If YOU would like to help The Manta Trust to conserve both species of mantas please sign and share its online petition here.  You might have seen online petitions for these types of conservation initiatives before, but to find out what The Manta Trust’s petition is all about and WHY YOUR SIGNATURE WILL REALLY HELP read on… If English . . . → Read More: Sign the Petition and Help Protect Mantas]]>  

If YOU would like to help The Manta Trust to conserve both species of mantas please sign and share its online petition here.  You might have seen online petitions for these types of conservation initiatives before, but to find out what The Manta Trust’s petition is all about and WHY YOUR SIGNATURE WILL REALLY HELP read on… If English isn’t your first language please follow the links in the page to read more and understand our campaign.

The petition is specifically targeting the delegates of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in each of the 177 signatory nations to this convention.  CITES is the only international  treaty established to protect endangered species that is considered binding on member nations.  Every 3 years this body meets to vote on species to be protected under the convention.  On 4th October 2012, it was announced officially that Brazil, Ecuador and Columbia  submitted the proposal to have the Genus Manta listed on Appendix II at the next convention to be held in Bangkok on 3rd-14th March 2013. With the proposal for the genus Manta accepted, it is up to member nations to vote upon this.  A two thirds majority vote will secure this vital international protection for mantas. The Manta Trust‘s petition to the voting members will, we hope, highlight the case for the conservation of mantas and persuade them to vote in favour of the proposal.

Read further here on why do mantas need protection, and how will your signature help.

Thank you for helping manta rays!

More than 20 years ago (1991), under the impetus of the highest concern for the survival of cetacean populations in the Mediterranean, strongly impacted by human activities (most notably bycatch in pelagic driftnets), with colleagues I . . . → Read More: Pushing forward the Pelagos Sanctuary and the conservation of marine mammals in the Mediterranean Sea]]> I posted this article on the Open Channels Forum for Ocean Planning and Management on 11 November 2012

More than 20 years ago (1991), under the impetus of the highest concern for the survival of cetacean populations in the Mediterranean, strongly impacted by human activities (most notably bycatch in pelagic driftnets), with colleagues I lobbied for the establishment of a large (87,000 km2) marine mammal sanctuary in the region’s NW portion, covering an area containing critical habitat of several cetacean species. Subsequently (1999), the Pelagos Sanctuary was formally established by a treaty among France, Italy and Monaco, and was later included in the list of Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMIs) under the purview of the Barcelona Convention. As the world’s first MPA established in the high seas, Pelagos has served significantly the purpose of attracting attention to the need of protecting Areas Beyond Natural Jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Today, however, 13 years after its designation, I cannot state that the Pelagos Sanctuary has been doing much for the local populations of whales and dolphins. It has never been properly managed — in fact there is no management body. Trying to overcome the sense of frustration caused by this condition, I think that this impasse needs to be overcome through some lateral thinking.

The situation of marine protection of the Mediterranean is different today from when the idea of Pelagos was first conceived, in the early ‘90s. First, driftnets are no longer the main threat to cetaceans, having been made illegal (although some pockets of illegal use still persist in southern Italy, Morocco and Turkey, which are causing cetacean mortality). Second, in the frame of a process that will eventually cause international waters to become extinct in the Mediterranean, Pelagos lies no longer in ABNJ, being now within France’s Mediterranean EEZ and Italy’s Ecological Protection Zone. Third, the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic (ACCOBAMS), under the Convention on Migratory Species, has come into force since 2002, with a wide regional membership and the mandate of protecting cetaceans everywhere in the Mediterranean, not just inside the borders of Pelagos.

So, has Pelagos served its function, and should it now be sent to retirement? I don’t think so, particularly because of the local sense of pride that it has generated during the years (more that 40 coastal municipalities in France and Italy have deliberated to be partners of the Pelagos Sanctuary). However, I think that its nature could be modified to best meet the current and future challenges.

A proposal: reduce and enlarge Pelagos

This could perhaps be achieved by simultaneously reducing and enlarging Pelagos. Let me clarify. I would first reduce it by limiting its purview over areas that really contain cetacean critical habitat, thereby leaving outside wide portions of marine surface, currently included inside Pelagos’ perimeter, that have little or no significance for cetacean conservation. At the same time, I would include within Pelagos other areas containing cetacean critical habitat throughout the Western Mediterranean – from Gibraltar all the way to the Sicily Strait – thereby transforming Pelagos into a Western Mediterranean network of marine mammal core conservation areas. We now have the ecological information needed to accomplish this task. In turn, this network would contribute to strengthen the bases for the identification of EBSAs (CBD’s Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas) in the region. In addition, it would serve as an introduction to the implementation of a Marine Spatial Planning scheme whereby all human activities in the Mediterranean that are currently impairing or threatening marine mammal conservation – such as navigation, military, oil exploration, fishing – will be made to coexist with environmental protection.

