ACS Conservation Committee Report

ACS Conservation Reports are selected summaries of current news articles on whales, dolphins, porpoises, and their environment. These reports are offered to you under the fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law.

  Scientist claims US Navy Sonar blasts Pacific Northwest killer whales...   Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research has issued a press release stating that on 5 May 2003, the US Navy Guided Missile Destroyer Shoup DDG 86 conducted sonar operations for five hours in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and in Haro Strait between Vancouver Island, creating one of the most obvious displays of marine mammal harassment that experienced observers have ever seen, anywhere.

The report states that the terrorized whales and porpoises in the region could not escape the intense mid-frequency (3 kHz) long duration &pings" from the ship's SQS 53C sonar; and, several porpoises are reported to have "coincidentally" stranded and died following the sonar event. The carcasses of these mammals have been collected for forensic examination for acoustic pressure trauma (bleeding in ears and brain).

By chance, J pod of 22 killer whales was in Haro Strait at the time of the sonar operations. Observers noted that they abruptly stopped their feeding and gathered in a tight group to swim close to shore at the surface for the duration of the sonar exercise. The sonar "pings" were so powerful (>200 dB re 1 uPa) that they could be heard in air by visitors along the shoreline of San Juan Island.

The US Navy is seeking exemption from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act in Congress this week, in part because they know they are the most egregious of marine mammal harassers and killers worldwide. Since March 2000, when they chased 17 whales ashore in the Bahamas, the Navy has known that their sonar kills and injures whales at distances well beyond the visual horizon, yet they continue to "exercise" in inappropriate and confined waters killing these innocent animals.

In just this one day that we [Ken Balcomb] recently videotaped, the Navy's lethal sonar adversely impacted every marine mammal within twenty miles of the ship. No wonder marine mammals are stranding and their populations are declining. This is a literal "no-brainer" for the Navy and the whales. www.whaleresearch.com/usnavysonar.html    Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research

  Puget Sound Orca Population Increases Slightly...   The population of endangered southern-resident killer whales off the coasts of Vancouver Island and Washington State is increasing slightly, a Canadian scientist says. Five calves have been born since last summer and one died, leaving the population at a still-precarious 84 orcas, said John Ford, senior marine mammal scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, B.C.

"I don't know if it is a record or not," Ford said, "but it is a big jump after the last couple of years anyway. It does give cause for encouragement." Usually one to two calves are born to the southern residents in a year. Even a few more offspring can make a big difference, Ford said, "but it may not represent the long term."

Killer whales usually mate in the summer and have a 16- to 17-month gestation period. The calves, typically born in the winter, have a mortality rate of about 40 percent.     Seattle Post Intelligencer

  Loud Noises Damage Fish Hearing...   New research has found that loud noise significantly damages the ears of fish in the wild. Researchers at the University of Maryland conducted this first study of the effects of loud, man-made noise on wild fish and found that injury to fish hearing was even greater than they had anticipated.

"Studies have shown that loud noise affects marine mammals' hearing, so we had every reason to think we would see effects in fish, too," said researcher Arthur N. Popper, PhD, "but we were surprised that the trauma was so extended and so great."

Most fish use hearing to sense their acoustic environment, using sound to detect predators, find prey and communicate to find mates. A loss of hearing can leave fish vulnerable to predators of unable to find mates.

In his years of studying fish hearing, Dr. Popper had seen that fish sensory hair cells repair themselves if damaged, something human sensory hair cells cannot do. However, in this experiment in an Australian harbor, he and his colleagues found evidence that the hearing of fish not only was badly damaged, but their sensory hair cells didn't grow back, even over a two-month period.     Popper Lab

  Extinction Nears for Whales and Dolphins...   Some Whales, dolphins and porpoises are now so endangered they could vanish within a decade, scientists say.

The warning comes from an international group of cetacean experts at IUCN-The World Conservation Union. They say species like the baiji (the Yangtze River dolphin) are unlikely to last for another 10 years. Other small cetaceans and several of the great whale species are almost as endangered, they believe.

