NOAA Boat Kills Blue Whale Off Mendocino Coast
Environmentalists and fishermen on California’s North Coast are
calling for an independent investigation into the killing of an
endangered blue whale off Fort Bragg by a mapping survey boat
contracted by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
In order to stop the killing of any more whales, locals are also
asking for an immediate suspension of the Marine Life Protection Act
(MLPA) process that the boat was collecting habitat data for.
The 72-foot female blue whale, a new mother, perished on Monday,
October 19, after being hit by the 78-foot Pacific Star, under contract
to NOAA to update maps of the ocean floor
Jim Milbury, spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service,
said the boat was doing multi-sonar beam surveys to update marine
charts and to determine the habitat to be used in state and federal
marine protected area designations.
“We know that the whale’s death was caused by the collision with the
boat because the boat crew called us to report the collision,” said
Milbury. “After the collision, the dead whale washed up on the beach
off Fort Bragg.”
Collisions with boats are relatively infrequent, but the Fort Bragg
blue whale was the second to perish from a collision with a boat this
fall. On October 9, a 50-foot blue whale was found floating in a kelp
bed off Big Sur along the Monterey County coast after an undetermined
vessel hit it.
The National Geographic and other media outlets gushed that the Fort
Bragg blue whale’s death provided a unique opportunity for scientists
to study a whale.
When the MLPA killed a Blue Whale
On Oct. 19, 2009 an underwater mapping vessel on its last day of work
for the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) struck and killed
a 72-foot female blue whale.
The MLPAI ‘Initiaitive” denied any responsibily for the accident,
and shifted blame to NOAA as the contracting agency. However, it was
later learned that the primary mission of the research vessel Pacific
Star – was to gather data for California Seafloor Mapping Project
(CSMP) – to be used in designing California’s marine protected areas.
The project was heavily funded by the Packard Foundation, the major
financier of the MLPAI “Initiative.” The Packard Foundation has since
removed its name from the CSMP website.
In investigating the incident, Noyo News learned that the Pacific
Star did not have a valid “Marine Geophysical Survey Permit,” and
lacked the required marine mammal observer at the time of the accident,
and so was operating illegally.
On November 18, 2009, I travelled to Eureka, CA to provide public
comment before the MLPAI’s “Blue Ribbon Task Force” (BRTF) – to ask for
an independent investigation of the whale strike incident. As I was
speaking, Executive Director Ken Wiseman interrupted me at two minutes,
one-minute before the previously announced three-minute public comment
time period had expired.
Although I asked to finish my short statement, and tried to read the
last two sentences, Mr. Wiseman quickly cut the microphone and ordered
three California Fish and Game Wardens to remove me from the podium.
After I had been removed, Wiseman, and program manager Melissa
Miller-Henson, went on for several minutes, explaining how the MLPAI
was not at all culpable in the death of the blue whale.
Mr. LeValley and The Blue Whale Cover-Up
Ron LeValley showed up three days after the Oct 19, 2009 whale
strike at the site where the dead animal was beached, in a very tight
narrow cove about a mile south of Fort Bragg. I was also there. When
questions were raised during those first few days about how the
accident had occurred, it was established that the vessel Pacific Star
was using side-scan and multi-beam sonar for hydrographic surveys.
Initially there had been rumors that the vessel was doing oil/gas
drilling surveys, but it was actually doing underwater mapping in
preparation for the North Coast Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.
(MLPAI)
At the scene, Ron proclaimed himself a “whale expert” and started
making very public and adamant statements – to the press and anyone who
would listen – that the vessel’s hydrographic sonar had nothing to do
with the whale strike. He claimed it was the same type of sonar that
fishing boats use, that sonar only affects toothed whales, not baleen
whales, that it was just a freak accident, and the ships powerful
mapping sonar had nothing to do with it.
He presented a public slide show on whales in the following weeks,
where he expressed these beliefs, and claimed that a whale feeding on
plankton is no smarter than a cow grazing on grass.
This had many people’s heads scratching. Why would a trained
biologist make statements that fly in the face of fact? To even do
hydrographic surveys in California waters, you are required to have a
special permit, costing $5,000, that regulates sonar surveys –
specifically for the protection of marine mammals, who are definitely
adversely affected by sonar. As a biologist and whale expert, Mr.
LeValley certainly must have known this.
It was later learned that the Pacific Star did not possess a valid
“Marine Geophysical Survey Permit” at the time of the accident, nor
were they operating under the terms of the permit, which requires a
lookout at all times (a “marine mammal observer”).
