Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Are Harmful Algal Blooms Affecting Whales? New study's results being questioned

Transcript

Are Harmful Algal Blooms Affecting Whales? New study's results being questioned · How To Protect The Ocean

• 1:00:00
  are harmful algal blooms disoriented in
• 1:00:02
  whales to the point where
• 1:00:02
  it's putting them in danger?
• 1:00:04
  That is the question that we're going to
• 1:00:05
  ask today. There's an
• 1:00:06
  article on Manga Bay News
• 1:00:07
  that asked this question and there's some
• 1:00:09
  studies that suggest
• 1:00:10
  this might happen, but
• 1:00:12
  maybe a little controversy because it's
• 1:00:13
  really difficult to
• 1:00:14
  tell. We're going to find out
• 1:00:15
  all about that controversy on today's
• 1:00:17
  episode of the How to
• 1:00:18
  Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
• 1:00:20
  start the show. Hey everybody, welcome
• 1:00:24
  back to another
• 1:00:24
  exciting episode of the How to
• 1:00:26
  Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host,
• 1:00:27
  Andrew Lewin. And this is
• 1:00:28
  the podcast where you find
• 1:00:29
  out what's happening with the ocean, how
• 1:00:30
  you can speak up for the
• 1:00:31
  ocean and what you can do to live
• 1:00:33
  for a better ocean by taking action. And
• 1:00:35
  on today's episode, we're going to be
• 1:00:37
  talking about whales
• 1:00:38
  and are they being affected by harmful
• 1:00:40
  algal blooms? That's going to be the
• 1:00:43
  subject. It's going to be
• 1:00:44
  interesting. I'm really looking forward
• 1:00:45
  to it. But before we get
• 1:00:46
  into that, let's talk about why
• 1:00:48
  you're here. You're here to find out how
• 1:00:50
  to protect the ocean. And this is one
• 1:00:51
  episode, depending on
• 1:00:52
  the platform that you're watching this or
• 1:00:54
  listening to, whether you're
• 1:00:55
  on YouTube or Spotify, or if
• 1:00:57
  you're listening to this on your favorite
• 1:00:58
  podcast app, but there are
• 1:01:00
  more episodes and I want you to
• 1:01:02
  have access to them. You can access them
• 1:01:04
  on your app or you can go to
• 1:01:06
  speak up for blue.com and get
• 1:01:08
  all of the episodes that I've ever
• 1:01:10
  produced. That's over 1700 episodes. And
• 1:01:13
  you can find out more
• 1:01:14
  about how you can protect the ocean. You
• 1:01:16
  could also take a listen to
• 1:01:17
  some of our other podcasts,
• 1:01:19
  like Beyond Jaws, The Fancy Scientist,
• 1:01:21
  Consencias Azul, and Aquadox that are on
• 1:01:24
  speak up for blue.com.
• 1:01:25
  And if you want some of that information
• 1:01:26
  to your inbox, you can go to speak up for
• 1:01:29
  blue.com forward slash newsletter and get
• 1:01:31
  all that information to your inbox Monday
• 1:01:34
  to Friday, 8am Eastern.
• 1:01:37
  All right, let's get back to the show.
• 1:01:38
  We're going to be talking about whales
• 1:01:39
  and we're going to be talking about
• 1:01:40
  harmful algal blooms also known as habs,
• 1:01:43
  not the Montreal
• 1:01:44
  Canadians as known as habs.
• 1:01:45
  These are harmful algal blooms. Although
• 1:01:47
  if you're a leaf fan, you might want to
• 1:01:50
  refer to the Montreal Canadian habs as
• 1:01:53
  harmful algal blooms.
• 1:01:54
  I'm not sure. It's a Canadian joke. It's
• 1:01:56
  an NHL joke. Okay. This is a dad joke, I
• 1:01:58
  guess. I don't know. Let's
• 1:01:59
  just get on with the show.
• 1:02:01
  So here's the situation. So there was a
• 1:02:02
  study that was published in frontiers in
• 1:02:05
  marine science in November. And this was
• 1:02:08
  from an author that was independent.
