The Japanese in Hawaii

Excerpt from the magazine Rob Wagner's script, vol. 30, p. 9-10, Jan. 22, 1944. "Interview with Remington Stone ... who recently returned from twenty months in the Hawaiians Islands where he was assistant to the U.S. Army deputy district engineer.

Soviet Illegal Whaling: The Devil and the Details

In 1948, the U.S.S.R. began a global campaign of illegal whaling that lasted for three decades and, together with the poorly managed “legal” whaling of other nations, seriously depleted whale populations. Although the general story of this whaling has been told and the catch record largely corrected for the Southern Hemisphere, major gaps remain in the North Pacific. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the details of this system or its economic context. Using interviews with former Soviet whalers and biologists as well as previously unavailable reports and other material in Russian, our objective is to describe how the Soviet whaling industry was structured and how it worked, from the largest scale of state industrial planning down to the daily details of the ways in which whales were caught and processed, and how data sent to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics were falsified. Soviet whaling began with the factory ship Aleut in 1933, but by 1963 the industry had a truly global reach, with seven factory fleets (some very large). Catches were driven by a state planning system that set annual production targets. The system gave bonuses and honors only when these were met or exceeded, and it frequently increased the following year’s targets to match the previous year’s production; scientific estimates of the sustainability of the resource were largely ignored. Inevitably, this system led to whale populations being rapidly reduced. Furthermore, productivity was measured in gross output (weights of whales caught), regardless of whether carcasses were sound or rotten, or whether much of the animal was unutilized. Whaling fleets employed numerous people, including women (in one case as the captain of a catcher boat). Because of relatively high salaries and the potential for bonuses, positions in the whaling industry were much sought-after. Catching and processing of whales was highly mechanized and became increasingly efficient as the industry gained more experience. In a single day, the largest factory ships could process up to 200 small sperm whales, Physeter macrocephalus; 100 humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae; or 30–35 pygmy blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda. However, processing of many animals involved nothing more than stripping the carcass of blubber and then discarding the rest. Until 1952, the main product was whale oil; only later was baleen whale meat regularly utilized. Falsified data on catches were routinely submitted to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics, but the true catch and biological data were preserved for research and administrative purposes. National inspectors were present at most times, but, with occasional exceptions, they worked primarily to assist fulfillment of plan targets and routinely ignored the illegal nature of many catches. In all, during 40 years of whaling in the Antarctic, the U.S.S.R. reported 185,778 whales taken but at least 338,336 were actually killed. Data for the North Pacific are currently incomplete, but from provisional data we estimate that at least 30,000 whales were killed illegally in this ocean. Overall, we judge that, worldwide, the U.S.S.R. killed approximately 180,000 whales illegally and caused a number of population crashes. Finally, we note that Soviet illegal catches continued after 1972 despite the presence of international observers on factory fleets

\u3ci\u3ePhocoena sinus\u3c/i\u3e

Order Cetacea, Suborder Odontoceti, Superfamily Delphinoidea, Family Phocoenidae. Four species are included in the genus. No subspecies are recognized in P. sinus

The Vaquita: Can It Survive?

The vaquita (Spanish for little cow ), or Gulf of California harbor porpoise (Phocoena sinus), has the most limited range of any marine cetacean and is probably the rarest. It has been caught incidentally in gill nets set commercially for totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), large fish that were over-exploited in the upper Gulf of California until they, too, were endangered. In 1975. the Mexican Government announced a total indefinite closure on fishing for totoaba, Between the time this porpoise was described as new to science (1958) and its listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as Endangered (early 1985), the vaquita was known from only 26 confirmed records (partial remains found on beaches) and a few sightings of live animals. (Note: the vernacular name cochito was cited when this animal was listed, but biologists have since learned that vaquita is the term used by most local fishermen.) The Endangered Species Technical Bulletin story about its listing (see BULLETIN Vol. X No. 2) said the species was on the brink of extinction if it still exists

Biological Background on Bottlenose Dolphins (\u3ci\u3eTursiops\u3c/i\u3e spp.) in the \u27Live-Capture\u27 Trade and Specifically on the Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin, \u3ci\u3eT. Aduncus\u3c/i\u3e

