Category: Ecosystems

This year, we were reminded that the changing planet will affect us all. As flood waters threatened his new home in British Columbia just months after nearly losing his home to fire in California, writer Malcolm Johnson remarked, “It’s also hard to believe that when we moved back to BC from California, not long after almost losing our home to an out-of-season wildfire, we thought we were moving away from climate disasters. But the truth is that there’s no away.”

There is no away for wildlife that have evolved over millennia to occupy particular habitats and ecological niches. In fact, it is precisely this variety of unique ecological roles that captivates us as scientists, inspires awe, and drives us to learn more. The things that make animals special and bring us into their world can be the very things that make them vulnerable.

Among the extraordinary animals we at Oceans Initiative study in order to protect: walrus and belugas that rely on icy habitats; river dolphins, nearly blind, using sound to swim through submerged forests in the Amazon River; and of course, killer whales evolving particular ways to make a living in the sea, with populations specializing on prey ranging from herring to salmon to stingrays and sharks.

For these animals, there is no away. They cannot occupy new habitats if we degrade or destroy the critical habitats they have occupied for millennia. After evolving cultural traditions (and anatomical adaptations) to hunt specific prey items, orcas cannot switch from eating salmon to jellyfish, just because we’ve destroyed their prey base.

But what about us? Human evolution is taking place over millions of years, but humans are rare in that our cultural and technological evolution can also take place in the blink of an eye. We can change our behavior, so the onus is on us to fix the environmental problems we have caused, collectively.

How do we make real change? How is change born? After such a rough few years, do we still have the capacity to change? I hope so, because countless lives depend on our ability to change. Change can feel overwhelming, because it is. When faced with complex challenges, it can be alluring to just keep “admiring the problem” as former President Obama said, and do nothing. We find there is power and joy in creating change together.

Human ingenuity and creativity allow us to take large problems, and break them down into smaller solutions quickly. But sometimes the enormity of what has been lost, and the changes we will see in an ever-warming climate, can seem too much to bear. So we need to build resilience to stay on the path together.

One way we do this is to look for joy in our work. We find joy in the beautiful animals we study and the magic of this planet. We see joy in the teams and partnerships we build and the inspiring people we meet. And, when we reflect on our unique place in this world, and see that our strengths and gifts are needed, we can take a small step and then another on a joyful journey toward healing the world.

Oceans Initiative is committed to this joyful journey to build resilience and make change in the world. We hope you will join us.

By Dr. Rob Williams, Chief Scientist

Have you ever read the fine print on your retirement plan? There’s probably a footnote somewhere to warn you that past performance of mutual funds or stocks do not guarantee similar results in the future. Investing in biodiversity conservation needs a similar caveat.

Sometimes, protecting endangered species comes down to common sense. When we stopped killing whales—after the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling—many populations of large baleen whales recovered quickly. Many populations of humpback or grey whales, for example, have been growing at 5-10% each year for decades. Some have done so well that they have been taken off endangered species lists in countries around the world.

But, there are exceptions to the rule. Hundreds of thousands of dolphins were killed accidentally in seine nets in tuna fisheries in the eastern tropical Pacific until public pressure forced industry to adopt dolphin-safe fishing practices. After the initial problem was solved, spotted and spinner dolphin populations have barely recovered.

The southern resident killer whale population was depleted by about 30% during live-capture fisheries for display in aquaria. Even though the live-captures stopped in 1977, the population has not recovered to historic levels. On the contrary, the population has declined from 98 to 73 individuals over the last two decades.

Our newest research on beluga in the St Lawrence Estuary showed that, even though beluga hunting stopped in the 1970s, the population is unlikely to recover to pre-exploitation levels in our lifetime, because the threats of contaminants, inadequate prey, noise, and climate change work together to hinder recovery.

What do these populations teach us? Complacency leads to extinction. Decimating whale and dolphin populations is easier than recovering them. We see this in our own health. You can fall out of a tree and break your arm in an instant, but healing takes time. With whales, we cannot count on populations bouncing back from harm. Each population is unique. Some may need us to slow ships down to make less noise. Others may need us to reroute ships to avoid striking and killing coastal whales. Others may need us to invest in ropeless gear for lobster and crab traps. Each action, on its own, seems trivial. But collectively, we can build the natural resilience of the population to buffer the next threat—climate change.

In 2022, we need your help to build our organization’s resilience, as we build resilience of wildlife populations in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. As the effects of climate change become too obvious to ignore, there has never been a more urgent time to invest in our efforts to keep important ocean habitats clean, quiet, and full of life. Thank you for supporting our conservation mission.