Visser's View

New Zealand's very own whale woman is getting international exposure for her orca research.
Ingrid Visser from Tutukaka-based Orca Research Trust has starred in a BBC doco The Woman Who Swims with Killer Whales, which follows Dr Visser's research on NZ orca. Within hours of its UK screening last week, her website had more than 5000 hits.
As well as showing amazing underwater footage of the orca hunting stingray, the documentary also looks into what's killing killer whales. Dr Visser is concerned about the impact of chemicals such as PCBs and DDT. As orca are the top of the food chain, they ingest all of the chemicals their food has ingested, and orca have the highest levels of PCBs and DDT in their system than any other marine mammal in NZ [PCB = polychlorinated biphenyls; DDT = dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane]. The use of PCBs and DDT has been banned since the 1970s but their residue leaves a legacy in the marine environment. But an even more worrying trend is the increasing amount of modern flame retardant chemicals found in NZ orca, because these have no regulation or restriction: "Because they're unregulated chemicals, they're going to increase rapidly. Once they're in the environment we can't go back."
The doco will next be screened in the US and Dr Visser hopes to run fundraising premier nights before it airs here. Go to Dr Visser's website http://www.orcaresearch.org/ for more information.

But Where's The Proof About The PROOF??!!

Say "cheese!" on The Big Cheese!
NASA has released amazing new images of the Apollo moon-landing sites. They show the hardware left behind by astronauts in the 1960s and '70s. The images came via the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been circling the moon since 2009. These are the clearest pix yet - LRO recently lowered its orbit from 50km to just 25km above the surface. This makes it easier to see equipment, such as the landing descent stages. Some of the science experiments are visible too, as are trails of bootmarks in the dirt.
In an extreme blow-up, NASA could see Apollo 17's Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) or 'moon buggy' was parked with its wheels turned to the left!
LRO has sent back hundreds of thousands of lunar pix, and was originally meant as a precursor to future manned missions. However that dream now seems rather unlikely.
Without a substantial atmosphere, erosion on the moon is much slower but, eventually, all traces of the landings will be erased. The moon is constantly bombarded by micro-meteorites that will in time mix up the boot tracks and break down the
equipment. It's been estimated that rock at the surface erodes at a rate of about 1mm per million years.
To us, that may seem like forever, but there'll probably be no traces of the Apollo exploration in 10-100 million years.
Just enough time for conspiracy theorists to claim these photos are doctored too...! Yeup, I've always believed the moon was actually a balloon...here's my proof!

The Killings Begin Again

Vestmanna is a 'picture postcard' Faroe Islands town on the island of Streymoy.
It is also one of 17 locations with the right conditions and therefore authorisation for beaching whales. And last week it again had blood on its hands: Faroese police authorities have confirmed the butchery of over a hundred pilot whales in the bay there.

post-massacre

Sea Shepherd had been roaming the Faroes for the last 2mths. Their presence played a big part in the lack of grindadráps (whale hunts) during that time. The SS ground crew with vessels Steve Irwin and Brigitte Bardot spent over 6wks patrolling the hunting bays daily and engaging with locals. Their main objective was to deflect whales from the Faroes, using sonic bouys to scare the whales away from

whale meat in Faroes dumpster

the killing areas.
However, no sooner had they departed - along with the Whale Wars camera crew, on-hand to document the atrocity - then the massacres restarted. There are rumours that the local police deliberately halted grindadráps while activists were on the islands, to prevent up-to-date photographs and footage from being sent around the world. But if they think the world is oblivious to their savagery because a camera crew is no longer around, then they simply have no idea of the strength of worldwide feeling towards their actions.

whale meat in Faroes supermarket

Many FI steadfastly maintain there is no wastage of meat, even in the face of pictures of whale meat discarded in local dumpsters! And their claims of the grinds being non-commercial, when the meat is sold openly in supermarkets and restaurants, is simply laughable!
The stubborn continuance of this outdated practice, in the face of global opinion and health risks, makes absolutely no sense.

PS: 25 Nov.2011 - another grind...