Dr. William Karp, science and research director of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center, issued the following statement in response to the July 13 Fisheries Survival Fund letter sent to him regarding the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment. The assessment was conducted a few weeks ago by the US-Canada Transboundary Resources Assessment Committee: "The poor condition of the stock over the past decade indeed confounds attempts to quantify current condition or make projections with confidence, although trends in some characteristics are strong and consistent. This uncertainty was widely discussed during the bilateral assessment meeting and will be reflected in the summary and final reports, which the US would not unilaterally revise. How this information will translate into management advice remains to be seen, but some admittedly tough decisions will have to be made by U.S. and Canadian fishery managers in the Fall in order to set 2013 quotas."
Maryland Crab supply flip-flops to shortage
July 18, 2012 — While crabs are typically plentiful during the preseason, a cold spell followed by hot temperatures and more wind than she has seen in her 30 years in the business have made the crustacean scarce, said Mary Ellen Ball, co-owner of Tom and Terry's Seafood Market.
Spring's crab glut has quickly become summer's crab shortage. And with crab consumption a summer ritual on Delmarva, crustacean connoisseurs could be in for some disappointment.
Despite a spring of plentiful crabs, various takeout seafood shops in the area have been struggling to obtain a full supply for the summer.
"It's flip-flopped from the spring," said Dave Long, manager at Ocean View Seafood.
While crabs are typically plentiful during the preseason, a cold spell followed by hot temperatures and more wind than she has seen in her 30 years in the business have made the crustacean scarce, said Mary Ellen Ball, co-owner of Tom and Terry's Seafood Market.
"It shows you how much nature can turn," she said. "It's Mother Nature."
Combine that with a typical summer increase in demand, and there's one outcome.
"It's the perfect storm for a shortage," she said. "Right now you can barely get crabs because of the weather problem," she said.
What there are plenty of, Long said, are juvenile crabs, but those won't do the trick as they take about a year or two to develop.
And Ball's not seeing enough large and jumbo crabs, she said.
"They're, like, nonexistent," she said.
Brenda Davis, blue crab program manager at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said during a winter dredge survey — the only baywide fishery independent effort to estimate the number of blue crabs living in the Chesapeake Bay — the state recorded the highest recruit abundance in the history of the survey, which was first conducted in 1988.
Of the 764 million crabs recorded this year — an increase from 461 million in last year's study — 587 million of them fell into the recruit category. Recruits are considered to be crabs with a carapace — the distance point to point across the back — of 2.25 inches and smaller.
Davis is hearing from commercial crabbers that in the upper bay, things are slow, but down the bay, crabs are being caught.
"The season is starting slow," she said.
Crabs hit the soft-shell market once they have a carapace of 3.25 inches, while the minimum size for the hard-shell crab market is 5 inches, Davis said. Those two figures each increase by .25 inches after July 15.
Lobster still at $2 as brief tie-up ends
July 18, 2012 — Early shedding led to a glut of soft-shells and a 'situation that hasn't happened in the history of commercial lobstering.' Lobstermen who tied up their boats for a few days, hoping to drive up prices for their catch, apparently went back to sea Tuesday, without signs of much change in prices.
"You've got to tend your traps," said Brian McLain, a lobsterman from New Harbor who is on the Maine Lobstermen's Association board.
Lobstermen said the tie-up wasn't a concerted effort, because that would violate federal anti-trust laws. So there's no way to tell how many sat out for a few days.
Arnold Gamage, a lobsterman in South Bristol, said he kept fishing, as did most others in his area, despite prices of about $2 per pound — near record lows — from lobster dealers.
Gamage said he has had to throw fewer lobsters overboard this year than in the past, because not as many are smaller than legal size, over the legal size or females bearing eggs.
"I'm not even seeing as many soft ones this year as we do in other years," Gamage said. "I never imagined that the problem we would have is too many good lobsters."
The biggest problem for most lobstermen seems to be a glut of soft-shells — lobsters that have recently shed hard shells and started growing into larger, softer ones.
After they shed, lobsters hide from predators until their new shells harden some, then emerge hungry and head for baited traps.
Prime time for soft-shell lobsters typically comes in July. But this year, many lobsters had shed, hidden and emerged by early June.
