Can New Research Save Baird’s Beaked Whales From Hunters?
Photo credit: Russian Cetacean Habitat Project
Baird’s beaked whales, also known as giant bottlenose whales, are quite mysterious.
They spend very little time at the ocean’s surface making it difficult to study their behaviors. These whales regularly dive down to around 3,300 feet.
“We were trying to piece together the social behavior,” Erich Hoyt told BBC News.
Hoyt is co-director of the Russian Cetacean Habitat Project and works with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation. He led a recent study that followed giant bottlenose whales for four years.
By cataloging their individual scars and markings, they were able to learn more about their interaction. It seems the whales form alliances and stick together over long periods of time.
And while they continue to study behavior, the researchers are calling for an end to the hunting that caused the scars they identified.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
The whales are currently being hunted off the coast of northern Japan.
Hoyt told BBC News, “They’re getting caught in nets, they’re getting harpooned, so there’s an international responsibility [for this species] that is getting overlooked at the moment. And the fact that we’re seeing these animals ranging [so far] means the hunting of Baird’s beaked whales is something that should be managed internationally.”
Baird’s beaked whales can grow up to 40 feet in length. Unfortunately that means that the International Whaling Commission classifies them as small cetaceans, not great whales.
Small cetaceans are not protected by the international community. Hunting them in Japan is legal as long as the country’s national regulations allow it.
An IWC spokesperson told BBC News that governments have been “debating for several years whether the organization’s regulatory mandate should be extended to small cetaceans”.
Researchers hope this new information about their social habits will enter that discussion and help to preserve the species.
Marine ecologist from Oregon State University, Professor Ari Friedlaender, said long-term associations and complex social structures could mean the impacts of “disturbing them or removing individuals might have significant consequences”.
Dr Patrick Miller, from the University of St Andrews, thinks more research to determine if their alliances affect breeding and feeding. “But the study provides important data, which will improve our ability to understand how whaling and other [man-made] stressors like underwater noise might affect this species.”
Read more from BBC News’ Science Reporter, Victoria Gill.
