Forty-ton whale lands on yacht during Cape Town sailing trip

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

A couple who took a yacht for a quiet sailing trip were stunned when a 40-ton whale crash-landed on their boat off Cape Town.

The 40-ton whale crash-landed on their boat.

The dismasted yacht struggled back to port under engine power

The cockpit of the yacht after the breaching whale hit the yacht

The pair were enjoying calm seas off the South African coast when the animal flipped into the air and smashed into their mast.

Ralph Mothes, 59, and Paloma Werner, 50, were helpless as the beast thrashed around on their 33ft vessel before slipping back into the water.

Miss Werner said: "It really was quite incredible but very scary. The whale was about the same size as the boat.

"We'd spotted it about 100 metres away and thought that was the end of it. Then suddenly it was right up beside us.

"I assumed it would go underneath the boat but instead it sprang out of the sea. We were very lucky to get through it, as the sheer weight of the thing was huge.

"There were bits of skin and blubber left behind, and the mast was wrecked. It brought down the rigging too.

"Thank goodness the hull was made of steel and not fibreglass or we could have been ruined."

Moments before the animal leapt it had pounded its tail on the surface of the water in a 'lob-tailing' ritual to communicate with other whales.

The shaken couple, who are experienced seafarers with the Cape Town Sailing Academy, used their engine to get back to shore in Table Bay.

Whales are a common sight in the Atlantic Ocean off the Western Cape coast at this time of year as they come near the shore to breed.

Thousands of tourists flock to the region's seaside resorts every year to spot the mammals during the South African winter from June to November.

Hermanus, a popular destination around 80 miles east of Cape Town, employs a 'whale crier' to walk through the town announcing where whales have been seen.

Thanks To BP, This Is A Whale

by Image of the Day

Scientists found this sperm whale 77 miles south from the Deepwater spill site off the Gulf Coast.

Whale Penis Leather Option Dumped by Russian Luxury Armored Car Company

From: http://www.treehugger.com/
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada

Photo: Dartz

A New Kind of Penis Car For Billionaire Oligarchs with No Taste
Some companies specialize in excess. Nobody really needs a Rolls Royce, but some people feel a need for exclusivity. Other companies go ever further and attempt excessive excess, like Dartz with its Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car (price tag: £1 million, or $1.65 million). It comes with tons of bling, such as ridiculously hyper-expensive vodka in a flask made out of pure gold, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhausts, and diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges. Totally ridiculous, but I guess if you're some billionaire oligarch with no taste, it can work. Dartz seems to have gone a bit too far with the seats, though: They wanted to make them from whale penis leather (apparently it's very soft), and this drew protest from many environmental groups.

I suppose it's more about the principle than anything else. How many of these monstrosities will Dartz really make? Still, one is too many if a whale has to die just so rich people can sit on marginally softer seats.

After getting lots of angry emails from Greenpeace, the WWF, and PETA's Pamela Anderson, the company decided to drop the whale penis leather seats option. Their press release is quite something (and seems very unprofessional for a company that wants you to pay an insane amount of cash for its products).

Be sure not to miss the shout out to whales at the end

We have no any ideas to kill the whale or something like that. All we want - to make just luxury car. Real luxury car which will be world number one car. [...] All we want to unite luxury and armoring traditions of RussoBalt factory in one car, which brand celebrated 100 years now. At 1922 RussoBalt was renamed to PROMBRON' (ex.RussoBalt).

We just looking for most expensive products for this car - and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: "Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

Photo: Daily Mail

Photo: Daily Mail

In the end, Dartz is probably happy about all this. It's great publicity for their product, and they won't have to find a supplier that carries whale penises.

Trivia: This is the same company that built armored vehicles for Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Tsar Nicolas.

Via Wired, Daily Mail

Prehistoric Whale Discovered On The West Coast Of Sweden

The discovery of the whale bone. (Credit: Svevia)

ScienceDaily (June 8, 2009) — The skeleton of a whale that died around 10,000 years ago has been found in connection with the extension of the E6 motorway in Strömstad. The whale bones are now being examined by researchers at the University of Gothenburg who, among other things, want to ascertain whether the find is the mystical "Swedenborg whale".

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Similar to the "Swedenborg whale"

There are currently four species of right whale. What is particularly interesting is that the size and shape of the whale bones resemble those of a fifth species: the mystical "Swedenborg whale", first described by the scientist Emmanuel Swedenborg in the 18th century.

"Bones from what is believed to be Swedenborg's right whale have previously been found in western Sweden. However, determining the species of whale bones found in earth is complicated and there is no definitive conclusion on whether the whale actually existed, it could equally well be a myth," says zoologist Thomas Dahlgren and his colleague Leif Jonsson.

DNA tests conducted

To determine the species of whale that has been found Thomas Dahlgren has conducted DNA tests that are to be analysed in conjunction with researchers at the Natural History Museum in London. The whale bones are interesting in several respects. The fragments of bone were collected in a clay deposit and remains of marine organisms that today are also endangered species were found around them.

"The hunt for the large whale species, which led to the extinction of the Atlantic grey whale and perhaps the Swedenborg whale, may also have caused the extinction of a large number of species that are dependent on whale carcasses for their survival," says Thomas Dahlgren.

