Conservation - Marine Mammals

What is the Marine Mammal Protection Act?

• 1972

• each act dictates who is responsible for who

Who is in charge of Cetaceans and all Pinnipeds other than Walrus?

Office of Protection Resources

• Department of Commerse

  • subagencies (like NOAA)

    • Weather and Marine Resource

      • Fisheries

        • Marine Mammals and Sea turtles

          • NOAA Fisheries of Office of Protected Resources

What is Walrus, Polar bear, and Sea otters under?

Fish and Wildlife

• US Department of the Interior

• Also responsible for looking for all marine mammal bones

What is the problem with different agencies in charge of different animals?

• each agency may interpret the act differently than the other based on their cultural belief systems

What is illegal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act?

harassing or disturbing Marine mammals

What is something the agencies disagree on?

swimming with marine mammals

• NOAA believes it is a disturbance

• Fish and Wildlife does not

  • think its okay to swim with manatees

What is OSP?

Optimum Sustainable Population

• number of animals in which will result in maximum productivity if the population given the carrying capacity

What is Potential Biological Removal?

The maximum number of animals that may be removed from a marine mammal stock while allowing that stock to reach or maintain its Optimum Sustainable Population

• not including natural mortalities

What does Take mean?

to harass, hunt, capture, or kill, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal

• this can include approaching to take photo identification

What is Level B Harassment?

Potential to disturb

• includes ecotourism

• approaching animals to see them purposefully

• can be watching to collect data on behavior

• ecotourism boats do not have a Level B permit

What is Level A Harassment?

potential to injure or kill

• counts as biopsies in research

• any potential of harm

Who is in charge of looking at all the stocks in the US and agencies?

The marine mammal commission

What does the Marine Mammal Commission do?

• has a lot of power written into act

• looks over what each agency is doing and decides if they are doing enough

• if the agencies are not performing correctly they can make them

• have to know where each stock stands

What permits are included under directed takes?

• Science

  • General Authorization for Level B Harassment

  • Level A harassment

    • can take up to a year and the public has a say

• Removal for use in Entertainment Facilities

• Enhancement of species

• Photography or filming

• Handling for stranding events

What is enhancement of species permit?

Directed take

• if you want to move animals to a new area, could be for a nuisance animal

What permits are included under Incidental Takes?

• Fisheries with by-catch of cetaceans

• Activities that could harm marine mammals

What are some activities that could harm marine mammals?

• oil exploration

• use of sound gun to find oil

• building bridge over water

Name the last kind of permit

Cetacean parts if moving between countries

What is the Endangered Species Act?

• 1973

• prevent extinction

• also includes habitats for protection

What is the Magnusen Stevens Fishery Management Act?

• dictated exclusive economic zone

  • divided into regions

  • each region has management councils responsible for managing fish stocks

What is the Pelly Amendment?

• way to protect marine species outside of our waters

• if there is proof that another country is doing something that is not abiding my our law we can force the president to make a trade embargo with their government preventing trade if they don’t abide

What is CITES?

Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species

• uses IUCN Red List

  • worldwide categoriation

• Appendix 1, highly endangered species, cannot be moved between countries

• most important thing we have to stop extinction

What are all the things impacting marine mammals?

• overfishing

• bycatch

• hunting

• pollution

• Boat strikes

• climate change

• impacts for removal for entertainment

• disturbance

• noise

How does overfishing affect marine mammals?

• anything that eats fish is affected

• if there is not enough food there is no coming back, death sentence

Example of affect of overfishing

The Asian River dolphin

• they use mosquito net that catches even fish eggs

• biggest threat for this species

What is the biggest problem for all marine mammals?

bycatch

What are the five different kinds of nets with bycatch?

