Whales are some of the most majestic creatures on planet earth. Marvel at their unmatched glory by watching them swim in this beautiful video.

Related on EcoSalon
SeaWorld San Diego’s Recent Announcement Gives Us Lukewarm Feelings
Banishing Ghost Nets from the World’s Oceans with the Help of a Trackable, Biodegradable Alternative
3 Things SeaWorld Will Do Now that it Won’t Imprison Any More Orcas

The post Whales Prove Their Mysterious Beauty Every Day [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

The following is proof that not all drones are evil.

The video below came from a drone. The footage features a person paddle boarding next to two large, beautiful whales. Those gorgeous waters reside off the coast of Esperance in Western Australia.

Related on EcoSalon

This Reporter is Just Tickled by Swarming Sea Lions [Video]

Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz Fight to Save the Great Barrier Reef

5 Years After the BP Oil Spill, 20 Species Still Suffering

The post All Drones Should be Used for Whale Watching [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

At first glance, foodies might come off as organic-touting, free-range loving, culinary gurus. But not all foodie trends are friendly. Some go far for their delectable delights, so far that they embrace the controversial. We’re talking about whale meat: the other other white meat that’s keeping an entire violent food industry alive.

In U.S. waters, whales and other marine mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, established in 1972. Not only does it prohibit the fishing of these mammals, but also the importation of marine mammals and marine mammal products into the U.S. There are certain exceptions – like for Alaska native subsistence – but for the most part, whales and other marine mammals are certainly on the “do not eat” list.

But that doesn’t stop some people. With high profile groups like Sea Sheperd, it’s almost surprising that the whale meat industry still exists. Chalk it up to supply and demand, and yes, there is a demand.

In March, a Santa Monica sushi restaurant, The Hump, was shut down and charged, for serving endangered whale meat. The in April, more endangered whale meat was identified in a restaurant in South Korea.

“What’s troubling to us is that apparently a lot of international sushi chefs were trained at The Hump, and, although we have no way of knowing for sure, it raises the concern that this might be more widespread than one isolated event,” said OSU Marine Mammal Institute associate director Scott Baker.

A moratorium on commercial whaling was enacted by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) in 1986, but since then Japan has taken more than 12,000 whales in the name of research. And it’s easy to speculate that somehow some of that meat is making its way onto dinner plates.

Whale meat continues to find its way into underground foodie discussions, on forums and blogs, and although most people are well aware of the legality issues, a level of intrigue still persists, especially with the traveling foodie crowd. Which fuels responses from sustainably focused voices like Change.org.

But the discussion continues, getting foodies on either side of the issue equally fired up.

“Our national horror at eating whale meat isn’t based on any empirical truths, it’s just a cultural choice we make. Unless you’re a hardcore vegan, you’re making morally shaky decisions every day about what you decide to toss into your pie hole and what you won’t, which is why your outrage at another culture’s preference is ultimately little more than gastronomic nationalism,”said Japhy Grant, contributor to True/Slant, a news and opinion site.

Whale meat: Gastronomic nationalism or a delicacy that needs to be eradicated once and for all?

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: gromgull

The post Foodie Underground: Illegal Delicacies appeared first on EcoSalon.

Nature is truly a wonder. The more we know the more we realize we don’t know.

For example, I read in a NY Times article that scientists, in collaboration with the military, may have discovered the cause of the bee population declines. The recent study shows that it has likely been the result of a fungus and virus working together in concert to the bees’ demise. Fungi and viruses in cahoots? So much for our pesticide and air pollution theories. Although, questions remain as to what makes the bees fly off in their death spiral, apparently a common trait of the bee disappearance mystery. “Insect insanity” is one of the proposed theories. Well hey, why not? What creature wouldn’t go crazy on the verge of death?

Once again, fact proves stranger than fiction. Speaking of, did you hear about the 80-foot, 75-ton whale that washed up onshore in California’s San Mateo County? The fact that the blue whale was pregnant is a tragedy. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel awe at the massive size of this ocean beast. The article mentions that the whale’s heart is probably about the size and weight of a VW Beetle. I guess research will never tell us exactly what that whale’s heart was feeling in its last throes. But I do sense the makings of a new indie pop song.

Image: wwarby

The post Are the Bees Insane? Whale Hearts the Size of Small Cars? appeared first on EcoSalon.

I see ads all the time for green business cards at sites like Green Printer. What sets them apart?

Their little squares for doing business are printed on 100% recycled paper using soy and veggie zero-VOC inks with chemical-free plate processing and scuff-resistant, non-toxic aqueous coating. Some of the newbies are not even squares at all, but 3×3 disks for “making a unique impression.”

But what kind of impression are we making when we swap paper at a time we’re eschewing the over-foresting of our natural landscapes to produce the pulp, and envisioning a paper-less lifestyle? Perhaps trading information this way isn’t in the cards.