"You're dealing with an unprecedented situation that hasn't happened in the history of commercial lobstering," said Matt McAleney, a dealer with New Meadows Lobster.
McAleney said prices are low, but "it's never a good price from the fisherman's standpoint."
Retail prices are about $4 a pound and up, he said, though prices are often volatile in the summer.
An unusual combination of factors is making this a good year for catching lobsters and not a particularly good one for selling them, said Robert Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute.
He said Canadian lobstermen fared well during their peak seasons, which are typically fall and winter, producing an abundance of lobsters for Canadian processors.
The processors didn't need as many lobsters from American fishermen to fill orders, Bayer said, and many of the processors shut down for much of the early summer.
Read the full story in the Portland Press Herald
Head of federal agency hears fishermen’s turbine concerns
NEW BEDFORD — July 18, 2012 — Local fishermen aired their concerns Tuesday over the proposed development of offshore wind projects in waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island to the director of the federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management.
"There is broad consensus in favor of clean energy in the abstract sense. But it's not that simple," BOEM director Tommy Beaudreau told a fisheries working group meeting at City Hall. His agency recognizes that there are "well-established and abundant uses" of the area under consideration, he said. "We need to be respectful and protective of the fishing industry. That's our responsibility."
The bureau has already removed a fish spawning area, known as Cox's Ledge, from the proposed area, Beaudreau said.
However, fishermen are looking for additional safeguards.
Fishery consultant Jim Kendall said that excluding Cox's Ledge was a positive move but questioned whether enough data had been gathered on the environmental impact of the turbines.
"That's a prime monkfish area," he said. "If fishing productivity declines or access is restricted, we need an economic assessment of the effects on fishermen."
Scalloper Eric Hansen said the assessment focused too much on bottom dwelling species. "You have shad, stripers, herring, tuna and whales migrating through there," he said.
The designated area encompasses 165,000 acres in waters southwest of Martha's Vineyard, known as the Area of Mutual Interest after Gov. Deval Patrick and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri signed a memorandum of understanding in 2010 to collaborate in developing offshore wind.
An environmental assessment of the area was released by BOEM last month and a public comment period ends on Aug. 2.
Professor Kevin Stokesbury, a scallop researcher at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology, said he wonders how placing hundreds of turbines in the water might affect ocean currents and the distribution of larval scallops.
"It might be detrimental or it could create a bloom. We don't know," he said.
The fishing industry currently sets aside money every year to fund ongoing research and wind developers should be required to do the same, fishermen said.
Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times
NOAA apologizes for squid shutdown foulup
July 18, 2012 — NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has apologized to the squid fleet for failing to effectively announce the July 9 closing of directed squid fishing, carried out in the waters off Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York — a shutdown that fishermen say needlessly cost them time and money.
Based on projections that 90 percent of the Trimester II quota of 5,366 metric tons was taken, the NMFS’ Northeast Regional Office based in Gloucester’s Blackburn Industrial Park issued the closing order on the afternoon of July 6. But instead of notifying the fleet by email or the electronic vessel monitoring system (VMS) that most boats use to give NMFS the required 72 hours notice of a planned trip, the Gloucester office mailed and faxed the announced closing on July 6 to holders of squid permits. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not email the announcement until after 8 a.m. July 10 — more than eight hours after the fishery closed.
The inadequate and belated communication of the closing meant wasted time and resources and in some cases lost fishing opportunities for some boats, such as Mark Phillips’ 73-foot Illusion. Phillips said in a telephone interview that he ended a trip after four days of successful fishing about 15 hours from Point Judith, R.I. and 14 hours from Cape May, N.J. and, unaware of the closing, was steaming in to reload with ice and gas for another trip.
Had he known of the closure, Phillips said, he would have remained at sea for a fifth day and maximized his catch. He lives in Greenport, N.Y., but fishes mostly out of New Bedford.
Phillips is a member of Northeast Sector XIII, one of the 13 fishing cooperatives organized by Gloucester’s Northeast Seafood Coalition to participate in the the commodification of the groundfishing industry by NOAA, a system that went into effect in May 2010. Many fishermen, like Phillips, hold permits to fish for other species in addition to groundfish.
