29.07.2010 We have got the information that a killer whale was captured around 20 July in the waters of Chkalova Island (Okhotsk Sea). It was captured by the team that annually catches beluga whales in this area to sell them to commercial oceanariums. The killer whale capture was not planned in advance: the captors were preparing for beluga whale capturing while they saw a pod of killer whales and decided to try the luck. To our knowledge, they had no official permit to capture a killer whale, neither the facilities to keep it. One killer whale was captured; it is unknown what has happened with the rest of the pod, how many of them were injured or died. Currently the whale is kept in a temporary net enclosure which is too small for such a big animal, and the catchers are trying to get a permit that would be dated back to July to make this capture look legal.
31.05.2010 A rare event has happened today in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - a group of killer whales entered Avacha Bay and came close to the city near Zavoyko district. Killer whales are common in Avacha Gulf, but usually they pass the Gates and don't enter the Bay. Transient (mammal-eating) killer whales are more common to enter deep bays, but the shape of the dorsal fins of the killer whales which entered the Bay indicate that they are most likely fish-eating residents. The short video is available
here
26.04.2010 Killer whale ecotypes represent distinct species according to results of a
new study recently published online in
Genome Research. Authors assessed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 143 killer whales from the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and southern oceans and identified 66 mitochondrial haplotypes that point to the existence of at least three killer whale species. Past studies of specific mitochondrial DNA loci have found relatively little mtDNA diversity and just over a dozen haplotypes. In the present study about 16,390 base pairs of mitochondrial genomes were sequenced. Based on their mitogenomic findings, the researchers called for a revised killer whale classification scheme designating two existing killer whale types in the Southern Ocean and one group in the North Pacific as distinct species.
28.03.2010 The 24th Annual Conference of the European Cetacean Society took place in Stralsund, Germany, from 22nd to 24th March 2010. FEROP members presented the following posters at the conference: Evgenya Lazareva "Lampreys (
Lethenteron camtschaticum) parasitize humpback whales", Tatyana Ivkovich "The patterns of socio-sexual behaviour in killer whales (
Orcinus orca) of Avacha Gulf", Mikhail Nagaylik "Summer habitat use of fish-eating killer whales in Southeast Kamchatka coastal waters", Ivan Fedutin "Humpback whales feed on bait-balls formed by bird feeding flocks", Olga Filatova "Variety of biphonic discrete calls in North Pacific resident killer whales".
04.03.2010 The Ross Sea orca, or killer whale, was recently identified as a distinct species from other orca in Antarctica, and feeds only on fish, including the Antarctic toothfish. Researchers detected a marked decrease in the Ross Sea orca population over recent years. Whale sightings collected by the research team have declined dramatically in the last decade from a high count of 120 whales observed at a time in 2002, to only 18 observed at one time in the recent 2009-2010 summer season. The cause of this decline appears to be the decline in large fish, especially Antarctic toothfish, the target of a fishery since 1996, and marketed as ‘Chilean sea bass’ in restaurants around th
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