Fulbright talk on marine conservation in the Pacific Northwest
Dr. Rob Williams
Notes from an annual lecture at the University of Washington, March 3, 2010, at 7pm:
“Marine conservation in the Pacific Northwest: Whales, Salmon, and Sound” by
Rob Williams, 2009-2010 Canada-US Fulbright Visiting Chair
“A scientist is someone who asks ‘what if’ questions.” — Margaret Atwood
“If you want to study whales, you should put yourself in path of the whales.” — Alexandra Morton (Her advice inspired Rob to settle on Pearse Island in Johnstone Strait.)
When I was a kid in the 1970s growing up on Vancouver Island, a great success was the ’save the whales’ movement. It was successful in that we gave it a name and a voice (Roger Payne), e.g. the Sound of the Earth LP vinyl record. Such recordings helped us understand that sound and hearing is as important to whales as light and vision are to us. Acoustic space is as important for our local whales as the coastal rainforest habitat is to B.C. bears.
Abundance estimates of local whales were rare historically in western Canada. It is a complex region, there was no whaling, and Canada had left the IWC in the 1980s. More recently, the Species at Risk Act made abundance estimates more important.
In the U.S., the Marine Mammal Protection Act outlines management objectives. A key element of the Act is that Potential Biological Removal (PBR) limits annual anthropogenic mortality while meeting the management objectives. Thus, it demands abundance estimates, e.g. PBR = Nmin * 0.5 (Rmax) * Fr
In Canada, the Species at Risk Act dictates that best available information must be used (whether from science, first nations, etc). No quantitative abundance estimate is required, but filling in such data gaps was likely to be helpful.
So, I went off to Britain to get a PhD in abundance estimation. Once back in Canada, I worked with a non-profit using line transects to estimate average number of cetaceans (6 species) on the B.C. coast within the gap between U.S. survey areas. We estimated populations of: 15,000 (?) harbor porpoises; 26,000 Pacific white-side dolphins (possibly moving into inshore waters of WA); 496 fin whales (all inside Queen Charlotte Island, ship strike risk), 1,300 humpback whales (density highest at S end of Queen Charlottes where shipping density is at a minimum);
Juxtaposing species density surfaces and shipping density creates a map of ship strike “risk” for that species. Similar maps could be made for oilspill likelihood. At the least, such maps can help us know where to pay attention and maybe where to focus conservation actions.
Acoustic habitat quality: does anthropogenic noise mask cetacean signals? Working with Chris Clark we tried to use noise to quantify acoustic habitat quality (masking metric). The lowest 5% of sound levels characterizes the “ancient ambient” conditions. Pop-ups were deployed in Prince Rupert, Caamano Sound, Johnstone Strait, Vancouver and Haro Strait. Johnstone Strait had highest sound pressure levels, possibly due to a local bottleneck of shipping.
Williams talks in Kane Hall
Chronic ocean noise is an insidious problem that’s received less attention than military sonar. Amazingly, the International Maritime Organization and IWC have resolved to reduce shipping noise 50% in this decade. Technological solutions exist; we just need an incentive. It seems there is an opportunity to lead on this issue.
There are many short-term effects of ship noise decreasing the active space of cetaceans that may be biologically meaningful: masking of communication, prey sounds, predator sounds, etc. When Erin recently began her PhD, we observed a few hundred Pacific white-sided dolphins in Knight Inlet, we noticed many of them breaching and then porpoising away. Transients chased them into a bay and attacked. Acoustic detection of the incoming transients had life or death consequences for some of those dolphins!
How many salmon do killer whales need? I participated in a UW workshop to analyse data from SeaWorld, IWC, and wild KWs. Main result was that nursing costs mums ~40% extra energy. It’s clear that SRKWS need hundreds of thousands of salmon. Whose salmon? Whales don’t see or hear the boundary, so there is a profound need for transboundary research.
Next: 2 year Marie Curie Fellowship starting this fall at St. Andrew to study masking effects of shipping with mathematics collaborators.
Scott’s favorite quote from Rob’s talk: “Whales need a quiet ocean with fish in it.”
Good news for wild orcas, captive orca in distress
The tragedy of the trainer killed at Florida’s sea world was all over the news yesterday. 40 year old Dawn Brancheau was an experienced trainer who had worked with Tilikum, an orca captured from Icelandic waters when he was just two years old. The trainer’s death is a tragedy to her family and coworkers, but it also sheds light on the tragedy of orcas in captivity. This particular orca has been involved in two previous violent incidents with trainers, one in 1991 and another in 1999. All accounts of killer whale violence involving humans have occurred while the animals are in captivity. In their own natural environment orcas maintain a remarkably peaceful culture. The SRKWs have never been known to kill humans, kill each other, shun or make outcasts of their members. Their society seems to have achieved a peacefulness which we humans only dream of.
Like humans, they are sophisticated social creatures who need freedom, wide open space to move and the lifelong companionship of their family and community. This event serves as a reminder of just how important it is to preserve the orcas’ natural environment. If their natural world is depleted to a point that we feel we are saving them by keeping them in marine parks and they end up in captivity, they end up incarcerated in a way that is dangerous to the humans that dedicate their lives to them as well as to themselves.
In Listening to Whales, Alexandra Morton contemplates marine mammals in captivity and whether the ‘education for children’ argument holds up. In regards to children learning respect for and the desire to protect orcas, she says,
“More often, though I’d see a different kind of interaction. Some kids taunted the whales and pitched popcorn at their blow-holes…They argued over whether the whales were real. ‘They’re like rubber man. Look at ‘em: just like the dinosaurs at Disneyland. They’re stupid, fat, dead, fake…’
What exactly were these children learning? Before the advent of marine parks, killer whales had all too often been considered the wolves of the ocean, nomadic man-eaters, good for nothing…But thanks to parks like Marineland…public opinion had swung to the opposite extreme. They were considered obedient, cute, tongue-wagging performers, tame enough for petting, and the children I observed were learning that it was a human right to enslave, harm and ridicule another creature just for fun. In a single generation the human memory of orcas as dangerous predators had faded away-and with it the respect that predators command” (Morton 56).
It’s interesting to consider the difference between people’s desire to protect orcas they see in their natural world, where they are witness to their intelligence, resourcefulness and the complex and social way they live their lives compared to the anecdotal apathy for preservation when they think orcas are docile, cute and stupid.
This news comes just days after the first spotting of new calf L-114. L-114 is the first known calf born to 22 year old Matia (L-77) and the seventh orca born within the past year. This brings the population up to 89 orcas and marks the largest number of births since the 1980s. But of course, more orcas, means more mouths to feed, and even greater need for salmon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/02/24/GA2010022405140.html
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/feb/23/new-calf-spotted-l-pod/
Humans and salmon compete for CA water
Feinstein’s Water Bomb (Feb 12 article in the High Country News) indicates that things are really starting to heat up in California. Water stress is manifesting in political lobbying and reversals that may jeopardize the Sacramento River salmon that K and L pod presumably pursue each winter. Up here in the Northwest the water competition is due to human thirst for electricity. In the Southwest, the driver is farmers’ increasingly strident demand for water.
