Zoologists have developed a plan to save the Yangtze River dolphin, probably the world’s most endangered mammal, from extinction.

They hope to take some dolphins from the Yangtze and rear them in a nearby lake, protected from fishermen.

The species is threatened by overfishing which removes its food, industrialisation, boat collisions, and through being caught in fishing nets.

The most recent surveys found only 17 living individuals.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Last chance for China’s dolphin

Baby dolphins sleep while swimming around, unlike their adult counterparts who have periods of stationary rest, a team of Italian researchers has found .

The study, published in this week’s issue of the international Nature magazine, followed months of observation and data collection by experts at the Genoa Aquarium in northwest Italy .

“During their first year of life, young bottlenose dolphins sleep exclusively while swimming and, like all young mammals, have irregular sleep patterns, distributed both through the day and at night, for around 12 hours in total,” said the research team, Guido Gnone, Tiziana Moriconi and Giorgia Gambini .

ANSA.it – News in English – Baby dolphins sleep while swimming

Reporting in the June 1 issue of the journal Nature, scientists from six institutions detail how male guppies with the most colorful — and most rare — patterns are more likely than their more commonly colored counterparts to survive in the wild.

“This study provides very solid support for frequency-dependent survival,” said principal investigator Kimberly A. Hughes, an animal biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “We found that rare color patterns of these guppies had a highly significant survival advantage.”

Underwater Times | Study: Colorful, Rare-Patterned Male Guppies Have Survival Advantage in the Wild

A rare pair of critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal twins — only the fourth set of twins ever documented — was brought to Honolulu from Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge aboard a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules aircraft early yesterday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service are working to ensure the pups are given the best chance for survival and hope to return them to Midway Atoll, where they were born, in the fall, officials said.

Monk seal twins receive crucial care in captivity – The Honolulu Advertiser

This fall, Chuck and Roz will host two separate humpback whale snorkeling excursions in beautiful Tonga. (Opportunities for diving exist on this trip to the Friendly Islands, but not in conjunction with the whales.) The trip costs $2,863 per person, and includes accommodation, meals, 5 days with the whales, and airfare from LAX all the way to Vavau, Tonga. Chuck only has space for 6 people per trip, so email him soon to reserve your spot.

Swim with Humpbacks in Tonga – Divester

The manatee, long the poster mammal of the environmental movement in Florida, lost its endangered status from the state on Wednesday.

The controversial move was the latest and biggest political win for boating and building interests, which five years ago launched a campaign against a growing array of restrictions intended to protect the lumbering sea cows.

MiamiHerald.com | 06/08/2006 | Manatees lose their status as ‘endangered’ in Fla.

Since the days of Aristotle, humans have looked to dolphins with awe, envy and inspiration because of the marine animal’s speed and strength in the oceans. Swimming at speeds of up to 20 mph, the dolphin seems to defy nature’s laws. In fact, in the 1930s, the scientist James Gray thought that the power needed for the dolphin to swim at such speeds exceeded its available power nearly 10 times over, which is known as Gray’s paradox.

To explain his paradox, Gray theorized that the water against the dolphin’s skin has layers that slide past each other and reduce drag, called “laminar boundary layers.” (It was previously assumed that the water against the skin was made of several mixed layers that increase drag, called “turbulent boundary layers.”) In actuality, no mechanisms have been demonstrated that maintain a completely laminar boundary layer for the dolphin.

Marine technology inspired by dolphins’ speed

HOLLYWOOD cutie Jessica Alba is so hot, she even gets dolphins horny when she goes scuba diving.

The actress discovered the cetacean mammals got aroused by her presence when she was shooting dolphin drama Flipper.

She told MTV: “I don’t know if anybody knows this but dolphins get excited, even when you are a human being – and they have long, long… (penises).

Alba: I turn dolphins on

I wrote a while ago about wanting to visit the town of Donsol in the Philippines, which has become famous in the last 10 years due to the annual migration of whale sharks there every April. South Africa’s Mail & Guardian Online has an excellent article about how the whale sharks have changed the fortunes of the town by bringing thousands of tourists to the area who want to see these amazing creatures – and also preserved the lives of the sharks themselves as fisherman realised they have more value alive as a tourist attraction.

However, the town’s new found prosperity brings growing pains with it

Whale Sharks Bring Prosperity And Problems To Philippines – divehappy.com: Scuba Diving In Thailand and South East Asia

THE whale and dolphin watching industry is harming the animals, a leading dolphin researcher has warned.

Dr Lars Bejder from Murdoch University said a six-year study of the impact of tourism on dolphins in Western Australia’s Shark Bay had produced some alarming results.

Dr Bejder said the study, which used data going back 22 years, showed that dolphins regularly visited by tourism operators were less successful, and had a slower rate of reproduction, than dolphins not visited by tourists.

Dolphin watching ‘harms animals’

Tawnny Houston, a cook aboard the California Dawn, was treated at Kaiser Hospital and released after the sea lion took a chunk out of her leg Wednesday afternoon.

For the next few days at least, only boaters, their crews and their customers will be allowed on the K-deck — a dock with berths for a dozen boats.

Sea lion attack closes dock

Fifty years ago, fishermen shot at Northwest killer whales they felt were eating too many salmon. Now, thousands of visitors pay an average of $75 a trip to see the orcas in their summer habitat around the San Juan Islands.

The love sightseers feel for the orcas, however, may be getting overwhelming for the bus-sized mammals. As many as 100 tour boats can be on the water at once, all jockeying for a good look at the animals, and researchers are concerned that the in-your-face attention is harassing orcas and keeping them from their prey.

After decades of fear and hostility, are we loving orcas to death?

Here’s some good news.

In 1966, humpback whales were placed under international protection due to severely low numbers. By the 1990s, their population was growing at an annual rate of 7%. Today, some 10,000 humpbacks navigate the North Pacific, and research shows that about 1000 humpback calves are born in Hawaii’s warm waters each year. While environmentalists are happy to see the population rebound, some are concerned about the increasing number of boats running into the animals.

Whale Populations Rebounding Worldwide

The evidence suggests dolphins share the human ability to recognise themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities. The research, on wild bottlenose dolphins, will lead to a reassessment of their intelligence and social complexity, raising moral questions over how they should be treated.

Dolphins ‘know each other’s names’