More direct science against any resumption of whaling

In September of 2007 I wrote an entry (see it here) about the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean. Entitled "The Oxygen Farmers" it focused on the oxygen production that occurs in the Southern Ocean, and how it is the largest source of oxygen for our planet. Ever since the industrial whaling of the last century, the removal of the whales has added to the reduced efficiency of the Southern Oceans to produce oxygen.

Now, scientists have shown one more important part of this cycle, and why it is crucial that no commercial, or any other kind of whaling, should be allowed.

ABC news in Australia released a report today (see it here) telling us how Whale Poo is a critically important part of the life cycle in the oceans. As one of the elements in the life cycles in the oceans, the waste products from whale diets feeds algae, which in turn feeds the phytoplankton, which feeds the krill, eaten by the whales. It is the phytoplankton that creates the oxygen we breathe.

According to Japanese whaling interests, backed up by all other whaling nations, it is claimed that there is no environmental or ecological reason to stop whaling. Their claim is that the effort to end whaling is akin to "dietary imperialism" based entirely on cultural choices of what is OK to eat, and what is not OK to eat. They would have all whaling seen as purely choices of dietary preference, with no ecological consequences. To claim otherwise is only an emotional appeal based on bias, and is ecologically unwise.


Even the Australian ecologist, the highly acclaimed Tim Flannery, suggests that the imbalance in the oceans, the failing fish stocks and the ill health of many part of the world oceans, is due to unbalanced harvesting of living resources. Yes, Tim Flannery is in favour of increased whaling.

It has been my contention that the oxygen cycle is, obviously, affected by the reduction of whales in the southern Ocean. The reduction of most species has left open the ecological niches they formerly occupied, and these niches have been filling up with the increase in the population of the smallest filter-feeding whale, the Minke. It is the Minke whale that the Japanese have been removing in the hundreds each year, and the ones they must stop killing.

The arguments mount, stronger and stronger, for a total end to whaling. This is another piece of that argument.

The Ambassador

The Dolphin Embassy -- Momentum is gathering

The Dolphin Embassy has just returned to Australia from my annual overseas journey.

Each year since 2005 I have “taken my show on the road”, traveling around the world to do presentations, informing and inspiring audiences to regard all cetaceans as deserving of recognition, recognition of their inherent status as advanced beings with unalienable rights. Each year I experience growth in the acceptance of the ideas offered.

This year the tour was shorter, but it feels that it may have had a strong impact. I spent time in Colorado, Florida, California, and Oregon, and in each place the level of interest delighted me.

I did six formal presentations in the US this year –Denver (at the beautiful headquarters of the Metaphysical Research Society), Sebastopol, Petaluma, San Francisco (at Globe Studios and Sound Therapy Center), and Mt Shasta (at the Flying Lotus) in California, and Portland, Oregon. Supported along the way by dear friends Barry and Coral of Sebastopol, Fort Schlesinger of Petaluma, and the wonderful energy of Brent Willet, we were able to reach audiences that were primed and ready to hear about the ideas I share.
 

Background

In the late 1950s, Dr. John C. Lilly began his famous research on dolphins. His quest led him to the momentous discovery that they are fully sentient, cognizant, reasoning, cultured, and sophisticated beings. It was immediately apparent to Dr. Lilly that something was amiss in our relationship with cetaceans – he had made the same mistakes as everyone else, assuming them to be just another species of animal.

Once he made his important breakthrough, it was an easy step to realize that dolphins, whales, and porpoises deserved to have their rights recognized and protected. It is not, as some have misunderstood, the human role to offer them their rights. Instead, it is our duty to acknowledge the rights that they have. As a matter of scientific fact, their history as a highly evolved family of beings is much older than the human (even the Bible, in Genesis, specifically recognizes that they were created on an earlier “Day” then humans, the fifth Day. They were the earliest creatures named in the Old Testament).

Dr. Lilly saw, in a sudden insight, that there already exists a vast nation, comprised of all the seas and oceans of our planet. The citizens of this nation, the largest on the planet, are the Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises – the Cetacean Nation.