The CSG says humans have not so far caused the extinction of any cetacean species, but it thinks that could change. A former CSG chair, William Perrin, said: "It seems unlikely the baiji will still be around when the next action plan is formulated eight or 10 years from now." The baiji, a freshwater dolphin now limited to the main channel of the Yangtze river in China, is considered the most endangered cetacean. From surveys in 1985 and 1986, the total population was estimated at around 300 animals. Between 1997 and 1999, extensive surveys sighted only 21-23 dolphins.

Other cetaceans thought at extreme risk are the vaquita (the Gulf of California porpoise) and several local populations of whales and dolphins, all classed on IUCN's Red List as critically endangered.

Other endangered cetaceans include northern hemisphere right whales, the blue whale, Hector's dolphin, and the Ganges/Indus River dolphins. Some species still awaiting formal assessment are known to be in serious danger of extinction.

Mr. Perrin said some progress has been made, but grave threats to the continued existence of many cetaceans still exist, and some threats are worsening. Threats to cetaceans include the deliberate killing of some species for food and predator control. Animals die after becoming entangled in fishing gear, or colliding with vessels. Some species are targeted to supply the demand from aquaria for live animals.

Fishing depletes food sources, coastal habitats are damaged by development, and new types of military sonar can apparently cause lethal damage to deep-diving cetaceans.

But the CSG sees some signs for hope. It says: "Several populations of southern right whales, humpbacks in many areas, gray whales in the eastern North Pacific, and blue whales in both the eastern North Pacific and central North Atlantic have begun to show signs of recovery."     BBC Online

  The Oceans Losing Fish...   A scientific "bombshell" reveals that all the world's oceans are emptying of fish. But the cod fishery is the worst-case scenario -- and to deny that, experts say, is sheer idiocy.

The results were startling: first one population of big fish, then another, cut down by 90 per cent just since industrialized fishing started five decades ago. First blue marlin, then sailfish and finally swordfish in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. First codfish, then flatfish on the southern Grand Banks.

As one species was fished out, another would rise temporarily, spurred by the extra food available in the sea. Then it, too, would be targeted and heavily fished (or killed by accident when commercial fish were caught), and driven to dramatic population declines.

And not one open ocean system, but nine of them. Not one continental shelf, but four. And not just some species, but all of the biggest fish in the ocean, throughout the global ocean, in every single major fishery in the world from the tropics to the poles.

"If you look at the big picture, you see this amazingly consistent pattern," said Boris Worm, the Emmy-Noether Fellow in Marine Ecology at the Institute for Marine Science in Kiel, Germany.

He and Ransom Myers, who holds the Killam Chair in Ocean Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, are the authors of the first comprehensive, long-term look at how many fish are left in the ocean since modern commercial fishing fleets began to scour the sea with the help of sonar and satellite. The study was published in May's issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature.

Species after species, the researchers found the same pattern: Thriving populations speedily crashed as the voracious commercial fishing fleets moved in. And crashed to the tune of 80 per cent within the first 15 years of sustained fishing. In the Gulf of Thailand, for example, 60 per cent of large fin fish, sharks and skates were killed off during the first five years of industrialized fishing. The fish that are left are far smaller on average than they were before. Some get as big as half the size of fish 50 years ago. Some get to only a fifth.

The authors wanted to make sure their information was spread to as wide a population as possible, so that people understand we could be facing a world without fish. Not just fish on the dinner table, but fish in the seas. Unless all the fish at the very top of the ocean food chain get a chance to get on with their lives -- eating and breeding -- some of the species could go extinct. Maybe, eventually, all of them

Even after reading the study, some scientists are denying their findings. While many of the scientists could accept the general finding that fish populations across the global ocean are hugely depleted, they questioned whether some of the individual species are in such dire straits.

