ENVIRONMENT: Dolphins Dying in Fishing Nets

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Saugata Bagchi

CONSTANTA (Romania) , Jun 15 2004 (IPS) - Overfishing and poaching pose the biggest threat to bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea, experts say.

Conservationists say accidental trapping in fishing gear accounted for nearly 75 per cent of more than 210 dead dolphins found along the Romanian coast last year.

More than 50 dead bottlenose dolphins reportedly washed up on the shore near the Romanian port of Sulina in May and June 2003. Volunteers involved in photo- identification of dead dolphins say many of them had wounds from fishing gear.

Fishery experts say dozens of dolphins die every month off the Romanian coast after getting entangled in nets during the fishing season between April and October.

“Dolphins are frequently trapped in gillnets and trammel nets,” Simion Nicolaev of the National Marine Research Institute in Romania told IPS. “The number of stranded dolphins is increasing.”

Miles of vertical gillnets that span the seabed like fine mesh curtain, and floating gill nets (driftnets) rigged near the surface often trap more than fish swimming into them. Another danger is the trammel nets, made up of three panels comprising a finely meshed middle segment between two coarse sections that trap fish by wrapping around them.

“One of the main reasons behind dolphin bycatch is intensive trawling,” said Lucian Ionescu, director of Mare Nostrum, a non-governmental organisation involved in dolphin conservation. The failure to ban bottom trawling, a method of fishing that drags large, heavy nets across the sea floor has led to higher dolphin mortality, he added.

A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report says bottom trawling poses considerable threat to all marine life in the Black Sea. Marine scientists believe extensive bottom trawling can alter entire ecosystems by sweeping up everything in their path.

Fishing is a major source of livelihood in all six riparian countries of the Black Sea – Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine – where growth in commercial fishing activities has aggravated threats to the dolphin habitat.

Dolphins were legally hunted by state-owned fisheries till 1966 when it was banned by then Soviet Union, Romania and Bulgaria. Turkey outlawed dolphin hunting in 1983.

Political uncertainty and ecological degradation after the end of communism now further threaten an already fragile and severely degraded marine ecosystem of the Black Sea. Nearly 20 of the 26 commercial fish varieties were wiped out by the early 1970s. The sturgeon is endangered, and stocks of salmon, mullet, sprats, turbot, mackerel and goby have recorded an alarming decrease.

Commercial fish varieties such as anchovy almost disappeared from the 240km Romanian coastline by the late 1980s.

Since these were extremely important sources of income and protein, their collapse will adversely affect the economy and protein consumption of people, says the UNEP report.

Romania’s official fish production dropped from over 12,000 metric tonnes a year in the early 1990s to a mere 1,500 metric tonnes in 2003, says Aurel Amzaru of the National Company for Fisheries Management.

Fishing fleets in most former communist states have collapsed in the last decade following withdrawal of fuel subsidies and state assistance in marketing and exports. In Romania, the fishing fleet now consists of eight medium-sized vessels and about 500 small motorboats.

Simultaneously, illegal fishing is on the rise and fisheries experts admit that the illegal annual catch in the Black Sea is almost as big as the regulated yield.

Nicolaev says dolphin bycatch increased dramatically in Turkish waters as fish stocks depleted and illegal fishing vessels ventured beyond their territorial waters to keep their operations afloat.

A number of Turkish and Bulgarian vessels are impounded every year for illegally fishing in Romanian waters. But a greater number of boats manage to give the slip because they fish at night, have faster engines and use sophisticated technology.

Live capture and trade of dolphins is prohibited under the Agreement on the Conservation of the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Areas (ACCOBAMS) agreement and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

ACCOBAMS is currently engaged in a multi-pronged conservation strategy that involves measures to reduce bycatch, promote sustainable fishing practices and raise protected marine zones for dolphins.

But conservationists argue that protecting the Black Sea bottlenose dolphin, a geographically-isolated species with low fertility would require stringent legal measures and their implementation by all riparian states.

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins are sold each year to marine amusement parks. Most of them face early death in captivity and some traders offer no more than a 15- day survival guarantee.

About 120 bottlenose dolphins were sold for entertainment at an average 20,000 dollars each between 1990 and 2001, according to local estimates. Almost half of them belonged to the Russian navy which could no longer afford to maintain its fleet of military dolphins.

Dolphins have been in military use since the Cold War when both the Soviet Union and the United States exploited their unique echolocation abilities (similar to bats) to help guard naval installations and vessels, or detect enemy divers, mines and submarines.

Black Sea bottlenose dolphins are popular with dolphinariums and marine parks across the world because of their high level of intelligence and receptivity to training. Russian scientists estimate there are about 7,000 bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea, while more conservative estimates put their number at less than 5,000.

Hunting, bycatch and pollution have almost wiped out the harbour porpoise, one of the three cetacean species (besides the short-beaked common dolphin and the bottlenose) once found in abundance in the Black Sea. Scientists say these factors continue to pose a fatal threat to the marine ecosystem, and affect dolphin reproduction rates and lifespan.

Cetacean conservationists and fisheries experts are currently in the process of implementing a project to reduce the impact of dolphin bycatch. The project proposes to raise awareness among fishermen and inform them about methods to avoid bycatch, particularly the use of pingers (low-frequency acoustic beepers fitted to nets to warn approaching mammals) and other deterrents.

In April the ACCOBAM scientific committee suggested the setting up of a bycatch task force in cooperation with Black Sea states and international and regional agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNEP, the Black Sea Commission and the European Commission.

The committee also suggested independent monitoring of fishing activities and data collection from national networks and other agencies.

One of the biggest hurdles to developing a unified strategy for dolphin conservation is the lack of accurate data, according to ACCOBAMS. Very few institutions and scientists are involved in cetacean research or conservation, and much of the existing body of research is restricted to Russian speakers.

Scientists and conservationists agree that wider data dissemination and public awareness would eventually play a key role in determining the future of the bottlenose dolphin in the Black Sea.