Perhaps by going in this direction it will be easier to give the Pelagos Sanctuary a more meaningful and manageable character. I admit that the idea is still pretty raw, and will need quite more tinkering to make its implementation possible, or even desirable, within the current Mediterranean governance complexity. This is the reason why I am posting it on OpenChannels: to seek comments and suggestions which will help to understand whether the idea has potential, and eventually make progress with it.

Towards the end of summer 2009 the welcome news arrived that great white sharks still exist in the Mediterranean. A newborn female, slightly longer than 1.5 m, sadly met her fate in the bottom of a . . . → Read More: Debunking myths on Mediterranean great white sharks]]> (first posted on 1 Nov. 2010; adapted from an article appeared in Italian on La Rivista della Natura)

Towards the end of summer 2009 the welcome news arrived that great white sharks still exist in the Mediterranean. A newborn female, slightly longer than 1.5 m, sadly met her fate in the bottom of a trawl net. Fishermen from the island of Lampedusa reported the event to Simonpietro Canese, a researcher from ISPRA who was inventorying marine biodiversity in the Strait of Sicily.

It has been a while since the occurrence of the species in the region was in the news. The Mediterranean population of great white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias as it is known to scientists, is listed as Endangered in the Red List,

due to inferred significant reduction in numbers during the last decades. Although the reason(s) for decline is uncertain, the dismal conservation status of bluefin tuna, the sharks’ main prey in the region, is a likely candidate.

I don’t expect all readers to share my sense of elation, experienced in learning about the continued presence in our seas of the great predator. After all, there are not many species left on the planet which are able to devour a human being, and the great white shark is one of them. The perspective of being thorn to pieces by a sea monster still evokes in all of us an instinctive sense of horror; however in this case our instinct is unjustified, because in the Mediterranean there is little substance to the problem. This consideration provides me with the opportunity for trying to debunk some of the most common myths concerning the presence and dangerousness of great white sharks in the Mediterranean Sea.

Myth n. 1. Great whites enter the Mediterranean from the Atlantic through the Gibraltar Strait following ships. False. The Mediterranean hosts a resident population of these sharks, which are found in the region regularly (although in low densities), and breed here as well, as indicated most recently by the unlucky newborn from Lampedusa. By contrast, great white sharks are quite rare in the north-east Atlantic Ocean, so that in fact the exact opposite is more likely.

Myth n. 2. Great whites live in the open seas, and rarely come close to the coast. False. It is not on the basis of the distance from the coast, but on the basis of the presence of their prey that great white sharks decide where they want to be. In other seas, such as for instance off California, southern Australia and South Africa, these sharks are frequently found in few metres of water in front of rookeries of seals and sea lions, which are their main course in those locations. Significantly, great white sharks get occasionally caught in tuna traps (almadrabas or tonnare), which are laid along Mediterranean shores to intercept migrating bluefin tunas.

Myth n. 3. Great whites are a significant threat to Mediterranean swimmers. False. Please don’t get me wrong, there have been episodes in which a great white shark killed a human in the Mediterranean: to be exact, 21 cases in the entire basin in more than a century (1907-2010), i.e., 0.2 attacks per year on average, the last of which occurred 23 years ago in the bay of Baratti (near Livorno, Italy). A modest death toll indeed, compared for example with the tens of persons who die every year in Europe as a consequence of a bee sting. Casualties from shark attacks in the Mediterranean become even less significant considering every summer bathers in the Mediterranean waters number in the tens of millions.

This is a typical example of media bias: when a great white shark appears near our coasts it goes on TV right away, whereas nobody takes notice of the much more dangerous hornet.

This article was published in Italian on 23 June 2011 on the website of “Il Fatto Quotidiano”

A group of leading experts in marine conservation met in London last April to take stock of the condition of the oceans, and days ago a report with their conclusions hit the world’s . . . → Read More: The oceans are dying, long live the oceans!]]>

Image via Wikipedia

This article was published in Italian on 23 June 2011 on the website of “Il Fatto Quotidiano”

A group of leading experts in marine conservation met in London last April to take stock of the condition of the oceans, and days ago a report with their conclusions hit the world’s media. Not much to be rejoicing about, really, although the depressing picture which emerged from the workshop is certainly not a surprise. The oceans’ waters are getting warmer, their acidity is increasing, hypoxic and anoxic zones are expanding. The speed of phenomena often matches the worst case scenario foreseen by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and some times it is even worse.

