Ohio abortion rights backers submit nearly double needed signatures for fall ballot measure

The Canadian Press
Thu, July 6, 2023 



COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Groups hoping to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio’s constitution delivered nearly double the number of signatures needed to place an amendment on the statewide ballot this fall, aiming to signal sweeping widespread support for an issue that still faces the threat of needing a significantly increased victory margin.

Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said they dropped off more than 700,000 petition signatures on Wednesday to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office in downtown Columbus. LaRose now will work with local election boards to determine that at least 413,446 signatures are valid, which would get the proposal onto the Nov. 7 ballot.

"Today, we take a huge step forward in the fight for abortion access and reproductive freedom for all, to ensure that Ohioans and their families can make their own health care decisions without government interference,” Lauren Blauvelt and Kellie Copeland of Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, a coalition member, said in a statement.

At a news conference, Copeland said the 422 boxes delivered "are filled with hope and love and dreams of freedom, of bodily autonomy, of health, of being able to say, ‘We decide what happens to us.’ ”

The ballot measure calls for the establishment of “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” In language similar to a constitutional amendment that Michigan voters approved in November, it would require restrictions imposed past a fetus’ viability outside the womb, which is typically around the 24th week of pregnancy and was the standard under Roe v. Wade, to be based on evidence of patient health and safety benefits.

The state's formidable anti-abortion network has vowed a dogged and well-funded opposition campaign, which could take the price tag for the fight above $70 million.

Protect Women Ohio, the opposition campaign, downplayed the huge number of signatures submitted, saying they were collected with help from paid signature-gatherers funded in part of the American Civil Liberties Union, which it described as “anti-parent.” Abortion foes contend that the Ohio amendment has the potential to trump the state's abortion-related parental consent law, though the lawyers who wrote it deny the claim.

"The ACLU’s attempts to hijack Ohio’s constitution to further its own radical agenda would be pathetic if they weren’t so dangerous,” campaign press secretary Amy Natoce said in a statement.

Two legal challenges have gone proponents' way.

The first was a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court that allowed the measure to proceed as a single issue, rather than as two questions that would have required twice as many signatures. Justices found that the proposed amendment’s call to protect individuals' rights to make their own decisions about a continuum of reproductive care issues — contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion — met the standard of applying to the “same general purpose.”

In a second ruling, the court denied Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request that justices launch a review of the right to an abortion under the Ohio Constitution, leaving those arguments to play out in a lower court and keeping alive the purpose of the proposed amendment.

But the ruling that might have the biggest impact favored abortion opponents. It allowed an August special election to proceed that will seek to raise the threshold for passing future amendments — including as soon as November — from a 50%-plus-one simple majority that has been in place since 1912 to a 60% majority. Abortion rights amendments in other states have tended to pass with more than 55% but less than 60% of the vote.

The outcome of that August election would not affect a recreational marijuana question for which supporters submitted more than 222,000 signatures later Wednesday.

The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is pursuing ballot access for its proposal to legalize marijuana for adult use after the Republican-controlled Legislature failed to act on its initiated statute, which now requires roughly 124,000 valid signatures to make the ballot. The threshold for passing such measures would not be changed by the amendment being voted on in August.

The legal cannabis measure would appear alongside an Ohio abortion rights effort prompted by last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion and instead leaving it to states to decide for themselves.

In the first statewide test following that decision, Kansas voters resoundingly protected abortion rights last August. Meanwhile, four other states in addition to Michigan — California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont — either enshrined abortion rights or rejected constitutional restrictions on the procedure in November.

Julie Carr Smyth, The Associated Press

Ottawa man first to face terrorism, hate charges linked to far-right propaganda

 

 terrorist group called Atomwaffen Division. The group, also known as AWD, is a U.S.-based neo-Nazi organization that was listed as a terrorist entity in Canada in 2021.

The Canadian Press
Wed, July 5, 2023 


OTTAWA — An Ottawa man is the first ever to be charged in Canada with terrorism and hate propaganda offences for advocating a violent, far-right ideology.

RCMP said Wednesday they arrested and charged 26-year-old Patrick Gordon Macdonald with participating in the activity of a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity and wilfully promoting hatred for a terrorist group.

The RCMP says Macdonald helped make propaganda material for a terrorist group called Atomwaffen Division.

