WASHINGTON, DC, February 3, 2009 (ENS) – President Barack Obama today named U.S. Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a Republican, to fill the slot of Commerce Secretary in his cabinet.

If confirmed by the Senate, Gregg will join Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Defense Secretary Robert Gates for a total of three Republicans in the Obama Cabinet.

The President called his former Senate colleague a “master of reaching across the aisle” and complimented his “strict fiscal discipline.” But Obama mentioned no environmental credentials for his choice, although the Department of Commerce governs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

From left, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Judd Gregg, President Barack Obama (Photo courtesy The White House)

NOAA has many environmental functions including the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the National Weather Service; and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

“The Commerce Department has a broad and interesting portfolio,” Senator Gregg said today, “but its primary goal must be to create jobs by promoting industry, promoting economic activity, and promoting excellence in science. And I intend to pursue those avenues aggressively.”

A former congressman from 1980-1988, and a governor of New Hampshire from 1989-1993, Gregg has been serving in the Senate since 1993, and is currently ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

In the Senate, Gregg has a record of supporting commercial exploitation of resources, including offshore drilling, over environmental protection, although he has voted for some conservation measures.

The League of Conservation Voters’ Scorecard for the 2008 session of Congress scored Gregg at just nine percent for pro-environmental votes. His total LCV score since 1993 is 44 percent.

Republicans for Environmental Protection, a nonprofit group, issued Gregg an “environmental harm demerit” for sponsoring a Fiscal Year 2007 budget resolution that used the congressional budget process to force oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On March 16, 2006 the Senate passed the resolution by a 51-49 vote. In the House, pro-conservation Republicans stood with Democrats to ensure that Arctic drilling was not included in the House budget resolution. The two bills were never reconciled in conference, so the Arctic refuge remains protected.

Backpackers in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Photo by Out in Alaska)

REP said drilling in the refuge “would perpetuate America’s dangerous oil dependence and damage the most scenic, wildlife-rich reserve in the circumpolar north.”

He has voted against environmental funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and did not vote to fund programs for conserving public lands and wildlife, oceans, coasts, water and farmland.

On the other hand, REP praised Gregg for helping secure passage of S. 4001, the New England Wilderness Act, which designated as wilderness nearly 35,000 acres of forests, mountains, and streams in New Hampshire and 42,000 acres in Vermont.

REP’s 2007 Congressional Scorecard rated Gregg as fourth best Republican in the Senate for environmental voting.

The University of New Hampshire renamed its Environmental Technology Building Gregg Hall, because Gregg used earmarks to secure $266 million of federal funds for research and development projects for the university.

The Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute, established in 2003, is the center of meteorological and atmospheric research at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, which offers the only meteorology degree program in the state.

If he is confirmed by the Senate, an urgent issue Gregg will have to address at NOAA is upgrading infrastructure for responding to maritime accidents in the Arctic.

On Thursday, NOAA issued a joint report with the University of New Hampshire warning that more needs to be done to enhance emergency response capacity as Arctic sea ice declines due to climate warming and ship traffic in the region increases.

Scientists study ice patterns high in theArctic (Photo courtesy NOAA)

“The reduction of polar sea ice and the increasing worldwide demand for energy will likely result in a dramatic increase in the number of vessels that travel Arctic waters,” said Nancy Kinner, a UNH professor of civil and environmental engineering who serves as co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center, based at the university.

“As vessel traffic increases, disaster scenarios are going to become more of a reality,” she said.

The report details findings from a panel of experts and decision-makers from Arctic nation governments, industry and indigenous communities convened by the CRRC.

The panel examined five potential emergency response scenarios – a grounded cruise ship whose 2,000 passengers and crew must abandon the vessel; an ice-trapped and damaged ore carrier; an explosion on a fixed drilling rig north of Alaska; a collision between a tanker and fishing vessel that results in a large oil spill; and the grounding of a tug towing a supplies barge in an environmentally sensitive area near the Bering Strait.

“Now is the time to prepare for maritime accidents and potential spills in the Arctic,” said Amy Merten, NOAA co-director of the center. “This report clearly indicates that international cooperation and adequate resources are key to saving lives and protecting this special region.”

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GAINESVILLE, Florida, January 23, 2009 (ENS) – A coalition of conservation groups has notified the National Marine Fisheries Service of its intent to file a lawsuit as early as March if the agency does not act immediately to protect imperiled sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.

The action comes after fisheries observer data showed that the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery, which harvests reef fish like grouper and tilefish, resulted in the capture of nearly 1,000 threatened and endangered sea turtles between July 2006 and the end of 2007.

The coalition urges that the commercial bottom longline fishery be suspended until the federal agency meets its legal obligations under the Endangered Species Act to ensure that the fishery does not imperil sea turtles and other threatened species in the Gulf of Mexico.

All six species of sea turtles occurring in the United States are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Loggerhead sea turtle in Boynton Beach, Florida (Photo by PelagicSal)

Even though the fishery has far exceeded the number of turtles it is allowed to take under the Endangered Species Act, the Fisheries Service, has declined to close the fishery while it studies options for reducing turtle take, a decision the conservation groups claim is illegal.

“Allowing this fishery to continue to kill threatened and endangered turtles while the government studies the problem is irresponsible and illegal,” said Andrea Treece, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Now that the National Marine Fisheries Service knows the longline fleet is jeopardizing the future of the turtle populations they have a duty to act immediately,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network.

