A Mass Mortality of Dolphins:
Deadly Warning from the Beaches of Peru
By Hardy Jones, Executive Director,
BlueVoice.org
The tragic mass mortality event (MME) of at least 900 dolphins along the coast of northern Peru may be a portent of what would face marine mammal populations if seismic exploration for oil were permitted off the east coast of the United States.
See video http://bluevoice.org/webfilms_catastropheperu.php
The MME was investigated in a perfunctory manner by the government of Peru (GOP). Government agencies were reluctant to brave the remote beaches north of the fishing village of San Jose – the so-called stranding zone. There may have been some political concerns about offending the oil and fishing industries. And there is no funding in Peru for coordinated interdisciplinary investigations, as there is in the United States, when an MME is declared.
Whatever the reason, the GOP issued a statement concluding that “natural causes” and “evolutionary forces” were to blame for the massive die-off of dolphins. That statement is clearly ludicrous.
I believe there is enough circumstantial evidence to state that a plausible cause of the death of the dolphins along the coast of Peru would be seismic exploration for oil that was being carried out in the area of the MME. The extremely loud sounds generated by detonation of powerful air guns can cause dolphins feeding at depth to race to the surface. If they surface too rapidly, bubbles develop in their tissues causing death. This recognized phenomenon is called acoustical trauma, rapid ascent decompression syndrome. It leads to decompression sickness, commonly called the bends.
Scientists once thought marine mammals such as whales and dolphins were not subject to decompression sickness because they do not breathe compressed air. But a recent study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society1 said researchers had recorded deaths among marine mammals as a result of decompression sickness, primarily among beaked whales “in association with anthropogenic activities such as military sonar or seismic surveys.”2
My conclusion comes after months of investigation, including an 85-mile drive along the sands of northern Peru and email exchanges with top experts in marine mammal rescue and previous MMEs.
As the investigation into the cause of the Peru dolphin MME continues, The Obama administration is proposing to open vast offshore tracts between Florida and Delaware to seismic surveys for potential oil deposits. The oil industry has applied to Minerals Management Service (MMS) and The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to run hundreds of thousands of miles of air gun surveys off the east coast over the next eight years. The Obama administration estimates these detonations would injure up to 138,500 marine mammals.
My investigations in Peru gave me a horrific view of the possible results of what may have been seismic testing that was being conducted in areas frequented by thousands of common dolphins. To give some background; beginning in February 2012 hundreds of dolphins were reported stranded (dead) on the beaches of northern Peru. In March I joined Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos of the Peruvian Organización Científica para Conservación de Animales Acuaticos (ORCA). During a single 85-mile drive along the beaches in the stranding zone, we counted 615 dead dolphins. Most were long beaked common dolphins. A few were Burmeister’s porpoise.
Dr. Yaipen Llanos, funded in large measure by BlueVoice, collected tissue samples from thirty dolphins. He conducted necropsies in situ and in Lima. After extensive testing he was able to rule out possible causal factors:
-The dolphins were not killed by fisheries interaction. -Their bodies were unscarred as they would be if they had died from net entanglement.
-There was no evidence of red tide and no species other than the two mentioned were affected.
-A contemporaneous mass mortality of pelicans was the result of starvation when their prey moved into deeper waters due to the end of a La Nina. There is no connection to the dolphin mortality.
-The deceased dolphins were well fed and healthy in appearance. A female, very recently stranded, had milk in her mammary glands.
-Morbilla virus, related to distemper, and Brucella bacteria, two pathogens commonly associated with mass mortality events, were ruled out by Dr. Yaipen Llanos. No symptoms of these diseases were found.
The Peruvian government report concurred in finding none of the above-mentioned factors complicit in the deaths of the dolphins.
What is not known, because it was not measured, is whether the dolphins suffered exposure to a huge quantity of either heavy metals or organic pollutants.
Based on the necropsies of 30 dolphins (the GOP had only three organs from two dolphins), Dr. Yaipen Llanos concluded that acoustical trauma leading to rapid ascent and decompression syndrome was the cause of death of the dolphins.
Dr. Yaipen-Llanos stated to me that necropsies that he and his colleagues performed on three separate expeditions to the stranding area showed the dolphins investigated had bleeding in their middle ears and had suffered fracture to the periotic bones that surround the inner ear. He also found gas in their internal organs and acute pulmonary emphysema, symptoms all consistent with death from decompression sickness.
Dr. Yaipen Llanos found newly stranded animals on each of ORCA’s three expeditions, showing the death of the dolphins was an ongoing process. He issued a statement saying “we believe that a strong source of sound was continuously emitted in the area. This didn’t happen just once.” He specifically did not name seismic testing as a cause, stating it was outside his professional competence.
During the course of my research I found widespread resistance from highly qualified experts to the idea that acoustical trauma was the cause of the dolphin mass mortality. NB: None of these scientists had been on scene and had gathered what little information they had from the GOP. The GOP dismissed the acoustical trauma hypothesis outright. Dr. Joseph Geraci3 told me “there is no scientifically verified case of seismic testing ever causing a mass mortality event.”
Dr. Robert Brownell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S.A also discounts the acoustical trauma theory, though he says he needs much more information before coming to a solid conclusion. But he also told me of “a mass stranding of melon-headed whales off northern Madagascar about June 2008 – (a major oil company) was working in region at the time.” He went on to say “a group of us has been trying to organize (a) workshop but (it’s) difficult with government of Madagascar (not cooperating). The possibility of a mass stranding in Madagascar caused by seismic testing does not refute Dr. Geraci’s statement in which he emphasizes the words “scientifically verifiable.” Since Madagascar won’t allow an investigation there will likely never be a “scientifically verifiable” cause of death assigned.
Dr. Brownell, Dr. Frances Gulland of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center near Sausalito, California and a number of other prominent experts on MMEs are hoping to put together a conference in Peru – perhaps in the fall of 2012.
In the meantime arguments go back and forth:
GOP: Dolphins began dieing in January and the seismic tests didn’t start until February
El Commercio, Peru’s most widely read newspaper, reported that the Peruvian Navy Had given permission for foreign oil companies to carry out seismic testing as early as November.
Various scientists: The bubbles described by Dr. Yaipen Llanos could have been the result of putrefaction in the dolphin corpse.
Dr. Yaipen Llanos: the fresh dolphin carcasses he examined had excess bubbles that differed from putrefaction bubbles.
And again, there is the GOPs conclusion that the MME was caused by natural causes and evolution.
No rebuttal required but laughter.
There will likely be no universally agreed upon conclusion on what killed more than 900 dolphins along the coast of Peru. The most plausible cause, the one that has not been disqualified, is seismic testing for oil. At very least this possibility needs to be factored into decisions on permitting this form of testing in the future.
Showing posts with label Hardy Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hardy Jones. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
In the Land of Dr. No
As the day wore on the tide moved up the beach pushing us closer and closer to the dunes. Finally we were driving through the surf and I felt that we had accomplished our mission. We had counted 615 dead dolphins and had evidence of the tragedy and necropsy samples that might shed light on what had produced this catastrophe.
We found an opening in the dunes and headed east toward the Pan American Highway. Initially we passed through an area behind the dunes that was flooded when the sea was high enough to crest the dunes. But it was now dry and reasonably hard. We made good time.
Our little fellowship consisted of Carlos and me, a driver, a tall female Dutch student and two female Peruvian members of ORCA-Peru. It was pretty cramped. A dangerous lot if I’ve ever seen one.
We then entered an area of powdery sand blown up into ridges that shaped just like waves. We’d go over the top of a crest then plunge into the trough. Hints of previous traffic were everywhere but no clear road to the Pan Am.
Eventually we found ourselves perched over a vast open pit mine. Massive trucks and earthmovers gouged the earth for phosphate. We made our way down tracks in the desert, occasionally stopping to ask guards in variously colored hard hats for directions. They looked surprised but pointed east.
Eventually we reached a huge conveyer belt and then saw the exit gate, which was open. As we approached it men in various colors of overalls and hard hats came running toward us. The gate was closed in front of us. We were in the land of Dr. No.
They asked for our IDs. Strutted around. Wrote on their clipboards. Carlos laughed saying “They’re so screwed because they’ve allowed a breach in security.” I thought, “They’re nuts to write this down. They should just pass us through and hope no one knows we got through their lines.”
Finally they let us out and we ran back to Chiclayo.
What were they afraid of; that we’d steal their phosphate? Or was there something in the mining process that was running into the sea. There was that one huge pipe running through the desert. The words “something evil this way comes,” ran through my mind.
We found an opening in the dunes and headed east toward the Pan American Highway. Initially we passed through an area behind the dunes that was flooded when the sea was high enough to crest the dunes. But it was now dry and reasonably hard. We made good time.
Our little fellowship consisted of Carlos and me, a driver, a tall female Dutch student and two female Peruvian members of ORCA-Peru. It was pretty cramped. A dangerous lot if I’ve ever seen one.
We then entered an area of powdery sand blown up into ridges that shaped just like waves. We’d go over the top of a crest then plunge into the trough. Hints of previous traffic were everywhere but no clear road to the Pan Am.
Eventually we found ourselves perched over a vast open pit mine. Massive trucks and earthmovers gouged the earth for phosphate. We made our way down tracks in the desert, occasionally stopping to ask guards in variously colored hard hats for directions. They looked surprised but pointed east.
Eventually we reached a huge conveyer belt and then saw the exit gate, which was open. As we approached it men in various colors of overalls and hard hats came running toward us. The gate was closed in front of us. We were in the land of Dr. No.
They asked for our IDs. Strutted around. Wrote on their clipboards. Carlos laughed saying “They’re so screwed because they’ve allowed a breach in security.” I thought, “They’re nuts to write this down. They should just pass us through and hope no one knows we got through their lines.”
Finally they let us out and we ran back to Chiclayo.
What were they afraid of; that we’d steal their phosphate? Or was there something in the mining process that was running into the sea. There was that one huge pipe running through the desert. The words “something evil this way comes,” ran through my mind.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
What Will it Take to End Japan Dolphin Slaughter?
By Hardy Jones
This is a slightly modified article I wrote last year for Huffington Post. It reflects the fact that Sea Shepherd pushed the Japanese whaling fleet out of the Antarctic during the 2010-11 season. But the principal issues are the same this year as last.
The dolphin hunt begins at the end of this week. Perhaps 100 police, coast guard and god knows what other form of policing will be present to greet the ever growing crowds of dolphin activists drawn to the scene of the killing.
On September 1st the dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan are scheduled to resume despite unrelenting tsunamis of publicity around the world highlighting this brutal slaughter. In addition the village of Futo, just southeast of Tokyo, has announced it will resume dolphin hunts, mainly to secure dolphins for captivity. Dolphin hunting in Japan continues uninterrupted. NB: This did not happen last year, primarily due to absence of dolphins from their waters.
The resumption of the dolphin hunts followed a weekend, August 27 - 29, during which Animal Planet aired the two-hour season finale to Whale Wars, the fight by Sea Shepherd to stop whaling by Japan in the Antarctic, a two-hour presentation of The Cove, the academy award winning film by Louis Psoyhos featuring Ric O'Barry; and the premier of O'Barry's own three-part film series Blood Dolphins. This represents a media barrage of unprecedented dimension.
