WDC Blog - From the Front Line

Some of my colleagues are going to accuse me of going off on one with this, and for it being 'too scientific', but I am peeved at an article I read this morning and needed to get some comments off my chest. It's in the vein of my last entry on the way science is presented, so you could say that it's at least following a theme.

Headlines can be deceptive and misleading and I have to take issue with the National Geographic’s headline -  ‘Penguin Numbers Plummeting—Whales Partly to Blame?

The article states that ‘Penguin populations have plunged by as much as 50 percent during the past three decades in the West Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Sea, scientists report.’ The article goes onto say that the report the article is based on, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states that ‘The problem appears to be a shortage of krill, the seabirds' primary fare, caused by rising regional air temperatures and rebounding populations of hungry whales.’ But hold your horses. It seems that penguins only started eating krill when the ecosystem was changed by human impacts.

It appears that the seabirds abandoned their 38,000-year diet of fish in favour of krill, shrimp-like crustaceans that are a major component in the diets of fur seals and baleen whales only when the krill became available because whaling and sealing wiped out huge numbers of marine mammals.

When discussing whales the original paper references ‘Reilly, S., Hedley, S.L., Borberg, J., Hewitt, R., Thiele, D., Watkins, J., Naganobu, M. 2004. Biomass and energy transfer to baleen whales in the South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. Deep Sea Research II 51, 1397-1409’  which states that the amount of krill consumed by whales estimated from a 2000 Antarctic survey amounted to some ‘4–6% of the estimated krill biomass in the region (and probably less than this percentage of the total annual krill production).’

The Reilly et al. paper does not appear to set out to blame whales for low krill population numbers but indeed, seems to say that any future krill fishery should be managed so as to allow for recovery of whales, - it states in the abstract that, ‘the depleted numbers of baleen whales resulting from past or current whaling activities should be taken into account when setting quotas for the commercial exploitation of krill if there is to be a recovery to pre-exploitation biomass levels of baleen whales’

An earlier article in National Geographic (2007) supports the theory that Antarctic sealing and whaling led to a krill population explosion, and that the penguins apparently took advantage of the surplus. But now the krill has seen a decline in the last 30 years, but a corresponding increased percentage of fish are not appearing in the penguins diet

The report does later on note that, ‘fish stocks have also been heavily fished out by Russian trawlers’ and so denying the penguins their food of choice. The report also notes that krill fishing is increasing. The earlier 2007 National Geographic story fully acknowledges that overfishing is a negative impactor. In this report researchers are noted to say, ‘"And now with krill on a decline and fish harvested out in a lot of areas … that's a concern…. What do [the penguins] have left to switch to? They don't really have any options left…. In addition, fishers are now actively taking krill, which are used as feed in fish farms. This "will further cause problems,"’ One other note of concern is that the Academy of Sciences paper reports that, ‘In addition, the Marine Stewardship Council’s recent certification of one company’s krill fishing as being sustainable* and the introduction of new products (e.g., Omega-3 krill oil, a popular dietary supplement) suggest that the [krill] fishery may be poised to expand further in the near future.'

Reading the original paper in in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences we see that it states that, ‘The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and adjacent Scotia Sea support abundant wildlife populations, many of which were nearly extirpated by humans. This region is also among the fastest- warming areas on the planet, with 5–6 °C increases in mean winter air temperatures and associated decreases in winter sea-ice cover. These biological and physical perturbations have affected the ecosystem profoundly.’

The abstract concludes that, ‘Linking trends in penguin abundance with trends in krill biomass explains why populations of Adélie and chinstrap penguins increased after competitors (fur seals, baleen whales, and some fishes) were nearly extirpated in the 19th to mid-20th centuries and currently are decreasing in response to climate change.'

So whilst the Academy of Sciences paper tests the hypothesis that the reduction of whaling is removing fewer whales from the Antarctic ecosystem and they are eating more krill, the significant conclusion is that the major impact on the penguins is ... yes you guessed it...climate change.

I suggest we should all be wary of extracting the comments from papers, in this case about whales being ‘partly to blame?’, and therefore giving overdue inference to just one element of a complex issue. There are enough people willing to abuse the science without respected journals helping them with juicy spin.

The accurate reporting of science is critical to conservation. The politicisation of science is, however, not uncommon when it comes to marine issues, especially where money is involved. The Icelandic and Norwegian Governments’ repeated claims that whales are eating all ‘their fish’, is as unscientific as the flat earth theories. (There is a good rebuttal of Iceland’s politicised claims on the WDCS website here – sorry we don’t have anything on the flat earth issue, but as my first degree was in Geological Sciences I am up for the discussion ☺).

The fact that science can be misused is not confined to the issue of whaling. The debate over wind farms is an emotive one and recently the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper (15th March) and the American Newsweek magazine both fell foul of over-interpreting a recent report that confirms that noise affects whales and dolphins. I could have said WDCS has been saying ‘told you so’ but that’s just seems childish.

Other websites have discussed in detail the issue that the report, by scientists from the UK’s University of St. Andrews and others was misused to suggest that the findings would lead to more strandings of Beaked whales around the UK  so I’ll not go into detail here, but simply say that the scientific paper does deal with noise, mainly from military sonars, - and the researchers found that one species of whale moved up to 16km away from the area during sonar tests and did not return for three days in one study.

The leap to say that wind farms would cause more strandings brought out the polarised sides of those for and those against wind farms. And that’s when it all gets hazy, because the original studies authors did not say that wind farms cause strandings. In communicating with a US website, Media Matters, Brandon Southall, research associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz and one of the reports authors, pointed out that " No one is saying that there won't be any potential disturbance from the installation or operation of wind farms - I personally think that is likely as well at least in terms of temporary responses during construction - and these are going in over large areas, particularly in the North Sea.  But to suggest that our results indicate marine mammals are stranded by windfarms is just erroneous and bad reporting. [Email to Media Matters, 4/4/11]"

And here’s the important thing - windfarms may indeed have an effect on cetaceans, but not in the way that the newspapers reported. unfortunately having that important debate now just got that much harder.

WDCS is not fundamentally opposed to wind farms. Indeed we think climate change is a serious threat and should be addressed, but we also think that renewables should be installed in locations where they avoid impacting cetaceans and if they do encroach into cetacean habitat then their siting decision and subsequent construction should be done with the utmost care. That debate needs good science to get the it right and the erroneous reporting noted above just makes it harder, as now many will feel that wind-farms pose no threat what-so-ever.

WDCS has a clear mandate to protect whales and dolphins whatever the threat, be it irresponsible and unnecessary whaling or be it necessary renewable developments.  WDCS remains committed to ensuring that we provide the best advice we can, even if others do not always seem to do so, because the politicisation of science helps no one, especially not the whales and dolphins.