Cetacean News Bits

Compiled by William Rossiter

The Southern Resident Orcas finally were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in late November, a welcome surprise when listings for other deserving species are delayed indefinitely and the ESA is under attack. This clan of the J, K and L pods has been studied and revered for over 30 years, a distinct community related by diet, culture, dialect, and ceremony. Between 1995 and 2001 the clan dropped 20 percent, to a low of 78. Recovering to 90 by 2004, there are now about 87 members. They do not include Luna (L98), the solitary orca separated from the clan since 2001, and Lolita, the last surviving orca captured by the display industry in the 70's, still alive at the hurricane damaged Miami Seaquarium. NOAA Fisheries will now designate the orcas' critical habitat. Public comments closed 3 January on NMFS's proposed conservation plan for the population. Many are concerned that NMFS will emphasize goals and research over real actions like controls of shipping routes, Navy sonar use, and barges serving a planned gravel mine.

The Draft of the Preliminary Orca Recovery Plan in March stated that: "Healthy killer whale populations are dependent on adequate prey levels. Reductions in prey availability may force whales to spend more time foraging and might lead to reduced reproductive rates and higher mortality rates. Human influences have had profound impacts on the abundance of many prey species in the northeastern Pacific during the past 150 years. Foremost among these, many stocks of salmon have declined significantly due to over-fishing and degradation of freshwater and estuarine habitats through urbanization, dam building, and forestry, agricultural, and mining practices." A federal Biological Review Team identified catastrophic oil spills as "the number one immediate threat to the long-term survival of the Southern Resident population."

Periodic starvation and persistent toxic contamination, both caused by humans, appear to reduce immune system responses and reproductive success. While solutions remain politically, technically and economically difficult, their endangered status may provide enough leverage for the orcas' survival. CSI congratulates the Center for Biological Diversity, EarthJustice, Orca Conservancy and many others for their persistent, hard work to achieve this wonderful accomplishment.

Even Orcas in Arctic Norway are toxic, contaminated by alarming levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides and brominated flame retardants. Banned for several years in countries around the North Sea, persistent PCB's are even found in the breast milk of Eskimos. Brominated flame retardants may cause nerve disorders and reproductive malfunction. The research, funded by WWF (formerly known as the World Wide Fund for Nature), has prompted mostly political action in the European Union.

23 Atlantic whitesided dolphins and 15 pilot whales stranded inside Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts, during a mid-December storm. Very bad weather delayed responses until daybreak, some trained responders were at a marine mammal conference, and most of the animals were found dead; neither the cetaceans nor the very well trained responders had a chance. One educated guess would be that the two species were foraging together over shallows near shore when high winds and low tide may have caused some to ground, adding to the confusion from the storm. It's possible some didn't strand and some refloated themselves and survived, but the battered animals were found pushed high on the beaches by strong onshore winds during the next high tide.

125 pilot whales stranded a few days later in New Zealand, near another of the world's stranding hotspots, Farewell Spit. Rapid responses by hundreds of volunteers and decades of experience with on-site rehabilitation and release enabled most of the whales to be assisted back to safer waters. About 30 died or were euthanized. A large pilot whale group sighted a few days later in Golden Bay could not be confirmed as the stranded whales.

New Zealanders consider mass stranding responses to be successful when the whales do not strand again after release, and oppose placing radio or satellite tags on released whales so as to follow them for days later. Their priority is for minimal suffering instead of scientific certainty. They dismiss criticism that the whales' survival must be proven with long term following using invasively attached satellite or radio tags.

That long standing criticism is at the core of a debate between experts that should have been settled long ago: While everyone wants to treat stranded animals as humanely as possible, and most believe that some if not almost all animals in a mass stranding got there by mistake and may otherwise be healthy, does that mean returning them to the sea or keeping some alive in captivity and euthanizing the rest? What is the likelihood that mass stranded cetaceans can survive if returned to the sea, assuming assessments and care are provided?

Intense social bonds may cause otherwise healthy animals to strand because others in their group did, for many possible reasons. Many experts agree that, after assessing each individual's condition, animals that stranded together should be released as a functional group, with some leadership and calves with caregivers. But to other experts mass stranded animals released after short onsite rehabilitation may just swim strongly to the horizon and die. They think it's better to select a few for long term captive rehabilitation, or in some cases permanent captivity, and euthanize the rest. This has been done in the SE US, where there are a number of convenient captive facilities. There have been successful long term captive rehabilitations, but not all prove releasable, leading to insinuations of a "back door" to captivity.