NB: The dolphin hunt continued through the entire 2010-11 season and was even extended.
While issues of cruelty are a highly important part of the argument against these hunts there is another compelling reason why dolphins and whales not only should not be hunted but instead demand greater protection than ever.
Growing evidence suggests that dolphins are becoming so contaminated by marine toxins that eating them constitutes a genuine threat to human health. Health officials in Denmark and the Faroe Islands have already recommended that consumption of pilot whale meat taken in the notorious "grinds" not be eaten due to high levels of contaminants in the meat.
The issue of heavy metal contamination in large predatory fish and marine mammals is becoming well known. Less widely known are the high levels of organic pollutants such as PCBs, PBDEs, DDT, and other chemicals that suppress mammalian immune systems and disrupt normal endocrine function. Some of these chemicals are known to be estrogen imitators that act to feminize men and superfeminize women; in some cases raising the percentage of females babies born over male babies significantly.
Dolphins are already severely threatened by anthropogenic forces. During the last year numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published documenting a worldwide surge in incidence of diseases heretofore unknown in dolphins.
A team of researchers and veterinarians from the Marine Animal Disease Lab at the University of Florida have discovered at least fifty new viruses in dolphins, the majority of which have yet to be reported in any other marine mammal species.
Thirty new diseases have developed simultaneously worldwide resulting from what Dr. Gregory Bossart, Chief Veterinary Officer at the Georgia Aquarium, describes as profound immunosuppression leading to environmental distress syndrome resulting from chemical intoxication.
In addition, resistance to antibiotics has been found in dolphins in numerous locations around the world. Obviously antibiotics do not occur in nature. They come from people who take antibiotics and introduce them into the ecosystem through bodily elimination or simply throwing unused pills away. After they reach the watershed plankton ingest them and they bio-accumulate up the food web to concentrate in top predators such as dolphins. The dolphins then have the potential for breeding antibiotic resistant super bugs that may pass back to humans. The transmission of disease from one species to another is called zoonosis and is of great concern to the CDC. AIDS is one example of zoonotic transmission.
I first went to Japan to stop the dolphin slaughter at Iki Island in 1979. In 1980 cameraman Howard Hall and I filmed a barbaric slaughter of scores of bottlenose dolphins. Airing of the footage around the globe caused massive worldwide protest.
In that case exposure of the brutal footage of dolphins being hacked and stabbed to death essentially brought an end to the dolphin hunt at Iki. But such publicity has not produced a similar result since. NB: Dolphins are no longer found around Iki, This may be the result of changing water temperatures forcing their prey to other parts of the sea or it may be the dolphins around Iki were extinguished by the brutal hunts.
After Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherds vanquished the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean Japan may believe it has to dig in its heels on the dolphin issue. The massive deployment of police to Taiji certainly indicates they are not backing down. I have been told by highly knowledgeable Japanese environmentalists that sticking Japan's nose in it may be making it all but impossible for Tokyo to withdraw from dolphin hunting. A proud sovereign nation cannot allow small groups of environmentalists to be seen to make it kow-tow. If Japan stopped dolphin hunting now it would appear environmentalists had forced them to back down. But the knowledge that diseases such as brucellosis and papillomavirus are being found ever more frequently in dolphins may, ironically be what forces the end of eating dolphin meat. And if that isn't enough thirteen additional RNA-based viruses that cause intestinal disease and encephalitis in humans have also recently been discovered in dolphins
It baffles me that whaling and dolphin killing can persist in the 21st century. We know so much about these magnificent animals. Whale and dolphin watching generate over US$2.1 billion per year around the world, vastly more than whale and dolphin killing.
But human self-interest on the part of entrenched bureaucratic elites is a powerful force molding individual ethics and shaping short sighted policies. So in Japan and elsewhere whaling and dolphin hunting persist.
In the light of emerging threats to the marine ecosystem, dolphins and whales in particular, the deliberate killing of these curious, intelligent, sentient animals is tragic and will only hasten the extirpation of whole populations of these magnificent sentinels of the sea.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Eyeball-to-Eyeball with a Sperm Whale pt II
By Hardy Jones
Thoughts floated through my mind, lingering for instants but, finding no certainties on which to perpetuate themselves, drifting back to wherever thoughts come from. "What does the vast computing system housed in the six-foot square skull of this animal make of me? Am I a joke? Does it find me as funny as I might a monkey scratching its ass? Surely it doesn't see me as edible? Does it have any clue that I can think too?"
But the one thought that never left my mind was, "how do I keep this animal with me?" For by now I was in love with this whale. I could not disengage my eyes from its one huge eye. I watched its every move. "Every move you make, every breath you take. . . . .". Even in open ocean swimming with a sperm whale my mind is a jukebox. It breathed every thirty seconds. I huffed and strained for enough air to keep my legs pumping. For five minutes we swam eyeball-to-eyeball, the whale using only the barest motion of its tail to gain forward momentum. I was surely in an altered state but it was not dreamlike. It was intense reality.
The great eye moved slightly forward in its socket, the left edge of the tail fluke was raised and my whale began a right turn, prelude to breaking off contact. You cannot pursue whales. If you try you will find yourself looking at a disappearing tail, some sloughed off epidermis and more than likely passing through a reddish brown cloud. So I resisted that impulse and turned left, mirroring the whale's retreat. When I looked over my shoulder the whale had turned back toward me.
Knowing I had to try to bring it to the camera I headed back towards the boat. Roc, with his huge housing, could not have moved far from it. I resented the responsibility of having to help the French crew get video of this encounter. I wanted my whale to myself to see where the encounter would go if we were left on our own.
As we approached the boat I could see Roc hanging at the surface, the glassy dome of his camera pointing at us. He was getting his video but I was going to lose my whale. Perhaps unwilling to get close to another of these strange creatures or to approach the boat, perhaps obeying a call from its mate far below, the sperm whale breathed twice, accelerated, arched forward and began to swim almost straight down. I could see it pass through the slanting golden shafts penetrating the blue of the sea. A bubble from its blowhole, a bubble from its anus and it was gone.
I don't remember swimming back to the boat but once aboard I jettisoned my dive gear and clenched my fist in triumph. Trying to share some of the experience with the French video crew I said "Incroyable! Ne c'est pas?" The director raised his shoulders and twisted his face performing that characteristic Gallic shrug and lit a cigarette.
To me to be uninspired by a sperm whale is a tragedy. Soon I will write about the joke I played on the French film crew. I love France and the French (by and large) but occasionally their arrogance needs to be brought down a peg.
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
Thoughts floated through my mind, lingering for instants but, finding no certainties on which to perpetuate themselves, drifting back to wherever thoughts come from. "What does the vast computing system housed in the six-foot square skull of this animal make of me? Am I a joke? Does it find me as funny as I might a monkey scratching its ass? Surely it doesn't see me as edible? Does it have any clue that I can think too?"
But the one thought that never left my mind was, "how do I keep this animal with me?" For by now I was in love with this whale. I could not disengage my eyes from its one huge eye. I watched its every move. "Every move you make, every breath you take. . . . .". Even in open ocean swimming with a sperm whale my mind is a jukebox. It breathed every thirty seconds. I huffed and strained for enough air to keep my legs pumping. For five minutes we swam eyeball-to-eyeball, the whale using only the barest motion of its tail to gain forward momentum. I was surely in an altered state but it was not dreamlike. It was intense reality.
The great eye moved slightly forward in its socket, the left edge of the tail fluke was raised and my whale began a right turn, prelude to breaking off contact. You cannot pursue whales. If you try you will find yourself looking at a disappearing tail, some sloughed off epidermis and more than likely passing through a reddish brown cloud. So I resisted that impulse and turned left, mirroring the whale's retreat. When I looked over my shoulder the whale had turned back toward me.
Knowing I had to try to bring it to the camera I headed back towards the boat. Roc, with his huge housing, could not have moved far from it. I resented the responsibility of having to help the French crew get video of this encounter. I wanted my whale to myself to see where the encounter would go if we were left on our own.
As we approached the boat I could see Roc hanging at the surface, the glassy dome of his camera pointing at us. He was getting his video but I was going to lose my whale. Perhaps unwilling to get close to another of these strange creatures or to approach the boat, perhaps obeying a call from its mate far below, the sperm whale breathed twice, accelerated, arched forward and began to swim almost straight down. I could see it pass through the slanting golden shafts penetrating the blue of the sea. A bubble from its blowhole, a bubble from its anus and it was gone.
I don't remember swimming back to the boat but once aboard I jettisoned my dive gear and clenched my fist in triumph. Trying to share some of the experience with the French video crew I said "Incroyable! Ne c'est pas?" The director raised his shoulders and twisted his face performing that characteristic Gallic shrug and lit a cigarette.
To me to be uninspired by a sperm whale is a tragedy. Soon I will write about the joke I played on the French film crew. I love France and the French (by and large) but occasionally their arrogance needs to be brought down a peg.
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
Monday, August 22, 2011
Eyeball-to-Eyeball with a Sperm Whale
By Hardy Jones
In 2001 I joined a French film crew off the Caribbean Island of Dominica. They were doing a segment of the hugely popular French television show Ushuaia. I had been hired as the whale expert and because I speak passable French. We had some remarkable encounters with sperm whales and I played a marvelous joke on the French crew.
I sat down on the swim step of our 32 foot cruiser and hauled on my fins, holding my breath to avoid inhaling the noxious diesel exhaust sputtering out of the engine at the waterline next to me. French cameraman Roc Pescadere dropped down next to me, easing his massive video housing into the water. Seventy yards away the pair of sperm whales cruised slowly toward us, their bulbous heads forging through the calm surface of the deep blue Caribbean Sea. Behind the whales the blazing green of the volcanic slopes of Dominica rose under a blue sky contrasting with cumulous clouds.
I dropped a mask over my face and bit down on the snorkel then slipped into the water as quietly as possible so as not to alarm the whales. Roc followed and we kicked lightly to separate ourselves from the boat, then hung at the surface, peering over the top of the glassy sea to spot the whales. They had begun to pick up speed. While still heading toward us they were moving faster and veering slightly to their right. We were going to lose them. I felt the usual sadness when failing to make contact and wondered, "why are you comfortable approaching our boat but frightened off by a clumsy swimmer?"
By now the two whales were close enough to view underwater; no more than 100 feet away. Viewed from above the surface their single blow holes, canted slightly off center on the left of the head, ventilated and inhaled like steam engines beginning a journey. Beneath us was what to humans is perceived as endless blue but to the whales' sonar would appear as undersea slopes and canyons hundreds of meters below. One of the whales was considerably larger than the other, nearly fifty feet in length. Both had angled the leading edge of their pectoral fins downward and begun to arch their backs, the last move before throwing their tail flukes upward to depart the surface where man and whale can interface to enter an azure universe all their own.
In a last attempt to get the whales to come and play I resorted to a technique that had often worked with dolphins and killer whales. I began to sing a pathetic imitation of a humpback's song. "Whoooop. Whoooooooop. Uuuuuhhhhhh." The smaller of the two sperm whales continued its forward motion, pointing its massive square head straight down, raising the six-foot wide tail fluke to add gravity’s impetus to the descent. The larger whale seemed about to do the same but instead of going fully vertical it hesitated, slightly arched its back and stopped as though it had bumped into something. I remember thinking "that's the first clumsy move I've ever seen a whale make."
