title: Southern right whale

text: It is believed that the right whale populations first split because of the joining of North and South America. The rising temperatures at the equator then created a second split, into the northern and southern groups, preventing them from interbreeding.


title: Southern right whale

text: In 2002, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) accepted Rosenbaum's findings, and recommended that the "Eubalaena" nomenclature be retained for this genus.


title: Southern right whale

text: The cladogram is a tool for visualising and comparing the evolutionary relationships between taxa. The point where a node branches off is analogous to an evolutionary branching – the diagram can be read left-to-right, much like a timeline. The following cladogram of the family Balaenidae serves to illustrate the current scientific consensus as to the relationships between the southern right whale and the other members of its family.


title: Southern right whale

text: Other junior synonyms for "E. australis" have included "B. antarctica" (Lesson, 1828), "B. antipodarum" (Gray, 1843), "Hunterus temminckii" (Gray, 1864), and "E. glacialis australis" (Tomilin, 1962) (see side panel for more synonyms).


title: Southern right whale

text: Like other right whales, the southern right whale is readily distinguished from others by the callosities on its head, a broad back without a dorsal fin, and a long arching mouth that begins above the eye. Its skin is very dark grey or black, occasionally with some white patches on the belly. The right whale's callosities appear white due to large colonies of cyamids (whale lice). It is almost indistinguishable from the closely related North Atlantic and the North Pacific right whales, displaying only minor skull differences. It may have fewer callosities on its head than North Atlantic and more on its lower lips than the two northern species. The biological functions of callosities are unclear, although the primal role has been considered to be for protection against predators.


title: Southern right whale

text: An adult female is and can weigh up to , with the larger records of in length and or up to in weight, making them slightly smaller than other right whales in the Northern Hemisphere. The testicles of right whales are likely to be the largest of any animal, each weighing around . This suggests that sperm competition is important in the mating process.


title: Southern right whale

text: The proportion and numbers of molten-coloured individuals are notable in this species compared with the other species in the Northern Hemisphere. Some whales remain white even after growing up.


title: Southern right whale

text: Like other right whales, they are rather active on the water surface and curious towards human vessels. Southern rights appear to be more active and tend to interact with humans more than the other two northern species. One behaviour unique to the southern right whale, known as "tail sailing", is that of using their elevated flukes to catch the wind, remaining in the same position for a considerable amount of time. It appears to be a form of play and is most commonly seen off the coast of Argentina and South Africa. Some other species such as humpback whales are also known to display. Right whales are often seen interacting with other cetaceans, especially humpback whales and dolphins. There have been records of southern rights and humpbacks thought to be involved in mating activities off Mozambique, and along Bahia, Brazil.


title: Southern right whale

text: On several occasions, calving mothers have been recorded to nurse non-offspring calves along with their own calves. Additionally, a female was seen to accompany a lone humpback whale calf although the actual relationship of this pair is unclear.


title: Southern right whale

text: Southern right whales display strong maternal fidelity to their calving grounds. Calving females are known to return to calving grounds at 3-year intervals. The most commonly observed calving interval is 3 years, but intervals can range from 2 to 21 years. Calving takes place between June and November in calving grounds between 20 and 30° S.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Australia, southern right whales have shown a preference for calving grounds along coastlines with high wave energy, such as the Head of the Bight. Here, the sound of breaking waves may mask the sound of the whales' presence, and so protect infants and calving cows from predators such as killer whales. Deep waters alongside shallower calving grounds may serve as training grounds for calves to build up their stamina ahead of migration.


title: Southern right whale

text: Females give birth to their first calf when they are between eight and ten years old. A single calf is born after a gestation period of one year, about 1 short ton (0.91 t; 0.89 long tons) in weight and 4–6 m (13–20 ft) in length. The calf usually remains with its mother during the first year of its life, during which time it will double in length.


title: Southern right whale

text: Like right whales in other oceans, southern right whales feed almost exclusively on zooplankton, particularly krill. They feed just beneath the water's surface, holding their mouths partly open and skimming water continuously while swimming. They strain the water out through their long baleen plates to capture their prey. A southern right whale's baleen can measure up to 2.8 m (9.2 ft) long, and is made up of 220-260 baleen plates.


title: Southern right whale

text: The global population of southern right whales was estimated at 13,611 in 2009. An estimate published by National Geographic in October 2008 put the southern whale population at 10,000. An estimate of 7,000 followed a March 1998 IWC workshop. Researchers used data about adult female populations from three surveys (one in each of Argentina, South Africa and Australia, collected during the 1990s) and extrapolated to include unsurveyed areas, number of males and calves using available male:female and adult:calf ratios to give an estimated 1999 figure of 7,500 animals. Recovery of the overall population size of the species is predicted to be at less than 50% of its pre-whaling state by 2100 due to heavier impacts of whaling and slower recovery rates. Since hunting ceased, the population is estimated to have grown by 7% a year.


title: Southern right whale

text: The southern right whale spends summer in the far Southern Ocean feeding, probably close to Antarctica. If the opportunity arises, feeding can occur even in temperate waters such as along Buenos Aires. It migrates north in winter for breeding and can be seen by the coasts of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Namibia, Mozambique, Peru, Tristan de Cunha, Uruguay, Madagascar, New Zealand and South Africa; whales have also been known to winter in sub-Antarctic regions. It appears that the South American, South African and Australasian groups intermix very little if at all, because maternal fidelity to feeding and calving habitats is very strong. The mother also passes these choices to her calves.


title: Southern right whale

text: Right whales do not normally cross the warm equatorial waters to connect with the other species and (inter)breed: their thick layers of insulating blubber make it difficult for them to dissipate their internal body heat in tropical waters. Based on historical records and unconfirmed sightings in modern periods, "E. australis" transits may sometimes occur through equatorial waters.


title: Southern right whale

text: Whaling records for the hemisphere include a whaling ground in the central northern Indian Ocean and recent sightings among near-equatorial regions. If the sighting off Kiribati was truly of "E. australis", this species may have crossed the Equator on irregular occasions and their original distributions might have been much broader and more northerly distributed than is currently believed. A stranding of a 21.3 m (71 feet) right whale at Gajana, northwestern India in November 1944 was reported, but the true identity of this animal is unclear.


title: Southern right whale

text: Aside from impacts on whales and environments caused by mankind, their distributions and residences could be largely affected by presences of natural predators or enemies, and similar trends are also probable for other subspecies.


title: Southern right whale

text: Many locations throughout the Southern Hemisphere were named after current or former presences of southern rights, including Walvis Bay, Punta Ballena, Right Whale Bay, Otago Harbour, Whangarei Harbour, Foveaux Strait, South Taranaki Bight, Moutohora Island and Wineglass Bay.


title: Southern right whale

text: Hermanus in South Africa has become known as a centre for whale watching. During the Southern Hemisphere winter months (June – October) the southern right whales migrate to the coastal waters of South Africa, with more than 100 whales known to visit the Hermanus area. Whilst in the area, the whales can be seen with their young as they come to Walker Bay to calve and mate. Many behaviours such as breaching, sailing, lobtailing, or spyhopping can be witnessed. In False Bay whales can be seen from the shore from July to October while both Plettenberg Bay and Algoa Bay are also home to the southern right whales from July to December. They can be viewed from land as well as by boat with licensed operators conducting ocean safaris throughout the year.


title: Southern right whale

text: Recent increases in numbers of whales visiting the north-eastern part of South Africa, the so-called Dolphin Coast such as around Ballito and off Umdloti Beach, indicates the whales' normal ranges are expanding and that re-colonising historical habitats will likely continue as more whales migrate further north.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Namibia, the majority of confirmed whales are restricted to the south of Luderitz, on the southwestern coast. Only a handful of animals venture further north to historical breeding grounds such as at Walvis Bay, but their numbers are slowly increasing. Until illegal hunting ceased, whales were rare along Namibian shores, with no sighting recorded north of Orange River until 1971. Calving activities were first confirmed as recently as the 1980s.


title: Southern right whale

text: Historical records suggest that this whale's regular range could have once reached further northwards up the coasts of (northern Namibia) and Angola as far as Baia dos Tigres (Tiger Bay).


title: Southern right whale

text: Whaling is known to have been carried out off the coast of Gabon, for example at Cape Lopez, and there have been a few confirmed and unconfirmed sightings including one by Jim Darling, a renowned whale researcher.


title: Southern right whale

text: Southern right whales have been spotted in very small numbers off Mozambique and Madagascar. Whales were historically seen in large numbers at various locations such as off the coast of Durban, in Delagoa/Maputo Bay, Inhaca Island, Ponta do Ouro, and around the Bazaruto Archipelago. The first sighting off Mozambique since the end of whaling was in 1997. In recent years, more whales seem to migrate further north to calve, such as at Île Sainte-Marie, Antongil Bay, Fort Dauphin Toliara, Anakao, Andavadoaka, and Antsiranana Bay, at Madagascar's northern tip. Infrequent sightings have been confirmed off the island of Mayotte. Whales were historically taken off the coast of Tanzania, and may still be present occasionally around Zanzibar.


title: Southern right whale

text: Due to illegal whaling by the USSR, the recovery of many stocks including the population off Tristan da Cunha and adjacent areas such as Gough Island has been severely hindered, resulting in relatively few numbers of visiting animals.


