OZ MARINE PARK: BIGGEST, BEST, OR BUST?

Part of the Coral Sea off the Queensland coast of Australia. Credit: NASA.

 

The Australian government announced last week a proposal to create the world's largest marine protected area in the phenomenally biodiverse richness of the Coral Sea.

Too bad no one's happy with it.

Of course, it's in the nature of protected areas to make people unhappy for a good long while before there's any hope of making them happy.

Bison, Yellowstone National Park. Credit: Daniel Mayer via Wikimedia Commons. 

Yellowstone, the world's first national park, might have triggered part 2 of the Civil War if there had been more people living in the West at the time. Here's what Senator Cornelius Cole of California had to say about it during legislative debate:

I have grave doubts about the propriety of passing this bill. The natural curiosities there cannot be interfered with by anything that man can do.... I cannot see how [they] can be interfered with if settlers are allowed to appropriate them....  I do not see the reason or propriety of setting apart a large tract of land of that kind in the Territories of the United States for a public park. There is abundance of public park ground in the Rocky Mountains that will never be occupied. It is all one great park, and never can be anything else.... There are some places, perhaps this is one, where persons can and would go and settle and improve and cultivate the grounds, if there be ground fit for cultivation.

Australia's Coral Sea draft marine reserve covers 989,842 square kilometers (382,180 square miles). Courtesy Commonwealth of Australia.

In Australia, some fishers are mad as hell about the proposed new park. For brevity in reporting, nothing beats this article, in its entirety, from the Queensland ABC:

Commercial fishers in the Coral Sea claim they are being made scapegoats despite a long history of sustainable fishing. Rob Louden is a licence and quota holder in the Coral Sea and East Coast sea cucumber fishery. He says the proposed Commonwealth marine park will put valuable and productive fishing grounds off limits for no apparent ecological or biological reason.

Man, sea cucumber. Credit: Fritz Geller-Grimm via Wikimedia Commons.

Scientists and conservationists are equally unhappy with the Coral Sea proposal. From Nature News:

Hugh Possingham, director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions at the University of Queensland, points out that little more than half... of the Coral Sea reserve is proposed as a 'no take' area, in which all fishing would be banned. The world�s largest existing marine reserve, established last year by the British government around the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, spans 544,000?[square kilometers] and is a no-take zone throughout. An alliance of campaigning conservation groups, including the WWF and the Pew Environment Group, argues that more of the Coral Sea should receive this level of protection.

Blue starfish (Linckia laevigata) resting on Acropora coral, Lighthouse, Ribbon Reefs, Australia. Credit: Richard Ling via Wikimedia Commons.

The fight is fierce�and important. Australia is struggling to create meaningful protection for much of its waters. 

But its weak draft proposal last May for a southwestern Australian marine park prompted 173 scientists to write an open letter to the government in protest. One of the co-signers, CJA Bradshaw, wrote at his blog Conservation Bites:

Basically, the proposed parks are merely a settlement between government and industry where nothing of importance is really being protected. The parks are just the leftovers industry doesn�t want. No way to ensure the long-term viability of our seas.

Barry Wrasse is a stakeholder too. Here's what he has to say.

HAPPIEST FEET: OILED PENGUINS GO FREE

Little blue penguin. Credit: Noodle snacks via Wikimedia Commons.

Forty-nine of 343 little blue penguins rescued from the oil spill off the New Zealand coast were released back into the ocean yesterday�with more to come in the next few weeks, says Maritime New Zealand.

At least 2,008 birds died.

When Rena grounded on 5 October 2011 it contained 1,712 tons of oil. About 360 tons spilled into the ocean. The last of the 1,319 tons remaining were removed by salvors working under really tough conditions by 13 November. Kudos to them.

The freed penguins were released back into the Bay of Plenty with hopes they'll make their way to their breeding rookery on Rabbit Island.

Bonne chance, little dudes.

KILLER WHALES V. SALMON

Credit: Robert Pittman, NOAA.

What happens when we 'manage' two species in the wild with different�and conflicting�objectives? 

And what happens when one eats the other�and so do we?

That's the question raised in an interesting new paper in PLoS ONE. The authors investigated how many endangered chinook salmon are needed by endangered killer whales to recover their numbers in the northeastern Pacific.

Salish Sea, comprising the Strait of Georgia, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound, surrounding Vancouver Island and Washington state. Credit: SeaWiFS Project,NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE.

The question gets even more intriguing when you have two countries�Canada and the US�managing the fate of the two species that blithely cross international boundaries as if, you know, they weren't there.

The killer whales in the middle of the conflicted question are known as the southern resident killer whales (SRKW), who summer in the Salish Sea. They eat only fish, and are so dependent on chinook salmon that when they can't get them more adult whales die and fewer calves are born. 

• Current population of southern resident killer whales: 87 individuals
• Current chinook salmon stock: 36% of historical run in Canada, 8% in US

Chinook salmon. Credit: Josh Larios via Wikimedia Commons.