The sperm whale now lay still at the surface and began to sonar me, generating sonic images, not only of the exterior of my body but three-dimensional impressions of the bones and air spaces within my body. Anything that wasn't water-like would read. The sonar pulses were like fingers snapping and occurred at intervals of roughly six seconds. The world got very quiet and slow. Again calling on strategy learned from encounters with other cetaceans, I began to swim - not directly at the whale, but at a 45 degree angle which brought me closer while not making a direct approach. The whale turned and began to move forward very slowly on a similar tangential tack. At a distance of fifty feet I could see the whale's eye clearly, large as a grapefruit, rotating in the socket, looking at me. Once we were no longer head-on it's sonar could not focus on me. We were eyeball-to-eyeball.
The whale was light gray with lighter patches where skin had sloughed off, a way of reducing friction as it moves through the water. I paid close attention to the jaw. The surprisingly small lower mandible fit tightly into the upper, the five-inch teeth on the bottom fitting into empty holes in the upper. An open mouth can be a threat sign so I was glad this whale's mouth was clapped shut. To keep up with the whale I had to exert myself to the fullest, breathing like a runner in the final stretch of a marathon and kicking with all the force I could muster from my finned legs. Roc with his camera housing was left behind and I knew he'd be angry that I was drawing the shot away from him.
We continued moving closer. My companion was as large as a freight car. At twenty-five feet the whale turned slightly right. It had reached its limit of tolerance. I edged slightly left so we found ourselves broadside to one another, and I recall thinking "he's got a helluva a lot broader side than I do." We continued swimming parallel to one another, eyes engaged. I was looking into the eye an animal that has the largest brain of any creature ever to live on earth, a brain seven times larger than my own. The sperm whale's eye was massive and intelligent.
In part II: Sperm Whale Etiquette
For more stories of encounters with dolphins, killer whales, humpback and sperm whales read The Voice of the Dolphins, available at Amazon.com in print and Kindle.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Meeting Goodall: of Dolphins and Chimps pt II
At the end of my last post our party had been marooned on the shore of Lake Tanganyika when the boat Goodall sent for us broke down just off a desolate village. Our two Africa boatmen loped off back toward Kigoma.
Nat, Julia and I sat there speechless. Things were about to get worse.
A band of six or seven African men approached us smiling big. Lots of white teeth. They were drunk and they had guns. The only positive development was that they spoke French. It turned out they were rebels who had been driven out of Congo across the Lake to the west.
We were all truly afraid for our lives. One guy, brain sloshed in alcohol, could decide to blow us away for fun. We’d disappear and no one would know it had ever happened.
I decided it would be best if we walked into the village. I actually felt hungry. It’s impossible to convey the poverty of this village. People just sat around with blank stares on their faces in front of their miserable huts. Then we spotted a dented and rusty sign with a Pepsi logo and the words “New Yankee Restaurant.” Huh!
We entered the dark premises and saw a fire at the back. A frail elderly man hunched over a paint can filled with oil set over an open fire. We made motions of our hands to our mouths – the international signal for eat and he waved us to a log used as a seat. He then raised his index finger while raising his eyebrows. You want one? Then alternated the one finger with the middle finger to indicate “Or two?”
One or two of what we wondered. Not knowing what was on offer we signaled “one” and waited to see the fare. The old man reached into a tin, pulled out some dough, wadded it into the size of a baseball and threw it into the oil in the paint can. Two minutes later he plucked the sizzling blob out of the oil and threw it down on a tin plate. It was muddy brown. The room was so dark it was impossible to ascertain the cleanliness of the plate but there was a decidedly hard and heavy sound to the impact on the plate of what I was beginning to think of as a kind of donut.
Whatever it might have been it was way too hot to eat so we were left to ponder who, if any of us, would allow hunger to overcome aversion.
When the cook motioned toward the “donut” I suspended rational process and reached down and tried to pinch a small portion out of the blob only to discover it was more a rock than a blob. Eventually I was able to break off a small portion and, with both Julia and Nat watching, put it in my mouth.
It was totally saturated in oil which, while rancid, at least didn’t taste like it was petroleum based. There was no other taste to it.
We extricated ourselves from the New Yankee Restaurant by paying what was surely far more than we should have and signaling we wanted to eat it while walking along the shore of the lake.
For another hour we sat near our boat and pondered our situation. There is no doubt this was one of the most dangerous situations I’d ever been in. The drunken men with automatic weapons followed us around, occasionally inviting us somewhere or other. I was concerned that Julia, being a woman, might be in more danger than the rest of us.
At dusk the sound of an outboard motor reached our ears and to our immense relief a small skiff appeared, driven by the boatmen who had set off for Kigoma five hours previously.
We took the original boat in tow and headed north along the eastern shore of the lake resuming our voyage to the Goodall camp. It was after dark when we turned into the shore and beached both boats. Dr. Goodall emerged onto the rocky shoreline with a flashlight. We began to unload our gear, taking care not to step into the water.
Her first question was “what kind of food did you bring.” I realized instantly that we had made a big mistake not doing some shopping at Kigoma.
“We landed late and weren’t able to get anything.”
She expressed mild irritation and said “well we don’t have any food here.” It had never really occurred to me that you could get to a place where there actually was no food. She was somewhat mollified when I told her we did have her engine parts, T-shirts and floppy hats.
Eventually we stashed all our gear and sat down at a small table in her cottage. Momentarily a sweet potato appeared which we all divided. That was it for food.
Hunger kept me awake and alert far longer than I normally would have been. I explained to her how we approached dolphins in the wild. She was interested in the fact that dolphins maintained eye contact with us. It’s very poor etiquette to look directly at male silverback gorilla and might easily earn you a charge. Among chimps eye contact is broken during periods of conflict and reestablished during reconciliation.
I described our methods of naming individual dolphins and how we had foolishly named a young dolphin One Spot, only to find the following year that One Spot had become Four Spot a product of maturation in all spotted dolphins.
I was humbled to be in Dr. Goodall’s presence and delighted that she didn’t laugh me out of the room as I described our work in the Bahamas. On the contrary she summed up her feelings saying “what you are doing is analogous to what we’re doing here. One of the main benefits of your work is to make the dolphins real for people, to make people empathize with the dolphins and feel what they feel. People will protect only those things they love and your films certainly make people fall in love with those dolphins.”
Eventually exhaustion overcame adrenalin and we all drifted off to our sleeping bags.
In the morning we awakened and prepared for our trek up the hillside to where she expected we’d find one of the bands of chimps she had been working with for 27 years.
There was tea but the question of a heartier breakfast didn’t come up so I asked Dr. Goodall if I might have a banana off the large stalk resting near the front door.
“Those are for the chimps . . . but you can have one,” she replied, underlining the word “one”.
I felt so maladroit and wanted to explain that we were ocean and boat people – not Africa bush people. Our meals at sea were always served on demand and in great abundance. But I knew we’d flubbed it when we didn’t bring our own food.
The weather was equatorially hot and I sweated immediately through my khaki shirt as Nat, Julia and I climbed the hill. Occasionally Jane (she’d suggested we drop the Dr. bit and call her by her first name) would stop and point out a location where she’s first met a certain chimp or from which she had observed the troops before making close encounters. The combination of no food and dehydration lent the whole experience a not unpleasant hallucinogenic feel.
Near the top of the hill Jane led us to a cement block hut with a door consisting of stout iron bars. She explained that when she had her young son, whom she referred to as Grub, with her she’d had to lock him in the hut for fear that he would be kidnapped by the chimps. She also told us that Grub had come down with Schistosomiasis and that, while he was now well, might not have fully rid himself of the parasite. Give me sharks any day.
We put our gear into the hut along with the huge stalk of bananas. As we exited she threw the bolt and warned us “never leave this door open – even for an instant.” We nodded okay not bothering to ask why.
I set up my camera on a tripod and Julia got the recording devices ready and mic’d Jane. It was not long before a chimp sauntered into the clearing. He walked right up to Goodall and extended his hand, his long index finger looking like the model for the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel. Other chimps appeared on the periphery and baboons appeared scuttling around looking very deferential to the chimps. WE were aqbout to meet the most famous chimps in the world.
To be continued . . .The Great Banana Heist
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
Nat, Julia and I sat there speechless. Things were about to get worse.
A band of six or seven African men approached us smiling big. Lots of white teeth. They were drunk and they had guns. The only positive development was that they spoke French. It turned out they were rebels who had been driven out of Congo across the Lake to the west.
We were all truly afraid for our lives. One guy, brain sloshed in alcohol, could decide to blow us away for fun. We’d disappear and no one would know it had ever happened.
I decided it would be best if we walked into the village. I actually felt hungry. It’s impossible to convey the poverty of this village. People just sat around with blank stares on their faces in front of their miserable huts. Then we spotted a dented and rusty sign with a Pepsi logo and the words “New Yankee Restaurant.” Huh!
We entered the dark premises and saw a fire at the back. A frail elderly man hunched over a paint can filled with oil set over an open fire. We made motions of our hands to our mouths – the international signal for eat and he waved us to a log used as a seat. He then raised his index finger while raising his eyebrows. You want one? Then alternated the one finger with the middle finger to indicate “Or two?”
One or two of what we wondered. Not knowing what was on offer we signaled “one” and waited to see the fare. The old man reached into a tin, pulled out some dough, wadded it into the size of a baseball and threw it into the oil in the paint can. Two minutes later he plucked the sizzling blob out of the oil and threw it down on a tin plate. It was muddy brown. The room was so dark it was impossible to ascertain the cleanliness of the plate but there was a decidedly hard and heavy sound to the impact on the plate of what I was beginning to think of as a kind of donut.
Whatever it might have been it was way too hot to eat so we were left to ponder who, if any of us, would allow hunger to overcome aversion.
When the cook motioned toward the “donut” I suspended rational process and reached down and tried to pinch a small portion out of the blob only to discover it was more a rock than a blob. Eventually I was able to break off a small portion and, with both Julia and Nat watching, put it in my mouth.
It was totally saturated in oil which, while rancid, at least didn’t taste like it was petroleum based. There was no other taste to it.
We extricated ourselves from the New Yankee Restaurant by paying what was surely far more than we should have and signaling we wanted to eat it while walking along the shore of the lake.
For another hour we sat near our boat and pondered our situation. There is no doubt this was one of the most dangerous situations I’d ever been in. The drunken men with automatic weapons followed us around, occasionally inviting us somewhere or other. I was concerned that Julia, being a woman, might be in more danger than the rest of us.
At dusk the sound of an outboard motor reached our ears and to our immense relief a small skiff appeared, driven by the boatmen who had set off for Kigoma five hours previously.
We took the original boat in tow and headed north along the eastern shore of the lake resuming our voyage to the Goodall camp. It was after dark when we turned into the shore and beached both boats. Dr. Goodall emerged onto the rocky shoreline with a flashlight. We began to unload our gear, taking care not to step into the water.
Her first question was “what kind of food did you bring.” I realized instantly that we had made a big mistake not doing some shopping at Kigoma.
“We landed late and weren’t able to get anything.”
She expressed mild irritation and said “well we don’t have any food here.” It had never really occurred to me that you could get to a place where there actually was no food. She was somewhat mollified when I told her we did have her engine parts, T-shirts and floppy hats.
