Watchdog Accuses Trump's NOAA of 'Choosing Extinction' for Right Whales by Hiding Scientific Evidence
17h
Animals
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Thursday accused NOAA of ignoring its own scientists' findings about the endangerment of the North Atlantic right whale. Lauren Packard / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
By Julia Conley
As the North Atlantic right whale was placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of critically endangered species Thursday, environmental protection groups accusing the U.S. government of bowing to fishing and fossil fuel industry pressure to downplay the threat and failing to enact common-sense restrictions to protect the animals.
<p>Only 400 right whales are left in existence, and fewer than 250 of them are mature, <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/41712/162001243#threats" target="_blank">leading the IUCN</a> to drop its "endangered" classification for the whale and add it to its "critically endangered" Red List. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.peer.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/7_8_20_emails.pdf" target="_blank">According to</a> Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), NOAA has access to extensive science showing the danger in which humans have placed the whales, but internal emails show the agency aimed to put a positive spin on the outlook for the creatures.</p><p>Emails from February 2020 show career scientific staff writing that political officials within the agency were "freaked out" at the notion of the press reporting on Dragon, a female right whale who has not been seen in months and is presumed dead. </p><p>"But they'd be all over another calf sighting," NOAA Fisheries biologist Tim Cole <a href="https://www.peer.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/7_8_20_emails.pdf" target="_blank">wrote. </a></p><p>"Ah, I see. They only want to share the good news, not the bad," replied Allison Henry, another scientist at the agency.</p><p><a href="https://www.peer.org/noaa-balks-at-steps-to-save-remaining-right-whales/" target="_blank">According to</a> PEER, 100% of North Atlantic right whale fatalities are caused by boats striking them and by entanglements in fishing gear.</p><p>"The North Atlantic right whale is the world's first large whale species nearing extinction," <a href="https://www.peer.org/noaa-balks-at-steps-to-save-remaining-right-whales/" target="_blank">said</a> PEER science policy director Kyla Bennett. "Its extinction is entirely preventable. NOAA has powerful tools to protect the North Atlantic right whale, but it is choosing not to use them. In this case, NOAA is choosing extinction."</p><p>In addition to fishing boats and 900,000 vertical lines that right whales are forced to navigate during lobster season, the whales' wellbeing is threatened by seismic airgun blasts conducted by oil and gas companies for offshore drilling. </p><p>In March, Democracy Forward <a href="https://democracyforward.org/press/democracy-forward-demands-investigations-noaa-political-appointees/" target="_blank">called on</a> the inspector general of the U.S. Commerce Department to investigate whether political appointees at NOAA had altered career scientists' proposed conservation measures regarding the blasts.</p><p>Reports that appointees modified scientists' warnings "raise troubling questions about whether political appointees at NOAA violated federal law and NOAA's own Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity, which mandates that in 'no circumstance may any NOAA official ask or direct Federal scientists or other NOAA employees to suppress or alter scientific findings,'" Democracy Forward <a href="https://democracyforward.org/press/democracy-forward-demands-investigations-noaa-political-appointees/" target="_blank">said</a>.</p>
<p>Democracy Forward demanded an investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department's inspector general.</p><p>"In reportedly bowing to political pressure and altering required scientific analysis in the policymaking process, NOAA appointees may have violated federal law and NOAA's own regulations, and jeopardized the very survival of the North Atlantic right whale," <a href="https://democracyforward.org/press/democracy-forward-demands-investigations-noaa-political-appointees/" target="_blank">said</a> Democracy Forward senior counsel Michael Martinez at the time. "The Trump administration's practice of injecting politics into the scientific decision-making process risks NOAA's credibility as a fact and science-driven agency. An investigation is warranted." </p><p>PEER <a href="https://www.peer.org/scientific-misrepresentations-sinking-north-atlantic-right-whale/" target="_blank">called for</a> a similar probe in 2019 when the National Marine Fisheries Service reportedly omitted scientific research about endangerment in its reporting on the right whale, but neither investigation has been completed. </p><p>NOAA has also failed to aggressively restrict the activities of fishing boats even when the agency is aware of right whales in a particular offshore area, PEER said Thursday.</p><p>In June, one of just 10 calves born this season was struck by a boat and killed off the coast of New Jersey, where officials had not issued a speed warning to vessels. Warnings are only issued when at least three right whales are known to be in an area.</p><p>"At the very least, NOAA must alert vessels when any right whale is in the area of shipping lanes," Bennett said.</p><p>The effects of NOAA's negligence on right whales has been compounded by President Donald Trump's June executive order permitting commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/right-whales-decline-deadly-entanglements-continue-iucn-finds-2020-07-09/" target="_blank">said</a> the Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday.</p>
<p>"The United States and Canada must do more to protect whales from speeding ships and slow, painful deaths in fishing gear," <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/right-whales-decline-deadly-entanglements-continue-iucn-finds-2020-07-09/" target="_blank">said</a> Kristen Monsell, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity's oceans program. "We should be closing more right whale habitat to fishing, speeding the transition to ropeless gear and requiring large ships to slow down. These are some common-sense measures both U.S. and Canadian officials should adopt to save these beautiful whales."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/10/watchdog-accuses-trumps-noaa-choosing-extinction-critically-threatened-right-whales" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Left: Lemurs in Madagascar on March 30, 2017. Mathias Appel / Flickr. Right: A North Atlantic right whale mother and calf. National Marine Fisheries Service
A new analysis by scientists at the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that lemurs and the North Atlantic right whale are on the brink of extinction.
