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Live for today but work for everyone's tomorrow! Any views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation/institution I am affiliated with.

Monday 30 March 2015

BDMLR rescue exercise in Malta

I was fortunate to be invited to attend a training event for marine mammal rescue organised by British Divers Marine Life Rescue in Malta after the ECS meeting. 

The event was held at the Xrobb I-Ghagin Nature Park where a new animal hospital is in the process of being constructed in an old (earthquake proof) military signals centre.

Here are a few images.

The centre already serves as a place for environmental
education but the plan is for its to be a wildlife hospital
and also host a hostel for volunteers

View of the adjacent coats
(There are tuna cages offshore here)

Marine Mammal rescue in theroy led by veterinarian James Barnet

James in mid-flow

Stephen Marsh leads the practical - here he is explaining how to tell the gender of a dolphin using a water-filled bottlenose dolphin model. The point of the water is to make it weigh as much as the real thing and part of the exercise was to show how to safely move the 'animal' using simple materials .

Volunteers prepare to lift
(Straight backs were required.) 
More about BDMLR and their training courses (and what to do if you find a stranded dolphin or whale.HERE

"Help me!"

Saturday 28 March 2015

European Cetacean Society 2015 - closing and prize list

The last few hours of the ECS in Malta was filled with drama: reports, announcements, letters of concern, awards, departures and elections. I have already told you about the Conservation award.

Here's a flavour of the rest.

Andrew Wright reports for the Council on website and publications
The Full ECS Council: Mark, Andrew, Inger, Thierry, Tilen, Paddy, Joann, Connor and Roland.

Inger reports on student meeting
Simmonds reports back on the discussions made by the ECS National Contact points. The 'NCPs requested their own webpages in their own languages and suggested that the ECS should send an urgent letter to address dolphin watching concerns in the Red Sea.here



Here is Tilen thanking Andrew with a hug for his hard work on council.
Andrew Wright and Tilen Genov

Prize winners in full: Amanda Bishop - student talk
                                   Vanessa Trijoulet - short talk
                                   Abbo van Neer - poster
                                   Ceri Morris - Baleine Libre Prize for Video
                                   Texas Sim - poster

prize from Paddy and Heidi Frisch
Another award winner Ceri Morris
Michel Andre reports from the Scientific Advisory Committee -
stressing the important of keeping to time.
 (Simmonds does not seem to be listening)

















Hustings for the ECS council membership:
Joan Gonzalo of Tethys - he was elected to council
















Fiona Reid of WDC and the Univeristy of Aberdeen was also elected to the council.


Hustings for the Presidency of the ECS: In a good-natured competition Chris Parsons of George Mason University went head to head with Mario Acquarone of the Arctic University of Norway.

Both made excellent speeches.

Mario at the hustings for president
Chris Parsons at the hustings
The vote was close and Mario won the elections and Chris a bottle of wine which he was obviously delighted about (see below).
Presidential candidates hug after the result is announced.

 Thierry Jauniaux gives his final speach as president



Thanks to Becky and Anja for photographs. 

Thursday 26 March 2015

European Cetacean Society - 2015 Conservation Award.


Awards ceremony  (photo credit: Anja Reckendorf)
[ Highlighted text here indicates where appropriate (and inappropriate)images were shown.]

I was delighted and honoured to again be tasked with the delivery of the ECS Mandy McMath Conservation Award this year, and I said something along the following lines:

First I recalled Mandy McMath after whom the award is named using words written by her good friend Peter Evans in a tribute that can be found in full the SeaWatch Foundation's website HERE.

“With the passing away of Mandy McMath … after a long fight against cancer, the world of marine conservation lost a true champion. Mandy was so much more than her job title – Senior Marine Ecologist at the Countryside Council for Wales. She had a passion for the conservation of all animal life, and her personal warmth and caring for other people struck everyone within moments of being introduced to her.

She was a true diplomat of the conservation world, offering wise advice, working away quietly and modestly towards those goals, wherever necessary cutting through bureaucratic red tape to achieve this.