The cumulative effects of the various impacts are greater than expected, while the timelines for action are shrinking. Furthermore, the oceans’ resilience to the effects of climate change is hampered by other types of pressures such as overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction. In short, many ecosystems are near collapse, and the number of species threatened with extinction keeps increasing. The loss of biodiversity, until now largely confined to local scales, is becoming global; within a single generation we risk losing entire ecosystems, such as coral reefs. “Unless action is taken now – concludes the report – the consequences of our activities area at a high risk of causing [ … ] the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean”. Such extinction is caused solely by human action; it is not by chance that the era in which we live has been named Anthropocene.

The most urgent comment to offer in the face of such an expected disaster is that it affects us all greatly.  Demolishing ecosystems is no trivial matter, particularly marine ecosystems that provide essential services to humankind, such as the production of oxygen and nutrients, water depuration, maintenance of hydrological balance, absorption of atmospheric CO2; and we know that biodiversity is essential for the proper functioning of ecosystems.  Furthermore, oceans are not solely providers of services of fundamental importance to humans; they do much more than that. The seas are a powerful source of inspiration, of awe, and attraction for humankind. The seas move us to compose music and write poetry; they make us dream and conjure us to fall in love. All these feelings become impossible when facing a rotting and lifeless puddle, no matter how large it is.

The explanation of why we are rushing towards disaster like passengers of a train without a driver resides in the realm of social and political sciences rather than in that of ecology.  A key component of this malaise resides in the divorce from the natural world that has progressively developed within the most cultured layers of modern societies, which also affects many of those who read blogs. These people thrive within a super-protected bubble which is totally cut-off from the universe, and for this reason they are misled into thinking that their bubble is the universe. When a tsunami hits, it destroys the bubble and reduces its unwitting inhabitants to pulp.

To be clear, this warning against the effects of a clear absence of adequate environmental policy plaguing humankind is not equivalent to a prophecy of doom. The Cassandras have never been endearing characters. I remember well the sense of annoyance that the unlucky Trojan princess elicited, when reading Homer in my school days: “stop whining – I almost wanted to tell her – do something instead”.  The poor girl couldn’t do much, really, since the destruction of her world was ineluctable. Herein lies the difference. In our case there still is time for action, but if we want to succeed we need clear, determined and effective political will.  Alas, there is still no sign of such political will above the horizon.

It would be difficult to find a better example than the swordfish fishery in Italy for exemplifying what NOT to do as far as management of the marine environment and its resources are concerned.  In the old . . . → Read More: Pelagic driftnets: a Mediterranean metastasis]]> This article was published in Italian on 16 June 2011 on the website of “Il Fatto Quotidiano”

It would be difficult to find a better example than the swordfish fishery in Italy for exemplifying what NOT to do as far as management of the marine environment and its resources are concerned.  In the old days swordfish was mostly caught by harpoon, the most selective fishing method there is.  The problems started in the ‘80s, when pelagic driftnets dozens of miles long, also known with the name of “walls of death”, came into vogue.

Photograph by OCEANA/Juan Cuetos (2006)

Driftnets are too efficient, and end up emptying the seas; at the same time, they are quite unselective: adult swordfish, the target of the fishery, make up only one fifth of the catch and everything else that gets caught end up discarded, dead or dying: undersized swordfish, sharks, manta rays, sunfish and other large pelagic fish, turtles, seabirds, dolphins and even the great whales. Driftnets deployed in the ’90s by over 700 Italian vessels, with an overall net length probably exceeding 10,000 km, have devastated the Mediterranean population of sperm whales, which were once common but are now listed as endangered in the Red List of threatened species. In addition, driftnets and have been the cause of significant mortality of striped dolphins, common dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, Cuvier’s beaked whales, pilot whales; in total, many thousands of individuals every year.  Dying in a driftnet, for these highly social and intelligent mammals, is a slow death entailing horrible and useless suffering, with the weight of the net impeding their surfacing to breathe, and with the net’s mesh sinking into raw wounds.