Loggerhead sea turtles are of greatest concern to the groups because this species accounted for 799 of the 974 captured turtles in the government analysis. This is more than three times the number of loggerheads the Service authorized the fishery to take in 2005.

Loggerhead nesting populations in Florida have dropped by 41 percent over the past 10 years. The groups say the large number of juvenile and reproductive adult turtles injured or killed by the bottom longline fishery is likely contributing to this steep decline.

“It’s devastating to think about all the hard work and progress we’ve made safeguarding Florida’s loggerheads and their nesting beaches being destroyed by this rampant level of take,” said David Godfrey, executive director of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation based in Gainsville. “We must stop and reassess the impacts of this fishery before it’s too late.”

The Gulf of Mexico bottom longline fishery operates primarily off the west coast of Florida, an area that provides key habitat for several sea turtle species, including loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, and green turtles.

Bottom longliners lay a mainline up to 10 miles long with as many as 2,100 baited hooks. Sea turtles are caught when they attempt to eat the bait or become entangled when swimming near a line.

“The use of longlining in the Gulf of Mexico is tragic. Loggerheads, Kemp’s ridleys and other sea turtles die caught by a fishing method that has no regard for the waste it entails and the death of endangered species,” said Carole Allen, Gulf office director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project. “It reminds many of us of the slaughter of sea turtles drowning in shrimp trawls before Turtle Excluder Devices were required.”

A Turtle Excluder Device is a grid of bars fitted into a trawl net. Shrimp pass through the bars and are caught in the bag end of the trawl. When larger animals, such as sea turtles are caught in the trawl they strike the bars and are ejected through the opening.

“There are other ways to catch the same fish without killing turtles,” said Sarthou. “The Service needs to follow the precedent set by Gulf shrimpers and require a change in gear now.”

Last month the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a revised Recovery Plan for the Northwest Atlantic Population of the loggerhead sea turtle, the first revision since 1991.

The recovery plan identifies 208 actions needed to achieve recovery of the Northwest Atlantic population of the loggerhead sea turtle, including new regulations to require turtle excluder devices in fisheries where they are not now required.

“Loggerhead sea turtles face many domestic and international threats, and thousands die around the world every year,” said Jim Balsiger, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “This plan will help our agency and our partners to conserve and recover the species by providing a blueprint to address threats in the northwestern Atlantic.”

The northwestern Atlantic sea turtle population includes the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Florida accounts for more than 90 percent of the loggerhead nesting in the United States, and is one of the two largest remaining loggerhead nesting locations in the world. The other is on the beaches of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula.

Loggerheads dug more than 35,000 nests on Florida beaches last year, more than in 2007, which were the lowest nesting levels in the 20 year history of the state’s monitoring program. But this increase did not reverse the long-term declining trend between 1998 and 2008, according to Florida wildlife officials.

Generally, female turtles nest on the same beaches each season. Many scientists believe that hatchlings, when grown, return to their natal beaches to nest.

Threats to loggerhead survival include bottom trawlers that drag heavy gear across the ocean floor; longline and gillnet fisheries; legal and illegal harvest; vessel strikes; beach armoring; beach erosion; marine debris ingestion; oil pollution; light pollution; and predation by raccoons and feral hogs, among other native and exotic species.

The highest priority actions include monitoring trends on nesting beaches; maintaining the current length and quality of protected nesting beach; and acquiring and protecting additional properties on key nesting beaches; reducing vessel interactions with loggerheads; and maintaining the federal Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.

Because loggerheads migrate into the waters of many countries, the plan recommends that the federal government work with foreign nations to eliminate commercial and subsistence harvest; and enact regulations to minimize loggerhead bycatch in their fisheries.

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GAINESVILLE, Florida, December 8, 2008 (ENS) – “Today, it’s difficult to find a bar in South Florida that doesn’t have a sawfish ’saw’ hanging on the wall,” says George Burgess, a University of Florida ichthyologist, or fish expert.

Burgess serves as curator of the International Shark Attack File and also as keeper of the newly expanded National Sawfish Encounter Database, a repository of all known historical and current records of sawfish in the United States.

Distinguished by a long rostrum or “saw” that makes it a popular curio item and gives the fish its name, the sawfish has become a historical and cultural icon that is rapidly disappearing.

Sawfish once swam in bays, lagoons and rivers from New York to the Rio Grande, Burgess said. Today, the species’ U.S. range has shrunk to the waters off south Florida. On April 1, 2003 the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service placed the smalltooth sawfish on the Endangered Species List, making it the first marine fish species to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Two sub-species of sawfish exist – the smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, shares the western Atlantic and parts of the eastern Atlantic with the largetooth sawfish, P. perotteti.

“Sawfish are disappearing all over the world for basically the same reason, which is that their big saws snag very easily in fishing nets,” he said. “They have become despised as net wreckers because obviously a fisherman doesn’t like getting one in his net. So over the years most sawfish that were captured were killed.”
A smalltooth sawfish in the waters of South Florida (Photo courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History)

Even those sawfish lucky enough to be tossed back into the water were often released without their saws, as people came to value these body parts as curio items, Burgess said.

Although the sawfish’s body resembles a shark, the sawfish belongs to a class of fish called rays. Its elongated blade-like snout is used to stun and kill prey.

To expand and consolidate information on the species distribution, the existing Florida Museum of Natural History records on sawfish are being merged with a database formerly housed at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, and with the database of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Information gathered by two private sawfish enthusiasts is being added.

Data from the collections will reveal the known distribution of sawfish throughout the United States.