In 1961, Dr. Lilly published his first reference to this idea. Over the subsequent years he worked with many friends to develop the concept. With Michael Bailey, of Greenpeace Hawaii (the only Greenpeace autonomous “cell” that did not become part of the subsequent amalgamated organization we know as Greenpeace International), he worked out a strategic plan for implementing recognition of the Cetacean Nation.

Later on, his close friend Rebecca Goodman joined John in publicly announcing, again, the intention to bring the Cetacean Nation to reality.

When I asked John, in 1997, what he hoped his public legacy would be --after a lifetime of inventions, discoveries, and important research – he answered without hesitation “the Cetacean Nation”.

Years of discussion and public presentations later (we shared the stage at the 6th International ICERC Whale and Dolphin Conference in Hervey Bay, Australia, 1997, presenting our ideas about the Cetacean Nation), John surprised me by publicly suggesting that his preferred Ambassador to the United Nations from the Cetacean Nation would be me. (see “Gilding the Lilly: The Cetacean Nation”, video by SoundPhotosynthesis).

Dr. John C. Lilly and Scott Taylor, Hervey Bay, Australia, 1997

John had this to say:
“Mr. Taylor is a key person in what I call the Cetacean Nation, a global network of like-minded individuals attempting to bridge the communication gap between humans and cetaceans. His work contributes a wider understanding of humanity, cetacea, and the environment on the edge of the twenty-first century. Scott’s continued efforts as educator and catalyst bridge not only the interspecies communication barrier, but the barriers between people.”

Sadly, we were not able to accomplish the global recognition of the Cetacean Nation before Dr. Lilly died (Sept. 30, 2001). My dedication to this goal is unabated, however.
The Dolphin Embassy -- Australia

I established The Dolphin Embassy as a registered non-profit organization in Australia in October of 2004. Its mission is to educate and inspire humans toward a proper regard for the rights of all cetaceans. To this end I have taken multi-media presentations on the road, traveling around the world, visiting India, Belgium, the Bahamas, Mexico, Fiji, and many states in America (Florida, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico. Arizona, California).

I recognize the quixotic nature of this endeavor. It is easily seen as a harmless joke, a prank that we might pull to engage people, pulling them via humor into thinking, if only for a moment, about the rights of Cetaceans. We also see this as we see many aspects of the dolphin story – the closer you look, and become involved, the deeper it gets.

An Aside – and a bit of history
Doug Michels was a visionary artist, architect, and man of many talents. In 1974, he and some friends established “The Dolphin Embassy” as an art project under the aegis of the famous Ant Farm, in Houston Texas. A 501 (c) 3 non-profit was organized to support the idea. In 1978, after a disastrous fire destroyed the studios of the Ant Farm, the project was abandoned. In 1977, Michels went as far as traveling to Australia to meet some dolphins, to explain his intentions, to offer to speak on their behalf.

Doug Michels, Gold Coast, Australia, 1977

Some years later, Michels drew plans for an orbiting space station (Project Blue Star) that included a central glass globe full of water, in which dolphins could live. His idea was that dolphins could be the best weightless teachers we could find, alien intelligence that could help us understand the mysteries of outer space. (it was not explained how the dolphins would access air, or how the water would be taken up to the station).

Project Blue Star

In an sad bit of synchronicity, Doug Michels was in Australia, working on a film about the friendly Orca of Eden Bay in 2004 when he slipped and fell off a cliff and died. He died on the same day that we formally established The Dolphin Embassy in Australia. We did not know that he was in Australia at the time…

The Current Status of the Dolphin Embassy

Over the years I have met many people with parts to offer. Some have led us to important aspects of the process of becoming able to work at the United Nations (thanks, Marsha, for that!) Some have engaged in lengthy discussions via email, aiming to sharpen our approach. And some have been very supportive in helping gather audiences to hear our ideas (thanks especially for this, Brent!). We are always on the lookout for well-prepared people in the fields of international law, diplomacy, intercultural communications, and NGO experience to discuss this idea.

