Sperm

Sonic Sea

| nlysiak

Sonic Sea is a new documentary that highlights the ways in which industrialized ocean noise affects whales – including their communication, foraging, navigation, and stress. You can see the film on the Discovery Channel or at various screenings around the country.

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“Oceans are a sonic symphony. Sound is essential to the survival and prosperity of marine life. But man-made ocean noise is threatening this fragile world. Sonic Sea is about protecting life in our waters from the destructive effects of oceanic noise pollution.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-jabL64UZE

On July 7th (@ 7PM), there will be an Oceanview Foundation screening of Sonic Sea at the Block Island Library – hosted by [fantastic former MSC student] Mary Cerulli and the Nature Conservancy.  Check out this great write-up about the event (by Mary) in the Block Island Times:

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Artist Spotlight – Tristin Lowe

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Mocha Dick (2009): wool felt, vinyl coated fabric, and internal fan

“Mocha Dick is a 52-foot-long recreation of the real-life albino sperm whale that in the nineteenth century terrorized whaling vessels near Mocha Island in the South Pacific. Mocha Dick, was described in appearance ‘he was as white as wool’ in an 1839 magazine article from The Knickerbocker, engaged in battle with numerous whaling expeditions, often sinking smaller boats, and was a source of inspiration for Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick.”

 Text & images via Tristin Lowe

 

Reading this lately…

Image | | nlysiak

“In such a silent flight, the sperm whale could not be outdistanced.  More than any other marine mammal, it is a master of the sea.  Using its muscle-bound tail, it can power its way thousands of feet below, its paddle-shaped flippers tucked into its flanks as neatly as an aeroplane’s undercarriage.  And once below, it can stay down for up to two hours.  To achieve this feat, a whale must spend much of its time breathing at the surface – its ‘spoutings out’. as the sailors called them – taking some sixty to seventy breaths in ten or eleven minutes.”

“…the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time” – The Fountain, Moby Dick