<p>For lemurs, the analysis found that almost one-third of the species in Madagascar are critically <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a> while 98 percent are threatened or worse, according to the IUCN's updated Red List of Threatened Species. The demise of lemurs is largely attributed to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" target="_self">deforestation</a> and hunting on the giant island off eastern Africa, conservationists said Thursday, as the <a href="https://apnews.com/82146ce2b2b9b98bb21b110eb14a797b#:~:text=GENEVA%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20Nearly%20all,eastern%20Africa%2C%20conservationists%20said%20Thursday." target="_blank">AP</a> reported.</p><p>To put that in numbers, instead of percentages, 33 lemur species are critically endangered, with 103 of the 107 surviving species threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN. The updated list now has 13 species pushed into the critically endangered category due to human activity.</p>
<p>The IUCN also says there were fewer than 250 mature North Atlantic right <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> believed to be alive in 2018, marking a 15-percent drop since 2011. That number includes about only 100 breeding females.</p><p>"At the heart of this crisis is a dire need for alternative, sustainable livelihoods to replace the current reliance on deforestation and unsustainable use of wildlife," Grethel Aguilar, IUCN's acting director general, said in a statement, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/09/north-atlantic-right-whale-is-face-an-extinction-crisis-report-says/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported. "These findings really bring home the urgent need for an ambitious post-2020 biodiversity framework that drives effective conservation action."</p>
<p>At the end of June, one dead whale was spotted off the coast of New Jersey. That six-month-old calf had been struck several times on the head, suggesting one or possibly two vessel collisions, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/climate/trump-north-atlantic-right-whale.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. Increasingly, collisions with ships, entanglements in fishing nets, and underwater noise pollution are killing the animals, which rely on echolocation for basic activities such as feeding, communicating and finding mates, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/07/09/north-atlantic-right-whale-is-face-an-extinction-crisis-report-says/" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>The North Atlantic right whale also faces an increased threat from the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. The IUCN says that warming ocean temperatures have likely pushed the species' main prey species further north during summer, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the whales are more exposed to accidental encounters with ships and also at high risk of entanglement in crab-pot ropes.</p><p>The whale's preferred home, in the Gulf of Maine's deep waters, has warmed nearly 9 degrees Fahrenheit since 2004, faster than 99 percent of the world's oceans for much of this century, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/climate/trump-north-atlantic-right-whale.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>The prospects are bleak for the North Atlantic right whale now that President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> lifted restrictions on commercial fishing in a key area of the whale's habitat.</p>
<p>"Unless we act decisively to turn the tide, the next time the right whale's Red List status changes it will be to 'extinct,'" Jane Davenport, a senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>The deaths of 30 Atlantic right whales were confirmed as human-caused between 2012 and 2016, according to the IUCN report, and all but four were caused by entanglement in fishing gear.</p><p>Peter Corkeron, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium, has chronicled the gruesome deaths of right whales as the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's research program for large whales for the last decade. He told the New York Times he feared the listing would have little impact.</p><p>"A lot of the dynamic was bad anyway, and under Trump it just got worse," Corkeron said. "People are terrified to do anything about right whales at the moment."</p>
<p>The update to the "Red List of Threatened Species" shows that 32,441 species are threatened out of a total of 120,372 on the list.</p><p>"We have to take bold and rapid action to reduce the huge damage we're doing to the planet if we're going to save whales, frogs, lemurs and ultimately ourselves," said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, as The Washington Post reported. "We really can do all of these things, but we need world leaders to stand up and do them."</p>
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The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is the only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
President Donald Trump sparked the ire of conservationists earlier this month when he opened the country's only marine national monument in the Atlantic to commercial fishing.
<p>Now, some of them are suing to stop him and preserve the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which protects 5,000 square miles of unique <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> habitat off Cape Cod.</p><p>"Trump has once again eliminated critical natural resource protections on a whim, and with no legal authority," Brad Campbell, president of the Boston-based <a href="https://www.clf.org/" target="_blank">Conservation Law Foundation</a> (CLF), said in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/newsroom/clf-taking-trump-administration-to-court-for-decimating-monument-protections/" target="_blank">press release</a> announcing his organization's decision to sue. "This lawless act upends over a century of practice by presidents of both parties, and puts all national monuments on the block for the highest political bidder."</p>
<div id="00ad0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f599999b403493ff99aeef310278552"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273713391367073795" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">President Trump illegally gutted protections for New England’s marine monument. We’ll see him in court.… https://t.co/UWgRF6P7q8</div> — Conservation Law Foundation (@Conservation Law Foundation)<a href="https://twitter.com/CLF/statuses/1273713391367073795">1592511911.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act, <a href="https://www.clf.org/blog/snowball/trump-atlantic-marine-monument/" target="_blank">CLF said</a>. It protects an estimated 54 species of deep sea coral and hundreds of other marine animals, including <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered species</a> like North Atlantic right <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> and Kemp's ridley <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-turtles" target="_self">sea turtles</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/17/metro/environmental-group-sues-trump-administration-allowing-commercial-fishing-protected-waters/" target="_blank">The Boston Globe reported</a>. It is also home to four underwater mountains and three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon.</p><p>The commercial fishing industry had argued that the creation of the monument was an overreach of federal authority that hurt livelihoods. Before its formation, fisherman said as many as 80 boats fished the area.</p>
