 degrees F.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January-October was 58.25 degrees F, which is 0.85 degree above the 20th century mean of 57.4 degrees F and ranking as the 9th warmest January-October on record.

Global Highlights for October

Arctic sea ice coverage during October was at its third lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Average ice extent during October was 3.24 million square miles, which is 9.5 percent below the 1979-2000 average. The record lowest extent for October, set in 2007, was 2.55 million square miles. Arctic sea ice extent has been declining by an average of 5.4 percent per decade over the past 30 years.

Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during October 2008 was 6.48 million square miles, which is below the 1967-2008 average and ranks as the ninth lowest October extent.

In early October, Hurricane Norbert became the most powerful 2008 hurricane in the eastern Pacific when it reached Category 4 strength. The storm weakened when it struck Mexico’s southern Baja California on October 11, but still brought heavy rain, strong winds, and widespread flooding to the islands of Santa Margarita and Magdelena. Norbert tracked across the Gulf of California and made a second landfall on October 12 on the Mexican mainland Sonora Coast.

Hurricane Omar developed in the Caribbean Sea on October 13. Omar reached Category 3 strength and was the first hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands from the west since Hurricane Lenny in 1999.

In the western Pacific, slow-moving Tropical Storm 22W brought torrential rains to parts of Southeast Asia. On October 11-14, the South China island province of Hainan suffered flash floods in low-lying areas, which forced thousands of people to flee more than 150 villages. The storm’s rains affected northern Vietnam during October 15-20, triggering flash floods that damaged more than 11,000 hectares of crops. Daily rainfall amounts of 12 to18 inches were reported from the storm.

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, October 2008 was an exceptionally dry month in central and southeastern Australia, ranking as the driest October on record for South Australia, second driest for Tasmania, and third driest for Victoria. This was the second successive very dry month in these areas. Parts of Australia have been experiencing drought conditions for over a decade.

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are turning the oceans more acidic, according to scientists who have been raising alarms for years.

The acidity threatens the marine food web, with the most direct effects on the shells and skeletons of shellfish and corals, since their absorption of calcium carbonate is reduced in a more acidic environment.

Let’s take note of a few new milestones, although nobody has a practical idea for responding to the threat without addressing the entire issue of global warming.

First, and none too soon, the first comprehensive national study of ocean acidity was commissioned last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. See Oct. 20 news release.

The study followed an international symposium in early October, called the “Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World.” The meeting’s chairman, James Orr of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had this to say in a prepared statement:

“Since the industrial revolution, the acidity of ocean surface waters has increased by 30 percent. This change is greater and happening about 100 times faster than for previous acidification events experienced in many millions of years…

“Published research indicates that by 2030, the Southern Ocean will start to become corrosive to the shells of some marine snails that swim in surface waters. These snails provide a major source of food for Pacific Salmon.

“If they decline or disappear in some regions, such as the North Pacific, what will happen to the salmon – and the salmon fishing industry? And what will happen as ocean acidification increasingly affects coral reefs, which are home to one-quarter of the world’s fish during at least part of their lifetime, and which support a multi-billion dollar tourist industry?”

Finally, the Center for Biological Diversity today issued a notice to the Environmental Protection Agency saying it intends to sue the federal government for failure to respond to the threat of ocean acidification. Last year, the environmental group filed a formal petition asking EPA to impose stricter pH standards for ocean water quality and to publish guidance to help states protect U.S. waters.

A press release from the center includes these comments:

The federal Clean Water Act requires the EPA to update water-quality criteria to reflect the latest scientific knowledge. Since the agency developed the pH standard back in 1976, an extensive body of research has developed on the impacts of carbon dioxide on the oceans.

“Ocean acidification is global warming’s evil twin,” said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program. “The EPA has a duty under the Clean Water Act to protect our nation’s waters from pollution, and today, carbon dioxide is one of the biggest threats to our ocean waters.”

It appears the Center for Biological Diversity is launching a flank attack on the global warming issue via the Clean Water Act, which allows citizen lawsuits. A similar flank maneuver involved the effort to get the polar bear protected under the Endangered Species Act as a result of melting ice caused by global warming. See CBD press release.