• gill nets

• pot fishing

• trawl nets

• purse seine

• long lines

Gill nets: issues and description

• catch everything

• build so that the size of wholes in net will catch the specific fish size that is targeted

• gets caught on their gills

• has weights under and buoys on top

• have been banned in many areas, florida since the 90s

• banned on high seas

Pot fishing: Issues and description

• used to catch crabs or lobsters

• pot on bottom and rope attached to buoy on tope

• dolphins, pinnipeds, and sirenians get entangled on rope

• big problem for the North Atlantic Right Whale

• if pots are too close the line can be in water column

Trawl nets: Issues and description

• big funnel pulled behind the boat

• haul it in and dump

• all sorts of creatures get caught

Purse seine: Issues and description

• surround a school of fish with net and lifts from center uo

• cinches

• used in gulf of mexico

• impacts the Eastern Tropical Pacific Dolphins

Long line: Issues and description

• looks like the name, long line of hooks

• marine mammals get entangled as they get attracted to bait and twist getting caught on the hook

• the hook gets lodges in intestines

• big impact on pinnipeds and cetaceans

Categories of By catch

• Category 1 Fishery

• Category 2 Fishery

• Category 3 Fishery

Category 1 Fishery

Kills marine mammals frequently

Category 2 Fishery

Kills marine mammals occasionally

Category 3 Fishery

rarely kills marine mammals

What method is used to reduce harm in purse seines?

backing down maneuver

• very last minute they have to go back a little bit

• allows dolphins to get out

• net goes underneath

• international agreement

What is ghost fishing?

gear that is left discarded or lost

• continues to fish

• marine mammals are attracted

• Hawaiian monk seals often get caught

What kind of categories need permit?

Cat 1 and 2

• must allow observers on board

What two things made hunting a big problem?

• Harpoon

• processing ship

Why is harpoon bad?

precision is much better and the chance to kill is much higher

What is wrong with the processing ship?

• can easily take as much as they want and do not have to return to shore each time

• once these were developed whale stocks went way down

Why was whaling a thing?

mostly for whale oil

What was the purpose of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946?

many countries signed because they were worried that the product would run out

What did the International Convention for the regulating of whaling cause?

The international whaling commission

What is the International Whaling Commission?

• originally used to preserve whale stocks and regulate overfishing

• didn’t always work because some nations give inaccurate data

• some countries started to shift view on whaling due to TV

• won’t kick out countries that are not following so that they can keep conversation going

Importance of the record?

• recorded humpback whale songs

• was in nat geo magazines

• one of the most sold record of all record

• changed the way people were seeing it in the US

What year did IWC ban whaling?

1986

What are ways around whaling ban?

• if you are native and rely on it culturally

• scientific reasons

Problem with whaling allowed for science

Japan claimed to be whaling for science but they did not need to kill

When and where did Japan face verdict on whaling?

International court of justice in 2014

What was the verdict on Japan whaling?

court concluded that the permits granted to japan were not for purposes of scientific research

How many member states are in IWC?

88

How did Japan start whaling?

taught by the US during WWII

Example of nation where subsistence hunting is allowed

the Makah in Washington state

• used to make money off of whaling

• focused on Gray Whales

• once the population increased again they asked to whale again

• were given permit to take certain number

• many protested against this

• the nation did not know how to whale anymore and the National Marine Fisheries had to get involved

What is the Sea shepherd?

• used bully tactic to try to stop whaling

• had a show on Discovery channel

• ecoterrorism

• rammed ships

• have turned things around nowadays

What did the IWC have to say about Sea Shepherd?

that it was an ecoterrorism organization

What are some reasons for hunting?

• bait

• medicinal

• bush meat

• food/culture

How are marine mammals hunted for bait?

• dolphins used to catch sharks off Peru

• primarily used Dusky dolphins

• estimated to have taken 20,000 dolphins this way

• evidence of 16 other countries doing this

Example of hunting for bush meat

• sirenians sometimes

• river dolphins mostly

Who is hunted for medicine?

Dolphins

What is bush meat?

eating an animal that is not domesticated

Example of hunting for food or culture

• drive fishing of smaller cetaceans

• idea is you find a large pod and drive them into the shore then bludgeon them

Places that hunt for food or culture

• Faroe Island

• Tajii

• Soloman islands

Examples of animals hunted to extinction

• Caribbean Monk Seal

  • last sighted 1950s

• Steller Sea Cow

  • last seen 1700s

Examples of mammals hunted to near extinction

• grey seals

• baby harp seals

• manatees

• sea otters

Why would fisherman kill pinnipeds?

saw them as competition

Why did the public get drawn to the cause of hunted marine mammals?

videos went viral

• video of baby harp seal killed

• video of dolphin killed by tuna fisherman

Issue with pollution

• biomagnification

• plastics

What is biomagnification?

