Andrew Wetzler's Blog: Reviving the World's Oceans

“Half of this game is ninety percent mental”*

2008-10-06T16:49:11Z

On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Winter v. NRDC, a case concerning the devastating environmental effects that the use of high-intensity active sonar can have on marine life, particularly small, deep-diving, whales. The Court could consider numerous important legal issues in its review of the case. It might, for example, address the Constitutional principle of separation of powers and the implications of allowing the Executive Branch to declare that a court order constitutes an “emergency” that waives judicial review. But here’s one thing the Court won’t be considering: the Endangered Species Act. That’s because there are no Endangered Species Act claims in Winter v. NRDC.

Someone should tell that to the Pacific Legal Foundation. On Sunday, the Washington Times published an op-ed on the case by David Stirling, Vice President of PLF. I wasn’t particularly surprised to see it, at first. After all, PLF is a property-rights groups that spends considerable time trying to weaken wildlife protections under the Endangered Species Act (they recently filed a lawsuit challenging the listing of the polar bear) and the Washington Times’s editorial page isn’t exactly a bastion of environmental consciousness. But I was surprised to read this:

Hopefully, the court will set aside the long-held notion within the federal judiciary that the Endangered Species Act is a super statute that trumps all other public considerations. This faulty line of thinking got its start in the 1978 Supreme Court decision in TVA v. Hill (the snail darter case) where it declared Congress intended the ESA to preserve plant and wildlife species "whatever the cost."

Now this is a pretty typical (if wrongheaded) argument, but given the fact that this case doesn’t concern the Endangered Species Act it actually made me laugh out loud. Stirling also asserts that beaked whales, one of the types of whales most vulnerable to active sonar, are “listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act” (they’re not). So you won’t be surprised to hear that much of Stirling’s other assertions about the case are equally wrong.

*Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

Lummi, the Orca, R.I.P.

2008-08-07T20:52:24Z

Sad news today that Lummi, the great-great-grandmother of a family of killer whales in Puget Sound known as the “K-Pod,” has gone missing and is presumed dead. She was believed to have been born in around 1910. When I read the story I was reminded of how incredibly ancient many of the world's whales are. In fact, Orcas are relatively short-lived. Scientists believe that bowhead whales can live 200 years. Just last year, scientists discovered a 130 year-old harpoon point buried in the blubber of one bowhead. When you think about that fact that there may be whales alive today who were frolicking calves during America’s civil war, it makes the persistence of commercial whaling all the harder to understand.

Fish Ebola Poised to Hit the Mississippi

2008-07-21T23:15:48Z

The Washington Post reports that viral hemorrhagic septicemia, a disease often described as “fish ebola,” has been discovered in southern Lake Michigan and a reservoir in Ohio. Hemorrhagic septicemia is an invasive species, most likely brought into the great lakes in the ballast water of ships transporting cargo from the Atlantic. Like many invasives, it has spread rapidly, taking advantage of an ecosystem that never evolved the capacity to deal with it. Now the virus stands, literally, on the doorstep of the Mississippi, potentially providing it access to a whole new ecosystem in which to wreak havoc.

As I’ve blogged about before, the spread of invasives like hemorrhagic septicemia is one of the main reasons we need to get serious about controlling invasive species and, especially, ballast water pollution. The House of Representatives is taking up a bill (H.R. 2830) that contains provisions which would set rigorous standards for ballast water treatment and disposal. Unfortunately, the bill puts off implementation of these standards for years, preempts virtually all state laws addressing ballast water pollution, and could even be read as preempting the Clean Water Act itself, one of our bedrock environmental laws. In our view, that’s an unwise tradeoff, especially considering the agency that will be implementing the new federal standard will be the U.S. Coast Guard, which doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to protecting the environment.

Two new shark species discovered

2008-02-29T22:37:55Z

Researchers in Australia recently announced the discovery of two new species of wobbegong (or carpet) sharks, which they have named the "floral banded wobbegong" and "dwarf spotted wobbegong." As the name suggests, the dwarf spotted wobbegong is a smaller cousin of the spotted wobbegong, pictured below.