Studying the application form from the UN for recognition of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), I discovered that one does not have to be human to be represented! How delightful…

Addressing the inevitable challenges we can assume we will face when we arrive at the United Nations, from those who do not accept that we can truthfully represent the dolphins – we can hear them now: “When have you, or anyone, ever had a meaningful conversation with a dolphin? What right do you have to represent them?” – we have carefully developed a four-point agenda. We feel that no one can realistically assert that dolphins, whales, and porpoises would NOT want these four rights to be recognized:

Four-part agenda of the Cetacean Nation at the UN
Safe  Universal protection from intentional harm. This will require diplomacy, as some cultures still believe cetaceans are food
Clean  Clean water in which to live. All water, everywhere, flows to the Oceans. We must stop pollution and clean the waters of the world.
Quiet  No sonic pollution of the oceans. Commercial and Military uses of sound in the oceans must be reduced to harmless levels.
Peace  An end to war. Humans must stop killing each other-- as a prerequisite to peace for all.

If you feel that you have skills or resources to offer to this effort, please contact us. I have many details developed in our strategic plan, requiring support from a large team of dedicated people.

Would you like to join us in taking the voice of the dolphins to the United Nations?

Join us for discussion of these ideas at: http://groups.google.com/group/dolphinembassy

C. Scott Taylor, PhD
Ambassador

Showing that you care

Most internet-based petitions achieve nothing. Emails with thousands of names in them do not impress anyone, as these can be easily faked. For this reason, we ignore most requests to become involved in petitions.

However, when we were invited by some friends (Dave Rastovich, Howie Cooke, Hannah Fraser) to join them in a visual protest, a vast collection of photographs of people holding images of dolphins or whales, to be sent to the delegates at the next International Whaling Commission meeting in Peru, we felt that this could be important.

We are alerting all of you who read this to visit the website www.mindsinthewater.com and to link to the Visual Petition. Follow the instructions, download a dolphin or whale picture and take a photo of yourself holding the picture. Then upload the photo back onto the Visual Petition site and join thousands of others who believe as we do, that all whaling and killing of dolphins must stop.

Take the time, do what is asked, and you will have done something that can make a difference for the Cetacean Nation. Besides, it is fun!

~~~~~~
Hannah "Mermaid" Fraser and her husband Dave Rastovich have visited us several times here in Coffs Harbour to swim with the dolphins. They are interviewed in our TV program "The Dolphin People", and if you watch the slides on the Minds in the Water site, or the Visual Petition site, you will see the photo above of Dave with Calamity, hugging her.

If you get a chance to see Dave and his surfer friends performing their music, with their band "Low Pressure Sound System", make sure to go. You won't be sorry, they are fantastic!

The Ambassador

Dispose of properly, please!

toxoplasma gondii

Cat litter killing whales, dolphins, porpoises

Pet owners who flush used cat litter down the lavatory may be responsible for the deaths of whales, dolphins and porpoises around Britain's coast, according to academics and public health experts.


They have found evidence of a common parasite in dead marine mammals and say family cats could be be the unwitting source. Cats are essential to the life cycle of toxoplasma gondii, which can infect most mammals and birds but only as part of the food chain.

The possible link to dolphin deaths has been raised by staff from Swansea and Glamorgan universities and the National Public Health Service for Wales in a letter to the Veterinary Record. They say that in California concern that cat faeces have contributed to sea otter deaths has led to disposal warnings on bags of cat litter. But little is known about infection in marine species around Britain.

Blood samples from dead stranded cetaceans revealed infection in one in 70 harbour porpoises, in six of 21 common dolphins and in the only hump-backed whale tested. Nearly one in eight Swansea University and health service employees admitted flushing cat litter away.
~~~~
From Wikipedia:
During the first few weeks, the infection typically causes a mild flu-like illness or no illness. After the first few weeks of infection have passed, the parasite rarely causes any symptoms in otherwise healthy adults. However, people with a weakened immune system, such as those infected with HIV, may become seriously ill, and it can occasionally be fatal. The parasite can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and neurologic diseases and can affect the heart, liver, and eyes (chorioretinitis).

The Ambassadors

The Oxygen Farmers

During the age prior to Antarctic whaling, the abundance of krill, the small shrimp-like creatures who were the whales major food source, was immense. Reports from the earliest sailors to venture far south repeatedly spoke of "vast pastures", of "pea-soup concentrations of the Euphausia (krill) as far as the eye can see", etc.