The most significant cetacean trade items until commercial whaling all but ceased in the 1990s (aside from scientific exchanges of tissues etc.) were meat and blubber from baleen whales for human consumption. Since then, live dolphins and \u27small\u27 whales for display (and to some extent for research, military use, and \u27therapy\u27) have become the most significant cetacean \u27products\u27 in international trade. Trade in live cetaceans is presently dominated by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.), beluga whales (Debhinapterns leucas) and to a lesser extent killer whales (Orcinus orca) (Fisher and Reeves 2005). In the past, most of the dolphins in trade were common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) originating in the United States, Mexico and the Black Sea, but since the 1980s the United States has essentially stopped its capture-for-export activities and in 2001Mexico implemented a moratorium on live-captures. The source countries for dolphins in trade are now geographically diverse, but Cuba and Japan are currently major source nations for common bottlenose dolphins. Russia is the only current source for belugas. Russia and Japan have become the main potential sources for killer whales since Iceland ceased exporting them in the 1980s or early 1990s

Getting to know you: Identification of pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata) and melon-headed whales (Peponocephala electra) under challenging conditions

Melon-headed whale (Peponocephala electra) and Pygmy killer whale (Feresa attenuata) are very poorly known species and are often confused with each other. We examined in detail Figure 3 in MARIGO and GIFFONI (2010) who reported that two melon-headed whales were taken in a surface driftnet about 90 nm off Santos, Brazil. We concluded they were in fact pygmy killer whales and explain our reasoning. To aid in future identifications, we illustrate and describe some of the main differences between these two species of small cetaceans. The incident reported by MARIGO and GIFFONI (2010) might represent the 'tip of the iceberg' regarding the incidental catches of cetaceans by pelagic drift nets off Brazil. Offshore driftnetting operating along the south-southeastern coast of Brazil may threaten pygmy killer whales.A orca-pigmeia (Feresa attenuata) era conhecida por poucos registros há não mais que 60 anos atrás, mas, apesar do número de registros ter crescido recentemente em todos os oceanos tropicais, F. attenuata é ainda considerada uma espécie pouco estudada. No Brasil, mesmo em base a um pequeno número de registros, presume-se sua distribuição como pelágica. Neste trabalho discutimos o registro de captura acidental de duas 'blackfish' (F. attenuata e Peponocephala electra) na costa norte de São Paulo, publicado na Figura 3 em MARIGO and GIFFONI (2010) e propomos a correção da identificação desses espécimes. A correta identificação dos três exemplares como orca-pigmeia coloca uma intrigante questão sobre a conservação dessa espécie no Atlântico Sul tropical. As operações de pesca com redes de deriva ao longo da costa sul-sudeste do Brasil podem ameaçar F. attenuata, espécie naturalmente rara. É recomendado o efetivo monitoramento da frota pesqueira, tendo em vista a necessidade de se avaliar a magnitude dessas capturas

Diets of Baird’s Beaked Whales, \u3ci\u3eBerardius bairdii\u3c/i\u3e, in the Southern Sea Of Okhotsk and Off the Pacific Coast Of Honshu, Japan

Stomach contents were analyzed from 127 Baird’s beaked whales, Berardizls bairdii, taken in coastal waters of Japan. During late July-August of 1985- 1987, 1989, and 1991, 107 samples were collected from off the Pacific coast of Honshu. An additional 20 samples were collected from whales taken in the southern Sea of Okhotsk during late August-September of 1988 and 1989. Prey identification using fish otoliths and cephalopod beaks revealed the whales fed primarily on deep-water gadiform fishes and cephalopods in both regions. Prey species diversity and the percentage of cephalopods and fish differed between the two regions. Off the Pacific coast of Honshu the whales fed primarily on benthopelagic fishes (81.8%) and only 18.0% on cephalopods. Eight species of fish representing two families, the codlings (Moridae) and the grenadiers (Macrouridde), collectively made up 81.3% of the total. Thirty species of cephalopods representing 14 families made up 12.7%. In the southern Sea of Okhotsk, cephalopods accounted for 87.1% of stomach contents. The families Gonatidae and Cranchiidae were the predominant cephalopod prey, accounting for 86.7% of the diet. Gadiform fish accounted for only 12.9% of the diet. Longfin codling, Laernonma longipes, was the dominant fish prey in both regions. Depth distribution of the two commonly consumed fish off the Pacific coast of Honshu indicate the whales in this region fed primarily at depths ranging from 800 to 1,200 m

\u3ci\u3eLissodelphis peroni\u3c/i\u3e

Order Cetacea, Suborder Odontoceti, Family Delphinidae. The subfamily Lissodelphinae has been proposed for this genus (Fraser and Purves, 1960), but it has not been universally accepted (Kasuya, 1973). There are two species in the genus: Lissodelphis peronii (southern right whale dolphin) and L. borealis (northern right whale dolphin). Lissodelphis peronii currently contains no subspecies