The stated objective of US management is to grow the dwindling killer whale population by 2.3% per year over 28 years. 

The authors assessed what the minimum basic caloric requirements were likely to be to make that come true�based on food requirements of captive killer whales, and body lengths of wild whales.

Estimated prey requirements of wild killer whales, based on two plausible values for calorie content of a typical, 4-year-old Chinook salmon. Credit: Rob Williems, et al. PLoS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0026738.

What they found suggests that the chinook salmon can't support both a growing killer whale population and human fisheries at current levels.

What's a fish-eating primate to do? The authors' suggest:

When one protected species relies almost exclusively on another protected species, it can be difficult to develop management frameworks that meet the needs of both species. This can lead to a perception that the needs of the more charismatic species will unfairly trump those of the prey species. In our experience, genuine conservation conflicts often result in management inaction in the absence of a framework in which to assess likely impacts... It is faster to reduce takes of salmon than to increase salmon production, and it is faster to increase salmon production than promote population growth in killer whales. The efficacy of salmon habitat restoration actions can often be measured within a decade, whereas similar measurements will take decades in studies of long-lived species like killer whales.

In other words, maybe we should let the whales get the fish for a while.

There's a lot more interesting stuff going on in this forward-looking paper and luckily it's open access. So you can freely read deeper.

The paper:

• Williams R, Krko�ek M, Ashe E, Branch TA, Clark S, et al. 2011Competing Conservation Objectives for Predators and Prey: Estimating Killer Whale Prey Requirements for Chinook Salmon.PLoS ONE 6(11):e26738. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0026738

TWICE AS MANY DOLPHINS, WHALES STILL DYING IN GULF

Stranded spinner dolphin. Credit: qnr via Flickr.

  

The latest NOAA report on unusual strandings of whales and dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico finds they're still dying at twice the normal rate 18 months after BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Map of strandings in relation to Deepwater Horizon well. Click for larger version. Credit: NOAA.

  

As you can see in the map above, the most heavily oiled shoreline still corresponds with the most dead whales and dolphins.

Bottlenose dolphins are shown as circles and other species as squares. Premature, stillborn, or neonatal bottlenose dolphins (with actual or estimated lengths of less than 115 cm/45 inches) are shown as a circle with a black dot inside. 

Pink points mark the most recent week of data. Green points mark are all other cases since 1 January 2011.

 

All stranded cetaceans (dolphins and whales) from Franklin County, FL to the Texas/ Louisiana border. Credit: NOAA.

Here you can see how the numbers of strandings have not yet stabilized or even begun to decline. In some cases they're still growing. 

The magenta-colored bars mark strandings per month in the year 2010. The ivory-colored bars mark strandings per month so far this year.

Credit: NOAA.

This graph shows stranded premature, stillborn, or neonatal bottlenose dolphins.

In my Mother Jones article The BP Cover-Up last year, I wrote about the kind of long-term problems the Gulf might face not just from oil but from extreme quantities of oil in very deep water, as well as from chemical dispersant, including dispersant injected into very deep water.

Sadly, it seems that cetaceans�past, present, and future�may be bearing some of those burdens.

Beached sperm whale. Credit: Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times/AP.

  
You might be interested in these other posts describing other scientific findings in the wake of last year's Gulf catastrophe:

• Canadian Seabirds Walloped by BP's Oil
• Gulf Oil Hammers Fish
• Deepwater Horizon's Uncounted Victims
• The BP Cover-Up

CANADIAN SEABIRDS WALLOPED BY BP'S OIL

Northern gannet. Credit: Alan D. Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

  
A new paper in early view in Biology Letters�a journal of the Royal Society�finds that Canadian migrant seabirds suffered disproportionately the lethal effects of BP's oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) suffered the highest oiling among beach-wrecked birds recovered last year.

These are the largest seabirds in the Atlantic, who migrate from their Canadian breeding colonies to overwinter in the Gulf of Mexico. Adults return to the breeding colonies by about March�earlier than immature birds.

Winter positions of northern gannets from 4 of 6 North American colonies, where adults and chicks were banded and adults and juveniles tracked. Mean winter (Jan�Feb) positions from adults carrying GLS (2004�2010) and final positions from 18 juveniles with PTTs (2008�2010). Deepwater Horizon site (star) and associated slicks (grey) indicated. Credit: William Montevecchi, et al. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0880.

  
Due to these migration timetables, most of the northern gannets killed in the Gulf last year were likely immature birds.

Which means the real impact of their deaths will not show up until those birds would have reached sexual maturity�at about 5 or 6 years old�or betwen now and far beyond. Gannets can live at least 21 years.

From the paper:

Most adult gannets had returned to Canadian colonies by 20 April 2010, although more than 50,000 immature gannets were in the Gulf at the time and suffered oil-related mortality. Hence, two probable outcomes are (i) a lagged (likely difficult to detect) population decrease or (ii) mortality will be buffered by age-related life-history processes.  

