Dr. Alejandro A. Fernández Ajó, Postdoctoral Scholar, Marine Mammal Institute – OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, & Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna (GEMM) Lab.
I just returned to my home country, Argentina, after over 2 years without leaving the USA due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Being back with my family, my friends, my culture, and speaking my native language feels great and relaxing. However, I returned to a country struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. I am afraid this post pandemic scenario places Argentina in a vulnerable situation. The need for economic growth could result in decisions or policies that, in the long term, hurt the country, leaving environmental damage for potential economic growth.
Argentina holds extensive oil and gas deposits, including the world’s second largest gas formation, Vaca Muerta. Although offshore (i.e., in the ocean) oil exploration and exploitation are not yet extensively developed, the intention of offshore gas and oil drilling is on the agenda. In July 2021, a public hearing was held with the purpose to consider the environmental impact assessment for carrying out seismic exploration in the North Argentinian basin off the southern coast of the Buenos Aires province. Over 90% of the participants, including scientists, researchers, technicians from various institutions, non-governmental organizations and representatives of the fishing sector spoke against the project and highlighted the negative impacts that such activity can generate on marine life, and to other socioeconomic activities such as tourism and fishing, not only in Argentina but at the regional level.
Thousands of people marched along the beaches and the main coastal cities of Argentina to protest against the approval for a seismic explorations project in the Argentinian basin. Photo source: prensaobrera.com
Seismic prospections are usually done with the purpose for oil and gas exploitation and less frequently for research purposes. In seismic prospections, ships carry out explosions with airguns, whose sound waves reach the seabed, bounce back and are captured by receivers on the ships to map the petroleum deposits in seafloor and identify potential areas for hydrocarbon extractions. The sound emitted by the seismic airguns can reach extremely loud levels of sounds that travel for thousands of miles underwater. Such extreme high levels of sound can alter the behavior of many marine species, from the smallest planktonic species, to the largest marine mammals, masking their communication, causing physical and physiological stress, interfering with their vital functions, and reducing the local availability of prey (Di Iorio & Clark, 2010; Hildebrand, 2009; Weilgart, 2018).
Here you can listen to a short audio clip of a seismic airgun firing every ~8 seconds, a typical pattern. Close your eyes and imagine you are a whale living in this environment. Now, put the clip on loop and play it for three months straight. This would be the soundscape that whales living in a region of oil and gas exploration hear, as seismic surveys often last 1-4 months (see our previous post “Hearing is believing” for more details).
Despite the public rejection and the mounting evidence about the negative impacts and environmental risks associated with such activities, the government approved the initiation of the seismic prospection off the southern coast of Buenos Aires. In response, thousands of people marched along the beaches and the main coastal cities of Argentina to protest against the oil exploration project. The areas where the seismic surveys will be carried out overlap largely with the southern right whale’s migration routes and feeding areas during their spring and summer (Figure 1). Likewise, the area overlaps with highly productive areas in the ocean that hosts great biodiversity of species of ecological and commercial importance, including the feeding areas of seabirds, turtles and other marine mammals. Additionally, the seismic activity will endanger the health of the beaches of the coast of Buenos Aires and Uruguay where thousands of tourists spend the summer to escape from the large cities.
Figure 1. The map on the left is showing (light blue squares CAN_100, CAN_108, and CAN_114) the areas where seismic prospections are proposes. The map on the right is showing the individual satellite track lines for eleven individual southern right whales (SRW) during the feeding season. You can observe that the proposed area for seismic explorations overlaps with critical feeding habitat for the SRW. Source: Whale Conservation Institute of Argentina (ICB).
The impacts of these activities to marine wildlife are difficult to control and monitor (Elliott et al. 2019, Gordon et al, 2003), especially for large whales that are a very challenging taxa to study (Hunt et al. 2013). We know that the ability to perceive biologically important sounds is critical to marine mammals, and acoustic disturbance through human-generated noise can interfere with their natural functions. Sounds from seismic surveys are intense and have peak frequency bands overlapping those used by baleen whales (Di Lorio & Clark, 2010); however, evidence of interference with baleen whale acoustic communication, and the effects on their health and physiology are sparse. In this context, the GEMM Lab project GRANITE (Gray Whale Response to Ambient Noise Informed by Technology and Ecology), plans to generate information to fulfill these knowledge gaps and provide tools to aid conservation and management decisions in terms of allowable noise level in whale habitats. I am hopeful such information will reach decision makers and influence their decisions, however, sometimes it is frustrating to see how evidence-based information generated with high quality standards are often ignored.