The reason the study is a landmark is that it uses data that go back 50 years, to when the ocean's fish were abundant. Most fisheries scientists don't go back that far, so they have been comparing current levels of fish to levels that had already been heavily fished out -- which makes the current populations of some fish, such as bluefin tuna, seem closer to normal.

To Prof. Myers, the denial is just as quintessentially human an activity as the urge to fish in the first place. "We have a hard time imagining that our local actions, summed over the world, could have such huge effects," he said.

Worse, Prof. Worm said, is that having 10 per cent of fish left in the sea can still provide profit for fishery workers -- until they are fished out, and the cost of catching them rises above the prices they can fetch on the luxury market. That's why it's so hard to convince local fishermen that they must stop fishing, or cut their catch. The economics require taking the long view instead of just worrying about money today.

None of the rest of the global biological destruction that he and Prof. Worm catalogued is as thorough as that off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Prof. Myers said. Instead of being reduced to 10 per cent of historic populations, like so many other big fish of the sea, cod stocks have fallen to just 1 per cent. At those levels, it may not be possible for cod to come back. At those levels, any cod being caught are just babies. The cod stocks have fallen so low that they have gone past the point at which scientists are able to predict what they will do. "We're changing things in unprecedented ways," Prof. Myers said. "The cod was there for more than five centuries and now it's gone."

Because it's not just fish. Recent examinations of the seas have found that dolphins and porpoises are in trouble too. Some species may not live out this decade.

Shark populations are in terrible shape, partly the result of being caught in the kilometers-long lines set for commercial fish, but also because of the growing practice of shark-finning: Sharks are pulled out of the water just long enough for the fishermen to slice off fins and tails for the shark-cartilage remedies popular in Asia. The live sharks, now finless, are then dropped back into the water, where, unable to navigate, they fall to the ocean floor and drown. Some shark populations have dropped so low that marine biologists fear the sea animals are on the brink of extinction

Green sea turtles are in danger too. Pacific leatherback turtles are balanced on the knife's edge between survival and extinction.

Put together, these pieces tell a far scarier story for humanity than one about a community losing its livelihood, a family driven out of work or even a province robbed of its natural patrimony. These pieces tell the tale of ecological meltdown within the global ocean. The ocean makes up 70 per cent of the surface of Earth. The ocean regulates climate, temperature, humidity, oxygen and carbon systems -- the very ability of the planet to sustain life.

The irony is that to restore the fish and therefore the ocean to health, all that needs to be done is nothing. No seeds have to be sown, no harvests reaped, no forced feeding or extra nurturing or gentle care. The solution is simply to leave the fish alone and let them reproduce.

This week, while Prof. Worm was fielding calls from all over the world about his study, he kept looking out the window of his office in Kiel to the vast expanse of the Baltic Sea. Fifty years ago, it was full of big tuna and whales, he said. Today, the biggest creatures in its waters are jellyfish, zooplankton and the odd herring. It is, in effect, a sea without fish.     The Globe and Mail, (c) Alanna Mitchell

  Brazil, Argentina Seek Atlantic Whale Sanctuary...   Brazil and Argentina said on May 14 they would resubmit a proposal to the International Whaling Commission next month to ban whaling in the Atlantic Ocean south of the equator.

Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva said the two countries would ask the commission at its June meeting to set up a whale sanctuary.

The idea has been rejected twice before by the commission. Despite a moratorium on whaling, introduced in 1986, some countries like Japan and Norway carry out limited whaling. The moratorium was supposed to have been reviewed in 1990 but never was.

In 2002, 18 members voted for it and 23 against. There were 4 abstentions. Supporters of whale sanctuaries argue that such refuges will give dwindling and endangered whale species a chance to rebuild their populations over time. Japan has argued there is no scientific basis for whale sanctuaries.

Silva said Brazil and Argentina's proposal will emphasize using the sanctuary for scientific research and whale watching, which has bolstered tourism in southern Argentina.

