Whales

Below-zero temperatures and shifting winds continued to threaten three stranded whales Tuesday as rescuers readied for a dangerous, go-for-broke attempt to free the animals. The effort has become a race against time, complicated by the wind, bitter cold and shifting ice. Observers said that the young California gray whales were tired and at least one has pneumonia.

The mysterious "bio-duck" sounds in the ocean that have baffled seafarers for decades are actually calls from unseen populations of minke whales, scientists say. The discovery detailed in the journal Biology Letters will allow researchers to better track these animals even when they're out of sight. “Our results solve the mystery around the source of the bio-duck sound, which is one of the most prevalent sounds in the Southern Ocean during austral winter and can now be attributed unequivocally to the Antarctic minke whale,” the study authors wrote.

Re "Future of Whales' Lagoon Grows Murky," March 13: While I am no eco-terrorist, I am saddened that one of the few remaining whale breeding areas might be threatened by a salt mining concern, especially one not based in this country. I do not want to state that salt mining is wrong per se, and it may be helpful to other areas, but whales are increasingly limited and still mysterious as to their intellect and sentience. JAMES DITCHIK Woodland Hills

An in-demand bassist who studied under Charlie Haden and has performed with a rich roster of talents that includes Ani DiFranco, Andrew Bird, Nels Cline and Scott Amendola, Todd Sickafoose's knotted and lovely 2008 album, "Tiny Resistors," was one of the top jazz releases of that year. Finally at the cusp of delivering an encore, Sickafoose reunites an all-star band that includes violinist Jenny Scheinman, clarinetist Ben Goldberg and drummer Allison Miller to premiere a piece dubbed "Bear Proof," a work commissioned by Chamber Music America.

The annual Dana Point Festival of Whales celebrates the 5,000-mile journey of the California gray whale down the coast. Dana Point is a natural landmark against which the whales check their migration route, and the community marks the occasion with whale watching, live music, educational programs, recreational activities and ocean-themed events. Dana Point Harbor. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Activity schedule and prices vary; see website for details. (888) 440-4309. www.festivalofwhales.

It was well known for many years that Japan's "scientific whaling" program was a sham, designed to get around the international moratorium on hunting whales. Almost no research on the animals came from Japanese scientists; instead, whale meat kept showing up in restaurants and school lunches. Finally, Australia, a whaling country until 1978 and now an avid opponent, called Japan's bluff over the hundreds of whales it killed each year in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary surrounding Antarctica.

Just in time for the annual migration of California gray whales, La Paz, near the southern tip of Baja California, has beefed up its fleet of whale-watching tours. Seven outfitters are now available, including Fun-Azul Fleet , which kicked off new eco-tourism dive trips. An estimated 18,000 California gray whales, which spend the summer months in the Bering Sea, migrate south in the fall, ending up in the quiet lagoons of Baja California to spend the winter. The 12,000-mile round trip may be the longest migration of any mammal on Earth.

Re "Malibu's great blight whale," Dec. 7 Once again we're reminded of the dangers that large whales face along the West Coast. Whales are forced to dodge ships traveling into port. Many don't make it. Ship strikes are one of the biggest remaining threats to the recovery of whales, and in the last decade they have become all too common. Our busy shipping lanes on the West Coast overlap with important foraging habitat for whales. The federal government, charged with protecting endangered species, needs to impose mandatory speed limits on vessels in whale habitats.

Our leadership OKs Navy use of sonar and harassment of whales (July 16). Harassment, in this case, means tearing apart delicate tissues in the air cavities and near the whales' brains, causing them to hemorrhage and commit suicide by beaching themselves, as in the Bahamas recently. This, I suppose, is in the name of fighting terrorism. Jim DuBois Ventura

SeaWorld lost a major round Friday in its legal fight to put its trainers back into the water with killer whales during the parks' marquee orca shows. By 2-1, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected an appeal by SeaWorld of a citation issued in 2012 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after its investigation into the 2010 drowning death of a trainer at the SeaWorld park in Orlando, Fla. In court documents, SeaWorld had argued that proximity of the trainers to the killer whales was central to the appeal of the orca shows and without that proximity the shows would lose popularity.

Putting the brakes on a controversial bill to ban killer whale shows at SeaWorld San Diego, an Assembly committee Tuesday called for additional study that could take at least 18 months. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute, one of the bill's sponsors, said she was disappointed by the move but pleased at the idea of more study -- although it remained unclear how the study would be conducted. John Reilly, president of SeaWorld San Diego, said he doubted a compromise is possible with people backing the bill.

An Assembly committee Tuesday called for additional research on a bill that would end killer whale shows at SeaWorld San Diego. Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), chairman of the Parks, Water and Wildlife Committee, said the issue of killer whales in captivity is too complex to be decided after a hearing of less than two hours. The panel's action, called sending a bill to "interim study," triggers a process that will last until at least mid-2015, Rendon said. The action did not require a vote.

The lives of captive killer whales are nothing like those of their wild counterparts. Instead of roaming for miles every day in close-knit family groups, captive whales perform for audiences in tanks that, though roomier than those of early marine parks, are far too small for such large ocean predators. In the wild, killer whales have not been known to kill humans or one another. The same cannot be said for the whales in amusement parks around the world, even though they represent only about a tenth of a percent of the numbers in the wild.

It was well known for many years that Japan's "scientific whaling" program was a sham, designed to get around the international moratorium on hunting whales. Almost no research on the animals came from Japanese scientists; instead, whale meat kept showing up in restaurants and school lunches. Finally, Australia, a whaling country until 1978 and now an avid opponent, called Japan's bluff over the hundreds of whales it killed each year in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary surrounding Antarctica.

Amid ongoing controversy over its killer whale shows, SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. reported a 13% drop in attendance for the first three months of the year. The attendance numbers were included in a notice to the Securities and Exchange Commission that SeaWorld was buying 1.75 million of its own shares from private equity firm Blackstone Group. The notice said attendance for the quarter that ended March 31 dropped to about 3.05 million visitors from 3.5 million in the same period in 2013.

The United Nations' highest court on Monday ruled that Japan's Antarctic whaling operations are not for "scientific purposes" as Tokyo claims and ordered an immediate halt to the practice. In a 12-4 ruling, the International Court of Justice said Japan failed to demonstrate during a three-week trial last year that its claimed right to harvest about 1,000 whales each year was for scientific research. "The evidence does not establish that the program's design and implementation are reasonable in relation to achieving its stated objectives," the court's presiding judge, Peter Tomka, read from the ruling . The court ordered Japan to cease its whaling operations in the Southern Ocean "with immediate effect.

Scientists have found a 20-foot whale that can dive an astonishing 1.8 miles beneath the ocean - a record for a mammal. The record was reported this week in the journal Plos One. The miraculous, extreme-diving whale is known as Cuvier's beaked whale ( Ziphius cavirostris) . Members of this species can be found in most oceans throughout the world, except for in the coldest arctic regions. To survive the immense pressure changes it faces as it moves down the water column, Cuvier's beaked whales have evolved lungs and a trachea that collapse completely in the depths of the ocean and then pop back open as the whale moves to the surface to breathe.