Monday, March 17, 2014

Tell me more about harp seals?

Q. I need to know what mankind is doing to this particular species of seals, the harp seals. Try not to give me links to where you found the info, but if you want to, fine with me.

Tell me more bout their
a)habitat,
b)what type of situations they are facing BESIDES being hunted down by man.
c)Don't frighten me by giving me ans more then 3hundred words!! that happened before and i was dizzy with WORDS.
Try to give ur ans in details and extra stuff are welcome too.
!QIEN245!


Answer
Harp seals resemble harbor seals in body and head form, but are larger: adult Harp Seals grow to 1.7 m long and can weigh over 130 kg. The baby Harp seals are all white, which helps them blend in with the snow. Adults are grey or white with black markings on their back and on their head. Polar Bears, sharks, Orcas, and in some areas Walruses are natural predators of Harp Seals. Inuits living in the region hunt them mainly for sport and to a lesser extent, commercial reasons. They are often given different names according to their age :
âWhitecoatsâ : Birth
âRagged Jacketsâ : 2-4 weeks
âBeatersâ : 4 weeks to 1 year
âBedlamersâ : 1 to 4 years
âSpotted Harpâ : 4 to 7 years
âDark Harpâ : mature/adult

arp Seal separates into three populations according to their breeding locations: the White Sea, the West Ice and Northwest Atlantic. Seals breeding in the Northwest Atlantic near Newfoundland, Canada represent the largest population and are genetically different from seals breeding in the two other places, which have not been proven genetically different from each other. All three populations are hunted commercially, mainly by Canada, Norway, Russia and Greenland

There are no reliable estimates of the size of Northwest Atlantic population when commercial hunting began in the early 1800s.Several simulation models estimated virginal populations to be in the 3 to 4 million range.It is considered that the population recovered to about 3 million at the end of World War II, but subsequently declined by 50â66% between 1950 and 1970 due to commercial hunting in Canada. Quotas and other conservation measures since then have enabled the population to nearly triple in size to 5.2 million according to a peer-reviewed survey in 1999.

ature females usually give birth to one pup in March/April each year. The pups are born within well defined areas in the drift ice in the White Sea or in the area between Jan Mayen and East Greenland (the West Ice population). The Harp Seal is migrating searching for food over large areas in the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Greenland Sea and the Denmark Strait. Age of maturation is 4â8 years, normal life length more than 30 years. An adult animal is about 1.9 m long with a weight around 200 kg.
The population size was in 2000 estimated to more than 300,000 animals in the White Sea and 361,000 animals in the West Ice.
The annual prey consumption was in 2000 estimated to about 3.5 million tonnes in the White Sea area (Nilssen et al 2000).

n Canada, the season for the commercial hunt of harp seal is from November 15 to May 15. The majority of sealing, however, occurs in late March in The Gulf of St. Lawrence, and during the first or second week of April off Newfoundland, in an area known as "The Front". This peak spring period is generally what is referred to as the "Canadian Seal Hunt". In 2006, the St. Lawrence seal hunt officially started on March 25. This date was initially uncertain, due to thin ice conditions caused by the year's milder temperatures.
In 2003, the three-year harp seal quota granted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was increased to a maximum of 975,000 animals, with a maximum of 350,000 animals in any two consecutive years. In 2006, 325,000 harp seals, as well as 10,000 hooded seals and 10,400 grey seals will be killed. An additional 10,000 animals are allocated for hunting by Aboriginal peoples.
The Canadian seal hunt is monitored by the Canadian government. However, although approximately 70% of Canadian seals killed are killed on "The Front", the vast majority of private monitors focus on the St. Lawrence hunt, due to its more convenient location.
The 2006 St. Lawrence leg of the hunt was officially closed on April 3, 2006. Sealers had exceeded the quota by 1,000 animals by the time the hunt was closed.
While the Inuit hunt seals for food, tools, energy, clothes, and art, the commercial hunters only hunt for hides, often leaving the body intact. The only part the Inuit do not use is the bladder, which they float to sea as part of custom.