The group, also known as AWD, is a U.S.-based neo-Nazi organization that was listed as a terrorist entity in Canada in 2021.

A second person was arrested in Kingsey Falls, Que., as part of the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team investigation but no charges have been laid against them at this point.

Macdonald appeared in an Ottawa court on Wednesday by video, wearing a black and sleeveless Adidas shirt. His matter was adjourned until Friday and he is remaining in custody.

According to the U.S.-based Southern Poverty Law Centre, AWD's graphic designs are created by a Canadian known as "Dark Foreigner," the online screen name allegedly used by Macdonald.

Public Safety Canada says the Atomwaffen Division calls for acts of violence against racial, religious, and ethnic groups, as well as informants, police and bureaucrats, to prompt the collapse of society.

It has held training camps, also known as hate camps, where its members receive weapons and hand-to-hand combat training.

Members of AWD have carried out acts of violence before, including at a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

The co-leader of the group, who is American, was banned from Canada after the Immigration and Refugee Board determined he was a member of a group that has, or will, engage in terrorist activities.

In June 2022, RCMP officers conducted raids near Quebec City targeting people connected to the AWD. A month before that, a 19-year-old from Windsor, Ont., was arrested for alleged ties to the same group.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 5, 2023.

David Fraser, The Canadian Press

'Our lives were pretty much ripped open': PHF stars in limbo amid unification of women's hockey


CBC
Wed, July 5, 2023 

Former PHF MVP Mikyla Grant-Mentis, centre, told CBC Sports that she has received very little information about the new unified women's pro hockey league. 

(Maddie Meyer/Getty Images - image credit)

Mikyla Grant-Mentis didn't think much of her scheduled Thursday night Zoom meeting.

Instead, the 2021 Premier Hockey Federation MVP coached practice for the U-22 Brampton Canadettes girls hockey team, as she had planned.

That arrangement, however, was soon upended.

"Five minutes after the call started is when I got a bunch of text messages from people from my team last year saying, 'Holy crap, the league's over, they're terminating all our contracts,'" Grant-Mentis said.

The Brampton, Ont., native quickly hopped off the ice to join the call, where she and the rest of the PHF learned that their league was being bought out and folded. Those players are now left to wrestle with the new reality that their hockey careers, successfully entrenched in a solid foundation just last week, are in complete limbo.

"At first, I honestly thought it was a dream because I had no idea what was going on. But then after a couple of other calls, I realized that, 'No, this is for real and the PHF is no longer a thing.'"

In the PHF's place, there will be one professional North American women's hockey league with a collective bargaining agreement ratified by the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association — a group that held out from joining the PHF in its fight for sustainability.

PHF players were informed that next year's contracts were void, and that they would receive severance of either $5,000 US or 1/12th of their salary, whichever is more.

"Our lives were pretty much ripped open in a 10-minute Zoom call," Grant-Mentis told CBC Sports on Tuesday. "People made investments, bought houses, bought cars and stuff, and now we don't even know if we'll be able to have money to pay for it, if we'll have to get another job. There's just so much unknown that it's really disappointing that we're in this position when we've worked so hard to build up the league for the last couple of years."

Lack of information

Salaries in the newly formed league will range from $30,000 to $80,000, not including potential performance bonuses. Grant-Mentis, 24, made $80,000 last year with the PHF's Buffalo Beauts, and had already re-signed with the team for next season at $100,000.

She said she hasn't received any information beyond the initial Zoom call — not even a copy of the CBA. Instead, she's learning about the new league through Twitter and the PHF leadership committee, an 11-woman group formed in the wake of the takeover.

Madison Packer, who served as captain of the PHF's Metropolitan Riveters, is part of that committee. She said she initially learned the news from PHF commissioner Reagan Carey two days before the Thursday Zoom, and that she's reviewed a copy of the CBA.

Packer, the 32-year-old from Birmingham, Mich., said she was excited to find out there would be one unified league. Still, she acknowledged the overwhelming uncertainty, especially surrounding PHF players.

"The best thing that we can do right now is just to be patient and it's super anxiety inducing because we don't really have hard information," she told CBC Sports.

"But no matter what happens going forward, whether you were a part of the PHF or you were a part of the PW, whether you get an opportunity to move on or you do not, you made this happen, right? And that's a cliché that people are just like, 'Yeah, whatever, this is BS,' but it's true."

