Thriving Oceans

Let’s send out some positive ocean vibes and get a jump on the weekend with a photo session of one of my favorite sea creatures…Seahorses!

Seahorses belong to the genus Hippocampus which includes more than 47 species.  Showcasing a multitude of colors and sizes, they  are adept at camouflaging themselves amongst seagrasses, coral reefs and mangroves in the shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world.  And for those keeping track the Leafy Sea Dragon rounding up the session belongs to the genus Phycodurus, but but nonetheless is still a seahorse relative…

 “The United States today announced that it will seek the strongest possible management for the conservation of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a fish which is in serious trouble.

This action has two components.

First, we are sending a clear and definitive statement to the international community that the status quo is not acceptable. 

Over the past 40 years, the international body that manages bluefin tuna, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), has overseen a 72 percent decline in the adult population of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna and an 82 percent decline in the adult population of the western Atlantic stock. 

In recent years, the countries that fish the eastern stock, which spawns in the Mediterranean, have done so at two to three times the sustainable level, causing a significant and rapid decline in the last decade. The status of the western stock, which spawns in the Gulf of Mexico and is fished primarily off the North American coast, has recently stabilized due to the establishment of well-enforced, science-based quotas. 

A sustained lack of science-based management for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna, and concerns about slow recovery in the west, have brought us to this point. As a member in ICCAT, the United States calls for strong and definitive action at the November 2009 meeting in Brazil. This includes establishing management measures that end overfishing such as setting responsible science-based quotas, stronger enforcement of these quotas, and closures during spawning periods. 

Second, the United States strongly supports Monaco’s proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to prohibit international trade of the species. The United States will consider amending or withdrawing support for the Monaco proposal if ICCAT adopts significantly strengthened management and compliance measures. 

Improving international fishery management and ending illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are high priorities for the United States government, Congress, commercial and recreational fishermen, and conservationists.”

-Statement from Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, Announcing Support for Listing Atlantic Bluefin Tuna on International Trade Endangered Species List

The heavy rains currently beating down on the East San Francisco Bay Area has reminded me about the incredible amount of debris that will be entering our waterways and oceans.  We are all aware of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but there is an enormous amount of other debris that is left to surf the waves.  Take for instance fishing nets.  Unattended and discarded fishing nets pose danger to the entire ocean system, even whales.  Check out the following pictures from The Marine Mammal Center and the results of their necropsy of a dead sperm whale recovered in March 2008.

“On March 16, The Marine Mammal Center’s Director of Veterinary Science, Dr. Frances Gulland, assisted in the necropsy of a 51-foot-long sperm whale that  had washed up on a beach near Tomales Point in Point Reyes, CA. When the necropsy team reached the animal’s internal organs, they discovered nearly 450 pounds of fishing net, mesh, braided rope, plastic bags, and even a plastic comb in the whale’s stomach.“

The Marine Mammal Center, August 2008

Photo: Chris Whittier

Photo: Chris Whittier

Coming off the heels of Hope for small sea turtle populations, there is yet another stint of positive ocean conservation news; this time for our cetacean friends.  A new publication in Conservation Biology has actually documented voluntary cooperation by shipping vessels to avoid whale strikes. 

Fin, humpback, right and gray whales have the unfortunate distinction of being the most frequently reported victims of collisions based on historical records.  But whale strikes are not limited to only those species as deaths have been noted for sei, blue and minke whales as well.  However, one particular cetacean stands out above the whale strike crowd with victimhood reaching 2 orders of magnitude above the others.  Perhaps its affinity for urbanized coastal waters around the globe, the endangered North Atlantic right whale is in need of a little shipping compassion. Especially when a 2008 report found that  53% of North Atlantic right whale deaths were attributed to vessel strikes.

To curb the problem, conservation policies have been discussed and even implemented, including the establishment of an ‘area to be avoided.’  In 2007, “The International Maritime Organization adopted the Roseway Basin Area to be avoided on the Scotian Shelf as a voluntary conservation initiative to reduce the risk of lethal vessel strikes to right whales.”  This voluntary area to be avoided went into effect on May 1, 2008 and was designed to be seasonally effective from June 1 to December 31st of each year.  With shipping companies traditionally against the execution  of speed reduction regulations and alteration of shipping lanes (i.e. time is money), the notion of a voluntary avoidance area was definitely a concept that needed confirmation of compliance.

To my surprise, the researchers found:

” Estimates of vessel-operator voluntary compliance ranged from 57% to 87% and stabilized at 71% within the first 5 months of implementation. Our estimates showed an 82% reduction in the risk of lethal vessel strikes to right whales due to vessel-operator compliance. We conclude that the high level of compliance achieved with this voluntary conservation initiative occurred because the area to be avoided was adopted by the International Maritime Organization.”

