WDC Blog - From the Front Line

It would seem that the Royal Navy has been taking lessons from the tuna industry.

If you cannot beat them, join them; or at least try and make it look like you are. The Royal Navy is now supposedly using 'Dolphin-friendly' weapons. The Sunday Mirror is reporting that the Navy 'is testing a dolphin-friendly weapon following fears its explosives are killing marine wildlife.The device, a giant air gun, is designed to simulate a torpedo attack without harming dolphins and other sea creatures'.

We shall see! So far it would appear that they may have had entirely the wrong effect.

Well they said on Thursday that the UK Navy was not operating anywhere near the incident that led to the deaths of some 26 common dolphins when they stranded on the UK's Cornsih coast.

Now it would seem the story is changing by the day..... so were the Navy active and was there a link? WDCS is pursuing the story and will find you the answer as soon as we can, but not because we are are trying to embarass the Navy, but because we wish to help ensure that this kind of thing never happens again.

You can follow this story on the front page of the website.

As we might have mentioned a few days ago, it seems that Japan may not have been so aware that Fin whale meat was being foisted on it from Norway and Iceland.

Reuters is reporting that the first whale meat sent to Japan in more than a decade by North Atlantic hunters Iceland and Norway is stuck in cold storage without an import licence, officials said on Friday.

Nearly 70 tonnes of frozen meat from the marine mammals was sent to Japan last month - the first such export since the early 1990s - and whaling lobbies hailed the move as the opening of a new export market.

The Japanese embassy in Oslo said that no import licences for the meat had been granted by Japan as of Thursday this week.

"The government of Japan did not receive a request for any such import licence," diplomat Hitoshi Kawahara told Reuters.

So what was Iceland and Norway up to? Or lets get this right, what were those individuals involved in the commercial hunts up to, because lets not beat about the bush, this is not about Governments anymore, but its about the few individuals who are able to make a lot of money out of whaling that are pulling all the strings now.

Their respective governments appear to be powerless to regulate them, this outmoded industry, or even to be able to talk to each other – note the embarrassment of the Japanese Government in this case.

So where does this end? It would seem that the losers are the people of the three countries who have to suffer the indignity of international condemnation whilst some of their citizens make money out of the suffering of sentient creatures. The other loser is international law and international democratic decision making which is being dragged through the dirt every time these guys decide that nothing matters but the money they stand to make.

I have just had the privilege of visiting the WDCS Wildlife Centres in Scotland, a journey that I am distracted from making all too often because I can find a million other issues arriving at my office door to secure me firmly at my desk.

The WDCS Wildlife Centres at Spey Bay and North Kessock, Scotland, are two of the most remarkable places in the world and whilst I was there the UK’s BBC were filming the Springwatch tv series, featuring the dolphins of the Moray Firth – but everyone was beginng to get worried, - and it was because I was in the region.

Now, none of my colleagues are ever willing to go whale or dolphin watching with me anymore as I have the worst success record of anyone I know; or apparently of anyone else in the world according to almost everybody else who has suffered spending time trying to see cetaceans with me.

I remember ten years ago when traveling through Japan I had arrived at the stunning location of Ogata in Kochi Prefecture. Hosted by the local whale watching cooperative, I was taken out to see the brydes’ whales that are to be found in local waters and were then subject to a 90% plus successful sightings record each trip.

After nearly nine hours we had seen nothing but a beautiful seascape, (it’s a stunning location and if you ever get a chance go and visit the wonderful people of this region of Japan). Despite my polite, but increasingly strident suggestions that it might ‘just have been one of those days’, (I had not slept for some twenty hours), my host, one of the leaders of the fishing community that was the basis for the cooperative, insisted that we hang on for ten more minutes. And indeed he was right.

After nine more minutes a beautiful brydes whale breeched in front of us, throwing a shower of salt water across the bows of the boat.

Yep, it had been worth the wait ☺

Getting back to Scotland and strict BBC timelines, you can see why my reputation for whale watching might have been causing a few nervous ticks – and I was not even involved with the filming.

Our colleague Charlie Phillips had been looking after the BBC’s Simon King and there is almost no one who knows more about the dolphins than Charlie. Charlie is also the inverse of me when it comes to seeing dolphins, he’s the classic ‘dolphin magnet’ – I am sure Charlie has worked out that elusive dolphin telepathy know only to the select few.

And sure enough whilst I was visiting the WDCS team at the North Kessock Dolphin and Seal Centre, Charlie and Simon managed to see some fifty dolphins feeding not fifteen metres off shore. As the BBC said, the inner Firth is one of the best places in world to see dolphins this close up.

So I guess my jinx continues, but WDCS’ success continues. These are the dolphins that the UK and German based operations have as our adopted animals. WDCS has been working with local people to protect them for sixteen years – and maybe they know that with major plans to further develop the Firth, they need to help WDCS with a few appearances every now and then .

It certainly seems they know when they need to be TV stars ☺

Hello!

I'm very pleased to announce that the WDCS Dolphin and Seal Centre in North Kessock is re-open for this year's summer season!  Last year was the first year that WDCS ran the Dolphin and Seal Centre and I'm pleased to say it was a busy summer with lots of visitors (despite the awful weather!) and an array of interesting sightings.  So far this year (we opened on Sunday) we've had some great otter and common seal sightings from the window!  Charlie Phillips (Adopt a Dolphin Field Officer) has also been in touch from Chanonry Point where there have been some great Bottlenose Dolphin sightings - there are a group of approx. 14 around at the moment, including our very own 'Sundance' 'Rainbow' and 'Nevis'!

I hope to see lots more visitors this year and of course lots of wildlife too! 

The Icelandic daily Frettabladid, reports tht 60 tons of fin whale meat has been exported to Japan from Iceland. Kristjan Loftsson, director of the Hvalur whaling company, has been quoted as saying that the fin whale meat has been shipped, along with an unknown amount of Norwegian minke whale meat. Loftsson is said to be 'pleased' with the price that he got for the whale meat, and that the “products” will be on sale in stores and fish markets in Japan shortly.

Of course this is an outrage but its also the biggest insult the whalers can make to the rest of the world. They dont care what the rest of us think. Indeed in Iceland, they dont even care what the Foreign Minister thinks - all they care about is making the biggest profit they can as quickly as they can.

I wonder if Japan actually allowed the import?

Can anyone else hear the raspberries reverberating around the offices of the countries that were thinking of giving the whalers more concessions.