If you've been rooting for the whales in the ongoing Supreme Court case involving Navy sonars and our mammoth ocean neighbors, you'll want to hear the latest news in the whaling industry.

This week's International Whaling Convention is devoted to hashing out issues in whale hunting, conservation and research. This year, it's being held in Chile, but the news hits much closer to home.

San Pedro is the home of the American Cetacean Society's Los Angeles chapter. The ACS is an organization devoted to protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The group has sent Kate Sardi, its national research chair, to the convention, and she's been maintaining a blog covering the event.

Follow Sardi's blog all week. Information on ACS' local marine mammal lectures and whale-watching trips is available at the Los Angeles chapter Web site. They've got a few whale-watching excursions coming up in July and August, so sign up now before all the spaces are filled up!

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Roosters, and their owners, can live in Los Angeles for another day without fear of being hassled by The Man.

Los Angeles councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents San Pedro and the Harbor areas, had planned on introducing a city ordinance to limit households to one rooster each. Real estate and land use blog Curbed LA wrote that Hahn had also wanted residents to embed their rooster with microchips. Warning: The Curbed items contain cheeky uses of the word "cock," but are otherwise safe for work.

The law was supposed to give homeowners recourse from incessant cock-a-doodle-dooing, prevented bird flu, and probably bust up any cockfighting rings within the city.

Rooster boosters can breathe a sigh of relief. The motion has been withdrawn, because the city's budget crunch doesn't allow animal control to effectively enforce the measure.

Homeowners seeking peace and quiet from the feathered fiends will once again feel Los Angeles has laid an egg, but urban bird owners have something to crow about.

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Did you know that a well-intended scattering of seeds or breadcrumbs may not be the best things for our flying friends? With the 12th International Migratory Bird Day falling on the second Saturday in May, the City of Hermosa Beach, which sees more than its share of migrating birds, points out on its Web site a list of interesting facts that may ruffle a few feathers among ornithologists, but should ensure a safer spring migratory passage for birds including terns, hawks, cranes, warblers and sparrows:

1) Southern California provides an abundant, natural, year-round food supply for birds to survive without supplementation. If humans don't feed the birds, they will not starve; they will forage for food in other places, thus dispersing their environmental impact over a wider area.

2) When supplementary food is readily available year-round the natural cycles of migration (which are largely determined by seasonal food supplies) may also be disrupted. If birds become dependent on an artificial food source, young birds may not be taught how to forage for natural foods and so risk starvation.

3) Feeding birds can lead to the spread of infectious diseases that can be fatal to certain species of birds. Veterinarians say that without easy access to bird feeders and bird baths, infected animals will die and not infect other healthy birds in the process. Bird feeders also present potential risks to birds, such as window collisions and predators.

4) Feeding birds can attract unwanted guests, like rats.

So what's a bird-lover to do? The answer: Plant native plants that provide food, cover, nesting sites or a combination of resources. Native plants provide food at different times of the year to birds in the form of seeds, fruit or as invertebrate host sites. To access a comprehensive, regionally referenced database of plants that are particularly valuable to specific birds and other beneficial organisms, visit the Audubon Society's Posted by Daily Link at 6:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global positioning technology has come a long way. Prices have come way down and the technology has become more versatile than a high-tech replacement for the Thomas Guide.

Zoombak is marketing itself as a GPS device to help track lost pets. The $200 unit weighs less than 3 ounces and can be attached to a dog's or cat's collar, and the canine or feline can be tracked on the web, via Zoombak's customer service line or through text messaging on a cell phone.

Zoombak also has a unit available for GPS's most customary use, vehicle navigation and tracking. The $250 unit can be fixed inside a vehicle and portable, and can be used to track a vehicle's location and notify subscribers when it enters or leaves a user-defined "safety zone." The GPS device is promoted as a great way for parents to monitor teenagers' driving habits.

The low price and interface has attracted the attention of Martha Stewart and techno-geek sites such as Engadget and Slashdot. Early adopters have taken advantage of the compact size and cost to track other valuables besides pets and cars: An art collector places Zoombaks on expensive pieces, and a pharmaceutical uses the devices to track inventory.

