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19 September 2003 Spanish Navy Blamed for Giant Squid Deaths [Keyword: ]
MADRID (Reuters) - Shockwaves from scientific tests carried out by the Spanish navy have killed four giant squid - one the length of a bus - off Spain's coast in recent days, the head of a marine protection agency said on Thursday.
"The navy ship the Hesperides is working in the area...and the shock waves (are the cause of death)," said Luis Laria, president of marine protection agency CEPESMA. The giant squid, mythologized as the monster that attacked Captain Nemo's Nautilus in the Jules Verne adventure "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," is the world's largest invertebrate and lives at depths of up to 6,562 ft.
Josep Gallard, a leading scientist working on the ship, denied techniques used to study the ocean floor were harmful.
"This hypothesis is far from being proven," Gallard told Reuters from on board the Hesperides. "We use this technique because of its minimal environmental impact...the changes in pressure are very slight."
In the last few days three giant squid, creatures that are still largely a mystery to scientists, have washed up on Spain's northern Asturias coast and a fourth was still floating offshore on Thursday, Laria said. One was 12 meters long.
Last year, three of the deep-sea giants washed up in the same area and scientists said a range of reasons, from military operations to global warming could have been to blame.
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18 September 2003: Call for Control of High Seas Fishing
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17 September 2003: Scientists look into Spain's mystery squid deaths
MADRID, (Reuters) - Scientists are trying to find out what caused two enormous squids, one of them 12 metres (40 ft) long, to wash up dead on Spain's northern coast this week. "It's not a natural death and it's not the Prestige," Luis Laria, president of marine protection agency CEPESMA said, referring to a massive oil spill from the Prestige tanker late last year. He declined to speculate on the cause. |
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08 September 2003: Humpback whales create their own tools for feeding
Humpback whales in Southeast Alaska may be unique among humpbacks in creating enduring social bonds, researchers say. The associations, which can last for decades, help members of the endangered species communally hunt herring during the summer in a technique called bubble net feeding. |
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02 September 2003: Marine reserves 'good for fisheries'
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has issued a call to expand the number and size of marine reserves where fishing is banned. It says that such reserves are often effective in allowing a rapid recovery of fish stocks depleted by fishing. |
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02 September 2003: Titan the Giant Pacific Octopus
A giant Pacific octopus that resides at the Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium in Devon, UK is very attached, apparently in more ways than one, to his caretakers at the marine exhibit. The clever octopus climbs out of his underwater display tank and grabs them with his tentacles. This octopod is a huge creature and has been named Titan. Titan boasts a four-meter arm span and is very strong. |
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15 August 2003: Pacific nations join forces to save the whales
Auckland, New Zealand - WWF today hails 11 Pacific nations for their leadership in establishing an unprecedented number of national whale sanctuaries. Together, the sanctuaries will cover over 28 million sq. km of ocean and create a blueprint for whale conservation and the management of shared marine resources all over the world. |
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06 August 2003: Protection needed for 'marine Serengetis'
Efforts to conserve threatened marine creatures such as sharks and turtles should concentrate on so-called hotspots of biodiversity, according to a new scientific study. Researchers from Germany and Canada discovered that certain areas of the ocean seem to teem with many different species and that these locations should be developed as marine reserves. |
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29 July 2003: Conservation as the Catch of the Day for Trawlnets
For more than six centuries, the wide-mouth bottom-scraping nets called trawls have been praised as the ultimate fishing device and cursed as a wasteful destructive scourge on the seas. |
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24 July 2003: EU plans for dolphin-friendly Baltic
The waters of north-west Europe should soon be safer for dolphins, thanks to a European Union plan. It proposes extending the driftnet ban from the Atlantic to the Baltic. Boats in some EU waters will have to fit audible warnings to their nets, and carry onboard observers. |
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