title: Southern right whale

text: Based on catch records and recent observations, right whales may be seen as far north as the islands of Saint Helena and Ascension Island.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Brazil, more than 300 individuals have been cataloged through photo identification (using head callosities) by the Brazilian Right Whale Project, maintained jointly by Petrobras (the Brazilian state-owned oil company), and the conservation group, the International Wildlife Coalition. The State of Santa Catarina hosts a concentration of breeding and calving right whales from June to November, and females from this population also calve off Argentinian Patagonia and Uruguay. In recent years, possibly due to changing habitat environments by human activities and conflicts with local fisheries, the number of whales visiting the coasts is decreasing. Sighting in locations other than Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul remain sporadic, such as along Cidreira, Rio de Janeiro coasts like Sepetiba Bay (), Cabo Frio, Macaé, Prado, Bahia, Castelhanos Bay in Ilha Bela, São Paulo coasts such as within Ilha Anchieta State Park, Honey Island, and bays and estuaries of Paranaguá and Superagui National Park, Paraná, and even entering into the lagoon of Lagoa dos Patos. Recent studies also show a decrease in the number of sightings along the southeastern Brazilian coast, which includes the highly urbanized States of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.


title: Southern right whale

text: Further north, small numbers of whales migrate every year to winter or calve in Bahia, in particular at the Abrolhos Archipelago. Here, certain individuals are recorded returning at intervals of 3 or 4 years. Whaling records including those prior to Maury and Townsend indicate that right whales were once more frequent visitors further north, for example at Salvador, Bahia.


title: Southern right whale

text: During the 2012 annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission's Scientific Committee, data was presented regarding the continued phenomenon of southern right whale strandings and high rate of mortality at Península Valdés, Argentina. Between 2003 and 2011, a total of 482 dead right whales were recorded at Península Valdés. There were at least 55 whale deaths in 2010, and 61 in 2011. As in previous years, the vast majority of strandings were calves of the season.


title: Southern right whale

text: There have been increasing sightings in various other locations in recent years, such as on Golfo San Jorge, Tierra del Fuego, Puerto Deseado, Mar del Plata, Miramar, Buenos Aires, and Bahía Blanca.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Uruguay, coastal areas such as Punta del Este host congregating sites for whales in breeding seasons, but these are not likely to be calving grounds. In 2013 the Uruguayan parliament approved the creation of a whale sanctuary off Latin America to aid the recovery of the population. The creation of this protected area had been prevented for nearly a decade by pro-whaling nations such as Japan.


title: Southern right whale

text: For the critically endangered Chile/Peru population, the Cetacean Conservation Center (CCC) has been working on a separate programme for right whales. This population, containing no more than 50 individuals, is under threat from an increase in shipping lanes and the fishing industries. 124 sightings in total were recorded during the period 1964–2008. Aside from vagrants' records, Peru's coastlines possibly host one of the northernmost confirmed range of the species along with Gabon, Senegal, Tanzania, Brazilian coasts, Madagascar, Indian Ocean, western Australia, Kermadec Islands, and tropical waters including South Pacific Islands. The Alfaguara project targeting cetaceans in Chiloe may possibly target this species as well in the future since calving activities have been confirmed in Chiloé Archipelago. Foraging grounds of this population is currently undetected, but possibly Chiloé and down south of Caleta Zorra to southern fiords such as from Penas Gulf to Beagle Channel although numbers of confirmations are small in the Beagle Channel. Hopes are arising for the establishment of a new tourism industry on the eastern side of the Strait of Magellan, especially near Cape Virgenes and Punta Dungeness, as the number of sightings increases. It is unknown whether these increases are due to re-colonisation by whales from the Patagonian population.


title: Southern right whale

text: Historically, populations of southern right whales in Oceanian regions were robust. Early settlers of Wellington, New Zealand, and the River Derwent in Tasmania complained that sounds of cavorting whales kept them awake at night. In July 1804, clergyman Robert Knopwood claimed that in crossing the River Derwent, "we passed so many whales that it was dangerous for the boat to go up the river unless you kept very near the shore".


title: Southern right whale

text: By the 1890s southern right whales had been brought to the brink of extinction, with over 25,000 whales killed in Australia and New Zealand.


title: Southern right whale

text: Studies of population structure and mating systems have shown that the southwest Australian and New Zealand populations are genetically differentiated. The results of satellite tracking suggest that there are at least some interactions between populations in Australia and New Zealand, but the extent of this is unknown. The two groups may share migratory corridors and calving grounds. The return of southern right whales to the Derwent River and other parts of Australia in recent decades is a sign that they are slowly recovering from their earlier exploitation to near extinction.


title: Southern right whale

text: Southern right whales in Australian waters show higher rate of recoveries, as they have increased from 2,100 whales in 2008 to 3,500 in 2010. Two genetically distinct groups inhabit Australian waters: the southwestern population of 2,900 whales - in 2012 currently holding the majority of the overall Australian population - and the critically endangered southeastern group, counting only dozens to 300 individuals.


title: Southern right whale

text: Right whales can be found in many parts of southern Australia, where the largest population is found at the Head of the Bight in South Australia, a sparsely populated area south of the middle of the Nullarbor Plain. Over 100 individuals are seen there annually from June to October. Visitors can view the whales from cliff-top boardwalks and lookouts, with whales swimming almost directly below, or by taking a scenic flight over the marine park. A more accessible South Australian location for viewing whales is Encounter Bay where the whales can be seen just off the beaches of the Fleurieu Peninsula, centred around the surfing town of Middleton. The whales have established a newer nursery-ground near Eyre Peninsula, especially at Fowlers Bay. Numbers are much smaller at these locations compared to those in the Bight, with an average of a couple of whales per day, but there were regular sightings of more than ten whales at a time off Basham Beach, near Middleton. The South Australian Whale Centre at Victor Harbor has information on the history of whaling and whale-watching in the area, and maintains an on-line database of whale sightings.


title: Southern right whale

text: In June 2021 a female gave birth off Christies Beach, a southern suburb of Adelaide, and remained in the shallows off the beach for some time, attracting large crowds.


title: Southern right whale

text: Whale numbers are scarcer in Victoria, where the only established breeding ground which whales use each year, in very small numbers, is at Warrnambool. However, as the whales do seem to be increasing in number generally, but not showing any dramatic increases at Warrnambool, they may be extending their wintering habitats into other areas of Victoria, where the numbers of sightings are slowly increasing. These areas include around Melbourne, such as in Port Phillip Bay, along Waratah Bay, at Ocean Grove, Warrnambool, on Mornington Peninsula, in Apollo Bay, and on Gippsland coasts and at Wilsons Promontory.


title: Southern right whale

text: Whale numbers in Tasmania are relatively small, however sightings have increased in recent years. Some whales migrate through Tasmanian waters while some others remain throughout wintering seasons.


title: Southern right whale

text: Waters off the coasts of Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland coasts have all historically been inhabited by whales. Their historical range was much wider than it is today, and reached around the southern coast of the continent, extending up to Australian Abrolhos Island, Exmouth and Shark Bay on the west coast, and on the east coast as far north as Hervey Bay, Moreton Bay and Great Barrier Reef. Today, the east-coast population remains endangered and very small (in the low-tens), contributing to small numbers and limited re-colonization, but increases have been confirmed in many areas such as Port Jackson, Port Stephens, Twofold Bay, Jervis Bay, Broulee, Moruya River, Narooma, and Byron Bay. 12 foraging areas have been officially announced by the Australian government.


title: Southern right whale

text: In sub-Antarctic regions, numbers of whales visiting long-used habitats differ drastically by location. The population is recovering well at the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands, while whale numbers are less successful at Macquarie Island.


title: Southern right whale

text: It is not known whether Australian populations will re-colonise historical oceanic habitats such as Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island with Lord Howe Seamount Chain (historically known as the "Middle Ground" for whalers)


title: Southern right whale

text: The current population of right whales in New Zealand waters is difficult to establish. However, studies by the Department of Conservation and sightings reported by locals have helped to build up a better picture. The pre-exploitation size of the New Zealand group is estimated at between 28,800 and 47,100 whales. 35,000 – 41,000 catches were made between 1827 and 1980. The number of whales surviving commercial and illegal whaling operations is estimated to have decreased to just 110 whales (around 30 of which were females) in 1915. As a result of such a steep decline in numbers, the population of southern right whales in this region has experienced a population bottleneck and suffers from low genetic diversity.


title: Southern right whale

text: The population at the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands is showing a remarkable recovery but continues to have some of the lowest genetic diversities in the world. In the Campbell Islands, recovery is slower. Here, the population is estimated to have dropped to as low as 20 individuals post WWII. There had been no confirmed sightings or strandings of right whales for 36 years until 1963 when four separate sightings including a cow-calf pair were made over a wide area. Remnants of sub-Antarctic populations were reported in the 1980s and re-discovered in the 1990s.


title: Southern right whale

text: Today, the majority of right whales congregate at the Auckland and Campbell Islands, where they form exceptionally dense and limited congregations including mating adults and calving females. In the waters around Port Ross up to 200 whales may winter at the same time. It is notable that whales of all age groups are present in this small area annually, not only using them as feeding and summering grounds but also for wintering, breeding, and calving during harsh, cold periods. Low genetic diversity as a result of population decline has caused changes in skin coloration amongst this group.


title: Southern right whale

text: Scientists used to believe there was a very small remnant population of southern right whales inhabiting New Zealand's main islands (North and South Island), estimated to contain 11 reproductive females. In winter, whales migrate north to New Zealand waters and large concentrations occasionally visit the southern coasts of South Island. Bay areas along Foveaux Strait from Fiordland region to northern Otago are important breeding habitats for right whales, especially Preservation, Chalky Inlets, Te Waewae Bay, and Otago Peninsula. Calving activities are observed all around New Zealand, but with more regularity around North Island shores from the Taranaki coast in the west to Hawke's Bay, Bay of Plenty in the east, and areas in Hauraki Gulf such as Firth of Thames or Bay of Islands in the north.