<p>"President Obama swept aside our public, science-based fishery management process with the stroke of a pen," Bob Vanasse, executive director of fishermen lobby group Saving Seafood, told The Boston Globe. "That was a mistake, and whatever anyone thinks about President Trump is irrelevant."</p><p>But, in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020.06.16-NE-Canyons-complaint-final.pdf" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> filed in Washington, DC Wednesday, CLF, the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a> (CBD), and the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> argued that Trump's reversal was the overreach: A president may use the Antiquities Act to designate a monument, but only Congress can undo protections.</p><p>"Trump's order was illegal because he can't just declare commercial fishing is allowed in a protected marine monument," CBD attorney Kristen Monsell said in a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-trump-ok-commercial-fishing-atlantic-marine-monument-2020-06-17/" target="_blank">press release</a>. "The Seamounts monument was created to permanently safeguard this amazing ecosystem and vulnerable species like the endangered sperm whale. Presidents can't be allowed to gut protections by decree as a favor to commercial fishermen."</p>
<div id="f9e3c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5c6d6868df7e73680e28f750fa9ffa9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273342928304422920" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Center and allies just filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order allowing commercial fishin… https://t.co/6vr6gIG7v4</div> — Center for Bio Div (@Center for Bio Div)<a href="https://twitter.com/CenterForBioDiv/statuses/1273342928304422920">1592423586.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>CBD pointed out that, before Trump reversed the commercial fishing ban, courts had twice rejected the industry's attempt to challenge it.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">Conservation</a> groups also argue that the monument ultimately protects commercial fisheries by preserving the species that support them, according to The Boston Globe.</p><p>Further, not all business interests oppose the monument. <a href="http://blueplanetstrategy.com/" target="_blank">Zack Klyver</a>, a Maine marine scientist who has led more than 600,000 people on whale watching tours with the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company, has also joined the suit.</p><p>"I spend lots of time on the water so I know how important it is to protect this marine monument. My business depends on a healthy ocean," Klyver, who has also co-founded ocean conservation company Blue Planet Strategies, said in the CBD release. "Trump's attack on New England's prized marine monument is one I take personally. We need to protect our oceans and their abundance of marine life for future generations to experience."</p>
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Humpback whale splashing in the North West Atlantic Ocean, Massachusetts. Tim Graham / Getty Images
By Jake Johnson
In a move that environmentalists warned could further imperil hundreds of endangered species and a protected habitat for the sake of profit, President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation rolling back an Obama-era order and opening nearly 5,000 square miles off the coast of New England to commercial fishing.
<p>"We're opening it today," Trump said during a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-roundtable-supporting-americas-commercial-fishermen/" target="_blank">roundtable talk</a> in Maine with commercial fishermen and the state's former governor Paul LePage. "What reason did he have for closing 5,000 miles? That's a lot of miles. Five thousand square miles is a lot. He didn't have a reason, in my opinion."</p>
<p>The reason behind the establishment of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016, conservation groups hastened to point out, was to shield endangered species and their ecosystem from harmful intrusion and permanent damage by commercial interests.</p><p>Fishing industry interests challenged former President Barack Obama's designation of the marine monument but were <a href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2019/12/27/northeast-canyons-seamounts-monument-fishery" target="_blank">rebuffed</a> in federal court last year.</p>
<p>"Opening up the nation's only marine national monument in the Atlantic will help no one but a handful of fishers while risking irreparable damage to the marine wildlife that have no other fully protected areas off our eastern seaboard," <a href="https://defenders.org/newsroom/president-trump-opens-only-marine-national-monument-atlantic-commercial-fishing" target="_blank">said</a> Bob Dreher, senior vice president of Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife. "Ancient and slow-growing deep sea corals, endangered large whales and sea turtles, and an incredible array of fish, seabirds, sharks, dolphins, and other wildlife—these are the species and habitats that will pay the price."</p><p>During the roundtable discussion Friday, Trump said "I love that" when Interior Secretary David Bernhardt—a former <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/02/oil-mining-lobbyist-david-bernhardt-nomed-to-be-secretary-of-interior/" target="_blank">oil and mining lobbyist</a>—informed the president that his proclamation is effectively "taking down a 'no fishing' sign" in the Atlantic Ocean.</p><p>"The minute you sign it, we will begin planning," Bernhardt said.</p>
<p>Trump's order Friday is just the latest move the president has taken to gut environmental protections under the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic and a nationwide uprising over police brutality. On Thursday, as <em>Common Dreams</em> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/04/groups-denounce-gutting-environmental-rules-when-trump-thinks-no-one-paying" target="_blank">reported</a>, Trump signed an executive order allowing federal agencies to waive environmental rules to speed approval of energy projects like oil pipelines.</p>
<div id="47f4e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1431750a6a1c5950b96b7a78a46362f1"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1269079062447828992" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Trump just opened up a marine sanctuary to commercial fishing, undermining protections for endangered whales, sea t… https://t.co/H3gTJU3oEQ</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1269079062447828992">1591407001.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Brad Sewell, senior director of oceans for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement that commercial fishing "poses a range of threats, such as harm to deep-sea corals from heavy fishing gear, and entanglement of bycatch and marine mammals."</p><p>Sewell said NRDC is prepared to take legal action against the Trump administration to "protect these marine treasures from harm and exploitation by commercial fishing and other extractive industries." </p><p>"These fragile, extraordinary ocean areas are full of thousand-year-old corals, endangered whales, and other precious marine life," said Sewell. "They belong to all Americans, and they are held in trust for future generations."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/06/quietly-putting-hundreds-species-risk-trump-opens-5000-square-miles-atlantic-ocean" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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A breaching minke whale in Iceland. FEE International / Flickr
No whales will be hunted in Iceland for the second year in a row, and one of the country's two whaling companies is ceasing operations permanently.
