Here are two stories on humpback whales, one that a lot of you may already have seen, another not. Both have to do with the whales’ continuing peril, or lack of it, at the hands of humanity.

In the Wall Street Journal science editor Robert Lee Hotz brings, to the extent possible within the confines of his regular column, a brawny, top down, heavily reported, wide-angle look at moves within the U.S. that could lead to some populations of the animals being removed from endangered species protection. He has the numbers on their recent resurgence. He has pretty new info on growing recognition of the genetic mosaic the whales form in their distribution. And, as it’s a column hence an essay and hence needn’t put all the good stuff at the top in the old inverted pyramid scheme of breaking news, he save the info on which one ought most deeply ruminate to the very end. Lee also continues his multi-media ways and produced a well-composed video report, embedded in the on line print story.

That’s the big picture. For a small one that is done with similar skill but rather different focus, look in the Gloucester Daily Times and prolific staffer Jonathan L’Ecuyer’s  piece on whale watchers, worries about harassment, and humpbacks. A report by a local whale research center, in the journal Biological Conservation, concludes after a long study that local whale watching services – while they may sometimes exceed marine mammal protection standards in their hurry to take their customers close to leviathan – have no measurable impact on whale reproduction, calf survival, or other broad metrics of their tolerance for lookie loo tourism.

I say prolific with reason. A glance at L’Ecuyer’s production (just put his last name in the paper’s search box) reveals this guy really cranks out copy, and is strictly general assignment. One to three stories a day and they’re all over the map. He writes with smooth, daily news grace. Makes one almost long to be a small town newspaperman again. Plus he puts out such weekly roundups as Rockport Ramblings and Town Talk. And in this long piece, he covers not only the paper’s conclusions and data with an air of understanding it himself, but brings up without judgment the possibility that this local research outfit might be slightly biased in favor of what has become one of the old fishing village’s significant industries (It says no, it’s not).

For more on the whale watching study, the NPR-affiliated Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s Keith Shortall interviewed the lead scientist.

Grist for the Mill:

Journal Abstract (full story for purchase) ; Whale Center of New England;

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories, Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.