title: Southern right whale

text: There are various parts of the nation where large numbers of whales were seen historically, but sightings are less common nowadays. These areas include the Marlborough Region, especially from Clifford Bay and Cloudy Bay to Port Underwood, Golden Bay, Awaroa Bay, and coastlines on West Coast and Hokianga Harbour in Northland. Other than a handful of confirmed observations, very little information is available for modern migrations to historical oceanic habitats of Kermadec Islands and Chatham Islands. The northernmost sighting recorded historically was at 27°S.


title: Southern right whale

text: A 2009 study revealed that the right whale populations from New Zealand's main islands and the sub-Antarctic islands interbreed, though it is still unknown whether the two stock originally came from a single population. Feeding areas in pelagic waters are unclear while congregations have been confirmed along the southern edge of the Chatham Rise.


title: Southern right whale

text: Some Australian ranges are located close to the ranges of New Zealand groups (Norfolk Island, Macquarie Island). It is unclear whether whales historically or currently from these Australian ranges once originated in New Zealand groups.


title: Southern right whale

text: In oceanic islands and offshore waters other than the above-mentioned areas, very little about the presence and recovery status of southern right whales is known. Right whales' historical ranges were much greater than today; during the whaling era of the 19th century whales were known to occur in lower latitude areas such as around the Pacific Islands, off the Gilbert Islands (nowadays Kiribati), and also to frequent lower latitudes of the central Indian Ocean.


title: Southern right whale

text: It is unclear whether right whales have been historically or currently distributed among parts of hemisphere lacking great land masses and reached far more pelagic islands such as Alejandro Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe Islands, Hanga Roa, Pitcairn, Galapagos Islands, and the Easter Island.


title: Southern right whale

text: Populations among sub-Antarctic islands in the Scotia Sea such as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and Falkland Islands were severely damaged and show slower recoveries today. Antarctic distributions are difficult to establish due to low levels of sightings around oceanic islands in these areas, including Elephant Island.


title: Southern right whale

text: Historically, there were known to be populations which summered in the Crozet Islands and the Kerguelen Islands, and migrated to La Roche Godon and Île Saint-Paul, Île Amsterdam, and the Central Indian Ocean. They may be distinct from the population of whales seen on Mozambique coasts. Repopulation of whales among these areas of the Indian Ocean is likely to be happening at even lower rates than in other areas. Sightings have been fewer in modern periods among Crozet, Réunion, Mauritius, Marion Islands, Île Amsterdam, and Kerguelen.


title: Southern right whale

text: Killings of these whales have been recorded on central Indian Ocean near the equator, especially around the area between Diego Garcia, Egmont Islands, and the Great Chagos Bank in the west, and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the east. The range of whales in the Indian Ocean is comparable to the range of some other populations around South America, Africa, and the South Pacific islands including Kiribati, the northernmost reach of all the populations known today.


title: Southern right whale

text: By 1750 the North Atlantic right whale was as good as extinct for commercial purposes, and the American whalers moved into the South Atlantic before the end of the 18th century. The most southerly Brazilian whaling station was established in 1796, in Imbituba. Over the next hundred years, American whaling spread into the Southern and Pacific Oceans, where the American fleet was joined by fleets from several European nations.


title: Southern right whale

text: The southern right whale had been coming to Australian and New Zealand waters in large numbers before the 19th century, but was extensively hunted from 1800 to 1850. Hunting gradually declined with the whale population and then all but ended in coastal waters in Australasia. The beginning of the 20th century brought industrial whaling, and the catch grew rapidly. By 1937, according to whalers' records, 38,000 were harpooned in the South Atlantic, 39,000 in the South Pacific, and 1,300 in the Indian Ocean. Given the incompleteness of these records, the total take was somewhat higher.


title: Southern right whale

text: As it became clear that the population was nearly depleted, the harpooning of right whales was banned in 1937. The ban was largely successful, although some illegal whaling continued for several decades. Madeira took its last two right whales in 1968. Illegal whaling continued off the coast of Brazil for years, and the Imbituba station processed right whales until 1973. The USSR admitted to taking illegally over 3,300 during the 1950s and 1960s, although it only reported taking 4.


title: Southern right whale

text: Illegal operations continued even in the 1970s, such as the case in Brazil until 1973. It was also revealed that Japan was supporting these destructive hunts by neglecting and disregarding its monitoring obligations. There were agreements between Japan and the Soviet Union to keep their illegal mass whaling activities in foreign/international protected waters secret.


title: Southern right whale

text: Right whales began to be seen again in Australian and New Zealand waters from the early 1960s. It is possible that if the Soviet hunts had never happened, the New Zealand population would be three or four times larger than its current size.


title: Southern right whale

text: The southern right whale, listed as "endangered" by CITES, is protected by all countries with known breeding populations (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay). In Brazil, a federal Environmental Protection Area encompassing some and of coastline in Santa Catarina State was established in 2000 to protect the species' main breeding grounds in Brazil and promote regulated whale watching. The southern right whale is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) as this species has been categorized as being in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant proportion of their range. This species is also covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region (Pacific Cetaceans MoU). In 2017, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species listed the species' status as Least Concern with a population trend listed as "unknown".


title: Southern right whale

text: In Australia, Southern right wales are listed for protection variously under state and federal legislation, as reflected in the table below:


title: Southern right whale

text: A two-year, £740,000 project, led by the British Antarctic Survey began in 2016, to discover why almost 500 young have been washed up on the Valdes Peninsula over the last ten years. The project is funded by the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the EU. Possible reasons are a lack of krill in the whale feeding grounds at South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, exposure to toxic algae and attacks by kelp gulls ("Larus dominicanus").


title: Southern right whale

text: One possibly significant contributor to the calf mortality rate has alarmed scientists – since at least 1996, kelp gulls off the coast of Patagonia have been observed attacking and feeding on live right whales. The kelp gull uses its powerful beak to peck down several centimetres into the skin and blubber, often leaving the whales with large open sores – some of which have been observed to be half a metre in diameter. This predatory behaviour, primarily targeted towards mother/calf pairs, has been continually documented in Argentinian waters, and continues today. Observers note that the whales are spending up to a third of their time and energy performing evasive manoeuvres – therefore, mothers spend less time nursing, and the calves are thinner and weaker as a result. Researchers speculate that many years ago, waste from fish processing plants allowed the gull populations to soar. Their resulting overpopulation, combined with reduced waste output, caused the gulls to seek out this alternative food source. Scientists fear that the gulls' learned behaviour could proliferate, and the IWC Scientific Committee has urged Brazil to consider taking immediate action if and when similar gull behaviour is observed in their waters. Such action may include the removal of attacking gulls, following Argentina's lead in attempting to reverse the trend.


title: Southern right whale

text: Southern right whales are threatened by entanglement in commercial fishing gear and ship strikes. Entanglement in fishing gear can cut through a whale's skin, causing infection, amputation and death. Underwater noise from human activities such as drilling and dredging can interfere with whales' communication, and deter them from their usual habitats and breeding grounds.


title: Southern right whale

text: The southern right whale has made Hermanus, South Africa, one of the world centres for whale watching. During the winter months (June to October), southern right whales come so close to the shoreline that visitors can watch them from the shore as well as from strategically placed hotels. The town employs a "whale crier" (cf. town crier) to walk through the town announcing where whales have been seen. Hermanus also has two boat–based whale watching operators. Southern right whales can also be watched at False Bay from the shore or from the boats of operators in Simon's Town. Plettenberg Bay along the Garden Route of South Africa is also known for whale watching including both land and boat based watching, not only for southern rights (July to December) but throughout the year. Southern right whales can also be seen off the coast of Port Elizabeth with marine eco tours running from the Port Elizabeth harbour, as some southern right whales make Algoa Bay their home for the winter months.


title: Southern right whale

text: Although southern right whales have been seen in neighboring countries including Namibia, Mozambique, and Madagascar, they are not the targeted species for whale watching tours in these countries.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Brazil, Imbituba in Santa Catarina has been recognised as the National Right Whale Capital and holds annual Right Whale Week celebrations in September, when mothers and calves are more often seen. The old whaling station there is now a museum that documents the history of right whales in Brazil. In Argentina, Península Valdés in Patagonia hosts (in winter) the largest breeding population, with more than 2,000 catalogued by the Whale Conservation Institute and Ocean Alliance. As in the south of Argentina, the whales come within of the main beach in the city of Puerto Madryn and form a part of the large ecotourism industry. Uruguay's Parliament on 4 September 2013, has become the first country in the world to make all of its territorial waters a haven for whales and dolphins. Every year, dozens of whales are sighted, especially in the departments of Maldonado and Rocha during winter. Swimming activities for commercial objectives had been banned in the area in 1985, but were legalised in Gulf of San Matías, the only place in the world where humans are formally allowed to swim with the species. Land-based watching and occasional kayaking with whales activities are seen at other locations not renowned for whale-watching as much as Puerto Madryn and with less restrictions on approaching whales, such as at Puerto Deseado, Mar del Plata, and Miramar in Buenos Aires.


title: Southern right whale

text: Though their numbers are dangerously small, land-based sightings of whales are on the increase in recent years off Chile and Peru, with some hope of creating new tourism industries, especially in the Strait of Magellan, most notably around Cape Virgenes.