Krill feeds upon phytoplankton, the tiny ocean plants that are the most productive source of oxygen for our planet. Does this surprise you? Many people believe that the rainforests are the major source of oxygen. This is true for land-based sources, but we must recall that the oceans cover over two-thirds of our planet and the phytoplankton bloom each year is beyond our ability to envision. Literally billions of tons of phytoplankton grows into vast floating mats of plantlife, creating huge rising clouds of oxygen. Krill eat the phytoplankton, and baleen whales eat the krill.

Normal sense tells us that when the whales were removed from the southern seas in the world's most concentrated slaughter ever known, over a period of about one hundred years, that the food they fed upon would increase dramatically. Yet, this does not seem to be the case.

In a paper recently published in "Evolutionary Ecology Research", Volume 9: pages 651–662, written by Jay Willis of the University of Tasmania (Australia), the conclusion states that, paradoxically, the krill abundance has dropped, probably caused by a lifestyle change due to the absence of feeding pressure upon them.

With less krill, the phytoplankton blooms have become unstable, leading to some years of huge over-production of bio-mass, which then releases hydrogen sulfide and methane into the atmosphere as it rots, uneaten. These two gases are among the worst of the Greenhouse Gases, which are culprits in Climate Change.

For the ancient peoples of the world, Whales were known as "Keepers of the Breath", and "The maker of the air". Now we know that the wisdom of our ancestors was more accurate than we imagined. The killing of whales is a crime against all life, as well as an insensitive and cruel anachronism, left over from less enlightened times.

Do you hear, Japan, Norway, Iceland, N. Korea, and the whaling pirates? Please, for our mutual future, stop all whaling. It is a matter of life and breath.

The Ambassadors

Not a silent world

Sonic Pollution, the hidden killer

Underwater, sound travels fast. Almost five times as fast as sound in air (4.7, to be exact). The speed of sound underwater is not the only factor that makes sound so important in the watery world. It is also a much more directly physical energy, one that has high impact.

Decades ago a film made history, one of the first films to be shot underwater with high quality cameras. Shot and presented by Jacques Cousteau, it was called “The Silent World”. It captivated audiences around the world. I was among them, as a young lad, taken by my parents to a theatre that showed the unusual widescreen format that The Silent World was shown in. For all his expertise and “groundbreaking” inventions – the underwater breathing system called SCUBA, or Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, and other innovations – Cousteau could not have gotten it more wrong. The Oceans are full of sound, and many of its lifeforms depend upon their sonic abilities for their survival.

If we are to understand the challenges of the Cetacean Nations, the difficulties they face in their struggles for life, especially those that are “anthropogenic” (human caused) in nature, we must take into account the sonic pollution of the waters.

The millions of years of evolution that the dolphins and whales have been through have adapted them well to the sounds of the natural seas. The snapping shrimp, the crackling of fish, the waves pounding against the shore, the hiss of wind across the surface – all these are normal sounds, ones that can be heard, or consciously ignored. Just as we have selective hearing, enabling us to carry on conversations in noisy clubs, and to hear our names amid the hubbub of a party, dolphins and whales can filter out unwanted sounds, to a degree.

And yet, with the advent of modern technology, humans have been pouring high intensity sounds into the oceans in a deafening cascade.

Consider the facts of global shipping:
• 95% of the world’s trade spends some of its time onboard a ship
• There are over 5,000,000,000 (five billion) tons of cargo shipped each year
• There are over 82,000 ships of significant size plying the oceans
• There are over 4,500 petroleum tankers afloat, nearly all of them underway 24 hours of each and every day

The modern supertanker is something few people have a real perspective on. Imagine a vessel capable of carrying as much petroleum as the United Kingdom and Spain use in one day, which is about 3.2 million barrels. This is a ship that is considered to be a medium sized supertanker. This class of ship can take as many as 50 miles to stop. The momentum of so much mass is almost unimaginable. And oddly enough, these ships often use only one propeller.

