Readers
may realise that I occasionally post talks here that would otherwise be lost. Following
is a short slightly-edited presentation that I gave to open the workshop on mass
strandings at the Society of Marine Mammalogy conference in Dunedin in December.
The
Anamorphosis of Marine Mammal Rescue
Ko nui
nga mihi
I some ways
I follow my ancestors in that I come to these shore of New Zealand
on business that relates primarily to whales.
But unlike
those who first came here from Europe to exploit
these waters and their steep volcanic slopes:
- I do not seek the liquid gold found
in the bodies of whales;
- I do not seek crew or
shore-workers for my vessels;
- nor do I want potatoes to
address the scurvy in my crew after its long journey here;
- I don’t even want the cheese and other dairy products that the early settlers here sold to my whaling fore-fathers (although – to be honest - I don’t mind the odd piece of cheese).
Instead, I
come to learn and I come to share.
And I start
in this way because it is perhaps wise to remember that we see our world in
many different ways – ways that vary between cultures and over time.
For example,
there were once whalers here. Here is a shore-based whaling station on the Banks Peninsula .
The early photograph shows it in dereliction and surrounded by whale bones. The
bones were probably all from the southern rights that were whaled-out here in a
period of only about 30 years.
Whilst I
was in Bank’s Peninsula last week I also met
George Mason. One of many whalers who came from far away and then worked on
this east coast; he worked first for Captain Hempleman at the famous Peraki Bay
whaling station and then moved across the mountainous peninsula to set up house
with his Maori wife on the far northern side in beautiful Okanes Bay. George’s
view of whales is probably very different to mine.
Now an
anamorphic image is one that you can only see clearly if you take the
appropriate point of view or look at it through an optical device: a mirror or
a lens.
[You can
see some examples HERE
My point is
that there are many different ways to view stranding events – many different
lenses to look through. Historically, many coastal peoples around the world will
have viewed them as a blessing: a source of meat and other useful materials. There
is evidence of this in Scotland
for example.
There is
also evidence that strandings could be terrifying.
Here in
1577: a unual stranding of 13 sperm whales on the Dutch coast shows the locals
fleeing for their lives from the monsters. Such events would have been very
rare on North Sea coasts.
However, in
places where mass strandings regularly occurred, some also learnt how to ‘encourage’
the whales onto the shore in order to gain their meat– again the islands to the
North and West of Scotland were examples.
Pilot-whaling
like this went on in Scotland
(if you look carefully into this stranding image you will see lances being
deployed to release the spirits of the whales in the background). The practise as you know sadly, continues in
the adjacent Faroe Islands (now aided by
motorised vessels and phone and internet coordination).
(Sea based
whaling came later and was probably shared across Europe
by the Vikings, but I digress.)
The value of
stranded whales was recognised by the British crown as early as 1324
and they
became (and remain) Fishes Royal: royal property. Many sovereigns enjoyed whale
meat in their day including Henry 8th.
The curious
but important legacy of this is a system in the UK where strandings are recorded
and many are examined and there is a history of importanta dedicated research
associated with the Natural History Museum which eventually became the Queen’s
agent in whale-matters which would fill another talk.
World-wide mass
strandings are still regarded as mysteries – in my days with WDC I probably took
more calls seeking explanations of strandings than any other issue - and they bring urgent requests for a humane
response.
The view
that we now take of these events is affected by a lens that typically sees the
animals concerned as intelligent, frightened and suffering but still generally fails
to understand how their biology makes them vulnerable to coming ashore en
masse. Our lens is shaped by our own perceptions of how animals behave which is
dominated – entirely reasonably - by our own behaviour. We get that a mother
might not leave her calf (something which the old boat-based whalers effectively
exploited) but not that a whole social unit would choose to stay together and
perish rather than splitting way from the pod or school. We would not behave
like that in the same circumstances.
We also now
have the added problem that some strandings are natural events; others are not.
But
whatever the cause – should we intervene to try to help the animals?