Clearly, environmental groups are not waiting for a new administration to move into the White House or to see how President Barack Obama might address the threat of global warming.

The advisory council for the Pacific Coast National Marine Sanctuary has voted unanimously to oppose the proposed expansion of the Navy’s Quinault Underwater Training Range. The plan is to increase the range from 48 square miles to 1,854, much of it within the sanctuary.

Council members said they were especially concerned about activities in the sensitive surf zone as well as plans for deploying landing craft at Kalaloch Beach, within Olympic National Park.

Similar concerns were expressed in a joint letter from the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups. See my story in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

To fully understand the concerns, it would be a good idea to read the letters from the advisory council (PDF 124 kb) and the NRDC et. al. (PDF 412 kb).

Official Navy information can be found at NavSea Keyport home page.

Balancing environmental concerns and military readiness is never easy. Every time I write a story in which environmental concerns are raised about Navy activities, it triggers a debate about which is more important, the Navy or the environment.

There are some people who believe the Navy would never cause undue harm to the ecosystem, while others are quick to point out that the Navy has created some of the most toxic sites in the nation.

It’s an interesting debate, but a couple of things are worth noting. First, the Navy has become more environmentally concerned as the years go by. As with general society, some previously common practices in the Navy are considered appalling today. (They don’t shoot whales, do they?)

Second, the Navy is fairly responsive to the civilian administration in power at the time — which means that the environment may be more or less protected, depending on who we have for president.

Also, for better or worse, Navy commands change constantly. Rear Adm. Len Hering, commander of Navy Region Northwest from 2002 to 2005, was widely recognized for his protective attitude toward the environment. I believe he is largely responsible for a dramatic decrease in the number of oil spills that have occurred in recent years.

The question in my mind is not whether the Navy is all good or all bad. And it’s not whether environmental groups lack respect for the military and its needs. The answer may be as simple as the need for everyone to respect and understand each other while trying to resolve competing goals.

Remember, we’re talking about training conditions. In cases of conflict or potential conflict, the environment is not really a consideration.

And now we come to the endgame for President George W. Bush. You can almost hear environmentalists sweating as Bush pushes for last-minute regulations that many believe would undermine gains on the environmental front.

The group OMB Watch lays out the issue:

The Clinton administration published many rules in the Federal Register in January 2001, just days before leaving office. Because those rules were not yet effective, the incoming president, George W. Bush, took a second look at those rules and suspended many of them. Although Bush’s move was of questionable legality, it was never challenged in court.

Bush was able to derail a regulation that would have precluded businesses in repeated violation of the law (including tax laws, labor laws, employment laws, environmental laws, antitrust laws, and consumer protection laws) from receiving government contracts.

Now, the Bush administration is pushing rules a future administration might find objectionable. However, by ensuring those rules are in effect by Jan. 20, Bush is preventing the next president from employing the same strategy of suspending last-minute rules.

The White House foreshadowed this November push when, in May, it instructed agencies to finalize rules by Nov. 1. In a memo, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten wrote, “[R]egulations to be finalized in this Administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008.” All final rules were to be completed by Nov. 1 except in extraordinary circumstances, according to the memo.

Many upcoming rules will miss the Nov. 1 deadline. However, the administration continues to push to finish rules by mid-November — at least 60 days before Bush leaves office.

Download the Bolten memo (PDF 740 kb) for a closer look.

The article by OMB Watch lists eight environmental rules to be amended, including those dealing with mining, endangered species, national parks, water pollution, air pollution and ocean management.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which promotes free enterprise and limited government, has joined with conservation groups in urging the Bush administration to suspend new regulations.

“This is a matter of good regulatory policy,” said Eli Lehrer, a senior fellow at the institute said in a press release. “The Bush administration has had eight years in office and has issued more regulations than any administration in history. At this point, in the current economic climate, it would be especially harmful to push through ill-considered regulations in the final days of the administration. Unless it’s a real emergency, the administration should keep its word on this matter.”