“We were all expecting the closure, we just didn’t know when,” Phillips said. “We made business decisions; I would have made a full five-day trip instead of a four-day trip.” He estimated the lost day’s fishing cost him about $10,000 in catch based on the current price of about $1 to $1.10 per pound at the dock for the longfin squid. “It’s the best season we’ve had in a long time,” he added.
“In this day and age of universal, instantaneous communications, it is flat out unacceptable that (NMFS) failed to alert our fishing community about this closure and cause many of them to lose tends of thousands of dollars on a wasted journey,” U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand and Congressman Tim Bishop, all of New York, said in a statement Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator in Gloucester, issued a statement of his own.
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times
Read Captain Phillips' letter to Daniel S. Morris, NMFS’ acting regional administrator
Unintended consequence of seal protection could be an imbalance in food chain
July 18, 2012 — The unintended consequence of protecting mammals such as seals and porpoises could mean even more of an imbalance in the food chain this fall, fishermen fear. Fishermen will be banned by federal law, starting in the autumn, from catching fish in an area where mammals – and groundfish – abound.
If the itty bitty cod are a seal’s favorite meal, and the seals continue to provide gourmet fodder for the Great White sharks, well, someone’s going to need a bigger boat.
Numerous scientists and fishermen have been equating the plethora of shark sightings this summer with the plethora of seals – which sharks crave – as well as with the perplexing absence of cod, which seals chow down in astounding amounts.
The unintended consequence of protecting mammals such as seals and porpoises could mean even more of an imbalance in the food chain this fall, fishermen fear. Fishermen will be banned by federal law, starting in the autumn, from catching fish in an area where mammals – and groundfish – abound.
As previously reported, the ban will not affect Cape Cod, where the bycatch rate of porpoises is less than here, according to a study by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which regulates fishing. NOAA also charged that the Gloucester boats use “pingers” to scare off mammals only about two-thirds as regularly as the Cape Codders, though local fishermen soundly dispute that.
While the unprecedented overpopulation of seals is mostly around Cape Cod – where an estimated 25 Jaws-like creatures up to 18 feet are having a day at the beach – both species are summering here as well. Capt. Dave Jewell of the Lady J said he is seeing many more seals.
“They’re brutal,” he said, “sneaking in under the net, ripping open the bellies of the cod; stealing lobsters right out of the pots. They opened 140 doors on my tarps in one day lat week.”
Jewell said he spotted a 12-foot great white about 10 feet from his boat last week — just about “a half mile off Gloucester Harbor,” he said, “by Braces Cove.”
Some seals get caught in the nets, when they show up to eat the trapped cod, fishermen and the government agree, but Teri Frady of the NOAA Science Center in Woods Hole said she had no statistics either on the local seal population, how many become bycatch, or how the forthcoming ban on gillnetting might affect them.
In a Canadian study of the Nova Scotia waters in 1985, when cod there were beginning to decline, the seal count was way up, said Brian Rothschild, Montgomery Charter Professor of Marine Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
“There were unheard of levels of seals,” said Rothschild, “like now, here, especially in Buzzards Bay. We don’t know exactly what’s going on with the cod, but some say the two are interacting in the food cycle. And we do know white sharks eat seals. Even one Great White is a scary thing.”
As Rothschild noted, the case of the mysteriously diminished cod count – NOAA says stocks are down by 22 percent in three years – is a matter of dispute between government and academic scientists.
Come October and November — prime groundfishing time – more than 2,000 square miles of the Gulf of Maine will be off limits to Gloucester’s 32 gillnetters, about half the local fleet, in order to protect what the government says are threatened numbers of porpoises. Protection of seals will be a side effect, experts admit.
The gillnetters are usually small boats, not trawlers, that use finely sized monofilament to catch fish.
“A properly tended stand-up gill net targets specific size fish,” said Mark Godfried, a Gloucester-based longtime fisherman, fish auction grader and corporate consultant. “Hooks are not discriminatory. They can catch little fish that should not be caught.”
Read the full story in the Gloucester Times
Scallop Industry tells NOAA Feds have “exhausted the statistical tool box” in the case of Georges Bank Yellowtail
WASHINGTON – July 18, 2012 – Last Friday, the Fisheries Survival Fund (FSF), an industry group that includes the majority of full-time, limited-access scallop permit holders, wrote to Dr. Bill Karp, the newly appointed Director of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, to address serious concerns regarding NOAA’s most recent assessment of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock.
