Four marine protected areas added to the SPAMI List

During their last meeting in Almeria, Spain (15-18 Jan. 2008), the Parties to the Barcelona Convention adopted the inclusion of four marine protected areas (MPAs) from Italy in the List of Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMI): Miramare, Plemmirio, Tavolara–Punta Coda Cavallo, and Torre Guaceto. These four now join the Pelagos Sanctuary and 16 coastal MPAs from France, Italy, Spain and Tunisia, bringing to a total of 21 the SPAMI List, and significantly contributing to a greater geographical balance for the protected area system within the Barcelona network. Hopefully this development will provide a further stimulus to eastern and southern Mediterranean nations to establish MPAs in their waters to be proposed as further SPAMIs in the near future, thus completing the geographical balancing process.

(photograph: Tavolara, from www.parks.it)

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For more information: www.rac-spa.org

How does one become a cetacean researcher?

My suggestion is to come up with reasonably clear ideas about what you want to do, where and how. Ideally, one should aim to something felt as important, and also feasible based on one’s skills and existing opportunities.

I started working on cetaceans by volunteering on board oceanographic research vessels - looking for dorsal fins and flukes during the day and working in the wet lab during the night. Then I used my father’s small inflatable boat to start a study on dolphins around Losinj, Croatia. Eventually, this became the longest-running study of bottlenose dolphins in the Mediterranean.

Don’t miss opportunities to make experience. You may try to participate in some field or lab activity, doing work as close to your interests as possible to gain practical experience on that particular subject. Find out what is the area where you do particularly well (this may include lab work, photography, statistics or even management, environmental policy, public awareness). If you ‘feel good’ doing something and have a sense of being ‘at home’ whenever you do that, then you may have found your own specialty. Go for it, and try to develop a specific project or an interesting proposal to motivate other people and attract funding.

Do not rely too much on letters and CVs. Try to meet the relevant people in person, at their offices or even in the field. Attend marine mammal and marine conservation conferences, visit various institutes and NGOs. Show that your choice of working with a person or organization is motivated and based on some kind of ‘affinity’.

Courses organized by the Tethys Research Institute can be a reasonable first step for gaining basic experience, knowing how you feel on a boat or at a field station, chat with researchers and possibly identify your areas of interest. You may consider trying different experiences and research groups before deciding what works best for you. In any case, do not put everything in somebody else’s hands: the choice should be yours.

As a general rule, you have better chances of success if you do something based on enthusiasm and passion, and you do not lose sight of your goals along the way.

Giovanni Bearzi

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Useful link:
SMM - Strategies for Pursuing a Career in Marine Mammal Science

One day of dolphin research in the field

In a recent interview for a Swiss magazine, I was asked to describe a typical day of a dolphin researcher on site.

In my experience, this involves waking up early in the morning, rushing to the research boat after having checked and set up all the equipment, spending hours scanning the sea surface in search for dorsal fins. Sometimes dolphins will be found and sometimes not, but you know that you will come back with useful data that help explaining what is going on out there.

And then spending the rest of the day entering data, lecturing to volunteers, training the assistants, discussing and solving personal issues that are inevitable when one shares the same roof with colleagues and students, fixing boats, engines and computers that never stop making trouble, refilling the fuel tanks, buying stuff at the supermarket (if one exists), running, running, running.

On some days you will have a good time over dinner, but on other occasions you may be forced to share the table with people who have little in common with you. Ups and downs, moments of glory and moments of deep frustration. Now enjoying a moment of peace with dolphins all around the boat, and then fixing a leaking toilet in a hell-like summer heat. But always having a sense of living your life at full speed, not wasting a minute, and being fully engaged in something that has a meaning.

To me, what gives a sense to this kind of hectic life in the field is the feeling that you are contributing to an attempt to preserve wildlife. If one loses track of this fundamental goal, life as a field researcher does no longer make sense. You are paid little money to work a lot and take care of a number of logistical, relational and other problems that do not look like research at all.

Therefore, it is important to realize that conservation-oriented research needs people who are equally determined and capable of recording good behavioural data during a dolphin sighting, talking to the mechanic about that weird noise made by the engine, transcribing the contract for the renting of the field station, or moping the floor. All that is equally important, and nobody is allowed to sign off the most miserable of duties.