The propeller for this type of ship creates a deafening, hissing, endlessly droning flood of sound. Creating “cavitation”, which is tiny bubbles that collapse in billions, over and over, the physics of these propellers is deadly. And they don’t have to be. This is the sad part…

Navies around the world have studied and designed propellers to the nth degree. To avoid detection at sea, a ship must be silent. Propellers have been designed that could eliminate this single source of deadly sound…but they have not been adopted. There is no international oversight for sonic pollution in the oceans, so the deafening goes on, day and night.

First, we must become aware of the problems. Then we can begin to address them. Now we know. Now we can begin to act.

The Ambassadors

Report on Secret Soviet Whaling now out

Soviet Factory ship, Slava, circa 1965 (photographer unknown)

A remarkable report has just been published detailing the illegal whaling activities of the Soviet Union in the years between 1955-1978. The information it is based on is impeccable: the actual reports of the whaling ships themselves, from a Russian government archive in Vladivostok, Russia.

"The authors (of the original reports. - ed.) were all scientists who worked at different times with the whaling fleets concerned...

The reports document dramatic declines in abundance, disappearances of whales from previously populous feeding and breeding areas, and a continual decline in the average size and age of animals in the catch as the over-exploitation reached critical levels. Also recorded are the repeated warnings of the reports’ authors that the catch levels could not be sustained without severe damage to (or extirpation of) the populations concerned. However, it is apparent that all such warnings were routinely ignored by the Soviet authorities in their quest to meet high production targets."

A pdf of the full publication is available for free download at:
http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Publications/AFSC-TM/NOAA-TM-AFSC-175.pdf

The era of Russian illegal whaling was one of terrible consequences. Despite the International Whaling Commissions attempts to curtail whaling, to make it sustainable, various nations and many illegal pirate whalers (notable among them was Aristotle Onassis, whose pirate whaling activities were among the worst) kept up the relentless slaughter. When the moratorium (def: a temporary cessation of activities) was finally put in place in the 1980s, it was too late. The affected whale populations were doomed, and still have made, in most species, little headway toward species survival.

Now, with sonic pollution from many sources, military, industrial, and oil and mineral exploration, plus the ongoing drone of global petroleum shipping, the large whales have little chance of recovery. As mostly solitary whales, they depend on sonic messages to locate each other for mating, and can no longer find each other easily. It is too noisy in the whale's bedroom...

What have we done to Mother Ocean? It is time to take a good long look at what we have done, and begin to rethink our priorities. It is time to shape ourselves to meet the needs of the world, rather than endlessly expect the world to shape itself to our needs.

The Ambassadors

Recent very troubling research

A report posted July 17th, 2007, on a scientific forum has shown that in Brazilian waters, as many as 83 dolphins were killed in a single fish netting operation. This is part of the ongoing, and little documented, killing of dolphins by local fishermen in fisheries around the world.

A quote from the posting:
"We have just concluded a one-year monitoring program for incidental catches of small dolphins in the gillnet fishery operating off northern Brazil.
Since August 2006, a total of 11 field trips were monitored onboard a fishing vessel operating off the coast of Amapa' State. The main target are 'pescada-amarela' and 'gurijuba', higly prized in the fish markets of Brazil. It was detected a large by-catch of dolphins, all of them Sotalia.
Molecular analysis of a large sample set of Sotalia specimens were conducted at Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All specimens were identified as S. guianensis.
Numbers of dolphins found entangled varied from one to 83 in a single boat operating off the northern Brazilian coast."

Sotalia dolphins are commonly known as the Tucuxi, an unusual dolphin, in that it can live in both salt and fresh water. It is sometimes seen as far inland as the foot of the Andes, 1,500 miles up the Amazon River. Its ocean range is from Nicaragua to southern Brazil.

A small dolphin, it weighs from 75 to 100 pounds (35-45k), from 4.5 to 6 ft (1.3 to 1.8m) long.
It is a beautiful, small, elegant dolphin, sometimes confused with Bottlenose Dolphin calves.

No one knows how many there are. Fewer and fewer each day, it seems....

Remember, dolphins are not under any form of direct international protection, such as the Whaling Moratorium of the International Whaling Commision, a UN supported organization. Only local, and international concern protects them.

The Ambassadors