The following information regarding the letter has been provided to Saving Seafood by the Fisheries Survival Fund:
In their letter, referring to the recent Transboundary Resource Assessment Committee (TRAC) meeting that discussed the yellowtail stock, FSF stated, “Despite all of the hard work of the [Georges Bank] yellowtail stock assessment team, those of us at the meeting were presented with a seriously flawed assessment.”
The scallop industry is concerned about yellowtail flounder because yellowtail can inhabit the sea bottom in the same areas as scallops. If scallopers’ yellowtail flounder allocations are reduced to low levels, it will act as a choke species, preventing fisherman from harvesting scallops.
The letter, which was signed by Fisheries Survival Fund legal counsel Drew Minkiewicz and David Frulla, stated that, “…all too often [the center that Mr. Karp now leads] takes the approach of trying to solve an assessment problem by reworking the existing data and using numerous statistical tools.”
After noting that NOAA’s scientists have not been able to resolve the problems in the model without contradicting NOAA’s own prior public statements on the subject, FSF observed, “If the model is not capable of accounting for the unknown aliases, the answer is not to put one’s head down and go forth into that statistical night; rather, it is to accept the limitations of the model and acknowledge the obvious: we are currently in a place that is beyond the capability of the current model, making the model no longer useful for catch advice.”
FSF told NOAA that NOAA Fisheries, formally known as the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), “…needs to redirect its limited resources away from the computer models and towards field research.” They continued, “What we are asking for, and believe the fishing industry and nation deserve, is a defensible process for setting catch quotas and a partner in moving forward to improve our understanding of this critical stock. “
Last May, a new assessment of the Georges Bank yellowtail flounder stock found that the previous assessment was over-optimistic in its estimates, and that the catch limits produced from that assessment resulted in overfishing of this stock. As a result, the total Georges Bank yellowtail harvest was reduced to 540 metric tons for 2012; half of the 2011 catch level.
FSF further asks that NOAA recognize that the current yellowtail assessment is not viable for use as a basis for catch advice. In addition, FSF encourages the use of alternate catch advice methods to set allocations for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, and implores NOAA to embark upon an expanded biological research program for yellowtail flounder to help try to identify the causes of the model’s flaws, so they can be resolved in a principled way.
FSF did not request any repeal of pre-existing yellowtail catch quota reductions , and is not pressing for a new benchmark assessment at this time. Rather, FSF asks for more reliable science, a more thorough biological research process, and a better assessment model for the basis of yellowtail management. All these steps need to be taken before NOAA embarks on a comprehensive benchmark assessment, or else the next assessment won’t be any better than the last. FSF wrote, “If there are to be cuts in the fishery, so be it, but it must be done in an open and justified manner."
Failure of the 2005 “split series” correction
In 2005, the yellowtail assessment began to show a retrospective pattern, which is an indicator of inaccuracy within a model. To correct for this, the 2009 assessment team split the time series of yellowtail data, meaning that they applied different catchability rates to data collected after 1995, masking from view any of the unknown and potential causes of the retrospective pattern. However, the disappearance of this retrospective pattern was only temporary. It recently re-emerged, indicating that there are deeper problems within the model.
Upon the retrospective pattern’s return this year, the assessment committee tested several ways to correct their model. The team ran three different trials, adjusting the natural mortality rate, catch rate, and both values, attempting to fit the data to the model, and eliminate the retrospective pattern. But in order to do so, they had to adjust these values by as much as four to five times their original figures. The committee considered these values too great to include them as the possible explanations for the retrospective pattern, leaving the cause still unclear.
Despite the admitted presence of a retrospective pattern in the model, and the unknown cause of that pattern, the assessment continues to be used to provide management and catch advice for the fishery. NOAA Fisheries asserts that their adjustments are adequate to fix the unknown underlying problems, directly in contradiction to their own prior statements. FSF points out that assessments marked with retrospective patterns are not acceptable for use in management decisions, citing NOAA’s Chris Legault in a 2008 Retrospective Working Group meeting: “A strong retrospective pattern is grounds to reject an assessment model as an indication of stock status or the basis for management advice.”