Mandy was an eco warrior, not only for marine conservation in Wales but also throughout UK and beyond, with marine mammals being a particular passion, specially seals. She was also an underwater photographer and diver, and in her spare time, an accomplished gardener and an active member of her local community…. She was a very principled person, a committed vegetarian, and one of the first to adapt her house to renewable energy.”
Then my presentation continued thus:
Among the things that she championed and helped to establish was the ECS conservation award. Mandy believed that it was not just a fitting reward at a time when the planet has never more needed its conservation heroes - but it would act as an inspiration to the next generation of scientists and conservationists.
As most of you know by now this ceremony consists of me first trying to honour Mandy’s wry sense of humour by reflecting in a brief but deeply meaningful (and highly scientifically robust) way on the year since our last meeting and, simultaneously, dropping a series of clues as to the award winner until she (or indeed he) is revealed. And the event closes with your loud and enthusiastic cheering. Let me remind you that the award is for an outstanding contribution and hence your applause to this point has merely been practice. Wolf whistling and whooping is allowed.
[There is encouragement to wolf whistle at this point.]
However, unfortunately, nothing of any consequence that has happened this last year and therefore I have nothing to report.
And I am reinforced in this view by the fact that whenever I turn on my news media sampling device (or television) anywhere in the world I am consistently rewarded by documentaries focused on something called the Kardasians.
And I am perplexed as to what they are, where they come from …. And why we should in anyway care. My research indicates that Kardasia is in Armenia and that the Kardasians should in fact be a community of humble stone cutters. There is little sign of any stone cutting…. Or any discernible employment - But I believe they are K-selected – Kim, Kloe, Kourtney, Kris…. Krispy-Crème and so forth.
I have also managed to discern that this particular matrilineal society is somehow more famous when departing, rather than when arriving.
I am hopeful that in due course Barb Taylor will be able to explain to us whether this is a discrete population that we should or should not give a damn about. (And I believe that this may be the first time that this two great American icons - Kim Kardasian and Barb Taylor - have featured in the same presentation.
I have also noticed over the last year – with some pleasure - the continuing return of the beard as a fashionable facial attribute for young men. Of course some of us have championed it for many years. As usual you will have seen many examples around the conference halls ranging from the bearly-there why bother or ‘Ritter’ style through the neatly-trimmed or ‘Ryan’ style, to the more fulsome version preferred by the more old fashioned field scientists – as exemplified by the ‘Whitehead’ (to which I will return).  
The younger men currently prefer a more fussy styled version complete with a full waxed moustache to complement their equally fussy hair – you young ladies must get really bored these days waiting for your boyfriends to fuss and fix their hair into many stylish waves and then wax and mouse their fulsome moustaches – This is Ryan tells me the hipster style. .  some thing to look forward to guys is the time when with maturity you can also wax and plait your nasal and ear hairs.
Personally – in terms of beard - I have always aspired to the full ‘Giuseppe’ – a neat cut (setting 3- 4 on the beard trimmer) – but I have failed to grow the highly expressive and effective mustache of the ecotype.
In fact I aspire to Italian approach to many things. Of all the nationalities of Europe and beyond, including the Armenians, it seems to me that Italians come with inherent style – it is simply genetic. The Italians even invited the word Ciao - which can be used to say both hello and good bye with considerable style! (It is also the only country where crime is properly organised). And you will all know this old phrase –
Then God decided to make sexy people – and he created Italians.
This style and elegance is of course typified by the Tethys research group as you see here practicing… I believe a strandings response practice. [Dolce and Gabana advert]
This research troop is elegant in its presentation and its work.
And I can, of course, find no better term to describe the president of Tethys than ‘elegant’ in all respects.
(And I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Dr Notarbartolo di Sciara for mispronouncing and misspelling his name for the better part of at least twenty years.)
Moving rapidly on - Here is a famously bearded knight of Malta by Titian
The person that we honour today has some similar attributes – he (or she) has a distinguished lineage and like this image was produced in Venice (surely the coolest city in the coolest country).


Giuseppe Notobartarlo di Sciara
I think I have probably narrowed the field enough to reveal (but hold your applause please) that I speak of none other than of course than a past president of the ECS, the current president of sexy Tethys and someone that we all owe a great debt to in terms of inspiration, education and science: Dr Giuseppe Notarbartolo di sciara.  
Educated in Italy, Giuseppe moved to extend his studies in the US where he worked on beluga whales and whale sharks, as well as doing research with humpback whales in Hawaii and Bryde’s whales in Venezuela. He obtained a Ph.D. at the Scripps Instution of Oceanography (1985) in marine biology with a thesis on manta ray taxonomy and ecology in the Gulf of California. He discovered and described a new manta ray species, Mobula munkiana, which he named after his mentor Walter Munk.  

