A grey whale is charismatic even when it’s dead. The eighth grey to be stranded on BC’s coast this year, and the 4th to be found on the coast of Haida Gwaii according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) officers I spoke with, washed ashore on North Beach recently.
In all there have been 189 reported grey whale mortalities along the Pacific Coast of North America in 2019 prompting the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to declare an Unusual Mortality Event (UME).
Representatives from Haida Fisheries and Fisheries and Oceans Canada first secured the whale on a Thursday evening, and again, with the help of members of the Old Masset community the following day. Images of the 30ft carcass began appearing on social media Friday morning.
I was present, along with some other locals for the necropsy, carried out on the beach by Dr Steven Raverty of the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and the University of British Columbia Marine Mammal Research Unit, assisted by DFO officers. A grim task conducted in a morning sea fog that blotted out the horizon and obscured distant figures and vehicles.
Not to be confused with mortalities of North Atlantic right whales on the East Coast, these tragic grey whale deaths carry a mixed message for conservation efforts. A message wrapped in a story of the successes of conservation efforts past and the urgent need for new efforts now.
Dissecting a whale is physical work and the team proceeded quickly and with good humour–scientific curiosity helping to keep the mood light despite the stench of death. Step downwind and the smell isn’t just bad, it’s a violation–a physical assault that stays with your body for hours afterwards. I literally had to wash out my nasal cavities after I left.
I asked Raverty for his impressions while he worked. He explained to me that the whale was a pre-adult male and that it appeared underweight and potentially sick, but felt that it was too early to draw conclusions regarding the cause of death.
Pressures on grey whales in the Eastern Pacific are many.
The climate crisis has resulted in changes in sea ice in the north that has had a detrimental effect on the populations of amphipod that the whales feed upon before they make their long 15 to 21,000 km fall migration. Climate effects have also adversely affected various other species that the whales eat as they make their way along the continental shelf. While Raverty was reticent to lay blame for this particular death, malnutrition has been identified for others.
Sightings of dead grey whales on our coasts are not uncommon. 2019 is unusual, but 1999 and 2000 were also bad. In part this is due to the success of the overall population, now estimated at 18 to 29,000. But high mortality years do coincide with extreme climate events like El Niño, and the effects of the climate crisis now seem to be among the factors that are limiting the population from growing further. Estimates for the pre-whaling population average out at 96,000.*
There are also concerns regarding pollution, ocean debris and the noise from and risk of collisions with shipping and other craft.
Raverty told me that this whale showed no signs of ship-strike, in fact, internal bruising in the throat area indicated that the whale had been alive when it became stranded.
The original United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I) began the slow process of bringing order to international waters in 1964. It established some rules for “Fishing and the Conservation of Living Resources” in 1966…
Many of the dead grey whales this year have shown evidence of collision with vessels that have almost certainly contributed to their deaths. Whales venturing further into busy areas and close to shore in search for food are more vulnerable to these hazards. There is good evidence that grey whales have been extending the geographic range of their feeding efforts and increasing the variety of their prey for years.*
People appeared from out of the mist, on foot, or in vehicles, the fog performing that strange trick of extending distances and levitating objects so that they appear suspended between the sky and the sand, and of making the sound of the surf seem somehow louder. The sight of a whale is a spectacle whatever the circumstances, even when the circumstances are tragic.
The grey whales of the Pacific Coast traverse from winter mating and calving grounds in the south to summer feeding grounds in the north, a course which keeps them well within the waters of national jurisdiction of Mexico, the US and Canada–areas known internationally as EEZs (exclusive economic zones that extend 200 nautical miles from every coast around the world). Beyond the EEZs lie what has historically been referred to as the High Seas, but which are now increasingly referred to as ANBJ (areas beyond national jurisdiction).
The original United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I) began the slow process of bringing order to international waters in 1964. It established some rules for “Fishing and the Conservation of Living Resources” in 1966, an agreement that was and is high-level stuff, a framework to allow nation-states to rub along together rather than a system of goals and targets. The issue of the breadth of territorial waters and the establishment of EEZs was not settled until 1994 with the ratification of version three of the convention (UNCLOS III).