<p>"I'm never going to hunt whales again, I'm stopping for good," managing director of company IP-Utgerd Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson told <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2020/04/25/no-whaling-in-iceland-for-second-straight-year.html" target="_blank">AFP Sunday</a>.</p><p>IP-Utgerd specialized in hunting minke whales, which means Iceland's minke whale hunt is officially over. Hvalur, the second Icelandic whaling company that specializes in fin whales, said it was not hunting this year due to difficulties exporting meat and social-distancing measures related to the new <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">Conservation</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/animal-welfare" target="_self">animal welfare</a> groups welcomed the news.</p><p>"This is tremendous news," <a href="https://uk.whales.org/" target="_blank">Whale and Dolphin Conservation</a> (WDC) CEO Chris Butler-Stroud <a href="https://uk.whales.org/2020/04/27/success-icelandic-minke-whale-hunts-end-after-years-of-wdc-campaigning/" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>. "It is also a turning point for Iceland and its people and something that WDC has campaigned for for years. An end to minke whaling, and the end in sight for fin whaling, gives Iceland the chance to position itself as the true green island of the North Atlantic."</p>
<div id="c8718" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0095bc2b9474932a15dc9f1e9b6461e9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1254791265071308800" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We are overjoyed to say that after years of dedicated WDC campaigning, Icelandic minke whale hunts are ending. This… https://t.co/D6WIzE0TJQ</div> — Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) (@Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC))<a href="https://twitter.com/whalesorg/statuses/1254791265071308800">1588000525.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><a href="https://www.hsi.org/" target="_blank">Humane Society International</a> CEO Kitty Block also called it a "major turning point in the battle against whaling" on her <a href="https://blog.humanesociety.org/2020/04/iceland-may-have-killed-its-last-whale-whaling-company-says-it-will-hang-up-its-harpoons-for-good.html" target="_blank">blog</a>.</p><p>Hvalur CEO Kristjan Loftsson said the main reason behind the canceled hunt was competition with Japan, which <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/japan-commercial-whaling-2639041011.html" target="_self">restarted commercial whaling in 2019</a>, as AFP reported. The company sells most of its catch to Japan, but the Japanese market is flooded with local government-subsidized production and also requires more tests for whale meat imported from Iceland, <a href="https://www.icelandreview.com/news/no-whaling-in-iceland-for-second-summer-in-a-row/" target="_blank">Iceland Review explained</a>.</p><p>WDC pointed out that whale meat is actually not a popular Icelandic dish, and only 1.5 percent of Iceland's population buys it regularly, a 2016 survey found.</p><p>Loftsson also told The Morning Paper in Iceland that social distancing requirements made the processing of whale meat "almost impossible" since workers need to stand "very closely together," as the <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6735091/iceland-whaling-cancelled-again-this-year/?cs=14232" target="_blank">Australian Associated Press reported</a>.</p><p>However, the CEO did not seem ready to give up on whale meat, saying that research was ongoing into the use of the iron-rich meat to treat anemia patients and into the use of bones and blubber for gelatin.</p><p>Iceland has killed more than 1,700 whales since the 1986 ban on commercial whaling, WDC reported.</p><p>In 2018, the last year it held a hunt, whalers killed 146 fin whales and six minke whales, the Australian Associated Press reported. The 2020 quota was for 200 of each.</p><p>Block, meanwhile, pointed out that the fight against whaling was not over.</p><p>"We now turn our focus to the two remaining outliers who continue to defy the global whaling moratorium, killing hundreds of whales each year: Japan and Norway," she wrote. "Their fleets remain active during the pandemic, even as the market for highly-subsidized whale meat is declining rapidly. It is time for these two nations to join Iceland and hang up their harpoons for good."</p>
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Crabeater seals. Jerzystrzelecki / CC BY 3.0
The western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on Earth. But how will that impact the unique wildlife that call it home?
<p>To find out, researchers tracked the movements of krill-eating crabeater <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/seals" target="_self">seals</a> in the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) to build a model of the future distribution of krill, an important food source for Antarctic animals like <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/penguins" target="_self">penguins</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a>. The results, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0745-9" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a> Monday, showed that krill populations would shrink, shift offshore from northern coastal waters and move towards the south of the WAP, with major implications for the animals that feed on them.</p><p>"It will be challenging for a lot of species," first author Luis Huckstadt of the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) at UC Santa Cruz said in a <a href="https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/04/crabeater-seals.html" target="_blank">university press release</a>. "Things are changing so fast in Antarctica, the changes we're seeing in our model might be coming sooner than we expected."</p>
<div id="48a39" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d6ff1baa65fbf1195665913139a18cea"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1254802495676665856" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Researchers are tracking crabeater seals to build a habitat model that projects how climate change is impacting the… https://t.co/XfWGeVHa9q</div> — UC Santa Cruz Science (@UC Santa Cruz Science)<a href="https://twitter.com/UCSCscience/statuses/1254802495676665856">1588003202.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The reason the change in krill location is such a big deal is that it will force animals to travel further from shore for food.</p><p>"The shift in krill habitat away from coastal waters in the north has big implications for species like penguins and fur seals, which can't make long foraging trips because they have to come back to land to feed their offspring," Huckstadt said.</p><p>In addition, the decline in krill near the northern coast is projected to occur mostly during summer, when animals like humpback and minke whales migrate south in search of food. The southern shift of the krill could force them to travel even further in pursuit.</p><p>The researchers were able to use crabeater seal movements to make these predictions because the seals feed "almost exclusively" on krill, the study explained. They also travel near the surface of the water and only dive when they locate krill, which means by tagging the seals it is easy to get a picture of where krill are located, according to the press release. Using data from tracked seals, the researchers were able to build a model of krill distribution in the WAP and then see what happened to the model under changing conditions driven by the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. The scientists used data from 42 tracked seals collected in 2001, 2002 and 2007, <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/great-climate-change-is-coming-for-these-cute-seal-boy-1843107067" target="_blank">Earther reported</a>.</p><p>It is unclear how the predicted changes would impact crabeater seals themselves. The seals live in Antarctica year-round and don't live in colonies, so it is easier for them to travel further for prey, the press release said. There is also a chance they may find new food sources, according to Earther, but scientists don't know if they could do so fast enough.</p><p>The WAP is rapidly changing. In February, it <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/antarctica-hottest-temperature-record-2645059660.html" target="_self">recorded</a> Antarctica's highest ever temperature. Its sea ice is shrinking and multiple ice shelves have collapsed, Earther pointed out.</p>
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If you are worried about herring worm, just cut your piece of sushi in half before eating it. Nandaro / CC BY-SA 3.0
The population of a marine parasite that sometimes worms its way into sushi has increased by 283 times in the last nearly 40 years, a University of Washington (UW)-led study has found.