With no interest or potential to use captive facilities for rehabilitation, New Zealand has refined techniques for onsite triage, individual care and group restabilization that has often allowed animals that came ashore together to swim strongly to the horizon together and survive, according to the Kiwis. There have been resightings of groups rescued and released onsite, but most are never seen again and proof remains tenuous. Australia has the same attitude, but Cape Cod responders have occasionally disagreed on the beach. It's useful to consider that all over the world cetaceans strand accidentally but get free and swim away at the first opportunity, usually on the next high tide. In more remote hotspots the death toll may be historically staggering; one desolate Latin American beach had at least three layers of hundreds of animals each buried in sand, mass stranded years apart.

There isn't enough proof about which perspective is the most humane. Different opinions, and clashes of egos, shape widely differing stranding responses in various parts of the world. No one can be sure they do it right until the debate is settled. How many hundreds of dolphins and whales will have to come ashore before someone settles the issue?

New Zealand opposes invasive tagging, and many other invasive techniques used today by scientists, as does CSI. We spend much time reviewing and often complaining about invasive projects and permits, seeking innovative ways to get the job done without doing harm. Although many colleagues and old friends have stuck, plugged, shot, netted, drilled, and harassed their "subjects", and we understand and respect the valuable knowledge that has resulted, we do have a policy not to support or fund invasive research. Your donations to CSI will never be used where there is potential for harm. Instead we support and promote visionary scientists who accomplish similar goals without invasive techniques.

Fulcrum, the entangled whale profiled in our last Whales Alive!, when last seen appeared free of entangling fishing gear. A propeller had cut his dorsal fin area, not a fishing line as we had reported. Boat-struck Fulcrum is too expert at evading rescue boats, and weather also hampered rescuers from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies' (PCCS) many efforts to free him.

An entangled right whale in December attracted a massive rescue effort and much media attention as it swam from Georgia to Florida and then north until tracking gear was lost off North Carolina. Led by PCCS, the hundreds of Network participants for this one whale included NOAA Fisheries, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, US Coast Guard, Wildlife Trust, and the New England Aquarium. Although the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network accomplished many rescues in 2005, these two whales illustrate the difficulties and uncertainties even in the world's most sophisticated effort.

Right Whales get a lot of heroic attention. Our society's response to their plight demonstrates successes and problems that can be applied to many species worldwide. November's Right Whale Consortium meeting showed a welcome intensity of concern and purpose among scientists, fishermen, and NGOs. An underlying concern was Washington's anticipated reaction to current deficit spending excesses; many fear a reduction of support for many productive programs now helping right whales.

There are now about 345 right whales in the known population. Historical whaling sites in Canada suggest that the population was never high, and was whaled to below 100 by the 1730's. The birth rate increases with plentiful prey, primarily tiny copepods in aggregations as dense as 20,000 per cubic meter. One intriguing mystery is how the massive whales find the patches of tiny creatures at all. Another is how most whales in one area are cued to move almost en masse to another area, perhaps 100 miles away. Tests of calves show that genetic diversity is being maintained, leading to the theory that cousins might be less able to have kids. Another is that up to 20 percent of the reproductive males may be "somewhere else", not from the known inshore population. As males are not reproductively successful until about 15, twice the age of females, the implication is that there are quite a few right whales in some unknown offshore habitats.

Nearly every calf now is monitored from birth to the northern feeding grounds and through their first, most vulnerable year of life. The majority of right whales have experienced an entanglement and/or ship strike, the major mortality concern. At 22 knots or higher a moderately large ship is almost certain to kill any large whale it strikes, but the pressures against operating at slower speeds will keep the threat high until, and if, whales can be warned away. Meanwhile, while Rome burns:

NMFS was sued in November by HSUS, Defenders of Wildlife and the Ocean Conservancy, for failing to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. They also filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Coast Guard in 60 days if it failed to implement safeguards for right whales. The NMFS lawsuit followed NMFS's May denial of a petition by nine organizations for emergency regulations to protect the right whale, primarily from ship strikes, after having pledged to implement a plan to reduce ship strikes every year since 2001. Scientists believe the species' survival may be jeopardized by the death of a single mature female, which everyone knows happened several times in 2004. NMFS response to all the alarm is that emergency actions are unnecessary, and their final risk reduction plan may be released in early 2006. The Navy has made some extra effort to mitigate ship strikes, but remains responsible for too many. Commercial fishing has generally not responded to alerts of right whale locations, and some whale watch vessels have not kept 500 yards from right whales.