It’s an important distinction because while all kinds of crazy things go-on close to shore, there is at least clear jurisdiction. Rules can be made and enforced. Governments can act to establish protected areas and other measures.
The high seas on the other hand were and still are are more of a watery Wild West. Comprising fully 66% of the world’s oceans, while UNCLOS has provided some structure for governance, what goes on out there is often more of a race for resources, a global battleground, than a shining example of global stewardship.
And while the grey whales of the Pacific Coast do not venture so far out, as you’d imagine there is plenty out there to protect.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) say that about 33% of oceanic sharks and rays are under threat of extinction, in large part due to targeted legal and illegal fishing, and mortality due to bycatch (fishing mortality of non-targeted species). 64 species of oceanic sharks and rays are on the list including mobula rays, hammerhead and porbeagle sharks.
Northwest Atlantic sharks are estimated to have had their population cut in half during the last 50 years. Stocks of tuna have been decimated with most species overfished. The southern bluefin tuna is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.
Whales have been protected by international treaty. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) shocked some of its members when in 1982 it switched track from being an advocacy forum for the whaling industry to a conservation body. Some of them never got over it–Japan’s entrepreneurially inexplicable move to exit the commission to resume commercial whaling in its own waters, looks very much like a delayed fit of pique, although it does at least mean they will cease whaling activities they have been conducting under the guise of scientific research in the Southern Ocean. Some say it is just a face-saving move before stopping completely. We’ll see.
But whales are one of few exceptions that prove the overall rule of the High Seas–the absence of much rule at all. The principles of sustainability established under UNCLOS I are all very well but the results have not been impressive. UNCLOS is still in force and has been updated over the years (UNCLOS III is the latest version) placing increased focus on important areas such as exploitation of the seabed and pollution, but not much has moved with regard to protection for the animals out there.
Now, thankfully we are finally on the verge of a new treaty under the convention that focuses on “Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity” in ABNJ, and while the process is only halfway complete there is cause for optimism as well as some cause for concern.
If, like me, you’re the kind of nerd who enjoys reading legal documents, I encourage you to have a go at the draft treaty. A link to it was circulated via Twitter by Pew Environment recently. I also encourage you to go through the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) bulletin on the conference proceedings (a kind of independently sourced minutes of the conference) from which it resulted. Go-on – I’ll see you back here in an hour or so.
… there is much in the draft concerning what it calls Marine Genetic Resources (MGR) but it also seems to allow a wide variety of definitions for what that might mean.
That a draft treaty exists at all is, in truth, a great step forward, and we should be very careful of being critical of what is very much a work in progress, but it does highlight a few things.
Perhaps it is too much to hope that a treaty of this type would include hard targets regarding the conserving and restoring historic biomass levels for endangered species. There are calls from many nations for clear objectives, but they are referred to in the draft document in only the vaguest terms. What the draft treaty and the proceedings themselves do seem to make abundantly clear is that not only do most participants see this as simply a management framework with few explicit built-in goals, but that in large part what is being built-in is significant latitude for countries to propose pretty much whatever they like (subject to some standards for what proposals should contain,) with the goals and potential outcomes of whatever gets approved subject to whatever political winds blow through the governing organization at the time.
This is troubling in general. There are specific concerns as well. Notably, there is much in the draft concerning what it calls Marine Genetic Resources (MGR) but it also seems to allow a wide variety of definitions for what that might mean. The term certainly conjures-up exciting possibilities for research– sampling the ocean for microscopic scraps of DNA suspended in the water column and embedded in the ocean floor is hugely promising. It allows the gathering-up of massive amounts of data concerning biodiversity and biomass levels across the world, opening up the possibility of modeling entire ecosystems using complete, time-based, species-level biomass estimates. Centralized and transparent storage of MGR data is also included–again, exciting stuff for freedom of information and crowd-based research.
The term for some at least also seems to mean fish and other animals–resources that can be gathered up and sold.
That both of these concepts should be on the minds of delegates working out a new international treaty for the governance of the high-seas should not be a surprise. What is troubling is the seeming inability (at this stage at least) to separate the two and put the priority on science and conservation in an unequivocal way.