The recent approval of the seismic exploration in Argentina is an example of my frustration. There is no way that the oil industry can guarantee a low-risk of impact on biodiversity and the environment. There are too many examples of environmental catastrophes related to the oil industries at sea that speak for themselves. Moreover, the promotion of such activities goes against the compromises assumed by the country to work to mitigate the effects of Climate Change, and to achieve the reductions of the greenhouse gas emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement. Decades of research help recognized the areas that would be impacted by these seismic activities as key habitat for the life cycle of whales, penguins, seals and more. But, apparently all these scientific data are ignored at the time of weighing the tradeoffs between “economic development” and environmental impacts. As a conservation biologist, I am questioning what can be done in order to be heard and significantly influence such decisions.
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References:
Di Iorio, L., & Clark, C. W. (2010). Exposure to seismic survey alters blue whale acoustic communication. Biology Letters, 6(1), 51–54. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0651
Weilgart, L. (2018). The impact of ocean noise pollution on fish and invertebrates. Report for OceanCare, Switzerland.
Elliott, B. W., Read, A. J., Godley, B. J., Nelms, S. E., & Nowacek, D. P. (2019). Critical information gaps remain in understanding impacts of industrial seismic surveys on marine vertebrates. In Endangered Species Research (Vol. 39, pp. 247–254). Inter-Research. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00968
Gordon, J., Gillespie, D., Potter, J., Frantzis, A., Simmonds, M. P., Swift, R., & Thompson, D. (2003). A review of the effects of seismic surveys on marine mammals. Marine Technology Society Journal, 37(4), 16-34.
Hunt, K. E., Moore, M. J., Rolland, R. M., Kellar, N. M., Hall, A. J., Kershaw, J., Raverty, S. A., Davis, C. E., Yeates, L. C., Fauquier, D. A., Rowles, T. K., & Kraus, S. D. (2013). Overcoming the challenges of studying conservation physiology in large whales: a review of available methods. Conservation Physiology, cot006–cot006. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cot006
By Alejandro Fernandez Ajo, PhD student at the Department of Biology, Northern Arizona University, Visiting scientist in the GEMM Lab working on the gray whale physiology and ecology project
About four years ago, I was in Patagonia, Argentina deciding where to focus my research and contribute to whale conservation efforts. At the same time, I was doing fieldwork with the Whale Conservation Institute of Argentina at the “Whale Camp” in Península Valdés. I read tons of papers and talked with my colleagues about different opportunities and gaps in knowledge that I could tackle during my Ph.D. program. One of the questions that caught my attention was about the unknown cause (or causes) for the recurrent high calf mortalities that the Southern Right Whale (SRW) population that breeds at Peninsula Valdés experienced during the 2000s (Rowntree et al. 2013). Still, at that time, I was unsure how to tackle this research question.
Golfo San José, Península Valdés – Argentina. Collecting SRW behavioral data from the cliff’s vantage point. Source: A. Fernandez Ajo.
Between 2003 and 2013, at least 672 SRWs died, of which 91% were calves (Sironi et al. 2014). These mortalities represented an average total whale death per year of 80 individuals in the 2007-2013 period, which vastly exceeded the 8.2 average deaths per year of previous years by a ten-fold increase (i.e., 1993-2002) (Rowntree et al. 2013). In fact, this calf mortality rate was the highest ever documented for any population of large whales. During this period, from 2006 to 2009, I was the Coordinator of the Fauna Area in the Patagonian Coastal Zone Management Plan, and I collaborated with the Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program (AKA: The Stranding Program) that conducted field necropsies on stranded whales along the coasts of the Península and collected many different samples including whale baleen.