As the senior editor of an environmental blog, it can be awkward to produce a paper card for a new contact, despite the greener alternatives of jotting down my data on a piece of scratch paper or asking Daryl Hannah and Brad Pitt to program my number into their iPhones. I’m down for it, but are they?

Business cards have traditionally been the preferred networking tool of the working world, long before social networking via Facebook and LinkedIn became available. These sites function well for all the uses cards provide: Applying for jobs, hiring for jobs, passing along a name, planning a lunch or golf date, even tossing your name into a hat for winning stuff.

The question remains: Have these habit-forming cards become obsolete in the electronic age? According to TechCrunch, they should die once and for all. It’s just a matter of improving the handset alternative.

Crunch contributor Jason Kincaid finds, “The cell phone market could easily put business cards out of their misery, but instead of conforming to a single standard for contact exchange, handset manufacturers offer proprietary solutions or none at all.”

Examples he cites include apps like Friendbook, an iPhone “handshake”  connector from Tapulous, and rmbrME (“remember me”), a service launched last spring that costs 50 cents every time you wanted to add a new contact. A poor response to the model has led the company’s founder Gabe Zichermann to offer a premium service in the future.

Still, an etiquette column in the Newbury Port News takes the opposing view, arguing traditional cards are not just pieces of paper, but an integral part of doing business that can never be replaced.

To support this claim, columnist Judy Bowman points to the Japanese example. In Japanese, the business card, or “makke,” literally translated means “my face,” and represents one’s life.

“The business card you receive from someone speaks volumes about them and the firm they represent,” Bowman says.

Bowman goes further to describe the elaborate dance of the Japanese business card exchange, apparently as dramatic as the tea ceremony: “Our Japanese friends suggest an almost ritualistic way to present and receive business cards. Present the printed side up with both hands, a thumb and forefinger carefully holding each top corner. Respectfully hand the card forward, almost with a bow-like gesture, as a show of respect. This is the most formal way to present a business card.”

The Japanese – who are among the world’s most enthusiastic users and makers of electronics – are clinging to swapping cards almost as a cultural meme, a meme that shows they value tradition at a time of tremendous advances in global communication. But that doesn’t convince me to have a set engraved any time soon. After all, the Japanese are also still slaughtering whales.

Images: Jeff McNeil, Green Printer, TechCrunch, Japan Print

The post Can a Green Nation Forsake Its Business Cards? appeared first on EcoSalon.

On the high seas around Antarctica, things are getting ugly.

For the crew of the “Steve Irwin”, belonging to the anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd, this is old news. They’re there to prevent the slaughter of hundreds of minke whales by Japanese sailors on three vessels including the factory ship Nisshin Maru – technically a research vessel, but also involved in whalemeat processing that ends up on Japanese dinner tables. The whales are being hunted legally thanks to a loophole in in the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 moratorium, allowing a percentage of whales to be collected for “research” purposes – and in 2007 this represented 900 minke that international law turned a blind eye to. While most of the world condemns the use of whalemeat for food, in Japan, whalemeat is on sale to the public (some of it supplied by other countries, but some from the animals allegedly killed for scientific reasons).

Sea Shepherd see this as monstrous. Every year its staff take to the seas to harry the whaling fleet, hoping to disrupt their activities enough to prevent the killing. It’s a fraught but essentially peaceful protest – until now. The protesters are reporting that this year they’ve been met with a water cannon, airborne balls of solid lead or brass, and most insidiously…

“The factory ship the Nisshin Maru and the two harpoon vessels in the fleet are equipped with long-range acoustical devices. This is a military grade weapon system that sends out mid to high frequency sound waves designed to disorient and possibly incapacitate personnel.”

– Sea Shepherd

The response from the Institute of Cetacean Research (a private organisation backed by the Japanese government) replied thus:

“We can neither confirm nor deny the strategies employed by the Japanese research vessels to protect themselves from the criminal actions committed by the Dutch vessel. We can say, however, that all legal means available will be used to ensure these pirates do not board Japanese ships or threaten the lives of the crews or the safety of the vessels.”

The question is what actions constitute “legal means”. Is the use of non-lethal sonic weaponry legal, even if it isn’t ethical or the slightest bit safe? And might such devices affect the whales themselves? (If they’re driven away by the sound, this may turn out to be an unexpected bonus for Sea Shepherd). Without a clear legal challenge – either the changing of international law or the infringement of it – Japanese whalehunting seems sure to continue.

For now, the duel on the high seas continues in front of the world media – but just how ugly is it going to get?

Image: René Ehrhardt

The post 'All Legal Means Available': Japanese Whalers Fight Back appeared first on EcoSalon.