There are two whale sanctuaries in the world -- in the Indian Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean -- where no whaling is permitted.     Rueters

  Some Widely Used Fishing Gears Cause Severe Harm to Marine Environment in U.S....   Some fishing gears widely used in U.S. ocean waters severely damage seafloor habitats and kill far more than the species they target, according to a first-of-its-kind report released today by Marine Conservation Biology Institute (MCBI). The report's findings are based on a survey of fishermen, regulators, scientists and conservationists, who compared and ranked the level of damage 10 major commercial fishing gears cause to the marine environment. Bottom trawls-large, heavy nets that are dragged across the seafloor to catch cod, flounder, rockfish, shrimp and other popular ocean delicacies-topped the list of the most harmful fishing gears.

The results of the survey, published in the MCBI report Shifting Gears: Addressing the Collateral Impacts of Fishing Methods in U.S. Waters, show remarkable consensus among groups that seldom share the same point of view on fishing matters. There was consistent agreement about which fishing gears are the most and least harmful to marine resources. Bottom trawls, dredges, bottom gillnets and midwater gillnets were considered to have a relatively "high" ecological impact, while midwater trawls, purse seines and hook-and-line gear were considered to have a "low" impact on the marine environment. Survey respondents rated the impacts of longlines and pots and traps as relatively "moderate."

Of primary concern to the survey's respondents was the impact of fishing gears on ocean habitat. The marine professionals polled consistently assigned greater ecological value to seafloor organisms and structures-which serve as nursery areas, refuges and homes for fishes-than other marine ecosystem components. Ninety-eight percent of marine species live in, on or immediately above, the seafloor. Though second to habitat, bycatch-the unintentional capture and discard of non-target marine life, including shellfish and crabs, marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, sharks and other fishes-was also a concern.

While there has been clear documentation of the environmental impacts caused by some fishing gears, until now no scientific method has addressed which gears are the most harmful. Shifting Gears is the first to synthesize information about the collateral impacts of various fishing gears, gauge the severity of these impacts and, with input from fishermen, regulators, scientists and environmentalists, compare and rank the overall ecological damage these gears cause.     MCBI Website

  Whalers Get Bad News Re Toxic Whale Meat ...   A Norwegian scientific panel, which recently ruled that blubber from minke whales contained dangerous levels of industrial chemicals known as PCBs, said that most people could keep eating whale meat despite the traces of the toxic poison. However, they advise that pregnant woman and breast-feeding mothers should not eat whale meat.

The advice, following a meeting this week and based on samples from 125 whales, was in line with recommendations to women to avoid certain types of fish including swordfish and large trout when pregnant or nursing.

Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, ignoring a world moratorium. The whaling season formally started this week with 34 boats entitled to harpoon 711 whales.

Jan Kristiansen, a whalers' leader, told NRK public radio that the meeting on mercury showed "unfortunate timing" for the whalers. Norwegian health authorities have to approve the scientists' recommendations.

Norway says minke whales, most often fried as steaks, are relatively plentiful in the North Atlantic and not threatened with extinction like other species including the giant blue whale.

Whales, the world's biggest mammals, are susceptible to picking up toxins like mercury or PCBs because they can live more than 20 years. The poisons get lodged in meat and fat.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element but can be released into the atmosphere by industry, especially by coal-fired power plants. Doctors say that even low concentrations can cause damage to the nervous system.

The tests showed that whale meat contained an average 0.25 microgram of mercury per kilo (2.2 lbs) and ranged from 0.01 micrograms to 0.80. A microgram is a millionth of a gram (0.03527 ounce).

Levels were highest in the North Sea and lowest in the Arctic Barents Sea. For fish, Norway has considered 0.50 micrograms of mercury as a safe limit.     Rueters

  Japan's Whale Meat Exceeds Mercury Safety Limits...  

Mercury levels in whales caught in Japan's coastal waters increase the further south the creatures are caught, with one specimen from Okinawa's Nago registering a mercury density more than 57 times the nation's provisional safety limit, according to a group of experts.

