Until The Manatees Come Home

by Marcus Simons


What are Manatees?

http://rollingharbour.com/2012/01/27/west-
indian-manatees-and-the-bahamas-the-facts/

Generally weighing in at about half a ton and growing to be around 9 feet long, Manatees are the largest of the Sirenia order of aquatic mammals. Eating just about any aquatic vegetation they can find, it’s no wonder why these animals got the nickname, “sea cows." The West Indian manatees are broken into two sub species of Antillean (Central/South American) and Floridian (lower coast of North America). Manatees live in both salt and fresh water but develop immune and metabolic problems when confined to cold water. Overly cold conditions are the leading cause of natural death in manatees, which drives migration trends to revolve around a constant search for residing in warmer waters. This, typically, means they seek out rivers and inland pools during the winter months.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/cold
-contributes-to-mass-die-off-of-manatees/nLzYz/

Human Impact:

Dangers

Manatees have always had a, physically, close relationship with humans. Since Europeans first came to the West Indies, Manatee populations have declined and dispersed significantly due to the ease of capturing such a calm animal and the value there was in manatee leather and meat. However, as of lately, human consumption has been less of an issue in manatee deaths while incidental injury and deaths by watercraft strikes have skyrocketed.

Proximity

http://www.namepajr.net/manatees/

Manatees tend to live near shallow coastal regions with warm water, which incidentally is where you will find many large human populations. Over the past couple centuries manatee populations have began to see humans as less of a predator and more as a co-habitual partner. Some populations have been known to go against their need to migrate south to warmer waters during the winter and stay near human-populated coasts that have large industrial plants that release thousands of gallons of warm water into the surrounding areas as a byproduct of their manufacturing. It isn’t known to full the full extent but this change in migratory pattern could very much have direct or indirect impacts on the ecology that the manatees are apart of. 

The main problem isn’t that humans are trying to harm these creatures deliberately. The problem is that manatees are re-adjusting their behaviors to be less weary of humans. This, in turn, leads to more unintentional deaths as a side effect of being around humans so often like falling victim to bycatch or boats strikes.

Counteraction:

Policy Measures

https://sites.google.com/site/westindi
anmanateehm2014/endangered-species

West Indian Manatees were listed as endangered in 1967. Large measures began to take place to restore manatee populations back in 1973 with the establishment of protection areas in the US Endangered Species Act and the US marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. And as of last year, manatees have been officially down-listed from an endangered species to threatened.

Action Measures

Education is an effective way to communicate to the public the small actions people can take to cut down on manatee deaths and injuries. Captivity research amongst manatees has been very rewarding seeing as manatees in captivity can live much longer than if they were in the wild.

Recovering Underwater Wonder: The Blue Whale

Underside of Blue Whale. Photo found http://tinyurl.com/pyjxf3v

Recovering Underwater Wonder: The Blue Whale

Blog post by Tenney Rizzo

Description and Ecology of the Blue Whale  (Balaenoptera musculus)

Blue Whale Feeding. Photo found http://tinyurl.com/p9j4hb9

The blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales. It is the largest animal known to have lived with the longest recorded whale measuring at 110 ft and the heaviest recorded whale weighing approximately 210 short tons. It has a long tapered body that appears stretched and slender in comparison with stockier builds of other whales. A blue whale’s body can be various shades of grey that appear blue in the water. There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda, known as the pygmy blue whale, found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. Its diet is almost exclusively krill, though when feeding, it may subsequently take in small fish and squid as well.

Geographic and Population Changes

Present Blue Whale Geographic Concentrations.
Photo found http://tinyurl.com/p4t6ym7 

Until the beginning of the 20th century and the advent of bigger whaling ships and more mechanized and efficient methods of whale hunting, blue whales were abundant in nearly all oceans. The largest population was in the Antarctic with numbers of whales ranging from 202,00 to 311,00. Due largely to whaling, the number has declined to around 2,000 whales in each of the eastern North Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Ocean groups. In 2002, there was estimated to be 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide, however as of 2014, the Californian blue whale population has come back to numbers near its pre-hunting with the help of conservation and protection efforts.

Listing Date and Type of Listing

The entire blue whale species was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in July of 1998. The blue whale recovery plan is being implemented and listed as finalized with the goal of delisting though there is currently no criteria for delisting or downlisting recovering blue whale populations.

Cause of listing and Main threats to its continued existence

Whaling or whale hunting has historically been the major threat and cause of near extinction of blue whale populations. However, there are several other human impacts that continue to threaten populations. Collision with ships, disturbance from vessels, disturbance from military operations, sonar, and other sounds, entrapment and entanglement in fishing gear, and the habitat degradation of their primary food source are all threats to the blue whale’s continued existence.  

Description of Recovery Plan

Photo found http://tinyurl.com/nwhqeew

The goal of the Blue Whale Recovery Plan is to recover populations to such levels that it becomes appropriate to down list them from endangered to threatened, and eventually to such levels that they will be removed from the list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. The purpose of the plan is to identify a set of actions that will minimize or eliminate effects of human activities that are detrimental to the recovery of blue whale populations.

