Welcome to the second installment of  Whales in the News : 50 Years of KATU TV: A whale of a story that became a legend KATU, the Portland, Oregon, TV station that originally broadcasted Paul Linnman’s famous news report on the original Exploding Whale, celebrated their 50th anniversary on March 15, 2012. In honor of the event, they showed Linnman’s original report and interviewed him afterwards. Rare Whale Swims Up West Coast to Russian Home Varvara, a rare western Pacific gray whale, is the first to be documented all the way to Baja Mexico, where most California gray whales breed and give birth. Now she appears to be on the move again, expected to head to feeding grounds off Russia’s Sakhalin Island. ‘Whale Wars’ spin-off coming in April The Sea Shepherds head to the Faroe Islands to take on the slaughter of pilot whales, and Animal Planet cameras are there to capture the action. “Whale Wars: Viking Shores” premieres on Animal Planet on April 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Whale barely make...

Welcome to the first edition of  Whales in the News  here on TheExplodingWhale.com! In this series of posts, we’ll be aggregating recent whale-related news and articles for your entertainment and education. And so without further ado, here are some of the top whale stories from the past week: Giant squid eyes are sperm whale defence An interesting article about how and why giant squid eyes may have evolved to be three times as large as any other known creature. I know this may come as a shock, but it turns out that being able to detect your one and only predator — and for giant squid that would be giant sperm whales — from far away increases your chances of survival. As the authors state, there appears to be a “powerful evolutionary pressure towards developing effective eyes.” It all seems rather obvious, but the article is a good read nonetheless. Japan Whale Catch Falls Short Sea Shepherd anti-whaling activists have once again significantly disrupted Japanese whaling in the ...

In the United Kingdom, whales are considered “ royal fish ,” and as such, they belong to the Crown upon being caught or landing upon the English shore. The rules evidently apply to dead and rotting beached whales, too.  In the BBC News article  What happens after a whale is beached? , reporter Caroline Lowbridge describes how beached whales are (supposed to be) handled in the UK. British law goes so far as to specify that the King gets the head and Queen gets the tail. Lest you think the Queen comes out behind on the deal, the queen “received the tail in order to be supplied with whalebone for her corsets and stays,” according to Wikipedia. (However, there is some confusion here;  Moby Dick  author Herman Melville claimed that “whalebone” was actually baleen, which comes from the  mouths  of certain whales.) Anyway, it’s not clear to what use the King may have put the whale’s head. The article covers a number of other whale incidents in the UK and then wrap...