Preserved in clay

The whale bones are thought to be around 10,000 years old and were found 75 metres above sea level, but in a site that at that time was located out on the coast. It is conjectured that the bones have been preserved for such a long time as they were surrounded by fine, oxygen-free clay. The largest whale bone, approximately 2.5 metres long, is part of a jawbone. Among the smaller bones is a vertebra. Discussions are underway on whether the bones can be put in order and potentially put on public display.

Facts about the Swedenborg whale (Balaena swedenbo´rgii)

The whale species is believed to have existed in the North Sea from the period when the inland ice melted until about 8,000 years ago, and subsequently to have died out. Ten collections of bones from the species have been found in the west of Sweden. However, there is speculation that the bones have been mistaken for other species, and that the Swedenborg whale never existed. Source: Swedish National Encyclopedia

University of Gothenburg (2009, June 8). Prehistoric Whale Discovered On The West Coast Of Sweden. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/06/090605110420.htm

Fifty-five whales stranded on S.African beach

Fifty-five whales stranded on S.African beach Members of the public and officials walk past one of dozens of pilot whales beached at Kommetjie near Cape Town, May 30, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

KOMMETJIE BEACH, South Africa (Reuters) - About 55 whales were stranded on a beach near Cape Town on Saturday and high waves were hampering efforts by rescue teams to get them back into the water.

Volunteers and marine scientists worked to save the whales shortly after the adults and calves first came ashore in bad weather at 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT), said Craig Lambinon, spokesman for the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI).

Rescuers were trying to keep the whales wet and were using earth-moving equipment including front-end loaders to try to get some of them back into the sea, he told Reuters.

"It's an ongoing operation and the whales are also being pushed ashore by the high waves," he said.

Radio station 702 reported that three of the whales had been confirmed dead and that others were struggling to survive.

Lambinon said it was still unclear why the whales had come ashore, adding it was the first mass beaching of whales he knew of on the popular beach.

Whale-watching along the coast of South Africa is a popular attraction with tourists, who often line roads at strategic spots to catch a glimpse of the giants of the ocean.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf and Mike Hutchings, Writing by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Charles Dick)

Whale-Sized Marshmallows Deployed to Thwart Japanese Whalers

Written by Jerry James Stone

Just Born — the makers of Marshmallow Peeps — says they’ll be producing whale-shaped, and whale-sized, Marshmallow Peeps in an effort to end Japanese whaling.

The Peep-maker said the joint effort is between Darryl Hannah, The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace, and that they are uniting under the moniker PEEP: People for Everything and Everyone on the Planet.

PEEP will be using the marshmallow whale Peeps as decoys, hopefully tricking Japanese whalers into harpooning those instead of cute and cuddly whales. If successful, PEEP will look into other decoy opportunities. Baby seal Peeps are under strong consideration, especially with Canada’s seal hunt underway.

PEEP is Darryl Hannah’s brainchild.

Each Easter, Hannah and fellow gal-pal Drew Barrymore get together for a ritual Spring Cleaning. The tradition involves naming and nuking [microwaving] Marshmallow Peeps until they explode. The Peeps usually don names of prominent conservatives and members of the GOP. Last year when the Rush Limbaugh Peep kept getting bigger and fatter, and just wouldn’t die…Hannah had an idea.

The former mermaid had this to say, “Last Easter, after the Rush Limbaugh Peep broke Drew’s microwave, we joked…what if we covertly replaced prominent members of the GOP with Marshmallow Peeps. Like a McCain McPeep? So we actually tried making a few, but it just didn’t work out.”

“At first we tried making a Karl Rove Peep, but the mold kept turning out like that Emperor guy from Star Wars [the originals, not those crappy sequels],” she laughed. “The GOPeeps just weren’t working, it was really hard to get them right, and someone kept eating the Sarah Palin one!”

She said it was her work on Splash that gave her the idea of whale Peeps.

One obstacle, and the reason it took a year to develop the whale-sized Peeps, is that Peeps aren’t veggie friendly. “We wanted Greenpeace on our side.” Hannah said. “The last thing you wanna do is piss off a bunch of vegans from Greenpeace,” she warned.

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said, “We will start deploying the whale Peeps when the ship leaves port next.” This is expected to happen sometime in June.

The whale Peeps will come in three flavors: pink, yellow and krill.

Source: Just Born, Inc.

Former Playboy Playmate Vanessa Carbone Stages Naked Protest Against Japanese Whaling

Written by Andrew Williams

Former playboy playmate Vanessa Carbone has staged an unconventional protest against Japanese whaling, by holding a naked demonstration outside the Japanese embassy in Santiago, Chile (pictures).

The Argentinian model was among a group of protesters demanding that the Chilean government create a whale sanctuary in the country’s territorial waters. Stripped down to nothing more than a skimpy thong, she unsurprisingly drew the most attention from passers-by.

>> See also: Green Celebs: Playboy Playmates Lose the Bunny Tail For PETA

Under existing international law, Japan is prevented from killing whales for commercial activities, but is allowed to hunt a specified number each year for so called ’scientific purposes.’

Although unconventional, it’s likely that Carbone’s actions will help to significantly increase the spotlight on the activities of the Japanese whaling fleet - and on their opponents, who say the Japanese are seeking to re-commence commercial whaling activities by stealth.

Image Credit - svensonsan via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license