<p>The study, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.15048" target="_blank">published in Global Change Biology Thursday</a>, reviewed the literature and found a significant rise in the abundance of the parasite <em>Anisakis</em>, or "herring worm." This isn't especially concerning for humans, who experience the worm as a nasty bout of food poisoning that then resolves, but it could have serious consequences for marine mammals, who play host to the parasites for years.</p><p>"One of the important implications of this study is that now we know there is this massive, rising health risk to marine mammals," study coauthor and UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences assistant professor Chelsea Wood said in the UW press release. "It's not often considered that parasites might be the reason that some marine mammal populations are failing to bounce back. I hope this study encourages people to look at intestinal parasites as a potential cap on the population growth of endangered and threatened marine mammals."</p>
<div id="f87f9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="24416e58f4dc5112fd635f2dc87516cb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1240735574232891400" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The next time you eat sashimi, nigiri or other forms of raw fish, consider doing a quick check for worms. 🍣😳
https://t.co/juL5dW2NDu</div> — UW SAFS (@UW SAFS)<a href="https://twitter.com/UW_SAFS/statuses/1240735574232891400">1584649387.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The researchers looked at a total of 123 papers published between 1967 and 2017 to assess how the abundance of two marine parasites had changed over time: <em>Anisakis </em>and another parasite known as <em>Pseudoterranova</em>, or "cod worm." <em>Anisakis </em>abundance rose 283-fold from 1978 to 2015, while <em>Pseudoterranova </em>abundance did not change. This means that Anisakis has risen from less than one for every 100 hosts caught to more than one in every host caught, <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/parasitic-worms-in-raw-seafood-have-increased-280-fold-but-it-s-not-sushi-we-should-be-worried-about" target="_blank">ScienceAlert explained</a>.</p><p>Ironically, while <em>Anisakis </em>might threaten the health of marine mammals, its rise may have been triggered by their success.</p><p>"My gut is that this is about the improvements we've made in marine mammal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a>," Wood told ScienceAlert. "The time frame of our study directly overlaps with when a bunch of really important marine mammal legislation went into effect like the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and the international whaling commission moratorium on commercial whaling which came in the 1980s."</p>
<p>The one wrinkle in this theory is which mammals usually play host to the worm. <em>Anisakis</em> hatches in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> and first infects small animals like shrimp, the UW explained. They then make their way up the food web as the shrimp are eaten by fish, who are eaten by bigger fish, until they end up in the intestines of Cetaceans like <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> or <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/dolphins" target="_self">dolphins</a>. Here they can live and reproduce for years, reentering the ocean in the animals' feces to start the cycle again.</p><p>While <em>Anisakis</em> abundance has risen, <em>Pseudoterranova</em>, which typically infects fish, sea lions and seals, has not. However, seals and sea lions have done much better than whales, Wood told ScienceAlert, which means one would expect <em>Pseudoterranova </em>abundance to have increased instead. However, she speculated it was possible the parasite was actually increasing because it had fewer hosts to pass through.</p><p>Other factors that could have caused the rise include the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate crisis</a> and increased runoff from fertilizers, according to the press release.</p><p>So what happens if humans happen to ingest one of the worms? Nausea and vomiting that is unpleasant, but temporary.</p><p>"When they enter the intestine of a human, it's a great disappointment to the worm. They're not going to be able to complete their life cycle there," Wood told <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237951-fish-used-for-sushi-now-carry-283-times-more-parasites-than-in-1980s/" target="_blank">New Scientist</a>.</p><p>Wood said that sushi lovers shouldn't worry, as chefs were expert de-wormers.</p><p>"I still eat sushi all the time," she told New Scientist.</p><p>However, if you are concerned, just cut your nigiri in half and look for worms yourself, she advised in the press release.</p>
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A harbour seal on an ice floe in Glacier Bay, Alaska. A new study shows that the climate crisis has warmed waters, changing ecosystems and crippling sea ice growth. Janette Hill / robertharding / Getty Images Plus
The climate crisis is accelerating the rate of change in Alaska's marine ecosystem far faster than scientists had previously thought, causing possibly irreversible changes, according to new research, as Newsweek reported.
