Something Just Went BEZERK in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Navy just sunk a French Submarine

After years of research, scientists said they had discovered an entirely new species of whale swimming right under their noses in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet as soon as scientists identified Rice’s whale, also known as the Gulf of Mexico whale, two years ago, there was a problem. There were hardly any left. With only about 50 remaining, the whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth.

Now efforts to protect the whale are running headfirst into that other behemoth off the Gulf Coast: the offshore oil and gas industry.


The Biden administration has proposed protecting a massive swath of ocean from Texas to Florida, potentially restricting fossil fuel activity in one of the nation’s top oil-producing spots. Already Biden’s deputies sought to remove millions of acres within its habitat from an offshore oil lease sale originally scheduled for Wednesday.

Offshore oil drillers and Republican lawmakers from Gulf Coast states responded with lawsuits to stop protections they say are economically crippling and hastily executed.

A federal district judge last week agreed, ordering the Biden administration to reverse course on the upcoming lease sale. An appellate court Monday delayed the lease sale until November.

The decision to remove acreage from auction “circumvented the law, ignored science, and bypassed public input,” said Erik Milito, head of the National Ocean Industries Association, an offshore energy lobbying group.

But scientists say oil extraction still poses a clear risk to the whale, with officials estimating the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 wiped out about one-fifth of the population. With so few Rice’s whales left, the loss of even a single individual is devastating for the species.



[link to www.washingtonpost.com (secure)]



Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 09/26/2023 11:26 AM

‘Debris’ floating in Gulf of Mexico turns out to be 3 critically endangered creatures BY MOIRA RITTER UPDATED SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 9:38 AM


us Coast Guard officers were conducting a routine patrol in the Gulf of Mexico when they spotted something strange. The officers from the U.S. Coast Guard Station Venice were on a Living Marine Resource patrol — which seeks to protect fish and marine resources — near the Mississippi Canyon, a spokesperson told McClatchy News. That’s when they saw what appeared to be a pile of debris floating in the water.


As the officers got closer though, they realized they had discovered something much more rare: It was three 25-foot Rice’s whales. Officials shared a video of one of the “critically endangered” creatures swimming through the water in a Sept. 24 Facebook post.

Read more at: [link to www.miamiherald.com (secure)]


[link to www.miamiherald.com (secure)]

from 2021:

Sep 30, 2021
In 2021, a NOAA-led study found that Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whales (pronounced "broodus") are not Bryde’s whales after all, but a new species of baleen whale unique to the Gulf.

The research team’s findings are based on more than a decade of genetic and morphological analyses conclusively accepted after examining the remains of a stranding in Florida in 2019. The scientists named the new species Rice’s whale after prominent marine biologist Dr. Dale Rice, the first researcher to note the whales’ presence in the Gulf.

Rice’s whales are typically found around the edge of the Gulf’s continental shelf, with the greatest concentration of sightings recorded off the crook of Florida’s Panhandle. With only 50 or so individuals in existence, there is great urgency to learn more about this critically endangered whale.

The small population faces many threats, including vessel strikes, energy exploration and development, entanglement in fishing gear, and oil spills. Scientists estimate that nearly half of the Deepwater Horizon's oil spill footprint in 2010 overlapped with the whales’ habitat, causing mortalities and reproductive failures that shrunk the population by an estimated 22 percent.

With funding from NOAA’s RESTORE Science Program (administered by NCCOS), NOAA’s Dr. Lance Garrison, his team, and their academic partners are working to understand the whales’ habitat requirements and ecological role in Gulf of Mexico food webs. The researchers are using environmental data, prey sampling, and various monitoring techniques, including whale-mounted tracking tags, to study the whales’ geographic range and foraging activities.

Data collected thus far show that Rice's whales spend most of their daylight hours diving to depths near the seafloor, feeding while down, and coming up to the surface on an eight-minute cycle. Then, they stay at or near the surface most of the night. The constant daylight diving has investigators wondering what the whales’ energy requirements are and whether they are being met by the resources and prey available.

Project results are helping identify the whales' critical habitat and will be used to inform and improve the recovery, management, and protection of Rice’s whales.



Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 09/26/2023 11:36 AM

Are offshore windmills killing whales? Are whales being thrown to the wind? A marine biologist sets the record straight and explains what is really behind whales washing up on the East Coast.

00:00 - What to Know About the Recent Whale Deaths
00:48 - Unusual Mortality Event
01:19 - Are Windmills Killing Whales?
01:58 - Ocean Noise Pollution
02:57 - Stop Offshore Wind Farms
03:32 - How Many Wind Farms are in the US?
03:54 - Whale Necropsy
04:40 - Why Are Whales Dying Offshore?
05:09 - How Many Humpback Whales Are Left?

Sooooo over 13 years later.

How'd that work out for you?

p.1800!~

Why the hell is this shit pinned?

One of the best of all time on here.

We can thank Trump for his incoherent statement making us aware of these windmills.

I think windmill farms suck, personally. Even off shore ones.