• 1:02:11
  So his name is Greg Silver. He
• 1:02:12
  co-authored it with his daughter, Katie
• 1:02:14
  Silver, and they wanted to explore the
• 1:02:16
  link between habs, harmful
• 1:02:19
  algal blooms, and whale deaths.
• 1:02:21
  Which is really interesting because those
• 1:02:22
  have never really been put together. If
• 1:02:24
  you don't know what I have is harmful
• 1:02:26
  algal blooms, essentially what it is.
• 1:02:28
  It's a number of cells that have come
• 1:02:29
  together in the ocean due to wind
• 1:02:32
  patterns and heat in the ocean, as well
• 1:02:35
  as the right mix of nutrients.
• 1:02:37
  So phosphate and nitrates that allow this
• 1:02:40
  bloom to happen and this algal when it
• 1:02:42
  blooms together, it forms a toxin that
• 1:02:45
  can be hurtful to not only marine
• 1:02:47
  animals, but also humans.
• 1:02:49
  We've seen them and I've discussed them
• 1:02:50
  on the podcast along Florida's coastline.
• 1:02:53
  We've seen them happen a lot because of
• 1:02:55
  the nutrients that are disposed of into
• 1:02:57
  the ocean, as well as the increased sea
• 1:02:59
  surface temperature from climate change
• 1:03:01
  and wind patterns, bringing them all
• 1:03:03
  together, mixing up into a really nasty
• 1:03:06
  harmful algal bloom.
• 1:03:07
  So we've seen these not only in the Gulf
• 1:03:09
  Coast, but also on the Atlantic, on the
• 1:03:11
  Pacific side, and the authors here
• 1:03:13
  studied this. Katie is an ecologist at
• 1:03:16
  the Institute of Applied Ecology in Santa
• 1:03:18
  Fe, New Mexico, and they studied the
• 1:03:19
  timing location of the hab events
• 1:03:21
  alongside large whale mortalities and
• 1:03:24
  injuries along coastal waters.
• 1:03:26
  So they analyzed the data from the East
• 1:03:28
  Coast from 2000 to 2021 and the West
• 1:03:30
  Coast from 2007 to 2021 from UNESCO's
• 1:03:34
  harmful algal database and NOAA's
• 1:03:36
  National Marine Mammal Health and
• 1:03:38
  Stranding Response Program.
• 1:03:40
  So both of these carry this large
• 1:03:41
  database of information, one on marine
• 1:03:43
  mammals, one on harmful algal blooms.
• 1:03:46
  They decided to put that together and
• 1:03:47
  they looked at only cases of whale injury
• 1:03:50
  or death attributed to human activity.
• 1:03:52
  So that's excluding those attributed to
• 1:03:54
  natural or unknown causes.
• 1:03:56
  So essentially what happens in these
• 1:03:57
  strandings is a whale will come on to the
• 1:04:00
  shore and it'll most likely die.
• 1:04:02
  Hopefully sometimes they're okay and they
• 1:04:04
  can be put back into the
• 1:04:05
  ocean with the stranding teams.
• 1:04:07
  But a lot of the times they're stranded,
• 1:04:09
  they're dead and they
• 1:04:10
  have to do a necropsy.
• 1:04:11
  So some of the time they can find out
• 1:04:12
  what it is, not all the time, but some of
• 1:04:14
  the time they can find out what was the
• 1:04:15
  cause of death, whether it's a ship
• 1:04:17
  strike or whether they see fishing ropes
• 1:04:19
  along the body of a whale.
• 1:04:21
  That's actually cutting into the whale.
• 1:04:22
  All that stuff is looked at, right?
• 1:04:25
  Now, I should mention that a lot of the
• 1:04:27
  necropsis come back with no cause or
• 1:04:29
  there's so many causes, it's difficult to
• 1:04:30
  tell what the cause of.
• 1:04:32
  They could have ingested plastic
• 1:04:33
  pollution. They could have been really
• 1:04:34
  thin from malnutrition.
