An El Nino-less summer is coming. Here's what that could mean for Canada
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
A new study out of the United Kingdom is pointing to collisions with large marine vessels as a possible reason for the years-long decline in whale shark populations.
Marine biologists from the Marine Biological Association and University of Southampton led the study, started in 2019 and published earlier this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which tracked the movements of ships and whale sharks around the world.
The researchers said lethal collisions are vastly underestimated and that their work shows more than 90 per cent of whale shark movements overlapped with global fleets of cargo, tanker, passenger and fishing vessels.
The team satellite-tracked the movements of 348 individual whale sharks, tagged between 2005 and 2019 in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and mapped out their various "hotspots."
The researchers submitted the data to the Global Shark Movement Project, which is led by the Marine Biological Association.
"The maritime shipping industry that allows us to source a variety of everyday products from all over the world may be causing the decline of whale sharks, which are a hugely important species in our oceans," Freya Womersley, a University of Southampton PhD researcher who led the study as part of the Global Shark Movement Project, said in a press release.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species lists the whale shark as endangered.
Described as "slow-moving ocean giants," the researchers said whale sharks can grow up to 20 metres in length and help regulate plankton levels in the ocean by feeding on microscopic zooplankton.
The researchers said whale shark numbers have been falling in recent years in many locations. However, the reasons why are not entirely clear.
Since whale sharks spend a large amount of time in surface water and gather in coastal regions, experts thought collisions with ships could be causing "substantial" deaths.
The study suggests that whale shark tag transmissions ended more often in busy shipping lanes than expected, even after ruling out technical failure.
Of the 61 tracked tags that stopped transmitting on busy routes, more than 85 per cent were unrelated to random technical failure, the study said.
The researchers suggest this is likely due to whale sharks being struck and killed, and sinking to the ocean floor.
"Incredibly, some of the tags recording depth as well as location showed whale sharks moving into shipping lanes and then sinking slowly to the seafloor hundreds of metres below, which is the 'smoking gun' of a lethal ship strike," said Prof. David Sims, Global Shark Movement Project founder and senior research fellow at the Marine Biological Association and University of Southampton.
"It is sad to think that many deaths of these incredible animals have occurred globally due to ships without us even knowing to take preventative measures."
The research team said there are currently no international regulations to protect whale sharks against ship collisions, and that this "hidden mortality" may be occurring with other marine megafauna.
"Collectively we need to put time and energy into developing strategies to protect this endangered species from commercial shipping now, before it is too late," Womersley said, "so that the largest fish on Earth can withstand threats that are predicted to intensify in future, such as changing ocean climates."
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
The federal New Democrats are calling out Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his party for trying to block the bill that could pave the way for millions of Canadians to access birth control and diabetes coverage.
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
An Ontario MPP was asked again to leave the Ontario legislature on Monday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that was banned by the Speaker last month due to its political symbolism.
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc will be tabling legislation on Monday aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada. Federal officials have scheduled a technical briefing on the incoming bill for Monday afternoon.
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.