Over-consumption // Current

Serious concern for Florida manatees

Who Else Wants To Help Save The 3,200 That Occupy The Florida Coast? American Tourism, Leisure Water Activities, and the... more

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Farmed & Dangerous Alert

Groups Join Together in Exposing Problems With Farmed Salmon & Call on Supermarkets to Change "Sea lice has the... more

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Help endangered Beluga whales {Petition}

Please Sign Petition! Protect the Habitat of Endangered Beluga Whales NOW!

Target: James Balsiger, NOAA Acting Assistant Administrator

Sponsored by: Ocean River Institute
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/937474107?z00m=17355045

On October 17, NOAA's Fisheries Service determined that the Cook Inlet beluga whales would be listed under the Endangered Species Act. This is a great victory for these irreplaceable creatures!

This success is, however, bittersweet - the whales are still an endangered species, and we need to do everything we can to protect their habitat. With their numbers having fallen steadily since 1979 to only 302 whales today, the beluga is in danger of extinction throughout its range in Alaska!

These whales are in trouble the Cook Inlet beluga population was estimated at 1,293 in 1979. Since then the population has fallen steadily until there were only 302 in 2006, the most recent count.

The low numbers and shrinking population causes Cook Inlet beluga whales to be much more vulnerable to all natural sources of mortality, such as disease, predation and stranding. Limiting their range to portions of Cook Inlet, the belugas are particularly vulnerable to human caused sources of whale weakening and mortality as well. Oil drilling tailings are not regulated. Sewage insufficiently treated; non-point source and storm overflows are untreated. Heavy metals, petro-chemicals and endocrine disruptive chemicals bio-accumulate in the fat tissues of belugas and are magnified when passed from mother to calf.

Such persistent pollutants can affect the fertility and reproductive rate of whales. Meanwhile, ship traffic through Cook Inlet is increasing with Anchorage Port exceeding the projected tonnage growth rate of 2.5 percent per year.

Alaska's marine ecosystems and fisheries are particularly vulnerable to the immediate impacts of global warming temperature variations and carbon-loading of the atmosphere. A third of increased atmospheric carbon goes into the ocean causing acidification of seawater and further challenging marine invertebrates in Cook Inlet, a vital part of the beluga's food pyramid. Taking management steps to avert these problems will not only save belugas, it will benefit Alaska's economy by increasing seafood value and tourism.

Join us in urging NMFS to follow through on their proposal to designate critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale now that it is an endangered species. Only by addressing troubled waters in Cook Inlet can beluga whales recover and thrive once again.
Please Sign Petition! Protect the Habitat of Endangered Beluga Whales NOW! Target: James Balsiger, NOAA Acting Assistant... more

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8 responses

1 month ago

Eaten into Extinction?

Elephants, gorillas and other large forest mammals may become extinct in central Africa within 50 years if hunting meat to feed starving populations continues at the current pace. Each year, rural peoples consume some 2.2 billion pounds (one million metric tons) of so-called bushmeat from wildlife, the equivalent of four million cattle; the flesh accounts for 80 percent of the protein and fat in their diet.

"If current levels of hunting persist in central Africa, the most vulnerable species will become extinct in the near future," cautions Nathalie Van Vliet, a researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) based in Indonesia. The problem is, she adds, that "if the people that currently rely on bushmeat as a source of protein in central Africa had to rely on livestock, we would see the same catastrophe that is destroying the Amazon Basin: deforestation for pasture land and livestock raising."

In fact, there is no simple solution to this problem. CIFOR, in a report released today, argues that a hunting ban would not work, as evidenced by the failure of antipoaching programs, among other things. But it also says that forest species such as elephants, buffalo and apes that are slow to reproduce need to be protected or they will disappear entirely. Already, roughly 40 percent of jungle species are killed in greater numbers than can be regained through reproduction, according to the report "The Bushmeat Crisis."

The report calls for local agreements that allow hunting of species that can rebound quickly (such as various species of duikers, a type of forest antelope) while nixing kills of species with long gestation periods (such as elephants who give birth after 22 months). This is "hunting that can satisfy the demand from the poorest in future generations as well as ensure the stability in the long-term of hunted animal populations," Van Vliet says. But she notes the "success" of such pacts will depend on local communities' willingness to abide by them.

The only examples of such sustainable hunting, however, are either among people who have almost no contact with other human beings, such as the indigenous Aché people in the forests of eastern Paraguay, or those who have already killed off local populations of slow-breeding animals as is evidenced in the bushmeat market in Takoradi, Ghana.

Further exacerbating the problem: illegal and even legal activities in central African forests, such as logging and mining, that carve out new access as well as attract new people who also crave meat. And laws against the wildlife trade have failed to prevent supplies of everything from rhinoceros horns to tiger bones from reaching the estimated $3.9-billion global market.

That suggests that even granting ownership of the common resource represented by a duikers herd might not solve the problem, as some experts suggest. But it also shows that blanket bans are not working either. "In the tropics, they have genuine needs," says entomologist Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology, who was not involved with this study but has been assessing the problems presented by expanding human population since the 1960s. "There are desperately poor people surrounding reserves. If I was there, I would shoot the hippo and eat it, too."Elephants, gorillas and other large forest mammals may become extinct in central Africa within 50 years if hunting meat to feed... more