Group member Tetsuya Endo, a lecturer at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, said that mercury dissolved in seawater may have accumulated in fish and other whale prey along the Black Current, which flows north toward Japan's Pacific coast from east of the Philippines.

The mercury may stem from industrial pollution in Japan and Southeast Asia, as well as from natural sources such as undersea volcanic activity, Endo said.

The group said it will present its findings at a May meeting of the Food Hygiene Society of Japan in Tokyo. Efforts to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem are only in their infancy as there is no comprehensive data on mercury density in the sea.

The researchers analyzed mercury density in 83 slices of red meat obtained from different kinds of whales, bought from six regions stretching from Abashiri in Hokkaido to Nago between 2000 and 2002. Every slice exceeded Japan's provisional limit on the maximum density of mercury, which stands at 0.4 parts per million. One slice of whale meat in Nago had a mercury density of 23.1 ppm, the highest level recorded by the group.

The researchers also looked specifically into methyl mercury, which damages the nervous system and was responsible for causing Minamata disease in the 1950s and 1960s. The highest level was identified in whale meat from Taiji, at 10.6 ppm, more than 35 times the methyl mercury limit of 0.3 ppm.     The Japan Times

  Rare North Pacific Right Whale Rescue Effort...   What is believed to be the world's most endangered large whale is the target of an international rescue effort involving Canada and the U.S. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has developed a draft recovery plan for the north Pacific right whale which includes participation by Canadian and U.S. marine mammal experts.

Researchers are stepping up efforts to find out more about this rare whale as the long-term strategy is being defined. The North Pacific right whale, which can reach up to 18 meters in length and weigh up to 70 tonnes, is so rare that no one knows how many remain. Experts believe fewer of these Pacific right whales exist than their relatives, the Atlantic right whale, which number only 300 to 400.

Researchers in the eastern north Pacific were excited last year when they spotted a calf with its mother, the first sighting of a calf in that area in 150 years. John Ford, senior marine mammal scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, tries to be optimistic about the chances to save the north Pacific right whale. "But it does at times seem like it could be a bleak outlook for these animals. We are just hopeful that it is not too late for them."

There was a reported sighting of a right whale off B.C.'s coast in 1970, but Ford does not consider it confirmed. The last, best information was taken in June 1951, when a right whale was killed under a scientific permit off B.C.

North Pacific right whales are gaining attention because of the new federal species-at-risk legislation. A draft recovery plan has been posted on the Fisheries Web site.

Hunting decimated their population, believed to have been about 11,000 animals originally. In 1935, they were the first whales to win international protection. But in the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds were killed illegally by the Soviet Union.

"They appear to represent an extreme example of the inability of whale stocks to recover from severe depletion," says the Fisheries Department's recovery plan. U.S. officials have carried out more research on these animals. Every year since 1996, between four and 13 have been spotted in the southeast Bering Sea. The only female known so far is the mother of the calf seen last year.     Times Colonist (Victoria, BC)

  18 Rare Right Whales Born...  

The number of endangered north Atlantic right whales increased by 18 this calving season, researchers announced Friday.

The New England Aquarium in Boston said this was the third consecutive strong calving season, increasing the population of the world's most critically endangered whales by 70 to nearly 350.

The right whale population, decimated by generations of whalers, had numbered about 300 for decades. Even though the animals have been protected since the 1930s, the population has been slow to recover due in part to deaths caused by collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear.

For many years the number of new calves had remained in the single digits, but there has been a right whale baby boom in recent years. Two years ago a record 31 were born, followed the next year by 21 births.

Because the population of North Atlantic right whales was so small, researchers have been able to identify and track individual animals by unique wart-like patterns on their heads, the whale equivalent of human fingerprints, the aquarium said.   United Press International

  CITES Stops Norway and Faroe Islands' Whale Trade Plans ...  