Burgess and a team of scientists at the Florida Museum of History on the University of Florida campus plan to use the newly expanded sawfish database to enhance a management plan developed to help speed recovery of the species.

Burgess plans to contribute new research results as he and his team monitor the abundance of sawfish and use tags to track their movements within the Indian River Lagoon and Banana River along Florida’s east coast.

This area is critical to the recovery of the once widespread species, Burgess said.

Historically, the region was full of sawfish, but the numbers fell as development encroached on their coastal habitat and encounters with humans increased.

“Sawfish get lots of ooh’s and aah’s because humans tend to gravitate to the more charismatic megafauna, as it is characterized,” he said. “We place more values on whales than their kin the field mice or the brown-eyed seal more than we do some wood rat.”

Part of the sawfish’s appeal may also be its increasing rarity, said Burgess, who estimates there are only a few thousand sawfish left in Florida.

Although the sawfish has a long life span of 30 years or more, it is a live-bearer. As such, it has a prolonged gestation period and produces very few young, he said.

Because of its unusually slow growth, late onset of sexual maturity and low reproductive potential, it will take a long time for the sawfish population to recover, Burgess said.

Anyone who sees a sawfish is asked to contact Burgess’s team at 352-392-2360 or sawfish@flmnh.ufl.edu so they can record the sighting’s location. Mapping the sawfish’s distribution is important in fine-tuning the management plan developed to protect the endangered species, he said.

More information about how to file a sawfish sighting report and what kind of details to include can be obtained from the museum’s website at www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

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SEATTLE, Washington, September 29, 2008 (ENS) – The National Flood Insurance Program is pushing orcas and several runs of salmon towards extinction, in violation of the Endangered Species Act, according to a regulatory finding issued today by scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The National Flood Insurance Program is implemented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. Without making the changes called for by the Fisheries Service, cities and counties around the Puget Sound could lose their eligibility for federal flood insurance. A total of 252 Washington jurisdictions currently participate in the flood insurance program, including 39 counties, over 200 cities and towns, and two tribal reservations.

The federal fisheries agency issued the finding, known as a biological opinion, as required by a 2004 federal court decision.

In the case National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service, Judge Thomas Zilly of the federal district court in Seattle found that FEMA’s flood insurance program encouraged floodplain development and harmed salmon already listed as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act.

Puget Sound salmon (Photo courtesy
Puget Sound Partnership)

He ordered FEMA to consult with the Marine Fisheries Service to ensure compliance with the Act, and the document issued today is the result of that consultation.

“We have always known that building homes and businesses in the floodplain was dangerous and economically senseless,” said John Kostyack, excecutive director of wildlife conservation and global warming at the National Wildlife Federation.

“With global warming causing sea level rise and intensified storms, the risks of such development are now higher than ever. With this decision, we now have a tool for reducing risks to both wildlife and people,” said Kostyack.

The biological opinion documents the ways in which FEMA’s flood program encourages development within the floodplain area.

Because most private insurers refuse to insure floodplain homes, FEMA’s insurance program allows development to occur where it otherwise would not.

In addition, FEMA’s minimum development standards for floodplain construction currently fail to include environmental standards.

Floodwaters damaged farms, roads, businesses
and homes affecting thousands of residents
in Lewis County Washington. December
2007 (Photo by Leif Skoogfors
courtesy FEMA)

“Even where flood risk is well established (for example, in Lewis County on the Chehalis River), the National Flood Insurance Program’s current implementation does not significantly restrict floodplain development or encourage the preservation of floodplain natural and beneficial values,” the biological opinion states.

It points out that the City of Chehalis has nine percent of its Urban Growth Area in mapped floodplain, and Centralia has 21 percent of its Urban Growth Area in mapped floodplain.

“Development within the floodplain results in stream channelization, habitat instability, vegetation removal, and point and nonpoint source pollution (NMFS 1996) all of which contribute to degraded salmon habitat,” according to the biological opinion.

By insuring development in floodplain areas, the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that the program was jeopardizing the survival of Puget Sound chinook, Puget Sound steelhead, and Hood Canal summer-run chum salmon, and adversely modifying their designated critical habitat in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

It also found that by reducing the prey base for Southern Resident orcas, also called killer whales, it jeopardized them as well.

The biological openion warns that implementation of the FEMA program in Puget Sound could result in a 30 percent reduction of chinook salmon in Puget Sound – the orcas’ favored food source – in the years ahead.

Puget Sound was once inhabited by at least 37 populations of Chinook salmon, but today only 22 remain. The remaining Chinook salmon are at only 10 percent of their historic numbers, with some down lower than one percent of their historic numbers, according to the Puget Sound Partnership, a coalition of citizens, governments, tribes, scientists and businesses working together to restore and protect the sound.

As required by the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service set forth an alternative approach for FEMA that would not result in jeopardy to salmon and orcas.

FEMA and Washington State workers check
the bank erosion from flooding that is
endangering this house. January 2008.
(Photo by Marvin Nauman courtesy
FEMA)

The alternative includes new requirements that development within the floodplain and riparian buffer area be either prohibited or that its impacts to the stream be completely mitigated.

Any development in these sensitive areas should be required to use “low impact development.” This type of development specifies protection of native vegetation, pervious concretes that allow rain to flow through to the ground, narrow footprints, and rain gardens to absorb stormwater runoff.

Last month, the Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board declared that low impact development was both more effective than traditional stormwater controls like detention ponds, and cheaper to implement.

