Encounter: Ocean Odyssey, New Aquarium in Times Square, A Whale Of A Week, The International Marine Mammal Project, Humpback Whales, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), SeaWorld, Keiko, Right Whales, Idiot Jet Skiers and more Whale Pins...
The experience is called Encounter: Ocean Odyssey, and it takes visitors on a mesmerizing tour into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. You can walk through coral reefs, witness giant squid and massive schools of fish envelop around you, interact with marine mammals, and see sharks up close and personal.
The footage is unbelievably lifelike and was made by the animators responsible for the visual effects of Game of Thrones, and the soundtrack was created by a Grammy-award winning composer.
Additionally, there are features about conservation and plastic pollution that inspire people to protect our oceans. And the icing on the cake: 27 percent of each ticket sale goes directly towards ocean conservation.
This fantastic new attraction is the first of its kind and can be enjoyed by ocean lovers of all ages, although some features were created to inspire children to become future ocean defenders. This is very exciting, as children have the ability to make serious change and pave the way for a brighter, biodiverse tomorrow. Considering the alternatives, like SeaWorld, which do not educate or empower children to protect animals, Encounter: Ocean Odyssey is a welcomed addition to the world of public education and conservation.
To view some astonishing photos and videos from this captivating visual experience, you can visit the National Geographic Encounter Instagram page.
To learn more about the attraction, ask questions, and reserve tickets, you can visit the Encounter: Ocean Odyssey website here.
And remember to share this exciting news with your family and friends!
New Video Debunks SeaWorld’s Ridiculous Lies About Dolphins and Orcas in Under 10 Mins
Keiko, the star of the Free Willy movies, was the first orca to be released back into the wild into a protected seaside sanctuary. Keiko lived another seven years, living to the be one of the oldest male orcas in captivity at the time of his release. For SeaWorld to call Keiko’s release into the sanctuary, where he could actually swim for more than a few hundred feet and swim with other orcas, a failure – well, it’s pretty obvious they are getting desperate to save themselves.
The numbers don’t lie –since Keiko’s rehabilitation and retirement, a whopping 77 cetaceans have died at SeaWorld, eight of whom were orcas. Additionally, 325 cetaceans have died in captivity all over the world just during that time period from 1996 to 2003.
SeaWorld has never retired any of their dolphins or whales and the only reason they can give is that it would be irresponsible and potentially fatal to return a captive cetacean to the ocean. The truth is that they would rather work these poor animals until they can’t make any more money off of them.
The good news is that people are becoming more and more aware of SeaWorld’s lies and fake advertising. Thanks to documentaries like Blackfish and The Cove, it’s easy to see that being torn away from family, living in a concrete tank, and being forced to perform silly and trivial tricks is cruel and certainly no life for any marine animal. Some SeaWorld visitors are even suing SeaWorld for misleading and false claims.
Share this video to help spread the truth! The world is waking up to the cruel exploitation of animals in all forms- circuses, roadside zoos, marine parks, and more. To learn more click here.
Right Whales on a Collision Course Toward Disaster. North Atlantic right whales are dying at a rapid pace this year and Defenders is prepared to do everything in our power to save this rare species from more losses of life.
For the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most critically imperiled large whale species in the world, 2017 has been a terrible year – indeed, probably the worst year since commercial whaling was banned in 1937.
Beginning in April of this year, when a dead right whale was found stranded in Cape Cod Bay, the death toll has just kept rising. Two additional right whale deaths have been confirmed in the United States and an unprecedented twelve dead right whales have been confirmed in Canada. For a species with fewer than 500 individual surviving members, these mortality levels are absolutely devastating. Fifteen dead whales— three percent of their total population—is a catastrophic loss. Because not all right whale carcasses will be discovered, the true number of deaths is probably even higher.
To put this in perspective, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has previously found that the loss of even a single right whale may contribute to the extinction of the species. Even prior to this year’s horrifying spate of deaths, Defenders and its conservation allies had been extremely concerned about the lack of progress in right whale recovery. Despite decades of protection in the U.S. under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), leading right whale scientists recently concluded – with a 99.99 percent degree of certainty – that the species has been in decline since 2010.
The situation unfolding is so dire that, in response to this year’s unprecedented die-offs NMFS has declared the current phenomenon an unusual mortality event under the MMPA. This declaration puts much-needed pressure on government agencies by necessitating an immediate investigation into the causes of this significant die-off.
