Cetacean News

Take Action Now to Protect Alaska's Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Population!

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has extended the public comment period on Endangered Species Act listing for the Cook Inlet beluga whale. Written comments must be received by August 3, 2007. NMFS needs and wants your comments, and you can make a difference.

There are several reasons CSI is certain that the Cook Inlet beluga whale population must be officially designated as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 2006 included the Cook Inlet beluga on the "red list" for critically endangered species as the population crashed 50% between 1994 and 1999. The current population is estimated at 302, slightly up from 2005's estimate of 278, but it is apparent that their current U.S. listing of "depleted" is not sufficient to empower adequate mitigation.

These belugas are a genetically distinct and geographically isolated population that probably never exceeded 2,000 animals, but by the 1970's were down to perhaps 1300. The very social animals tend to congregate in upper Cook Inlet, increasing the population's vulnerability to disease, stranding and predation. In such a small population every reproductive female or calf becomes enormously important, and even one major event could be catastrophic.

The first official count only occurred in 1994, leading to the assumption than local hunters were causing the decline, and that became a factor in the politically charged delays to official action. Subsistence hunters killed about 70 whales a year until 1999, when severe restrictions were expected to allow the population to rebound. As that rebound did not happen, other issues masked by the hunting began to be identified, such as sewage discharges, oil and gas wastes, polluted runoff, shipping traffic, noise, and habitat loss. Typically, because solutions to such issues might affect profits, well funded politically powerful resistance to effective restrictions loomed over the belugas' future. NMFS's current listing proposal is a very welcome signal that good people really want to do something for these whales.

CSI applauds the Cook Inletkeeper, which is pressing state and federal resource managers to designate critical habitat for the beluga whales under the Endangered Species Act, so areas where whales feed, mate and give birth can be protected. In the meantime, Inletkeeper is educating the public and the media about the plight of this Cook Inlet icon, and challenging shortsighted proposals that pollute or destroy important beluga habitat. All the information you need on this issue is at: http://www.inletkeeper.org/watershedWatch/beluga.htm.

PLEASE SEND YOUR COMMENT TO NMFS by 5:00 PM, August 3rd, to: Kaja Brix, NMFS, P. O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802. Email: CIB-ESAEndangered@noaa.gov. Fax: (907) 586_7012.

Pascuala, a very young orca calf, stranded in April on a beach in Nayarit, Mexico. Within hours she had become famous, been taken to Vallarta Adventures dolphinarium for treatment, and was embroiled in an international controversy about breaking Mexico's law. A fast-arriving team from Sea World appeared before nightfall, and declared that the two-meter, heavily scarred orca calf would die unless immediately transported to their facility in the U.S. Arrangements were rushed, incorrectly, through the U.S. and Mexican embassies, an export permit was applied for, someone in NMFS approved an import permit without knowing the export would be illegal, no one bothered with CITES requirements, and she was due to be shipped in the middle of the night, but...

Mexico's wildlife laws that prohibit the capture, import or export of cetaceans are new, bruised and vulnerable, like this orca calf. They were extremely difficult laws to get passed, against brutal and conniving opposition from Mexico's growing captive display industry. Pascuala clearly offered the industry a "humanitarian" export exception that could be leveraged into commercial exports for many "health" reasons. The laws are always under pressure: Recently both Dolphin Discovery and Xcaret applied to capture dolphins for "scientific purposes", and an illegal capture in May by CONVIMAR, with six dolphins for Tamaulipas and two for Atlantis, brought immediate legal action by COMARINO with a result that the dolphins were freed where they were caught. A first for Mexico!

The people pushed into signing Pascuala's papers for that night ignored or were not aware of any of this. Sea World was more aware than anyone of the inherent stress of transporting even healthy cetaceans, much less an injured and weak newborn, and likely knew of Mexico's laws. Instead of augmenting the calf's medical treatment in Mexico, Sea World pushed extremely fast and hard to move the whale to their tanks. Not long ago this "back door" to captivity was too common in the U.S.

To save the law Mexican NGOs, particularly COMARINO and Greenpeace Mexico, moved quickly to reach Mr. Ignacio Loyola, Chief of the PROFEPA environmental agency, who acted to uphold the law and stopped the transport.

Pascuala stayed in Mexico and, as expected, died in June from a massive infection due to immune suppression. It is not likely she would have survived at Sea World, but the law did survive, and the person most responsible for trying to break the laws prohibiting captures, exports and imports is now known to NGOs. Pasquala's ordeal is over, but the ordeal of protecting much less enforcing laws will never end.

Brazil's Minister of Environment, Ms. Marina Silva, is pushing a Provisional Measure to create the Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity. If it happens IBAMA, the environmental agency with similar but greater scope than the U.S. NMFS, will no longer have responsibility for managing and controlling protected areas and biodiversity in Brazil. The changes follow criticism by private companies and government officials engaged in the "National Plan for Accelerating Development" (PAC). They complained about IBAMA's slow environmental permitting, which is really due to sloppy permit requests. The new Institute will control environmental permits and quality, and natural resource use permits and enforcement. It will also absorb some of IBAMA's people and material, further compromising and weakening IBAMA. As an already minimal staff is split between agencies some fear local police will be tasked with enforcement. The environmental consequences for Brazil may be tragic, but as elsewhere, the priority and motive for the change is increased economic growth.

The death of Daphne, a pan-tropical spotted dolphin displayed at Florida's Gulfarium, was caused by employee negligence, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was kept on the drug metronidazole for too long. While an animal death from human negligence is considered a "serious" violation of the Animal Welfare Act, and curator Greg Siebenaler resigned when the investigation was publicized, the USDA only ordered Gulfarium's administrators to communicate better with their vet, Dr. Forrest Townsend.

Right whales received another reprieve in July, as ships traveling to and from Boston Harbor now use narrower lanes that have been shifted north, reducing the risk from ship strikes by more than 50%. For the very best information about right whales see the new web site http://www.rightwhale.ca/.

Canada's Proposed Recovery Strategy for the Northern and Southern Resident Killer Whales has been posted to the Species at Risk Act (SARA) Public Registry. Comments are requested, and may be submitted up to August 20, 2007. A copy of the strategy and a comment form is available at: http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/plans/showDocument_e.cfm?id=1341.

The UNEP Global 500 Forum's 15th anniversary deserves a "congratulations!" from CSI. The Forum is made up of people and organizations admitted to the United Nations Environmental Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honor. Thanks to the incredible work and leadership of Dr. Robbins Barstow, CSI's Director Emeritus, CSI was admitted to this honor in 1988. One tangible benefit to being a Laureate is the right to nominate others. CSI nominated Ásbjörn "Abbi" Björgvinsson, Manager of Iceland's Húsavík Whale Centre, who was named a Laureate in 2000. While leading Iceland's whale watching industry, Abbi struggles daily against his nation's growing whaling industry, one of the thorns in the side of the IWC. He has many honors besides being a Global 500 Laureate, and has the support of many organizations besides CSI, but most of all he has the will and skill to succeed. We are proud to know Abbi.