Southern Right Whale, found stranded in Patagonia Argentina. Source: Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas.
In this process, I learned about the emerging field of Conservation Physiology and the challenges of utilizing traditional approaches to studying physiology in large whales. Basically, the problem is that there is no possible way to obtain blood samples (the gold standard sample type for physiology) from free-swimming whales; whales are just too large! Fortunately, there are currently several alternative approaches for gathering physiological information on large whales using a variety of non-lethal and minimally invasive (or non-invasive) sample matrices, along with utilizing valuable samples recovered at necropsy (Hunt et al. 2013). That is how I learned about Dr. Kathleen Hunt’s novel research studying hormones from whale baleen (Hunt et al., 2018, 2017, 2014). Thus, I contacted Dr. Hunt and started a collaboration to apply these novel methods to understand the case of calf mortalities of the SRW calves in Patagonia utilizing the baleen samples that we recovered with the Stranding program at Península Valdés (see my previous blog post).
What is conservation physiology?
Conservation physiology is a multidisciplinary field of science that utilizes physiological concepts and tools to understand underlying mechanisms of disturbances to solve conservation problems. Conservation physiology approaches can provide sensitive biomarkers of environmental change and allow for targeted conservation strategies. The most common Conservation Physiology applications are monitoring environmental stressors, understanding disease dynamics and reproductive biology, and ultimately reducing human-wildlife conflict, among other applications.
I am now completing the last semester of my Ph.D. program. I have learned much about the amazing field of Conservation Physiology and how much more we need to know to achieve our conservation goals. I am still learning, yet I feel that through my research I have contributed to understanding how different stressors impact the health and wellbeing of whales, and about aspects of their biology that have long been obscured or unknown for these giants. One contribution I am proud of is our recent publication of, “A tale of two whales: putting physiological tools to work for North Atlantic and southern right whales,” which was published in January 2021 as a book chapter in “Conservation Physiology: Applications for Wildlife Conservation and Management” published by Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.
This book outlines the significant avenues and advances that conservation physiology contributes to the monitoring, management, and restoration of wild animal populations. The book also defines opportunities for further growth in the field and identifies critical areas for future investigation. The text and the contributed chapters illustrate several examples of the different approaches that the conservation physiology toolbox can tackle. In our chapter, “A tale of two whales,” we discuss developments in conservation physiology research of large whales, with the focus on the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), two closely related species that differ vastly in population status and conservation pressures. We review the advances in Conservation Physiology that help overcome the challenges of studying large whales via a suite of creative approaches, including photo-identification, visual health assessment, remote methods of assessing body condition, and endocrine research using non-plasma sample types such as feces, respiratory vapor, and baleen. These efforts have illuminated conservation-relevant physiological questions for both species, such as discrimination of acute from chronic stress, identification of likely causes of mortality, and monitoring causes and consequences of body condition and reproduction changes.
This book provides an overview of the different applications of Conservation Physiology, outlining the significant avenues and advances by which conservation physiology contributes to the monitoring, management, and restoration of wild animal populations. By using a series of global case studies, contributors illustrate how approaches from the conservation physiology toolbox can tackle a diverse range of conservation issues, including monitoring environmental stress, predicting the impact of climate change, understanding disease dynamics, and improving captive breeding, and reducing human-wildlife conflict. The variety of taxa, biological scales, and ecosystems is highlighted to illustrate the far-reaching nature of the discipline and allow readers to appreciate the purpose, value, applicability, and status of the field of conservation physiology. This book is an accessible supplementary textbook suitable for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in conservation science, ecophysiology, evolutionary and comparative physiology, natural resources management, ecosystem health, veterinary medicine, animal physiology, and ecology.
References
Hunt KE, Fernández Ajó A, Lowe C, Burgess EA, Buck CL. 2021. A tale of two whales: putting physiological tools to work for North Atlantic and southern right whales. In: “Conservation Physiology: Integrating Physiology Into Animal Conservation And Management”, ch. 12. Eds. Madliger CL, Franklin CE, Love OP, Cooke SJ. Oxford University press: Oxford, UK.