Grant-Mentis also acknowledged that one unified league may be better for the sport.

"My hope is that having one league will bring all the investments, all the salaries together, which will make us be paid more. But that's only a hope. I have no idea what's actually going to happen."

Packer, whose newly signed two-year, $185,000 contract with the Riveters was among those that went up in smoke, added that there were positives in each the PHF and PWHPA that would now be brought together.

"And there are a lot of athletes that are going to get left out of the mix. And that's the plainest way to put it ... that sucks. But that happens every day in professional sports," she said.

Packer, seen above in February, said she hopes to play in the newly unified league.
 (Elsa/Getty Images)

'Good problem to have'

Both Grant-Mentis and Packer, who each were among the league-leading scorers with 21 points in 24 games last season, said they want to play in the new league.

Grant-Mentis said she's unaware of potential next steps to making that happen, besides the vagueness of a draft and free agency at some point. Packer, on the other hand, acknowledged that her role in the new league may have to be off the ice.

"If I don't get an opportunity to play in this new league, that'll be hard. But then I've done my job. I've gotten women's hockey to a point that I am no longer relevant. And I think I'm pretty damn good at hockey still," Packer said. "It's tough, but that's a good problem to have."

Still, with most of the North American national teams sitting as PWHPA members, it is likely the new league has little room left over for even the best PHF players.

"I think a lot of us are feeling that way where it's like we kind of did put in a lot of time, a lot of effort really just to be sold to basically start it all over again from scratch, which is not a great feeling," Grant-Mentis said.

Packer was hopeful that the league would expand quickly, and that there would be roles in some capacity for whoever wanted to be part of the league.

"There's definitely going to be people that get left out and that sucks. But without those players, none of this happens. And so I hope as the dust settles we can find a way to actually mean that and show that to those players because that's 100,000-per cent fact."

Fossilised beached along Cornwall coast help understanding of global warming

Paul Armstrong
Thu, 6 July 2023 

A rocky platform at Bream Cove near Falmouth, one of the beaches visited as part of the research (Image: Sarah Boulton, University of Plymouth)

Fossilised beaches along the Cornwall coastline have enabled scientists to demonstrate for the first time how melting Antarctic ice sheets impacted global sea levels during a period of pronounced climate warming more than 100,000 years ago.

A study developed at the University of Plymouth, and published in the journal Science Advances, analysed ancient sediments from raised beaches - including Bream Cove, Gunwalloe Beach and Pendower Beach - and elsewhere across western Europe.

The scientists involved in the research believe the raised beaches – characterised by flat surfaces, often with fossilised beach sands and stones, and typically found around 4-6 metres above current sea levels – could provide an invaluable insight into the local and global impacts of melting ice sheets in the future.

By combining new and existing data with a series of novel analysis and modelling techniques, the team of researchers from the UK, USA and Canada were able to demonstrate that the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would have caused a rise in global sea levels of up to 5.7 metres.

They reached this conclusion after determining that the sea level change caused by the melting of northern hemisphere ice sheets was largely offset by the fact that removing an ice sheet causes the land near it to rebound. This meant the sea level change recorded on the beaches could only have come from Antarctica.

The researchers were also able to identify the timescale of this change as occurring between 116,000 and 129,000 years ago, ahead of the melting of any ice sheets in the northern hemisphere.

They believe the warmer polar temperatures during this interglacial period make it an important testing ground for understanding how ice sheets respond to warming.

Dr Matt Telfer, Associate Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth and a co-author on the research, said: “The South West of England is in a very fortuitous place when it comes to understanding this process. Our findings show that the English Channel is roughly neutral for sea-level change from the northern hemisphere, with the rising sea levels from melt and the rising land from the effects of rebound cancelling each other out. As a result, the historic changes which saw sea levels along the UK coastline rise by up to six metres can be attributed solely to the melting of Antarctic ice.”

Predictions suggest global temperatures will be 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels by 2100, despite political agreements designed to keep the figure considerably lower.

In a report published in early 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested this could lead to global sea level rises of 0.33 to 1.02 metres.

However, writing in the current study, researchers say there is significant uncertainty around the contribution of melting Antarctic ice to that figure since its fate is governed by more than warming temperatures alone.

