- Killings of small whales, porpoises and dolphins are rising, with more than 100,000 of these marine mammals slaughtered each year, according to a new report from German and British NGOs.
- Many regions report increased catches driven by demand for dolphin meat as food and shark bait in areas impacted by economic crisis and dwindling fish stocks.
- Failure to address unsustainable exploitation of small cetaceans exacerbates ecological imbalance and heavy metal toxicity risks to humans who eat them, according to the report.
- Insufficient legislation and enforcement remain critical issues, according to the report, which calls for international collaboration and stronger protection measures.
READER ADVISORY: This story contains images of dead cetaceans that some viewers may find disturbing.
More than 100,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales are killed annually, according to a new review from German and British NGOs Pro Wildlife and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. This update on a 2018 assessment by the same authors reveals concerning failures to curb the rising slaughter of small cetaceans.
“Most people think that whaling and hunting of dolphins, small whales and porpoises must surely be a thing of the past,” Erich Hoyt, co-chair of the IUCN’s Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, who was not involved in writing the report, told Mongabay. “It’s not.”
The report, released in February, reviews more than 230 research studies, NGO reports and news stories covering 58 species. It indicates deaths “now well above” the 100,000 estimated in 2018, based on increases in reported small cetacean catch in 12 countries, But the report doesn’t give a precise death toll. The exact number of animals killed is unknown because many hunts are illegal and go unreported, Sandra Altherr, head scientist at Pro Wildlife and co-author of the review, told Mongabay.
“What we can say for sure is that … some populations could be wiped out in just a few years if the hunting does not stop,” she said.
The authors flag new hunts for previously untargeted species, rises in the use of dolphins as shark fishing bait, and consumption of dolphin meat in new areas as concerning areas of increase. Small cetaceans — whales, dolphins and porpoises less than 4 meters (13 feet) long — are also deliberately targeted for supposed medicinal purposes, to eliminate competition for fish, and even for trinkets and love charms, the review said.
“We already came close to eliminating blue, right, fin, bowhead and sei whales. To carry on removing the smaller whales and dolphins would be not just embarrassingly short-sighted but disastrous,” Hoyt said.
Why do we need cetaceans?
Cetaceans help regulate other marine species and keep ocean ecosystems in balance. They also perform another less obvious ecosystem service: They poop. But not where they eat. These marine mammals wait to poop until they surface to breathe or rest, bringing nutrients up from where they ate dinner. They essentially provide a banquet in a nutrient desert, for plankton and other surface organisms that support the marine food web. Dolphin population decline is therefore “an alarm bell” for ocean status, Altherr said.
Local collapse of dolphin populations across the world has been widely reported, usually due to accidental capture in fishing gear, pollution, or marine heat waves. For example, small cetacean numbers may have fallen by 87% in the Indian Ocean since the 1980s, according to one study cited in the review.
How are we killing more dolphins?
The review points to increased small-cetacean catches in Brazil, Canada, the Faroe Islands, Ghana, Greenland, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Taiwan and Venezuela.
In West Africa and Asia, use of dolphin meat for shark fishing bait has soared. Blubbery cetacean flesh is unusually durable in saltwater, making it excellent for shark longlining as it stays on the hooks. The review highlights an escalating swing from opportunistic use of small cetaceans accidentally entangled in nets for bait, to extensive active targeting.
Government subsidies allow distant-water fishing fleets to travel farther and fish for longer than would otherwise be profitable. These faraway fisheries may conduct more small-cetacean hunting than previously thought, the review suggests. It cites interviews with crews from Taiwanese and South Korean distant-water fleets that indicate regular, deliberate targeting of dolphins for bait and trinkets.
Eating cetaceans is a cultural and dietary practice within some Indigenous communities in Canada, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Japan, Norway and the U.S. But the review reveals expansion into new areas. In Venezuela, people struggling with a crippling economic crisis have turned to eating dolphin meat. In West Africa, it’s filling gaps left in local diets because of overfishing. “[L]ocal people are switching to dolphin meat because fish has gone,” Altherr said.
Yet eating cetaceans poses a “significant risk” to humans, the review said, as poisonous substances such as mercury build up in predators through lifelong consumption of fish contaminated by pollution. The review references long-term research into developmental issues in Faroese children whose mothers consumed pilot whale meat while pregnant. It calls for mandatory testing of cetacean products and better national health and safety guidelines in consumer countries.
Despite its being polluted, researchers have advised Arctic communities to continue eating cetacean meat and products because the health risks from alternatives are likely to be worse, according to Russell Fielding, principal investigator with the University of Washington’s Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center. Fielding’s research on heavy metal toxicity in cetaceans is cited in the review although he wasn’t involved in the review itself.
Fielding said pollution is the core issue to tackle if we really want to maintain healthy ocean resources.
“Pollution is no one’s ally and it’s important for everyone concerned about the environment — whalers and whale-protectors alike — to unite against those companies and countries responsible for its presence,” Fielding said. “Pollution causes more harm to whales than whaling does.”
Small wins
The report also outlines some wins. Pakistan, for example, has reduced the number of dolphins accidentally killed in tuna gillnets from 12,000 annually to 480, via a WWF project convincing fishers to use subsurface nets that give megafauna space at the surface to escape.
And the dolphin population off Jeju Island, South Korea, first counted at 124 in 2007 and down to 105 by 2010, rebounded to 210 strong by 2016. Fishers had been letting dolphins accidentally caught in their nets die, but consistent administration of fines and prison sentences convinced them to start releasing the dolphins, prompting the turnaround.
But while annual small cetacean catches in Japan, Malaysia and Madagascar have decreased, it’s no cause for celebration, according to Altherr. It’s only due to fishermen not finding as many because populations are already depleted, she said, and they’re now turning to other cetacean species.
What to do?
The authors outline a raft of recommendations, including more transparent catch data, comprehensive assessment of cetacean populations to enable scientifically informed hunting targets, public health guidelines, and awareness raising in fisher communities.
But stronger legislation aimed at protecting cetaceans and better law enforcement are key to curbing hunting, according to the review. Altherr said granting all small cetaceans international protection status is the most important step to improve national legislation and enforcement. The review also specifically recommends international bodies such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) scrutinize cross-border trade and collect the data necessary to formulate effective measures. “It is almost always up to the countries to make things happen and enforce change,” Hoyt said. But they need data to get it right.
“In the 1970s, the world witnessed the collapse of large whales due to industrial whaling,” Altherr said. “If we don’t want some species or populations of small cetaceans to follow this path, decision makers and enforcement agencies must act now.”
Banner image: A Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus). Image by טל שמע via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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Citations:
Gilbert, L., Jeanniard-du-Dot, T., Authier, M., Chouvelon, T., & Spitz, J. (2023). Composition of cetacean communities worldwide shapes their contribution to ocean nutrient cycling. Nature Communications, 14(1), 5823. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-41532-y
Anderson, R. C., Herrera, M., Ilangakoon, A. D., Koya, K. M., Moazzam, M., Mustika, P. L., & Sutaria, D. N. (2020). Cetacean bycatch in Indian Ocean tuna gillnet fisheries. Endangered Species Research, 41, 39-53. doi:10.3354/esr01008
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