Things that go bump in the night

by oceansadminHabitat, Human Impacts, PopulationsPosted on No Comments
A killer whale surfs the bow wave a cruise ship in Johnstone Strait.

When ships strike whales, the whale generally loses. People must wonder why scientists treat this issue like it’s some great mystery that’s difficult to quantify and even more difficult to solve.  After all, hitting a large whale must be like hitting a moose with your car.  Right?  So fixing the problem must be as easy as searching the shipping lanes for marine roadkill, and making shippers slow down.

This Pacific white-sided dolphin has a huge gouge near its tail flukes. Was it caused by fishing gear, a propeller, or something else?

In fact, assessing the extent of ship strike mortality is incredibly challenging.  Sure, vessel operators may underreport whale strikes, but in fairness, with very large, fast ships, collisions may go entirely unnoticed.  A typical cruise ship may weigh 50,000 tonnes.  A typical fin whale may weigh 50 tonnes.  Yes, that’s a lot of whale, but it could be analogous to hitting a 2kg animal with a 2,000 kg SUV.  Except that the ship strike can happen in a lurching, heaving sea, with the ship moving and whale surfacing and diving in three dimensions.  And when whales die, whether from human or natural causes, only a trivial fraction of carcasses are recovered. To us, it’s a wonder that this issue is reported as frequently as it is, given all the odds against detecting the problem in the first place.

Fortunately for the whales, this issue is receiving a lot of scientific and management attention.  Off the east coast of the US, scientists have built a convincing case that the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population cannot withstand the death of even one individual annually from ship strikes, so tremendous bilateral efforts have been made to separate ships from whales in important habitats in both the US and Canada.  Recently, regulators have started issuing speeding tickets for mariners who violate the rules designed to protect the whales.

In 2010, we partnered with Dr Patrick O’Hara (Environment Canada) to conduct a risk assessment to identify where ship strikes may be an issue for fin, humpback and killer whales in BC.  A risk assessment involves two main components:  (a) trying to estimate the likelihood of a thing (usually bad) occurring; and (b) predicting the consequences if it does.  Put simply, we mapped where ships and whales are likely to overlap.

This overlap analysis actually tells us three things:

1. oil spill risk:  Shipping intensity seems like a good proxy to use for oil spill risk.  The probability of an oil spill happening is low, but if it happens, it can be catastrophic to individuals and populations.

2. ship strike:  again, the probability of it happening is low, but it can be fatal.  And if it happens often enough, it can be damaging to populations.  Our work is showing that fin whales in BC cannot tolerate the removal of more than a few individuals per year.  Given the occasional, high-profile examples of ship strikes involving fin whales worldwide, we wonder how much of an underestimate these reports represent.

Predicted areas of overlap between shipping activity and humpback whales in BC (from Williams & O'Hara 2010).

3. chronic ocean noise:  high noise levels are a sure thing in a shipping lane, and we’re just beginning to quantify the effects on marine mammal habitats, individuals and populations.  Our colleagues are documenting similar effects of noise on non-mammalian wildlife like squid and fish.  So, we believe that even if a ship doesn’t strike a whale, this “overlap analysis” can still tell us where important whale habitats are likely to be degraded by chronic ocean noise.  Our work has shown that repeated disturbance by boats can disrupt the feeding behaviour of killer whales, and our new research (with Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program and the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews) is modelling how much acoustic space whales lose from shipping noise.

Are you in a healthy relationship with the ocean? 5 ways to show the ocean your love

by oceansadminConservationPosted on 3 Comments


  1. Nothing says commitment like real estate. Support efforts to create Marine Protected Areas. We went to the Zoological Society of London’s recent Symposium on High-Seas MPAs and found out how much the world hearts the ocean.  Currently, only 1.17% of the ocean is protected.  In 2002, nations pledged to protect 10% by 2012.  We’d best get moving!  Need inspiration?  Watch this video! Sylvia Earle is on a mission (Mission Blue) to create hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean.
  2. Good things come in NO packaging. When you buy your sweetheart a gift, please pass on the plastic.
  3. The way to the heart is through the stomach. When you go out to dinner tonight, consider the impact our food choices have on the oceans.  Show your love by checking out the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood guide or their cool app.  Cooking at home?  Buy organic.  Pesticides and fertilizers are poisoning the ocean, ending up in the fish consumed by whales, dolphins and us.
  4. Cracks in your relationship?  Establish healthy boundaries. As the ice caps melt, the Arctic will be opening up for shipping and offshore oil exploration, which opens up questions about sovereignty and boundaries.  Urge your representatives to embrace a holistic approach to marine spatial planning in the Arctic that encompasses industrial, socio-economic and conservation applications together.  We all want to save the whales, the polar bears, reduce global warming – our policy and management approaches should reflect this interconnectedness.
  5. It’s the thought that counts.  Buy less junk, because most of the world’s trade is transported by marine shipping. Practice minimalism: we think that Zen Habits can lead to Zen habitat for whales. Global shipping accounts for huge fractions of CO2 emissions, raises ocean noise levels, and where shipping lanes cross critical habitat for whales, whales lose.  In any healthy long-term relationship, it’s the quality of gifts that matter, not their quantity.

