Aquatic Mammals

Ultra 2013: Best Inflatable Animals and Blow-Up Dolls

Ultra Music Festival is a zoo. From land sharks to killer whales, pink flamingos to African zebras, UMF 2013 is starting to feel a lot like a World Wildlife Foundation fundraiser, complete with endangered species and cuddly critters. See also: The 13 Most Hardcore Ravers at Ultra, as GIFs Attenti ... More >>

The Search for Jumbo Squid in Southern California

See also: *Living on Mars Time: What If Your Day Lasted 24 Hours, 39 Minutes and 35 Seconds? *Lily Simonson's Paintings of Yeti Crabs and Other Creatures Merge Art and Oceanography Once a year, or maybe every four years — no one knows for sure — jumbo squid make their creepily delightful ... More >>

Baby Sea Lion Hits The Road, Heads For Ikea In Carson

A baby sea lion was rescued on the street in Carson, more than eight miles from open water, sheriff's officials reported today. Caught near Avalon Boulevard and Dominguez Street, it appeared the pup took a wrong turn and was headed toward ... Ikea? Who knows. Sheriff's Lt. Chris Bergner told the W ... More >>

Hump Whale Sushi Case Sees Federal Indictments; Kiyoshiro Yamamoto Charged

Santa Monica's late Hump restaurant and two of its sushi chefs were accused by a federal grand jury of selling endangered Sei whale meat, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles announced this afternoon. The jury's nine-count federal indictment names parent company Typhoon Restaurant, Inc., as we ... More >>

The Best Los Angeles Jazz Concerts of 2012

5. Kamasi Washington Footsies Bar, February 8th Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington is a force, and stands as thick as a redwood, which is tough when he is blocking your way to the restroom and he happens to be blasting his horn at that time too. But add in Thundercat on bass, his brother Ronald B ... More >>

SeaWorld Orca Injured in Killer Whale Fight (PHOTO)

PETA has been going after SeaWorld San Diego in recent days for what it alleges is inhumane confinement that led to a huge chunk of flesh being bitten out of orca Nakai. According to the group Nakai and two other killer whales got into it as a result of being incompatible and confined to a relative ... More >>

Josh Nelson Is On Another Planet

This summer, the Mars rover Curiosity will finally reach its destination after a nine month journey. Tomorrow, while the space module prepares to roam the red planet looking for dust, signs of life and a perhaps a good place to put our stuff once the Earth is destroyed, pianist Josh Nelson will be a ... More >>

Joon Lee: The Jazz Junky

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here. Anyone willing to open a jazz club these days must be a little crazy, but if Joon Lee is nuts, he's doing a great job of hiding it. In fact, since its late 2009 debut in Little ... More >>

10 People Making L.A. a Better Place

From to a 70-year-old woman teaching others how to use medical marijuana to a man dedicated to saving the sea lions, these Angelenos prove that do-goodery can be vastly more interesting, creative, and fulfilling than writing a monthly charity check or two. Check out our entire People 2012 issue her ... More >>

Peter Wallerstein: This Sea Lion Walks Into a Sandbar ...

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here. An anxious crowd quickly encircled the sea lion. Lying prone on El Porto beach, it was foaming at the mouth, with red bulging eyes. "Do something," a fat man in a too-tight Lak ... More >>

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Birthday Bash - Blue Whale - 5/4/12

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Birthday Bash Blue Whale 5-4-12 Better than...celebrating Craig Ferguson's birthday. Violist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a really a nice guy - a "beautiful cat" as they might say in advance jazz speak. He radiates an openness and familiarity that few musicians possess and that ... More >>

Anthony Wilson Quartet - Blue Whale - 4/4/12

See also: Anthony Wilson, Guitar Pin-up, Begins His Month-long Residency at the Blue Whale Anthony Wilson Quartet Blue Whale 4/4/12 Better than... the guy from 24 Hour Party People playing guitar all night. Last night, before a full house, guitarist-composer-arranger Anthony Wilson began his four ... More >>