FSF asked, “Does NMFS intend to follow its own advice?”
Not asking for “more fish” but for “defensible, empirical findings”
In summary, NOAA Fisheries is asking the industry to assume responsibility for a 50% reduction in quota, on top of a 50% reduction in quota from the previous year, based on flawed techniques that, even by NOAA’s own statements, should be excluded from consideration.
Despite the abundance of problems within the data, TRAC was reluctant to reject the assessment because no alternative method for giving catch advice was available. FSF requests that, until these problems can be eliminated, that catch advice be based on catch data and surveys, rather than the flawed assessment. To act otherwise would invest the future of both the scallop and groundfish fisheries in unreliable and problematic data. That is not in the best interests of either industry, nor of federal management organizations.
FSF asserts that the focus of research must shift from statistical to biological. As it stands, many concerning trends in the yellowtail population still lack a tangible, biological explanation. Although these issues remain unresolved, the agency continues to move forward with a current assessment model that will strike a catastrophic blow to both the yellowtail and scallop fisheries alike.
According to FSF, the scallop industry is committed to maintaining a sustainable stock size of Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, and has demonstrated that pledge through their continued partnership with The University of Massachusetts School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) bycatch avoidance system. Working together with SMAST, and in cooperation with NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fisheries Management Council via their Scallop Research Set-Aside Program, great opportunity exists to develop better research programs and more sustainable harvesting practices without relying on arbitrary and mutually detrimental data.
Concluding their letter, FSF offers further and final clarification that their motivation to submit written comments to NOAA is not simply to be permitted to catch more fish from the sea, but, instead, to establish an ongoing effort to replace currently flawed data and models with defensible, empirical findings.
They request that NOAA Fisheries acknowledge that the current Georges Bank yellowtail flounder assessment is not suitable for providing catch advice; provide the public with an objective set of criteria to judge the viability of an assessment; as an interim measure, that NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fisheries Management Council provide catch advice using alternative catch advice strategies that rely on survey and catch indices; and that NOAA Fisheries works with FSF and other interested parties in developing and executing a research program for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder with the goal of creating a credible stock assessment.
Read the original FSF letter here
Law of the Sea treaty sinks in Senate
July 16, 2012 — It appears the Law of the Sea treaty is dead in the water – at least in this Congress. Two Republican senators declared their opposition on Monday to the international agreement, bringing the total number of Senate opponents to 34 – enough to sink the measure. A two-thirds majority of 67 votes was required for ratification.
Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) pushed the opposition movement over the top, citing concerns about U.S. sovereignty.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.), the two Armed Services Committee members declared: “No international organization owns the seas.”
“We are confident that our nation will continue to protect its navigational freedom, valid territorial claims and other maritime rights,” they said.
The treaty, established in the early 1980s to govern the use of international waterways and undersea resources, has eluded Congress for decades, despite repeated attempts to ratify it amid strong support among Pentagon commanders.
The latest attempt was spearheaded by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), who scheduled a series of hearings on the issue over the past three months. And on Monday, a Kerry spokeswoman signaled the senator still plans to push for ratification – but not until after the Nov. 3 elections.
“It’s not news to anyone that right now we’re in the middle of a white-hot political campaign season, where ideology is running in overdrive,” Kerry spokeswoman Jodi Seth said in a statement. “No letter or whip count changes the fact that rock-ribbed Republican businesses and the military and every living Republican secretary of state say that this needs to happen.”
In May, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared before the committee to urge ratification. “We are the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that is not a party to it,” Panetta said in his prepared testimony. “This puts us at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to disputes over maritime rights.”
Read the full story on Politico
Fed apologizes for abrupt squid grounds closure
July 17, 2012 — A top federal fisheries official on Tuesday apologized to regional fishermen for the abrupt closure last week of the longfin-squid grounds, a move that some Long Islanders said cost them tens of thousands of dollars.
Managers usually provide several days notice of closures, which take place when the allotted quota of a targeted species is reached based on vessel landings reports, but in the case of the squid fishery, most fishermen received notice just hours before the closure.
Daniel S. Morris, acting regional director for the northeast at the National Marine Fisheries Service, in a publicly released letter acknowledged that two primary methods for alerting fishermen of the closure "did not work."
