WaterNotes

2009 was not a good year for the sea cows. The Florida Fish and Widlife Commission released its preliminary report on manatee mortality in state waters today and revealed that the past season had a record high loss of manatees in state waters: 429! The report briefly breaks down totals with some eye-opening revelations for [...]

It was well over a year ago when I first saw National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen’s dramatic images of leopard seals, narwhals, and polar bears in their native Arctic and Antarctic environments in a quick spread of NatGeo magazine. Well, along with the release of his new book Polar Obsession, Nicklen’s camp released the above [...]

Vancouver Aquarium welcomed a little female beluga to their pod back in June of this year and now they’re ready to name the toddler. In keeping with traditions at many marine centers and zoos, they’ve opened up a contest to their guests and supporters to come up with a great name. Although, in keeping with [...]

It’s been manatee madness lately at WaterNotes and a great question came in to me via email the other day: how many manatees are there left in Florida? Well. A little over 3,800. That’s the simple answer. The more detailed answer is that the synoptic surveys carried out by the state for 2009 reported back [...]

Lowry Park Zoo welcomed a brand new manatee calf into the world on Monday. The mother was rescued from the St. Johns River area on May 13th with a pneumothorax and other complications. The cow gave birth before zookeepers arrived at 7am and despite the trauma to Mom the male calf seems to be in [...]

National Geographic seems to have aquatic wildlife on the brain. Last month they reported on leatherback sea turtles and this month they’ve published a story by Mark Jenkins (with b-e-a-utiful photos from Kevin Schafer) of the boto, the Amazonian river dolphin. The story is full of boto biology snippets that I’ve never previously heard. Many [...]

The moment of truth has arrived. Let’s see if my attempts to memorize and list all the ocean going dolphins, all the porpoises, and all the freshwater dolphins have actually paid off. Family Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins) 1.  Atlantic bottlenose 2.  Indopacific bottlenose 3.  Atlantic spotted 4.  Indopacific spotted 5.  Atlantic humpbacked dolphin 6.  Pacific [...]