When apprised of this, Mr. LeValley went on to claim at that this
also didn’t matter, that the accident would have happened anyway, and
that because of the way blue whales surface unexpectedly, an observer
wouldn’t have seen her. This also is contrary to the opinion of real
whale experts, and to the fact that an observer doing their job would
have noticed the whale, and made the captain and crew aware of her
presence.
Going back to a few days after the accident – The property owners’
had to figure out what to do with an extremely foul smelling carcass
that would have made life unbearable. It would have been logical to
attach long cables at high tide, and tow her back out to sea.
But Mr. LeValley assured the headland property owners that he could
secure funding to haul the beast up the cliffs, by helicopter if
necessary, to remove the carcass and bury the bones until the microbes
ate them clean.
This was done. A large crew of volunteers and paid workers,
including a couple of heavy equipment operators, worked for almost two
weeks, pulling macabre slabs of rotting flesh and bloody bones up the
cliff. The bones were buried at a secret location in the woods east of
Fort Bragg.
Why the cover-up? And who paid for it?
Some speculate that the private billionaire sponsors of the
MLPAI (shielded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation) knew they had
a public relations nightmare on their hands when their mapping vessel
killed the whale. LeValley may have been their point man, to
ameliorate the situation as best he could, and avoid any bad publicity.
Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.
But two months after the accident, Mr. LeValley was chosen as a
Co-Chair for the North Coast “Science Advisory Team” for the MLPAI.
Although officially chosen for his extensive and well-respected
knowledge on birds, he had been a strong advocate for the marine
closures to fishing and gathering by the corrupt, privately sponsored
MLPA Initiative, both before, during and after the whale strike
incident.
Blue Whale Beached: Flipper to be Amputated?
October 22, 2009—The apparent victim of a ship collision, a dead 70-foot (20-meter) blue whale (pictured) washed ashore in a forbidding northern California cove this week.
Though unable to move the blue whale, scientists and students are
leaping at the research opportunity, scrambling down rock faces to take
tissue samples and eventually one of the 11-foot-long (3.5-meter-long)
flippers.
Though relatively infrequent off California until recent years, ship
collisions are "the number one human threat to blue whales," according
to marine biologist Joe Cordaro of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.
This week's collision, he said, marks the second time this year that a ship off California has fatally wounded a blue whale.
The world's largest animals, blue whales can grow to about a hundred
feet (30 meters) long—about the length of a space shuttle. Listed as
endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the
whales are said to face a very high risk of extinction in the wild,
largely due to heavy hunting prior to a 1966 ban.
A Shudder and, Later, a Beached Blue Whale
On Monday, Cordaro received a report from a ship mapping the
seafloor for the fisheries service. The researchers had "felt a shudder
underneath the ship" about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from shore.
Soon after, a whale surfaced, bleeding profusely, Cordaro said.
Several hours later, the beached blue whale was spotted near the city
of Fort Bragg.
Given the evidence—timing, location, a fresh propeller wound—Cordaro
said, "I don't think there's any doubt" that the mapping ship is the
culprit.
Blue Whale Tragedy Turned Scientific Windfall
"I'm as sorry as anybody that that animal perished," said Humboldt State University
mammologist Thor Holmes (pictured above atop the whale). But to find "a
fresh, female blue whale in a place that's accessible—that is amazing."
On Tuesday, Holmes and two students drove several hours to study the blue whale.
After he'd scrambled down the "scary" rock faces, he told the
eager students to stay put for their own safety. "Man, I knew from the
looks on their faces there was an insurrection brewing," he said. The
others eventually found another, wetter way around.
On the shore, the researchers took blubber samples, which Holmes expects will shed light on the whale's pre-collision health.
"Just the fact that the whale has a good, thick blubber layer," he said, "shows it was a really, really healthy animal."
Blue Whale to Be Left in Place
The blue whale will be left on the Fort Bragg beach, the
National Marine Fisheries Service's Cordaro said. Given the cove's
inaccessibility to vehicles, he added, "That whale ain't going
anywhere."
But researchers are planning more tests, including an
amputation of one of the blue whale's flippers this week—a potential
windfall for an ongoing Humboldt State study comparing the limbs of
cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins, and porpoises.
The university is also sending more students to examine the
rare specimen, and a dermatologist at Humboldt is hoping to secure hair
follicles for study.
For Holmes, the specimen holds great scientific promise, but
also serves as a painful reminder of humanity's role in the blue
whale's rarity.
"The presence of that animal on the beach," he said, "is another sign that we're malefactors on this planet."
—Ted Chamberlain