Undoubtedly, enriched by his time in the USA, Giuseppe moved back to his home country in 1985 where he started working on Mediterranean and Red Sea conservations issues.
In 1986, Giuseppe founded the Tethys Research Institute. Under his guidance it has conduced research focused on  Mediterranean cetacean ecology essential for the conservation of these animals.
A decade later, Notarbartolo di Sciara was nominated by the then President of Italy to lead the Central Institute for Applied Marine Research (ICRAM). He was President of ICRAM guided that institution in a more strategic direction and allowed the creation and flourishing of many important conservation and planning initiatives, including the strengthening of marine protected area design, coordinated research within MPA sites. Notarbartolo di Sciara has also served as the President of the European Cetacean Society  (1993-1997).

Today Giuseppe is well known throughout Europe as a conservation leader and  a television commentator with regular contributions to wildlife shows. In addition, Giuseppe has also been a stalwart of the Scientific Committee of ACCOBAMS and the Commissioner for Italy to the IWC.
I cannot begin to list his publications (there are at least 140 scientific papers with his name on them) … but would direct you to his website for more details. And I should make special note of his book on gambling



His current roles are numerous and I have listed the ones that I know of here [slide] there may be more. And I add here his latest.  (I forget the full title of this new role but is something like 'Conference of the Parties Appointed Councillor for Aquatic Mammals', but I am sure you will be representing other marine animals. )

Not surprisingly Giuseppe has been honoured for his work elsewhere (and we have to hope that he still has a little room on his mantelpiece for the ECS crystal. [A list of honours can be seen HERE.]



As you know his expertise extends to manta rays –and he even has a manta ray parasite  named after him. Here it is … and if we change the focus slightly you can probably see one reason why this happened.

I want ’to make a pause here before we extend our full salute to this years conservation award winner (and also to provide a little warm up applause exercise).
Giuseppe emphasised yesterday the recognition made by the Parties of the Convention of Migratory Species at their last conference of the need to consider cultural units in its work. This highly important development was underpinned by the hard work of a team of people starting the godfather of cetacean culture Hal Whitehead and his colleague Luke Rendell and combined with all the efforts behind the scenes of my ex-colleagues and good friends at Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
There are layers of hard works that lead to the passing of a resolution in an international body. I have some idea of how hard the scientists, NGOs and the Secretariat worked to prepare the way for this conclusion. I would ask that the records of the ECS show that we celebrated this development and commended all concerned and that you signal your assent to this by applause.
[there was loud applause}
Hal Whitehead, Luke Rendell, Heidi Frisch, Philippa Brakes, Nicola Hodgins, Alison Wood and supporting literature.

Now returning to the 2015 award-winner.
Some of us reflected on what made a successful person at the student careers workshop back on Saturday (which seems a long way away now) – I suggested drive, confidence and affability and that having a vocation may help. 
Students I still stand by that and can commend no better example to you than Giuseppe.
But a vocation can be a hard mistress – and I know Guiseppe well enough to know that he is sometimes frustrated and distressed when things get worse rather than better on his watch.
An award and the celebration associated with it we all hope will act to boost Giuseppe ever onwards and upwards to ever greater things. So please now be prepared to show your appreciation as we celebrate the life’s work of this modest knight of Monaco, child of Venice, wise gentleman of Italy, friend of manta rays and marine mammals, proud beard wearer and citizen of the world.

Ladies and gentlemen – Don Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara. 
[A standing ovation and many minutes of applause follow.]


Nick Tregenza 2014 winner hands on the award painting


ECS President Thierry Jauniaux presents the Giuseppe with the award trophy.



Don Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara (photo credit: Anja Reckendorf)

Wednesday 25 March 2015

European Cetacean Society 2015 - Malta 1

So, back to the island nation of Malta for the ECS annual conference and associated workshops.

Over the weekend, the workshops included one for students on careers and statistics and another (the third in a series) focused on marine mammal rescue.