The coalition has set up a Web site called NoMidnightRegs.org.

Here’s how various publications have described this issue:
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“Some call them eco terrorists; some call them heroes; they call themselves pirates.”

“You have not lived until you’ve found something worth dying for.”

“Wallpaper” from the program “Whale Wars.”

These quotes are part of the promotion for a new television series on Animal Planet called “Whale Wars.” It tells the inside story about the operations Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the group’s leader, Paul Watson.

Sea Shepherd, of course, is the organization famous for physical confrontations at sea with whaling vessels and the commercial operators who go out to kill whales. The organization’s most recent confrontations are with Japanese whalers, although Sea Shepherd has conducted many campaigns over the past 30 years. The group even took a stand in Neah Bay in the Northwest corner of Washington state when the Makah Tribe planned to begin hunting gray whales there.

Watson is a personable character, who I’ve met and interviewed numerous times through the years. It appears this new program will show him and his crew up close — from their daily activities aboard ship, to their strategy sessions, to their violent confrontations with whaling vessels.

It is easy to disapprove of Watson’s tactics, but I’m looking forward to observing a little closer to see makes the man tick. The first program is next Friday.

Check out the Web site for the program, including video clips; visit Sea Shepherd’s Web site about the effort; or watch an interview with Watson and his associate Kim McCoy on “The Today Show” with Matt Lauer.

There is nothing like a weekly news magazine to explore the breadth and depth of an issue, as U.S. News and World Report has done in a story titled “Global Warming Triggers an International Race for the Arctic.”

The magazine piece, written by Thomas Omestad, discusses a treasure of oil and minerals, scientific discoveries, commercial potential and possible geopolitical clashes. I recommend it to anyone interested in the confluence of global warming and international intrigue.

A map of this remote area shows how the legendary Northwest Passage could become an important route between the East and West coasts.

After describing some strategic flurries in the Arctic by Russia and Canada, Omestad offers this observation:

The United States, for its part, has not acted with the same urgency. “We are behind when it comes to what is happening with our other Arctic neighbors,” says Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

The lagging begins with the Law of the Sea convention. Despite Bush administration support, Senate ratification of the 1982 treaty remains blocked by conservative Republicans fearful that the treaty will give away American sovereignty. The other four Arctic coastal states have adopted the convention and are eligible to file their claims for economic control.

The Pentagon has also appeared slow to focus on the region. The U.S. Coast Guard maintains just two working icebreakers, with another docked until repairs are authorized. The question of expanding the icebreaker force has been left unanswered, while a broader, interagency review of Arctic policy has continued for nearly two years….

I recently cited some sketchy stories about this subject on Watching Our Water Ways. Now this U.S. News article has placed the issue into the appropriate context. If the prescribed dominoes begin to fall, international tensions will no doubt rise in this remote part of the Earth.

North Atlantic right whales will get some needed protection, thanks to a new federal rule that calls upon big ships to slow down to reduce collisions with these highly endangered marine mammals.

“The ship strike rule, based on science, is a major addition to NOAA’s arsenal of protections for this endangered species,” Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr. said in a press release (PDF 28 kb).

The rule, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, requires ships 65 feet or longer to reduce their speed to 10 knots within 20 nautical miles of key ports along the East Coast.

Also from the press release:

With only 300 to 400 in existence, North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered whales in the world. Slow moving right whales are highly vulnerable to ship collisions, since their migration route crosses major East Coast shipping lanes. Along with existing measures to prevent entanglement of right whales in fishing gear, the new ship strike reduction rule is the most comprehensive approach that NOAA has taken in its effort to help right whales recover.

For more information, including a fact sheet, check out NOAA Fisheries’ Web page on the Strategy to Reduce Ship Strikes to North Atlantic Right Whales.

Officials at the International Fund for Animal Welfare — including Jeffrey Flocken, director of IFAW’s Washington, D.C., office —were encouraged by the action.

“While we had hoped a 30-nautical-mile zone would be established around major ports,” Flocken said, “we are pleased by the U.S. government’s decision today to establish this new whale ship strike regulation. It will make great strides towards the protection of our nation’s endangered right whales.”