Some say
that nature should take its course, but irrespective of whether it is nature or
not, we now look through a widely-shared lens of empathy; seeing that a
distressed and suffering animal deserves to be helped; indeed it calls on our
humanity to be humane. And then all too often (especially in Europe
where the majority of strandings feature old and infirm animals) this extends
to that most difficult of options – euthanasia. Deciding when an animal should
be refloated and when it should be euthanized has become the important focus of
rescue work; and associated with this is how to euthanize humanely and how to
explain these actions to a watching public.
When we
were trying to unite the UK ’s
strandings workers in the early 1990s, we looked to the example set by Project
Jonah here in New Zealand .
Indeed we imported sets of rescue pontoons but were only allowed to do so if a
trainer came with them and so I went on a WDCS-sponsored journey around the UK with PJs Tania Jones and – as an added bonus
Fernando Trujillo from Colombia .
He is now one of the world authorities on the Boto and a big university
professor these days; but I digress.
Several
other times we have turned to New Zealand since then for advice – the most
recent being the IWC workshop earlier this year looking at whale euthanasia –
because you guys of course have the only SWEB [Sperm Whale Euthanasia Device] and
the largest of the toothed whales offers us a mammoth problem when in strands.
Others I am sure will speak to this.
The best
iteration of the UK ’s
current rescue policies honed over the last decades can be found in the rescue
handbook of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR)
The latest,
the seventh edition, published this year includes advice for rescuers and vets
including detailed triage, born out of many years of experience. The rescue
network in the UK
also regularly trains and practices for mass stranding events.
Mass
strandings are probably our biggest fear. They are rare but not unknown, including
one featuring several dozen pilot whales in the very difficult waters of the Kyle
of Durness on the North Scottish mainland in July 2011. But this is a story
from someone else to tell.
2013 also
saw the first Europe-wide meeting of people involved in rescue at the ECS annual
conference in Setubal , Portugal .
Here we
soon found that all the various rescue entities across this diverse region were
experiencing similar issues. It did not quite turn into a therapy session but
it might have. As important to the rescuers as techniques was how to deal with
the watching public. I think this is true world-wide.
We agreed a
series of principles at the workshop and its report will be published shortly –
the top-line conclusions I have given in the abstract.
When the
veterinarian Paul Jepson was striving to make decisions concerning the London
Whale [the northern bottlenose whale that came up the river Thames ]
– millions watched; many of them in real
time.
And as I
was writing this presentation over the weekend I was informed of a mass
stranding of pilot whales in the Everglades
National Park in the USA last week. I
googled it, read the reports and watched the NBC podcast: and there are the
usual comments like ‘veterinarians don’t know why the whales stranded’ and
apart from the the fact that the response is led by a US agency (NOAA) which
also provides some of the commentators – you can see the same issues in this
event – the same questions, the same concerns that play out all around the
world in the news reports.
Anamorphosis
can have a different meaning. It can relate to evolution. Have we evolved our
understanding and policies with respect to strandings?
Certainly
they are now better informed by science and much of this science comes from the
stranded bodies themselves. For example, we now have a different policy to
stranded beaked whales in the UK .
And, in some
ways, stranded whales have become the ‘canaries’ of the seas, shedding light on
events and impacts not immediately apparent to ours senses, including chemical
pollution, marine debris and noise: issues directly affecting them and other
marine organisms.
In the last
two decades or so - thanks to the efforts of Jepson, Fernandez, DeVille, Law, Brownlow and others – strandings-related
investigations have significantly helped to
show the significance of noise pollution; helped to identify levels of chemical
pollution of concern and provides much information more generally about
disease.
The latest
mystery the strandings work in my part of the world is looking at is the
horrific spiral injuries that have been seen in some animals both cetaceans and
pinnipeds.
I will not
say more [several talks at the conference addressed this issue] except that this
latest series of observations, shows again the value of the UK 's standings network in
identifying issues in our increasingly busy seas.
So, these
rather disturbing images conclude my short presentation on the anamorphosis of
strandings.
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