The ocean gives us oxygen, food, water, and regulates our temperature. Doesn’t the ocean deserve something special from us this year? What do you love about the ocean?  This Valentine’s Day, how will you show the ocean that you care?

Thinking big. Establishing general principles from little truths: lessons from marine mammal research

by oceansadminHuman ImpactsPosted on One Comment
Harbour seals in the forest

When most people think of scientists doing research on animals, we think of geeks in lab coats, experimenting on lab rats.  Guinea pigs.  Fruit flies.  Maybe a guppy.  Actually, marine mammals make fascinating study animals, but their aquatic lifestyle and large body size pose challenges to studying them in the wild — you try to train a blue whale to swim through a maze.  Journal of Zoology has been publishing research on the biology of animals in one form or another since 1832.  Rob serves on their editorial board, and was recently invited to write an editorial explaining why marine mammals pose tremendous challenges and opportunities to studying and protecting wildlife.

(See excerpt below, but the complete editorial is available to subscribers.)

Rob’s point is that we need to establish big-picture models of how systems work, because humans are altering the environment everywhere, quickly, and we will never have time or resources to test every possible combination of species, place and impact.  Nor should we always insist on case-specific evidence.  We should be careful before experimenting on critically endangered species, for example.  It is precautionary to use the best available science to predict how species are likely to respond to human activities.  After all, once a chemical has been shown to be toxic to a given species, we don’t insist on testing it on every other species in the animal kingdom.  Closer to home, this may mean that when it comes to protecting at-risk populations like southern resident killer whales, we should adopt what Dr Peter Ross calls a “weight of evidence approach” to decision-making.  We trust that contaminants may be impacting the whales, because excellent studies on harbour seals have shown that the contaminant levels we’re seeing in killer whales can impair reproductive function.

ESTABLISHING GENERAL PRINCIPLES FROM LITTLE TRUTHS

“Ken Norris, one of the pioneers of marine mammal science, once wrote that marine mammalogists were tasked with compiling ‘little truths on which future understandings . . . may be anchored’ (Pryor & Norris, 1991). This modest set of expectations reflects the fact that marine mammals are difficult to study because of their lifestyle; our studies are often based on infrequent glimpses of animals at the surface.  …  But it is often the case that decisions must be made in the absence of good, species-specific and context-specific information. Comparative approaches are one way of interpolating across species to predict vulnerabilities generally: these comparative approaches could be as ambitious as drawing parallels between the social structure of elephants and sperm whales. The better we understand the basic patterns of form and function in zoology, then more powerful and predictive this comparative approach becomes.

Fundamental information is needed about key animal species that can be gleaned from direct study or through comparative approaches to help us address conservation questions now and in the future. We need to establish general principles in zoology that can allow us to tackle issues as quickly as they arise. If we need to study every problem as if it were a new issue from first principles, then we will always be behind the curve and never be much use at giving advice to managers, sociologists, economists, planners and politicians.”

So.  What do you think?  Where should we place the burden of proof? We use contaminant studies on harbour seals as proxies for killer whales when we decide that we need to clean up Puget Sound if we want to protect killer whales.  What about noise impacts?  What about predicting the effects of declining salmon stocks on killer whales?  What about predicting the likely impacts of alternative energy projects on endangered species?  How much direct evidence do we need to inform decision-making about endangered species?  When is the “best available science” enough, and when is it not enough?  How do we decide when more science is needed, versus acting on the information we have available?

From:  Williams, R.  2011.  Establishing general principles from little truths: lessons from marine mammal research.  © Journal of Zoology 283, 1-2.

