Cetacean News

The Marine Mammal Protection Act is under attack again. HR 4075 may be voted on by the House as you read this. Sponsored by Representative Pombo (R-CA), H.R. 4075 would loosen the requirement to reduce bycatch in commercial fisheries, weaken safeguards for marine mammals in captivity, delay in-the-water conservation measures through the extension of multiple deadlines in the law, minimize public involvement in key marine mammal research efforts, and much more. It is a disaster for marine mammals, and intended to be.

Please voice your opposition to HR 4075 and any other attempt to weaken the MMPA. You have responded to previous CSI alerts, and we thank you. Congress has so far heeded the public will; you made the difference. However this new attack on the MMPA needs your immediate attention. Please contact your people in Congress. Their numbers are in the blue pages of phone books, you can call the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121, or you can find them online at http://www.house.gov/.

Right whales die from ship strikes at an alarming rate. CSI requests that everyone reading this newsletter make a public comment in support of a NMFS proposal to implement speed restrictions on vessels 65 feet long, in certain locations and at certain times of the year along the east coast of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The purpose of this proposed rule is to reduce the likelihood of deaths and serious injuries to endangered North Atlantic right whales that result from collisions with ships. These measures are part of NMFS' Ship Strike Reduction Strategy to help the North Atlantic right whale recover. The deadline for written comments is 5:00 p.m. local time on August 25, 2006, addressed to: Chief, Marine Mammal Conservation Division, Attn: Right Whale Ship Strike Strategy, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Comments may also be sent via email to shipstrike.comments@noaa.gov, or to the Federal eRulemaking portal: http://www.regulations.gov/. For further information contact Gregory Silber, Ph.D., Fishery Biologist, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, at (301) 713-2322 x152.

Japanese children watched a Baird's beaked whale being butchered in June, during an unusual and highly promoted school trip. The whale, the first killed this season East of Tokyo, bled as the children giggled, perhaps nervously, and Japan expanded the limits of its campaign to teach a new generation why whales are only meat. The school trip was staged as Japan achieved a momentary majority in the IWC, later found to have been caused by at least two Commissioners of other nations voting in Japan's favor but against their government's instructions. The latest move to use whale meat while the market is glutted is to provide whale meat as hospital food. Don't get sick in Japan!

Meanwhile, Japan kills up to 20,000 whales and dolphins a year, mostly Dall's porpoises. At least 350,000 Dall's porpoises have been slaughtered since 1986, but again Japan not only defied IWC efforts to end the hunts but refused to provide any information on the ongoing killing.

140,000 square miles of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands became the world's largest Marine Protected Area in mid-June, thanks to President Bush. At least 7,000 species and countless vulnerable habitats will be protected from development, pollution and overfishing, including endangered Hawaiian monk seals, green sea turtles, and tiger sharks. What about whales and dolphins? It is unclear how protected they will be from increasing human noise, especially naval sonars. The current RIMPAC exercise (see article elsewhere) is planned to avoid protected areas and shallows, but noise does not stop at human boundaries. It will be interesting to see what the level of shipping and sonar noises will be deep in the new MPA; is there any escape from our din?

The new MPA is a welcome symbol of the resolve necessary to curb our current exploitation of the oceans. Less than 1 percent of the oceans are protected, 75 percent of the world's fisheries are at or beyond the limits of sustainability, and 90 percent of the world's large fish are gone. Protected areas are one well proven solution, giving nature the chance to recover biodiversity and natural habitats, but they are not keeping pace with the exploitation.

What will the next generation, your kids and their kids, say about their ocean's resources, what little we left for them? Previous generations have worked hard to make life better for their children. What's wrong with our generation? For one example, compare this new MPA with the intruding RIMPAC exercise conducted in July by the US and other navies.