<p>The new <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0695-2.epdf?referrer_access_token=CO2LiJIJlZL_98zWr-VWLNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O7LDNa0WF3Wh7MTmHaeaZVv2T9vIb8LrGUH8lMDd4MucAiKlopvTPVSZQJLbwuKLvlF6PVBG232cHDJJ63lWSEDUVS9kwNNfLAjMIN0QuTNz0R8kc1mn-lHI8ur799j_zhNc9mfrvx6GWd-hGvHFHmVMtycew6loVKQzTg2RpViRu6PoY2G232NIEvKSzyZk4K9OwQk9Z3hHcmjLiDNgIvIplP-v82bpHIt52Qp8rj5A%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.newsweek.com" target="_blank">study</a> from the University of Alaska Fairbanks shows that the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a> has warmed waters, changing ecosystems and crippling sea ice growth. The researchers told <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> that now is the perfect time to study Alaskan waters before warmer temperatures become the new normal.</p><p>Seth Danielson, one of the researchers on the paper told <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> that their team was shocked by the record low <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a> and record high <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> temperatures of the last couple of years.</p><p>"It was a bit surprising because we felt like it came a couple decades too early," said Danielson to <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a>.</p><p>The study published in the journal Nature Climate Change said that 2017 showed signs of "a sudden and dramatic shift," according to the <a href="https://www.ibtimes.sg/alaskas-marine-ecosystem-undergoes-sudden-shift-due-climate-change-39972" target="_blank">International Business Times</a>.</p><p>This dramatic changes in ocean temperatures will have large impacts on the region, not only to the marine populations, but to the commercial fishing industry and to local populations that rely on subsistence fishing, as the <a href="https://www.ibtimes.sg/alaskas-marine-ecosystem-undergoes-sudden-shift-due-climate-change-39972" target="_blank">International Business Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0695-2.epdf?referrer_access_token=CO2LiJIJlZL_98zWr-VWLNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O7LDNa0WF3Wh7MTmHaeaZVv2T9vIb8LrGUH8lMDd4MucAiKlopvTPVSZQJLbwuKLvlF6PVBG232cHDJJ63lWSEDUVS9kwNNfLAjMIN0QuTNz0R8kc1mn-lHI8ur799j_zhNc9mfrvx6GWd-hGvHFHmVMtycew6loVKQzTg2RpViRu6PoY2G232NIEvKSzyZk4K9OwQk9Z3hHcmjLiDNgIvIplP-v82bpHIt52Qp8rj5A%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.newsweek.com" target="_blank">study</a> focused on 2017, temperatures over the last two years suggest a lasting change is in the works.</p><p>"Many changes persisted in 2018 and even into 2019, suggesting that 2017 was not a passing oddity of brief consequence to social-ecological systems, but a sign of what is to come," according to the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0695-2.epdf?referrer_access_token=CO2LiJIJlZL_98zWr-VWLNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O7LDNa0WF3Wh7MTmHaeaZVv2T9vIb8LrGUH8lMDd4MucAiKlopvTPVSZQJLbwuKLvlF6PVBG232cHDJJ63lWSEDUVS9kwNNfLAjMIN0QuTNz0R8kc1mn-lHI8ur799j_zhNc9mfrvx6GWd-hGvHFHmVMtycew6loVKQzTg2RpViRu6PoY2G232NIEvKSzyZk4K9OwQk9Z3hHcmjLiDNgIvIplP-v82bpHIt52Qp8rj5A%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.newsweek.com" target="_blank">study</a>, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-marine-ecosystem-shift-climate-change-scientists-1488753" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>The reduction in sea ice will open up commercial vessel lanes, which could reduce the viability of subsistence fishing, according to Danielson, as <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a> reported. It also could change the migratory patterns of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a>, walruses, and other species that migrate between the Chukchi and Bering Seas.</p><p>"The time of the year that some hunting activities can take place may need to change," Danielson said to <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a>. "I think we've seen some indications of that already. And the species that people are hunting and fishing for may change as well."</p>
<p>The Chukchi and Bering Seas lifecycles are driven by seasonal changes in sea ice and in water temperatures.</p><p>Whales, walruses and other species move southwards into the Bering Sea in the winter months when the water freezes over. Whales and walruses tend to move south into the Bering Sea during the winter. Then snow melt and algae growth in the spring allows <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine species</a> to flourish in summer, providing ample food for those large mammals, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-marine-ecosystem-shift-climate-change-scientists-1488753" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>However, the warmer temperatures mean some animals are staying in the north and foregoing their migration down to the Bering Sea. The changes in temperatures mean many of the foods that large sea mammals rely on are dwindling.</p><p>Spotted seal pups seemed to suffer terribly, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-marine-ecosystem-shift-climate-change-scientists-1488753" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>. They appeared thinner and smaller than normal. Ribbon seals, similarly, appeared to have rapidly declining birth rates and many more carcasses washing ashore in 2018 — about five times the annual average from 2014 to 2017.</p>
<p>The researchers also noted a change in the type of fish found in Alaska's waters, noting that pacific cod are appearing further north and have the potential to disturb native Arctic cod population, according to <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a>.<br></p><p>"They're a focal point through which energy flows to a lot of different components," said Danielson to <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/02/24/dramatic-ocean-changes-are-coming-a-couple-decades-too-early-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Alaska Public Media</a>. "For instance, they're eaten by the seals. They're eaten directly by people. The seals are eaten by people and polar bears."</p><p>"You can be fairly confident in attributing these types of unusual events to human-induced causes," Danielson added.</p>
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Trending
Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) surfacing, showing the remains of a blow and its mottled appearance near South Georgia Island in the Polar Regions. Mick Baines & Maren / Getty Images
The largest animal on Earth is proving that wildlife protections work.