Anthony Wilson, Guitar Pinup, Begins Monthlong Residency at the Blue Whale Tomorrow

Guitarist and L.A. native Anthony Wilson has been a part of the jazz scene since his birth. His 93-year-old father, bandleader/raconteur/legend Gerald Wilson, started swinging before World War II and hasn't stopped, but the younger Wilson grew up in a musical landscape as indebted to Peter Frampton ... More >>

SeaWorld Whales Are Slaves Protected by U.S. Constitution? Federal Judge in SoCal Actually Considers It

SeaWorld Facebook​Updated at the bottom: Case dismissed. First posted at 11:51 a.m. on Monday. You might have blown off PETA's claim that whales under the care of SeaWorld San Diego were deserving of constitutional protection barring slavery (we sure did), but a federal judge in the case toda ... More >>

The Best Los Angeles Jazz Concerts of 2011

Blue Whale​Walter Smith III Blue Whale, December 17 Joon Lee, the modest personality behind Little Tokyo's Blue Whale, is an indispensible part of the local jazz community who books some of the most daring acts in Los Angeles. Saxophonist Walter Smith III, a hard-swinging transplant, was one ... More >>

Walter Smith III Quintet - Blue Whale - 12/17/11

​Walter Smith III Quintet Blue Whale 12-17-11 Better than...a set by Thurston Howell III Houston-born saxophonist Walter Smith III is a busy man. His first-call tenor frequently shares the stage with some of the best young musicians out there, finding a particular affinity with trumpet playe ... More >>

Lisa Mezzacappa's Bait & Switch - Blue Whale - 11-17-11

Sean J. O'Connell​See also: Lisa Mezzacappa Does Not Make Dinner Party Music Lisa Mezzacappa's Bait & Switch Blue Whale 11-17-11 Better than...trying to play those tunes myself. Last night, long after many of Little Tokyo's residents had gone to sleep, bassist LIsa Mezzacappa presented her ... More >>

SeaWorld Whales Are Slaves Held in Violation of 13th Amendment, PETA Says in SoCal Lawsuit

PETA's a FAIL on this one if you ask us.​Updated at the bottom with reaction from SeaWorld and L.A. author Earl Ofari Hutchinson. First posted at 11:27 a.m. Animal rights -- perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. Yet where does the movement go too far, surpassing even the best wishes of a life- ... More >>

VIDEO: Redondo Beach Kayaker Nearly Overturned by Massive Blue Whale

MrRJCtube via YouTubeA kayak's worst nightmare​Whale-watching enthusiasts have been jizzing their wetsuits over the latest handheld footage of a big California blue off the coast of Redondo Beach. The video was shot by YouTube user MrRJCtube, who happened upon his gorgeous specimen while kaya ... More >>

Sea Lion Shot in Waters Off Venice: $5,000 Reward Offered For Info Leading to Capture of Killer

MARThe victim.​Warning: Disturbing photos after the jump. The group Marine Animal Rescue is offering $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever fatally shot a sea lion off Venice last week. The shooting was reported about 3:30 p.m. Aug. 3, according to the organi ... More >>

Red, White and Blue Notes

Whale Meat Seller Pleads Guilty

ahisgett/Flicker​Ginichi Y. Ohira, 50, the Gardena seafood vendor who imported endangered whale meat from Tokyo and sold it to Southern California sushi restaurants, including the now-closed The Hump, pleaded guilty plea on Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court to a misdemeanor charge of knowin ... More >>

Brick's Picks: Big Bands Blowin'