Whales Tails Tortilla Chips, what a great idea! This new brand of chips shaped like whales' tails got our attention when the young Californians starting the business asked about using the photo for their bag from CSI's Photogallery that is on this Whales Alive! cover:

They went on to say how they were going to donate some profits to help whales. They really meant it, and now have an advisory council to help them "do the most good". CSI wants this new company to succeed in part because their "help the world" entrepreneurship is something worth promoting in this callous age, and if that isn't your thing their chips do taste very good. We want these chips sold on whale watches everywhere! Although, sigh, they are just breaking into the California market, it's possible to order them through ric@whaletailschips.com, 619-249-7748, or http://www.whaletailschips.com/, which we coyly suggest every whale watch and whale lover do immediately. And the photo? Imagine a calm sea miles from land, meditating at dawn on the bow of a small boat about to spend the whole day surrounded by humpbacks ... scientific research doesn't get any better than this!

The 2006 Red List of Threatened Species is a real-life horror story, the world's most authoritative source of information on the status of the Earth's plants and animals in this time of rapid change. This May assessment of the global status of plants and animals by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) grows each year, with many species and habitats appearing on the Red List for the first time in 2006. Some details are available at http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/redlist2006/media_advisory.htm.

Identifying Whales, Dolphins, Seals and Sea Turtles in the MARLANT Area is a new field guide, produced by Canada's Maritime Forces Atlantic, to fulfill the Department of National Defense's commitment to environmental laws and standards. CSI congratulates the effort to put a simple guide in the hands of every ship's watch off Eastern Canada, to better enable commanders to keep from impacting the animals and getting a lot of bad press. We also congratulate CSI member Martin Smith, whose Cuvier's beaked whale photo is on the back cover of the guide. That photo was picked from CSI's web site Photogallery, one of many that have been used for a variety of purposes, from school and government reports to glossy books. We want our Photogallery to provide the best possible images as educational tools for the public, and we need your help. For example, our striped dolphin image is terrible; doesn't anyone have anything better?

The Southern Resident Orcas of Puget Sound will benefit from an early June NMFS Proposal for Critical Habitat Designation, but only if it becomes real. The Habitat would include over 2,500 square miles of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca waters. The Proposal is the latest in a series of hesitant official steps motivated by a steep decline in the very well known orca population to only 79 individuals in 2001, down from 97 less than a decade earlier. Following that low a conflict began, between relentless data substantiating the need for protection, and powerful economic and political forces that did not want to pay a price for the protection. After delays caused by official hesitation, that these orcas represented a unique population, the whales were finally listed as Endangered in 2005. The population has surged to 90, with or without human help. The next step is a Population Recovery Plan expected to be available for public comment by July.

The Critical Habitat Designation will not include 112 square miles of 18 military sites. Military exclusions are increasing everywhere today, legalized under the umbrella of national security. Being unstoppable, these exclusions may foster an attitude that their environmental consequences are irrelevant. Just because it is extremely difficult to quantify military exemptions it is neither responsible nor logical to ignore their consequences. The effects of these "holes" in the critical habitat would be excellent research opportunities, and might prove that the whales avoid them anyway. Understanding why would be an obvious follow up project.

So often in the last few decades these three groups of whales have stimulated some broad questions that have helped human society. The recovery efforts on behalf of these orcas, and the opposition to them, illustrate the vexing questions that must be faced openly and objectively over and over, wherever conflicts occur: what will it cost economically to save a population, habitat or regional diversity, and is the result worth the cost? What is the economic and social trade-off from protecting diversity and habitats, and when should one take precedence over the other? It comes down to defining "cost" in more than economic terms, which many people just cannot accept.

Public comments on the habitat-designation proposal may be sent to NOAA Fisheries Service until mid-August via email at: orcahabitat.nwr@noaa.gov or by writing to: Chief - Protected Resources Division, 1201 NE Lloyd Blvd, Suite 100, Portland OR 97322-1274.