I will help this inane thread. New link for the missing video from above:


[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

fuckin bp

The people of Hartlepool, England had never seen a monkey before - nor, for that matter, had they ever set eyes on a Frenchman. Mistaking its chattering for the language of the enemy, they convicted the monkey of being a French spy and after a brief trial, hanged the Monkey on the beach. Or so the story goes....
People of Hartlepool are now referred to as chimp chokers .

Sorry Digital mix guy Spock,
times have changed and it's never gonna be as fun around here as it was in 2011.

...no matter how much you bump the good ole days

The Rice's whale has been consistently located in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, along the continental shelf break between 100 and about 400 meters depth. They are the only resident baleen whale in the Gulf of Mexico and are most closely related to Bryde’s (pronounced “broodus”) whales. In 2021, scientists determined that the Rice’s whale was a unique species, genetically and morphologically distinct from Bryde’s whales.

Population Status

In 2019, NOAA Fisheries listed the Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale as an endangered subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. In 2021, NOAA Fisheries revised the common and scientific name of the listed entity to Rice’s whale, Balaenoptera ricei, and classification to species to reflect the new scientifically accepted taxonomy and nomenclature of the species. Like all marine mammals, the Rice’s whale is also protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and given its ESA listing, it is considered depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

When the comprehensive ESA status review was completed in 2016, the team of scientists conducting the ESA status review concluded that there were likely fewer than 100 individual Rice's whales throughout the Gulf, with 50 or fewer being mature individuals. NOAA Fisheries’ most recent abundance estimate from 2017–2018 surveys in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico is approximately 50 individual Rice's whales.



[link to www.fisheries.noaa.gov (secure)]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 10/02/2023 09:38 AM

A newly discovered (and uniquely American) whale may disrupt the business of oil drilling off the Gulf of Mexico. But despite the critically endangered status of the "Rice's whale," Big Oil is fighting to keep its lease active in those lucrative waters, the Washington Post reports.

Rice's whale is only recently known to scientists, who began to confirm suspicions that a separate species swam in the Gulf when one if the whale's dwindling numbers washed ashore in 2019. In 2021, a paper officially identified it as Rice's whale, named after the late biologist who first identified it, Dale Rice. But bad news followed. Only 50 are believed to remain, and a unique quirk leaves the onus of protecting Rice's whale to the United States alone.


[link to www.newser.com (secure)]

New Orleans bracing for major threat to drinking water supply


Salt water creeping up the Mississippi River is threatening the drinking water supply in New Orleans for the first time in more than 30 years.

Why it matters: The water supply for more than 1.2 million people is expected to become unsafe to drink by late October.

President Biden declared the situation a national emergency last week.

If contaminated, it could be weeks or months before freshwater returns, unless there is significant rainfall, leaders say.

Catch up quick: A drought across the Mississippi River Valley means salt water from the Gulf of Mexico is coming upriver, threatening drinking water supplies in New Orleans and two nearby parishes.

Many municipalities in southeast Louisiana, including New Orleans, pull their drinking water from the river.
Communities further south have had salt in their water since June.

The Army Corps of Engineers expects the saltwater intrusion to reach New Orleans by Oct. 22. Officials are working on plans to mitigate water disruption.
Driving the news: A massive reverse osmosis machine that desalinates water is being installed in Plaquemines Parish, just southeast of New Orleans, and two more machines are on the way.

But these units won't be able to produce enough water to meet the demand in metro New Orleans.
Plans to protect the drinking water include building 10- to 15-mile-long pipelines to draw water from further upriver.




[link to www.axios.com (secure)]

attention all decks!! we are pinning the thread!! man battle stations! all hands at general quarters! this is no drill! I say again, this is no drill!!






: walken-thru-spac:





Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 10/03/2023 01:50 PM

https://twitter.com/_/status/1707762540359418341

The Mississippi River in New Orleans is about to experience significant saltwater intrusion. This phenomenon will lead to increased salinity in the water system potentially salt water directly from the Gulf of Mexico.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1709063989437563285

What? This thread is back? Does this have something to do with Mandello?

no, but you've come to the right place, nonetheless! please check link below! glad to have your company at BEZERK thread, friend!

Thread: Update!! did Dolly have BRACES in the film??!! a thread to recover the timeline, and spread word on MAndela Effect!



Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 10/03/2023 02:03 PM

Meanwhile, local Facebook groups in the southern Louisiana area have joined together to thoroughly document the availability of bottled water in local stores.

Many self-proclaimed watchers are providing photographic documentation of bottled water for sale around the area. National and local brands are vying for attention in the ongoing effort to provide safe drinking water for citizens in affected areas. Some local stores are posting signs asking citizens not to panic.

Citizens, however, are indeed panicking.

A recently overheard conversation at an unnamed GLPer's workplace showcased the growing concern in the region.

"Your water taste salty yet?"
"Nah, not yet."

The unnamed local GLPer has vowed to keep the online community up to date on the salty situation in southern Louisiana.

Back to you, Spock.

Roger that! you are coming in loud and clear. your data is fascinating, and appreciated!! please maintain yoour highly commendable efforts! the Federation thanks you!





Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 10/03/2023 02:33 PM

Thread: breaking 55 Chinese sailors feared dead after nuclear submarine 'gets caught in trap intended to snare British and US vessels in the Yellow Sea

wow! yes, this is quite significant.