In view of the pelagic driftnets’ destructive potential, the United Nations General Assembly decreed in 1989, and reiterated in 1991, a global moratorium starting from 1992. The European Union followed suit imposing on its fleets a maximum net length of 2.5 km per boat in 1992, and the total ban from 1 January 2002. Quite typically, Italy tried hard to disregard international and European rules, like, at the expense of the taxpayer as well as of the health of the sea. Quite tellingly, the initial approach of the Italian government – when Adriana Poli Bortone, then the minister of agricultural resources, declared that she would ask the Commission for a derogation to allow the nets a maximum length of 9 km, and went to the extreme of inviting the coast guard “not to fine fishermen caught in illegal situations “ – did not change much in the decades to follow, in spite of damning evidence of the destructiveness of pelagic driftnets. And it is a fact that the only European country which continues to turn a blind eye when it comes to pelagic driftnet is Italy.

In anticipation of the entry into force of the total ban of driftnetting in European waters in 2002, the European Commission allocated €200 million for the conversion of the Italian vessels. This sounds like a lot of money but in reality it is not that much considering that the market value of swordfish in Italy is thought to be amounting to €4billion/year, legal and illegal catches combined. No wonder that so many fishermen chose not to accept the offer, preferring to continue operating illegally. Worse still, several others pocketed the money for the conversion and then continued – and still continue – to fish, undeterred and unopposed. The reaction of the state in the face of such blatant lawlessness was patchy: some intervention occurred here and there (3000 km of net were confiscated in 2006), although in most places lack interest, and in some cases even connivance, were the rule. In summary, thanks to the lack of transparency in the controls, or of their absence, it can be said that public money was used in Italy to a large extent to support illegal fishing.

In 2009 the European Court of Justice sent a first warning condemning Italy for failing to comply with European law, but without imposing financial penalties. Since there was no appreciable improvement, however, we can now expect a less benevolent treatment. A survey conducted recently in Sicily and Ponza by undercover inspectors of the European Commission, who noticed the persisting tolerance for flagrant illegality by the enforcement authorities, is likely to herald the opening by the Commission of an infringement procedure against Italy, with a subsequent stiff penalty, particularly painful in these times of crisis. We cannot blame the Italian taxpayers for their frustration for bearing the cost of such sloppy governance three times: the first for the conversion, the second for the fine, and finally – worse even – for seeing its seas remaining unprotected and further degraded.

Photo: A.M. Abd El Malek

This article first appeared on the “Monk Seal Latest News”. I thank William Johnson, Editor of The Monachus Guardian, for significantly improving our manuscript.  The article is co-authored by Mahmoud Fouad, from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency of . . . → Read More: Monk seal sightings in Egypt]]>

Photo: A.M. Abd El Malek

This article first appeared on the “Monk Seal Latest News”. I thank William Johnson, Editor of The Monachus Guardian, for significantly improving our manuscript.  The article is co-authored by Mahmoud Fouad, from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency of Cairo.

On 7 April, during a recent trip along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast to establish stakeholder contacts in implementing a National Action Plan for the Conservation of Cetaceans in that country, funded by the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA) of Tunis, we were informed by the local community of Marsa Matrouh of a spate of monk seal sightings in the area. The news had generated considerable excitement, since the species has long been considered extinct in Egypt.

In a meeting at the offices of the Director of Environmental Affairs of the Marsa Matrouh Governorate, fishermen reported that seals had been observed several times during the previous 10 days.  Mr. Abd El Malek in particular, a fisherman about 60 years old, was very clear.  He had begun noticing that something was pulling fish out of his trammel nets, “in a very professional way”, i.e. without breaking the mesh. His boys had told him that they had seen a very strange animal around the nets, similar to those they had watched on TV, in the “yellow square” (National Geographic) eating penguins under the ice. At first he didn’t believe them: throughout his life, he’d never seen a seal in these waters; other fishermen said the same.  After several attempts, however, they indeed caught a glimpse of a seal resting on one of the small sandy beaches along the local rocky coastline, and managed to take a few pictures and even a short video with their cell phones.  Other fishermen agreed, asserting that they had frequently seen up to five seals during the same period, in a location about 5 km away from the first, and that their nets had been completely destroyed.

While we consider this last snippet of information unsubstantiated and rather unlikely, the documentation provided by Abd El Malek leaves no doubt that at least one monk seal had made its appearance in Egypt, more than 20 years after the species was last reported from the country. Based on a very preliminary assessment, it seems quite possible that both photographs and the video are of the same seal, and we can thus only be certain about the presence of that one individual. Unfortunately, we also heard rumours that one seal had been killed — which, if true, might mean that this recent monk seal foray into Egypt ended abruptly in tragedy.