• 1:04:36
  They could have been hit by a ship that
• 1:04:38
  may or may not show that they're hit by a
• 1:04:40
  ship and they may have some kind of
• 1:04:42
  entanglement or signs of an entanglement.
• 1:04:44
  But we're not sure if it's an actual rope
• 1:04:46
  or a line or what have you.
• 1:04:47
  So it's very difficult to tell, but they
• 1:04:49
  only went with the ones where they knew
• 1:04:51
  that it was a human activity that causes
• 1:04:53
  the ship strikes or entanglement.
• 1:04:55
  So they're finding they said the number
• 1:04:56
  of mortality and injuries was frequently
• 1:04:59
  higher in years of
• 1:05:00
  large scale or severe habs.
• 1:05:02
  So in other words, areas where there were
• 1:05:03
  hab events that were also overlapped by
• 1:05:06
  strandings or deaths caused by those
• 1:05:08
  human activities,
• 1:05:09
  they could attribute it.
• 1:05:11
  They basically came back and attributed
• 1:05:12
  it to the harmful algal bloom, the hab
• 1:05:15
  event, having an impact on the whale.
• 1:05:17
  They didn't really go and say, hey, you
• 1:05:20
  know what? There was actually signs of
• 1:05:22
  habs like of these harmful
• 1:05:23
  algal blooms in the whales.
• 1:05:25
  But they just basically assumed that if
• 1:05:27
  there was one around in the spatial area
• 1:05:30
  of where this fatality occurred, then
• 1:05:32
  this was one of the reasons.
• 1:05:34
  And their interpretation was that some of
• 1:05:36
  the toxins that are produced from the
• 1:05:39
  harmful algal blooms
• 1:05:40
  could disorient the whale.
• 1:05:49
  So that's it. So one of the toxins, the
• 1:05:51
  most common genus on both coasts was saxy
• 1:05:54
  toxin producing
• 1:05:55
  dinoflagellate called alexandrium.
• 1:05:58
  So experts know that this toxin can
• 1:05:59
  affect marine mammals nerves and muscles
• 1:06:01
  dulling their senses and reducing the
• 1:06:03
  ability to move properly.
• 1:06:05
  So if you're trying to get away, if you
• 1:06:06
  see a ship and kind of gone through this
• 1:06:08
  harmful algal bloom, you get enough of
• 1:06:10
  those toxins to
• 1:06:11
  actually make a difference.
• 1:06:12
  It disorients you a little bit. It causes
• 1:06:14
  some muscle failure. You can't get out of
• 1:06:16
  the way the ship and boom, you get hit by
• 1:06:17
  ship. That could be a problem. Right?
• 1:06:19
  That makes sense. If you are interpreting
• 1:06:21
  it in that kind of way.
• 1:06:23
  The runner up was pseudo nitsia that the
• 1:06:25
  study found, although it was more common
• 1:06:27
  on the west coast than the east coast,
• 1:06:29
  this diatom produces damoic acid toxins
• 1:06:32
  that can cause marine mammals to become
• 1:06:33
  confused, move strangely
• 1:06:35
  and even have seizures.
• 1:06:37
  So again, these algal toxins could affect
• 1:06:40
  the way this animal moves through the
• 1:06:42
  water to be able to get away from a ship
• 1:06:45
  or even identify and
• 1:06:46
  move away from a line.
• 1:06:48
  Just a note, having a line like go up and
• 1:06:51
  down in the water column is very
• 1:06:52
  difficult to tell just from humans.
• 1:06:54
  Imagine a whale trying to travel through
• 1:06:56
  that and gets caught on
• 1:06:57
  its fin on his pectoral fin.
• 1:06:59
  And then all of a sudden, you're like,
• 1:07:00
  Whoa, hold on a second. Like, this is
• 1:07:02
  actually hurting. It's digging into my
• 1:07:04
  pectoral fin. What am I going to do?
• 1:07:06
  So that's a problem as well. You don't
• 1:07:08
  want to fly into those things, especially
• 1:07:09
  if you feel disoriented or kind of moving
• 1:07:11
  strangely, you don't really
• 1:07:12
  have control over your body.
