Ocean plastic waste: be part of the solution not the problem

Our love for plastic and our throwaway culture is choking our oceans and wildlife, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Plastic waste washes up on beaches and injures ocean wildlife

Covering 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface and deeper in places than Mount Everest is tall, oceans have long been a source of fascination. Since Captain Cook charted the Pacific Ocean in the 18th century, returning with zoological specimens and botanical artwork that set the mark for scientific exploration, we have been learning about the natural world. Scientists are still discovering new species. Researchers and filmmakers travel to the most inhospitable places revealing the ocean’s mysteries in documentaries such as Blue Planet.

But sadly, today’s naturalists are faced with the impact of ocean plastic waste. Watching albatross parents feed plastic to chicks has been one of the lows of David Attenborough’s natural history career. But how did we reach this point and what can we do to help regenerate our oceans? Continue reading

Taiji fishermen dump Risso’s dolphins at sea

By Tracy Brighten

Marine conservationists claim that dolphin hunters may be dumping slaughtered calves and juveniles at sea to avoid quota counts
Risso's dolphin on rocks

Young Risso’s dolphin washed up on rocks in Taiji

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Cove Guardians are on the ground in Taiji, documenting the dolphin hunt season from September through March. Operation Henkaku is reporting the drive hunts to the world through live stream, press releases and social media.

This season, Cove Guardians have documented small boats covered by tarpaulin leaving Taiji cove after the slaughter of Risso’s dolphin pods. Continue reading

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary to protect unique marine habitat

By Tracy Brighten

New Zealand initiative to protect a region of unique fauna diversity shows world leadership in sustainable marine environment management

white-capped albatross

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced the creation of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary that will protect a vast area of pristine ocean habitat covering 620,000 km² within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Continue reading

Operation Henkaku exposes Japan’s dolphin slave trade

By Tracy Brighten

Hunters chase profit as they drive bottlenose pod into Taiji Cove; dolphins sold from this single dolphin hunt could bag over US$7 million

Taiji dolphins trapped 

Each year from September through March, hundreds of dolphins are caught in one small cove along Japan’s Pacific coast and either traded as a live commodity, or slaughtered and sold as meat. Continue reading

Interpol listed ship escapes Thailand with 182 tons toothfish

By Tracy Brighten

The poaching vessel Taishan, detained in Phuket since March, has fled the port with its illegal Patagonia toothfish, or ‘Chilean sea bass’, cargo.

Toothfish

The Thai Royal Navy (TRN) has launched an air and sea search for the illegal fishing vessel Taishan, or Kunlun as it was formerly known, reports AEC News Today. The search involves TRN aircraft and patrol boats, as well as the Department of Fisheries and the Thai police marine division.

Following a joint investigation between Interpol, Sea Shepherd and authorities in Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, the ship has been detained in Phuket since March when the crew attempted to offload 182 tons of illegally caught Patagonian toothfish as grouper fish. Continue reading

Blue whale drags fishing line from Los Angeles to Mexico

By Tracy Brighten

The blue whale entangled in fishing line off the Californian coast has moved south towards Mexican waters and could die if not found

Blue_whale_tail by Michael Baird

On Friday, whale response teams attached a buoy to the whale, found between Santa Catalina Island and the coast, to make it more visible before high seas thwarted rescue efforts, reported the Guardian.

Federal government officials assisted by boats, aeroplanes and helicopters searched the West coast on Saturday and Sunday, but were unable to locate the whale. Continue reading

Disturbing truth behind Australia’s shark nets

By Tracy Brighten

Shark nets and baited drum lines in Australia have killed thousands of marine animals in the bid to protect ocean users from shark attacks
whale in shark net

Whale entangled in shark net

Since 1962, a staggering 84,800 marine animals have been caught in Queensland’s shark control program alone, including vulnerable and endangered species such as turtles and whales, as well as shark species that do not threaten human life. Over 9,000 unborn pups have been lost. Continue reading

Rising tension between Faroe Islands and anti-whaling Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd’s Bob Barker vessel, with 21 activists on board, has been refused entry to the Faroe Islands by Danish authorities protecting whaling. 

A Faroese government statement said the decision was to protect “the legal and regulated activity of driving and killing pilot whales for food,” reported The Guardian. Sea Shepherd believes the action by Danish Customs at the port of Sund is unlawful.

Although Denmark is a member of the European Union that bans whaling, Denmark supports whaling in its Faroe Islands self-governing territory. Continue reading

Faroe Islands pilot whale massacre ‘a natural way of life’

By Tracy Brighten      Contains graphic images

Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd estimates 250 pilot whales were killed last week. Is it time tradition was buried with whale bones littering the seabed?