The UN Convention on Biodiversity defines Genetic Material as “any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity”, and Genetic Resources as “genetic material of actual or potential value.”
Again, the implication is that we are talking about research materials, but a much broader definition in not ruled-out, and it seems like there is no automatic transference of this definition to the new high-seas treaty and that of Marine Genetic Resources anyway.
According to scientists I have spoken with, the support for science and research implied by the first definition of MGR should also be viewed at least somewhat cautiously. An international database of species-specific fish biomass for ABNJ would be an incredible tool for conservation. It could potentially also be used for even more aggressive and even more targeted fishing.
Similar confusion reigns over other key components. Area Based Management Tools (ABMT) are one of the essential mechanisms of ocean protection, allowing as the name suggests for specific areas to be subject to particular rules for use. Some nations want to use the discussion to firm up commitments to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) – ABMTs that are firmly focused on conservation. Others are keen to remind us that ABMTs come in a wide variety of flavours and could potentially be focused on all kinds of different objectives.
It’s also clear that while reference is made to “local knowledge”, the voice of indigenous groups is notably absent. This makes no sense given how important the rights and views of these groups, these ur-nations, are to the successful design and implementation of protections. In deference to the UN’s own Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, what about the idea that indigenous groups be included as signatories on treaties of this type?
Arguments over when an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be required seem more technocratic but still not very confidence inspiring. What is the point of having a rule for only needing an EIA if you think there is a likelihood of damage if you then turn out to be wrong? So much for the precautionary principle.
It’s a picture of a world divided between old school and new school thinking. For many the ocean is still just a giant store cupboard, a hoard of food and other resources that is there to be raided (if a bit more moderately these days). For more progressive types the emphasis has already shifted to understanding, preservation and restoration. Progress is being made but the muddle is excruciating.
We’re all familiar with the language of constructive ambiguity. That’s ok as long as it remains constructive. Destructive ambiguity we don’t need. The fear is that this long-overdue treaty will fail to provide the umbrella protection and support for conservation and research in ABNJ that it should, and will instead form the framework for a global high-seas carve-up for a multi-trillion dollar blue economy that damages more than it protects.
It seems there have been plenty of fine words regarding conservation voiced by conference participants (according to the bulletin) but those words have yet to be translated into specific goals and included in the draft.
The UN has its own, well thought through, clear and compelling targets for the environment; the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG). Is it too much to hope that clear reference to these internationally agreed targets be included in a treaty of this type? If they were it might help us to have faith in the overall direction of our governing bodies with regard to all kinds of ecological and climate crisis related issues.
People overuse the term “historic opportunity”, but in this case, the term applies. Important species are dying in their millions every year. Species that are linked to us by the intricate web of survival that is the natural world.
When a grey whale or a blue shark dies, it is a death in the family of living things. The whale impacts us emotionally because it lived out its final moments close to shore. An illegally caught shark dies anonymously.
We are reminded that death is a part of life, but these dead whales are showing up on our beaches in huge numbers due to a human-made climate crisis, and deaths of this type are the precursor to larger deaths–of species, of ecosystems.
When grey whales were first documented by science they had already been extirpated from European waters for 300 years. The fact that there are any whales at all is because they received protection from whaling practices in the final hour before they were destroyed forever. There is more than one lesson to learn from the tragic sight of whales washing up on our shores. More than one lesson concerning the power of nations to preserve life, and what happens when they stand idly by.
Negotiations for the Treaty for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction has so-far taken almost a decade.
So let us have a more integrated approach to ocean conservation and restoration at the UN, and let us learn the lessons taught to us by the great whales – international conservation efforts work when they are applied boldly and decisively, but when it comes to protections for the ecology of the high seas there is much to do and an important opportunity that could still go to waste while great nations continue to live in the past.
Whale population estimates and information regarding changes in feeding habits sourced from “Marine Mammals of the Pacific Coast” by Sarah G. Allen, Joe Mortenson, and Sophie Webb, 2011, University of California Press.