Eventually we stashed all our gear and sat down at a small table in her cottage. Momentarily a sweet potato appeared which we all divided. That was it for food.
Hunger kept me awake and alert far longer than I normally would have been. I explained to her how we approached dolphins in the wild. She was interested in the fact that dolphins maintained eye contact with us. It’s very poor etiquette to look directly at male silverback gorilla and might easily earn you a charge. Among chimps eye contact is broken during periods of conflict and reestablished during reconciliation.
I described our methods of naming individual dolphins and how we had foolishly named a young dolphin One Spot, only to find the following year that One Spot had become Four Spot a product of maturation in all spotted dolphins.
I was humbled to be in Dr. Goodall’s presence and delighted that she didn’t laugh me out of the room as I described our work in the Bahamas. On the contrary she summed up her feelings saying “what you are doing is analogous to what we’re doing here. One of the main benefits of your work is to make the dolphins real for people, to make people empathize with the dolphins and feel what they feel. People will protect only those things they love and your films certainly make people fall in love with those dolphins.”
Eventually exhaustion overcame adrenalin and we all drifted off to our sleeping bags.
In the morning we awakened and prepared for our trek up the hillside to where she expected we’d find one of the bands of chimps she had been working with for 27 years.
There was tea but the question of a heartier breakfast didn’t come up so I asked Dr. Goodall if I might have a banana off the large stalk resting near the front door.
“Those are for the chimps . . . but you can have one,” she replied, underlining the word “one”.
I felt so maladroit and wanted to explain that we were ocean and boat people – not Africa bush people. Our meals at sea were always served on demand and in great abundance. But I knew we’d flubbed it when we didn’t bring our own food.
The weather was equatorially hot and I sweated immediately through my khaki shirt as Nat, Julia and I climbed the hill. Occasionally Jane (she’d suggested we drop the Dr. bit and call her by her first name) would stop and point out a location where she’s first met a certain chimp or from which she had observed the troops before making close encounters. The combination of no food and dehydration lent the whole experience a not unpleasant hallucinogenic feel.
Near the top of the hill Jane led us to a cement block hut with a door consisting of stout iron bars. She explained that when she had her young son, whom she referred to as Grub, with her she’d had to lock him in the hut for fear that he would be kidnapped by the chimps. She also told us that Grub had come down with Schistosomiasis and that, while he was now well, might not have fully rid himself of the parasite. Give me sharks any day.
We put our gear into the hut along with the huge stalk of bananas. As we exited she threw the bolt and warned us “never leave this door open – even for an instant.” We nodded okay not bothering to ask why.
I set up my camera on a tripod and Julia got the recording devices ready and mic’d Jane. It was not long before a chimp sauntered into the clearing. He walked right up to Goodall and extended his hand, his long index finger looking like the model for the ceiling of the Cistine Chapel. Other chimps appeared on the periphery and baboons appeared scuttling around looking very deferential to the chimps. WE were aqbout to meet the most famous chimps in the world.
To be continued . . .The Great Banana Heist
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
Friday, August 5, 2011
Metting Goodall: Of Dolphins and Chimps
by Hardy Jones
When I realized that our initial contacts with the spotted dolphins in the Bahamas were not a one-time event, it became clear there was an extraordinary opportunity to study a group of highly intelligent animals in the wild.
There was an obvious comparison between the work we were doing and the groundbreaking efforts of Dr. Jane Goodall at Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania. We had hoped to have her join us in the Bahamas but when that wasn’t possible my work on a PBS special in 1087 gave me the opportunity to visit her at her worksite on Lake Tanganyika.
The trip was not an easy one. Julia Whitty, Nat Katzman (a producer from PBS)) and I went through Nairobi on the way to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We stayed at the legendary Norfolk Hotel, had magnificent breakfasts every morning and sortied out to various national parks to cover stories about people who were making a difference in the protection of wildlife in Kenya for our film “Saving the Wildlife”.
When we returned to the Norfolk one evening we found a letter under our door from Dr. Goodall asking us to bring a few things with us when we flew to meet her in Tanganyika. The request included motor parts, some T-shirts and hats. We wondered why she didn’t just get them in Dar Es Salaam but purchased and packed them for the flight.
After arrival in Dar Es Salaam we soon learned the reason for her request – the city had absolutely nothing available to buy. Nothing. No thing. The socialist regime of Julius Nyerere had absolutely ruined the economy. Small shops were open but had nothing to sell. When we sat down to breakfast there was a full menu. We ordered and the waiter dutifully noted our requests. And then nothing came. All we could get was tea and stale bread.
We flew in a twin-engine charter plane from Dar to Kigoma, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika close to the border with Burundi. There we were met by a small skiff powered by a single outboard motor and operated by two young African men who did not speak English. The vessel, sent by Dr. Goodall, was covered by a wooden roof held up by four two-by-twos.
Dr. Goodall had advised us to buy our own food in Kigoma to bring to her home site. We went to the market but the fruits, vegetables and meat were so covered with flies that we defaulted to “well, she’s got to have something better than this.”
Lake Tanganyika is the longest fresh water lake in the world measuring 675 kilometres north to south and is 500 feet deep in some areas, making it the second deepest lake in the world. We motored along the shore for a couple of hours appalled by endless hillsides absolutely denuded of trees. In some places the hills were gouged by runoff and the soil showed bright rust in color. In other areas the slopes were great burnt swaths. It was sickening.
A southerly wind pushed up some fairly good swells that helped our ramshackle vessel along at a good clip. We were starting to relax when the motor quit a hundred yards off a small village. We started drifting toward shore. The conversation turned to the highly poisonous water cobras common in the lake and the danger of exposure to the parasite Schistosomiasis. We weren’t sure but we’d heard that the parasitic worms or flukes could enter the urethra and make their way to the bladder. None of us were going to enter the water.
After 45 minutes the boat washed ashore on a beach just south of the village. The two young African men informed us by signs that they would run back to Kigoma to get a replacement part.
As we sat down on the beach a group of drunken men carrying assault rifles approached us. The had come from the civil war in the Congo just across the lake.
To be continued.
When I realized that our initial contacts with the spotted dolphins in the Bahamas were not a one-time event, it became clear there was an extraordinary opportunity to study a group of highly intelligent animals in the wild.
There was an obvious comparison between the work we were doing and the groundbreaking efforts of Dr. Jane Goodall at Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania. We had hoped to have her join us in the Bahamas but when that wasn’t possible my work on a PBS special in 1087 gave me the opportunity to visit her at her worksite on Lake Tanganyika.
The trip was not an easy one. Julia Whitty, Nat Katzman (a producer from PBS)) and I went through Nairobi on the way to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We stayed at the legendary Norfolk Hotel, had magnificent breakfasts every morning and sortied out to various national parks to cover stories about people who were making a difference in the protection of wildlife in Kenya for our film “Saving the Wildlife”.
When we returned to the Norfolk one evening we found a letter under our door from Dr. Goodall asking us to bring a few things with us when we flew to meet her in Tanganyika. The request included motor parts, some T-shirts and hats. We wondered why she didn’t just get them in Dar Es Salaam but purchased and packed them for the flight.
After arrival in Dar Es Salaam we soon learned the reason for her request – the city had absolutely nothing available to buy. Nothing. No thing. The socialist regime of Julius Nyerere had absolutely ruined the economy. Small shops were open but had nothing to sell. When we sat down to breakfast there was a full menu. We ordered and the waiter dutifully noted our requests. And then nothing came. All we could get was tea and stale bread.
We flew in a twin-engine charter plane from Dar to Kigoma, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika close to the border with Burundi. There we were met by a small skiff powered by a single outboard motor and operated by two young African men who did not speak English. The vessel, sent by Dr. Goodall, was covered by a wooden roof held up by four two-by-twos.
Dr. Goodall had advised us to buy our own food in Kigoma to bring to her home site. We went to the market but the fruits, vegetables and meat were so covered with flies that we defaulted to “well, she’s got to have something better than this.”
Lake Tanganyika is the longest fresh water lake in the world measuring 675 kilometres north to south and is 500 feet deep in some areas, making it the second deepest lake in the world. We motored along the shore for a couple of hours appalled by endless hillsides absolutely denuded of trees. In some places the hills were gouged by runoff and the soil showed bright rust in color. In other areas the slopes were great burnt swaths. It was sickening.
A southerly wind pushed up some fairly good swells that helped our ramshackle vessel along at a good clip. We were starting to relax when the motor quit a hundred yards off a small village. We started drifting toward shore. The conversation turned to the highly poisonous water cobras common in the lake and the danger of exposure to the parasite Schistosomiasis. We weren’t sure but we’d heard that the parasitic worms or flukes could enter the urethra and make their way to the bladder. None of us were going to enter the water.
After 45 minutes the boat washed ashore on a beach just south of the village. The two young African men informed us by signs that they would run back to Kigoma to get a replacement part.
As we sat down on the beach a group of drunken men carrying assault rifles approached us. The had come from the civil war in the Congo just across the lake.
To be continued.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
IWC - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
IWC Blog 2011Tweets
Plenary opens w UK reform document being presented. This doc supported by entire 27 member EU and USA, Latin America et al
Main issue is requirement that payment of dues be made by wire transfer only. This designed to prevent vote buying corruption.
Left out of reform is expansion of NGO speaking rights, which are far below what prevails in other international fora.
USA delegation chief "disappointed" expanded NGO participation eliminated. Ms Medina also supported financial reforms.
Sandra Bessudo of Colombia spoke in favor of reforms. Brazil and all Latin American nations emerging as strong 4 the whales.
Nevis-St Kitts put on a comical show badgering minute point after minute point to delay proceedings. Lunch Break til 330p.
Why do certain Caribbean nations attempt to prevent passage of regulations that prohibit cash transactions? Answer is: You got it.
All parties committing to adopt UK reforms by consensus. Japan, USA, St. Kitts-Nevis, UK. Main reform is payment be by wire.
UK reforms adopted by consensus. What's missing is allowing added input from civil society or NGOs which have vast expertise.
Session began more than 1/2 hour late. Japan has introduced measure calling it safety on the high seas but aimed at Sea Shepherd.
Brazil offering proposal for South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
Costa Rica speaking in support of sanctuary - also Colombia, USA , Australia.
Ecuador supports sanctuary. UK supports. Remember passage requires 3/4 majority.
India proposes a name change to this organization to “International Whales Commission”. GO INDIA
Russia asking Brazil and Argentia to withdraw sanctuary proposal to save IWC from self destruction. Huh? So voting would destroy the organization??
Iceland opposes but Denmark says it will vote 4 sanctuary. Israel supports. Monaco too. Switzerland wants 2 put vote off
Nevis (surprise) opposes. Calls sanctuary emotional and calls for more study. Portugal and Spain support sanctuary.
Argentina NGO speaking in favor of sanctuary - one of the rare cases where NGOs allowed to speak.
India states indigenous whaling goal should be to reduce quotas systematically & take into account alternative “food resources”. India putting forth great ideas at this IWC.
Big question is if Latin Americans will demand a vote. Facing this conundrum chair, w Brazil assent adjourned 4 coffee.