Studies of this population of Southern resident orcas have expanded the frontiers of all animal behavior science, leaving anyone with any sense of wonder to mull over how much else we're still missing "out there". These orcas are famous for their "ceremonies", occasional ritualistic meetings between pods. Last October a ceremony was documented off the west side of San Juan Island, by students of the Beam Reach marine science and sustainability school (http://beamreach.org/), that included a synchronized call by many individuals in both groups. Video, underwater recordings, and photographs from the ceremony can be accessed from: http://www.orcasphere.net/blog/2006/5/15/ceremony.html.

The students' research found the orcas to be the best indicator of a healthy marine ecosystem. They illustrate problems with eating a diet heavy in contaminants that have accumulated in fish prey, including PCBs, DDT, heavy metals, and anthropogenic hydrocarbon residues. Effects include a high mortality rate among newborns and problems with nutrition and immune deficiencies.

The Pacific Salmon Commission's Fraser River Panel expects a good salmon run this year, with half of the 17.3 million sockeyes passing through the San Juans. However, a recent Canadian study found that Southern resident orcas feed solely on chinook, the largest, and not on other salmon species. The study was based on the collection of fish scales collected where orcas were feeding.

By mid-June everyone knew the K and L pods each had returned with a new calf!

L54 and L108.
Photo by Erin Falcone, Cascadia Research Collective.

L108, the second calf of L54, Ino, appeared in April. Ino was born in 1977, and had L100 in 2001. Her mother, L35, died in 1996, and she has no living siblings.

K28 with K39.
Photo by Astrid Van Ginneken, Center for Whale Research.

K39 appeared in mid-June, the first calf of eleven-year-old K28, Raven, who has tied the record for youngest known wild orca mothers (under the unnatural conditions of captivity orcas have given birth at six). K28 is K12's daughter, and granddaughter of K4 (born approx. 1933, died in 1999). K28's brother, K31, was born in 1999 and has been presumed dead since the fall of 2005. The Southern resident community is now at 89, with 24 in J pod, 21 in K pod and 44 in L pod. The original population may have been 121 orcas. In the 60's and 70's the captivity industry took its toll, killing or taking 50, leaving 71 orcas alive. Relieved of that pressure at least the population climbed to 99 by 1995, dropped to 79 by 2001, and now may require extraordinary help to become stable. Although much of the decline was blamed on insufficient salmon, it coincided with the deployment of Destroyer Squadron 9 to Everett. The ships exercise off the Olympic Peninsula but occasionally include the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Haro Strait. Active sonar use now requires higher command authorization after the infamous Haro Strait passage of the USS Shoup. http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/birthsdeaths.html has more fascinating news and history of the orcas.

Awesome Whales For Kids is the latest DVD release from the Whale Video Company, the producers of Salt & Friends: Humpback Whales With Names. This new DVD is 67 minutes of the most exciting whale behaviors from 2,826 whale watches!

CSI promotes whale watching as a proven way to have people connect with the whales and the sea, but it's not possible for everyone to experience it. Most children will never meet a whale face-to-face, or be surprised by a 50-ton humpback flying in a graceful breach into the air, or be told to "Watch out ... that whale is going to breathe on you!" Awesome Whales includes a baby whale playing with seaweed and a plastic bucket, a mother humpback whale lifting her 12,000 pound calf out of the water on her back, other whales blowing on people looking down at them, or lobtailing next to the boat, calves imitating their mothers, four humpbacks circling the boat and beginning to sing, and whale games. If there is a better way to expose children to real whales without really being out there on a boat we haven't seen it.

Discovering Dolphins is the best new book for young readers we have seen in a long time. This is the book that will satisfy your already enthralled children, or hook newcomers to dolphin wonders. Crammed with 50 superb underwater and action photos on 48 pages, the book is all about them, without weaving in the usual woes of human impacts and conservation issues. We agree with the premise of the authors, Stephanie and Douglas Nowacek, that caring about the issues can only come after we learn about and love the dolphins themselves. The facts are detailed yet easily absorbed; this book will be used for many outstanding school reports, but it will also be treasured and passed down. $9.95, Voyageur Press, 2006.