Highlights for me, so far, have included Tilen Genov's paper showing bottlenose dolphins have distinctive 'faces' that can be used to recognise them; the overview on noise provided by Gianni Pavan; and Paul Jepson's alarming overview on the current and real threat posed by chemical pollution.

Giuseppe Notobartolo di Sciara provided an overview of the Migratory Species Convention drawing attention to the landmark resolution on 'culture' (as previously highlighted in this blog and my Huffington Post blog).

Here are some images:

# Opening  ceremony:
Maltese minister, Joe Mizzi, addresses the conference

ECS President Thierry Jauniaux adds his welcome

EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella
on the big screen also wishes the meeting
 well via video and emphasizes the commitment of the EU to 'sustainability'.
 # Presentations
Paul Jepson  alarming on pollution

Keynote speaker Barb Taylor on genetic conservation 

The milling throng

Seal scientists meet - Paddy Pomeroy (on the left) and Becky Robothan 

Tilen Genov on dolphin faces.



Wednesday 18 March 2015

Signs of Spring 2 - daffodils and small parrots

Kew's tropical house
What better place to look for signs of emerging Spring than at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in southwest London. (Fortunately I happened to have a meeting there.)

These old gardens host glass houses ancient and modern and a cornucopia of plant life.

Including 'a host of golden'...
daffodils!
Spring at Kew Gardens
Flying overhead came a flock of introduced ring-neck parakeets; very noisy at first but then quite quickly sleepy in the setting sun.



(I spotted a sign on an gate saying 'please close to limit the damage caused by badgers' and a quick enquiry revealed that the extensive gardens, which are hemmed in on all sides by buildings, host two badger sets. The staff run badger walks in the season. And the badgers are known to have arrived in 1914!)

Sunset at Kew Bridge

Monday 16 March 2015

Whalefest 2015 - 'if the whales could scream, the industry would stop...'



We used to think that whales were monsters.... now we know better, and they deserve better.

Here is an except from the presentation on whaling that I made at the 'fest:

"There is no humane way to kill a whale. I could quote figures at you on times to death…. but why spoil a nice day?
….
Well perhaps I need to a little – but no gory pictures – whales are difficult animals to kill – this is partly because many are very big and partly because they are adapted for a life in the sea. The sea of course also plays a part in the accuracy of any harpoon trajectory.

The main killing method used during commercial and special permit whaling is the penthrite grenade harpoon fired from a cannon mounted on the bow of a ship. The harpoon is intended to penetrate about 30 cm (12 inches) into the animal before detonating. It is also meant to be embedded so the whale is not lost but can be reeled in to the catcher.

The more ‘lucky’ hunted whales are those killed or made insensible swiftly. Where first harpoons fail, a second may be used or large calibre rifles. Judging death is difficult but data from the whalers indicate that only some 40% of whales in the Japanese hunt are killed swiftly. The average time to death is over two minutes which does compare well with the milliseconds expected in humane slaughter for meat in other forms of commercial meat production; and hidden in this is the tragic and painful deaths of those whales which take longer to die including those ‘struck and lost’ which swim off to an unknown, but undoubtedly in many cases, long painful demise.  

Then there are issue relating to the stress of the chase and psychological concerns for the whales not hit but losing a member of their social group.

This is simply not a humane way of producing meat for human consumption. Nor can there ever be.
Signing petition to UK
Prime Minister
And there is a famous quote from a ship’s physician who worked on whaling boats in the last century  


He said: “The gunners themselves admit that if whales could scream, the industry would stop for nobody would be able to stand it.

On the back of this presentation I was privileged to launch a new petition - a  message to the next Prime Minister of the UK (noting that an election will happen in the UK in just a few weeks) - calling for high level action from her/him and their ministers in addressing the campaigns of the pro-whaling nations. A long list of groups supported this petition. 



SOME MORE SCENES FROM AROUND THE FEST:

World Animal Protection (Joanna and Alyx) promote their
excellent marine debris work


Alan Knight and the BDMLR stand

Panel event - a green, a labour, a conservative and a lib-dem Member of Parliament and Wil Travers of Born Free.
(Wil gets my vote.)

That's enough Whalefest for this year.