While searching on Dr. Conrad's links on her blog, I came accross a very interesting article on one of my favorite marine mammals "The Narwhal". The article I found was from her link to ocean explorer. This article talks about how the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources have come up with a successful means for tracking migration patterns of the Narwhal. This is to be done by the use of satelites, and will help with a multitude of problems and interests. One such interest is that it will allow researchers to know a little more details about the whale as the satelites attached to them will tell them physical characteristics of the ocean such as temperature and PH. A key problem that will be benifited by this research is it will help to give an explanation for declining populations of these mammals. In another article found via internet on national geographic it shows a study done in 2004 that by using photos it has been shown on average that the Narwhale population has decreased about 6 percent each year for the last 17 years. This species is obviously in trouble and needs help, which is why I am very encouraged by current efforts to further study these whales in their habitat (The Ocean).
I personally am very interested in whales and marine fauna in general and really hope this marvelous creature does not continue to head down this path.
Any other information anyone has on the topic would be appreciated.
A few key facts about Narwhals
1) Relative of Beluga whales (look similar too)
2) Commonly found in the arctic
3) One or two teeth grow to form a tusk (up to 6 feet long)
4) Tusks covered by algae (shows mutualistic relationships between marine fauna/flora and shows that a loss of one species will impact other)
Interesting Links
1)www.narwhal-whales.com
2)http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0413
1 comment:
Great post.
Very informative Scott and the links will be very interesting for my older son, who also loves narwhals.
Cathy
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