<p>A team led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) recently <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/return-of-the-whales-to-south-georgia/" target="_blank">reported</a> the initial results of three years of expeditions to the sub-<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctic</a> island of South Georgia, an important summer feeding ground for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> that became a killing field when the whaling industry discovered it during the first half of the 20th century. But now, after 30 years of protections, the whales are returning. Researchers counted 36 sightings of 55 critically <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered</a> Antarctic blue whales during their 2020 trip, up from just one sighting of two whales in 2018, according to BAS and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/blue-whale-population-antarctica-southern-ocean-research-south-georgia-a9347041.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a>.</p><p>"[It's] truly, truly amazing," Dr. Trevor Branch of the University of Washington told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51553381" target="_blank">BBC News</a>. "To think that in a period of 40 or 50 years, I only had records for two sightings of blue whales around South Georgia. Since 2007, there have been maybe a couple more isolated sightings. So to go from basically nothing to 55 in one year is astonishing."</p>
<div id="370be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="YS8OWG1582553771"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1230393297274843136" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">It's excellent news for the #whale as following 30 years of protection several species appear to be in recovery wit… https://t.co/fUZqdMnEbh</div> — Antarctic Survey (@Antarctic Survey)<a href="https://twitter.com/BAS_News/statuses/1230393297274843136">1582183596.0</a></blockquote></div><p>BAS said the number of blue whales its team had seen was "unprecedented." But it also marks a return to a pre-whaling norm.</p><p>"I see them in hundreds and thousands," whaler and explorer Carl Larsen said of the island's whales when he first visited South Georgia at the start of the 20th century, according to BAS. He opened a whaling station, and was soon joined by others. Together, they decimated the island's whale population by more than 176,000 over 60 years. According to some estimates, whaling also wiped out 97 percent of blue whales, The Independent reported. The <a href="https://iwc.int/home" target="_blank">International Whaling Commission</a> (IWC) finally instituted a <a href="https://iwc.int/whaling" target="_blank">moratorium</a> on commercial whaling in 1986.</p><p>Whales were barely seen around South Georgia between the 1960s and the 1990s, when they began to make a comeback. In addition to Antarctic blue whales, the BAS-led team recorded 790 humpback whales over 21 days, and estimates that there are now more than 20,000 of them feeding off the island in the summer. It also reported frequent sightings of southern right whales in 2018, but few in 2019 and 2020, suggesting they had gone elsewhere to feed.</p>
<p>"After three years of surveys, we are thrilled to see so many whales visiting South Georgia to feed again," project leader Dr. Jennifer Jackson of BAS said in the press release. "This is a place where both whaling and sealing were carried out extensively. It is clear that protection from whaling has worked, with humpback whales now seen at densities similar to those a century earlier, when whaling first began at South Georgia."</p><p>Jackson told BBC News that she thought the whales' return to the island represented a long term trend, not a temporary change in habits caused by a shift in the movements of krill, the whales' prey. She said the data suggested the survey took place over normal years for krill.</p><p>Antarctic blue whale expert Paula Olson, who was also on the trip, said it was the first to survey whales around the whole island in decades.</p><p>"[W]e truly felt like explorers," she told The Independent.</p><p>But it won't be the last assessment of Antarctic blue Whales. The IWC Scientific Committee will conduct an overall assessment of the species' recovery next year.</p>
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Belugas Are Dying off in Alaska and Oil and Gas Operations Are to Blame, Says Lawsuit
03 February
Animals
A beluga whale swims under an iceberg in Alaska. Design Pics Inc / First Light / Getty Images Plus
Two environmental groups made a formal announcement that they will file a lawsuit to protect endangered beluga whales whose numbers have plummeted recently, as the AP reported.
<p>The suit aims to void permits allowed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that opened up oil and gas exploration in Cook Inlet in southern Alaska. The suit alleges that NOAA violated the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">Endangered Species</a> Act by issuing the permits without protecting Cook Island belugas. The law requires the formal 60-day notice before the agency can be sued, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/52515018c441edfe4ad1ab630dae0801" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>.</p><p>The Center for Biological Diversity and Cook Inletkeeper teamed up to send notice that they will sue NOAA.</p><p>NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released a disturbing new population estimate last week that showed whale numbers are far lower than previous estimates and their numbers are dropping rapidly, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-oil-belugas/environmentalists-invoke-belugas-in-effort-to-halt-alaska-oil-exploration-idUSKBN1ZV36Z" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p><p>The NMFS report estimated that only 279 beluga whales remain in Cook Inlet, a steep decline from the nearly 1,300 that lived there in 1979. The population decline has accelerated to an annual rate of 2.3 percent over the last decade, which is four times faster than previous estimates, according to NMFS, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-oil-belugas/environmentalists-invoke-belugas-in-effort-to-halt-alaska-oil-exploration-idUSKBN1ZV36Z" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p>
<p>Cook Inlet runs almost 200 miles from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska. It supplies energy for the south-central part of the state. The industrial activities there threaten beluga whales, which swim there and feast on salmon and other fish, according to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alaska-oil-drilling-beluga-whale-lawsuit-noaa-a9312856.html?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">The Independent</a>.</p><p>The Center for Biological Diversity said these "daunting" numbers mean exploration planned by Hillcorp Alaska needs to stop immediately, as <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alaska-oil-drilling-beluga-whale-lawsuit-noaa-a9312856.html?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">The Independent</a> reported.</p><p>The plaintiffs are demanding a new assessment of oil and gas exploration since the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" target="_self">Trump administration</a> used higher, inaccurate beluga whale numbers when it gave a permit to Hillcorp Alaska. The permit allows the petroleum company to "take" beluga whales as part of its operations. "Take" is a nebulous term that allows the company to harass and harm whales. The environmental groups want a guarantee that Cook Inlet belugas can recover from any of Hillcorp Alaska's operations, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/52515018c441edfe4ad1ab630dae0801" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>.</p><p>"Since we pressed for listing the Cook Inlet Beluga whale as endangered in 2008, the drive for corporate profits and complacent government bureaucrats have conspired to stifle progress for this dwindling stock," said Bob Shavelson, advocacy director for Cook Inletkeeper, in a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-launched-to-save-alaskas-cook-inlet-beluga-whales-from-harmful-oil-exploration-2020-01-31/" target="_blank">statement</a>. "Hilcorp should do the right thing and abandon its plans for new drilling in Cook Inlet."</p>
<p>Last summer, the Trump administration loosened environmental regulations that allowed for new mining, oil and gas <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/offshore-oil-drilling">drilling</a> where protected species live, according to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alaska-oil-drilling-beluga-whale-lawsuit-noaa-a9312856.html?utm_source=reddit.com" target="_blank">The Independent</a>.<br></p><p>"The tragic decline of these lovely little whales spotlights the risk of allowing oil exploration in their habitat," said Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-launched-to-save-alaskas-cook-inlet-beluga-whales-from-harmful-oil-exploration-2020-01-31/" target="_blank">statement</a>. "If we're going to save these belugas, the Trump administration must cancel permission for the oil industry to use seismic blasting and pile driving in Cook Inlet. These animals are hanging on by a thread, and we can't let them be hurt even more."</p>The groups said that seismic blasting used in exploration and deep-sea mining causes blasts heard miles away. The blasts can register up to 250 decibels. For reference, standing next to a jackhammer is 100 decibels. Those underwater blasts can cause hearing loss in marine mammals, severely disrupt communication between pods, disturb feeding and breeding grounds, and reduce their ability to catch fish, according to the environmental groups, as <a href="https://apnews.com/52515018c441edfe4ad1ab630dae0801" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a> reported.