Dr Sarah Boulton, Associate Professor in Active and Neotectonics and also a co-author of the study, added: “We know that mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet and mountain glaciers track closely to temperature, so we can to some extent predict their fate and the impacts of that change. However, the stability of ice cliffs in the Antarctic are more poorly understood. How much the northern and southern hemispheres have, and will, contribute to future sea-level rise is a really big question when we are trying to understand future climate change. This study gives us some important clues as to how that might play out.”

France set to allow police to spy on suspects through remote phone access

RFI
Thu, 6 July 2023 

AFP/File


French lawmakers have agreed that police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices.

Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers' charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only "dozens of cases a year".

Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years behind bars.


Devices could also be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offences, as well as delinquency and organised crime.

The provisions "raise serious concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties," digital rights group La Quadrature du Net wrote in a May statement.

It cited the "right to security, right to a private life and to private correspondence" and "the right to come and go freely", calling the proposal part of a "slide into heavy-handed security".

'Far from 1984'

During a parliamentary debate late on Wednesday, MPs in President Emmanuel Macron's camp inserted an amendment limiting the use of remote spying to "when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime" and "for a strictly proportional duration".

Any use of the provision must be approved by a judge, while the total duration of the surveillance cannot exceed six months.

(with AFP)

Heather Anderson: Degenerative brain disease CTE found in female athlete for first time

Sky News
Wed, 5 July 2023 


An Australian rules footballer has become the first female athlete to be diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease CTE in a landmark finding for women's sport.

Heather Anderson, who played for Adelaide in the Australian Football League Women's competition, took her own life in November 2022 aged 28.

Researchers at the Australian Sports Brain Bank (ASBB), co-founded by the Concussion Legacy Foundation, have since diagnosed Anderson as having had low-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and three lesions in her brain.

The condition, which can only be diagnosed posthumously, can cause memory loss, depression and violent mood swings.

It has been found in athletes, combat veterans, and others who have sustained repeated head trauma.

The Concussion Legacy Foundation has said Anderson is the first female athlete to be found to have had CTE.

Michael Buckland, director of the ASBB, said: "There were multiple CTE lesions as well as abnormalities nearly everywhere I looked in her cortex. It was indistinguishable from the dozens of male cases I've seen."

On Tuesday, Mr Buckland told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the diagnosis was a step toward understanding the impact years of playing contact sport has on women's brains.

He said: "While we've been finding CTE in males for quite some time, I think this is really the tip of the iceberg and it's a real red flag that now women are participating (in contact sport) just as men are, that we are going to start seeing more and more CTE cases in women."

Mr Buckland co-authored a report on his findings with neurologist Alan Pearce.

"Despite the fact that we know that women have greater rates of concussion, we haven't actually got any long-term evidence until now," Mr Pearce said.

"So this is a highly significant case study."

Anderson had at least one diagnosed concussion while playing eight games during Adelaide's premiership-winning season in 2017. She had played rugby league and Aussie rules, starting in contact sports at the age of five.

She retired from the professional Australian Football League Women's competition after the 2017 season because of a shoulder injury before returning to work as an army medic.

Concussion Legacy Foundation CEO Chris Nowinski said: "The first case of CTE in a female athlete should be a wake-up call for women's sports.

"We can prevent CTE by preventing repeated impacts to the head, and we must begin a dialogue with leaders in women's sports today so we can save future generations of female athletes from suffering."

Mr Buckland thanked the family for donating Anderson's brain and said he hopes "more families follow in their footsteps so we can advance the science to help future athletes".

There's been growing awareness and research into CTE in sports since 2013, when the National Football League in the United States settled lawsuits - at a cost at the time of $765 million - from thousands of former players who developed dementia or other concussion-related health problems.

In July 2017, a report found 99% of all NFL players were found to have CTE - with 110 of 111 players found to have the condition.

However, the report, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, was based on the brains of deceased people donated to a Boston brain bank. The results did not suggest CTE is common to all American football players.

In March this year, a study conducted by researchers in Sweden found soccer players are one and a half times more likely to develop dementia than the general populations. The study did not look at CTE.

Meanwhile, a University of Glasgow study in October 2022 found former international rugby players are at a much higher risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease.