Back in session. During coffee only 5 nations opposed sanctuary. Russia opposed but said they would favor vote.
There is no consensus. Brazil speaking now. Delegate says no other way but to vote. Latin Americans will not get trampled as they have in past years.
Argentina asks Iceland, St Kitts, Cameroon, Norway 2 respect will of vast majority + agree to consensus on S Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.
Japan threatens to “break quorum” if a vote is brought on the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.
Breaking quorum wud be outrageous and block vote on the sanctuary. This again shows the despicable nature of Japans whalers.
Ecuador says breaking quorum wud end this years IWC.
Colombia speaking with energy and anger against machinations to defeat ability to vote.
Monaco says breaking quorum to defeat a vote would be a disgrace on the IWC. USA silent on this.
Chairman asks for a vote. Nations opposed to sanctuary walking out of room. Will it break quorum?
Japan leads walk out from the IWC meeting in Isle of Jersey. Broke quorum to avoid vote on sanctuary proposed by Latin Americans
After hours discussing whether 2 vote or not on S American proposal 4 a whale sanctuary we are told we must wait another 90 min
Awaiting return of delegates with the text that'll spell out how IWC will proceed on S Atlantic whale sanctuary.
How can St Vincent and Nevis-St Kitts betray their tourist industry by selling out the whales beloved by tourists. Answer has to do with those suitcases of money that have just been banned.
Commission decided to kick the can down the road and have an intersessional meeting to determine rules governing quorums.
Next IWC to be held in Panama. 2012. South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary will be first item on agenda.
IWC is a totally dysfunctional organization. It has 85 member nations, many of which do not attend the meetings or pay their dues. But a quorum is still based on 85 members, so it takes only a small group to break quorum. Reforms are desperately needed.
Plenary opens w UK reform document being presented. This doc supported by entire 27 member EU and USA, Latin America et al
Main issue is requirement that payment of dues be made by wire transfer only. This designed to prevent vote buying corruption.
Left out of reform is expansion of NGO speaking rights, which are far below what prevails in other international fora.
USA delegation chief "disappointed" expanded NGO participation eliminated. Ms Medina also supported financial reforms.
Sandra Bessudo of Colombia spoke in favor of reforms. Brazil and all Latin American nations emerging as strong 4 the whales.
Nevis-St Kitts put on a comical show badgering minute point after minute point to delay proceedings. Lunch Break til 330p.
Why do certain Caribbean nations attempt to prevent passage of regulations that prohibit cash transactions? Answer is: You got it.
All parties committing to adopt UK reforms by consensus. Japan, USA, St. Kitts-Nevis, UK. Main reform is payment be by wire.
UK reforms adopted by consensus. What's missing is allowing added input from civil society or NGOs which have vast expertise.
Session began more than 1/2 hour late. Japan has introduced measure calling it safety on the high seas but aimed at Sea Shepherd.
Brazil offering proposal for South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
Costa Rica speaking in support of sanctuary - also Colombia, USA , Australia.
Ecuador supports sanctuary. UK supports. Remember passage requires 3/4 majority.
India proposes a name change to this organization to “International Whales Commission”. GO INDIA
Russia asking Brazil and Argentia to withdraw sanctuary proposal to save IWC from self destruction. Huh? So voting would destroy the organization??
Iceland opposes but Denmark says it will vote 4 sanctuary. Israel supports. Monaco too. Switzerland wants 2 put vote off
Nevis (surprise) opposes. Calls sanctuary emotional and calls for more study. Portugal and Spain support sanctuary.
Argentina NGO speaking in favor of sanctuary - one of the rare cases where NGOs allowed to speak.
India states indigenous whaling goal should be to reduce quotas systematically & take into account alternative “food resources”. India putting forth great ideas at this IWC.
Big question is if Latin Americans will demand a vote. Facing this conundrum chair, w Brazil assent adjourned 4 coffee.
Back in session. During coffee only 5 nations opposed sanctuary. Russia opposed but said they would favor vote.
There is no consensus. Brazil speaking now. Delegate says no other way but to vote. Latin Americans will not get trampled as they have in past years.
Argentina asks Iceland, St Kitts, Cameroon, Norway 2 respect will of vast majority + agree to consensus on S Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.
Japan threatens to “break quorum” if a vote is brought on the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.
Breaking quorum wud be outrageous and block vote on the sanctuary. This again shows the despicable nature of Japans whalers.
Ecuador says breaking quorum wud end this years IWC.
Colombia speaking with energy and anger against machinations to defeat ability to vote.
Monaco says breaking quorum to defeat a vote would be a disgrace on the IWC. USA silent on this.
Chairman asks for a vote. Nations opposed to sanctuary walking out of room. Will it break quorum?
Japan leads walk out from the IWC meeting in Isle of Jersey. Broke quorum to avoid vote on sanctuary proposed by Latin Americans
After hours discussing whether 2 vote or not on S American proposal 4 a whale sanctuary we are told we must wait another 90 min
Awaiting return of delegates with the text that'll spell out how IWC will proceed on S Atlantic whale sanctuary.
How can St Vincent and Nevis-St Kitts betray their tourist industry by selling out the whales beloved by tourists. Answer has to do with those suitcases of money that have just been banned.
Commission decided to kick the can down the road and have an intersessional meeting to determine rules governing quorums.
Next IWC to be held in Panama. 2012. South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary will be first item on agenda.
IWC is a totally dysfunctional organization. It has 85 member nations, many of which do not attend the meetings or pay their dues. But a quorum is still based on 85 members, so it takes only a small group to break quorum. Reforms are desperately needed.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Dolphins Rescue Me From Hammerhead Shark
by Hardy Jones
The following is an excerpt from my just published book The Voice of the Dolphins:
Perhaps the most compelling evidence of how the dolphins felt about us came in 1985 late in the afternoon after a day of filming. Howard Hall, Julia, and other members of the underwater crew had climbed aboard the Zodiak that covered us as we worked at any distance from the main boat. I lingered at the surface, enjoying the delirious late afternoon light, my camera hanging in my right hand. The blue skies above held huge, gleaming white cumulous clouds, and toward the western horizon, blazing orange rays of sunlight shone out of the sea. The water temperature was in the high eighties. I lay on my back and experienced bliss.
Half a dozen young spotted dolphins, including a band of juveniles we’d named the Gang of Four, swam slowly over the sandy bottom thirty feet below. Occasionally, one dolphin would bite another on the tail and begin a brief, friendly tussle consisting of darting, twisting, and jaw snapping. But mostly they were grazing for bottom fish.
In the distance, at the limit of visibility, another sleek, gray creature appeared, swimming in an unusual, sine-wave manner and hugging the bottom. Its tail was not stroking up and down; it was slashing from side to side. The tail fin was vertical, and the head broad and flat. This wasn’t a dolphin. It was a very large Atlantic hammerhead shark, one of the few shark species that will attack humans. The shark moved toward me, angling first to one side then the other as though following a scent, probably mine. It was swinging its eyeballs, stuck out on the extremities of the head, so as to see its target first with one eye, then the other, perhaps to gauge distance. I didn’t feel comfortable presenting the hammerhead with the sight of my dangling legs, so I jackknifed and dove toward the bottom, raising my camera. Not only was this a unique chance to document the behavior of dolphins around sharks but raising the camera also served to put some metal between the fast-approaching predator and me.
The shark was grayish brown and about eleven feet long. I could judge its size easily because it was twice the length of the subadult dolphins swimming nearby. It undulated across the bottom, its movements now excited and menacing. I’d been diving with hammerheads in the Pacific on numerous occasions and had never felt threatened, but Atlantic hammerheads have a nasty reputation, and this one displayed the agonistic postures that precede an attack.
I hung in the water five feet over the bottom, and sooner than usual, my lungs began to ache for air. In a moment, I’d have to return to the surface. The shark turned directly toward me and accelerated with a flick of its tail. It happened so quickly that I could only react by pulling my camera tight against my body, poised to thrust it against the shark’s sensitive rostrum if it struck at me. I turned the camera on.
Suddenly the undersea world came alive with high-pitched whistles and intense sonar bursts. Two juvenile dolphins, Chopper and Stubby, appeared over my left shoulder. I flinched as I felt the wash they created streaking through the water straight for the hammerhead. In an instant, two buddies joined them, bolting in from the right.
The Gang of Four worked as a unit, diving and turning in unison like a squadron of fighter planes flying precision maneuvers.
The hammerhead saw the onrushing dolphins and, looking harassed and perplexed, jerked to the side, away from me. With powerful beats of their tail flukes, the dolphins launched themselves toward the shark’s head, clicking and whistling intensely, turning away only at the last instant. Again and again the juvenile dolphins dived at the hammerhead, mobbing it the way sparrows do a hawk, using sonar bursts to attack the shark’s lateral lines, a highly sensitive component of the shark sensory system, disorienting the huge fish.
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
My book is available at my eStore:
http://www.createspace.com/3501299
and at Amazon: http://amzn.to/klnDw0
The following is an excerpt from my just published book The Voice of the Dolphins:
Perhaps the most compelling evidence of how the dolphins felt about us came in 1985 late in the afternoon after a day of filming. Howard Hall, Julia, and other members of the underwater crew had climbed aboard the Zodiak that covered us as we worked at any distance from the main boat. I lingered at the surface, enjoying the delirious late afternoon light, my camera hanging in my right hand. The blue skies above held huge, gleaming white cumulous clouds, and toward the western horizon, blazing orange rays of sunlight shone out of the sea. The water temperature was in the high eighties. I lay on my back and experienced bliss.
Half a dozen young spotted dolphins, including a band of juveniles we’d named the Gang of Four, swam slowly over the sandy bottom thirty feet below. Occasionally, one dolphin would bite another on the tail and begin a brief, friendly tussle consisting of darting, twisting, and jaw snapping. But mostly they were grazing for bottom fish.
In the distance, at the limit of visibility, another sleek, gray creature appeared, swimming in an unusual, sine-wave manner and hugging the bottom. Its tail was not stroking up and down; it was slashing from side to side. The tail fin was vertical, and the head broad and flat. This wasn’t a dolphin. It was a very large Atlantic hammerhead shark, one of the few shark species that will attack humans. The shark moved toward me, angling first to one side then the other as though following a scent, probably mine. It was swinging its eyeballs, stuck out on the extremities of the head, so as to see its target first with one eye, then the other, perhaps to gauge distance. I didn’t feel comfortable presenting the hammerhead with the sight of my dangling legs, so I jackknifed and dove toward the bottom, raising my camera. Not only was this a unique chance to document the behavior of dolphins around sharks but raising the camera also served to put some metal between the fast-approaching predator and me.
The shark was grayish brown and about eleven feet long. I could judge its size easily because it was twice the length of the subadult dolphins swimming nearby. It undulated across the bottom, its movements now excited and menacing. I’d been diving with hammerheads in the Pacific on numerous occasions and had never felt threatened, but Atlantic hammerheads have a nasty reputation, and this one displayed the agonistic postures that precede an attack.
I hung in the water five feet over the bottom, and sooner than usual, my lungs began to ache for air. In a moment, I’d have to return to the surface. The shark turned directly toward me and accelerated with a flick of its tail. It happened so quickly that I could only react by pulling my camera tight against my body, poised to thrust it against the shark’s sensitive rostrum if it struck at me. I turned the camera on.