• the way toxins accumulate

• as you go up it gets worse

Study in Sarasota Bay

• longest running study on wild dolphins

• found levels are enormous

Why is toxin levels different in males and female cetaceans?

females dump it with their milk, builds for 12 years then is dumped to first calf

what are dead zones caused by?

runoff from farm communities

What is a very common death cause for North Atlantic Right Whales?

Boat strikes

Why are boat strikes common for certain whales?

the shipping channels are on top of the feeding grounds, Right Whales feed off surface and therefore get hit

Why are the North Atlantic right whales moving?

climate change is warming waters causing their food to move North, this causes concerns as they move into new shipping lanes

Things done to prevent boat strikes on Right Whales

• send out airplanes seasonally to look

• have hydrophones

• disentanglement teams

Who is under the biggest threat due to climate change?

Polar bears

• need ice to look for breeding holes for seals and belugas

• can only swim so far

• requires under 50°C

Why is climate change affected the entire globe?

• many marine mammals rely on the productivity in the arctic

• cold water sinks and pushes up nutrients

• baleen whales are reliant on polar areas for productivity

How are pinnipeds affected by climate change?

need ice to haul out to give birth

When and Where did the round up happen of killer whales

August 8, 1970

Penn Cove off Whidbey Island

90 whales rounded up

• killed or took half the population

Why is removal for entertainment bad?

• caused SRKW to become endangered

• important to keep older individuals as they pass on knowledge

• disrupts society

Who chose to phase out captive dolphins after Blackfish?

New England Aquarium

Who has banned captive cetaceans?

• Australia

• UK

• Costa Rica

• India

• Switzerland

• Canada

• Bolivia

• Chile

• Nicaragua

• Norway

• Brazil

What state banned breeding?

California

What are the two categories of disturbance?

• Direct

• Indirect

Why is disturbance bad?

• gets hit by boats

• propellor scars are same length apart

• florida manatees get hit so often that how they identify them

Examples of direct disturbance

• directly looking for the dolphins

• ecotourism

Example of indirect disturbance

Indirectly seeing or disturbing dolphins

• not intentional

What do mammals do when boats are near?

• dive longer

• swim faster

• change direction move

• expend more energy than they have to spare

Case study in Baha Penindula

• Mexico

• Grey Whales calve in lagoons

• built salt mine along the edge of the lagoon

• when the salt mines were there the whales abandoned the lagoon

• when they stopped the whales came

Case study on noise used to deter mammals

• would tear through nets of fish farms to get inside

• used noise to deter them

• case where they used this on killer whales and they abandoned the whale area

What was the incident in Bahamas to noise?

• beaked whales started stranding dead all over

• had major hemorrhaging in and around ears

• may have had the bends

• there were navy doing exercises off shore

• really loud sonar has been implicated in stranding events

What are Pingers?

devices on nets

• does not work forever

Seal Bombs

• thrown in water

• won’t kill

• very loud sound

Special issues of manatees

• florida manatee move to colder areas

• they are temperature dependent they need warmer areas

• we changed the way the aquatic system works, built canals

• changed habitat for them

• gets caught in locks and dams

• boat scars, mess up sea grasses

• 90% have at least one boat propellor scar

What are some sea otter special issues?

• toxic plasmosis, comes from cat shit

Pinnipeds: Special Issues

• canine distemper

Issue with salmon ladders with Pinnipeds

• pinniped found out he could sit and get easy salmon

• took 50% of salmon

• tried many things to stop it

  • gave poisoned fish

  • seal bombs

  • caught them and moved them to California

    • 4 of 6 were back in a month

  • fake killer whale

  • got permit to shoot them

  • sea world took them