In the morning our ship, National Geographic Explorer, dropped us off at a place called Maiviken, affording us a spectacular several-mile hike to a place called Grytviken. Grytviken is the site of another abandoned whaling station. And the site of Ernest Shackleton’s grave. It’s also got a small museum. No one really lives here, but [...]
Halloween found us in Fortuna Bay; dawn revealed a fog-shrouded South Georgia Island. Probably the scariest thing about this Halloween was news that the world’s human population is now 7 billion. The implications of this encompass everything. And while pundits and bloggers argue over whether rich or poor people are worst for the planet, I [...]
Last evening we left the Falklands with its pleasing person-to-sheep ratio (only 3,000 people live in the Falklands; we toured one person’s sheep ranch that occupies a mere 15,000 acres.). Before we were entirely clear of the islands, we crossed a commuter highway for thousands of Sooty Shearwaters that were headed back to their nesting [...]
We landed at Puerto Madryn, inside the protected waters of Peninsula Valdez. This is Patagonia. Dry, windswept, scrubby. We’ve seen the strange little mammals called Maras that look like a cross between small antelope and rabbits—but are rodents. And Guanacos, one of the llama-like South American members of the camel family. Then on to the [...]
Day 3. Began with another kayaking trip. Good morning exercise in exquisite light surrounded by mountain forests mirrored in glass-calm water. I saw a Red-necked Grebe and a female Common Merganser ferrying ducklings on her back. We weighed anchor and soon found a Humpback Whale whom we stayed with for several hours as it rose [...]
Day 2. In the morning we spent an hour kayaking Welcome Harbour. I paddled along the shore. Rocks grew rockweed and hosted periwinkle-like snails and limpets. I was looking mainly for birds, which were remarkably few, but heard an unseen thrush, likely a Hermit, and a wren, and saw kingfishers, several Townsend’s Warblers, several immature [...]
Japan’s Antarctic whalers have given up the season early, having killed few whales. But I wonder: If Westerners had ignored Japan’s whaling, would its whaling have died sooner, of its own internal economic problems? Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, whose boats have for several years harassed Japan’s whaling vessels in the Antarctic, claim victory http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-110217-1.html. Sea [...]
Guest blog by Stephen Dishart, Executive Director, Blue Ocean Institute To view Carl’s TEDx Oil Spill lecture click here. Safina points to gross negligence as the cause of the spill With a remarkable agenda of speakers, the hottest topic on the planet and a crowd of environmental experts and others eager for the latest word [...]
In his New York Times blog, Andy Revkin writes about both Japan’s fading passion for whale meat and Japan’s entrenched bureaucratic defense of whaling. He speculates that I’d love to see the Japanese stop eating both whales and tuna. He’s half right. What’s weird about Japan’s nationalistic policies on whaling and fishing is that they’re [...]
Thanks to Tony Lorenz and Nancy Black of the Monterey Bay Whalewatch, I was able to get out to search for what I called the Killers of the Davenport hills (because we found them off Davenport). These are actually transient killer whales, and the day before they’d killed a gray whale calf. In the small [...]
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