Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Plants and Animals

Save the Albatross

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There is a campaign to ‘save the albatross’ at www.savethealbatross.net . The website includes bits of information on the biology of these birds including that there are 21 different species with a mostly southern hemisphere distribution, that the wandering and royal albatross have the largest wingspan of any bird at 3.5metres, they mate for life, and will fly 10,000 kms in search of food for their chick.

The key message at the site is that albatrosses are at risk of extinction from long-line fishing boats particularly in the South Atlantic with the figure of 100,000 birds killed each year repeated.

I wonder how this figure was arrived at. While there are testimonials from celebrities at the site, it would be good if there was also some data from the various reports and studies referred to. For example, according to the BBC:

“Albatrosses on islands in the South Atlantic are being pushed to the brink of extinction, according to research. Populations of three species breeding on South Georgia and outlying islands have declined by about a third in the past 30 years.

Conservation groups say the major threat to the birds’ future is deep-sea fishing using a line with a number of baited hooks attached to it.

Up to 100,000 albatrosses a year drown on longline fishing hooks, they add.”

Why not provide a link to “research”?

According to www.savethealbatross.net the most threatened species is the Amsterdam Albatross with only 17 breeding pairs left on Amsterdam Island in the southern Indian Ocean. That’s not many birds!

Reconciling with the Murray River

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I lived for the first six years of my life in a mud brick house up the hill a bit from a creek in the Northern Territory. I remember the water as black and very deep. I remember as a child jumping as far into the middle of that creek as I could, and staying there as long as I could.

When it came time to get out, my aboriginal friends and I would scramble up the step muddy banks as quickly as we could. We were frightened of the little yabbies that lived in the holes in the mud.

When I returned to Coomalie Creek for the first time just last year, the water was just as black as I remembered it. But that swimming hole was deserted. There was no path through the bamboo to the water’s edge.

When I showed the current owner of the property where we used to swim she was incredulous, “There are crocodiles.” she said.

I wonder why I was frightened of the yabbies and not the crocodiles when I was a kid?

My family left Coomlie Creek when I was six or seven years old. A year or two later we moved into a little house over looking the Mary River, the river the Queensland Government is now talking about damming.

My siblings and I made toy boats from styrene foam. We would spend hours swimming with our boats in the Mary River with the platypus. The water was so clear and also so shallow that we could see every pebble on the bottom of the stream.

Christopher Pearson writing in today’s Weekend Australian about my work on the Murray River suggests that:

“Marohasy thinks that catastrophist science regarding the Murray [River] is persuasive mostly because, apart from feeling absurdly guilty about our imagined impact on the natural world, we have a precarious grasp of its history as a waterway and tend to imagine that it’s quite like a European river.”

There are a couple of errors in the article, including reference to Mannum — it should be Morgan — but I think it’s the first time I’ve read someone fairly accurately report my feeling, that as Australians, we are ridiculously guilty about our impact on the environment and at the same time we have a “precarious grasp of its history”, true nature or current state.

I wonder how much my general approach to life has been influenced by the different rivers that I’ve had the privilege to live beside, wander along, and swim in?

I now live near the Brisbane River, it’s just at the end of my street. In Madagascar I lived near the Fiherenana River which was mostly empty of water. It was just a very wide sandy bed. But when I looked very carefully after rain I could usually find egg shell from the now extinct Aepyornis along its banks.

The Brisbane River is not the Murray River, and the Murray is very different from the Mary, and neither are anything like Coomalie Creek.

As a people, Australian’s probably identify most with the Murray. But have we reconciled ourselves with how this river really is? Would we like it to be more like the Mary?

Christopher Pearson finishes his piece about the Murray and me by suggesting:

“If we were to stop fantasising about a clear, fresh blue stream coursing through the Australian equivalent of meadows and thought instead of an old waterway, often a bit murky and sometimes salty, meandering to its lower arid land reaches, we might be less surprised by its resilience and prone to imagining that it needs somehow to be transformed by a technological quick fix.”

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You can read the full article here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19341984-7583,00.html .

Polar Bear Politics: Misrepresenting the Nature of One Smart Bear

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Does the end ever justify the means?

Some activists concerned about global warming, and who want the rest of the world to be as concerned as they are, recognise people care about polar bears and want to exploit them as a ‘victim’ of climate change. But if I was a polar bear I reckon I’d rather be appreciated for my true nature.

Here’s an example of polar bear as victim in an article by Clifford Krauss in the New York Times :

“People care about polar bears — they’re iconic,” noted Kassie Siegel, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reality of the threat to polar bears is helping to get the word out,” she said, about the effects of climate change.

Her group, along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a petition with the United States government to list the polar bear as threatened as a way to push the American authorities to control greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide from cars.

The message has alarmed American polar bear hunters, who could be barred from bringing their trophies home from Canada, the only country from which they can legally do so. It has also run up against unbending opposition from local communities of Inuit, also known as Eskimos, and the Nunavut territorial government, which has expanded sport hunting in recent years.”