Pilot whale slaughter 2 by Sea Shepherd Peter Hammarstedt

Sea Shepherd protestors have been arrested trying to stop the pilot whale hunts in the Faroe Islands, but video footage and photographs by other group members captured the horrors of the mass slaughter.

The whale hunt known as the grindadráp, or “grind”, is a centuries old tradition with recorded history dating back to 1584, according to whaling proponents Whaling.fo. The whale meat and blubber once provided an important food source for the Faroese people, and whale oil was used for cooking and export. Continue reading

World’s rarest dolphin faces extinction

By Tracy Brighten

Will the New Zealand government protect the last 50 Maui dolphins from fishing and oil industry threats?

Science Nutshell Single Maui dolphin by Will Rayment

Experts presented new research on the critically endangered Maui’s dolphin that sends a clear message to the New Zealand government: act now or be responsible for following in China’s footsteps after the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin in 2006.

In May, the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee held its annual meeting in San Diego, U.S, where 200 of the world’s leading scientists presented their latest cetacean research.

In 2014, Otago University professors Dr Liz Slooten and Dr Steve Dawson, the world’s leading New Zealand dolphin experts, estimated the Maui’s dolphin population at 55 adults over one year old. Continue reading

Catch 22 for the last 55 New Zealand Maui dolphins

The set net ban zone will only be extended if the Maui dolphin is seen beyond the protected area, but the chance of seeing dolphins is slim while habitat is unprotected

The campaign to save the critically endangered Maui dolphin, endemic to New Zealand, has escalated into an international affair. While environmental groups, marine scientists, the Ministry for Primary Industries and the New Zealand seafood industry are caught in a blame game, with the Department of Conservation mediating, cause of dolphin death is crucial.

DoC sends all Maui and Hector’s dolphins that are intact enough for analysis to Massey University, where Veterinary Pathologist Dr Wendi Roe performs the post-mortems.

As Roe dissects a savoury muffin, her lunch between meetings, she apologises before getting straight into the discussion on post-mortems. Roe acknowledges the difficulty in identifying bycatch victims.

“There’s nothing specific, that you can say ‘that animal has drowned in a fishing net’… there’s nothing you can see, no test that you can do, that is 100 percent diagnostic of drowning.”

Even if a dolphin is caught in a net, Roe makes sure there is no other explanation.

Roe is reflective. “When you see them come in they’re beautiful, and they’re intact, and that’s sad.” But she doesn’t get emotional about them. “As a species, yes, but not individuals.”

When a dolphin is on the table, Roe has a job to do.

As a pathologist, she’s interested in how they died. Information gleaned from an individual helps prevent others from dying. In her office, she keeps files of dolphin reports on her bookshelf and a tall filing cabinet dominates the wall behind her. A wall map plots colour-coded sightings from Kaipara Harbour to Hawera.

The Maui dolphin is a sub-species of the Hector’s dolphin that inhabits South Island. Up to 1.6m long, these tiny dolphins with distinct rounded dorsal fin are among the world’s smallest, and with numbers estimated at only 55 adults over one year old, the Maui dolphin is also the world’s rarest.

According to pathology reports held by DoC, dolphin W12-16Ch was a young female Hector’s; a bycatch victim with ‘encircling linear impressions (net marks) over her melon on both sides, and short linear lacerations on the leading edge of the right flipper,’ but an otherwise healthy dolphin.

Considering Maui and Hector’s dolphin biology – a female does not reach reproductive maturity until 7 to 9 years old, giving birth to one calf every 2 to 4 years – the loss of a female is significant to species’ survival, particularly the Maui dolphin with only 20 breeding females left.

The number of dolphins dying in gillnets is likely to be underestimated. There is no incentive for fishermen to report bycatch, because they risk further protective measures that will affect their livelihood. Beachcast dolphins are generally reported by the public, but as Roe points out, beaches are not busy during winter months. Bodies may be quickly washed away by storms.

However, in the joint DoC and MPI 2012 Maui’s Dolphin Threat Assessment, fishing-related activities were nonetheless identified as the main threat, causing 95.5% of human-related mortalities. The remaining 4.5% was attributed to oil and mining activities, vessel traffic, pollution and disease.

Otago University marine experts Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson predict functional Maui dolphin extinction within two decades. The population can sustain one death in 10 to 23 years, yet the estimated death rate from bycatch alone is 3 to 4 per year.

Nylon gillnetting is so fine it is almost invisible, and dolphins become entangled. Interviewed by journalist Zoe Helene, Slooten describes what happens.

“A dolphin caught in a net struggles madly to try to escape. At the end of this struggle, the dolphin suffocates. It would take up to five minutes or so to die.”

