The hunting and killing of bottlenose dolphins in Japanese fishing towns is no longer a quiet secret. The outcry has been growing against the hunt in Taiji, western Japan, since an award-winning American documentary The Cove this year showed dolphins being herded into an inlet and killed by fishermen with spears [AP]. Regardless, hunting season has begun anew, but in a small victory, representatives from the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition said they filmed Japanese fisherman releasing 70 bottlenose dolphins on Sunday.
The released dolphins were part of a catch that netted around 100 animals earlier in the month. The conservationists rejoiced over the release, but considering that the annual hunt in Taiji kills around 2,000, and up to 20,000 dolphins are killed across Japan each year, the group still has some persuading to do.
Dolphin hunting in Japan is a traditional business that many in Taiji rely on to make a living, but the gruesome nature of the killings has turned outsiders against the hunts. Scenes in The Cove graphically depict dolphins being trapped and killed with spears while the waters turn red with blood. This killing may be legal—dolphins and other small marine mammals are not protected by the ban on commercial whaling—but … the methods used are so nonchalantly brutal and gut-churningly primitive that Taiji officials are understandably publicity-shy [The New York Times]. The filmmakers were followed and harassed throughout their shooting, so they had to rely on more covert operations like deploying divers with underwater cameras, flying areal drones, and using thermal imaging and other spy gear to record the hunts.
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A new documentary film that has all the intrigue of a thriller is giving the world its first glimpse of what goes on in the scenic waters near the coastal town of Taiji, Japan. The Cove tells the story of a skilled group of activists who reveal the slaughter of dolphins by Japanese fisherman, with scenes so bloody that the cove’s waters are dyed red. This killing may be legal — dolphins and other small marine mammals are not protected by the ban on commercial whaling — but … the methods used are so nonchalantly brutal and gut-churningly primitive that Taiji officials are understandably publicity-shy [The New York Times].
In an effort to keep the dolphin killing off film, mysterious individuals follow, harass, and confront the filmmakers. The cove where the slaughter takes place is private property and strictly off-limits, but the movie makers are more than willing to break the law for their cause. To ensure they get their footage, the team includes a “clandestine operations” organizer, two of the world’s best free-divers, and a former avionics expert with the Canadian Air Force. This cloak-and-dagger crew makes use of such tools as a military infrared camera for night cinematography, unmanned aerial drones, a blimp and fake rocks specially designed by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic to hold secret cameras [Los Angeles Times].
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Powerful sonar causes temporary hearing loss in dolphins, a new study has confirmed, and could explain some incidents of mass stranding of the marine mammals. The impact of sonar on dolphins has been debated for years, but for the first time, researchers have played recordings of actual naval sonar to a marine mammal and tested its hearing after progressive step-ups in intensity over a couple of months [ScienceNews].
Tests were conducted at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology on a captive dolphin, whose head was fitted with a suction cup attached to a sensor that monitored brainwaves. The dolphin was then exposed to progressively louder pings of mid-frequency sonar…. When the pings reached 203 decibels and were repeated, the neurological data showed the mammal had become deaf, for its brain no longer responded to sound [AFP].
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If the U.S. Navy has its way, dolphins and sea lions will soon be patrolling Puget Sound to protect some of the nation’s most sophisticated submarines from possible terrorist attacks. But although the animals have already been through boot camp and are on the job in other parts of the world, Washington State animal lovers and environmentalists are concerned that dolphins and sea lions are ill-suited for conditions in Puget Sound. Animal rights activists are worried dolphins will suffer in the cold waters and environmentalists worry the local habitat may suffer from the droppings of these patrollers [MSNBC]. The Navy is currently holding public hearings in Seattle and towns along the Puget Sound, and has said it will make a decision by October.
The Navy says dolphins and sea lions make great marine sentries, and are more capable of detecting a lone diver approaching a submarine than the most advanced technology. “Their strengths are that they are a mobile sensor: They have the best sensor we know about, and you can have them swim anywhere in the bay. They can outswim any man, they can localize the threat, and they can combine with the sea lions, which have good directional hearing” [Los Angeles Times], says Steve Hugueley, who works with dolphin patrollers at a submarine base in southeast Georgia.
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Three pods of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest have now earned the unfortunate title of being the most contaminated wildlife on Earth, according to a new study. These killer whales, known as southern residents, live in the coastal waters near the U.S.-Canadian border and survive almost exclusively on contaminated Chinook salmon. The salmon contain high levels of polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) and other industrial chemicals, which accumulate in even higher levels in the killer whales. Researcher Peter Ross says whales are particularly sensitive because they eat massive amounts of fish over a long life – killer whales can live for 80 or 90 years – creating a massive buildup of toxins. That means the whales, particularly the southern resident population, have become some of the most contaminated marine mammals in the world [AP].
Researchers estimate that the southern resident killer whales carry 6.6 times more PCBs than a different group of whales just 200 miles to the north, known as the northern residents. They found that the Chinook salmon in the southern waters, including Puget Sound near Washington state, not only had the highest concentrations of contaminants but also the least amount of body fat. This means the southern residents are suffering a “double whammy” because they are forced to eat extra helpings of heavily contaminated salmon. Ross and his colleagues discovered that 97 percent to 99 percent of contaminants in the Chinook eaten by these whales originated from the salmon’s time at sea, in the near-shore waters of the Pacific. Only a small amount came from the time the salmon spent in rivers, although many of the rivers are contaminated, too, Ross said. “Salmon are telling us something about what is happening in the Pacific Ocean,” Ross said. “They are going out to sea and by the time they come back, they have accumulated contaminants over their entire time in the Pacific Ocean” [Scientific American].
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Certain bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Western Australia have picked up an unusual trick, a new study reports: When they head off to forage for a meal, they first grab sponges and hold them in their beaks as they dive down to the seafloor. These dolphins dive to the bottom of deep channels and poke their sponge-covered beaks into the sandy ocean floor to flush out small fish that dwell there…. Foragers then drop their sponges, gobble up available fish and retrieve the implements for another sweep [Science News]. This complicated procedure is the first confirmed example of tool use by dolphins, researchers say.
Scientists had previously observed some dolphins in Australia’s Shark Bay carrying around sponges, but the purpose was unclear. The new study documents this unusual behavior, which only a subset of a larger dolphin population engages in, and also probes the remaining mysteries. Researchers still aren’t sure why most of the “spongers” are female, and they haven’t determined whether the behavior conveys a real evolutionary benefit, although they have hypotheses to explore on both points.
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The oceans are getting noisier, and that’s bad news for whales, dolphins, and sea turtles who use sound to communicate and navigate, researchers declared at a United Nations wildlife conference. Rumbling ship engines, seismic surveys by oil and gas companies, and intrusive military sonars are triggering an “acoustic fog and cacophony of sounds” underwater, scaring marine animals and affecting their behavior. “There is now evidence linking loud underwater noises with some major strandings of marine mammals, especially deep diving beaked whales” [Reuters], says Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
Researchers have long worried that high-powered sonar pulses confuse whales and dolphins and may cause the animals to beach themselves. Marine mammals are turning up on the world’s beaches with tissue damage similar to that found in divers suffering from decompression sickness. The condition, known as the bends, causes gas bubbles to form in the bloodstream upon surfacing too quickly. Scientists say the use of military sonar or seismic testing may have scared the animals into diving and surfacing beyond their physical limits, Simmonds said [AP]. He points to two recent strandings as possible results of the noisy waters (although a link has not been proved): the 100 melon-headed whales that were found on a Madagascar beach, and the two dozen dolphins that got stranded in southern England.
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