Suddenly the undersea world came alive with high-pitched whistles and intense sonar bursts. Two juvenile dolphins, Chopper and Stubby, appeared over my left shoulder. I flinched as I felt the wash they created streaking through the water straight for the hammerhead. In an instant, two buddies joined them, bolting in from the right.
The Gang of Four worked as a unit, diving and turning in unison like a squadron of fighter planes flying precision maneuvers.
The hammerhead saw the onrushing dolphins and, looking harassed and perplexed, jerked to the side, away from me. With powerful beats of their tail flukes, the dolphins launched themselves toward the shark’s head, clicking and whistling intensely, turning away only at the last instant. Again and again the juvenile dolphins dived at the hammerhead, mobbing it the way sparrows do a hawk, using sonar bursts to attack the shark’s lateral lines, a highly sensitive component of the shark sensory system, disorienting the huge fish.
For more stories of interspecies contacts in many oceans of the world read The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones, available in print and Kindle at Amazon.com
My book is available at my eStore:
http://www.createspace.com/3501299
and at Amazon: http://amzn.to/klnDw0
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Santa Arrives by Sea
By Hardy Jones, executive director BlueVoice.org
Author soon-to-be released book The Voice of the Dolphins
The Christmas season of 2010 brought a day of reunion for the officers and crew of a cruise ship and the sisters and children of a Catholic orphanage on the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia. In late October Hurricane Tomas had slammed into the island interrupting supplies of water, food and transportation. Some Lt. Lucians had had no food or clean water in days. Noordam came to the rescue.
When hurricanes are bearing down on an island destination, the standard mode of operation for cruise ships is to run for calmer waters so passengers will not be disquieted by the tempest and their safety will be ensured. But when Captain John Scott of Holland America’s ms Noordam learned of the serious destruction caused by hurricane Tomas on St. Lucia he made full speed back to the island he had just departed. Tomas destroyed much of the island’s infrastructure. The lack of drinking water was acute.
The situation was particularly dire at the Holy Family Children’s Home, an orphanage that had been adopted by Noordam and its crew. The kids were hungry, thirsty and scared.
On November 7 Noordam delivered some 50 thousand gallons of water to the main dock in Castries for the general population. This was no easy feat as ships are designed to take on water, not dispense it. But the officers and crew jury-rigged a system to deliver the life sustaining water. They also delivered food from the ships larder and clothing. Passengers chipped in with cash donations that went to the orphanage and an old age home.
I spoke with Captain Scott and hotel manager James Deering aboard the Noordam. “It was nice to be able to help people out when they are down,” the captain told me. And Holland America corporate had been totally behind his aid efforts. The ship was preparing to deliver on the requests for gifts made by the orphans to be delivered a couple weeks later.
After I left the ship James Deering wrote me about the special Christmas visit by Noordam in St. Lucia.
Every child from the orphanage received exactly what he/she had wished for from Santa Claus.
The pool party / brunch went over very well.
The teen girls had their first spa treatments.
The kids ate more than seemed humanly possible - and took the leftovers back home with them.
Our generous guests donated approximately US$1,500 cash, which was given directly to the Sisters who run the orphanage.
We sent boxes of christmas cookies and candies home with them as well to cover Christmas Day.
While on St. Lucia my wife Deborah and I were able to negotiate the washed out roads on the island to take an aerial tram through magnificent rain forest. It was encouraging to see many birds had survived the winds and rain. Some tourist activities were not yet operable but progress is being made in restoration. I have to say St. Lucia is one of the lovliest islands in the West Indies.
I guess I should also mention that I have no affiliation with Holland America Cruise Lines.
Monday, December 20, 2010
THE DAY WE SAVED THE DOLPHINS
From the soon-to-be released book The Voice of the Dolphins
by Hardy Jones
In 1980 Howard Hall and I were on our way to Iki, Japan to attempt to stop the slaughter of dolphins there. En route we were diverted.
We woke up our first morning in Osaka and saw a story on the front page of the Japan Times, an English-language paper published in Japan. The story’s headline reported “200 Rare Whales Captured at Taiji.” The animals were melon-headed whales, actually a species of dolphin. The story went on to say that the dolphins would be killed to provide food for lions at the Shirahama Zoo. It struck me as extraordinarily perverse that these magnificent wild dolphins would be killed to feed captive lions.
We changed plans on the spot and headed for Taiji, a small village of some thirty-five hundred people on the coast east of Osaka. We arrived in Taiji, found accommodations in a small hotel, and walked out to the small bay where the pitiful dolphins were being held. The coast there is magnificent with endless bays and coves formed at the juncture of mountains and sea.
Our presence disturbed the fishermen who had driven the dolphins into the bay. They were aware of the international outrage provoked by the slaughter at Iki the year before and didn’t welcome any foreign observers—especially those with cameras.
There wasn’t much Howard and I could do directly, so we just hung around the bay with our still and movie cameras at hand. The fishermen seemed stymied. They held meetings. Two days passed. Some of the dolphins succumbed and sank into the depths of the cove, but most remained alive. Howard and I worried that while the fishermen were talking, the dolphins weren’t eating and might starve. Dolphins do not drink and depend entirely for their hydration on the fish they eat.
On the third day of captivity for the melon-heads, the fishermen informed us that as a gesture of goodwill, the dolphins would be released. I believe they were afraid of attracting the same kind of international outrage that had been focused on Iki. The following morning, the fishermen drew back the net separating the melon-heads from freedom. But the dolphins didn’t budge. Confusion or shock or the knowledge that members of their pod were sick or injured kept the group huddled at the end of the bay farthest from the net.
The fishermen brought a small skiff driven by an outboard motor in behind the dolphins and began revving the engine. The dolphins started to move. The skiff herded them until they were past the net line. Once out of confinement with a clear vision of open ocean ahead, the whole pod erupted into spectacular porpoising leaps across the face of the sea. I remained poker faced, but inside, I was wild with joy. Maybe our cameras were all powerful.But that was long ago.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Are San Juan Orca Starving?
Guest Blog by Howard Garrett, Orca Network, www.orcanetwork.org
When the Southern Resident orcas were declared endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2005 after a population drop of 20% between 1996 and 2001, a variety of research projects were launched to find out why. Effects of vessel traffic on orcas were studied, persistent toxins were described, and researchers studied what these orcas' eat and how much of it is available to them.
Research on the orcas' hunger problem has uncovered the clearest results. NOAA researchers have examined fish scales and fecal material in the wakes of the whales and have concluded that: "Chinook salmon, a relatively rare species, was by far the most frequent prey item, confirming previous studies."
Prey availability studies have repeatedly yielded convincing correlations: drops in Chinook salmon numbers preceded higher mortality rates of Southern Resident orcas. Using 25 years of demographic data from two populations of fish-eating killer whales in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, that population trends are driven largely by changes in survival, and survival rates are strongly correlated with the availability of their principal prey species, Chinook salmon.
Whale watch tour boats can at times disturb the whales and those incidents should be
reported widely and some reprimand should be, and is, delivered to the captains and owners. The Q13 story (a tv news report) almost completely failed to mention the lack of food, the primary factor resulting in starvation, although they promise to do another story entirely about how the depletion of Chinook is starving the orcas. The boats do disturb the whales at times, but that is minor in comparison to the lack of Chinook.
Some naturalists talk about the very complex and politically charged salmon issue, but much more needs to be done to make sure the boats provide a good overview of the environmental degradation that has reduced the availability of Chinook for the So. Residents.
When the Southern Resident orcas were declared endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2005 after a population drop of 20% between 1996 and 2001, a variety of research projects were launched to find out why. Effects of vessel traffic on orcas were studied, persistent toxins were described, and researchers studied what these orcas' eat and how much of it is available to them.
Research on the orcas' hunger problem has uncovered the clearest results. NOAA researchers have examined fish scales and fecal material in the wakes of the whales and have concluded that: "Chinook salmon, a relatively rare species, was by far the most frequent prey item, confirming previous studies."
Prey availability studies have repeatedly yielded convincing correlations: drops in Chinook salmon numbers preceded higher mortality rates of Southern Resident orcas. Using 25 years of demographic data from two populations of fish-eating killer whales in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, that population trends are driven largely by changes in survival, and survival rates are strongly correlated with the availability of their principal prey species, Chinook salmon.
Whale watch tour boats can at times disturb the whales and those incidents should be
reported widely and some reprimand should be, and is, delivered to the captains and owners. The Q13 story (a tv news report) almost completely failed to mention the lack of food, the primary factor resulting in starvation, although they promise to do another story entirely about how the depletion of Chinook is starving the orcas. The boats do disturb the whales at times, but that is minor in comparison to the lack of Chinook.
Some naturalists talk about the very complex and politically charged salmon issue, but much more needs to be done to make sure the boats provide a good overview of the environmental degradation that has reduced the availability of Chinook for the So. Residents.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Meeting Dolphin Friends
July 10. It’s been thirty 32 years since I first sailed into the world of the spotted dolphins who inhabit the northwestern Bahamas. This year we’re near Bimini, a location I first discovered in 1987 aboard Juliet, a 103-foot schooner with spacious, comfortable staterooms.
We left Miami at 4pm, passing through light rain. Giant black and gray cumulous hovered behind us over the highrises that face on government cut. Two massive cruise ships preceded us, the two carrying roughly three thousand passengers. Quite a contrast with Juliet carrying twelve plus crew of four.
At 2am July 11 we anchored north of Bimini and woke up to dolphins around the boat. There were approximately sixteen spotters, mostly juveniles.
My goal is to get as many identifications as possible of individuals here. Most of my work with dolphins in the Bahamas has been with the pods of the White Sand Ridge, north of Grand Bahama island. In 2004 and 2005 that area was hit by massive cat 5 hurricanes. Many of the dolphins previously identified in that area were not seen after those events. There is a possibility they moved to other areas and Bimini is not far from the northern schools.
It was even thought that Chopper, whom I first identified in 1979 and had known personally for nearly three decades, had been among the victims of the tempests. But Denise Herzing, a dedicated scientist who has studied the White Sand Ridge school, told me she had seen him in 2007. That was a relief.
The dolphins found us about 730 am. They were really engaged with the divers. I shot some nice video. After a midday break of diving and lunch we found dolphins at 4pm. They were playing wildly amongst themselves. They had no interest in us but they did not run from us. I found myself totally enveloped in dolphins during some of my freedives and the video came out nicely. So far we’ve only been able to identify one dolphin from this area – one with a shark bite that tore away half the dorsal fin.
July 12 we found dolphins early but disengaged when they seemed to want to be on their own. The weather is very hot – in the mid 90s and I’m urging everyone to drink water, take salt and keep slathered in sunscreen. Late afternoon we found dolphins feeding. Entered the water and a lone teenager came to a group of 8 of us passing very close to each diver, closing its eyes in a sign of trust. Maybe a smile. Gazed at itself in my camera dome.
July 13. Brilliant scuba dive on a drop off north of Bimini. In afternoon there were four boats looking for dolphins. Not a good scene. We had only minor contacts and I broke off in late afternoon. We will head for another location. It just didn’t feel good to me to see all those boats running around trying to pick up dolphins.