Like humans, dolphins are social mammals. Slooten recalls, “We’ve seen one dolphin that had died in a gillnet that was covered in fresh toothrakes, many of which were bleeding. It seems that the other dolphins in the group tried to get this dolphin out of the net and failed.”

While acknowledging that the Maui dolphin’s Threat Management Plan revision in 2013 provides some extra protection from set nets, Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell wants more. “The set net ban needs to be extended to all regions where these nationally-critical Maui dolphins are found. That includes all harbours and offshore to the 100m depth contour.”

There is international support too. At the International Whaling Commission meeting in September, 26 countries voted for total protection of the Maui dolphin from fishing-related threats.

But resistance is strong. New Zealand’s fifth largest export earner, the seafood industry is a dominant player in the conservation game. In January’s contribution to The Fishing Paper, Seafood New Zealand is critical of protection zones in the absence of sightings. “The government has brought in yet more fishing restrictions to protect the pods of phantom Maui’s said to be resident off the Taranaki coast.”

They argue that fishing has a temporary impact on the environment, unlike farming’s permanent impact. But extinction is permanent and dolphin numbers are decreasing as the debate continues.

While the prospect of Maui dolphin extinction is unthinkable, Roe is looking beyond Maui at Hector’s swimming in their wake.

Since the 2012 Threat Assessment, research led by Roe published in Veterinary Parasitology in 2013, identifies another threat. Roe examined Toxoplasma gondii infection in Hector’s and Maui dolphins received by Massey between 2007 and 2011. Toxoplasmosis was identified as the cause of death in 7 of 28 dolphins, including 2 of 3 Maui dolphins. Studies on other species have identified indirect effects on populations, through changes in behaviour, reproduction, and predation risk.

Roe has been frustrated by the slow acknowledgement of the role of disease in declining populations. She smiles and nods at the suggestion that her research hasn’t had as much publicity as bycatch research, and explains that a lot of the research on dolphins worldwide may be biased.

“There are lots of people who research because they want to prove that they’re all dying in the fishing industry, or they want to prove that none of them are dying in the fishing industry.”

Her research was initially seen to excuse the fishing industry by directing the focus away from fishing-related mortality towards toxoplasmosis as the killer.

Roe points out that her findings relate only to dolphins washed up on the beach. She supports scientists’ findings on fishing impacts, but is keen to see disease mortality included in population modelling.

“I strongly believe we need to have strict controls on fishing zones and fishing nets, but the situation is even more important than we thought, because there’s more than one thing killing them.” Roe’s voice is soft, but authoritative.

When asked about Government attitude to Maui extinction, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy is clear in his written response. “Our position is that if there are sightings beyond the protected area then we will review the boundaries, but in 900 fishing trips, there have been no observations of Maui dolphins in these areas.”

The observer program on commercial fishing boats leaving Taranaki is well-intentioned, but watching murky coastal waters for tiny dolphins must require uninterrupted concentration and 20/20 vision.

Barbara Maas, NABU International’s Head of Endangered Species Conservation, criticises economic-driven decisions on protection zones that “reflect fishing interests rather than match Maui’s dolphin distribution.” Maas recently told Agence France-Press that having exhausted the scientific arguments, NABU, supported by 100 conservation groups, is proposing a boycott of New Zealand seafood.

Roe is not interested in extremist action, but believes collaboration is key to Maui and Hector’s dolphin conservation. She is involved in the Maui dolphin Research Advisory Group, a DoC and MPI initiative that held its first meeting last June. Including representatives from central government, regional councils, the fishing industry, environmental groups, scientific researchers, and iwi, the aim is to inform Maui conservation decisions through further research and population monitoring.

Roe’s current research is to identify how toxoplasma gondii is transmitted to dolphins. The most likely route into the marine environment is via contamination of fresh-water run-off. Oocysts, or spores, carrying the parasite and shed in cat faeces can contaminate coastal waters via feral cat populations, and storm water via domestic cat populations. Hector’s and Maui dolphins forage in harbours and estuaries and could ingest oocysts from water, or from eating fish and squid.

Declining to speculate about Maui survival, Roe sees their plight as a warning for Hector’s.

“I’m probably a little bit back-to-front on this,” she says, believing resources are best directed at looking after those there are more of.

It may be too late for Maui dolphins with our Government fixed in its position on protection zones like the set nets trapping them, but their endangered relative, Hector’s, could pull through.

“There are lots of lessons we can learn about what we should be doing now. It would be nice to react before there are 55 left.”

Note: DoC now uses “Maui”, but “Maui’s” has been preserved in quotes, document and group names

Image credit: S. Dawson (from NABU International website)