“Americans are getting tired of paying to rebuild flooded homes in places that should be left alone,” said Jan Hasselman, an attorney with the public interest law firm Earthjustice who argued the 2004 lawsuit against FEMA.

“The good news today is the federal agency scientists have stepped in on behalf of both American taxpayers and its wildlife and said no to building in flood-prone areas,” Hasselman said. “We think this is just plain old common sense.”

Click here [www.earthjustice.org] to read the biological opinion, formally known as the “Endangered Species Act – Section 7 Consultation Final Biological Opinion And Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Essential Fish Habitat Consultation Implementation of the National Flood Insurance Program in the State of Washington Phase One Document – Puget Sound Region.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 7, 2008 (ENS) – Five conservation groups have filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration over what they claim is an illegal delay in listing the Cook Inlet beluga whale under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, DC by the Center for Biological Diversity, Cook Inletkeeper, Natural Resources Defense Council, North Gulf Oceanic Society, and the Alaska Center for the Environment, seeks to compel the federal government to immediately make a final listing determination for the beluga population.

“There is simply no lawful reason for further delay in protecting the Cook Inlet beluga whale,” said Vicki Clark, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska who represents the conservation groups in their suit. “If we don’t act soon, we stand to lose this treasured part of Alaska’s and the United States’ natural heritage.”

The Cook Inlet beluga whale, Delphinapterus leucas, is a genetically distinct and geographically isolated population whose numbers have plummeted since the 1980s, when National Marine Fisheries Service scientists estimated the Cook Inlet beluga population numbered about 1,300 whales.
Beluga whale in Cook Inlet (Photo courtesy NOAA)
The most recent surveys by the agency, now known as NOAA Fisheries Service, show the population is currently estimated at 375 animals, the largest number counted since 2001.

Infrastructure projects – including the proposed Knik Arm Bridge, the Port of Anchorage Expansion, the Chuitna coal strip mine, and the Port MacKenzie expansion – will directly affect some of the whale’s most important habitat.

Following a 2006 petition from the conservation groups, the agency proposed to list the Cook Inlet beluga as endangered in April 2007. By law the agency was required to finalize the listing rule no later than April 20, 2008.

Instead, on April 22, the agency, bowing to pressure from development interests and the State of Alaska, announced that due to a “substantial disagreement” in the science it would delay the decision by six months.

The federal Marine Mammal Commission has stated that the purported scientific disagreement is “not scientifically credible.”

In a May 1 letter to Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, the commission recommends that the Department of Commerce “withdraw the six-month extension for determining whether to list the Cook Inlet beluga whale population, proceed immediately with an affirmative listing decision under the Endangered Species Act, and initiate all actions that flow from such a listing to conserve this population and promote its recovery.”

“The disagreement highlighted by the Service is whether there is a positive trend in response to harvest control measures established in 1999,” the commission said in its letter. “Between now and the end of the six-month extension, the only additional information on the trend will be a census estimate for 2008.”

NOAA Fisheries Service conducted the annual aerial survey for beluga whales in Cook Inlet in June and is expected to provide the population estimate in September.

The commission believes that the survey is just “one more data point” and that is “an insufficient and unreasonable basis for delaying a listing decision that withholds protective measures from a population that, as indicated by independent analysis and the most recent analysis by the Service’s own scientists, is clearly at high risk of extinction and in need of the protection of the Endangered Species Act.”

Cook Inlet is the most populated and fastest-growing watershed in Alaska, and subject to development pressures from oil and gas production, sewage discharge, and contaminated runoff and spills, which potentially affect the beluga whale and its habitat.

Infrastructure projects – including the proposed Knik Arm Bridge, the Port of Anchorage Expansion, the Chuitna coal strip mine, and the Port MacKenzie expansion – will directly affect some of the whale’s most important habitat.

“The experts agree: the science to list the Cook Inlet beluga is clear,” said Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper, who says the delay is due to the reluctance of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to allow the listing.

“The Palin administration’s request for delay and the Bush administration’s willingness to do so are not based in science but rather based on an ideology that always favors industry over the environment.” he said.

The conservation groups filed a 60 day notice of intent to sue as required by the Endangered Species Act immediately after the Fisheries Service announced the delay in listing the beluga in April. This suit, filed June 30, follows the end of the 60-day notice period.

“If the Cook Inlet beluga whale is to survive the coming decades it needs the protections that only the Endangered Species Act can provide,” said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity and one of the lawyers filing the lawsuit. “It’s simply unacceptable to sacrifice endangered whales on the altar of oil company profits.”

Cook Inlet belugas are one of five populations of belugas recognized within U.S. waters. The other beluga populations inhabit Bristol Bay, the eastern Bering Sea, the eastern Chukchi Sea, and the Beaufort Sea.

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SANTIAGO, Chile, July 1, 2008 (ENS) – The International Whaling Commission wound up its annual meeting here Friday without achieving new protections for whales or resolving the deep rifts that divide the member governments into pro-whaling and pro-conservation factions.

The meeting centered on the future of the commission with only brief clashes between the two factions, due to a strategy of avoiding votes and attempting to reach consensus through discussion.

The “no votes” strategy was created and guided by the IWC chairman and U.S. commissioner to the IWC, Dr. William Hogarth, a former top official in the National Marine Fisheries Service, who now is dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida.

It was intended to rebuild trust between the opposing factions in an effort to modernize the IWC for the future.

The strategy failed Thursday when Denmark insisted on a vote to increase by 10 the number of humpback whales Greenland whalers could kill as part of the country’s aboriginal subsistence whaling program.