title: Southern right whale

text: In Australia's winter and spring, southern right whales can be seen migrating along the Great Australian Bight in South Australia. Viewing locations include the Bunda Cliffs and Twin Rocks, the Head of the Bight (where a visitor centre and cliff-top viewing boardwalks exist) and at Fowler's Bay where accommodation and charter boat tours are offered. Another popular South Australian locality for Southern right whale watching is Encounter Bay, where the South Australian Whale Centre supports local whale-watchers and tourists. In Warrnambool, Victoria, a right whale nursery is also a popular tourist attraction. The whales' migratory range is extending as the species continues to recover and re-colonize other areas of the continent, including the coastal waters of New South Wales and Tasmania. In Tasmania, the first birth since the 19th century was recorded in 2010 in the River Derwent.


title: Southern right whale

text: Similarly, southern right whales may provide chances for the public to observe whales from shore on New Zealand's coasts with greater regularity than in the past, especially in southern Fiordland, Southland through to the Otago coast, and on the North Island coast, especially in Northland and other locations such as the Bay of Plenty and the South Taranaki Bight. Births of calves could have always been occurring on the main islands' coasts, but were confirmed with two cow-calf pairs in 2012.


title: Southern right whale

text: In the Subantarctic Islands and in the vicinity of Antarctica, where few regulations exist or are enforced, whales can be observed on expedition tours with increasing probability. The Auckland Islands are a specially designated sanctuary for right whales, where whale-watching tourism is prohibited without authorisation.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: The Burr conspiracy was a plot alleged to have been planned by Aaron Burr in the years during and after his term as Vice President of the United States under US President Thomas Jefferson. According to the accusations against Burr, he attempted to use his international connections and support from a cabal of US planters, politicians, and army officers to establish an independent country in the Southwestern United States and parts of Mexico. Burr's version was that he intended to farm 40,000 acres (160 km) in the Texas Territory which had been leased to him by the Spanish Crown.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In February 1807, Burr was arrested on Jefferson's orders and indicted for treason, despite a lack of firm evidence. While Burr was ultimately acquitted of treason due to the specificity of the US Constitution, the fiasco further destroyed his already faltering political career. Effigies of his likeness were burned throughout the country and the threat of additional charges from individual states forced him into exile in Europe.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr's true intentions remain unclear and, as a result, have led to varying theories from historians: some claim that he intended to take parts of Texas and the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase for himself, while others believe he intended to conquer Mexico or even the entirety of North America. The number of men backing him is also unclear, with accounts ranging from fewer than 40 men to upwards of 7,000.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: General James Wilkinson was one of Burr's key partners. The Commanding General of the United States Army at the time, Wilkinson was known for his attempt to separate Kentucky and Tennessee from the union during the 1780s.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr persuaded President Thomas Jefferson to appoint Wilkinson to the position of Governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1805. Wilkinson would later send a letter to Jefferson that Wilkinson claimed was evidence of Burr's treason.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: While Burr was still vice president, in 1804 he met with Anthony Merry, the British Minister to the United States. As Burr told several of his colleagues, he suggested to Merry that the British might regain power in the Southwest if they contributed guns and money to his expedition. Burr offered to detach Louisiana from the Union in exchange for a half million dollars and a British fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. Merry wrote, "It is clear Mr. Burr... means to endeavour to be the instrument for effecting such a connection—he has told me that the inhabitants of Louisiana ... prefer having the protection and assistance of Great Britain." "Execution of their design is only delayed by the difficulty of obtaining previously an assurance of protection & assistance from some foreign power."


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In November 1805, Burr again met with Merry and asked for two or three ships of the line and money. Merry informed Burr that London had not yet responded to Burr's plans which he had forwarded the previous year. Merry gave him fifteen hundred dollars. Those Merry worked for in London expressed no interest in furthering an American secession. In the spring of 1806, Burr had his final meeting with Merry. In this meeting Merry informed Burr that still no response had been received from London. Burr told Merry, "with or without such support it certainly would be made very shortly." Merry was recalled to Britain on June 1, 1806.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In 1805 Burr conceived plans to emigrate, which he claimed was for the purpose of taking possession of land in the Texas Territories leased to him by the Spanish (the lease was granted, and copies still exist).


title: Burr conspiracy

text: That year Burr traveled from Pittsburgh, down the Ohio River, to the Louisiana Territory. In the spring, Burr met with Harman Blennerhassett, who proved valuable in helping Burr further his plan. He provided friendship, support, and most importantly, access to Blennerhassett Island which he owned on the Ohio River, about 2 miles (3 km) below what is now Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 1806, Blennerhassett offered to provide Burr with substantial financial support. Burr and his co-conspirators used this island as a storage space for men and supplies. Burr tried to recruit volunteers to enter Spanish territories. In New Orleans, he met with the Mexican associates, a group of "criollos" whose objective was to conquer Mexico (still part of New Spain at the time). Burr was able to gain the support of New Orleans' Catholic bishop for his expedition into Mexico. Reports of Burr's plans first appeared in newspaper reports in August 1805, which suggested that Burr intended to raise a western army and "to form a separate government."


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In early 1806, Burr contacted the Spanish diplomat Carlos Martínez de Irujo y Tacón and told him that his plan was not just western secession, but the capture of Washington, D.C. Irujo wrote to his masters in Madrid about the coming "dismemberment of the colossal power which was growing at the very gates" of New Spain. Irujo gave Burr a few thousand dollars to get things started. The Spanish government in Madrid took no action.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Following the events in Kentucky, Burr returned to the West later in 1806 to recruit more volunteers for a military expedition down the Mississippi River. He began using Blennerhassett Island in the Ohio River to store men and supplies. The Governor of Ohio grew suspicious of the activity there, and ordered the state militia to raid the island and seize all supplies. Blennerhassett escaped with one boat, and he met Burr at the operation's headquarters on the Cumberland River. With a significantly smaller force, the two headed down the Ohio to the Mississippi River and New Orleans. Wilkinson had vowed to supply troops at New Orleans, but he concluded that the conspiracy was bound to fail, and rather than providing troops, Wilkinson revealed Burr's plan to President Jefferson.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In February and March 1806, the federal attorney for Kentucky, Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, wrote Jefferson several letters warning him that Burr planned to provoke a rebellion in Spanish-held parts of the West, in order to join them to areas in the Southwest and form an independent nation under his rule. Similar accusations were published against local Democratic-Republicans in the Frankfort, Kentucky, newspaper "Western World". Jefferson dismissed Daveiss' accusations against Burr, a Democratic-Republican, as politically motivated.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Daveiss brought charges against Burr, claiming that he intended to make war with Mexico. However, a grand jury declined to indict Burr, who was defended by the young attorney Henry Clay.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: By mid-1806, Jefferson and his cabinet began to take more notice of reports of political instability in the West. Their suspicions were confirmed when General Wilkinson sent the president correspondence which he had received from Burr. The text of the letter that was used as the principal evidence against Burr is as follows:


title: Burr conspiracy

text: In an attempt to preserve his good name, Wilkinson edited the letters. They had been sent to him in cypher, and he altered the letters to testify to his own innocence and Burr's guilt. He warned Jefferson that Burr was "meditating the overthrow of [his] administration" and "conspiring against the State." Jefferson alerted Congress of the plan, and ordered the arrest of anyone who conspired to attack Spanish territory. He warned authorities in the West to be aware of suspicious activities. Convinced of Burr's guilt, Jefferson ordered his arrest. Burr continued his excursion down the Mississippi with Blennerhassett and the small army of men which they had recruited in Ohio. They intended to reach New Orleans, but in Bayou Pierre, 30 miles north of Natchez, they learned that a bounty was out for Burr's capture. Burr and his men surrendered at Bayou Pierre, and Burr was taken into custody. Charges were brought against him in the Mississippi Territory, but Burr escaped into the wilderness. He was recaptured on February 19, 1807, and was taken back to Virginia to stand trial.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr was charged with treason because of the alleged conspiracy and stood trial in Richmond, Virginia. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence of treason, as Chief Justice John Marshall did not consider conspiracy without actions sufficient for conviction. A Revolutionary War hero, U.S. Senator, New York State Attorney General and Assemblyman, and finally vice president under Jefferson, Burr adamantly denied and vehemently resented all charges against his honor, his character or his patriotism.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr was charged with treason for assembling an armed force to take New Orleans and separate the Western from the Atlantic states. He was also charged with high misdemeanor for sending a military expedition against territories belonging to Spain. George Hay, the prosecuting U.S. Attorney, compiled a list of over 140 witnesses, one of whom was Andrew Jackson. To encourage witnesses to cooperate with the prosecution, Thomas Jefferson gave Hay blank pardons containing Jefferson's signature and the discretion to issue them to all but "the grossest offenders"; Jefferson later amended these instructions to include even those the prosecution believed to be most culpable, if that meant the difference in convicting Burr.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: The case was controversial from the beginning. The high misdemeanor charge was dropped when the government was unable to prove that the expedition had been military in nature or directed toward Spanish territory.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr's trial brought into question the ideas of executive privilege, state secrets privilege, and the independence of the executive. Burr's lawyers, including John Wickham, asked Chief Justice Marshall to subpoena Jefferson, claiming that they needed documents from Jefferson to present their case accurately. Jefferson proclaimed that, as president, he was "Reserving the necessary right of the President of the U S to decide, independently of all other authority, what papers, coming to him as President, the public interests permit to be communicated, & to whom." He insisted that all relevant papers had been made available, and that he was not subject to this writ because he held executive privilege. He also argued that he should not be subject to the commands of the judiciary, because the Constitution guaranteed the executive branch's independence from the judicial branch. Marshall decided that the subpoena could be issued despite Jefferson's position of presidency. Though Marshall vowed to consider Jefferson's office and avoid "vexatious and unnecessary subpoenas," his ruling was significant because it suggested that, like all citizens, the president was subject to the law.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Marshall had to consider the definition of treason and whether intent was sufficient for conviction, rather than action. Marshall ruled that because Burr had not committed an act of war, he could not be found guilty (see "Ex parte Bollman"); the First Amendment guaranteed Burr the right to voice opposition to the government. To merely suggest war or to engage in a conspiracy was not enough. To be convicted of treason, Marshall ruled, an overt act of participation must be proven with evidence. Intention to divide the union was not an overt act: "There must be an actual assembling of men for the treasonable purpose, to constitute a levying of war." Marshall further supported his decision by indicating that the Constitution stated that two witnesses must see the same overt act against the country. Marshall narrowly construed the definition of treason provided in Article III of the Constitution; he noted that the prosecution had failed to prove that Burr had committed an "overt act" as the Constitution required. As a result, the jury acquitted the defendant.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Witness testimony was inconsistent, and one of the few witnesses to testify to an "overt act of treason," Jacob Allbright, perjured himself in the process. Allbright testified that militia General Edward Tupper raided Blennerhasset Island and attempted to arrest Harman Blennerhasset, but had been stopped by armed followers of Burr, who raised their weapons at Tupper to threaten him. In fact, Tupper had previously provided a deposition stating that when he visited the island, he had no arrest warrant, had not attempted to effect an arrest of anyone, had not been threatened, and had a pleasant visit with Blennerhasset.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: The historians Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein write that Burr "was not guilty of treason, nor was he ever convicted, because there was no evidence, not one credible piece of testimony, and the star witness for the prosecution had to admit that he had doctored a letter implicating Burr." In contrast, lawyer and author David O. Stewart concludes that Burr's intention included "acts that constituted the crime of treason, but that in the context of 1806, "the moral verdict is less clear." He points out that neither invasion of Spanish lands nor secession of American territory was considered treasonous by most Americans at the time, in view of the fluid boundaries of the American Southwest at that time, combined with the widespread expectation (shared by President Jefferson) that the United States might well divide into two nations.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Immediately following the acquittal, straw effigies of Burr, Blennerhassett, Martin, and Marshall were hanged and burned by angry mobs.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Burr, with his prospects for a political career quashed, left the United States for a self-imposed exile in Europe until 1811. He first traveled to England in 1808 in an attempt to gain support for a revolution in Mexico. He was ordered out of the country, so he traveled to France to ask for the support of Napoleon. He was denied and found himself too poor to pay his way home. Finally, in 1811, he was able to sail back to the United States on a French ship.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Upon returning to the United States, he assumed the surname of "Edwards" and returned to New York to resume his law practice. He married Eliza Jumel, the wealthy socialite widow of Stephen Jumel, but she left him after only four months of marriage due to his land speculations and financial mismanagement reduced her finances. Historians attribute his self-imposed exile and using a different surname in part to escape from his creditors, as he was deeply in debt. Burr died on September 14, 1836, the same day that his divorce from his wife was granted.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: Following his involvement with Burr, James Wilkinson was twice investigated by Congress on issues related to the West. Following an unsuccessful court-martial ordered by President James Madison in 1811, he was allowed to return to his military command in New Orleans.