Brick's Picks: You Cannot Change the Laws of Physics, Laws of Physics, Brick

Brick's Picks: Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold

Brick's Picks: Esperanza, the Upsetter

I'M A WHALE WATCHER

MY BIG FAT SWINGING HORN

This week listen up for Adam Schroeder, Allison Miller and Phil Ranelin

BRICK'S PICKS: A Special Kind of Madness

Really Cool Porpoises Prod Dick Van Dyke To Shore

GettyDick Van Dyke swears he was rescued by porpoises​ 1960s celebrity Dick Van Dyke, who starred in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Mary Poppins," could have used some assistance from the shows' magical characters after he fell asleep while on a surfboard. Luckily, some helpful sea animals pr ... More >>

FREE: Odd Future Debuts New Album, Mellowhype's Blackendwhite, Featuring Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler the Creator, 'Gun Sounds, Grams of Coke and Dead Cops'

Left Brain (left), Hodgy Beats (right).​Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All strike again with another boundary-pushing collision of abstract electronic beats and heavy, death-obsessed raps. Yes. Also, a lyric about large, flippered marine mammals: "We march through streets like a pack of walru ... More >>

Brick's Picks: JAZZ SO UNDERGROUND, IT EVEN HIDES FROM YOU

Brick's Picks: Havanarama

Shark Warning North Of L.A. Issued By National Park Service

​Great white sharks? In Southern California. Nice way to start off the summer season. The National Park Service issued a shark warning for the Santa Barbara area on Wednesday following a great white shark sighting off East Beach. A shark might have also attacked a sea lion pup that ended up de ... More >>

Brick's Picks: Redtop's Boogie

Lily The Whale Is Back In Dana Point

KTLA News​We watched television news coverage of the wayward gray whale inside Dana Point Harbor this week and wondered if marine biologists were right: All they could do is stand by, they said, even as onlookers asked if there was more that could be done. It turned out there was: The whale, ... More >>

Hungry Sea Lion Pups Coming Ashore In Southern California

​The organization Marine Animal Rescue reports that " ... the rescues of sea lion pups in very fragile physical conditions are continuing to increase" on the shores of L.A. area beaches this month. KCAL9/CBS2 reported Friday that some of the rescues have happened on Dockweiler State Beach near ... More >>

Natural History Museum Gets Gussied Up: $30 Million New "North Campus" for 2011

​ Hey, Los Angeles, check out your fancy new Natural History Museum! For weeks we'd been getting these cryptic messages from the Natural History Museum's press people about a monumental new project they're working on. Very hush hush. Were they cloning dinosaurs in there, or what? (Anyone ... More >>

Whale Sushi At Santa Monica Restaurant Came From Japan Scientific Hunt

​Whale sushi purchased at a Santa Monica restaurant in September came from an endangered sei whale hunted in Japan under the guise of scientific purposes, a scientific paper published in the journal Biology Letters concludes. Scientists say genetic testing prove that that sashimi served at Th ... More >>

Whale Sushi Restaurant Issues Apology, Admits Wrongdoing

thehump.biz.The Hump.​The Hump, the Santa Monica sushi restaurant charged with serving endangered whale meat, admitted to the crime and issued an apology on its website. "The charge against the restaurant is true: The Hump served whale meat to customers looking to eat what in Japan is widely ... More >>

Santa Monica Could Shut Down Whale-Sushi Spot

thehump.biz​The city of Santa Monica, which apparently owns the land occupied by exotic sushi restaurant The Hump, is looking into allegations that the eatery serves exotic whale meat in violation of federal law. Santa Monica City Attorney Marsha Moutrie told the Santa Monica City Council tha ... More >>

Breaking News: Restaurant's Owner, Sushi Chef Charged In Whale Meat Scandal

​Federal charges were filed Wednesday against a Santa Monica restaurant and its sushi chef for allegedly serving sei whale, an endangered species projected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, the U.S. Attorney's office announced. The criminal complaint charges the The Hump's parent c ... More >>

SAVE THE WHALE WATCHERS

SAVE THE WHALE WATCHERS

GOLD DIGGER?

Cabrillow Whale Watch Program

Larry on Laurie

Or, the perils of being married to an environmentalist

In the Belly of the Whale

The true stories of Moby-Dick