A humpback whale breaches off the coast
of Greenland. (Photo courtesy Greenland
Tourism and Business Council)

Discussion of the proposal, which was defeated, plunged the 81 nation membership of the commission into a heated debate similar to past conflicts.

“We are extremely relieved to know that humpback whales are safe from hunting in European waters. The adoption of this flawed proposal from Greenland would have set a terrible precedent for allowing commercial elements in aboriginal subsistence hunting,” said Sue Fisher of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, an international organization based in the UK.

This vote on the Greenland quota was the first time that the European Union voted as a single block at an IWC meeting.

Following intense negotiations, the Member States of the European Union agreed that 20 of the 21 members present would oppose the proposal. Denmark voted yes under a legal exemption an has been lobbying hard to obtain the increased quota for Greenland, a self-governing Danish province.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society opposed the Greenland proposal on scientific grounds and on the basis that Greenland had not made a convincing case that it needed more whale meat to meet its subsistence needs. Currently, Greenland fails to take all the whales from its existing quota.

“There is also clear evidence of extensive commercialization of whale meat across Greenland and significant stockpiles of unused meat,” the WDCS said in a statement.

Once again this year, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa agreed to withdraw their proposal for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary with the hope that it would be taken as a sign of good faith that they are willing partners in the shaping of the IWC into an effective agency.

Australia tabled the first proposal the IWC has received for a non-lethal regional whale research program in the Southern Ocean.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett said, “This new Australian-led research partnership will provide the world with a non-lethal approach to gathering scientific information on whale populations in the Southern Ocean, helping improve our understanding of whales and cetaceans and enhancing our approach to their conservation and management.”

“Australia has remained staunch in opposing lethal ‘scientific’ whaling in the Southern Ocean,” Garrett said. “This new collaborative approach offers a new way to conduct whale research based on rigorous scientific methodology, and I would urge nations, including Japan, to participate.”

Garrett said in addition to support for the new research partnership, Australia’s further proposal for fundamental reform of the Commission is to be discussed at a newly established working group agreed at the Santiago meeting.

New Zealand is “cautiously optimistic” that the agreed path forward for the International Whaling Commission can solve some of the longstanding conflicts between IWC members, Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said Monday.

“This meeting saw a marked change from the hostile atmosphere that dominated past meetings and we have definitely moved forward,” she said.

“However, with Greenland’s decision to force a divisive vote on the addition of 10 humpback whales to its quota under aboriginal subsistence rules, we do feel progress has been two steps forward and one step back,” said the minister.

The Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru
hauls a minke whale aboard during its
lethal scientific whaling program in the
Southern Ocean. (Photo courtesy
Greenpeace)

On the contentious issue of special permit whaling, such as lethal research whaling despite a global moratorium on commercial whaling, this year, the IWC Scientific Committee presented a new method for the review of such permits.

The IWC will hold a small expert workshop that will be able to review new proposals, or the results of existing proposals, in an independent manner.

The new process will be used for the first time to review the results of the JARPN II programme. The Commission endorsed this process.

Under Japan’s special permit whaling programs, in 2007, a total of 551 Antarctic minke whales were taken under the JARPA II program, while 207 common minke, 100 sei, 50 Bryde’s and three sperm whales were taken under the JARPN II program in the North Pacific.

The issue of special permit whaling deeply divides the Commission and as in previous years, strong statements both in favor and against lethal research programs were made.

The Japanese delegation said it is “strongly convinced” that the current situation is undesirable for all members and that the IWC must be normalized.

“Japan commends and appreciates the tremendous efforts Chair-Hogarth has put in over the past year in order to once again make the IWC an effective organization that can fulfill its own mission, the conservation and management of whale resources,” Japan said in a statement.

Japan is of the view that “due to serious disagreements among different groups within the IWC, there has been a paucity of constructive, rational and science-based discussions and decisions. Such state of affairs can only be described as dysfunctional.”

Patrick Ramage, Global Whale Program director with the International Fund for Animal Welfare said, “The Commission is trying to chart a course for the future while ignoring ongoing whaling by just three member countries. Whale conservation measures were put on ice at this meeting. If Japan, Norway and Iceland are serious about compromise, they should prove it by suspending their ongoing whaling.”

“While the IWC is busy sorting out internal bureaucratic wranglings,” said Ramage, “1,500 whales will be targets for Japan’s harpoons in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary and North Pacific over the next year, while both Iceland and Norway continue their whaling hunts in defiance of the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium.”

Conservation organizations expressed concern that the meeting failed to address growing threats to whales, including increasing whaling by Japan, Iceland and Norway.

The next IWC annual meeting will be held in Madeira, Portugal in 2009.

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WASHINGTON, DC, June 26, 2008 (ENS) – Today, three conservation groups filed a lawsuit to force NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service to require ships to slow down to 10 knots in certain areas to avoid fatal collisions with endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Hunted nearly to extinction by the early 20th century, the North Atlantic right whale has yet to recover to healthy populations despite the protections of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Of the thousands that once swam the waters of the North Atlantic, only around 300 of these large whales remain, according to the International Whaling Commission. Human activities cause at least 50 percent of all right whale mortalities, and ship strikes are the leading human cause of right whale injuries and death.

Defenders of Wildlife, The Humane Society of the United States, and Ocean Conservancy filed the lawsuit, which seeks to have the Fisheries Service either complete the rulemaking process it began in 2006 or implement speed restrictions on an interim basis until the rulemaking is complete.