REMEMBER, THE CAMERA ADDS 10 TONNES…

by oceansadminAcoustics, Dolphins, Ecosystems, Habitat, Whales, Women in SciencePosted on 2 Comments

At New Year’s, we all make resolutions about diet. But we’ve got nothing on Pacific humpback whales, which are currently on their mating and calving grounds in Hawaii and Mexico. During this time, they go weeks or months without eating at all. BC waters provide important habitat for these highly migratory animals. When they’re here in summer, they only have a few months to put on all the fat reserves they need to migrate over 4000km (each way) across the ocean, calve, mate, nurse their calves and return to BC to start the cycle all over again. From our perspective, this creates a sense of responsibility for Canadian resource management: human activities that degrade the quality of feeding habitat in BC waters carries consequences that affect the whales throughout the rest of their range.

WE LOVE THE BBC SERIES, “NATURE’S GREAT EVENTS“.

Humpback whales eat a lot, and they accomplish all of this without teeth.  How do they do that?  An incredibly gifted filmmaker, Shane Moore shot this extraordinary footage for the BBC that shows the northeast Pacific ecosystem much better than we ever could describe in words (although Sir David Attenborough comes a close second to the whales themselves). [Please note:  BBC put this link on youtube, but they’ve also put some other amazing footage on their site, which we encourage you to see.] Enough lead-in.  Check out this frenzy of seabirds, herring and whales:

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH…

Of course, not all marine mammals migrate. Some, like the Pacific white-sided dolphins we study, have been seen in our study area every month of the year.  Dolphins, including the killer whale (the largest member of the dolphin family) do not fast over the winter months. Instead, they eat like we do — constantly.  And dolphins and killer whales both have teeth, and big brains, to help them come up with clever ways to find their prey.

The following video shows dolphins and killer whales hunting.  You might want to watch this on your own before deciding whether it’s appropriate for younger viewers.  [Note.  We collect our photographs and video under a research permit.  We learn a lot through photo-ID, but we are obviously not filmmakers.]

[vsw id=”14224604″ source=”vimeo” width=”600″ height=”400″ autoplay=”no”]

Listen.  Everybody’s gotta eat.  The whales aren’t doing this because they hate dolphins.  They’re doing this because, like dolphins, us and all organisms that can’t feed themselves through photosynthesis, whales need to eat to survive.  Our colleague, Jackie Hildering, recently witnessed a similar event.

A lot of our work aims to estimate abundance of whales, dolphins and other top predators, because we want to see ecosystem-based fishery management practices that ensure that nutritional needs of marine wildlife are taken into consideration when setting fishing quotas.  But lately, we’re growing concerned about the potential for underwater noise to mask the ability of a whale or dolphin to find its prey or detect when predators are nearby.  Going back to Shane Moore’s tremendous BBC footage, a frenzy like that must make some noise that a humpback whale could hear and use to locate a school of fish.  OK.  We’re guessing at that — it hasn’t been proven scientifically (although this is a research question we’d love to take on).  Our colleagues have shown convincingly that killer whales use sound to find and locate their prey, so it’s not rocket science to guess that human-caused noise can disrupt that sensitive acoustic system.

OK.  Maybe we shouldn’t make this all about human activities.  Maybe you should forget the text, watch that BBC footage again and just appreciate, as we do, how neat these animals are.

TOP TEN IN TWENTY-TEN

by oceansadminAcoustics, Conservation, Dolphins, Killer Whale Conservation, Ocean Noise, Populations, Whales, Women in SciencePosted on 5 Comments

Marine conservation highlights:  2010

1. A protected area for killer whales?
We kicked the year off with a paper published by Erin, Rob and Dr Dawn Noren in Animal Conservation proposing a Marine Protected Area for southern resident killer whales.  It was profiled on NPR and in dozens of news stories.  Our scientific advice fits nicely with the recovery objectives specified by Canada and the US, but uses a simple priority-setting approach:  give the whales a quiet place to eat.

2. Whales, salmon and ocean noise
Rob spent 6 months as Canada-US Fulbright Research Chair at University of Washington to explore transboundary issues in marine conservation, using killer whales, salmon and ocean noise as themes.  It was a hugely productive fellowship, and we loved hosting an efficient, collaborative workshop to estimate how much salmon it costs to feed southern resident killer whales.  We miss Seattle – not only because of Molly Moon’s Grey Salted Caramel ice cream.

3. Pacific white-sided dolphins
So, come here often? Erin’s dolphin study leaped ahead this year with support from SeaDoc to encourage wider contributions to the photo-identification catalogue that our mentor,Alexandra Morton, initiated in the 1980s and maintained for more than 20 years.  Are the dolphins of the Broughton Archipelago cosmopolitan, or do they like to stick close to home?  Our partnership with SeaDoc will help us find out if the dolphins we see are a unique population or if they regularly move between BC and Washington State.  We collected more photographs of dolphins, which will allow us to estimate abundance and track population health.  We recorded dolphin calls and tweets, and saw newborn calves in the study area!  Want to be part of the fun?  Please send us your dolphin ID photos!