title: Burr conspiracy

text: When the conspiracy was uncovered, Blennerhassett's mansion and island were occupied and allegedly plundered by members of the Virginia militia. He fled with his family, but he was twice arrested. The second time he was held in prison until Burr's acquittal. Blennerhassett went to Mississippi, where he became a cotton planter. Later he moved with his family to Canada, where he practiced law and lived in Montreal. Late in life, Blennerhassett left for Europe and died in Guernsey on February 2, 1831.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The Antonov An-30 (NATO reporting name: Clank), is a development of the An-24 designed for aerial cartography.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The first aerial survey version of the Antonov An-24 was designed by the Beriev OKB and designated An-24FK. The FK stood for "fotokartograficheskiy" (photo mapping). The prototype was converted from a production An-24A at Beriev's No. 49 construction shop during 1966. The An-24FK made its first flight on 21 August 1967, with state acceptance trials being completed in 1970 and civil certification completed in 1974. Redesignated An-30, production began in 1971 at the Antonov factory. 123 production An-30s were manufactured between 1971 and 1980 in Kiev in two main versions.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The Antonov An-30 is a derivative of the An-24, fitted with an entirely new fuselage forward of frame 11. The fuselage nose is extensively glazed. Housed within the new nose section are the navigator and precise navigational equipment, including an optical sight for ensuring accuracy of aerial photography. To enable accurate and repeatable survey flights, standard equipment for the An-30 included computer flight path control technology. This additional equipment replaced the radar on the An-24. The positioning of the new navigational equipment required the flightdeck to be raised by 41 cm in comparison to the An-24, giving the aircraft its other main feature, a hump containing the cockpit.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The radio operator and flight engineer sat in the first cabin aft of and below the flightdeck. The mission equipment was located further aft, in a cabin featuring five camera windows in the floor. Each camera window could be closed with covers to protect the glass panels. The covers were located in special fairings protruding from the fuselage underside. In the normal aerial photography role, four or five cameras were carried aboard. Three cameras were mounted vertically, intended for mapping purposes. The remaining two cameras were pointed at an angle of 28° on each side of the aircraft, for oblique photography. The same fuselage compartment contained workstations for two camera operators and a crew rest area.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The aircraft's cameras could be used between 2,000 and 7,000 m (6,500 and 23,000 ft) and the scale of the resultant photographs was between 1:200,000 and 1:15,000,000. The aircraft was supplied with four or five cameras.


title: Antonov An-30

text: In addition to its principal use as a survey aircraft, it has also been used by Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia and Ukraine to carry out surveillance under the Open Skies Treaty.


title: Antonov An-30

text: The An-30 has also been used as a weather control aircraft as the An-30M. Some have been fitted with frozen tanks of carbon dioxide to be ejected into the sky to form artificial rain clouds. These An-30s have also been put to use to avoid crop-damaging hailstorms and also to maintain good weather for, as examples, new airplane maiden flights, important parades like the 1st of May and the 850th anniversary of Moscow in September 1997.


title: Antonov An-30

text: Between 1971 and 1980 a total of 115 aircraft were built and 23 were sold abroad to Afghanistan, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Mongolia and Vietnam.


title: Antonov An-30

text: An-30s completely mapped Afghanistan in 1982, with one shot down by a MANPADS during an aerial photography flight in the Kabul area south of the Panjshir Valley on 11 March 1985.


title: Antonov An-30

text: On 22 April 2014, a Ukrainian An-30 was hit by pro-Russian separatists' small-arms fire while on a surveillance mission over the town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine. The plane landed safely with minor damage. On 6 June 2014, a Ukrainian An-30B was shot down near the city of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine, reportedly by a MANPADS fired by local separatists.


title: St. John's water dog

text: The St. John's water dog, also known as the St. John's dog or the lesser Newfoundland, is an extinct landrace of domestic dog from Newfoundland. Little is known of the types that went into its genetic makeup, although it was probably a random-bred mix of old English, Irish and Portuguese working dogs. They were favourite dogs of fishermen because they had extraordinary qualities like good temperament and working behaviour. The number of St. John's water dogs started declining by the beginning of the 20th century. By the early 1980s, the landrace was extinct.


title: St. John's water dog

text: During the 19th and early 20th centuries, St. John's water dogs were exported from Newfoundland to England. These dogs were crossbred with other dogs to create the retrievers. It was the ancestor of the modern retrievers, including the Flat-Coated Retriever, Curly-Coated Retriever, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, the Golden Retriever, and the Labrador Retriever. The St. John's water dog was also an ancestor to the large and gentle Newfoundland, probably through breeding with Rafeiro do Alentejos brought to the island by the generations of Portuguese fishermen who had been fishing offshore since the 15th century.


title: St. John's water dog

text: The St. John's breed were called "water dogs" because of their love for water and their coat, which was water-resistant. St. John's water dogs were medium-sized, strong, and stocky – more closely resembling modern English Labradors than American Labradors. They had characteristic white patches on the chest, chin, feet, and muzzle. This colouration occasionally manifests in modern Labs as a small white chest patch – known as a "medallion" – or as a few stray white hairs on the feet. The classic tuxedo markings of the St. John's water dog commonly manifest in Labrador Retriever mixes.


title: St. John's water dog

text: Writings as early as the 17th century mention hardy medium-sized black dogs that accompanied Newfoundland fishermen in their boats, and retrieved distant lines or nets of fish, hauling them back to the boat. The dogs were described as having a short thick coat, rudder-like tail, high endurance, and a great love of swimming.


title: St. John's water dog

text: The St. John's water dog was made extinct in its homeland by a combination of two factors. In an attempt to encourage sheep raising, heavy restrictions and taxes were placed on dog ownership during the 19th century. Also their main overseas destination, the UK, imposed a rigorous long-term quarantine on all imported animals, especially dogs (1885) as part of the eradication of rabies. However, in both Newfoundland and the Maritime provinces, there are still large black mixed-breed dogs with many characteristics of the original St. John's water dog.


title: St. John's water dog

text: The last two known St. John's water dogs were photographed in the early 1980s (in old age) having survived in a "very remote area", but both were male, bringing the era of the St. John's water dog to an end.


title: St. John's water dog

text: In the 1970s, Canadian author Farley Mowat had tried to save them by crossing his St. John's water dog, named "Albert", with a Labrador Retriever. Four puppies resulted, and all had the distinctive white markings of their sire. Two puppies died, the other two were given away. One was given to Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the other to Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin. In 1970, Mowat and Albert appeared in an episode of the CBC series "Telescope". The episode includes Mowat telling a bedtime story to his dog.


title: Muhammad Gaddafi

text: Muhammad Muammar Gaddafi (born 15 March 1970; ) is the eldest son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. While he was regarded as a possible successor as ruler of Libya from his father, he was reported to be uninterested in the role.