Fishermen such as Mark Phillips of Greenport said they did not receive word until the afternoon of July 9, just hours before the closure, while he had already steamed to the fishing grounds and had loaded his vessel with ice and supplies. He had to return by midnight.
Three Democratic New York lawmakers, Sen. Charles Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rep. Tim Bishop of Southampton, called the agency to task, and demanded that it explore more modern alternatives to communicate with fishermen, and a better system of advance notice.
Read the full story on Newsday
Whales, Somehow, Are Coping With Humans’ Din
July 16, 2012 — Perhaps we can save the whales — or at least their hearing.
Scientists have long known that man-made, underwater noises — from engines, sonars, weapons testing, and such industrial tools as air guns used in oil and gas exploration — are deafening whales and other sea mammals. The Navy estimates that loud booms from just its underwater listening devices, mainly sonar, result in temporary or permanent hearing loss for more than a quarter-million sea creatures every year, a number that is rising.
Now, scientists have discovered that whales can decrease the sensitivity of their hearing to protect their ears from loud noise. Humans tend to do this with index fingers; scientists haven’t pinpointed how whales do it, but they have seen the first evidence of the behavior.
“It’s equivalent to plugging your ears when a jet flies over,” said Paul E. Nachtigall, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii who led the discovery team. “It’s like a volume control.”
The finding, while preliminary, is already raising hopes for the development of warning signals that would alert whales, dolphins and other sea mammals to auditory danger.
Peter Madsen, a professor of marine biology at Aarhus University in Denmark, said he applauded the Hawaiian team for its “elegant study” and the promise of innovative ways of “getting at some of the noise problems.” But he cautioned against letting the discovery slow global efforts to reduce the oceanic roar, which would aid the beleaguered sea mammals more directly.
The noise threat arises because of the basic properties of seawater. Typically, light can travel for hundreds of feet through ocean water before diminishing to nothingness. But sound can travel for hundreds of miles.
The world’s oceans have been getting noisier as companies and governments expand their undersea activities. Researchers have linked the growing racket to deafness, tissue damage, mass strandings and disorientation in creatures that rely on hearing to navigate, find food and care for their young.
The danger has long been a political football. In 2008, the Supreme Court heard a lawsuit by the National Resources Defense Council against the Navy over ocean noise; the court ruled that naval vessels had the right to test sonar systems for hunting submarines. But environmentalists saw a tacit victory in getting the nation’s highest court even to consider the health of sea mammals in a debate over national security.
The latest development took place at a research facility off Oahu — at an island where the opening shots of “Gilligan’s Island” were filmed.
Scientists there are studying how dolphins and toothed whales hear. In nature, the mammals emit sounds and listen for returning echoes in a sensory behavior known as echolocation. In captivity, scientists taught the creatures to wear suction-cup electrodes, which revealed the patterns of brainwaves involved in hearing.
The discovery came in steps. First, Dr. Nachtigall and his team found the animals could adjust their hearing in response to their own sounds of echolocation, mainly sharp clicks. The scientists then wondered if the animals could also protect their ears from incoming blasts.
The team focused on a false killer whale named Kina and sought to teach her a conditioned behavior similar to how Pavlov taught dogs to salivate upon hearing a bell.
First, the scientists played a gentle tone repeatedly. Then they followed the gentle pulse with a loud sound. After a few trials, the warning signal alone caused Kina to decrease the sensitivity of her hearing.
“It shows promise as a way to mitigate the effects of loud sounds,” said Dr. Nachtigall, founding director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the University of Hawaii. “People are generally very excited about it.”
In May, Dr. Nachtigall and his colleagues presented the findings to acoustic scientists and groups meeting in Hong Kong, including the Acoustical Society of America. The team cited the protective deafening as a potential way to help sea mammals cope with noisy blasts from naval sonars, civilian air guns and other equipment.
In the future, the team plans to expand the research to other species in captivity and ultimately to animals in the wild. “We have a problem in the world,” Dr. Nachtigall said of the oceanic roar. “And we think the animals can learn this response very rapidly.”
Scientists unconnected to the mammal research called it important. “It’s a big deal,” said Vincent M. Janik, a prominent marine biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In an e-mail, he said it revealed a rare ability among the planet’s creatures.
Read the full story in the New York Times