Giovanni Bearzi

Marine Conservation on Paper? An urgent call for action to protect cetaceans

(a statement presented at the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to ACCOBAMS, October 25th, 2007)


We, the undersigned institutions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), note that despite the positive intent of the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area (ACCOBAMS) and the commitment of ACCOBAMS Parties demonstrated through many Resolutions, Recommendations at previous and in particular at this 3rd Meeting of the Parties, an equivalent degree of essential, tangible conservation activity has not yet taken place.

We are conscious and appreciative of the significant depth of work that has been developed for the Parties by the Scientific Committee of ACCOBAMS in order for them to mitigate threats to cetaceans. We also recognise that several Parties have made progress in implementing Resolutions and some ambitious decisions have been made and Resolutions adopted at this MOP3 of which we highly appreciate. However, although recognizing the overall will by Parties to improve the protection and conservation status of cetaceans in the Agreement area, we wish to express a strong call for action, recognizing that a slow response in implementing decisions and conservation measures would mean the objectives of the Agreement will not be reached.

We note in particular the following concerns:

1. the critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable status of most cetacean populations in the Mediterranean and Black Seas (as recognized in Resolution 3.9)

2. the continued use of driftnets in part of the Agreement area, causing an unacceptable level of cetacean bycatch and a destructive impact on marine ecosystems in general, including in the PELAGOS Sanctuary

3. the continuation of the employment of non-selective fishing methods, the growing intensity of fishing, and the widespread impact of over-fishing leading to ecosystem damage and depletion of cetacean prey

4. the continued lack of implementation of appropriate mitigation measures to reduce underwater noise.

We therefore urge all Parties to take immediate and concrete action to fully meet their commitments under ACCOBAMS and thereby ensure the survival of cetacean populations within the Agreement area.

Signed on October 25th, 2007, by:

WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
OceanCare
Delphis
Oceana Europe
Morigenos – Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Society
Animal Friends, Croatia
Blue World Marine Institute for Research and Conservation
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
WWF Med PO

Mediterranean Coastal Dolphins

A short video on the decline of coastal dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea, produced in 2004.

Watch the video online

DolphinPeople

A story featuring the work of three enthusiastic and dedicated researchers who study coastal dolphins in western Greece.

The video highlights the importance of personal commitment to protect endangered marine mammal populations.

DolphinPeople was filmed in western Greece between 2001-2003.

Watch the video online

The Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls for a more sustainable and just world.

This video is not related to Mediterranean conservation... or is it? Aren't many of the problems affecting the oceans also a result of our patterns of consumption and unsustainable daily habits?

In any case, The Story of Stuff is likely to teach you something, and it may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life.

Watch The Story of Stuff

What can be done, so that Mediterranean common dolphins will survive?

(This is a portion of an interview on the decline of Mediterranean common dolphins)


A number of management actions are likely to benefit dolphins and the marine environment. Marine Protected Areas, fishery reserves (areas closed to fishing), strict enforcement of the existing laws (much of the fishing out there is illegal), to name just a few.

However, we should avoid just blaming the governments and seeing ecosystem destruction exclusively as the result of somebody else’s choices and activities.

We are partly responsible, too. As voters, in the first place. At the last political elections have we voted ‘with our wallet’, or have we attempted to shift the centre of gravity towards a more sensible environmental policy? Have we ever tried to reduce our own consumption rates, recycle, and make our lives a little more sustainable? Ultimately, the ongoing lack of respect towards the marine environment results from our collective desires and demands. People who never consider taking a train instead of an airplane, or walking instead of driving, should consider that a link might exist between their own behaviour and air pollution, or even climate change. Those who enjoy eating swordfish and tuna may want to think about the implications for the marine environment.