North Atlantic right whale with
calf in Florida waters (Photo
courtesy Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation
Commission / NOAA)

The legal action in federal court comes two years after the Fisheries Service proposed regulations needed to ensure the continued survival of the right whale and a year after the agency promised to finalize those regulations.

“We have been forced by the Bush administration’s inaction to once again return to court in order to gain protections for a species that hangs on the brink of extinction,” said Andrew Hawley, staff attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “Our litigation is necessary because this administration is more willing to listen to the shipping industry than it is to listen to its own scientists.”

Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection litigation for The Humane Society, said, “Right whales are literally being run into the ground by the commercial shipping industry.”

“They can’t afford to wait for any more broken promises,” he said.

It has been seven years since the Fisheries Service acknowledged that “the loss of even a single individual may contribute to the extinction of the species,” and four years since the agency announced its intention to slow and reroute ships in right whale habitat.

Since then, at least 10 right whales have been reported dead, and the proposed rule remains stalled on the desk of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In order to reduce the threat of ship strikes, scientists have determined that the Fisheries Service must set vessel speed limits at 10 knots within right whale habitat, when whales are present. The Fisheries Services has agreed with these determinations.

“It is clear that the Bush administration has no intention of moving forward with a ship strike rule, a rule firmly rooted in science to keep imperiled whale populations from going extinct,” said Vicki Cornish, vice president of marine wildlife conservation at Ocean Conservancy.

“We have been waiting for well over a year for the Office of Management and Budget to act, but now it’s time to work past the obstacles and follow the law to protect endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale,” she said.

The North Atlantic right whale is found in the waters off the entire East coast. Their habitat is crisscrossed by busy shipping lanes, and these waters are traversed by thousands of ships that make hundreds of thousands of port calls in the United States annually.

As a result, while several factors, including the species’ feeding, resting and socializing behaviors appear to make right whales particularly vulnerable to ship strikes, the high density of shipping traffic in right whale habitat increases the risk.

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LA JOLLA, California, June 5, 2008 (ENS) – The dolphin-safe tuna labels on cans may have worked as they were intended to work. Scientists report that numbers of spinner dolphins and spotted dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean appear to be increasing after these dolphin species died by the tens of thousands in tuna purse-seine nets between 1960 and 1990.

For unknown reasons, dolphins swim with schools of tuna. Fishermen used them to locate the fish, then the dolphins were caught up in the nets along with the target tuna and drowned.

Since the early 1990s, however, the number of reported dolphin deaths has been low because of severe restrictions on the fishery that were accompanied by dolphin-safe tuna labeling laws. The labels were placed on cans of tuna caught without harm to dolphins, which were preferred by many consumers.

Even so, the dolphins have been slow to recover, according to scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminnistration, NOAA.

“We expected to see these populations begin their recovery years ago, because fishermen have been so successful at reducing dolphin deaths,” said Tim Gerrodette of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, one of the report’s authors.

Spinner dolphins in the Eastern Tropical
Pacific Ocean (Photo courtesy
NOAA SFSC)

“The new data are the first to indicate the beginning of a recovery, but these initial indications are not enough to be confident that the populations will continue to grow,” he said.

Between 1960 and 1990, the northeastern offshore spotted and eastern spinner dolphin populations dropped to 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively, of their pre-fishery levels.

Today’s report stems from a series of research cruises conducted since 1986 in a large area west of Mexico and Central America. It presents new estimates of abundance for 10 dolphin stocks for each survey year between 1986 and 2006.

The most abundant dolphins in the study area were short-beaked common dolphins, which numbered about 3.13 million in 2006.

The least abundant were rough-toothed dolphins, which numbered about 108,000 and Risso’s dolphins, numbering 110,000 in 2006.

Researchers emphasize the need to continue to monitor dolphin populations at sea through comprehensive ecosystem research cruises, and to conduct an updated dolphin stock assessment that will include not only these most recent abundance estimates, but also additional information on dolphin life history, fishery mortality, and the ecosystem.

This assessment will enable a more definitive interpretation of whether these abundance estimates indicate Eastern Tropical Pacific dolphins are recovering and the degree to which the fishery and other factors affect the conservation of these stocks.

“These estimates are encouraging because they are consistent with what we would expect to see if these stocks are recovering, now that reported fishery mortality has been dramatically reduced,” said Dr. Lisa Ballance, director of NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center protected resources division and co-author of this study.

“However, we have to be careful not to jump to final conclusions,” she said. “We need to resolve the uncertainties around these estimates before we can definitively say these stocks are recovering.”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska, May 7, 2008 (ENS) – Alaska Natives and conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Anchorage Monday to stop noisy oil and gas exploration planned for this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas above the Arctic Circle.

Seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent seismic surveying in the Arctic Ocean, the lawsuit alleges the federal government violated the National Environmental Policy Act by issuing permits to Shell Oil and British Petroleum prematurely, before completing an Environmental Impact Statement.

It also charges that the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act by issuing an Incidental Harassment Authorization that allows Shell to “take” by harassment several species of seals and whales during seismic surveys conducted to determine where oil and gas is located.

Under the law the government may authorize the incidental taking by harassment of only “small numbers” of marine mammals. The lawsuit claims that the NMFS illegally authorized Shell to harass more than 40,000 marine mammals, including nearly 40 percent of the beluga whales in the Chukchi Sea and more than 20 percent of the endangered bowhead whales that feed and calve in these waters.

Air guns such as this are towed behind
seismic survey vessels. Pressurized
to 2000+ psi, they release the
pressure at intervals ranging from
every 10 to every 60 seconds,
blasting sound across the ocean.
(Photo courtesy Rice University)

Seismic work uses underwater air guns that generate extremely loud noise, the lawsuit claims. A single blast is 10 times louder than a rocket launch, the plaintiffs point out, and the blasts occur every 10 to 15 seconds for days, weeks and even months at a time.

These sounds carry through the water for hundreds of miles and have been known to cause permanent hearing loss in marine mammals. They can disrupt feeding, migration, social bonding, and predator avoidance, and have been associated with stranded whales.

The lawsuit claims these sounds can interfere with Native Alaskans’ ability to hunt for these subsistence food sources, particularly the bowhead whale.

“Oil operations will not just hurt our community ‘Tikigaq’ Point Hope, but will hurt all of the hunting communities,” said Luke Koonook Sr. who has been a whaling captain since the early 1970s and is from the Native Village of Point Hope, a federally recognized tribal government.

“If oil is found, there are going to be lots of ships going back and forth and this is going to interrupt the animals’ migratory routes. They won’t come around anymore,” said Koonook. “We hunters will have a hard time finding the food we are used to eating; it is going to hurt our way of life.”

The plaintiffs suspect that the National Marine Fisheries Service will issue additional permits to allow Shell, BP and several other companies to harass seals and whales throughout this summer and fall.

“The federal government must stop pandering to the oil companies and start giving these mammals, that are already living in stressed conditions, the protections they are due,” said David Dickson, Western Arctic and Oceans Program director at the Alaska Wilderness League. “We are asking them to follow the law.”

This summer and fall up to five companies are expected to conduct various types of seismic surveys using nine seismic source vessels that will fire air guns around the clock. This is the highest level of seismic operation to date. In 2006, three companies operated in the Chukchi Sea.

“Imagine trying to function with a jackhammer thundering on and off outside your window, night and day,” says Dr. Lance Barrett-Lennard, senior marine mammal research scientist at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre. He uses this analogy to describe the “deafening torment” endured by whales in areas of oil and gas exploration.

Although oil companies are required to use shipboard observers to monitor the surface of the water and order seismic air guns to shut down when marine mammals come close enough to suffer physical injury, the plaintiff group say these measures are inadequate.

Monitoring reports from 2006 and 2007 show that scores of seals, several gray and bowhead whales and about 50 walrus were exposed to high noise levels before air guns were shut down.

Many more animals may have been exposed during rough seas, fog, and rain when they are hard to spot, or during periods of darkness when observers were not on watch, the plaintiffs say.

Last September as part of separate litigation, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction blocking Shell from drilling for oil in the Beaufort Sea because of risks to polar bears and endangered whales. A final ruling in that case is expected any day.

The plaintiffs’ complaint was based, in part, on the lack of information about wildlife populations and habitat that would enable adequate evaluation of effects on bowhead whale migration and feeding.

Since that ruling, Shell has conducted aerial surveys and discovered that about one-third of the total population of bowhead whales feeds in that area off the north coast of Alaska in the Beaufort Sea.

“All of the marine mammals of the Arctic are under severe threat from global warming and should not be subjected to further harm,” said Brendan Cummings, Oceans Program director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas support endangered bowhead whales, beluga whales, gray whales, several seal species, Pacific walrus, polar bears, and about 100 fish species. Endangered humpback whales have begun to migrate into these waters in recent years.

“Inupiat subsistence hunters have said that offshore seismic testing has seriously harmed Chukchi and Beaufort Sea marine mammals in the past, and has actually caused them loss of hunting,” said Faith Gemmill, campaign organizer for REDOIL, one of the plaintiff groups.

The REDOIL Network, is an Alaska Native grassroots organization that resists unsustainable fossil fuel development and includes members of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich’in, Eyak and Dena’ina Athabascan tribes. REDOIL, which stands for Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, joined the lawsuit because of concerns about the effects of seismic activities on Native Alaskans.

“These communities live from the bounty of the seas,” said Gemmill. “It is immoral for the federal government to permit activities that threaten their livelihood.”

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SEATTLE, Washington, April 10, 2008 (ENS) – The Pacific Fishery Management Council today closed the commercial and sport chinook fisheries off the coast of California and most of Oregon and will allow only a 9,000 fishery for hatchery coho only off of Central Oregon.

The council adopted the most restrictive salmon fishing quotes in the history of the West Coast in response to the unprecedented collapse of the Sacramento River fall chinook salmon population and the exceptionally poor status of coho salmon from Oregon and Washington.

The recommendation will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval by May 1, 2008.

“This is a disaster for West Coast salmon fisheries, under any standard,” said council chairman Don Hansen. “There will be a huge impact on the people who fish for a living, those who eat wild-caught king salmon, those who enjoy recreational fishing, and the businesses and coastal communities dependent on these fisheries.”

The council said in a statement that while it cannot explain why the fish are not returning, it is clear that overfishing did not cause the depressed condition, as the parent spawning populations were all above their escapement goal.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has suggested ocean temperature changes, and a resulting lack of upwelling, as a possible cause of the sudden decline.

Many biologists believe a combination of human-caused and natural factors will ultimately explain the collapse, including both marine conditions and freshwater factors such as in-stream water withdrawals, habitat alterations, dam operations, construction, pollution, and changes in hatchery operations.

The Council has requested a multi-agency task force led by the National Marine Fisheries Service’s West Coast Science Centers to research about 50 potential causative factors and report back to the Council at the September meeting in Boise, Idaho.

