Animal Stories from the Maritime World

Ships in ice-free Arctic zones threaten marine mammals

2020-11-06T11:25:00+00:00July 11th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo, News|

Marine mammals such as beluga, bowhead whales and narwhals will be at risk as shipping increases through their Arctic habitats – made possible by the shrinking sea ice, a new study has found. The study, published early in July by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by researchers from the universities [...]

South Georgia is free of rats

2020-11-06T11:25:36+00:00May 10th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo, News|

UK Overseas Territory of South Georgia is officially declared free of rats for the first time since humans arrived on the island over 200 years ago Scottish-based charity the South Georgia Heritage Trust and its USA counterpart the Friends of South Georgia Island raised £10 million to finance the Habitat Restoration Project to eradicate invasive [...]

The plastic-hungry catapillar

2020-11-06T11:25:40+00:00May 8th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo|

An unlikely ally may be coming to our assistance in the shape of a lowly caterpillar. Developmental biologist and amateur beekeeper Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain was clearing out one of her hives of the harmful wax moth larvae and placing them in a plastic bag when [...]

Mass beachings: why do whales do it?

2020-02-19T15:35:54+00:00May 8th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo|

Although we’re always looking for modern culprits to blame for mass whale beaching it has to be said that many of them can be explained by natural phenomena, not least because they’ve been reported throughout history. In 1918 for instance 1,000 whales beached themselves on the Chatham Islands. The recent tragic spate on Golden Bay’s [...]

The return of the Great Auk

2020-11-06T11:25:42+00:00May 5th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo|

The British Farne Islands could see the return of the Great Auk, extinct since 1844, as genetic scientists announce plans to recreate the species using DNA from museum specimens. Using still “live” DNA from the nearly-200 year extinct Great Auk, geneticists from the San Francisco-based Revive and Restore group plan a “genetic rescue” involving extracting [...]

Tilikum: the whale who made us think again

2020-11-06T11:25:44+00:00May 5th, 2018|Big Blue Zoo|

On Tilikum, the captive killer whale's death in January 2017 It seems both sad and yet a good thing that Tilikum, the 36 year old bull Orca, has died at the Orlando Florida SeaWorld theme park in January, after 33 years in captivity. Tilikum, which means ‘friend’ in Chinook, was infamous for killing three people, [...]

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