Whilst there are practical and feasible actions that could stop the decline of coastal dolphins in some areas, I think that we should realize that damage to the marine environment is also - at least in part - a result of our life styles and habits. Changing our own behaviour and giving up something felt as desirable can be as pleasant, and even more fulfilling, than increasing our consumption rates. The reward consists in knowing that we are part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. We do not only blame others for declining biodiversity and beauty all around us. We are actually doing our best to protect the things we treasure, and we enact consistent behaviour. Our choices might even influence those of others and eventually develop into new behavioural trends.

Giovanni Bearzi

The decline of common dolphins around Kalamos, Greece

Seeing common dolphins bowriding and surrounding our research boat from all sides was a frequent event around the island of Kalamos. When I first moved to study dolphins in western Greece, back in 1996, these magnificent marine mammals were so abundant that one could frequently spot them from the coast, or even from the patio of our field station. 



Tuna and swordfish were equally abundant, and from a distance it was sometimes difficult to tell a school of foraging tuna from a group of foraging common dolphins, as both animals performed a similar behaviour when catching anchovies and sardines near the surface. The sea was full of life, and navigating those waters was an endless source of wonder and excitement for pleasure boaters and researchers alike. The situation was so special that the area, one of the few in the central Mediterranean containing key common dolphin habitat, was declared a EC Site of Community Importance. This designation was expected to result in a commitment to protect the local resources and prevent habitat degradation. 



However, only a few years later common dolphins around Kalamos had become a rare sight. Tuna and swordfish also vanished. What caused such a quick decline of high-order marine predators in this portion of the eastern Ionian Sea? 

Was it pollution? Collisions with speedboats? Intentional killings? Interactions with fisheries? Pathogens? 



More than a decade of intensive research at sea and much data analyses done by personnel from the Tethys Research Institute suggest that the main cause of common dolphin decline is overfishing of their prey. Purse seine nets, in particular, seem to be responsible for the local overexploitation and depletion of epipelagic stocks of sardines, anchovies and other fish that make the daily diet of common dolphins, tuna and swordfish.

Prey depletion has been so intensive and continuous that large marine predators such as common dolphins can no longer find easy prey. 

To face scarcity of food, common dolphins started dispersing and roving. Their formerly large groups broke up into smaller units, which became increasingly sparse. Between 1997 and 2007, common dolphins declined from about 150 to only 15 animals, possibly as a result of reduced reproductive success and increased mortality in an area that - as far as prey availability was concerned - had turned from paradise to hell. 



Problems caused by prey scarcity summed up to entanglement and mortality in fishing gear, as documented by dead dolphins found stranded or adrift and showing amputations. Today, only a few common dolphins can still be found in the area, and this brings a feeling of sadness to those who have seen them thriving until only a few years ago. 



The decline of common dolphins in the area of Kalamos flashes a red light for the conservation of the Mediterranean population. Once one of the most common cetacean species in the Mediterranean, common dolphins have declined throughout the region during the last 30-40 years. Conservation problems for the species have been recognised since the 1970s, but at that time there was little information about cause-effect relationships, as few were recording information at sea about population status and threats. After the turn of the century, however, threats affecting the animals became progressively clear. These basically included incidental mortality in fishing gear (also known as “bycatch”), habitat degradation and prey depletion caused by overfishing. 



In 2003 the Mediterranean population of common dolphins was classified as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. In 2004, ACCOBAMS - the UNEP's Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic Area - presented a comprehensive 90-page Conservation Plan for Mediterranean common dolphins, providing a detailed description of actions needed to protect the animals. Finally, in 2005 the Mediterranean population of common dolphins was included in Appendix I of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) as a consequence of their threatened status.



Have all these institutional steps contributed to making life easier for Mediterranean common dolphins? So far, they apparently haven’t. Despite all the expressions of concern, recommendations, strategic planning and scientific background produced, no relevant action has been taken that may result in common dolphin recovery in the region. Sadly, the threats which are thought to be causing decline are continuing to jeopardise the survival of relict groups such as those found around Kalamos, and the Mediterranean population at large.



Scientific research, conservation action plans and declarations of intents by the concerned Governments do not seem to suffice to reverse the present trends. Much public awareness actions, and attempts to define and communicate practical solutions to local problems are also essential. 



Giovanni Bearzi
 / Tethys Research Institute

More about the decline of common dolphins around Kalamos, Greece