Sironi, M., Rowntree, V., Di Martino, M. D., Beltramino, L., Rago, V., Franco, M., and Uhart, M. (2014). Updated information for 2012-2013 on southern right whale mortalities at Península Valdés, Argentina. SC/65b/BRG/06 report presented to the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee, Portugal. <https://iwc.int/home>.
Rowntree, V.J., Uhart, M.M., Sironi, M., Chirife, A., Di Martino, M., La Sala, L., Musmeci, L., Mohamed, N., Andrejuk, J., McAloose, D., Sala, J., Carribero, A., Rally, H., Franco, M., Adler, F., Brownell, R. Jr, Seger, J., Rowles, T., 2013. Unexplained recurring high mortality of southern right whale Eubalaena australis calves at Península Valdés, Argentina. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 493, 275-289. DOI: 10.3354/meps10506
Hunt KE, Moore MJ, Rolland RM, Kellar NM, Hall AJ, Kershaw J, Raverty SA, Davis CE, Yeates LC, Fauquier DA, et al., 2013. Overcoming the challenges of studying conservation physiology in large whales: a review of available methods. Conserv Physiol 1: cot006–cot006.
Hunt, K.E., Stimmelmayr, R., George, C., Hanns, C., Suydam, R., Brower, H., Rolland, R.M., 2014. Baleen hormones: a novel tool for retrospective assessment of stress and reproduction in bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus). Conserv. Physiol. 2, cou030. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cou030
Hunt, K.E., Lysiak, N.S., Moore, M.J., Rolland, R.M., 2016. Longitudinal progesterone profiles in baleen from female North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) match known calving history. Conserv. Physiol. 4, cow014. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cow014
By Alejandro Fernánez Ajó, PhD student at NAU and GEMM Lab research technician
Although
commercial whaling is currently banned and several whale populations show
evidence of recovery, today´s whales are exposed to a variety of other human
stressors (e.g., entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, shipping noise,
climate change, etc.; reviewed in Hunt et al., 2017a). The recovery and
conservation of large whale populations is particularly important to the
oceanic environment due to their key ecological role and unique biological
traits, including their large body size, long lifespan and sizable home ranges
(Magera et al., 2013; Atkinson et al., 2015; Thomas and Reeves, 2015). Thus,
scientists must develop novel tools to overcome the challenges of studying
whale physiology in order to distinguish the relative importance of the different
impacts and guide conservation actions accordingly (Ayres et al., 2012; Hunt et
al., 2013).
To this end,
baleen hormone analysis represents a powerful tool for retrospective assessment
of patterns in whale physiology (Hunt et al., 2014, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018;
Lysiak et. al., 2018; Fernández Ajó et al., 2018; Rolland et al., 2019).
Moreover, hormonal panels, which include multiple hormones, are helping to
better clarify and distinguish between the physiological effects of different
sources of anthropogenic and environmental stressors (Ayres et al., 2012;
Wasser et al., 2017; Lysiak et al., 2018; Romero et al., 2015).
What is Baleen? Baleen is a stratified epithelial tissue consisting of long, fringed plates that grow downward from the upper jaw, which collectively form the whale´s filter-feeding apparatus (Figure 1). This tissue accumulates hormones as it grows. Hormones are deposited in a linear fashion with time so that a single plate of baleen allows retrospective assessment and evaluation of a whales’ physiological condition, and in calves baleen provides a record of the entire lifespan including part of their gestation. Baleen samples are also readily accessible and routinely collected during necropsy along with other samples and relevant information.
Figure 1: Top: A baleen plate from a southern right whale calf (Source: Fernández Ajó et al. 2018). Bottom: A southern right whale with mouth open exposing its baleen (photo credit: Stephen Johnson).
Why are the
Southern Right Whales calves (SRW) dying in Patagonia?