Zoombak is not without its flaws. The $200-$250 price tag is for the physical unit; customers must still pay a monthly service fee to maintain coverage. Real-time cell phone tracking is not yet available. Also, the GPS technology is not yet advanced enough to receive a strong signal while indoors. This is less of a concern for vehicles, but the gadget might not work if a dog or cat happens to be inside a building.

Still, Zoombak would be a useful gadget to have for your lovable four-legged friend. Plus, the cellular-based coverage for the service shows signals to be robust throughout all but the mountainous areas of Southern California. And for other helpful products, information or pet-related chatter, visit the Daily Breeze's South Bay Pets blog and South Bay Pet Talk, which appears online and in the Breeze print edition every Tuesday.

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If one fertile female rabbit is left at the county's Alondra Park within a year's time there could be a colony of 3,500 rabbits.
This is just one of the fun facts you can find here. The Web site is run by Linda Baley from Redondo Beach, who created the rabbit adoption and information site.
The rabbits that she offers for adoption are neutered and healthy. This makes them better pets if you just have to get a bunny for Easter.
Baley's site also stresses that like all pets getting a rabbit is a commitment and shouldn't be taken lightly. Because abandoning rabbits in public parks isn't fair to them or good for the environment.

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My daughter and I staked out the seascape near the Point Vicente Interpretive Center after a field trip with her preschool class on Wednesday. The volunteers who track the whale migration for the American Cetacean Society were abuzz with tales of what they saw the day before: A group of orcas heading for Redondo Beach. So we waited. And watched. And waited. But my disappointed 4-year-old pouted the whole way home because we didn't see a thing.

Turns out we should have stuck around a little longer. According to the ACS Daily Log, Wednesday was the first big day for spotting the whales' northbound return trip

Log notes for March 12:

Our first big northbound count day featured pulses of gray whales throughout the day. One whale milled nearshore for over thirty minutes. One whale BREACHED two times within 1/4 mile offshore. The three whales in our final sighting milled nearshore, and one lunged. We also saw common and bottlenose dolphin.

The log also tracks the totals for the season and has charts comparing this year to last year. Check here foroverview of the project.

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The U.S. Geological Survey released maps Wednesday showing that Burmese pythons, already present in Florida, could find hospitable climates throughout the southern and southwestern United States within the next 100 years. That's right -- 20-foot, 250-pound snakes slithering through the South Bay and Harbor Area.
USA Today reports:

"One of the USGS maps shows where the pythons could live today, an area that expands when scientists use global warming models for 2100.
'We were surprised by the map. It was bigger than we thought it was going to be,' says Gordon Rodda, a USGS zoologist and lead researcher on the project. 'They are moving northward; there’s no question.'
Burmese pythons were introduced to this country as part of the pet trade. The first specimens in the wild were discovered in the mid-1990s in the Florida
Everglades, released by owners who no longer wanted them, says Skip Snow, a wildlife biologist with the National Parks Service in the Everglades. By 2003, there was evidence that the snakes had established breeding colonies in the wild."

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Did you miss the finals of the Westminster Kennel Club 2008 Dog Show? Or do just want to see Uno the beagle some more?
The club's Web site has extensive video of the New York City event.

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A horseback riding program has been proposed for Hernandez Ranch in the Peck Park Canyon area of San Pedro. You can support the program by signing the online petition.

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Chances are that you've never seen a Blue Iguana. And it's not just because they don't live anywhere near the South Bay. The rare reptiles are also endangered -- In 2001 it was determined through a population survey that there were less than 25 Grand Cayman Blue Iguanas in the wild. The International Reptile Conservation Foundation is a nonprofit group that focuses on protecting these and other threatened species, and their habitats. Because of their efforts, more than 200 Blue Iguanas were released in 2004 and are thriving in two protected areas. For more information on how to get involved, or to learn more about endangered reptiles, view International Reptile Conservation Foundation's site.

Redondo Beach resident Desiree Wong blogs about her travels with IRCF, especially with the Blue Iguana program. She also has a lot of local wildlife photography on her site.

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