title: Muhammad Gaddafi

text: He was also the chairman of the General Posts and Telecommunications Company which owned and operated cell phone and satellite services in Libya. The company is the exclusive internet provider to Libya, and immediately after the beginning of protests against the Gaddafi government in February 2011 which led to the Libyan Civil War, it cut internet links between Libya and the rest of the world.


title: Muhammad Gaddafi

text: On 21 August 2011, Muhammad surrendered to rebel forces of the National Transitional Council as they took over Tripoli. While being in custody in his home, he gave a phone interview to Al Jazeera, saying that he surrendered to the rebels and had been treated well before the line went dead from apparent gunfire. The National Transitional Council head later spoke to Al Jazeera assuring Muhammad's safety. Muhammad spoke to Al Jazeera again confirming his safety and that of his family. On 22 August 2011, he escaped reportedly with the help of Gaddafi loyalists.


title: Muhammad Gaddafi

text: On 29 August 2011, he entered Algeria along with several other members of the Gaddafi family. In October 2012, they left a hideaway in Algeria to go to Oman, where they were granted political asylum.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is a Canadian visual effects and computer animation studio headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, with an additional office on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California. SPI is a unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Motion Picture Group.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: The company has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars for their work on "Spider-Man 2" and the computer-animated short film "The ChubbChubbs!", and received many other nominations for their work.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: SPI has provided visual effects for many films; most recent include "The Meg", "", and "". They also provided services for several of director Robert Zemeckis' films, including "Contact", "Cast Away", "The Polar Express", and "Beowulf".


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: Since the foundation of its sister company Sony Pictures Animation in 2002, SPI would go on to animate nearly all of SPA's films, including "Open Season", "Surf's Up", "", and films in the "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "Smurfs" and "Hotel Transylvania" franchises, in addition to animating films for other studios such as "Arthur Christmas" for Aardman Animations (co-produced by SPA), "Storks" and "Smallfoot" for the Warner Animation Group, "The Angry Birds Movie" and its sequel for Rovio Animation, "Over the Moon" for Netflix and Pearl Studio, and "The Sea Beast" for Netflix Animation.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: Sony Pictures Imageworks was formed in 1992 with five employees to use computers to help plan complicated scenes for live-action films. Located in the former TriStar building, their first work was a previsualization for the 1993 film "Striking Distance".


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: To fill the gaps between VFX jobs, SPI decided to partake in a more profitable animation business. Its first independent animated effort was the 5-minute short "The ChubbChubbs!" directed by Eric Armstrong. In 2002, it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. "Early Bloomer", released in 2003, was the division's second short film and originally made as a storyboarding exercise. SPI completed its first feature animation project in 2006 with the release of "Open Season", which was produced by sister company Sony Pictures Animation.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: In 2007, SPI acquired Indian visual effects studio FrameFlow to take advantage of lower labor costs. Renamed to Imageworks India, a modern facility was opened in Chennai a year later. To leverage New Mexico's tax rebates and talent base, a satellite production facility was opened in 2007 in Albuquerque, becoming the largest post-production operation in the state. In 2010, SPI opened a production studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, in order to take advantage of the local talent pool and government film production incentives. Two years later, the studio doubled its Vancouver facilities. At the same time, the Albuquerque studio was closed down due to declining New Mexico's subsidies and difficulty with attracting artist to move there.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: In the beginning of 2014, as part of Sony's cost-cutting move, SPI transferred a portion of its technology team from its headquarters in Culver City to Vancouver. By May 2014, entire headquarters and production had been moved to Vancouver, with only a small office remaining in Culver City. At the same time, SPI closed down its Indian studio, laying off around 100 employees. A year later, over 700 artists moved into a new 74,000-square feet headquarters in Vancouver.


title: Sony Pictures Imageworks

text: During 2009-2010, SPI made transition from traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely singlepass, global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. They have achieved that with "Arnold Renderer", an unbiased stochastic ray tracer. Arnold, started in 1997 by Marcos Fajardo, was co-developed between 2004 and 2009 with SPI, where Marcos was employed, and a commercial branch is being developed by Marcos' Madrid based company "Solid Angle SL" (now owned by Autodesk). Arnold was used on projects such as "Monster House", "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "2012", "Alice in Wonderland", "The Smurfs", "Arthur Christmas" and is being used on all upcoming SPI's films.


title: Star Search

text: Star Search was an American television show that was produced by T.P.E./Rysher Entertainment from 1983 to 1995, hosted by Ed McMahon, and created by Al Masini. A relaunch was produced by 2929 Productions from 2003 to 2004. On both versions of the show, contestants competed in several genres of entertainment. The show was originally filmed at the Earl Carroll Theatre at 6230 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood and later at the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida.


title: Star Search

text: While categories varied slightly from season to season, the ten basic categories during the 1983–1995 version were:


title: Star Search

text: Eight categories were contested per show. Potential contestants auditioned to be on the show. In each category, two selected contestants would compete, a champion and a challenger. The challenger would usually perform first, while the champion performed second. In later seasons, the champion performed first.


title: Star Search

text: All acts were judged by a panel of four judges, and each judge could award an act from one to four stars (later changed to five stars). Once both acts were complete, Ed would reveal the scores, and the best average won. If there was a tie, a studio audience vote broke the tie, in which case the results were revealed at the end of the show.


title: Star Search

text: Any performer must win at least several shows in a row, depending on the number of shows left in the season, to earn an entry into the next round of the competition; usually this was three or four wins in a row. In later seasons, three-match winners were automatically retired. In this case, two new performers would compete in that category the following week.


title: Star Search

text: In most seasons, two semifinal shows took place, one in the fall, the other in the spring, prior to the championship show. Each semifinal used seven judges. No scoring was used, and the judges' votes weren't revealed, but the acts that won their semifinals would then compete in the championship show.


title: Star Search

text: On the championship show, winners of Male Vocalist, Female Vocalist, Vocal Group, Comedy, and Dance, were awarded $100,000 but no record contract was guaranteed. Many Star Search winners from the early seasons secured recording contracts within a few weeks of the end of the competition—first season vocal group winner Sawyer Brown, first season male vocalist champion Sam Harris and second season male vocalist champion Durell Coleman were the first three, and were later followed by second season vocal group winner Limited Warranty, third season female vocalist champion Linda Eder, second season junior male vocalist champion Jimmy Salvemini, whose album was produced by Luther Vandross, fourth season male vocalist champion David Slater, and third season junior female vocalist runner-up Tiffany. Despite not winning her competition (she lost to Melissa Moultrie), Tiffany, performing as 'Tiffany Renee,' was the first "Star Search" alumna to land a #1 hit, with her cover of the Top 5 Tommy James and the Shondells hit "I Think We're Alone Now" —actually improving on the original single's chart performance. The winner of the Spokesmodel category was awarded $100,000 and a contract with a well-known modeling agency. The first Spokesmodel winner was Tracey Ross, who later became a leading actress on the soap opera "Passions". Winners of Junior Vocalist, Junior Dance, Teen Vocalist, and Teen Dance win $10,000.


title: Star Search

text: In early seasons, before the three match limit rule was adopted, the grand champions were determined by how long a champion held their title. While it is believed that Sam Harris holds the record for longest championship, at 14 weeks in Season 1, Harris was actually defeated by singer Beau Williams on Harris' 14th attempt. This record is actually held by singer Durell Coleman (1985), who won the $100,000 on Season 2 with 15 wins and no defeats.


title: Star Search

text: Former MTV veejay Martha Quinn joined the series as co-host for the 1994–95 season, judging the musical groups competition.


title: Star Search

text: "Star Search" was typically syndicated on Fox Television Stations (before October 1986, Metromedia, Inc.), stations owned by the Gaylord Broadcasting Co., stations owned by Taft Broadcasting, and stations owned by Cox Communications.


title: Star Search

text: In the wake of "American Idol"s success, Arsenio Hall hosted a new version of "Star Search", which ran from 2003 to 2004 on CBS. It would be rerun on GSN from 2004 to 2005. This new version was judged by four panelists, including Ben Stein, Naomi Judd, Ahmet Zappa and a rotating celebrity panelist (which in at least one case was McMahon himself). Among the winners were singer Tiffany Evans, comedian John Roy and singer Mark Mejia.


title: Star Search

text: The revival consisted of four seasons. For the first season, the categories were Adult and Junior Singer, Comedy, and Modeling. In seasons two and three, Modeling was replaced with Dance. In the final season, the Comedy category was scrapped altogether and only the singing and dancing categories remained.


title: Star Search

text: For the first three seasons, two new competitors faced off. The three house judges, along with the one celebrity judge, gave each contestant a score on a scale from one to five stars, making a maximum studio score 20 stars. During each commercial break, the home audience went to www.cbs.com/star to rate the competitors who just performed. Each performer could earn up to another 20 stars from the home audience. In the climactic moment before the score from the home audience was revealed, Hall would often say, "Hit me with the digits!"


title: Star Search

text: When the scores were tallied, the higher scoring performer won. If the score was tied, then Hall would read off each performer's score rounded to the nearest hundredth (the at-home score was initially rounded down to the nearest star, unless there was a tie). That performer would then go on to the next round of competition. The only real exception to this format during the first three seasons was that three people competed in the semi-final rounds, not two. After the first three seasons, a special, "Battle of the Best" show took place, where the three Adult Singer, Junior Singer, Comedian, and two Young Dancer Grand Champions (Modeling was only the first season, and Dance had only been around for two seasons) were brought back to face off for an additional $100,000.