Harp Seals eat a wide variety of fish and other sea creatures, and their diet seems to vary during different stages of life. Since reporting of the stomach contents of killed seals began in 1941, at least 67 species of fish and 70 species of invertebrates have been found to be part of the Harp Seal's diet. After the Canadian cod collapse many French fishermen and politicians blamed Harp Seals for the destruction and hindering the recovery of the North-West Atlantic Cod population. Although cod is a major contribution to Harp Seals diets, most of the cod is Arctic Cod and not the commercial Atlantic. The ratio is about 36:10 although the total tonnage of cod is around 200,000 tonnes. Although the effect of record population levels of harp seals on the recovery of the Atlantic cod stocks has been disputed, the accumulated evidence is such that most scientists now accept that cod populations are now in a seal predator trap. It is widely accepted that harp seals did not cause the collapse. However, a strong case can be made that both harp and hooded seals contributed to that collapse, as did other factors such as environmental change and marine community shifts. The issue with most regarding the cod stocks is that if the hunting were to stop, the population would grow and therefore cause total prey consumption to increase. Even with heavy hunting, from 1990 to 1999 there was a 800,000-tonne (32%) increase in fish consumption by seals. If the hunt were to stop, the belief is that the population would skyrocket and within a few years more than likely double the consumption rate. The Harp Seal is at the top of its food chain and has few natural predators to keep its population at bay. For more information, review Northwest Atlantic Harp Seals Stock Status Report 2000 from the Canadian Government.

Each year, mature females (5-6 years old) give birth to a single pup, typically in late February. Pups weigh approximately 10 kg and are 80â85 cm long. Immediately after giving birth, the mother smells her offspring, and from that point on will only ever feed her own pup, whose scent she remembers. Harp Seal milk contains up to 50% fat, so pups gain over 2 kg per day when nursing, which lasts roughly 12 days. During this time the mother does not eat, and will lose up to 3 kg per day of body weight. Weaning is abrupt; the mother simply leaves and never comes back. The stranded pup will cry at first, and then become very sedentary to conserve body fat.
Pups are unable to swim or find food until they are about 25 days old, leaving them very vulnerable to Polar Bears and humans during this time. Due in part to the period of helplessness as infants, and to the long time it takes them to become proficient swimmers, as many as 30% of pups fail to survive their first year. Also, although it is not legal to catch seals using nets, thousands of seals are inadvertently killed in commercial fishing nets every year.
As mother Harp Seals wean their young, mature males (6â7 years old) roam around breeding with the females promiscuously. Courtship begins on the ice; however the actual mating takes place in the water. Harp Seals have delayed implantation, meaning the fertilized egg becomes an embryo, but does not implant in the uterus right away. The embryo will float around for about three and a half months before implanting and beginning to grow. This allows all the females to give birth within a very small time window each year, when the ice pack is available for giving birth and raising their young.

Please help me ive spent hours trying to find out!!!!!!!?




Jazzie


"Astrologers can predict your personality from the arrangement of the stars and planets at your birth"

Has this been academically researched?
What were the findings?
What methods were employed to find it out?

Please help me by answering these questions, i cant find the answers anywhere and i need to do this homework asap, please help

thanks



Answer
Astrology is rubbish, says new research
Times of India/August 17, 2003

London -- Extensive scientific research over more than 40 years has finally confirmed what many always believed: that astrology is rubbish, and that it is based on the principle of deception.

The research began in London in 1958, and has just been published in the current edition of the respected Journal of Consciousness Studies. It is hailed as the most thorough scientific study ever made into the subject.

Astrologers have for centuries claimed to be able to extract deep insights into the personality and destiny of people using nothing more than the details of the time and place of birth.

The research debunks astrology's central claim - that human characteristics are moulded by the influence of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of a person's birth.

The findings caused alarm and anger in astrological circles. Roy Gillett, the president of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, told The Telegraph the study's findings should be treated "with extreme caution" and accused the researchers of seeking to "discredit astrology."

In the course of the study, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people over several decades - most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subjects should have had very similar traits.

The babies were originally recruited as part of a medical study into how the circumstances of birth can affect future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March that year were registered and their development monitored at regular intervals.

Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts.

The scientists failed to find any evidence of similarities between the "time twins", however. "The test conditions could hardly have been more conducive to success... but the results are uniformly negative," the research report said.

Analysis of the research was carried out by Geoffrey Dean, a scientist and former astrologer based in Perth, Australia, and Ivan Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dean said that the consistency of the findings weighed heavily against astrology.

"It has no acceptable mechanism, its principles are invalid and it has failed hundreds of tests. But no hint of these problems will be found in astrology books which, in effect, are exercises in deception," he said.

Dean is ready for a torrent of criticism: "I'm probably the most hated person in astrology because I'm regarded as a turncoat."

The research undermined the claims of astrologers, who typically work with birth data far less precise than that used in the study.

Dean said: "They sometimes argue that times of birth just a minute apart can make all the difference by altering what they call the 'house cusps'," he said. "But in their work, they are happy to take whatever time they can get from a client."

Dean and Kelly also sought to determine whether stargazers could match a birth chart to the personality profile of a person among a random selection.

They reviewed the evidence from more than 40 studies involving over 700 astrologers, but found the results turned out no better than guesswork.

The success rate did not improve even when astrologers were given all the information they asked for and were confident they had made the right choice.




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