But the caveat with ocean-going vessels avoiding a conventional shipping lane was that they needed to find a new travel route.  And although the newly adopted course was quite favorable to the right whale, it has the potential to increase fin whale ship strikes by approximately 7%.  The argument, however, is that the fin whale population is 250 times more than that of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, right whales are more abundant than fin whales in the ‘area to be avoided’ , and the ship-strike risk to humpback whales and to sei whales will be reduced by 11% and 74% respectively.

So what does a reduction in ship strikes ultimately mean to the endangered North Atlantic right whale, well it may very well be the difference between recovery and extinction.

“Preventing as few as two female deaths per year would increase the population growth rate to replacement levels that would initiate recovery.  Such prevention is particularly relevant given that contemporary probability estimates of deaths from vessel strikes could be as high as 10 individuals in any given year.”

 

Reference: Vanderlaan, A.S.M., Taggart, C.T.(2009) Efficacy of a Voluntary Area to Be Avoided to Reduce Risk of Lethal Vessel Strikes to Endangered Whales. Conservation Biology

A new publication in Conservation Biology is shedding light on the effect of a low population on fertility success in sea turtles.  And unlike other species that experience reduced fertility when population densities drop, green sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, and their conservationists are receiving a bit of good news. 

“We found that there has been no reduction in fertility in small nesting aggregations in either of these species worldwide.”

The well known issue of sea turtle overexploitation has sparked recovery efforts around the globe.  But the lingering question was whether some turtle populations have passed the point of no return and would thus be unable to ultimately avoid extinction.  According to researchers, marine species have had a variable success rate in recuperating from low numbers, which is a product of the biology of the species and human pressures like habitat degradation and harvesting.  However, these latest findings suggest that even populations comprised of very low densities have a chance at recovery (Previous critical density models indicated depensation might occur when populations dipped below 5% of historical numbers).

“Furthermore, there was clearly no pronounced reduction in fertility in either species at low numbers, even in rookeries yielding as few as 10 clutches per year.”

 

“The capacity to maintain functional levels of fertilization success in the face of high levels of exploitation may help in part to explain why total extirpations have been few and recoveries have been possible.  This information does not, however, explain why in some cases recovery has not occurred.”

I guess the biological moral of the story is that even highly reduced populations have an “intrinsic conservation value”, and can provide much needed information in sea turtle biology and aid in global recovery efforts.

BELL, C., BLUMENTHAL, J., BRODERICK, A., & GODLEY, B. (2009). Investigating Potential for Depensation in Marine Turtles: How Low Can You Go? Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01313.x

Now that I’ve covered ‘Whale Wars’ and the ‘Institute for Delicious Whale Research’ over the last week, I thought I’d keep on topic and present some information over the very controversial  “Scientific Permit Whaling.”

The 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling established Article VIII that provides a means by which whales may be killed for scientific purposes.  But what is most interesting and surely limits any authority of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is that issuing a scientific whaling permit is actually decided upon by individual nations.  Although the nation has to submit a proposal, the Convention says,

“…it is the member nation that ultimately decides whether or not to issue a permit, and this right overrides any other Commission regulations including the moratorium and sanctuaries.”

So what does this all mean for whales?  Well it means that the IWC has no direct effect on preventing the continued slaughter of whales.  IWC established sanctuaries are in reality not off limits to whaling, and harvesting can continue under the guise of research without any Convention/Commission repercussions.  The IWC is limited to Resolutions that ask governments to abstain from issuing scientific whaling permits, but as per their own words:

“While the Commission cannot interfere with the right of a member nation to issue a permit, it can comment on the permit, after receiving the report of the Scientific Committee.”

Unfortunately comments, strong words and resolutions are not enough of an incentive for some nations to refrain from sinking a harpoon into the side of a fleeing whale.  And as if the situation couldn’t become even more laughable, the IWC member nations, for instance, could not even come to a unanimous decision whether to vote in favor of a 2007 resolution against Japan’s Antarctic whaling program or not.  For all practical purposes the resolution did pass with 40 votes in favor, 2 votes against and 1 abstention, but there were 27 countries that “decided not to participate in the vote as they believed that the submission of the proposal was not conducive to building bridges within the Commission.”

But  there is an environmental  irony with  Japan’s Antarctic whaling program, known as JARPA II, as well.  According to what was presented to the IWC by Japan, the objectives of this so-called scientific harpooning are:

1. monitoring of the Antarctic ecosystem;
2. modeling competition among whale species and developing future management objectives;
3. elucidation of temporal and spatial changes in stock structure;
4. improving the management procedure for Antarctic minke whale stocks.

Since the feasibility study has been completed, the JARPA II program will commence under full-scale research with scientific permits issued for 850 (plus 10%) Antarctic minke whales, 50 humpback whales and 50 fin whales per year.

Hmmm…now I am starting to see the light. Saving, improving and monitoring the Antarctic ecosystem by removing species vital to its health must be sound science.