• 1:07:14
  So the authors essentially concluded that
• 1:07:16
  swimming through these harmful algal
• 1:07:19
  blooms can influence the ability of these
• 1:07:21
  whales moving out of the way of danger,
• 1:07:23
  whether it be a ship strike or whether it
• 1:07:25
  be an entanglement with the fishing gear.
• 1:07:27
  That was the interpretation, essentially,
• 1:07:29
  based on the spatial distribution of the
• 1:07:32
  Habs event as well as where
• 1:07:34
  these whale fatalities were.
• 1:07:36
  A NOAA research ecologist by the name of
• 1:07:39
  Elliot Hansen, who was not involved in
• 1:07:41
  the study, expressed skepticism over the
• 1:07:43
  explanation for the increased whale
• 1:07:45
  deaths and injuries due
• 1:07:46
  to human cause during Habs.
• 1:07:47
  For instance, Hansen said warm water can
• 1:07:50
  cause Habs, but can also drive anchovies
• 1:07:52
  and their whale predators closer to shore
• 1:07:54
  where pot fishing is more common, thus
• 1:07:57
  potentially increasing
• 1:07:58
  the risk of entanglement.
• 1:07:59
  So the correlation is the dominant factor
• 1:08:02
  with warm water often leading to increase
• 1:08:04
  Habs and ensure compression of whale
• 1:08:07
  prey. On the other hand, Hansen says
• 1:08:08
  fishery closures resulting from Habs can
• 1:08:11
  actually reduce entanglement risk further
• 1:08:14
  complicating the picture.
• 1:08:15
  Similarly with vessel strikes, Hansen
• 1:08:17
  said that while it's possible that Habs
• 1:08:19
  that cause democ toxicity in krill eating
• 1:08:22
  whales that impairs their ability to
• 1:08:24
  avoid ships, there is no evidence to
• 1:08:25
  support or refute it.
• 1:08:27
  So again, the enabling conditions of warm
• 1:08:30
  water may have effects on
• 1:08:31
  both parts of the ecosystem.
• 1:08:33
  What Hansen is saying essentially is,
• 1:08:35
  yes, this could happen, but there's no
• 1:08:38
  real evidence to say it does or it
• 1:08:40
  doesn't. You would almost have to find a
• 1:08:42
  way to make sure that there are Habs in
• 1:08:44
  the whales to say, yes, Habs is actually
• 1:08:48
  one of the causes of these whale deaths
• 1:08:50
  that disorient them and cause them to not
• 1:08:53
  avoid ship strikes or
• 1:08:54
  entanglements from fishing gear.
• 1:08:56
  But the real cause here is warm water
• 1:08:59
  that's caused by climate change that
• 1:09:01
  helps these harmful algal blooms develop.
• 1:09:03
  Right? Like I said at the beginning,
• 1:09:05
  harmful algal blooms developed by a
• 1:09:07
  combination of warm water, wind pattern
• 1:09:09
  and nutrients coming in at the right time
• 1:09:12
  to form this red tide or harmful algal
• 1:09:14
  blooms that becomes toxic in the water
• 1:09:17
  and can kill and affect a lot of animals.
• 1:09:19
  Elliot Hansen also wanted to clarify that
• 1:09:22
  it is difficult to detect and document
• 1:09:24
  entanglements and ship strikes,
• 1:09:26
  especially when it's further offshore. It
• 1:09:28
  makes it even harder to definitively
• 1:09:30
  determine whether Habs are
• 1:09:32
  behind the whale injuries.
• 1:09:33
  In other words, it's difficult to say,
• 1:09:35
  hey, there's ship strikes and there's
• 1:09:37
  whale entanglements offshore. That's
• 1:09:38
  what's causing the death of this whale.
• 1:09:40
  It's difficult to say that because
• 1:09:41
  they're further offshore. It's harder to
• 1:09:42
  monitor. Now imagine throwing Habs on it.