The key recommended actions of the plan are as listed:

1. Determine population structure of blue whales

2. Estimate population size and monitor trends in abundance

3. Identify and protect essential habitats

4. Minimize or eliminate human-caused injury and mortality

5. Determine and minimize any detrimental effects of directed vessel and aircraft interactions

6. Maximize efforts to acquire scientific information from dead, stranded, and entangled  

animals

7. Coordinate state, federal, and international actions to implement recovery efforts

8. Establish criteria for delisting or downlisting

Photo found http://tinyurl.com/ooud9ec

References

Reeves, Randall R., Phillip J. Clapham, Robert L. Brownell, Jr., and Gregory K. Silber. "RECOVERY PLAN FOR THE BLUE WHALE." (1998): n. pag. U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. Web. 6 June 2014. <http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/whale_blue.pdf>.

Don't Snow Plow the Snowy Plovers

By Caroline Rein

Western Snowy Plover 
Photo by Michael L. Baird

The Western Snowy Plover, a small shorebird in 1.2 to 2 ounces and is around 5.9 to 6.6 inches long.  It is pale tan-brown on its back and white on its chest, “with a white hindneck collar and dark lateral breast patches, forehead bar, and eye patches” (Recovery Plan of the Pacific Coast Population of the Western Snowy Plover http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/070924.pdf).  Their bills and legs are black.  Individual birds are considered adults capable of breeding after one year.  They live approximately 3 years; however, there is one documented case of a bird living to 15 years.  The nesting season of the western snowy plover extends from early March through late September.  The average clutch size is 3, but the range is from 2-6.  During the incubation period, both parents take turns incubating, male at night and female during the day.  

Western snowy plover clutch.
Photo by Bruce Casler

Western Snowy Plovers are adorable little birds that live along the west coast.  The Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover mates along the Pacific coast from southern Washington to southern Baja California, Mexico (Recovery Plan of the Pacific Coast Population of the Western Snowy Plover http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/070924.pdf).  

Population Estimate of the Western Snowy Plover During Breeding Season on the U.S. Pacific Coast
(http://ca.audubon.org/population-status-and-recovery-plan)

Population Survey of Western Snowy Plover in CA During Winter
(http://ca.audubon.org/population-status-and-recovery-plan)

Map of known breeding and wintering distribution of the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover.

(Recovery Plan of the Pacific Coast Population of the Western Snowy Plover)

 The Pacific coast population mates "primarily above the high tide line on coastal beaches, sand spits, dune-backed beaches, sparsely-vegetated dunes, beaches at creek and river mouths, and salt pans at lagoons and estuaries" (http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/070924.pdf).  

Dunes where Western Snowy Plover
Breeds
Photo by Caroline Rein

 As one can imagine, this causes problems because people love beaches and sand dunes.  There are snowy plover seasons where you cannot hike out to the beach across the sand dunes, but often people ignore this.  This is one of many things that can disturb their habitat.  As a result, the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover was listed as threatened on March 5, 1993 (http://www.fws.gov/arcata/es/birds/WSP/plover.html).  The recovery plan was finalized on August 13, 2007 (http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/070924.pdf).

 

Freshman girl trespassing on snowy plover restricted area.
Photo by Sage Theule

One of the main reasons it was listed as endangered and one of its continued threat to their to existence is they breed in unstable places that change such as sand spits, sand dunes, estuaries and on beaches near creeks and river mouths among other things.  Another reason the western snowy plover is endangered is noise disturbances, which can scare the snowy plovers.  Driftwood removal can take away snowy plovers’ nest shading material and it gets rid of newly hatched chicks’ places to hid from predators and people.  Beach fires and camping can destroy driftwood; however, camping is far worse when near breeding locations because it is a longer noise disturbance and a there is a greater chance of dogs and children directly hurting the snowy plovers.  People enjoying the beach can unintentionally injure, harass or even kill western snowy plovers.  Beach walkers or joggers can accidently crush eggs or chicks.  They may unknowingly chase snowy plovers away from their nests.  This can cause the mortality to eggs or young chicks from exposure to heat, cold, sand or predators.  Dogs pose a serious problem to western snowy plovers because they sometimes chase the birds and destroy nests. 

Adult western snowy plover and two chicks. (http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/western_snowy_plover)

When it was listed as threatened, started to draft a recovery plan.  
The main goal of the western snowy plover recovery plan is to:

1.  Increase the population numbers distributed across the range of the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover

2.  Continue to manage the species and its habitat

3.  Watch the western snowy plover populations and its threats to determine success of recovery

The western snowy plover is an adorable little bird that needs to be protected.  

Western Snowy Plover
Photo by Mike Baird

To Learn More:

http://www.westernsnowyplover.org/

http://www.defenders.org/western-snowy-plover/basic-facts

http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/western_snowy_plover
http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/research/projects/shorebird/snowy_plover/

http://ca.audubon.org/protecting-western-snowy-plover
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=22542

Bibliography:
http://ca.audubon.org/about-western-snowy-plover
http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/070924.pdf
http://www.westernsnowyplover.org/

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=22542

http://www.fws.gov/arcata/es/birds/WSP/plover.html