Category: Marine Animals

WHALE-WATCHING AND SWIM-WITH

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The Australian Nature Conservation
Agency on September 18 recommended
restricting whale-watching in breeding areas,
accrediting tour operators, and forming a
code of ethics for whale-based tourism. The
Australian whale-watching industry grew
13% from 1991 to 1994, as more than
500,000 people spent up to $70 million a year
to see whales. Protecting whales from whalewatchers
became a public issue on June 2,
1994, when Andrew Curven of New South
Wales was photographed standing on the back
of a right whale. On September 1, Curven
was fined $500 (Australian currency). He
faced a maximum penalty of two years in jail
and a fine of $100,000 for allegedly violating
the 1974 National Parks and Wildlife Act––
aimed at industrial polluters, not individuals.

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Marine life

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Sea turtles
The Senate Appropriations
C o m m i t t e e, at urging of Senator J. Bennett
Johnson (D-La.) on September 14 approved
$500,000 to monitor changes in the sea turtle
population––and $750,000 to research ways to
protect sea turtles without forcing shrimpers to
use turtle exclusion devices (TEDS), which
they blame for declining catches. Thus pressured,
NMFS announced September 18 that it
would consider a shrimp industry proposal to
set aside sea turtle management areas in the
Gulf of Mexico, where turtles would be protected,
in exchange for elimination of the TED
requirement. Catching flak from both directions,
NMFS also faces a lawsuit over alleged
failure to enforce TED use, filed July 8 by
Earth Island Institute, Help Endangered
Animals––Ridley Turtles, and HSUS.

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Fish stories

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

The House on October 18 approved a tougher
reauthorized edition of the Magnuson Fishery
Management and Conservation Act, 388-37. The new
version dropped a clause exempting Gulf of Mexico
shrimpers from having to immediately reduce bycatch and
sea turtle deaths. The Gulf bycatch averages four pounds of
wasted finfish for every pound of shrimp retrieved.
After three years of negotiation sponsored by
the United Nations, 99 countries agreed in August to a
treaty regulating commercial fishing in all waters, including
sovereign waters. The treaty will take effect when and if it
is ratified by at least 30 nations.

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Salmon at risk?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service
jointly proposed on September 28 that Atlantic salmon
should be listed as threatened in Maine, but not in the rest
of its historic range, as requested by Protect the North
Woods, because south of Maine the salmon are already lost
as a distinct species through overfishing, habitat loss, and
hybridization with introduced strains.
Maine governor Angus King charged that the proposed
listing would cause undue economic hardship.
Earlier, NMFS proposed listing the Coho salmon
as endangered from Monterey Bay, California, to the
Columbia River in Washington, sparking furor in the west.

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Fish vs. seals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland–– “Decimated fish populations
like the northern cod will recover if fishing is cut down,”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologist Ransom Myers reported in
the September edition of Science. “What happened to [Atlantic
Canadian] fish stocks had nothing to do with the environment,
nothing to do with seals. It is simply overfishing.”
Myers was lead author of a review of the population
dynamics of 128 stocks of 34 commercially fished species over a
16-year period, commissioned by Fisheries Canada and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to see if overfishing might slow fish
breeding because survivors have a harder time finding mates, a
phenomenon called the despensation effect. Among the species
reviewed were salmon, cod, hake, haddock, herring, and
anchovies. The review discovered apparent despensation afflicting
only Islandic herring. Historically, despensation is believed
to have contributed to the extinction of the Lake Erie blue pike,
and many bird and mammal species.

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U.S. subsidizing Makah whaling

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

SEATTLE––The U.S. government is spending
$7 million to underwrite the Washington-based Makah
Tribe in killing whales next summer, charges Captain Paul
Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Watson cites grants, subsidies, and interest-free
loans to help build a marina big enough to serve whaling
vessels, provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Forest Service, Department of Commerce, USDA, Office
of Native American Programs, and Washington State
Department of Parks and Recreation.
“The Corps of Engineers signed the Project
Cooperative Agreement with the Makah on May 2, 1995,”
Watson told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “On May 5, the
Makah informed the U.S. government that they would
resume whaling, for commercial reasons under the guise
of aboriginal whaling, without regulation under
International Whaling Commission rules. It is clear that
the Makah intend for the U.S. government to fund the
facilities for landing and processing whales. The federal
agencies are proceeding with no information on the
impending whaling operation other than the tribal
announcement of their intent and treaty right to kill grey
whales.”

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Animal health

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Infectious diseases
Protecting their collections, Sea World San Diego and Marine World Africa USA
in Vallejo, California, have suspended accepting stranded marine mammals, after morbillivirus
was found in a common dolphin who beached herself on August 31 near Marina Del
Ray and was taken to Sea World for rehab. Lack of a rehab site obliged authorities to euthanize
a stranded pygmy sperm whale in early October. Morbillivirus, related to canine distemper,
killed tens of thousands of seals and at least 800 bottlenose dolphins in the North
Atlantic during 1987-1988, about 1,000 striped dolphins in the Mediterranean in 1989-1990,
and circa 900 dolphins off the Texas coast in 1994, but has never before been found in the
Pacific. The infected dolphin, still at Sea World, shows no symptoms of the disease, and
may be an immune carrier.

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Dolphin-safe tuna law erased by treaty

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

PANAMA CITY, Panama– – The
U.S. embargo against imports of tuna netted
“on dolphin” collapsed October 4 as the Bill
Clinton administration signed the Declaration
of Panama, a treaty which redefines “dolphin-safe”
from zero preventable dolphin
deaths to killing under 5,000 per year.
Accepted under pressure from the
anti-regulation Republican Congress and the
enforcement panels of the General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs and the North American
Free Trade Agreement, the treaty is expected
to be quickly ratified by the Senate.

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Paul Watson goes to trial

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland– –
Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society seemed to be the most
relaxed person in the courtroom through the
first week of his trial for allegedly recklessly
endangering the lives of the crew of Cuban drag
trawler Rio Las Casas and his own 29 crew
members as well, including his wife Lisa
DiStefano, during a July 28, 1993 action in
defense of the Atlantic Canadian cod fishery. If
convicted, Watson could be sentenced to life in
prison. But Canadian fisheries officer Wayne
Evans, the first prosecution witness, testified
that Watson was arrested outside Canadian
waters. Extensive video of the encounter presented
by the prosecution showed no contact
between Watson’s vessel, the Cleveland
Amory, and the Rio Las Casas. And three
Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who
were on the scene testified that they saw no
bumping.

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