The Sei Whale is a baleen whale, the third largest rorqual after the
Blue Whale and the Fin Whale. It can be found worldwide in all oceans
and adjoining seas, and prefers deep off-shore waters. It tends to
avoid polar and tropical waters and semi-enclosed bodies of water. The
Sei Whale migrates annually from cool and subpolar waters in summer to
temperate and subtropical waters for winter, although in most areas the
exact migration routes are not well known. The whales reach lengths of
up to 20 metres (66 ft) long and weigh up to 45 tonnes (50 tons). It
consumes an average of 900 kilograms (2,000 lb) of food each day,
primarily copepods and krill, and other zooplankton. It is among the
fastest of all cetaceans, and can reach speeds of up to 50 kilometres
per hour (31 mi/hr, 27 knots) over short distances. The whale's name
comes from the Norwegian word for pollock, a fish that appears off the
coast of Norway at the same time of the year as the Sei Whale.
Following large-scale commercial hunting of the species between the
late-nineteenth and late-twentieth centuries when over 238,000
individuals were taken, the Sei Whale is now an internationally
protected species, although limited hunting still occurs under
controversial research programmes conducted by Iceland and Japan. As of
2006, the worldwide population of the Sei Whale was about 54,000, about
a fifth of its pre-whaling population.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sei_Whale>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1645:
English Civil War: In the Battle of Naseby, the main army of King
Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army under Sir
Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naseby>
1807:
In the last major battle in the War of the Fourth Coalition, the French
defeated the Russians at the Battle of Friedland near present-day
Pravdinsk, Russia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Friedland>
1822:
In a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society, English mathematician
Charles Babbage proposed a difference engine, an automatic, mechanical
calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/difference_engine>
1846:
Anglo-American settlers in the Town of Sonoma began a rebellion against
Mexico, proclaiming the California Republic and eventually raising a
homemade flag with a bear and star .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republic>
1985:
TWA Flight 847 was hijacked shortly after takeoff from Athens, where it
with its passengers and crew then endured a three-day intercontinental
ordeal as they were forced to travel back and forth several times
between Beirut and Algiers.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_847>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
stolid (adj):
Having or revealing little emotion or sensibility
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stolid>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and
homely services rendered for love's sake have in them a poetry that is
immortal.
--Harriet Beecher Stowe
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe>