Bottlenose bullies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That pretty much describes the behavior of some of the bottlenose dolphins that frequent the waters near\u00a0Makako Bay, just north of the Kona\u00a0airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up until about 2006, most of the dolphins in the area were the much smaller spinner dolphins. Makako Bay had been used by the spinners as a daytime resting\u00a0area, with up to 90 percent of the Kona\u00a0spinner dolphins using it, according to Robin Baird of the Cascadia Research Collective. Baird has been studying false killer whales and other marine mammals in the area for the last couple of decades. He described his work on the bottlenose dolphins at this year\u2019s conference on Hawai\u2018i ecosystem research organized by Stanford University\u2019s Peter Vitousek,\u00a0held virtually in early July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting around 2006, shortly after an open-ocean fish farm had been installed\u00a0in the area, one or two bottlenose dolphins began hanging around the farm\u2019s\u00a0giant net cages off of Keahole Point,\u00a0Baird said. The farm raises amberjack\u00a0fish, also known as kahala and sold as kampachi, with each of the cages holding thousands of the fish. At times,\u00a0Baird said, there might be seven or eight bottlenose dolphins in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Research cruises led by Baird have encountered bottlenose dolphins 31\u00a0times in close proximity to the fish farm\u00a0and have logged 18 more encounters of\u00a0bottlenose dolphins within five kilometers of it. Altogether, 35 individuals have been documented at the fish farm,\u00a0both males and females, by Baird and his\u00a0team. This, he said, suggests that the fish\u00a0farm is attracting ever more bottlenose dolphins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bottlenose dolphins belong to one of four stocks around the Main Hawaiian Islands. The population for the Hawai\u2018i Island stock is thought to number about 136.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early on in the fish-farm operation, workers would feed the dolphins, Baird said, citing a report from Neil Sims, one of the farm\u2019s executive officers at the time. While that practice has ended, the bottlenose dolphins continue to hang around the aquaculture facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over time, the behavior of these farm-associated bottlenose dolphins has become more aggressive, Baird said, not only toward the spinners, but also toward false killer whales. \u201cThey try to get food from false killer whales,\u201d he said, and, in one observed instance, attempted to separate a false killer whale calf from its mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fish farm, Baird suggested, represents a fixed food source for the bottlenose\u00a0dolphins, reducing the amount of time\u00a0they spend foraging. At the same time,\u00a0their aggression toward spinners seems to have caused the spinners to abandon their resting area at Makoko Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 2013 paper, Sims speculated that the bottlenose dolphins \u201care probably\u00a0attracted to the fish farm by a combination of: (i) the presence of the midwater\u00a0structures acting as a fish aggregating device and the associated fish community\u00a0that is present around the net pens; (ii) the occasional provisioning from \u2018leakage\u2019 escapes when divers enter or exit a net pen and from the rare larger escape incidents when predators have breached the Dyneema nylon webbing; and (iii) interaction with divers outside of the net pen, as the divers move about the farm from boat to net pen and back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But more recently, divers have discovered the animals managing to open the\u00a0pens and allow the fish to swim out \u2013 into\u00a0the welcoming jaws of the dolphins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Divers who frequent the area have caught this on videos posted to the web. One of them, Dylan Currier, has explained the action this way: \u201cThis pod claims an offshore fish farm as their territory and has developed an inge- nious method of harvesting their own percentage of the catch. The dolphins swim down below the rim of the cage where there are holes in the net and use blasts of air to scare the jacks out into the open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Baird said until the observations of\u00a0the bottlenose dolphins around the fish\u00a0farm, he had never seen bottlenose and\u00a0spinner dolphins together. \u201cAll aggressive behaviors,\u201d he said, \u201cinvolved farm-associated dolphins.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few kahala manage to escape both cages and the bottlenose dolphins. At the June meeting of the Western Pacific\u00a0Fishery Management Council, council\u00a0member Ed Watamura, a fisherman, said\u00a0that the escaped kahala are \u201cbarraging everything.\u201d Fishers targeting bottomfish\u00a0\u201chave to pick up and move\u201d when the\u00a0kahala come along, he said. \u201cAfter catching 10 or 12 kahalas, you give up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany bottomfishermen are saying\u00a0the same thing,\u201d he added. \u201cThe escapees are a problem. And we know it\u2019s the\u00a0result of escapees. There are two types of kahalas. The one\u2019s we\u2019re catching more of are the aquaculture kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the June meeting of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, members heard Jim Lynch, chairman of the council\u2019s Scientific and Statistical\u00a0Committee, lay out a proposal that certain members of the SSC had been developing. The informal working group \u2013 consisting of Lynch, retired social scientist and longtime SSC member Craig\u00a0Severance, Australian environmental\u00a0consultant Milani Chaloupka, and David Itano, a former fisheries biologist\u00a0with the National Marine Fisheries Service and now a consultant in private practice \u2013 had come up with an outline of what Lynch and the others hoped would eventually be an article in a peer-reviewed\u00a0scientific journal discrediting the several measures imposed on the Hawai\u2018i-\u00a0based longline tuna fishery\u00a0to reduce its impact on false killer whales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the SSC meeting held the previous week, Lynch had unveiled the group\u2019s
work to the rest of the committee. \u201cSome of us have seen a lack of action,\u201d he said, when it came to\u00a0reducing the impacts of fishing on false\u00a0killer whale populations. \u201cThe SSC\u2019s recommendations have not been taken into account. The paper we developed attempts to synthesize years of data and recommendations\u201d that could be forwarded to the council and the National Marine Fisheries Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe goal and intent is to produce one\u00a0or more scientific presentations that can\u00a0be presented to journals,\u201d Lynch said. The paper or papers could then be used by the agencies \u201cto address impacts to false killer whales in a lawful and pragmatic way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each member of the working group\u00a0was assigned a section to work on. Although the draft paper was distributed to other members of the SSC who weren\u2019t included in the working group, it was not made public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A summary of the group\u2019s preliminary conclusions was presented in\u00a0outline form, however. Among other\u00a0things, the group had:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 reviewed \u201ca decade of interaction research and mitigation efforts;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 taken note of previous SSC and council recommendations (\u201cboth those followed and ignored!\u201d);<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 reviewed gear modifications, seeing \u201cpromise in the industry-led switch\u201d to monofilament leaders; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 taken note of the fact that under\u00a0the federal Marine Mammal Protection\u00a0Act, the development of PBR \u2013 potential\u00a0biological removal \u2013 \u201cdrives the process, but does not encourage creative solutions. (PBR is the maximum number of animals that can be removed from a\u00a0defined population while still allowing that population to reach its optimum level.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several approaches to mitigation that have either been adopted or are now being studied were pooh-poohed. A proposed \u201cmove-on strategy,\u201d requiring vessels that encounter false killer whales to relocate to different fishing grounds, is \u201cinappropriate for a fishery marketing fresh, iced product with limited storage time,\u201d the working group found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCatch-shielding gears,\u201d to protect\u00a0caught fish from depredation by false\u00a0killer whales, \u201chave many logical issues,\u201d while \u201cacoustic deterrents can become ineffective and contribute to the \u2018dinnerbell\u2019 effect,\u201d the group determined. Like the move-on strategy, these two\u00a0approaches have merely been floated as\u00a0possible deterrence measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three additional mitigation measures that are either required or are being studied are the use of weak hooks (allowing the animals to free themselves when the line is held taut); cutting branch lines close to the hook, and thus minimizing trailing gear when the animal is set free; and \u201cnovel line-cutting devices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last of these is actually in development by the Hawai\u2018i Longline Association, in connection with its switch\u00a0to monofilament leaders on all deep-set longline (tuna-targeting) fishing vessels.\u00a0This approach, the group concluded, \u201cshould be promoted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for weak hooks, their use is the subject of an ongoing study, whose results are expected to be released later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group was skeptical about the utility of cutting branch lines closer to the hook. This \u201cshould be better assessed in relation to post-release condition and serious injury determinations,\u201d the group found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chaloupka\u2019s presentation was the harshest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The false killer whales are \u201cabundant\u00a0and widespread in the Pacific,\u201d he said,\u00a0with both the insular populations of the animals as well as their pelagic counterparts exposed to anthropogenic hazards around Hawai\u2018i. They are not at \u201chigh\u00a0risk\u201d of capture by the Hawai\u2018i fleet, he\u00a0added, and there\u2019s no evidence of a \u201chigh apparent rate of at-vessel mortality\u201d for\u00a0animals taken in the fishery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He continued. There is no \u201creliable information\u201d on captures and at-vessel mortality \u201creadily available for monitoring status and trends;\u201d no reliable estimate of post-release mortality and sublethal effects for animals caught by longliners; no \u201creliable demographic parameters … needed for stock assessment and diagnosing trends;\u201d no \u201clevel-4 population consequences of distribution- based risk assessment;\u201d and no evaluation of the effect of the Southern Exclusion Zone or weak-hook rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo,\u201d he concluded, \u201cis an evidence-informed bycatch mitigation policy in place? No.\u201d It is, he added, \u201ca unicorn.\u201d\u00a0To which council executive director Kit-\u00a0ty Simonds replied, \u201cAmen, brother.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another SSC member then asked him, \u201cWhat\u2019s a unicorn?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA figment of your imagination,\u201d Chaloupka responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group came up with six recommendations, including several that seem at odds with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recommendation three calls for additional studies of false killer whale population dynamics. The fourth recommendation suggests that a new metric, other than PBR (potential biological removal) be developed to assess trends in the false killer whale population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fifth recommendation calls for elevating the role of the Scientific and Statistical Committee in developing measures included in the Take Reduc- tion Plan for false killer whales. The friction between the False Killer Whale Take Reduction Committee, charged with reducing the interactions between<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the protected animals and the longline\u00a0fishery, and the SSC goes back years. It broke into the open in January 2014,\u00a0when Robin Baird, who sits on the TRT and who, at the time, was on the council\u2019s Protected Species Advisory Committee, was disparaged by Chaloupka when Baird was making a presentation to the SSC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Baird pioneered research into false killer whale populations in waters sur- rounding the islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and it was largely his work that was responsible for listing the insular population, around the Main Hawaiian Islands, as an endangered distinct population segment under the federal\u00a0Endangered Species Act. Baird also sits\u00a0on the Take Reduction Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As reported in Environment Hawai\u2018i <\/em>in the March and May 2014 editions, Baird was so outraged by the conduct of Chaloupka that he resigned from the council advisory committee and walked out of the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final recommendation is that the council adopt \u201cconformance-based monitoring\u201d of false killer whale cap- tures. What exactly this means was not explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lynch made the same presentation to the full council the following week. Council members praised the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ed Watamura: \u201cJust wanted to say hallelujah, Jim. … You guys, everything you\u2019re doing is what I\u2019ve been thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n McGrew Rice was also thrilled: \u201cThis is the most exciting part of the meeting for me. I\u2019ve been on the trail of false killer whales for the last nine years. Good to see you guys are putting it on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mike Tosatto, administrator of NMFS\u2019 Pacific Islands Regional Office, praised the group\u2019s work as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI say that with sincerity,\u201d Tosatto continued. \u201cI can commit, we have a MMPA structure. … I wouldn\u2019t char- acterize it as a failed act, but it can be improved, catch up to the times. The MMPA has many benefits, but it also has many unfortunate statutory require- ments. We have to follow them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted that the council operates\u00a0under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, \u201cupdated every ten to fifteen years. The MMPA is stuck in the past. The obligation of the Take Reduction Team is\u00a0well defined as reducing PBR [potential biological removal] but we have to get\u00a0to near zero. That\u2019s not necessarily the same objective as the council has.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lynch replied that he, too, tried to educate SSC members about the con- straints of the law. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t stop there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to educate everyone. We owe it to ourselves to not just be complacent but challenge things that don\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The relation between toxoplasmosis, feral cat colonies, and monk seal deaths has been well established. In recent years, 13 monk seal deaths have been attributed to toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a parasite shed in cat feces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But scientists at the Pacific Islands\u00a0Fishery Science Center have also been observing monk seal strandings (including deaths) that seemed to happen after rainy periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As explained in the science center\u2019s recent report to the council, \u201cwe set out to formally study the association between toxoplasmosis strandings and major freshwater runoff events that might flush oocysts [similar to eggs] into the monk seals\u2019 coastal habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n PIFSC researchers\u2019 initial findings \u201cindicate that cases were up to 35 times more\u00a0likely than controls to occur a few weeks after heavy runoff events. The greatest odds ratio was observed when rainfall occurred three weeks prior to stranding, potentially providing clues about the timeline of the disease process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The heavy rainfall events, the researchers noted, deliver \u201csufficient numbers\u00a0of oocysts to infect Hawaiian monk seals. With infectious doses as low as a single oocsyst, any contaminated runoff constitutes a serious risk to Hawaii\u2019s endangered monk seals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers conclude, \u201cThis analysis indicates, as has been documented in other marine species, that land-to-sea\u00a0flow of oocysts locally is the main source\u00a0of exposure for Hawaiian monk seals and suggests that local to regional scale efforts to mitigate oocyst deposition and runoff can reduce risk of exposure to this devastating disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Patricia Tummons<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bottlenose bullies. That pretty much describes the behavior of some of the bottlenose dolphins that frequent the waters near Makako Bay, just north of the Kona airport. Up until about 2006, most of the dolphins in the area were the much smaller … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[486,26,8,17],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-13772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2021","category-endangered-species","category-fisheries","category-marine","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\nToxoplasmosis, Rain,\u00a0And Dying Monk Seals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n