I am a Fulbright Ph.D. student in the Buck Laboratory at Northern Arizona University since Fall 2017, a researcher with the Whale Conservation Institute of Argentina (Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas) and Field Technician for the GEMM Lab over the summer. I focus my research on the application and development of novel methods in conservation physiology to improve our understanding of how physiological parameters are affected by human pressures that impact large whales and marine mammals. I am especially interested in understanding the underlaying causes of large whale mortalities with the aim of preventing their occurrence when possible. In particular, for my Ph.D. dissertation, I am studying a die-off case of Southern Right Whale (SRW) calves, Eubalaena australis, off Peninsula Valdés (PV) in Patagonia-Argentina (Figure 2).
Prior to
2000, annual calf mortality at PV was considered normal and tracked the
population growth rate (Rowntree et al., 2013). However, between 2007 and 2013,
558 whales died, including 513 newborn calves (Sironi et al., 2018). Average
total whale deaths per year increased tenfold, from 8.2 in 1993-2002 to 80 in
2007-2013. These mortality levels have never before been observed for the
species or any other population of whales (Thomas et al., 2013, Sironi et al.,
2018).
Figure 2: Study area, the red dots along the shoreline indicate the location where the whales were found stranded at Península Valdés in 2018 (Source: The Right Whale Program Research Report 2018, Sironi and Rowntree, 2018)
Among several hypotheses proposed to explain these elevated calf mortalities, harassment by Kelp Gulls, Larus dominicanus, on young calves stands out as a plausible cause and is a unique problem only seen at the PV calving ground. Kelp gull parasitism on SRWs near PV was first observed in the 1970’s (Thomas, 1988). Gulls primarily harass mother-calf pairs, and this parasitic behavior includes pecking on the backs of the whales and creating open wounds to feed on their skin and blubber. The current intensity of gull harassment has been identified as a significant environmental stressor to whales and potential contributor to calf deaths (Marón et al., 2015b; Fernández Ajó et al., 2018).
Figure 3: The significant preference for calves as a target of gull attacks highlights the impact of this parasitic behavior on this age class. The situation continues to be worrisome and serious for the health and well-being of newborn calves at Península Valdés. Left: A Kelp Gull landing on whale´s back to feed on her skin and blubber (Photo credit: Lisandro Crespo). Right: A calf with multiple lesions on its back produced by repeated gull attacks (Photo credit: ICB).
Quantifying gull inflicted wounds
Photographs of gull wounds on whales taken during necropsies and were quantified and assigned to one of seven objectively defined size categories (Fig. 4): extra-small (XS), small (S), medium (M), large (L), extra-large (XL), double XL (XXL) and triple XL (XXXL). The size and number of lesions on each whale were compared to baleen hormones to determine the effect of the of the attacks on the whales health.
Impact
factors such as injuries, predation avoidance, storms, and starvation promote
an increase in the secretion of the glucocorticoids (GCs) cortisol and
corticosterone (stress hormones), which then induce a variety of physiological
and behavioral responses that help animals cope with the stressor. Prolonged exposure
to chronic stress, however, may exceed the animal’s ability to cope with such
stimuli and, therefore, adversely affects its body condition, its health, and
even its survival. Triiodothyronine (T3), is the most biologically active form
of the thyroid hormones and helps regulate metabolism. Sustained food
deprivation causes a decrease in T3 concentrations, slowing metabolism to
conserve energy stores. Combining GCs and T3 hormone measures allowed us to
investigate and distinguish the relative impacts of nutritional and other
sources of stressors.
Combining these novel methods produced unique results about whale physiology. With my research, we are finding that the GCs concentrations measured in calves´ baleen positively correlate with the intensity of gull wounding (Figure 4, 1 and 2), while calf’s baleen thyroid hormone concentrations are relative stable across time and do not correlate with intensity of gull wounding (Figure 4 – 3). Taken together these findings indicate that SRW calves exposed to Kelp gull parasitism and harassment experience high levels of physiological stress that compromise their health and survival. Ultimately these results will inform government officials and managers to direct conservation actions aimed to reduce the negative interaction between Kelp gulls and Southern Right Whales in Patagonia.