The Sacramento River fall chinook stock is the driver of commercial and recreational salmon fisheries off California and most of Oregon, the council says.

“The reason for the sudden decline of Sacramento River fish is a mystery at this time,” said Council Executive Director Don McIsaac. “The only thing that can be done in the short term is to cut back the commercial and recreational fishing seasons to protect the remaining fish.”

Small tributaries of the Sacramento River
like this one are supposedly good salmon
rearing habitat, but few salmon are
expected there this year.
(Photo courtesy USFWS)

“The longer-term solution will involve a wide variety of people, agencies, and organizations,” said McIsaac. “But for now, unfortunately, those involved in the salmon fisheries are paying the price.”

Salmon fisheries off California and Oregon typically have been large – involving seasons from May 1 to October 31 and average over 800,000 chinook caught per year from 2000 to 2005.

But this year, although chinook quotas in the area north of Cape Falcon in northern Oregon are similar to 2007 and chinook stocks are generally more abundant, depressed natural coho stocks are constraining access of commercial fisheries to the chinook salmon, the council said.

Sport fisheries, many of which depend on coho salmon, are even more restricted. Coho quotas are less than 20 percent of the 2007 season for non-Indian fisheries and about 50 percent of 2007 levels for treaty-Indian fisheries.

The closures south of Cape Falcon are due to a sudden, unprecedented decline in the number of Sacramento River fall chinook returning to the river this year.

The minimum conservation goal for Sacramento fall chinook is 122,000 – 180,000 spawning adult salmon, the number needed to return to the river to maintain the health of the run.

As recently as 2002, adult salmon numbering about 775,000 returned to spawn.

This year, even with all ocean salmon fishing closures, the return of fall run chinook to the Sacramento is projected to be only 54,000.

“The salmon fishing culture that has been a cornerstone of the coastal communities has reached a low ebb point in 2008 for the collective three West Coast states,” said Mark Cedergreen, council vice chairman. “This was the responsible thing to do, but it will hurt.”

In California and Oregon south of Cape Falcon, where Sacramento fish stocks have the biggest impact, the commercial and recreational salmon fishery had an average economic value of $103 million per year between 1979 and 2004.

The record low seasons are devastating news to beleaguered salmon fleets on the west coast. California and Oregon ocean salmon fisheries are still recovering from a poor fishing season in 2005 and a disastrous one in 2006, when Klamath River fall chinook returns were below their spawning escapement goal.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is online at: www.pcouncil.org

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LOS ANGELES, California, January 3, 2008 (ENS) – A federal court in California has imposed a 12 nautical mile no-sonar exclusion zone along the California coast to protect whales and other marine mammals from mid-frequency sonar used by the U.S. Navy during training exercises.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California today issued a preliminary injunction requiring the exclusion zone as part of a series of mitigation measures that will govern the use of mid-frequency sonar by the U.S. Navy in the waters off Southern California.

The high-intensity mid-frequency sonar can produce harmful levels of underwater noise that has killed and injured marine mammals in several incidents around the world.

Calling elements of the Navy’s mitigation scheme “grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure,” the court ordered that sonar be excluded from Catalina Basin, an area of high marine mammal density.

The court ordered intensive monitoring for marine mammals before and during sonar use and an expanded safety zone and shutdown of the sonar when marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards.

Two dedicated lookouts, trained by the National Marine Fisheries Service, must be on board the Navy vessel using the sonar for monitoring during exercises.

Blue whale surfaces for air off
the coast of California (Photo
courtesy Big Sur Chamber of
Commerce)

“We have said from the beginning of this litigation that the Navy can meet its training objectives while substantially increasing protections against unnecessary harm to whales and other marine mammals,” said Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, which filed the lawsuit.

“We are very pleased that the Court has agreed with us and has enjoined the Navy from conducting these exercises unless it takes the necessary precautions,” Reynolds said.

The waters off Southern California hold five endangered species of whales, a globally important population of endangered blue whales, the largest animal ever to live on Earth, and seven species of beaked whales, which are known to be particularly vulnerable to underwater sound, said Reynolds.

On November 13, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered the Navy not to use high-intensity sonar in its future training exercises off Southern California until serious questions over likely harm to marine mammals could be resolved, and had ordered the district court to impose mitigations on the Navy exercises sufficient to “provide adequate safeguards for the protection of the environment.”

In early August, a coalition led by NRDC won an injunction from the district court, which concluded that without adequate measures to protect marine life, the Navy’s use of high-intensity sonar during training exercises likely violates federal environmental laws.

The court wrote that the injunction was necessary given the “near certainty” that the use of mid-frequency sonar during the planned Southern California exercises would cause irreparable harm to the environment, and characterized the Navy’s mitigation measures as “woefully inadequate and ineffectual.”

In late August, a three-judge motion’s panel of the court of appeals granted, in a split decision, a stay of injunction, allowing the Navy to use sonar during its exercises. That stay was reversed on November 13.

“Based on a careful weighing of the various interests, the court has issued an order that significantly enhances protections for marine mammals in Southern California,” said Richard Kendall, a senior partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella, and co-counsel with NRDC in the lawsuit.

Mitigation measures were urged on the Navy months ago by the California Coastal Commission, which found them necessary to bring the training exercises into compliance with California’s coastal laws.

NRDC was joined in the lawsuit by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Cetacean Society International, League for Coastal Protection, Ocean Futures Society, and Jean-Michel Cousteau.

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