title: Star Search

text: For the fourth and final season, three contestants in Adult Singer, Junior Singer, and Dance were brought back to initially compete (Comedy was dropped, jokingly because Naomi gave many comics only one star). The three brought back in each category were not necessarily the Grand Champions of their season. The show scrapped the celebrity judge and had three house judges for the entire series: Naomi Judd, MC Lyte, and Matti Leshem (who tried to berate contestants as Simon Cowell was doing at the time on "American Idol").


title: Star Search

text: As in past seasons, two new contestants competed. With only three judges, a score of 15 stars was possible, and ties were broken by a majority vote between the three. This is where the former contestants came in. Initially, in each category, these three performers made up the "Winner's Circle". The winning challenger then had the chance to challenge one of the three performers in his or her respective winner's circle. The winner's circle performer then had to beat or tie the bar set by the challenger; ties were automatically given to the Winner's Circle performer. If they couldn't beat the score, they were out of the competition, and the challenger took his or her place in the Winner's Circle.


title: Star Search

text: Halfway through the program, the three performers in each Winner's Circle competed against each other in a special show. The winner in each category not only received a trip home, but a free pass to the final show. From then on, there were only two people who could be challenged in each Winner's Circle. In the final show, the three people in each Winner's Circle competed against each other for $100,000. This, along with the Free Pass show, were the only two shows which re-adopted the at-home voting concept.


title: Star Search

text: At the same time, a spin-off called "Star Search – Das Duell der Stars von Morgen" was produced and aired in Germany, but with less success than the more popular show "Deutschland sucht den Superstar", the German version of the "Idol" franchise.


title: Star Search

text: Steve Oedekerk appeared with Ed McMahon on a 1989 episode of "[[Full House]]", where character [[Joey Gladstone]] scores a perfect 4 stars, tying Oedekerk, but loses the chance to continue after an audience vote breaks the tie.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: Affirm is a publicly traded financial technology company headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Founded in 2012, the company operates as a financial lender of installment loans for consumers to use at the point of sale to finance a purchase.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: Affirm was founded in 2012 by Max Levchin, Nathan Gettings, Jeffrey Kaditz, and Alex Rampell as part of the initial portfolio of startup studio HVF. Levchin, who co-founded PayPal, became CEO of Affirm in 2014.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: In October 2017, the company launched a consumer app that allowed loans for purchases at any retailer.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: The company announced a partnership with Walmart in February 2019. Under the partnership, Affirm is available to customers in-store and on the Walmart website.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: On November 18, 2020, Affirm filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for an initial public offering (IPO).


title: Affirm Holdings

text: On January 13, 2021, Affirm became listed on NASDAQ with symbol AFRM, raising about $1.2 billion in its IPO.


title: Affirm Holdings

text: In May 2022, Affirm signed a partnership with the financial infrastructure firm Stripe, Inc. to make its adaptive checkout service available to Stripe users in the US.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species currently described. However, this likely represents less than a quarter of their true richness as reliable estimates are lacking, along with much of the most basic knowledge about their ecology, distribution, and evolution. Ichneumonid wasps, with very few exceptions, attack the immature stages of holometabolous insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts. They thus fulfill an important role as regulators of insect populations, both in natural and semi-natural systems, making them promising agents for biological control.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The distribution of the ichneumonids was traditionally considered an exception to the common latitudinal gradient in species diversity, since the family was thought to be at its most species-rich in the temperate zone instead of the tropics, but numerous new tropical species have now been discovered.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Insects in the family Ichneumonidae are commonly called ichneumon wasps, or ichneumonids. However, the term ichneumon wasps can refer specifically to the genus "Ichneumon" within the Ichneumonidae and thus can cause confusion. A group of ichneumonid specialists have proposed Darwin wasps as a better vernacular name for the family. Less exact terms are ichneumon flies (they are not closely related to true flies) and scorpion wasps due to the extreme lengthening and curving of the abdomen (scorpions are arachnids, not insects).


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The name is derived from Latin 'ichneumon', from Ancient Greek ἰχνεύμων (ikhneúmōn, "tracker"), from ἴχνος (íkhnos, "track, footstep"). The name first appeared in Aristotle's "History of Animals", c. 343 BC. Aristotle noted that the ichneumon preys upon spiders, is a wasp smaller than ordinary wasps, and carries its prey to a hole which they lay their larvae inside, and that they seal the hole with mud. Aristotle's writing, however, more accurately describes the mud daubers than the true ichneumon wasps, which do not construct mud nests and do not sting.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Adult ichneumonids superficially resemble other wasps. They have a slender waist, two pairs of wings, a pair of large compound eyes on the side of the head and three ocelli on top of the head. Their size varies considerably from a few millimetres to seven or more centimetres.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The ichneumonids have more antennal segments than typical, aculeate wasps (Aculeata: Vespoidea and Apoidea): ichneumonids typically possess 16 or more, while most other wasps have 13 or fewer. Unlike aculeate wasps, which have an ovipositor modified for prey capture and defense, and do not pass their eggs along the stinger, ichneumonid females have an unmodified ovipositor which they use to lay eggs inside or on their host. Ichneumonids generally inject venom along with the egg, but only larger species (some in the genera "Netelia" and "Ophion") with relatively short ovipositors use the ovipositor in defense. Males do not possess stingers or ovipositors in either lineage.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Ichneumonids are distinguished from their sister group Braconidae mainly on the basis of wing venation. The fore wing of 95% of ichneumonids has vein 2m-cu (in the Comstock–Needham system), which is absent in braconids. Vein 1rs-m of the fore wing is absent in all ichneumonids, but is present in 85% of braconids. In the hind wing of ichneumonids, vein rs-m joins Rs apical to (or rarely opposite) the split between veins Rs and R1. In braconids, vein rs-m joins basal to this split. The taxa also differ in the structure of the metasoma: about 90% of ichneumonids have a flexible suture between tergites 2 and 3, whereas these tergites are fused in braconids (though the suture is secondarily flexible in Aphidiinae).


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Ichneumonids are found on all continents with the exception of Antarctica. They inhabit virtually all terrestrial habitats, wherever there are suitable invertebrate hosts.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The distribution of ichneumonid species richness is subject to ongoing debate. Long believed to be rare in the tropics, and at its most species rich in the temperate region, the family became a classic textbook example of an 'exceptional' latitudinal diversity gradient. Recently this belief has been questioned, after the discovery of numerous new tropical species.<ref name="doi10.1098/rspb.2012.1664"></ref><ref name="doi10.1371/journal.pone.0032101"></ref>


title: Ichneumonidae

text: A very few ichneumonid species lay their eggs in the ground, but the vast majority inject eggs either directly into their host's body or onto its surface, and this may require penetration of substrate around the host, as in wood-boring host larvae that live deep inside of tree trunks, requiring the ichneumon to drill its ovipositor through several centimeters of solid wood (e.g., "Megarhyssa" species). After hatching, the ichneumonid larva consumes its still living host. The most common hosts are larvae or pupae of Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. Some species in the subfamily Pimplinae also parasitise spiders. Hyperparasitoids such as Mesochorinae oviposit inside the larvae of other ichneumonoids. The hosts of some species are agricultural pests, therefore ichneumons are sometimes valuable for biological pest control, but the hosts of most species are unknown; host information has been reviewed and summarized by various researchers, e.g. Aubert, Perkins. and Townes.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Ichneumonids use both idiobiont and koinobiont strategies. Idiobionts paralyze their host and prevent it from moving or growing. Koinobionts allow their host to continue to grow and develop. In both strategies, the host typically dies after some weeks, after which the ichneumonid larva emerges and pupates.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Adult ichneumonids feed on a diversity of foods, including plant sap and nectar. They spend much of their active time searching, either for hosts (female ichneumonids) or for emerging females (male ichneumonids).


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The parasitism pressure exerted by ichneumonids can be tremendous, and they are often one of the major regulators of invertebrate populations. It is quite common for 10-20% or more of a host's population to be parasitised (though reported parasitism rates often include non-ichneumonid parasitoids).


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The taxonomy of the ichneumonids is still poorly known. The family is highly diverse, containing 24,000 described species. Approximately 60,000 species are estimated to exist worldwide, though some estimates place this number at over 100,000. They are severely undersampled, and studies of their diversity typically produce very high numbers of species which are represented by only a single individual. Due to the high diversity, the existence of numerous small and hard to identify species, and the majority of species being undiscovered, it has proven difficult to resolve the phylogeny of the ichneumonids. Even the relationships between subfamilies are unclear. The sheer diversity also means DNA sequence data is only available for a tiny fraction of the species, and detailed cladistic studies require major computing capacity.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: Extensive catalogues of the ichneumonids include those by Aubert, Gauld, Perkins, and Townes. Due to the taxonomic difficulties involved, however, their classifications and terminology are often confusingly contradictory. Several prominent authors have gone as far as to publish major reviews that defy the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The large number of species in Ichneumonidae may be due to the evolution of parasitoidism in Hymenoptera, which occurred approximately 247 million years ago. Ichneumonidae is the basal branch of Apocrita, the lineage in which parasitoidism in Hymenoptera evolved, and some ichneumonids are thought to have been in stasis for millions of years and closely resemble the common ancestor in which parasitoidism evolved. This common ancestor was likely an Ectoparasitoid woodwasp that parasitized wood-boring beetle larvae in trees. The family has existed since at least the Early Cretaceous ( 125 mya), but probably appeared already in the Jurassic (c. 181 mya), soon after the appearance of its major host groups. It diversified during the Oligocene.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: In 1999, the extant ichneumonids were divided into 39 subfamilies, whose names and definitions have varied considerably. In 2019, combined morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis of the family resulted in the following 41 subfamilies being recognized, in addition to the extinct Labenopimplinae.