Figure 4: Physiological stress correlates with number of gull lesions (1 and 2). According to the best-fit linear model, immunoreactive baleen corticosterone (B) and cortisol (F) concentrations increased with wound severity (i.e. number of gull lesions). However, nutritional status indexed by baleen immunoreactive triiodothyronine (T3) concentrations does not correlate with the number of gull lesions (3). (Fernández Ajó et al. 2019, manuscript under revision)
Baleen hormones represent a powerful tool for
retrospective assessments of longitudinal trends in whale physiology by helping
discriminate the underlying mechanisms by which different stressors may affect
a whale’s health and physiology. Moreover, while most sample types used for
studying whale physiology provide single time-point measures of current
circulating hormone levels (e.g., skin or respiratory vapor), or information
from previous few hours or days (e.g., urine and feces), baleen tissue provides
a unique opportunity for longitudinal analyses of hormone patterns. These
retrospective analyses can be conducted for both stranded or archived
specimens, and can be conducted jointly with other biological markers (e.g.,
stable isotopes and biotoxins) to describe migration patterns and exposure to pollutants.
Further research efforts on baleen hormones should focus on completing
biological validations to better understand the hormone measurements in baleen
and its correlation with measurements from alternative sample matrices (i.e.,
feces, skin, blubber, and respiratory vapors).
References:
Atkinson, S.,
Crocker, D., Houser, D., Mashburn, K., 2015. Stress physiology in marine
mammals: how well do they fit the terrestrial model? J. Comp. Physiol. B. 185,
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Booth, R.K., Hempelmann, J.A., Koski, K.L., Emmons, C.K., Baird, R.W.,
Balcomb-Bartok, K., Hanson, M.B., Ford, M.J., Wasser, S.K., 2012. Distinguishing
the impacts of inadequate prey and vessel traffic on an endangered killer whale
(Orcinus orca) population. PLoS ONE.
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Fernández
Ajó, A.A., Hunt, K., Uhart, M., Rowntree, V., Sironi, M., Marón, C.F., Di
Martino, M., Buck, L., 2018. Lifetime glucocorticoid profiles in baleen of
right whale calves: potential relationships to chronic stress of repeated
wounding by Kelp Gull. Conserv. Physiol. 6, coy045. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coy045.
Hunt, K.,
Lysiak, N., Moore, M., Rolland, R.M., 2017a. Multi-year longitudinal profiles
of cortisol and corticosterone recovered from baleen of North Atlantic right
whales (Eubalaena glacialis). Gen.
Comp. Endocrinol. 254: 50–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygcen.2017.09.009.
Hunt, K.E.,
Hunt, K.E., Lysiak, N.S., Matthews, C.J.D., Lowe, C., Fernández-Ajo, A.,
Dillon, D., Willing, C., Heide-Jørgensen, M.P., Ferguson, S.H., Moore, M.J.,
Buck, C.L., 2018. Multi-year patterns in testosterone, cortisol and
corticosterone in baleen from adult males of three whale species. Conserv.
Physiol. 6, coy049. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coy049.
Hunt, K.E.,
Hunt, K.E., Lysiak, N.S., Moore, M.J., Rolland R.M., 2016. Longitudinal
progesterone profiles in baleen from female North Atlantic right whales
(Eubalaena glacialis) match known calving history. Conserv. Physiol. 4, cow014.
https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cow014.
Hunt, K.E.,
Lysiak, N.S., Moore, M.J., Seton, R.E., Torres, L., Buck, C.L., 2017b. Multiple
steroid and thyroid hormones detected in baleen from eight whale species.
Conserv. Physiol. 5, cox061. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cox061.
Hunt, K.E.,
Moore, M.J., Rolland, R.M., Kellar, N.M., Hall, A.J., Kershaw, J., Raverty,
S.A., Davis, C.E., Yeates, L.C., Fauquier, D.A., Rowles, T.K., Kraus, S.D.,
2013. Overcoming the challenges of studying conservation physiology in large
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Hunt, K.E.,
Stimmelmayr, R., George, C., Hanns, C., Suydam, R., Brower, H., Rolland, R.M.,
2014. Baleen hormones: a novel tool for retrospective assessment of stress and
reproduction in bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus). Conserv. Physiol. 2,
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Lysiak, N.,
Trumble, S., Knowlton, A., Moore, M., 2018. Characterizing the duration and
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