AOC shares fear her Threads app was ‘bricked’ five minutes after joining Twitter rival

Kelly Rissman
Thu, 6 July 2023 


Rep Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted that her account on Threads – Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival app – was “bricked” after being on the app for just “5 minutes,” on the day of the app’s launch.

Highlighting her move to Threads – on Twitter, no less – is perhaps the New York Democrat’s latest move in her feud with Twitter owner Elon Musk.

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Earlier on Wednesday, she wrote a thread, seemingly taking a jab at Twitter: “Alright, let’s do this thing! May this platform have good vibes, strong community, excellent humor, and less harassment.”

It’s unsurprising that the New York congresswoman jumped on the opportunity to join the “Twitter killer” platform, as she hasn’t been shy about her gripes with Mr Musk and his platform.

In May, Ms Ocasio-Cortez flagged an imposter account, which she said Mr Musk reacted to with a flame emoji, drawing more attention to the fake account. She tweeted at the time: “FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility.”

On other occasions, she has pointed out the dangers of circulating misinformation on Twitter and the problems with potential misinformation after Mr Musk removed checkmarks from official accounts.

The New York Democrat also voiced opposition to Mr Musk’s move to make users pay for a blue check mark, tweeting: “Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually an $8/mo subscription plan.”

Rise of the robots: UN tries to tackle 'mind-blowing' growth of AI

Robin MILLARD
Thu, 6 July 2023 

Humanoid robot Nadine is modelled on professor Nadia Thalmann and has worked as a companion for the elderly in Singapore (Fabrice COFFRINI)

The mind-blowing growth of artificial intelligence poses many questions that have no answers yet, the United Nations admitted Thursday at its AI summit, attended by some exceptionally life-like humanoid robots.

The UN is aware that AI technology is racing ahead of the capacity to set its boundaries and directions, and so it brought together some of the best minds on the topic -- whether human or man-made.

The "AI for Good Global Summit", in Geneva on Thursday and Friday is being convened by the UN's ITU tech agency -- and many unaware attendees were startled by the humanoid robots suddenly turning to look at them as they passed by.

"When generative AI shocked the world just a few months ago, we had never seen anything like it. Nothing even close to it. Even the biggest names in tech found the experience mind-blowing," ITU chief Doreen Bogdan-Martin told the summit.

"And just like that, the possibility that this form of intelligence could get smarter than us got so much closer than we ever thought -- including those behind the technology."

- No answers -

The summit is bringing together around 3,000 experts from companies like Microsoft and Amazon as well as from universities and international organisations to try to sculpt frameworks for ensuring AI is used for positive purposes.

Bogdan-Martin painted an alternative nightmare scenario in which AI puts millions of jobs at risk, disinformation spreads widely, and unchecked AI advances lead to "social unrest, geopolitical instability and economic disparity on a scale we've never seen before".

"Many of our questions that we have on AI have no answers yet. Should we hit pause on giant AI experiments? Will we control AI more than it controls us? And will AI help humanity, or destroy it?" she asked.

The robots gathered in Geneva came in many forms: dogs, farm machinery, but also exceptionally realistic avatars, singers, artists and nursing home workers.

With cameras inside their eyes, many were actively following what was going on around them: tracking movement, answering questions, smiling, frowning and even eye-rolling.

The Jam Galaxy Band features humanoid robot Desdemona -- Desi to her friends -- on lead vocals.

Created by roboticist David Hanson, she throws out jazzy lyrics on all sorts of subjects -- love, credit cards, meetings in gardens -- and the band interacts and goes with it.

"It's pretty amazing. You would think it's weird but it's really cool because her AI-generated lyrics are really out there," said soprano saxophone player Dianne Krouse.

"I'm just improvising around that and doing interpretive saxophoning to what she's singing."

rjm/giv

Watch 2 giant, highly venomous black mambas fighting in someone's backyard

Jacklin Kwan
Wed, July 5, 2023 

close up of a black mamba with its mouth open on a black background

Two huge, highly venomous black mambas — both over 8 feet (2.4 meters) long — have been filmed in a fierce wrestling match in a person's backyard.

The males fought for over 30 minutes in Queensburgh, South Africa. The pair were filmed in a twisted embrace as they attempted to pull each other to the ground.