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The oldest living male in the southern resident killer whale community, L41, seen above in the Strait of Juan de Fuca is missing and feared dead. MarkMalleson / iStock / Getty Images
Yet another endangered southern resident orca is missing, and researchers fear he is dead.
<p>The whale, known as L41 or Mega, was the largest and oldest of all southern resident orca males. He was a significant member of the embattled group of killer whales who swim between the waters of Washington and Canada. He and another whale fathered most of the orcas born to the group after 1990, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/another-southern-resident-orca-feared-dead/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times reported</a>. But when researchers encountered his family last Friday, he was not with them.<br></p><p>"He was just a really big personality, and a big whale, and of course he was an important member of his family," Deborah Giles, a research scientist at the University of Washington's <a href="http://conservationbiology.uw.edu/" target="_blank">Center for Conservation Biology</a> and the research director of the nonprofit <a href="http://www.wildorca.org/" target="_blank">Wild Orca</a>, told The Seattle Times. "I am going to miss seeing him."</p><p>The news of L41's disappearance came when the <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/" target="_blank">Center for Whale Research</a> (CWR) <a href="https://www.whaleresearch.com/2020-2" target="_blank">reported</a> its second orca encounter of 2020 on Jan. 24.</p><p>"Unfortunately, L41 was not present for the entire encounter. Given his age and that he looked a little thin in our January 2019 encounter, we fear he may be gone and will consider him missing unless he shows up unexpectedly in an upcoming encounter," CWR staff member Dave Ellifrit wrote.</p>
<div id="2dd2f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="22YWWF1580409039"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1222228218142326784" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">This was CWR’s first encounter with the L12s in inshore waters in over a year. Last year’s calf, L124, looked good… https://t.co/eTkVZEmcrz</div> — Whale Research (@Whale Research)<a href="https://twitter.com/CWROrcas/statuses/1222228218142326784">1580236889.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Mega was last seen in August 2019 when he was photographed by Mark Malleson.</p><p>Mega was born in 1977 and fathered 21 calves. He was also a physically iconic whale, as The Seattle Times described:</p><blockquote>He was a classically beautiful orca bull, with a towering dorsal fin, rising straight without a waver from his back. Big and powerful, he was easy to spot and the only adult male left in his immediate family. A nick on the trailing edge of his dorsal made him easily identifiable, along with his massive size, from a long distance.</blockquote><p>If he is truly gone, it will bring the number of southern resident killer whales down to 72, the second-lowest since counting began 45 years ago. There were 71 recorded in 1976 during a time when a third of the whales were captured and sent to aquariums.</p><p>While killer whales around the world are doing well, the southern resident whales are threatened with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/species-extinction" target="_self">extinction</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/us/endangered-orca-missing-dead-scn-trnd/index.html" target="_blank">CNN explained</a>. This is due to a combination of factors including noise and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/shipping-industry" target="_self">shipping</a> traffic, but the biggest threat faced by the species is the disappearance of chinook <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>, its chief food.</p><p>When the orcas have less salmon to eat, they rely on their stores of fat, which are filled with accumulated toxins that make the whales sick, <a href="https://www.orcaconservancy.org/" target="_blank">Orca Conservancy</a> President Shari Tarantino told CNN.</p>
<p>To address this problem, environmental advocates argue that the Snake River dams should be breached. One study found that if only four of 15 were removed, the population of salmon would double or triple. </p>
<p>"(Killer whales) are at the top of the food chain," Tarantino told CNN. "So when they're failing, everything beneath in the ecosystem is failing. That is a huge warning. It would be an absolute mess."</p>
<p>However, there was a silver lining to Friday's orca encounter. L124, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/new-calf-southern-resident-orcas-2625954104.html" target="_self">a calf born last year and named Lucky</a>, was present and looked healthy. It is a big deal for an orca calf to live a full year, The Seattle Times said.</p>
<p>And not everyone is convinced Mega is truly gone.</p>
<p>"I'm not buying it," former whale-watch boat captain Hobbes Buchanan told The Seattle Times. "He may have wandered off to do his own thing, and will come back. I am totally just not giving up."</p>
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