Dissecting These Die-Offs
We have known for a long time that entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes are the two largest causes of right whale mortality. Although the data and analysis are not yet complete for all the right whale carcasses recovered and necropsied, it appears as if these killers are likely responsible for this year’s overwhelming death toll. Preliminary evidence from both the U.S. and Canada shows that some of the dead right whales were hopelessly entangled in heavy fishing ropes while others showed blunt-force trauma marks consistent with being struck by a vessel.
Snared and Struck
Entanglements can drown right whales by keeping these air-breathing mammals from reaching the surface. They can also interfere with movement and feeding and create wounds when ropes cut into an entangled whale’s skin, leading to slow and painful deaths by starvation and infection. Alarmingly, new scientific studies show that fishing gear entanglements not only kill right whales outright, but also impose such an energetic cost on females, due to the burden of dragging entangled gear around, that they are bearing fewer calves. Indeed, 2017 is one of the worst years on record for baby right whales, with only five documented calves born. When you realize that some 85 percent of all known right whales have scars from entanglements in fishing gear, the tremendous risks that fisheries pose to the very survival of the right whale becomes clear.
Ship strikes are also a life-threatening risk to right whales, which migrate up and down waters off the eastern coasts of Canada and the U.S. every year, through some of the busiest commercial shipping lanes in North America. Although we think of whales as the behemoths of the sea, they are dwarfed by huge container vessels, cruise ships, and other vessel traffic, and stand little chance of survival when one of these vessels runs them over at speed. For this reason, Defenders and its conservation allies worked hard for many years to get NMFS to implement speed limits for large vessels when whales’ seasonal migrations put them into the traffic danger zones. Yet the U.S. ship strike rule doesn’t go far enough, and Canada doesn’t have any permanent speed limit rules in place.
Working for Right Whales Right Now
Defenders and its conservation allies are taking action to protect the North Atlantic right whale from further unsustainable losses. We have just sent NMFS a 60-day notice of our intent to sue under the ESA and MMPA for its management of the American lobster fishery, which continues to seriously injure or kill right whales every year through entanglements in vertical lines.
We have also just sent a detailed letter to the Canadian government, urging it to step up to the plate and protect right whales from both entanglements and ship strikes in Canadian waters.
The situation is dire, but we will do everything in our power to halt and reverse the right whale’s slide toward extinction.
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Is it really worth harassing a harmless animal just to get some Instagram likes?! The killer whales eventually got fed up and swam off. Considering orcas can swim up to 100 miles per day, they were more than likely attempting to follow a route.
Taking selfies with animals has sadly become a bit of a trend nowadays with people treating animals like they are nothing more but mere props. Unfortunately, the popularity of taking selfies with animals has caused many to experience physical harm and stress. In one recent case, tourists found a stranded, dying dolphin and instead of helping the suffering creature, they took selfies with the dolphin instead. In another incident, a woman killed a swan after pulling the bird out of the water just for a quick snap. In Costa Rica, hundreds of tourists prevented endangered sea turtles from nesting because they were taking selfies instead.
Orcas naturally live in closely bonded matrilineal pods and stay close to their immediate family members all their lives. Not only that, They possess brains over four times larger than our human brains while MRI scans have revealed that the brain lobes that deal with the processing of complex emotions are also larger in an orca’s brain than in a human one.
With orcas notoriously kept in concrete bathtubs for human entertainment, it’s clear that we need to seriously rethink our relationship with these animals. Our insane obsession with entertainment or social media likes has completely warped our world-view. We can do our part by being more conscious of how our choices impact the world around us. Selfies are fun to take, but please leave wildlife out of the picture. Image source: Alisa Schulman-Janiger/Facebook
Add your name now to tell the ASMFC to enact limits to protect Atlantic menhaden and help keep humpback whales from going hungry
Atlantic menhaden feed nearly every major predator on the Atlantic coast, including humpback whales. Their role in transferring energy from the bottom of the food web to the top is essential for keeping our oceans in check.
Earlier this year, California lawmakers took notice when Oceana demanded better protections for West Coast forage fish that are crucial to the diets of sea lions, dolphins and other species. Now we must raise our voices again for the future of Atlantic menhaden.
Allowing Atlantic menhaden to continue being harvested without catch limits that consider their role in the ocean ecosystem would be a tremendous setback following years of hard work and the support of tens of thousands of Wavemakers like you who have demanded more sustainable fishing practices.
Protect this important fish and ocean ecosystem.
The Atlantic Ocean supports hundreds of migrating and permanent species from Maine to Florida, so our oceans can’t afford to cut corners right now. An abundance of forage fish in the ocean is critical to maintaining a flourishing marine ecosystem.
Tell the ASMFC to set catch limits to protect menhaden’s vital role in the Atlantic
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