White whale

The Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of my favorite paintings by Michelangelo. It took him four years to complete it. What I love about it is that he took the Bible stories and painted them onto the ceiling. Each paint has its own story, and that can speak louder than works at times. As it tells a story, it also tells us a little bit of what his beliefs are. The Bible starts by telling us about Adam and Eve. How Eve took the fruit from the snake and gave it to Adam and then they were ban from the

My destination was 26 miles off the coast of North Carolina. Aboard a five crew, eight diver boat, I was set to explore the USS Indra, a landing craft repair ship that became home to an artificial reef and an abundance of sea life in 1992. At the dock, after several grueling trips back-and-forth between the van and boat, I finally loaded my tank and scuba gear and was ready to dive. However, there was one thing left between me and my dive, the 26 mile boat ride. This marathon-long ride was the most

A number of captive shark species have reportedly produced viable offspring in the absence of males and recent studies in sharks have confirmed that four species are automictic (Chapman et al. 2007; Chapman, Firchau, and Shivji 2008; Feldheim et al. 2010; Robinson et al. 2011). Sharks represent the most ancient lineage of jawed fish known to exhibit parthenogenesis. The first confirmed occurrence was described by Chapman et al. (2007) in the bonnethead shark, Sphyrna tiburo. In 2001 a single, normal

Californian Sea Lions have roamed the docks of San Francisco, California for over 25 years now. Though the Sea Lions have only been here for a short period of time, the sleek mammal has become a welcoming member of the pier harbors, playing a significant role in attracting tourists from around the globe. Shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1989, Sea Lions began hauling out on Pier 39’s K-Dock; and by January of 1890, the K-Dock was flooded by the marine animals. Since

The topic of zoos and whether or not they’re humane have quickly become one of the biggest controversial topics in the past twenty years. There is not much of a ‘middle’ perspective in this debate, rather people tend to lie on two completely opposite ends of the spectrum when displaying their beliefs pertaining to the zoo debate. I chose to research this topic because though I have strong beliefs, I think that, on this matter specifically, people often jump to a certain side without any prior research

Sperm whales use “rapid pulse trains and creaks when they dive to great depths” (Jones 2005). The creaks, as mentioned by Jones (2005), are “associated with rapid body movements [by the whale] suggestive of pursuit of prey” (Jones 2005). These whales utilize the rapid pulses when closing in on their prey to hone in on the finer details, almost identical to the terminal phase of bats. Dolphins can produce a variety of different sounds for different purposes. Each individual sounds different, and

The bottlenose dolphin, genus Tursiops, is a cetacean renowned for its social intelligence, even being prescribed the status of non-human persons along with other intelligent species such as great apes. Both dolphins and primates share a number of attributes that have led to an evolutionary propensity for intelligence, including prolonged parental care, long lives, complex social bonds, and communicative cooperation (Reynolds et al., 2000). But unlike primates, dolphins lack opposable thumbs, as

In Hawaii, the major shark god is Kamahoali’i. The Hawaiian culture that surrounds Kamahoali’i is rich with his Legends, duties, aspects, and genealogy. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these parts of Kamohoali’i in greater detail, which will be done, in the following paragraphs. Kamohoali’i is the largest and most celebrated shark god in Hawaii1,a and is said to be the king of all sharks2,a. His main responsibility is to be the keeper of the Gourd of the Water of life, which has Reviving

Cetacean Bycatch is Under Control Cetacean bycatch in fishing industries has been a highly debated topic for decades and is still considered an ongoing problem(NOAA 8). However, when it is looked at in comparison, the problem of bycatch has already been solved as much as is possible while still allowing fishing industries to fish at all. Cetaceans are defined as marine mammals. Bycatch is defined as any marine life that is caught and returned to the sea, whether it is dead or alive(Brooke 2). Therefore

The Revenge of the Whale, New York Times bestselling author by Nathaniel Philbrick, takes place on a tiny island off of Massachusetts called Nantucket during a hard period in the whaling business. During the 1800s of the whaling industries, it was an enormous task to catch whales for their oil and it was especially popular in Nantucket which was known as “...the whaling capital of the United States.” We meet 21 interesting characters throughout the book. Owen Chase is our protagonist who was the