The Faroe Islands, a territory of Denmark under Home Rule Government, has had its plans for trade in whale meat stopped by the CITES Secretariat, which has ruled that trade would violate the treaty.

In March 2003, the Norwegian press reported that the Faroe Islands intended to import minke whale products from Norway. International commercial trade in minke whale products is banned by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, but Norway holds a legal 'reservation' to the ban which permits it to trade with other Parties holding reservations, or with non-Parties. The Faroe Islands holds no reservation to the ban, so argued that it was not a Party to CITES, even though the treaty was ratified on its behalf by Denmark in 1977.

The Secretariat has always understood that, since the Faroe Islands was included in Denmark's instrument of ratification, the Faroe Islands have been subject to the provisions of the Convention since 1977.

Reservations are the accepted legal means to modify treaty obligations. The Directory shows, however, that Denmark has not entered any reservation concerning whale species covered by the Convention. The Secretariat has informed Denmark and Norway that "the import of Minke Whale products by the Faroe Islands constitutes a violation of the Convention and that 'appropriate action' would be taken if this trade continued".

It is not known whether any trade has already happened, but it is now clear that if any does, CITES will treat it as a serious violation.     WDCS

  Cruise Ship Dumps Sewage off Seattle...  

One day after the cruise ship season opened in Seattle, a foul-up resulted in the Norwegian Sun dumping more than 40 tons of raw sewage into Washington waters.

Ecology and the Coast Guard launched investigations after the cruise ship's captain reported the accidental discharge. Authorities are still sorting out whether the sewage release violates the law.

Norwegian Cruise Lines says it doesn't believe the dumping was illegal, but it does violate company policy, and the company is "very disappointed."

The incident highlights a dispute that has simmered quietly for months among environmentalists, the port and other government agencies over the degree to which cruise lines should be required to report where they discharge waste.

Cruise ships do not routinely pump sewage off into Seattle sewers when they dock here, nor do they have permits to dump into state waters. Federal law allows dumping once they are three miles out to sea.

Ocean Advocates and four other groups sought to require cruise ships to routinely report their discharges as a condition of docking here, but were rebuffed by the port and federal regulators.

The ship, nearly as long as three football fields, carries up to 3,200 passengers and crew -- the equivalent of a small floating city.

The dumping incident is not a first for the cruise line. Last July, Norwegian Cruise Lines pleaded guilty to a felony count and agreed to pay a $1 million criminal fine in its headquarters city of Miami. That case started after a whistle-blower contacted federal authorities and the cruise line assigned an environmental audit team to review operations aboard the SS Norway, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Norwegian Cruise Lines' audit team found an officer deliberately circumventing a pollution-prevention device to dump oil, and notified the government. The case involved the falsification of records on waste disposal, Justice said.

In 2001, the Norwegian Sky dumped treated sewage containing hundreds of times more pollutants than allowed by federal law while sailing between Juneau and Ketchikan. The incident helped prompt the state of Alaska to tighten rules on cruise-ship dumping.

The reason it's unclear whether the dumping Saturday violated state or federal law has to do with its location in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Federal law allows discharge of untreated sewage once ships are 3 miles off the coast. But how that law applies in the strait, where ships can be more than three miles offshore but not out to sea yet, remains unclear, Ecology officials said.

Norwegian Cruise Lines policy prohibits dumping any wastes within 12 miles of shore, said company spokeswoman Susan Robison. Company policy requires treatment of all sewage before discharge, she said.

The three cruise ship companies that dock in Seattle have agreed not to dump any wastes into Puget Sound, said Mick Shultz, a port spokesman. But Shultz said he could not specify which waters are covered by the voluntary pledge.

Oceanographers say Puget Sound extends from Olympia to Admiralty Inlet, by Port Townsend. But the public -- and the Washington Legislature -- generally consider the Sound to extend to all the inland saltwater in the state.     Seattle Post Intelligencer