What might have led a monk seal to visit Egypt again after so many years of absence is open to speculation: natural dispersion from adjacent remaining concentration areas, war-induced dislodgment from Cyrenaica – a putative, yet unconfirmed area of occupancy – are all possible explanations, hopefully to be confirmed by future sightings.  Certainly, a careful preparatory work, largely based on local awareness and involvement campaigns, is now needed to ensure that the area may eventually be recolonized by monk seals.  To that end, the ongoing effort to conserve cetaceans in the area has quickly been renamed the RAC/SPA’s “National Action Plan for the Conservation of Marine Mammals in the Egyptian Mediterranean”.

A huge back breaks the calm surface of the Mediterranean in front of Jaffa, attracting the attention of Aviad Scheinin, of the Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance Centre.  It is the morning of 8 May 2010, and Aviad is surveying the . . . → Read More: The unlikely tourist whale]]> (adapted from an article appeared in Italian on La Rivista della Natura)

A huge back breaks the calm surface of the Mediterranean in front of Jaffa, attracting the attention of Aviad Scheinin, of the Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance Centre.  It is the morning of 8 May 2010, and Aviad is surveying the Israeli coastal waters during one of his regular dolphin monitoring campaigns.  Whales are not rare in the Mediterranean Sea, but their presence in the Levantine Sea is unusual. This one, however, is a very special whale. Back in his lab, Aviad consults with colleagues over the net to identify the species, and when he sends the photos taken that morning all doubts vanish. The Leviathan’s grey mottled colouration and the shape of its back and tail are unmistakeably those of a California grey whale.

Photograph by Aviad Scheinin, IMMRAC.

To try to give an idea of the extravagance of this event, we could compare it to the sight of a kangaroo hopping across an olive grove in Tuscany, or to the appearance of a penguin in the Venice Lagoon. Kangaroo and penguin, however, would have been likely runaways from some passing circus. The grey whale instead had obviously reached the Mediterranean on its own, after a swim lap at least 15,000 km long.

Less than a month later, on 30 May, the same whale reappears 3,000 km to the west of the Israeli coast, this time in front of Barcelona. Unique patterns of dark and light grey give away its identity just like fingerprints: it is the same guy (or girl) that had been spotted off Israel. Three thousand km covered in three weeks may seem no mean feat for most animals, but not for a whale. These mammals are like ships that never dock; even when they swim slowly, semi-dozing, they may be able to inch forward by 5-7 km in one hour.  It is when they want to stay in one place – for example, when they have located a dense patch of prey – that they have to concentrate on their whereabouts, swimming back and forth to avoid losing their dinner.  But as soon as whales start swimming with a constant bearing, like when they migrate, they eat up mileage with no special effort, finding themselves, a few weeks later, on the other side of an ocean.

None of this, however, is sufficient to account for what business might have had in the Mediterranean a grey whale, a species which is typical of the Pacific Ocean.  True, once upon a time there were grey whales in the North Atlantic, some even venturing into the Baltic Sea; this tribe, however, became extinct towards the mid-1600s, for reasons unknown. Today two extant populations exist, both roaming the North Pacific. The western population, made up of a scanty 120 animals, lives off the Russian shores and is the most critically endangered of all whales. By contrast, the eastern group – a hefty population in excess of 20,000 animals – shuttles seasonally between Mexico and Alaska along the North American coast.

One of the whale's hypothetical routes, from Alaska to Israel.

The wandering whale that ended up inside the Mediterranean almost certainly came from this eastern group. Why did a whale endeavour to swim halfway across the planet is open to the wildest, albeit fascinating conjectures. One thing we know is that grey whales are powerful migrants. After spending their winter in their breeding lagoons in Baja California, whales manage to reach their summer feeding grounds in the Bering and Beaufort seas around Alaska. In recent years, thanks to the progressive thawing of the polar icecap due to global warming, grey whales have been seen venturing farther and farther to the east. Therefore it may not seem so unlikely that our whale, when the time came of turning south on its winter migration, unwittingly found itself into the Atlantic instead than in the Pacific.

We will perhaps never find out what happened with certainty. But should something like this occur again, we would find it somewhat ironic if climate change were to allow grey whales to re-colonise the Atlantic, thereby resulting, against all expectations, in an increase of this ocean’s biodiversity.