4. Collecting killer whale poop
Yup.  Sounds messy and weird.  But it’s actually a neat, non-invasive way to evaluate whether whales are stressed out by noise, and whether they’re finding enough to eat.  We’ve initiated a proof-of-concept study, and are excited about the opportunity to partner with Prof Sam Wasser and his team in Conservation Biology at University of Washington.

5. Mapping where ships might collide with whales
When ships strike whales, it is often fatal.  Rob and Dr Patrick O’Hara at Environment Canada authored a paper to predict and identify where these collisions are most likely to occur.  Rob presented the work at the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee meeting in Morocco and was invited by NOAA to offer scientific advice on vessel strikes to protect blue whales in Santa Barbara Channel, California.

6. Ocean noise measuring and mapping
Pop-up study 3.0!  Yes, our chronic ocean noise study has grown into a trilogy.  This year, we deployed and retrieved 6 hydrophones, our most ever! Thanks for field support from Hawk Bay, Straitwatch, Ocean Rose Coastal Adventures, Orcalab, Salmon Coast Field Station, Silver King Ventures and our friends at Cornell. This brings our total to 12 autonomous hydrophones sent to the bottom of the sea, called back and sent safely home to New York.  Wow!  Mixing saltwater and electronics, on purpose.  The “on purpose” part is new for us.  Soon we can say which parts of BC coastal waters are quiet, loud or somewhere in between.  Whales and dolphins need a quiet ocean to find food and mates.  Our work with Cornell allows us to model how much acoustic habitat whales currently lose due to shipping noise; and how much more would be lost if oil tankers started using Douglas Channel.  Next, we plan to screen the tens of thousands of hours of recordings for whale and dolphin calls (want some boat noise for your iPod?).  In 2011, we are integrating our acoustic work into multi-stakeholder marine spatial planning exercises to ensure that marine protected areas can be built with a quiet ocean in mind.  We’re calling it our Quiet Ocean Campaign.

7. Humpback whales, oil tankers and critical habitat
Like most British Columbians, we are concerned about proposals to build an oil pipeline from the Alberta Tarsands to the Great Bear Rainforest.  We’re thrilled to be working withCetacealab and the Gitga’at Nation to estimate how many humpback whales use the waters along the proposed oil tanker route.  This area has been proposed as critical habitat.  Janie Wray, Hermann Meuter and Chris Picard have been collecting humpback whale data for years, and it was great fun to apply the skills we’ve been honing on our dolphin study to a valuable humpback whale study that has immediate conservation applications.

8. Sharks in British Columbia.
Did you know there tens of thousand of sharks in BC?  We didn’t either. But as January Jones says, ‘we shouldn’t be scared of sharks, we should be scared for them’.  Rob, with shark-experts, Tom Okey, Scott Wallace and Vince Gallucci reveal the goods in their new shark paper. Or, you can read all about it in this Vancouver Sun Shark week article.

9. Launching our website (www.oceansinitiative.org)
We resolve to keep in touch in 2011 a little better than we did in 2010.  Thanks to Sandy Buckley for the great logos, and Sarah Bray and her team for our outstanding new site.  The flexible WordPress system allows us to update periodically, and add content like photos, video and audio that we can’t publish in a traditional print journal.  If you want to receive updates from us auto-magically, please enter your e-mail address in the “Get In Touch” box here. If not, don’t worry:  we won’t spam you.

10. From the ‘Home of the killer whale’ to the ‘Home of Golf’
Pass the haggis. All of us (Erin, Wishart-the-dog and Rob) are ending the year in St Andrews, Scotland, where Erin is writing her PhD thesis on Pacific white-sided dolphins, and Rob is analyzing our acoustic data as part of his top-ranked Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of St Andrews, Sea Mammal Research Unit.  Yes, there are dolphins and killer whales in Scotland, and also some gifted scientists to offer advice and ideas.

Please check out our site for frequent updates in 2011.  We are happy and busy in Scotland with data analysis and writing, but part of us is still at home in BC.  Fortunately, with our spiffy charitable account at Aeroplan, we’re raising enough donations of Aeroplan frequent-flyer miles to come home to the Pacific Northwest for an amazing, cost-effective dolphin field season this spring.  (We’re working on offsetting our carbon footprint, too.)  We hope to see you in BC this spring.

Thanks again for working with us.  It’s been a tremendous year, and we’re excited about what 2011 will bring.  We wish you all the best for a happy and healthy and productive new year.

Oceans Initiative
Erin and Rob