July 14. Dove Bull run. Friends very happy with the reef sharks. Ran to b-2 and found dolphins immediately. Two close encounters with them. One appeared to have been slapped with silver paint three times on right side. Another had deep cut in dorsal starting just forward of the peak. A lovely squall swept over Juliet just after dinner.
July 15. Seas came up over night. Three to four foot swells in the morning. Six playful young dolphins hit our bow after breakfast. One was silver paint. Divers had a phenomenal experience with this group for 45 minutes. Seas layed down.
July 16 Awoke in Miami harbor and said goodbye to the BlueVoice supporters who had accompanied us. Tomorrow a new group joins us and we head back to the Bahamas.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
BlueVoice Busts Illegal Whale Commerce in Greenland
Greenland Blog #3
BlueVoice Uncovers Unsanctioned Commercial Whaling in Greenland
by Hardy Jones
The word that the IWC had granted Greenland a quota to hunt nine humpback whales in each of the years 2010 – 2012 reached me in Iceland as I traveled to Nuuk, capital of Greenland.
The word that twenty-seven of these curious, intelligent, infinitely graceful creatures will be killed after years of protection is heart wrenching. Over the decades during which the approach of a boat did not mean a painful death, humpbacks have become friendly, approaching boats and even divers in the water.
Now that bond of trust will be broken. That is sad in itself but it may also impact the whale watching business that supports communities all along the east coast.
The IWC granted Greenland the humpback quota for whaling that would provide meat for ABORIGINAL USE ONLY. But in Nuuk I’ve discovered the meat in a super market, in the form of sushi at a Thai restaurant and as steak in a greasy spoon burger and pizza joint. Tonight I will head out to find whether there are other establishments purveying whale. Commercial sale of whale meat is not allowed under the IWC quota.
It is sad that humpbacks have just reappeared off Greenland after sixty years only to be slaughtered.
I am in Greenland to attend the Inuit Circumpolar Council. I want to learn what information is available on levels of heavy metals and organic pollutants in marine mammals killed for food and in the people who eat it what health problems have been identified and how the Inuit intend to deal with that information.
It’s an established fact that women who eat large quantities of dolphin, whale and seal meat give birth to a high ratio of girl babies over boys. In some villages the ratio is two to one. In one village no boys have been born in some time.
I discussed this issue with William L. Iggiagruk Hensley (Willy) an Inupiaq who has too many major league political and business credentials to list. He was a member of the Clinton transition team, a leader in several Alaska native organizations and author of Fifty Miles From Tomorrow, a brilliant work.
I was astonished to learn that he had no knowledge of the fact that eating marine mammal meat was causing such a bizarre impact on Inuits. It is literally suppressing the production of male children not to mention immune systems and mental development.
Among the speakers at the conference is Per M. Bakken of the United Nations Environment Programme. He warned that a chemical catastrophe faces the people of the north from contamination in some of the food they take from the sea – marine mammals in particular. I asked him if he felt the Inuit ignored or were in denial about these facts and he agreed that they paid little attention to it.
What they are really ticked off about is the fact that trade in seal skins is prohibited by many nations.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Mercury/Health Expert Slams Taiji Mercury Findings
By Hardy Jones
Dr. Jane Hightower is author of Diagnosis Mercury. She's a San Francisco based internist famous for discovering the effects of mercury on many patients suffering unknown medical symptoms. At the request of BlueVoice she comments on the results of tests of mercury levels in citizens of Taiji, Japan, the village made famous by The Cove for its heinous dolphin slaughters. The tests were carried out by the National Institute of Minamata Diseases (NIMD).
The NIMD concluded that while a significant number of citizens, especially those who ate dolphin meat, had very high levels of mercury, there was no evidence these mercury burdens were causing health problems. BlueVoice points out that internationally recognized tests for neurological function were not carried out by the NIMD researchers.
It should be also be pointed out that the tests conducted by the National Institute for Minamata Diseases were paid for - wait for it - the town of Taiji!!!
Dr. Hightower's statement:
There are many studies that confirm that methylmercury is toxic to humans and can adversely affect health in a number of ways. Of most concern with long-term over exposure is non-specific symptoms, neuropsychiatric symptoms/damage, autoantibody induction, infertility, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, and elevated heart rate.
These adverse effects have been seen with much less exposure than what has been reported with the people of Taiji. It would be unconscionable if the Japanese government chooses to look the other way.
The Japanese government’s approval of consumers’ exposure to high mercury content as a result of a limited and inadequate study has potential for disaster.
Dr. Jane Hightower is author of Diagnosis Mercury. She's a San Francisco based internist famous for discovering the effects of mercury on many patients suffering unknown medical symptoms. At the request of BlueVoice she comments on the results of tests of mercury levels in citizens of Taiji, Japan, the village made famous by The Cove for its heinous dolphin slaughters. The tests were carried out by the National Institute of Minamata Diseases (NIMD).
The NIMD concluded that while a significant number of citizens, especially those who ate dolphin meat, had very high levels of mercury, there was no evidence these mercury burdens were causing health problems. BlueVoice points out that internationally recognized tests for neurological function were not carried out by the NIMD researchers.
It should be also be pointed out that the tests conducted by the National Institute for Minamata Diseases were paid for - wait for it - the town of Taiji!!!
Dr. Hightower's statement:
There are many studies that confirm that methylmercury is toxic to humans and can adversely affect health in a number of ways. Of most concern with long-term over exposure is non-specific symptoms, neuropsychiatric symptoms/damage, autoantibody induction, infertility, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, and elevated heart rate.
These adverse effects have been seen with much less exposure than what has been reported with the people of Taiji. It would be unconscionable if the Japanese government chooses to look the other way.
The Japanese government’s approval of consumers’ exposure to high mercury content as a result of a limited and inadequate study has potential for disaster.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
April 26 at BlueVoice
Blog 4-26-10
A Day at BlueVoice.org
Going over reports from lawsuit against Dupont filed in Mississippi by a man – a heavy seafood eater - who contracted Multiple Myeloma a form of blood cancer, from eating shell fish from a bay contaminated by Dupont. Jury initially awarded him $15 million.
Writing Chapter 8 of my book. Manuscript due May 15.
Just found group from Louisiana that has brought the issue of chemical contamination to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They allege that the United States is not protecting their right to live in a healthy environment. The commission has agreed to hear their petition. This is the first environmental human rights complaint from United States citizens to be heard by the Organization of American States. It could be another tool to fight the contamination of our planet by toxic chemicals.
Seeking contacts in Greenland to help investigation of abnormal ratios of male to female babies in in Inuit villages due to contamination by estrogen mimicking chemicals in fish and marine mammals eaten there.
Email from Chris Palmer showing cover and other elements of his new book Shooting in the Wild. Excellent book due in stores May 15. Several stories about my filming adventures.
Looking at possible implications for dolphins from the oil rig disaster. Oil has now covered an eighteen hundred square mile area. Sperm whales were seen in the vicinity of the slick.
A Day at BlueVoice.org
Going over reports from lawsuit against Dupont filed in Mississippi by a man – a heavy seafood eater - who contracted Multiple Myeloma a form of blood cancer, from eating shell fish from a bay contaminated by Dupont. Jury initially awarded him $15 million.
Writing Chapter 8 of my book. Manuscript due May 15.
Just found group from Louisiana that has brought the issue of chemical contamination to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They allege that the United States is not protecting their right to live in a healthy environment. The commission has agreed to hear their petition. This is the first environmental human rights complaint from United States citizens to be heard by the Organization of American States. It could be another tool to fight the contamination of our planet by toxic chemicals.
Seeking contacts in Greenland to help investigation of abnormal ratios of male to female babies in in Inuit villages due to contamination by estrogen mimicking chemicals in fish and marine mammals eaten there.
Email from Chris Palmer showing cover and other elements of his new book Shooting in the Wild. Excellent book due in stores May 15. Several stories about my filming adventures.
Looking at possible implications for dolphins from the oil rig disaster. Oil has now covered an eighteen hundred square mile area. Sperm whales were seen in the vicinity of the slick.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Entangled Humpback Location Currently Unknown
Entangled Humpback Location Currently Unknown
I just received a call from Jamieson Smith of National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) bringing me up to date on the status of the humpback whale entangled off Florida.
The humpback sighted off Ft. Pierce is the same one first seen off St. Augustine March 7. A concerted effort was made to rescue the whale on that occasion. But the whale has been highly evasive. It evaded placement of a satellite tag that would have enabled continuous monitoring of its position.
NMFS is advertising a hotline number for anyone spotting this entangled whale. 866-755-6622
The rescue team that was in St. Augustine has been moved to Ft. Pierce to be ready should another rescue attempt be possible.
There have been reports of entangled humpbacks off the Florida coast in recent days but the whales turned out to be unencumbered.
There was no calf with the entangled humpback. The captain of the party boat who reported that says he saw a large animal under the entangled whale. He assumed it to be a calf but in retrospect says it never surfaced so the shadowy figure must have been a shark.
We discussed the dolphin activity around the humpback and Jamieson told me that was not unusual. We both agreed that it is hard to impute motivation to dolphins under such circumstances. But he did say that having dolphins around an entangled whale makes it easy to find the whale.
I told him of my experience in the Bahamas where I was certainly protected by four juvenile spotted dolphins from a hammerhead shark. Judge for yourself in the accompanying video.
I just received a call from Jamieson Smith of National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) bringing me up to date on the status of the humpback whale entangled off Florida.
The humpback sighted off Ft. Pierce is the same one first seen off St. Augustine March 7. A concerted effort was made to rescue the whale on that occasion. But the whale has been highly evasive. It evaded placement of a satellite tag that would have enabled continuous monitoring of its position.
NMFS is advertising a hotline number for anyone spotting this entangled whale. 866-755-6622
The rescue team that was in St. Augustine has been moved to Ft. Pierce to be ready should another rescue attempt be possible.
There have been reports of entangled humpbacks off the Florida coast in recent days but the whales turned out to be unencumbered.
There was no calf with the entangled humpback. The captain of the party boat who reported that says he saw a large animal under the entangled whale. He assumed it to be a calf but in retrospect says it never surfaced so the shadowy figure must have been a shark.
We discussed the dolphin activity around the humpback and Jamieson told me that was not unusual. We both agreed that it is hard to impute motivation to dolphins under such circumstances. But he did say that having dolphins around an entangled whale makes it easy to find the whale.
I told him of my experience in the Bahamas where I was certainly protected by four juvenile spotted dolphins from a hammerhead shark. Judge for yourself in the accompanying video.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Dolphins Protect Entangled Humpback from Sharks
By Hardy Jones
Last week my friend Zach McKenna of St. Augustine Eco Tours told me of seeing loads of whales well of the coast of St. Augustine. There were right whales and humpbacks.
Tragically there was a humpback entangled in monofilament fishing line. A team from NMFS tried to disentangle the whale for many hours but was unsuccessful.
Yesterday a fishing boat out of Jensen Beach on the east central coast of Florida spotted a humpback entangled with the line cutting into her flesh. A calf was nearby. A Mako and a hammerhead shark were circling. The mother breached continually, apparently to drive off the sharks.
"(The whale) has polypropylene rope wrapped around its head and pectoral fin and its attached to an anchor," said Captain Patrick Price.