Flocken criticized the so-called “sunset” provision, which would allow the regulation to expire after five years. NOAA has said that the provision was established in order to take into consideration “ongoing scientific research.”

IFAW argues that the U.S. government should not only support ongoing research but should launch an extensive enforcement program to protect the whales.

“With this five-year ‘sunset’ provision, the sun may soon set not only on this important regulation, but on the future of right whales unless the U.S. government actively engages in developing and implementing new technologies to protect whales,” Flocken said in the press release.

“To be truly effective, IFAW feels it is vital for this regulation to be partnered closely with actual on the water enforcement as well as the development of improved right whale protection solutions before it is too late,” he said.

Even if all threats to right whales were eliminated today, they would still be critically endangered in five years, he said.

Scientists calculate that the species will become extinct within 200 years unless urgent action is taken, Flocken noted.

IFAW, he said, has been a key player in U.S. right whale conservation efforts, including: supporting the establishment of the Mandatory Ship Reporting System, removing discarded and dangerous fishing gear from Massachusetts waters, partnering with the U.S. government and lobster industry to develop whale safe lobster gear, supporting the disentanglement of whales caught in deadly fishing line, partnering to develop “pop-up” acoustic buoys that can detect and monitor whales, and supporting the establishment of the new U.S. whale ship strike regulation.

When a strange-looking fish washed up on the shoreline property of Kim and Ela Esterberg of Bainbridge Island, they had no idea what kind of fish they were looking at or how truly rare it was.

“We live about a mile south of Faye Bainbridge State Park,” Kim said. “We went down to the beach last Sunday (Sept. 28) after the Harvest Fair, and there was this long fish, about four feet long, lying on the beach.

Lancetfish found on East Bainbridge shoreline // Photo courtesy of Kim and Ela Esterberg

“It had come up with the tide,” Kim continued. “I didn’t know what it was. I had never seen a fish like that before.”

Since then, several biologists have identified it as a longnose lancetfish, a deep sea fish known as a voracious predator and seen only rarely in Puget Sound. See the University of Washington fish catalog for basic information.

They are so rare in inland waters that many biologists have never seen them alive or dead in Puget Sound.

A 2002 paper by Alexei M. Orlov and Vasily A. Ul’chenko suggests that the fish come ashore during periods of sudden ocean changes.

In 1994, Greg Johnston, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, related a story of a 21-year-old fisherman who caught one of these strange fish off Brown’s Point near Tacoma. The fisherman didn’t know what to do with it, so he took its picture and threw it back.

Get ready for a furious congressional debate over energy for the next three weeks. Democrats appear ready to give in to the drill-drill-drill mentality, but only on the condition that clean energy be part of the picture.

One idea is to drop the federal moratorium on drilling off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in exchange for revoking subsidies to oil companies and shifting those dollars into research and development of solar and wind power.

Zachary Coile, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, calls the political posturing “a chess match over energy with high stakes for both the November elections and the nation’s energy future.”

He writes in today’s editions:

Kevin Book, a senior energy policy analyst at FBR Capital Markets, said he’s betting the only energy legislation that’s likely to pass is an extension of the tax credits for wind and solar, which expire at the end of the year and are popular with both parties.

“The Republicans could still potentially strike a deal, but it’s not clear whether the Democrats have any incentive,” Book said. “They can paint Republicans as objecting to cutting a deal - particularly as all the political analysis suggests they are going to come back next year with the upper hand” by picking up seats in the House and Senate in November.

Two members of Washington’s congressional delegation — U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell — have thrust themselves into the middle of this debate. Inslee, who wrote a book on the clean-energy revolution, has complained about the stranglehold that oil companies have on the Bush administration. (Watch video on his site.) Cantwell has spent a lot of time looking into possible market manipulations that may have led to artificial spikes in gasoline prices earlier this year.

On Thursday, an official with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to testify before Congress, according to David Ivanovich of the Houston Chronicle.

“If the agency were to uncover real evidence of market manipulation, that could spark its own congressional stampede,” said Ivanovich, also quoting David Book.