So Kassie Siegel is just an activist lawyer; making martyrs of everyone and everything is what activists do? But what about when scientists go along with the deal? What about when dubious claims are made by scientists to justify listing polar bears as a threatened species because of global warming?

The recent listing by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) includes the following paragraph:

“There is little doubt that polar bears will have a lesser AOO [area of occupancy], EOO [extent of occupancy] and habitat quality in the future. However, no direct relation exists between these measures and the abundance of polar bears. While some have speculated that polar bears might become extinct within 100 years from now, which would indicate a population decrease of >50% in 45 years based on a precautionary approach due to data uncertainty. A more realistic evaluation of the risk involved in the assessment makes it fair to suspect population reduction of >30%.”

The reference to “Area of occupancy” and “extent of occurrence” by the scientists is presumably just long hand for saying “the area of sea ice has reduced”.

So there is no direct relationship between measures of “area of occupancy” and “extent of occurrence” and polar bear abundance.

This paragraph (and a following paragraph that makes reference to shipping and oil exploration) was then summarized as follows to justify the listing which made headlines all over the world:

“The assessment is based on a suspected population reduction of >30% within three generations (45 years) due to decline in area of occupancy (AOO), extent of occurrence (EOO) and habitat quality.

Does it all seem very logical and scientific?

If we look at sea ice extent and area, well it has declined over recent decades, or at least since 1978, and was apparently at a 20 year minimum in 2002 (Serreze et al. 2003, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 30, No. 3). Yet polar bear numbers might have increased over this same time period?

Why doesn’t the IUCN provide any data on actual numbers of polar bears?

I understand that not so many decades ago polar bear populations had been significantly reduced by hunters? In the article by Clifford Krauss in the New York Times it is suggested that the global population, now estimated at 20,000 bears, was just 5,000 only 40 years ago.

Then in the 1970s, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States and the Soviet Union all agreed to restrict hunting and perhaps as a consequence population numbers have increased.

Would numbers be even higher if there was more sea ice? Who knows? Do we want more polar bears?

If over the last 40 years population numbers have increased, while sea ice extent and area has decreased, then it would seem there is a correlation between global warming and polar bear numbers that runs counter to the argument present by the IUCN scientists?

But, someone is about to tell me, the IUCN argument is all about the future and an assumed inability of polar bears to adapt to climate change?

But, as Jane George explains in an article title ‘Global warming won’t hurt polar bears’ in the Nunatiaq News, polar bears are intelligent, quick to adapt to new circumstances and warmer temperatures could even increase food sources.

The bottomline is that while polar bears have more than sea ice to contend with, they are by nature resourceful and to quote from the display at Sea World, a theme park at Queensland’s Gold Coast, “polar bears are [probably] capable of flourishing in the wild under climatic conditions which are most un-Arctic”.

Indeed there are polar bears successfully living and breeding in zoos in Arizona, Singapore and just an hour’s drive from me at Sea World. The polar bears at the subtropical Gold Coast have their swimming pool cooled to just 15 degrees and their favourite food is apparently watermelon.

Suggesting global warming is a significant threat to polar bears is really telling lies about polar bears and misrepresenting their true nature. This continual rewrite of how things are on the basis we should worry more about global warming, is as sad as it is insidious. That’s not to say we shouldn’t care about global warming, but that we shouldn’t tell lies about polar bears! should tell it as it is.

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Changes were made (words crossed out, words added are underlined) at the request of Peter Corkeron. The blog post is intended to draw attention to the difference between the available data and IUCN statement justifying the listing of polar bears as a species threatened with extinction. It is not a personal criticism of particular IUCN scientists.

Australia Scuttles Opportunity for Whale Management Plan: Dr Graham Hall

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A new NGO called Species Management Specialists (SMS) has criticised Australia’s stance at the International Whaling Commission and called for a resumption of negotiations to complete a commercial whaling management regime. Following is their media release:

“In March this year, International Whaling Commission (IWC) negotiations to develop the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) for commercial whaling broke down and the impasse is unlikely to be bridged.

“The world’s whale populations are at greater threat with the current impasse at IWC than with an approved management and regulatory regime for commercial whaling, and Australia must take a lot of the blame for this result,” Dr Graham Hall, the Executive Officer of Species Management Specialists, said today.

The majority of the world’s population from more than 20 countries around the world continue to hunt whales, dolphins and other cetaceans for food.

“Our Government’s stance at the IWC is un-Australian – it is extremist and uncompromising and is ensuring the world’s whale populations remain at threat from illegal, unregulated and unreported activity.”

“We have a reputation of ensuring sound management of our fisheries and should be leading by example rather than pandering to right-wing environmental groups who provide nothing to this country’s economy. Japan is a nation with whom this country is very good friends but yet we continue to vilify them for their desire to sustainably hunt whales for food,” he said.