Price said he saw the larger of the two whales breach many times. Then, amazingly, a large pod of about 100 dolphins arrived on the scene. The dolphins circled the whale to protect it from the sharks. The dolphins accompanied the whale for over an hour until Price saw a whale breach a mile to the south. At that point the dolphins headed in that direction.
Captain Price remained on the scene for four hours until a NMFS team arrived on the scene. At 2:45 p.m. sea conditions deteriorated. The NMFS biologist on hand called off rescue efforts to avoid further injuring the whale.
NOAA whale scientist Jamison Smith said that if boaters see a whale in distress they should call call 866-755-6622. A team of biologists trained in handling whale entanglements is on standby.
I phoned Jamison Smith. I’m awaiting a return call as of 1215 Monday. Will report updates.
Last week my friend Zach McKenna of St. Augustine Eco Tours told me of seeing loads of whales well of the coast of St. Augustine. There were right whales and humpbacks.
Tragically there was a humpback entangled in monofilament fishing line. A team from NMFS tried to disentangle the whale for many hours but was unsuccessful.
Yesterday a fishing boat out of Jensen Beach on the east central coast of Florida spotted a humpback entangled with the line cutting into her flesh. A calf was nearby. A Mako and a hammerhead shark were circling. The mother breached continually, apparently to drive off the sharks.
"(The whale) has polypropylene rope wrapped around its head and pectoral fin and its attached to an anchor," said Captain Patrick Price.
Price said he saw the larger of the two whales breach many times. Then, amazingly, a large pod of about 100 dolphins arrived on the scene. The dolphins circled the whale to protect it from the sharks. The dolphins accompanied the whale for over an hour until Price saw a whale breach a mile to the south. At that point the dolphins headed in that direction.
Captain Price remained on the scene for four hours until a NMFS team arrived on the scene. At 2:45 p.m. sea conditions deteriorated. The NMFS biologist on hand called off rescue efforts to avoid further injuring the whale.
NOAA whale scientist Jamison Smith said that if boaters see a whale in distress they should call call 866-755-6622. A team of biologists trained in handling whale entanglements is on standby.
I phoned Jamison Smith. I’m awaiting a return call as of 1215 Monday. Will report updates.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Did U.S. Head of Delegation to IWC Go Rogue?
By Hardy Jones
On March 16, 2008 President Obama said We must strengthen the International Moratorium (on whaling). “Allowing Japan to continue commercial whaling is unacceptable,” he said emphatically. His delegation to the International Whaling Commission’s just concluded intercessional meeting did not support that position. The question is whether there has been a change in the president’s position or his head of delegation Monica Medina has gone rogue and the president is not aware of it.
The intercessional meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) assembled to hammer out a consensus on how the organization would move forward ended with no action taken due to lack of a quorum.
Meeting in St. Pete Beach, Florida from March 2 - 5 the commission addressed the question of how to create a set of regulations and quotas that would satisfy both whale protectionists and whale hunting interests. Of course at the ethical level no such compromise is possible.
Whales are simply not products. They are not creatures to be “harvested” as so many of the whaling delegates describe the process of taking their lives. No one planted these magnificent animals. No one invested resources to grow them. Their taking involves using a small canon to drive an explosive harpoon into their bodies that detonates instants after contact and leads to agonizing death.
The second item to be negotiated was whether to grant a quota of at least fifty humpback whales to Greenland. Many excellent pro-whale organizations argued that there is not enough scientific data available to determine whether humpbacks can be hunted in a sustainable manner. To me this may be a tactic that is appropriate to IWC meetings but these facts do not represent the real reason we should not kill whales.
We should not kill whales because of who and what they are, highly intelligent and magnificent animals beloved of millions of people. In the cases of humpback and fin whales they are endangered species. We have wiped out more than 90 percent of many whale populations. In some cases humans have annihilated whole populations of whales.
The factual, rational and highly regarded New York Times published an editorial opinion that whales should not be killed for any reason.
Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico spoke strongly of a need to phase out whaling entirely in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. The United States offerings were weak-kneed. Head of delegation, Monica Medina, was often at odds with the expert members of her own delegation and spoke platitudes and pleasantries that did not present a cogent American position.
Not a single environmental NGO supported Medina’s position. The reasons are as follows:
The proposed set of regulations called The Package would legitimize commercial whaling by suspending commercial whaling moratorium for a decade.
The Package does not prevent contracting governments from exercising their right to object to any or all of the Schedule amendments, or from leaving the Commission and returning with a reservation such as Japan’s current ruse of scientific whaling.
The Package legitimizes whaling in the Southern Ocean in a sanctuary established by the IWC itself.
The Package does not phase whaling down or out.
The Package is not based on sound science. Catch limits will not be calculated using the IWC agreed precautionary scientific approach, or even subject first to consideration by the Scientific Committee.
The Package fails to require the whaling nations to give up their reservations to the CITES Appendix I listing of whales. It provides an incentive for the whaling nations to continue trading with each other under reservation and to develop new commercial products from whale tissues and oils and develop new markets for the trade in whale products in the future.
But more than any and all of these flaws in the Package there is one simple truth: Whales are not for killing.
On March 16, 2008 President Obama said We must strengthen the International Moratorium (on whaling). “Allowing Japan to continue commercial whaling is unacceptable,” he said emphatically. His delegation to the International Whaling Commission’s just concluded intercessional meeting did not support that position. The question is whether there has been a change in the president’s position or his head of delegation Monica Medina has gone rogue and the president is not aware of it.
The intercessional meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) assembled to hammer out a consensus on how the organization would move forward ended with no action taken due to lack of a quorum.
Meeting in St. Pete Beach, Florida from March 2 - 5 the commission addressed the question of how to create a set of regulations and quotas that would satisfy both whale protectionists and whale hunting interests. Of course at the ethical level no such compromise is possible.
Whales are simply not products. They are not creatures to be “harvested” as so many of the whaling delegates describe the process of taking their lives. No one planted these magnificent animals. No one invested resources to grow them. Their taking involves using a small canon to drive an explosive harpoon into their bodies that detonates instants after contact and leads to agonizing death.
The second item to be negotiated was whether to grant a quota of at least fifty humpback whales to Greenland. Many excellent pro-whale organizations argued that there is not enough scientific data available to determine whether humpbacks can be hunted in a sustainable manner. To me this may be a tactic that is appropriate to IWC meetings but these facts do not represent the real reason we should not kill whales.
We should not kill whales because of who and what they are, highly intelligent and magnificent animals beloved of millions of people. In the cases of humpback and fin whales they are endangered species. We have wiped out more than 90 percent of many whale populations. In some cases humans have annihilated whole populations of whales.
The factual, rational and highly regarded New York Times published an editorial opinion that whales should not be killed for any reason.
Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico spoke strongly of a need to phase out whaling entirely in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. The United States offerings were weak-kneed. Head of delegation, Monica Medina, was often at odds with the expert members of her own delegation and spoke platitudes and pleasantries that did not present a cogent American position.
Not a single environmental NGO supported Medina’s position. The reasons are as follows:
The proposed set of regulations called The Package would legitimize commercial whaling by suspending commercial whaling moratorium for a decade.
The Package does not prevent contracting governments from exercising their right to object to any or all of the Schedule amendments, or from leaving the Commission and returning with a reservation such as Japan’s current ruse of scientific whaling.
The Package legitimizes whaling in the Southern Ocean in a sanctuary established by the IWC itself.
The Package does not phase whaling down or out.
The Package is not based on sound science. Catch limits will not be calculated using the IWC agreed precautionary scientific approach, or even subject first to consideration by the Scientific Committee.
The Package fails to require the whaling nations to give up their reservations to the CITES Appendix I listing of whales. It provides an incentive for the whaling nations to continue trading with each other under reservation and to develop new commercial products from whale tissues and oils and develop new markets for the trade in whale products in the future.
But more than any and all of these flaws in the Package there is one simple truth: Whales are not for killing.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
U.S. TO SUPPORT DISASTROUS RETURN TO COMMERCIAL WHALING
FROM THE SESSION ROOM
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED.
By Hardy Jones
St. Pete Beach, Florida
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Obama Administration, through its delegation to the International Whaling Commission Small Working Group, appears ready to sign off on a deal that would permit a return to legal commercial whaling. Japan, Iceland and Norway’s whaling has heretofore been conducted under reservations to the moratorium on whaling that has been in place since 1986.
The only chance to derail this backroom deal appears to be direct protest to President Obama. All environmental groups are united in their opposition to the plan to legitimize whaling. In this way the president who promised a new way of doing things is vulnerable but only if those of us who love and revere whales make our outrage known to the White House.
If the United States were to vote for a resumption of commercial whaling it would represent a 180 degree turn around from the position the president took just a year ago.
On March 6, 2009 the Obama administration pledged it would firmly oppose whaling. Environmentalists thought Obama was signaling a tough US position approaching meetings to examine the proposal that would open the door to legal whaling.
One of the results of this deal would be a quota for Iceland and perhaps Japan to hunt endangered fin whales.
It is BlueVoice’s position that there is no justification for whaling whatever. Absolutely. Whales are sentient beings with high degrees of intelligence and self-awareness. They are magnificent and inspiring, beloved to millions around the world.
TO PROTEST THIS RECKLESS POSITION EMAIL THE WHITE HOUSE. On the web go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
You can paste the following into your email message and add your own thoughts. It is very important to personalize the message so it does not appear mass produced.
President Obama, you have previously indicated you would strongly support the protection of whales. The statements of your delegation to the NGO caucus at the IWC in St. Pete, FL belies your commitment. I urge you to oppose legalization of commercial whaling. Whales are intelligent and sentient creatures that should not be killed. Thank you.
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED.
By Hardy Jones
St. Pete Beach, Florida
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Obama Administration, through its delegation to the International Whaling Commission Small Working Group, appears ready to sign off on a deal that would permit a return to legal commercial whaling. Japan, Iceland and Norway’s whaling has heretofore been conducted under reservations to the moratorium on whaling that has been in place since 1986.
The only chance to derail this backroom deal appears to be direct protest to President Obama. All environmental groups are united in their opposition to the plan to legitimize whaling. In this way the president who promised a new way of doing things is vulnerable but only if those of us who love and revere whales make our outrage known to the White House.
If the United States were to vote for a resumption of commercial whaling it would represent a 180 degree turn around from the position the president took just a year ago.
On March 6, 2009 the Obama administration pledged it would firmly oppose whaling. Environmentalists thought Obama was signaling a tough US position approaching meetings to examine the proposal that would open the door to legal whaling.
One of the results of this deal would be a quota for Iceland and perhaps Japan to hunt endangered fin whales.
It is BlueVoice’s position that there is no justification for whaling whatever. Absolutely. Whales are sentient beings with high degrees of intelligence and self-awareness. They are magnificent and inspiring, beloved to millions around the world.
TO PROTEST THIS RECKLESS POSITION EMAIL THE WHITE HOUSE. On the web go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
You can paste the following into your email message and add your own thoughts. It is very important to personalize the message so it does not appear mass produced.
President Obama, you have previously indicated you would strongly support the protection of whales. The statements of your delegation to the NGO caucus at the IWC in St. Pete, FL belies your commitment. I urge you to oppose legalization of commercial whaling. Whales are intelligent and sentient creatures that should not be killed. Thank you.
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