Wobbegong sharks aren't the scary "jaws" sharks we're used to seeing; in fact, we eat them. The wobbegong's flesh, which is sold as "flake," is often used for Australian fish and chips. I'm always amazed that we continue to find new species in the world, which we humans think we know so much about. Unfortunately, wobbegongs, like all shark species, are in trouble. The wobbegong fishery has seen a decline in landings by as much as 60% and the International Union For the Conservation of Nature's Red List now classifies both banded and spotted wobbegongs as "near threatened" species.

The Littlest Canary in the Biggest Coal Mine

2008-02-18T15:24:13Z

Scientists, gathered at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Annual Meeting in Boston, are expressing increased concern over the growing threat to some of the smallest seas creatures in the world, including tiny snails sometimes called pteropods or "sea butterflies." These animals play a crucial role at the base of the marine food chain. The problem is that the world's oceans are steadily growing more acidic as they absorb ever-increasing global carbon dioxide emissions and, as a result, animals like pteropods can have trouble growing the shells they need to survive. Acidification is also responsible for contributing to the loss of coral reefs around the world.

Gretchen Hofmann, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara says it best:

"These animals are not charismatic but they are talking to us just as much as penguins or polar bears," said Hofmann. "They are harbingers of change. It's possible by 2050 they may not be able to make a shell anymore. If we lose these organisms, the impact on the food chain will be catastrophic," she added.

Trouble to the left of me, trouble to the right...

2008-01-13T21:45:46Z

John Platt, over at the Extinction Blog has an interesting item up about what the Korea Times calls "ghost whales" -- the elusive, mysterious, and highly endangered western pacific gray whale. A close cousin of the more populous eastern pacific grays, who migrate from Alaska, down the coast of California, to their nursing grounds in Baja, California, the western pacific grays follow a similar path along the east coast of Asia. But with only about 120 individuals left, the western gray whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet. And, unlike the eastern whales, the winter calving grounds of the western grays are unknown (how the nurseries of 45-foot, 40 ton, whales can escape detection is a remarkable thing).

That's where Korea comes in, which has offered a bounty for photographs of the gray whales, as well as the carcases of any whales caught accidentally by Korean fishermen. Entanglement in fishing gear is one of the main threats to the species in its southern migratory corridor. John is right to doubt the wisdom of paying cash for a dead whale, as it creates a perverse incentive, but of even greater concern is oil development in the whales' northern feeding ground.

Russia, along with several western oil companies, is currently developing oil fields off the coast of the Sakhalin Islands. Several conservation groups, including Pacific Environment, are opposing the project, which poses an enormous risk to the Island's marine environment and to the whales, who could be affected by oil spills, noise pollution, and ship collisions. All of these threats are magnified by a poor record of environmental compliance on the part of the companies developing the project. Let's hope that Korea's efforts are successful and we finally discover where the western gray's go to raise their young. It looks like they are going to need all the protection they can get.

Fade to Black

2008-01-11T15:35:47Z

Today the National Marine Fisheries Service formally proposed listing black abalone as an endangered species. Black abalone's historic range extends from Baja California to Del Norte county, well north of San Francisco. Once a dominant feature of the southern California coast, commercial exploitation, habitat alteration, the destruction of kelp forests, and, especially, the spread of "withering syndrome," has devastated black abalone populations.

Interestingly, the spread of withering syndrome (which is by far the greatest threat to the species) seems to be exacerbated by global warming. As the Fisheries Service puts it in its listing proposal:

Suboptimal water temperatures are likely to have contributed to the decline of black abalone and pose a serious threat to the ability of the species to persist because elevated water temperatures are correlated with accelerated rates of withering syndrome transmission and disease-induced mortality. Water temperatures can become elevated because of anthropogenic sources of thermal effluent and long-and short-term climate change (e.g., global climate change and El Nino - Southern Oscillation).

Just another small victim of global warming.

Whales Win!

2008-01-05T16:38:38Z

I've been traveling the last few days and didn't have much time to post on Switchboard, but I would be remiss if I didn't give a quick shout out to my colleagues at NRDC's Marine Mammal Protection Program, who scored yet another landmark victory in NRDC's ongoing campaign to protect ocean life from deadly Navy sonar and other forms of hazardous noise pollution. The Navy will no doubt appeal, but I'm confident NRDC will prevail. We're right on the science, we're right on the law and, most importantly, we are advocating for common sense solutions. Speaking of common sense, it sure would help if the Navy would get some.