No one knows if human efforts have helped increase the numbers of right whales, but everyone agrees we are killing too many. CSI celebrates the growing numbers, thanks all who work so hard to save this species, and hopes that others can apply the lessons worldwide.

Help the 100 surviving Western Pacific Grey whales; protest to Shell Oil, by letter and at the pump. The fears of scientists have been confirmed, as the whales avoided using their traditional feeding habitat near the Shell PA-B oil platform under construction off Eastern Russia this past summer. The whales need the relatively shallow shelf waters off the Sakhalin coast to feed on bottom crustaceans. World Wildlife Fund International supported the research proving the impact of the project, part of the controversial US$10-12 billion Sakhalin II project of the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, led by British-based Royal Dutch Shell and partly funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Solomon Islands' Parliament government in November passed a law banning the export of live dolphins for captive display. CSI congratulates the Solomon Islands government, Soltai Fishing and Processing Ltd., and Earth Island Institute (EII) for stopping this ugly trade. CSI in particular thanks EII's Mark Berman, who traveled to the Solomon Islands immediately after the first rumors of an impending trade surfaced. A skilled negotiator and advocate known to many as the Berminator, he has played similar key roles all over the world.

29 dolphins may still be alive at the Marine Mammal Education Centre at Gavutu Island in the Solomons, the survivors of a brutal 2003 effort, by international investors and the former Vancouver Aquarium animal trainer Christopher Porter, to establish a remote, unregulated facility to capture and market dolphins worldwide. Several of the former handlers for Keiko who worked under Ocean Futures and Jean Michel Cousteau are now part of Porter's company as advisers. One is a board member. Whales Alive! readers may recall Porter's illegal export of 28 dolphins to a facility in Mexico, owned by a politically influential industrialist. That transfer proved to be an embarrassment to both nations and the CITES Secretariat, who lacked the will and influence to stop it.

Fiji's first Marine Protected Area was created in November by local chiefs of the Great Sea Reef, the world's third largest reef system. Future MPAs will be linked to establish one of the world's largest networks of marine sanctuaries. Chiefs in the Macuata Province announced five protected areas with permanent taboo zones, allowing no fishing or harvesting of other marine resources.

Mauritania had its first Aquatic Mammal Course in November, the first in a series Dr. Koen Van Waerebeek has been contracted to produce. CSI was pleased to provide the posters, identification and stranding manuals, software, data forms and other materials from many sources that were used in the course. The course was held at the Institut Mauritanien des Recherches Océanographiques et des Pêches (IMROP), Nouadhibou. Fifteen Mauritanian biologists, inspectors and personnel of National Parks attended the training, which covered identification of West African aquatic mammals and field data collection methods. Two field excursions were made to Cap Blanc to evaluate its importance as a sanctuary for small cetaceans and the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal. Spring 2006 field training for responding to whale and dolphin strandings is planned. A start-up Mauritania Aquatic Mammals E-mail group will build to a national Mauritania working group on these species. Support came from the Fondation Internationale du Banc d'Arguin. CSI thanks the California Marine Mammal Center, Cape Cod Stranding Network, Pieter Folkens, Erich Hoyt, and Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies for their enthusiastic help in assembling the only professional library for marine mammal studies in Mauritania.

Bottlenose dolphins were seen in Long Island Sound in mid-November. News of a healthy group apparently foraging for abundant herring was electrifying, as the Sound is between New York and Connecticut and slowly recovering from many decades of misuse.

Guidelines for Applying the Precautionary Principle to Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resource Management is a new publication of the Species Survival Network, of which CSI is a member. Produced after an extensive process of research and consultation, the Guidelines are available in English (http://www.pprinciple.net/PP%20Guidelines_english.pdf), Spanish, and French. For more information see: http://www.pprinciple.net/. It is a sad truth that applications of the Precautionary Principle are usually opposed by the people who do the damage and need them the most. Pundits consider it theoretical, more a philosophical text than guide to solutions. But if understood and applied it holds the key to many issues. Consider it. Promote it. Push it. But first you have to read it. Not at bedtime.