A bonded pair of northern gannets. Credit: Al Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

  
The authors found the story grew even more ominous when they compared numbers on how many gannets were overwintering in the Gulf of Mexico�numbers that differed hugely depending on the technology used:

• Old-fashioned technology: recovery of banded birds
• Modern technology: bird-borne global location sensors (GLS) and satellite tags (Platform Terminal Transmitters, PTTs)

The newer technologies revealed more than twice as many gannets overwintering in the Gulf. From the paper:

Extrapolation from band recoveries indicates that 13,318 adult gannets winter in the Gulf of Mexico, much less than the 66,124 estimate based on GLS data... PTT positions suggest an estimated population of 52,509 immature gannets in the Gulf compared with 41,587 extrapolated from banding recoveries. Extrapolating tracking data for all gannet age classes more than doubles the estimated number of birds using the Gulf, from 54,905 to 118,633 birds. 

Oiled gannet washed ashore on Cape Cod. Credit: Dennis Minsky at SeaNet.

  
Add to that the fact that dead or oiled birds found ashore represent only a fraction of the birds dead or dying at sea. From the paper:

Seabirds are among the most obvious and immediate indicators of wildlife and environmental damage during marine pollution events. In these circumstances, seabird mortality has been assessed by counting dead and dying animals along coasts. These assessments are biased towards animals that die near accessible well-populated coastlines, and as offshore winds and currents can reduce coastal-deposition of carcasses that sink after a few days, mortality is inevitably underestimated.

The authors note that gannets may be shifting their winter range to the Gulf in response to overfishing of menhaden�their primary winter prey�in Atlantic waters.

Northern gannet in flight. Credit: Andreas Trepte via Wikimedia Commons.

 
And the authors noted possible signs of oil fouling on birds returning to their Canadian breeding colonies:

In April 2011, at their southernmost colony, Cape St. Mary's Newfoundland, gannets on inaccessible cliff-sites were observed and photographed with dark soiled plumage that looked like oil, but this could not be verified by chemical analysis. Tracking, survival and physiological measurements at gannet colonies during 2011 are evaluating other potential repercussions and informing management about conservation concerns.

The paper:

• William Montevecchi, David Fifield, Chantelle Burke, Stefan Garthe, April Hedd, Jean-Fran�ois Rail, Gregory Robertson. Tracking long-distance migration to assess marine pollution impact. Biology Letters. 2011. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.088.

SWEATERS FOR OILED PENGUINS

Example of a penguin sweater knit by New Zealanders to keep sick, oiled penguins warm. Via the Bay of Plenty Times.

  
From the Bay of Plenty Times comes the news that knitters in New Zealand are making sweaters for little blue penguins (aka fairy penguins) oiled in the wreck of the cargo ship Rena. 

Nearly 1,300 birds are known dead from the spill already, most penguins. From the Bay of Plenty Times:

A Napier factory has sent a care package off to Tauranga�full of tiny woolly penguin pajamas. The PJ package came about after Napier's Design Spun general manager Brendan Jackson was contacted last week by a local woman whose daughter had been involved in the oil response unit. The recovery crews were coming across oil-smeared penguins who, trying to preen their feathers clean, became more ill.

The Massey University Wildlife Recovery team she was part of had cast their minds back to a similar spill in Tasmania some years ago, where locals knitted pure wool jumpers to be put on the little blue penguins during the recovery phase to prevent them getting at their feathers before they could be washed clean.

It worked, so the word went out to Design Spun, which has a "yarn club'' of devoted knitters. Within a week the four to five dozen bright little jumpers were all knitted and the last of them were sent to Tauranga yesterday.

Some even have messages including one, which has the words "Cut Down on Oil Use'' embroidered lovingly on the front.

Here's the pattern if�like mine�your needles are practically jumping up and down at the prospect.

Penguin sweater via.

THE CORAL FOREST

'(How To Grow) A Floating Forest' from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

Another beautiful short film from Morphologic Studios, shot at an underwater nursery for staghorn coral. This critically endangered species has lost 80 to 98 percent of its population throughout the Caribbean in the past 30 years, much of that from climate-change-induced coral disease and coral bleaching.  

The nursery featured here highlights some intense human efforts to reverse that decline. From the Morphologic Blog:

One of the most innovative, practical, and functional coral nurseries on the planet can be found just a few miles off the shores of Key Largo. The nursery consists of thousands of neatly organized colonies of the critically important staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) grown by the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) for the purpose of transplantation back to the reef. Staghorn corals have been decimated by disease and extreme weather here in Florida over the past 30 years, resulting in a seriously degraded reef ecosystem. Fortunately the CRF has developed methods that maximize the growth potential of these corals in their nursery, demonstrating that coral aquaculture is a realistic and effective way to restore beleaguered wild populations.

From the Morphologic Blog.