As goes polar bears, so goes walruses?

2007-10-08T19:30:13Z

A lot has been written here at Switchboard about the plight of the polar bear in the face of ever-receding sea ice, but the truth is that it's hardly just polar bears that are effected. The entire Arctic ecosystem is being radically transformed by climate change and, whether it's dragonflies and robins showing up in places they've never been seen before or pink salmon and pollock appearing in the northern Bearing sea, the consequences of mankind's chemistry experiment on the earth's atmosphere is becoming more and more apparent.

The most recent example is the walrus, another beloved icon of the North. Today's AP reports that thousands of walruses are no longer staying on the Arctic ice pack, which has now receded too far out in the ocean for them to feed, and are instead are choosing to haul out on the shores of northwest Alaska and the northeast coast of Russia.

This is a dramatic shift of these animals normal behavior, and no one knows what its long-term effects might be, but odds are it won't be good.

Ballast Badness

2007-10-05T15:31:24Z

One of the biggest threats to aquatic ecosystems in the United States--and to the Great Lake's in particular--is the introduction of foreign species (everything ranging from plants, to fish, to microscopic organisms) into our waters by transoceanic ships. These vessels take on huge quantities of water to adjust their trim and increase their stability in open ocean. When they get to a port in the United States, that water (and all the critters still living in it) is then flushed so the ship can take on cargo.

The result has been an explosion in the introduction of invasive species into the Great Lakes and other coastal regions. According to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency, the introduction of the zebra mussel alone has caused an estimated $5 billion dollars in damages to water pipes and other hard surfaces in the Great Lakes. And the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem has been invaded by 230 non-native species. More than 10,000 species may be transported across the world's oceans in the ballast water of ships each day.

Which is why it was good news when the Congress started to seriously consider establishing tough national standard for the treatment of ballast water discharges in the United States. Unfortunately, like most things in Congress, there's a catch. Pressed hard by the shipping industry, committees in both the House and Senate have passed bills that not only establish a minimum treatment standard for ballast water, but would short circuit other efforts to regulate ballast water--specifically regulations just now being drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency as well as all state laws (California and Michigan have them on the books already) that also seek to deal with the problem of ballast water.

Luckily, Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, and other legislators have made clear that they're not going to stand idly by while the Clean Water Act and state law is gutted. We'll be supporting her efforts not only to establish strong minimum treatment standards, but also to protect our bedrock environmental laws in the process.

No, admiral, there's rock-solid science re naval sonar's danger to beaked whales

2007-09-24T20:34:17Z

Today's AP featured a rather extraordinary claim by the United States Navy. In a story about the particular vulnerability "beaked" whales (a kind of small toothed whale that encompasses about twenty different species) to naval sonar, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Robert F. Willard says:

"The frustration and challenge is that we are being asked to put mitigating procedures into place, or to not operate and restrict our freedom of operations, without any foundation whatsoever,"

Clearly the Admiral needs a better briefing from his staff. The fact is that there is now over a decade of scientific "foundation"--including multiple peer-reviewed articles in some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world--that show a clear association between the use of Naval sonar and the death and injury different kinds of whales--beaked whales most of all. Indeed, the scientific information on this score is so powerful that a report by the Navy's own consultants stated that it is "completely convincing." And, at a symposium at an International Whaling Convention meeting, more than 100 whale biologists concluded that the evidence associating beaked whale deaths and the use of navy sonar "is very convincing and appears overwhelming." (To read a full NRDC report that gets into all this evidence in-depth, see here.)

As for those mitigation measures that the Navy is being asked to put in place--not just by NRDC, mind you, but by California Coastal Commission and others--they are designed to, you know, expose whales to less sound. So let's review: (1) there is "overwhelming evidence" that the sound caused by naval sonar kills beaked whales; (2) the Navy is being asked to undertake measures to reduce the level of sound these animals are exposed to; but (3) there is not "any foundation whatsoever" for that request. Right.