title: Ichneumonidae

text: The perceived cruelty of the ichneumonids troubled philosophers, naturalists, and theologians in the 19th century, who found the parasitoid life cycle inconsistent with the notion of a world created by a loving and benevolent God. Charles Darwin found the example of the Ichneumonidae so troubling that it contributed to his increasing doubts about the nature and existence of a Creator. In an 1860 letter to the American naturalist Asa Gray, Darwin wrote:


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is an action-adventure platform video game developed by Big Red Button and published by Sega for the Wii U. Along with "" for the Nintendo 3DS, the game is a spin-off of Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog" series and is a part of the "Sonic Boom" franchise, which also consists of an animated television series (whose games serve as a prequel), a comic series by Archie Comics, and a toyline by Tomy. The game explores on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, who must stop Lyric the Last Ancient to acquiring the Chaos Crystals, after Sonic accidentally awakens him for one thousand years ago by escaping Doctor Eggman, before Lyric can power up a robot army and wipe out organic life.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: The two games together formed the third and final part in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo, following "Sonic Lost World" and "Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games" in 2013. Both games were released in North America, Europe and Australia in November 2014.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: "Rise of Lyric" received negative reviews from critics for its controls, camera system, combat, story, gameplay, dialogue, and numerous bugs and technical issues. The game was also a commercial failure, with the combined sales of "Rise of Lyric" and "Shattered Crystal" totaling 620,000 copies by March 31, 2015. Following the failure of "Rise of Lyric", Big Red Button had nearly considered shutting down.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: "Rise of Lyric" is an action-adventure game with a stronger emphasis on exploration and combat compared to previous "Sonic the Hedgehog" installments, featuring four main characters whom players control: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Each character has their own unique abilities and gameplay mechanics: Sonic can use his speed and homing attacks, Tails can fly and use various gadgets, Knuckles can burrow underground and climb on walls, and Amy can use her hammer to swing on poles. Each character also possesses a whip-like weapon called the Enerbeam, which allows them to perform various actions such as hanging from speeding rails, removing enemy shields, and solving puzzles. There is also a focus on collaboration, with players switching control between multiple characters and using their abilities to progress. The game will support local co-operative multiplayer for two players, with additional modes for up to four players locally.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: "Rise of Lyric" is divided into at least three main gameplay styles: speedy platforming stages similar to main-series "Sonic" games like "Sonic Generations", exploration stages, and boss battles.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy pursue Doctor Eggman until they encounter an ancient tomb with carvings of Sonic and Tails on the entrance. Sonic is stopped twice by Amy from opening the door, but when Metal Sonic ambushes the group, Sonic opens the door and the group escape. Inside, they encounter an imprisoned, but powerful snake villain named Lyric the Last Ancient. Lyric recognises Sonic from events transpiring one thousand years ago and captures the group, but Tails deactivates the shackles and turns them into beams named Enerbeams for the group to use.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: After meeting Cliff, the group discovers that Lyric planned to power an army of war robots with the Chaos Crystals to create a world of twisted metal and robots, but was imprisoned by The Ancients when they discovered the plan; the group then set out to retrieve the Chaos Crystals before Lyric. At an abandoned research facility, they meet MAIA, a robot who rebelled against Lyric, who assists them by creating a portal, allowing Sonic and Tails to go one thousand years back in time to retrieve a map showing the location of the Chaos Crystals. Sonic and Tails are then attacked by Shadow, but defeat him, enter the portal, successfully retrieve the map from inside Lyric's weapon facility and trap him inside for future imprisonment by The Ancients.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Lyric reluctantly forms an alliance with Eggman, but after no success, Lyric turns on Eggman by programming Metal Sonic against him. The group defeat Metal Sonic and Eggman and retrieve the final Chaos Crystal, but Sonic is then surrounded by Lyric and his robots. Lyric demands the Crystals; Sonic refuses to give them up, but Tails, Knuckles and Amy agree to do so. Sonic is then attacked by Lyric's robots and buried under rubble, but recovers and the group set out to Lyric's lair to stop him. During the battle, Lyric reprogrammes the Enerbeams to ensnare the group, but before he can take advantage of the situation, Eggman ambushes Lyric from behind, freeing the group. Sonic then ties up Lyric with assistance from his friends and removes Lyric's technopathy device to incapacitate him; Knuckles discards it. The group celebrate, but Eggman recovers the device and uses it to revive Metal Sonic.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: On May 17, 2013, Sega announced a worldwide agreement with Nintendo for the next three games in Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog" series to be developed exclusively for Nintendo consoles. This included "Sonic Lost World" and "Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games". On February 6, 2014, Sega announced "Sonic Boom" as the title for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The game ties in with Sega's "Sonic Boom" franchise, which includes a television series and other merchandise, and is the third release in Sega's exclusivity agreement with Nintendo. The franchise was designed for Western audiences and serves as a prequel to the television series. Sega announced the game would feature Sonic's traditional speed alongside a new exploratory game mechanic called "Enerbeam". Sega of America's marketing director Marchello Churchill explained that the new franchise was not designed to "replace modern Sonic". The Western developer's CEO explained that "Sonic Boom" Sonic is "very different ... both in tone and art direction". "Nintendo Life" reported it had a working title of "Sonic Synergy".


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Los Angeles based game studio Big Red Button developed the game under supervision by Sonic Team and long-time "Sonic" game designer Takashi Iizuka. The game was built on CryEngine and is centered on "combat and exploration". Sega outsourced the game to Western developers in order to increase the game's appeal in Western markets, culminating in a separate westernized Sonic franchise. The video game concept came after the television series plan. Big Red Button was chosen due to the studio's adventure game portfolio and leader, Bob Rafei of the "Crash Bandicoot", "Uncharted", and "Jak and Daxter" series. Portions of the game were co-developed by IllFonic, who assisted with some of the game's level design, art assets, and code. The game remains a separate continuity to the main series, and was originally not intended to be released in Japan. However, it was later revealed that the games would be released in Japan, under the name .


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: British composer Richard Jacques composed the music. Jacques was selected for his experience with "Sonic" games including "Sonic 3D Blast", "Sonic R", and "Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed".


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: On the first day of release, a glitch was discovered that allowed players to jump to infinite heights by pausing the game during Knuckles' jump, which could be used to bypass most of the game. Speedrunners managed to beat the game in under an hour using the glitch. In January 2015, a patch was released to fix a few problems with the game, including the "Knuckles Jump" glitch.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Pre-release demos featured at E3 2014 received mostly negative reception from journalists. Destructoid nominated "Rise of Lyric" for "Best Platformer" and "Best Nintendo Exclusive" for their "Best of E3" awards. In contrast, GameCentral wrote, "the very worst game in the line-up was Sega's "Sonic Boom", which was so unspeakably awful we couldn't even force ourselves to play through the whole demo".


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Unlike previous games, Sega did not provide reviewers with advance copies of either "Shattered Crystal" or "Rise of Lyric"; they could only begin reviewing once the game was set for sale. "Rise of Lyric" became the lowest-scoring game in the "Sonic" series and is . It has a Metacritic score of 32/100 and a GameRankings score of 33.15%. Don Saas from GameSpot panned the game for its repetitive level design, dull puzzle-solving, numerous bugs, and uninspired combat system. He stated that "Through a combination of unwieldy controls, a broken camera system, and a total lack of responsiveness, the platforming and exploration elements of Rise of Lyric are totally unworkable". He summarized the review by saying that the Sonic name deserves better than "Rise of Lyric", and so do consumers. Similarly, Tim Turi from "Game Informer" criticized the poor visual quality, frame rate, dialogue, unfunny jokes, and shoddy level-design.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Mikel Reparaz from IGN was slightly less negative, praising its multiplayer gameplay, but criticizing the game's simple and tedious combat, stating that ""Rise of Lyric" isn't fundamentally broken or unplayable; it's just thoroughly disappointing and unpolished, and while it does have some fun to offer, it's fun that's been done better in countless similar games. "Rise of Lyric" falls well below our already-low expectations". Sam Gill of "the Independent" called its graphics "bland" whilst criticizing its poor gameplay and irritating glitches but praising its soundtrack. He concluded the review by stating while it could be argued the game is primarily aimed at children, it "doesn’t excuse the general lack of quality apparent in this poorly executed piece of software".


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: David Jenkins from GameCentral was negative about the game, citing a "terrible camera", dull combat, "insipid" level design, "broken" graphics and "serious" bugs. He stated it is "definitely the worst game of 2014". "GameCentral" was appalled with the E3 demo of the game, and David stated one of the positive things about "Sonic Boom" is that "it proves previews do give a relatively accurate impression of a game’s final quality".


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: Sega announced that both "Sonic Boom" games had sold a combined 620,000 copies as of March 31, 2015, making them one of the lowest-selling in the franchise.


title: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

text: After the launch of "Sonic Boom", former Sega of America producer Stephen Frost gave a number of reasons as to what went wrong with the game. One of which is that based on focus tests, people were "sick and tired" of Sonic going too fast and wanted to slow him down. Frost said that they added too many features in "Sonic Boom" that bloated the overall experience. He added that if he could do the game again, he would remove features and speed would be the main focus from the start.


title: Eduardo Arellano Félix

text: Eduardo Arellano Félix (born October 11, 1956) is a Mexican drug trafficker, brother of Benjamín, Ramón, Javier and sister, Enedina, all drug traffickers. The Arellano-Félix Organization, also known as the Tijuana Cartel, has been responsible for numerous murders and the smuggling of thousands of tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine for more than a decade. The DEA believes that the Arellano-Félix brothers were responsible for the numerous smuggling tunnels that were found in January 2006.