Dr Hall, an Australian game management expert, says the Government takes similar stances with crocodiles and sea turtles. “Ian Campbell would rather take wildlife advice from a crocodile entertainer [Steve Irwin from Australia Zoo] than look at detailed submissions from the most highly qualified reptile scientists in the world.
It’s time to take wildlife conservation seriously and not continue with the ignorant and puerile manner in which it’s dealt with now by the Federal Government.”

The Chairman of Species Management Specialists, Hank Jenkins, has worked on wildlife conservation and management issues throughout the world, including 9 years as Chairman of the main technical committee for the convention on international wildlife trade, CITES.

He says Australia’s stance at last year’s IWC meeting in Ulsan, Korea, was an embarrassment. “Australia’s wildlife management experts are as good as they come. Good science and management experience is often ignored in the interests of bad politics – politics that depends on ignorance rather than education in the community.”

“These are serious concerns in a nation committing itself to a knowledge economy, that promotes cutting-edge technology and knowledge as the answer to all problems,” Mr Jenkins added.

Charlie Manolis, an experienced scientist who works internationally, says many government advisers from nations around the world view Australia’s, and New Zealand’s, stance on whaling completely hypocritical given our stance on domestic wildlife populations that have a commercial value, such as kangaroos and crocodiles.

“Minke whales in the southern oceans are abundant. Yet the average Australian thinks they are endangered and the Government does nothing to educate them otherwise to maintain an indefensible political position.”

“The IWC was established in 1948 as the agency responsible for the sustainable management and commercial use of whales. It was not established as a whale protection agency or a whale-watching organisation, which is what Australia and New Zealand are conveniently forgetting,” Mr Manolis said.

SMS while having key spokesmen in Australia, is global in its reach and focus, with members on every continent in the world. The new organisation has published recommendations for CITES in English, French and Spanish at their new website, click here.

Who Should Look After the World’s Whales?

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The next International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting is planned for St Kitts in the Caribbean from June 16 to 20. Rumor has it that the meeting will mark a change in the balance of power at the IWC from the antiwhaling to the prowhaling nations.

This would likely result in an eventual lifting of the ban on commercial whaling.

Given the IWC was established to manage whale stocks, and the whaling industry, rather than close it down, so the change may bring the Commission closer to its original purpose.

Interestingly, a recent essentially pro-whaling opinion article in the New York Times, suggested that having the IWC manage whaling was like having ‘the fox guarding the chicken coop’. The article went on to suggest that the responsibility for looking after the world’s whales should be transferred to the United Nations (1).

In the review of a book titled ‘Marine Mammals and Northern Cultures’ (2), Ian Stirling from the Canadian Wildlife Service asks the question:

“How did whales of all species become “a global resource”, thereby giving the international community license to tell local people what they could or should do (or not do).

Regardless of one’s personal views, this is not a trivial question and it applies to more resources than whales. Although not discussed [in the book], that question might also raise a parallel question about whether the international community should have a significant influence on the regulation of harvest of whales, cod, krill, large predatory fish, or a host of other marine species, especially given what the fate of many has been at the hands of various users, both commercial and non-commercial.”

What has the international community been good at managing? Where are the success stories in wildlife management and at what level were the programs developed and implemented?

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References

1. ‘ Save Your Whale and Eat It, Too’ by Philip Armour, published May23, 2006, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/opinion/23armour.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

2. ‘Marine Mammals and Northern Cultures’ by A. Kalland and F Sejersen, with contributions from H. Beyer Broch and M. Ris. ISBN 1-896445-26-8. ($CDN $35.00 – see website for specifics on shipping costs). Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press, University of Alberta, Edmonton. 349 pp.
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/polar//pdfs/CCIPress-Kalland-MMNCFlyer.pdf

Kangaroo: Not Yet a “Smallgood”

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Interestingly, 60-70% of kangaroo meat harvested in Australia, goes to feed cats and dogs.

Of that used for human consumption, 70% is exported, mostly to Russia.

It seems there is little demand in Australia for this low fat, and dare I suggest organic, meat.

There is a program promoting the commercial use of Australian wildlife called FATE (Future of Australia’s Threatened Ecosystems), based at the University of New South Wales.

FATE is about to sponsor a study to better understand the market sectors that consume kangaroo in Australia and what marketing exercises would be most effective in boosting consumption and thus boosting the value of kangaroos as a resource.

Quoting from the FATE website:

“FATE has recently been successful in securing funding through the New Animal Industries program of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) for a research project being undertaken in conjunction with UTS School of Marketing to explore consumer choice behaviour in relation to kangaroo meat and develop targeted strategies for boosting market acceptance and consumption. This project has a specific focus on smallgoods and other manufactured meat products, as kangaroo is yet to find a significant place in this market in Australia, despite the fact that some overseas manufacturers have embraced kangaroo as a high-protein, low-fat component of smallgoods.

FATE and UTS will interview meat processors and consumers and conduct discrete choice experiments to determine what factors influence consumer choice around kangaroo meat products.”

I wonder to what extent campaigning by PETA and Voiceless has/will impact on consumer choice?