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In This Issue

• Review Assesses the Status and Threats Facing the World's Pinnipeds
• Furthering Effective Fisheries Policy By Including Social Wellbeing
• Scientists Discover Pacific Ocean Corridors Teeming With Life

Science Briefs

Review Assesses the Status and Threats Facing the World's Pinnipeds

Climate change is the most pervasive threat facing pinnipeds in the near future according to researchers. Thomas Hallermann/Marine Photobank

Pinnipeds – seals, sea lions, and walrus – are at "high risk" relative to other mammals, according to a new review, which found that one in three species of pinnipeds is threatened, compared to one in five mammals generally.

The paper, authored by 19 marine mammal experts from around the world and to be published shortly in Marine Mammal Science, concludes that fisheries interactions (including bycatch, intentional shooting by fishermen and reduction of or changes in food resources) pose the greatest immediate threat, affecting 11 of the 13 pinniped species that are classified as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Toxic chemicals are a concern for three of those threatened while marine debris is likely a risk factor for the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal. Hunting continues to be a concern for the threatened Caspian seal and Ladoga ringed seal and for Atlantic walrus off Canada and Greenland.

However, the authors propose that the most pervasive threat facing pinnipeds in the near future is climate change. Ice-associated pinnipeds in the Arctic are particularly vulnerable as they require sea ice, not only as a platform for birthing, molting and resting but also because it underpins the marine ecosystem on which they depend. In fact, as the paper's authors note, climate change impacts on some Arctic pinnipeds are already evident: changing ice conditions are considered an important factor in recent declines in abundance or pup production of harp, hooded and Arctic ringed seals. The prognosis for ice-associated pinnipeds along the Antarctic continent, meanwhile, is more speculative, but large declines in sea ice are expected to have particularly negative effects for crabeater and Weddell seals.

The authors emphasize, however, that globally much remains unknown. For some subspecies there is a significant lack of information on abundance and population trends while for others there is little certainty over the most important causes of population declines or lack of recovery. This, they conclude, "does not leave the scientific/conservation community in a strong position to accurately assess future threats to pinnipeds, such as those posed by climate change."

Source: Kovacs, K.M. et al. In press. Global threats to pinnipeds. Marine Mammal Science [doi: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2011.00479.x]

Contact: Kit Kovacs, Norwegian Polar Institute. Email: kit.kovacs@npolar.no

Furthering Effective Fisheries Policy By Including Social Wellbeing

Human wellbeing should be the primary focus of fisheries governance suggests a recent analysis. Linda Schonknecht/Marine Photobank

Many millions of people globally are dependent on fisheries for livelihoods, as a source of protein-rich food, or both. This dependence is particularly acute in many developing countries and especially critical to those living in poverty.

However, according to a recent paper in Global Environmental Change, standard fisheries policy and management approaches continue to be dominated by biological and economic frameworks "whose main purpose is to reduce fishing effort and to remove fishers from those ecosystems perceived as under threat." The result, write the paper's authors, led by Sarah Coulthard of the University of Ulster, is that the social and cultural dimensions of peoples' lives and livelihoods are left as a "second order" concern; this can lead to rejection or disregard of various regulatory instruments (e.g., quotas, licensing, property rights, marine protected areas), social and economic marginalization and conflict, and even violent challenges to governance structures.

Coulthard and her co-authors argue that, if they are not to be based on coercion nor to reinforce patterns of social injustice, effective policy and governance will need to begin with the recognition that fishers and their organizations and communities are "central to the solution and that they will have a key role to play in mitigating or exacerbating the [fisheries] crisis." They further contend that current trends towards viewing human wellbeing as a desired policy outcome, while valuable, would be enhanced by including the larger social context. Fishing, from this vantage point, is not simply an activity or livelihood but, rather, constitutes a way of life and is embedded in a wide range of social meanings and relationships. This acknowledges the many participants in fisheries – governors and managers, scientists and conservationists, fish processors and traders, industrial and small-scale fisheries, men, women and children – and the differing "views, aspirations and capabilities" that must be systematically taken into account for effective policy discussion.

"By placing wellbeing at the forefront of governance strategies," the authors conclude, "agents of change must ask whether their actions will raise wellbeing throughout the population and in a socially just fashion. Determining the answer will require not only consideration of the perspectives of the diversity of groups involved but also participatory structures of governance that are able to elicit their participation."

Source: Coulthard, S. et al. 2011. Poverty, sustainability and human wellbeing: A social wellbeing approach to the global fisheries crisis.  Global Environmental Change 21(2): 453-463.

Contact: Sarah Coulthard, University of Ulster. Email: s.coulthard@ulster.ac.uk

Scientists Discover Pacific Ocean Corridors Teeming With Life

Decade-long study finds major corridors of life in the North Pacific Ocean. Terry Goss/Marine Photobank

A new paper in Nature identifies two areas in major corridors in the Pacific – the southern flowing California Current large marine ecosystem (CCLME) and east-west flowing North Pacific transition zone (NPTZ) – as significant biological hot spots supporting high levels of diversity.

The paper collates data collected over ten years conducted under the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) program, part of the Census of Marine Life initiative. The researchers employed electronic tagging techniques to track the movement and migration routes of sharks, tunas, albatrosses, shearwaters, turtles, pinnipeds and rorqual whales. Altogether, 4,306 tags were attached to 1,791 animals from 23 different species, collecting 265,386 days' worth of data that recorded the animals' position and, when applicable, depth below the surface, and the ocean's depth, salinity, and temperature.

The paper's authors, led by Barbara Block of the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University, found that when and where the animals traveled were largely influenced by seasonal conditions, including water temperature and productivity from upwelling events. The authors note the importance of both maintaining marine predators for the top down regulation of coastal and oceanic ecosystems and observing their movement, behavior and distribution to inform population assessments. "Long-term observations of predator movements provide information on the spatial extent of highly migratory populations and potential rates of exchange among them," the scientists write, adding such data could be used to "better inform management protocols (for example time-area closures and gear mitigation) to reduce bycatch of … endangered and threatened species."

The team concludes that their data set could provide a foundation for eventual ecosystem-based management and a baseline for continued monitoring and forecasting of migratory behavior and the links between species' movements and ocean temperatures. Information from the study could also facilitate efforts to conserve key biological hotspots in the Pacific, thereby preventing extinction, biodiversity loss and disruption of ecosystem services. "If a conservation corridor was extended across the NPTZ," the authors argue, "key ecological foraging hotspots and migratory corridors that link the eastern and western Pacific basins for transoceanic migrants could be sustainably managed."

Source: Block, B.A. et al. In press. Tracking apex marine predator movements in a dynamic ocean. Nature [doi:10.1038/nature10082]

Contact: Barbara A. Block, Stanford University. Email: bblock@stanford.edu

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