The bigger snake, which was 8.5 feet (2.6 m) long, tried to pin down the neck of the smaller, 8.2-foot-long (2.5 m) snake, Nick Evans, a snake rescuer who uploaded the video to Facebook, wrote in the description. This happened three times before the smaller snake "surrendered" and moved away. The exhausted black mambas were then caught and released away from people. Evans wrote they were likely fighting over a female, as it is currently their mating season.

The bruising encounter raises an intriguing question: Why don't black mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis) bite each other when they fight?

"Male mambas don't bite each other. They wrestle till one surrenders," Evans wrote.

Black mambas are one of the most venomous species of snake on Earth. These snakes have a "notorious reputation" for being Africa's deadliest snake, where they are found in the eastern and southern regions of the continent, John Dunbar, an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Venom Systems lab at the University of Galway in Ireland, said.

Their venom targets the connection between their prey's nerves and muscles. It can rapidly paralyze and kill a human in 20 minutes. However, Dunbar told Live Science that after handling these snakes to extract venom, he has found them to be "shy, nervous snakes" that would only strike a human if they felt startled or threatened.

a black mamba coiled up on the ground surrounded by leaves with a tree trunk behind

"Venom is a precious resource reserved for catch[ing] prey and for defense," he said.

Dunbar said the behavior seen in the video is known as "plaiting combat," which typically takes place in the presence of a female. The name comes from how the snakes will "plait" their bodies around each other in an attempt to dominate their opponent and win the female's approval.

"Rather than simply biting and subduing [their opponent] with a fatal dose of neurotoxic venom, the aim is purely to win by [forcing] submission," Dunbar said. "[I]t's a demonstration of stamina and physical strength, not chemical warfare."

Snakes also possess immunity towards their own species' venom. Mild exposure to a snake's own venom, during activities like mating or feeding, can generate a mild immunity response, where a snake's antibodies neutralize the toxins. These same antibodies help protect it against being bitten by another member of the same species

Grey whales seen seeking human help to remove parasites


Philip Hoare
Thu, 6 July 2023


Grey whales have learned to approach whale-watching boats to have parasites removed by human beings, it has been claimed.

Video footage documenting the behaviour in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, shows a grey whale having whale lice picked off its head by the captain of a small boat. “I have done it repeatedly with the same whale and others,” Paco Jimenez Franco told a US news site. “It is very exciting for me.”

Whale lice or cyamids – pale, crab-like creatures that crawl about on the animal’s heads – can be beneficial for whales, eating algae on their bodies and feeding on flaking skin and the sites of wounds. However, it is assumed that they also irritate the animal.

“I think the grey whales have a love-hate relationship with their whale lice,” said Mark Carwardine, a British zoologist with wide experience in the region. “They have very sensitive skin, and thousands of these little creatures holding on tight, or moving about, with their exceedingly sharp, recurved claws, must drive them nuts.”

He added: “It can actually hurt when a whale louse grabs hold of your finger – it feels like tiny pinpricks.”

Franco picked a louse off the head of the whale the first time it came close enough for him to do so. “Once I removed the first one, she approached again so that I could continue,” he said. The same individual whale has returned repeatedly for more “grooming”, according to Franco.

Like many of the relatively slow-moving great whales, including humpbacks and right whales, grey whales – which can grow up to 15 metres (50ft) in length – are particularly susceptible to parasites. They also acquire barnacles as they graze on minute amphipods at the silty bottom of the sea.

The grey whales off Baja California are celebrated for their inquisitive behaviour towards boats, even though they were hunted drastically in the 20th century. They were known to whalers as “devil fish” on account of their ferocity in fighting back against hunters, whose tactics included killing a nursing female’s calf to ensure the adult came close enough to be harpooned. The whale’s only other predator is the orca.

While he could not confirm that approaching humans for delousing help constituted new behaviour in whales, Carwardine said he had not seen it before. “The whales certainly don’t seem to mind when people pick them off, although you’d have to pick off hundreds to make much of a difference,” he said.

Related: Ships are turning whales into ‘ocean roadkill’. This AI system is trying to stop it

Because the lice eat sloughed whale skin and damaged tissue, he noted that “rather than parasites, they are really what we call symbionts – in other words, each animal benefits from the other”.

The new grooming behaviour could be considered similarly symbiotic. Given that grey whales can live for at least 80 years, it is possible that animals that were alive during the period of hunting have since adapted to benefit from interaction with humans.