Humpbacks Foraging in Many Waterways

Canada’s fisheries minister has fired back at environmental groups for launching court action to protect endangered southern resident killer whales instead of working with the federal government on the issue.

Jonathan Wilkinson said the groups abandoned discussions shortly after they began with federal officials and representatives from the transportation and fishing industries.

Ecojustice lawyers, acting on behalf of five other conservation groups, launched a Federal Court case against Wilkinson and federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna this past week. The groups – the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and World Wildlife Fund Canada – want the ministers to ask cabinet for an emergency order to protect the orcas.

Christianne Wilhelmson, executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance, said Friday that the groups were prepared to work with government.

"But the process that they set up was all about talking, not about action," she said. "It was clear that this was just another process that was going to take months and months and months – and the orcas don’t have that."

The southern residents, whose numbers have dwindled to 75 in three pods, have been the focus of international attention for weeks….
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As concern grows over the decline of the southern resident killer whale population following the presumed death of the young female J50, the story off B.C.’s north and central coast is much different.

The most recent count of the northern resident group of orcas reported 309 whales, more than four times the number of southern residents.

“The northern killer whale population is doing much better… [and] doesn’t seem to be going through the same slow decline,” said Lance Barrett-Lenard, head of the cetacean research program at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Both populations feed on chinook salmon as their primary prey but Barrett-Lenard said the northern whales have less competition and more options to choose from, with fish returning to the Skeena River, Nass River and Owikeno Lake….
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WOODS HOLE – Scientists have found a reliable gathering place east of Cape Cod for the elusive and little-known True’s beaked whales, following a month’s effort this summer.

"It was huge for us," Danielle Cholewiak, research ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, said. Cholewiak was chief scientist for the trip east of Georges Bank, on the edge of the continental shelf.

Only a dozen sightings of True’s beaked whale had occurred since 1913 when Smithsonian Institution curator Frederick True first identified and named the species from an animal stranded on a North Carolina beach. But the dedicated study in July 200 miles east of Cape Cod yielded dozens of sightings, acoustic recordings, genetic samples and photographs, Cholewiak said.

The repeated sightings of whales during the trip allowed scientists to begin a tracking database. The whales now named Elvis and Trident are the "founding members" of the North Atlantic True’s beaked whale photo identification catalog. With over 300 acoustic detections from a hydrophone towed 24 hours a day across the research area the scientists were able to map out where the animals were living, Cholewiak said. The first-time use on a True’s beaked whale of a suction-cup digital recording tag, for 12 hours, is expected to reveal new information about their movements and acoustic behavior….
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A new study by researchers at The University of Western Australia and the United States-based Dolphin Research Center shows that bottlenose dolphins not only cooperate with each other, but can do so with precise behavioural coordination never before demonstrated in nonhuman animals.

… the researchers created a task in which pairs of dolphins had to swim across a lagoon and each press their own underwater button simultaneously (within a one-second time window), whether sent together or with a delay between partners of up to 20 seconds….
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..as surfers we are shoulder-to-shoulder with cetaceans (all whales, dolphins, and porpoises) in lineups all around the world… We share that interspecies joy of riding waves together-something that is hard to find a parallel for in any other human and non-human animal relationship….

(…this year’s ) IWC meeting, however, has a moment where common sense wisdom is shared. This year it came from Brazilian Governmental Minister Edson Duarte. "The world recognizes the urgent need to respond to the challenges posed by the current model of economic development," he said. "The time has come to act in the IWC in a convergent way so that this forum can also present a joint vision regarding the conservation and management of the marine environment."

Duarte went on to talk about the numerous other challenges the marine ecosystem is facing. "It is time for progress, not setbacks," he explained. "The oceans are the major carbon sinks; however, they are also under threat from climate change. Scientists point out that the coming years will be even hotter, bringing new ingredients to the universal climatic scene and putting the entire marine ecosystem at risk. In the face of this, worldwide concern for the sustainability of marine biodiversity grows. Whales, as well as dolphins, still suffer from problems such as bycatch, anthropogenic underwater noise, ships strikes, and the huge amount of marine debris and plastic in the seas. These are increasing challenges that demand a broader conservation agenda."

Brazil has a vast coastline, which makes the country a key player in the fight for cetaceans and the environment.
"With approximately 7,500 kilometers of coastline in the Atlantic Ocean, Brazil plays a fundamental role in facing the multiple challenges posed by coastal and marine management," Duarte said. "With the expressive support of civil society organizations, the government of President Michel Temer has recently made the decision to create four conservation units in two oceanic archipelagos that have an incalculable wealth of biodiversity. With the creation of these 90-million-hectare conservation units with an area equivalent to the combined territories of France and Germany, Brazil significantly increased the percentage of its protected areas in its coastal-marine zone from 1.5% to 26%."…
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17 September 2018: The 67th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC-67) adopted the Florianópolis Declaration, which affirms the continued moratorium against commercial whaling, and a Schedule amendment on aboriginal subsistence whaling. IWC-67 did not pass a proposed decision on establishing a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary or Japan’s "Way Forward" package proposal.

In the Florianópolis Declaration, the IWC agrees that the Commission’s role in the 21st century includes its responsibility to ensure the recovery of cetacean populations to their preindustrial levels, and reaffirms the importance of maintaining the moratorium on commercial whaling. The Declaration acknowledges the abundance of contemporary non-lethal cetacean research methods and that the use of lethal research methods is unnecessary, and seeks to ensure that aboriginal subsistence whaling for the benefit of indigenous communities meets the Commission’s management and conservation objectives, taking into account the safety of hunters and the welfare of cetaceans….
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