{"id":7652,"date":"2012-07-02T22:13:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T02:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=7652"},"modified":"2012-07-02T22:38:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T02:38:21","slug":"blue-whales-in-sri-lankan-waters-threatened-due-to-commercial-shipping-and-unregulated-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=7652","title":{"rendered":"Blue Whales in Sri Lankan waters threatened due to commercial shipping and unregulated tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Erik Olsen<\/strong><\/p>\n

M<\/strong>IRISSA, Sri Lanka \u2014 In early April, whale watchers off this country\u2019s southern coast were greeted by a disturbing sight: the lifeless body of a 60-foot-long blue whale floating in the water about 12 miles offshore.<\/p>\n

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Click to see video:<\/a> Marine biologist Asha de Vos wants to save a little understood population of blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka<\/em><\/p>\n

The body was swelling rapidly, and suckerfish swarmed across its skin. Even more unsettling was the condition of its tail, which had been nearly severed from the body.
\n
\n\u201cIt was very obviously from a ship\u2019s propeller,\u201d said Mazdak Radjainia, a structural biologist and underwater photographer from the University of Auckland in New Zealand who happened upon the whale. \u201cIt must have been a really cruel death, because it was such a massive injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Researchers say ship strikes are a leading cause of death among whales around the globe. Many that are killed are from endangered populations like blue whales that are barely holding on.<\/p>\n

The problem is particularly troublesome here in Sri Lanka, where a largely unstudied population of blue whales, possibly numbering in the thousands, has come under increasing pressure from commercial shipping and from a boom in unregulated whale-watching boats.<\/p>\n

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Asha de Vos - pic courtesy: NYTimes.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Because these waters are poorly monitored, scientists do not know for sure whether ship strikes are on the rise. But the whale\u2019s death in April was already the sixth of the year, according to news reports. In one grisly encounter in March, a blue whale was found draped over the bow of a container vessel in the harbor in the capital, Colombo, 90 miles north of this beach resort. Last year, some 20 whale carcasses (not all of them blue whales) were seen around the island, according to Arjan Rajasuriya, a research officer with the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency in Colombo. It is not known how many of the deaths resulted from ship strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese strikes likely represent only a portion of the likely true mortality,\u201d said John Calambokidis, a whale researcher in Olympia, Wash., who documents ship strikes off the West Coast of the United States. Because blue whales often sink soon after they are struck, most such deaths go unrecorded, and Dr. Calambokidis says the true number \u201ccould be 10 or 20 times\u201d the number seen.<\/p>\n

Fifteen miles off the southern coast of Sri Lanka is one of the world\u2019s busiest shipping lanes, and whales are known to swim regularly inside them. But some scientists believe that the increase in whale watching could be forcing whales to seek food farther out, pushing them into the big ships\u2019 path.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid the whales are being harassed by the whale-watching boats and that this could affect their movement,\u201d said Asha de Vos, a whale researcher here.<\/p>\n

The threat to the whales has some researchers scrambling to learn as much as they can about them and to find a way to protect them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving these whales right off the coast is pretty amazing,\u201d said Ari S. Friedlaender, a research scientist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory. \u201cWe know so little about blue whales in general that any place that you have easy access to animals like this, your learning curve is going to be exponential.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, Sri Lanka ended a deadly 25-year civil war that largely kept foreign scientists and researchers away from these waters. Several general surveys in the 1970s revealed that there were whales here, but it was not until the 1990s that interest started to grow. Researchers were particularly drawn by the whales\u2019 tendency to stay here year round; other blue whale populations are known to migrate vast distances.
\nPerhaps no one has studied these whales and promoted their conservation as much as Ms. de Vos.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Ms. de Vos started the Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project, a long-term research program that she hopes will stop the carnage and raise awareness of the whales here. For the last three years, from December to May, she has been photographing the whales and using scientific instruments to better understand their feeding behaviors.
\n\u201cClearly, there\u2019s something down there that\u2019s keeping them around. But we need to know where it is and how much,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In March, Ms. de Vos was helped by a team of researchers from the Duke University Marine Lab who brought along an electronic echo sounder, which uses sound waves to measure the density of prey in the water. For 10 days, she and the team crisscrossed miles of water, taking measurements and finding spots thick with krill.<\/p>\n

The data will help scientists better understand where and when the whales are feeding \u2014 and, she hopes, persuade the government to shift the shipping lanes farther out to sea.
\nMs. de Vos, who was born and raised in Colombo, became a champion of the blue whales after she took a boat ride in 2006 and was astounded by what she saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were six whales within four square kilometers of where I was, and that was it for me,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was a sign, and I knew I wanted to better understand and protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

But her effort is fraught with challenges, including a lack of support from local authorities and the disadvantages of being a young woman in a society dominated by men. \u201cI\u2019m very much on my own around here,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t have a lot of infrastructure or equipment to do my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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pic courtesy: NYTimes.com<\/p><\/div>\n

She has received some financial support from the University of Western Australia, where she is completing a doctorate in oceanography.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer work is really setting the stage for further research on these animals,\u201d said Dr. Friedlaender, who hopes to visit the region next year.<\/p>\n

Ms. de Vos notes that with the end of Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war, there is now a major push to increase tourism, and whale watching is a critical part of the government\u2019s development strategy. While the effort may bring much-needed economic development to this poor country, Ms. de Vos is concerned that it may all be happening too fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, whale-watching boats are driving helter-skelter around the animals,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to explode into something that becomes a harassment for the whales.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other countries with established whale-watching industries, laws prohibit getting close to the animals; the United States sets the minimum distance at 100 yards. Ms. de Vos would like to see similar regulations here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this new era of peace, the blue whale is very fast becoming the symbol of our country,\u201d she said. \u201cIt would be very sad to harm these animals because of our foolishness.\u201d courtesy: The New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Erik Olsen MIRISSA, Sri Lanka \u2014 In early April, whale watchers off this country\u2019s southern coast were greeted by a disturbing sight: the lifeless body of a 60-foot-long blue whale floating in the water about 12 miles offshore. Click to see video: Marine biologist Asha de Vos wants to save a little understood population …<\/p>\n

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