• 1:09:45
  So here's the thing. We have authors that
• 1:09:47
  were published in a journal article that
• 1:09:49
  was peer reviewed that says, Hey, you
• 1:09:50
  know what? There could be something to
• 1:09:51
  this, but it's still at a very beginning
• 1:09:53
  stage in understanding the effects of
• 1:09:56
  Habs in the cause of whale deaths and
• 1:09:58
  around ship strikes and
• 1:09:59
  fishing gear entanglement.
• 1:10:01
  So the question really asked is like, is
• 1:10:03
  this a bad science move? Are the authors
• 1:10:05
  moving and just being like, we're just
• 1:10:07
  assuming this. This happens all the time.
• 1:10:10
  We see this in science. And what we'll
• 1:10:12
  see is that something is published.
• 1:10:13
  A scientist will critique the article or
• 1:10:16
  two or three or four. Usually they have
• 1:10:17
  to go through an editorial process and
• 1:10:20
  then people will have a debate back and
• 1:10:21
  forth. There's no emotions. There's no
• 1:10:23
  disrespect in there for the most part.
• 1:10:26
  But essentially what happens is a science
• 1:10:27
  gets better as we go along. What we've
• 1:10:29
  determined here is that in even the
• 1:10:31
  authors suggest that the more research
• 1:10:33
  needs to be done to determine the effect
• 1:10:35
  of Habs on these deaths with ship strikes
• 1:10:37
  and fishing gear entanglements.
• 1:10:39
  But this is science. This is the way
• 1:10:41
  science works. I want to highlight this
• 1:10:43
  article specifically because it has some
• 1:10:45
  controversy around it. I'm going to be
• 1:10:47
  focusing on this topic next episode, but
• 1:10:49
  we've seen science really come into
• 1:10:51
  question. Not only in marine science, but
• 1:10:53
  we've seen science in medical science,
• 1:10:55
  also in nutritional science. Everything
• 1:10:56
  is being questioned, which I get. You
• 1:10:59
  have to ask questions. But the reason why
• 1:11:01
  you're asking questions, you're trying to
• 1:11:03
  determine an answer. And when somebody
• 1:11:05
  comes up with the answer, which hopefully
• 1:11:06
  they will soon enough when more research is done, then you can ask questions.
• 1:11:08
  And if more research is done, then we'll
• 1:11:10
  be able to have those answers. The crux
• 1:11:12
  of the matter is, is when you get the
• 1:11:13
  answers, will you accept it? That's
• 1:11:16
  really what it comes down to. And some
• 1:11:17
  people will and some people won't. But
• 1:11:19
  this is what science is all about. It's
• 1:11:21
  to provide evidence. You can start and
• 1:11:23
  suggest stuff and it may or may not work.
• 1:11:26
  You come up with a hypothesis. You test
• 1:11:27
  that hypothesis to see if you can falsify
• 1:11:30
  it, to see if it's wrong. And when you
• 1:11:31
  find out it isn't wrong or it is wrong,
• 1:11:34
  you interpret it accordingly.
• 1:11:36
  And then you do more research based on
• 1:11:38
  what the answer is and how you're going
• 1:11:40
  to interpret it. So that's science.
• 1:11:42
  That's the beauty of science. And I
• 1:11:44
  wanted you to have a taste of this just
• 1:11:46
  to get to see what this is all about. So
• 1:11:48
  that's it for today's episode. I want to
• 1:11:50
  thank you so much for joining me on
• 1:11:51
  today's episode. If you have any
• 1:11:52
  questions or comments on this article or
• 1:11:55
  on this episode, please let me know. You
• 1:11:56
  can hit me up on Instagram at how to
• 1:11:58
  protect the ocean. That's at how to
• 1:12:00
  protect the ocean. And don't forget to
• 1:12:02
  subscribe. Hit that notification bell on
• 1:12:04
  YouTube as well. And I'll see you next time.
• 1:12:06
  As on Spotify, you can follow us and your
• 1:12:08
  favorite podcasting app. We're here
• 1:12:10
  Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I want to
• 1:12:11
  thank you again for joining me on today's
• 1:12:13
  episode of the how to protect the ocean
• 1:12:14
  podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to
• 1:12:16
  you next time and happy conservation.