What’s to conserve on Pitcairn?

Pitcairn Island is a very small, rocky piece of land in the middle of the ocean and a long way from anything or anyone else. Its biggest claim to fame is undoubtedly the connection to the infamous mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1790, and many of the island’s modern community are the direct descendants of the 9 mutineers who sought refuge on Pitcairn after seizing control of their ship near Tahiti. In addition to this fascinating history, the spectacular wildlife of Pitcairn and the other islands in the group is also receiving increased international attention. Despite their tiny size, study of the Pitcairns has revealed wildlife of global conservation significance, both on the land and in the sea. The isolation of these islands has led to the evolution of unique wildlife found nowhere else on earth.

Pitcairn itself, being the only inhabited island in the group, has undergone a substantial transformation. Much of the land area has been colonised by invasive and non-native plants, introduced either for cultivation or accidentally by Polynesian settlers, the Bounty descendants and other visitors. Despite these changes, nine endemic species still survive, including the Arlihau which is recognised as one of the world’s rarest plants, and efforts to conserve Pitcairn’s flora are ongoing in the island community. There is also an animal endemic found only on Pitcairn, the small but very charismatic Pitcairn Reed Warbler.

A number of rare species also exist in Pitcairn’s marine habitats, such as Smith’s Butterflyfish and the Pitcairn Angelfish, both only known from a handful of tiny Pacific islands. Globally threatened species such as Green turtles, Humpback whales and Grey Reef sharks are also seen around the island. Large fish communities flourish in the shallow offshore waters, containing species which have ‘hopped’ the huge distance to Pitcairn from other Pacific islands. Perhaps most surprisingly, the deepest known tropical coral reef on earth was recently found on a 75 metre deep seamount near Pitcairn. Substantial coral reefs are found at all four islands, even though the group is at the extreme eastern and southern limit of known Pacific coral range.

The other three islands (Henderson, Ducie and Oeno) have undergone little or no human impact, thus representing one of the last places on earth where ‘pristine’ ecosystems might still be found. Henderson supports a number of unique plant and bird species, including the spectacularly colourful Henderson’s Fruit Dove and Stephen’s Lorikeet. Many top marine predators live on Ducie, Oeno and Henderson’s coral reefs, with Ducie supporting an especially large population of sharks, which may serve as an indicator of a healthy, unfished ecosystem. I would jump at the opportunity to visit the other three islands on this trip, but sadly they are too far away from Pitcairn to be easily accessed.

I hope this summary has given you some idea of the immense diversity and value of the wildlife on these four specks in the Pacific Ocean. You may never have heard of Pitcairn, let alone Henderson, Ducie or Oeno, but the ecosystems found here are globally valuable and irreplaceable, containing amazing and poorly understood species. Further research and protection is surely needed, and many of the incredible discoveries in the islands’ marine habitats have only been made in the last few years. The sheer remoteness of the Pitcairn Islands has preserved them so far, but without further action this may not be the case forever.

By Henry Duffy

Saying Hello to the Office Every Morning

I’m in the office again, precisely where I was adamantly opposed to spending an entire summer. Recent terrorist threats and bombings in Nairobi led Imperial College to decide it was too dangerous for me to journey there. No amount of foot stomping and fists ringing in the air were going to change this decision. After several bouts of cursing to whoever would listen, I have come to accept this fate and look at the bright side: I have much more time to bombard my supervisors with questions about, well, how in hell to do anything.

I’ve decided that since I can’t provide you, my dearest faithful reader, with pictures of Grevy’s zebra and other wondrous sites from a golden savannah, I will instead give you pictures of my face in various stages of what I call: research.

This is what I looked like when I found out I wasn’t going to Kenya. This is also what I usually look like.

My internal supervisor, Marcus, (aka extraordinary human being with the unbelievable-amount-of-patience superpower) has suggested that I begin working on my thesis by writing the introduction and background to be reminded of why I’m doing this research in the first place. It’s a good way of grounding myself in what I’m supposed to be doing, to help find direction when I’ve felt so lost.

So what am I doing? In my last post I regurgitated the frustration I had been going through in determining human settlement densities. I’m not confident that it’s the best approach given the poor resolution provided by Google Earth. Since then I’ve found what seems to be a much better method for detecting settlements. But of course this involves yet a new complicated program I would have to learn (eCognition) and an algorithm that I have yet to be exposed to. Human settlement densities have been put on hold while I spend more of my time trying to understand the dynamic Brownian bridge movement model (dBBMM) and correlating normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) satellite images, which indicate primary productivity (“greenness”) of plants, with zebra locations. Zebra locations come from a GPS radio collar that is attached to the zebra. (A satellite is programmed to automatically record a latitude/longitude “fix” or location every hour.)

Understanding where ungulates move in relation to vegetation is important because brotha’s gotta eat, yah feel me? (I have no idea what just happened. Please excuse this minor setback in appropriate lexicon.) Although prior research has indicated that Grevy’s zebra tend to keep “far away” from high human settlement densities, is it possible that they will move closer to settlements and livestock when resources are sparse, thus increasing competition between themselves and people/domestic animals? This is one of the questions I’m hoping to answer. We know the drivers of movement, but which one is more important under which set of environmental and infrastructural conditions?

And why are these questions important? Understanding how a given species utilizes space, the size of their home ranges and being able to predict movement pathways all allow for appropriate conservation management and planning, which often not only help conserve the species itself, but the habitat it occurs in, and thus indirectly helps other species cohabitating the same area.

Now I’m mostly confined indoors, thankfully in an office with windows where I can look longingly at people walking outside who don’t happen to notice that I’m staring at them with unfounded envy. And with that I’ve developed a new concept of what defines a suspenseful moment:

This is what I look like when waiting to see if a code I put into the statistical program “R” will work or not.

The BBMM is a relatively new method, having been first developed in 2007. It is able to accurately determine utilization distribution, a fancy way of defining an animal’s home range around each GPS location. The dynamic version of this model incorporates a GPS location error and looks at large movement pathways or trajectories by distinguishing between foraging and migratory movements along the given path. It can predict future migration patterns too, which is something I hope to do once I get my code working properly.

Figuring out with Marcus how to run the dBBMM has been a painful process. In exchange for other parts of my brain needing to be used, which were formally filled with cobwebs, I have lost the ability to form complete sentences. Luckily Marcus has learned how to decipher my new jargon approach to communication. We are almost there, fitting the model to get some kind of results, which I will then have to interpret. You know, draw some conclusions, think a bit more…Go back to previous photo.

Along with figuring out movement modeling, I am learning to be more comfortable with R, the standard statistics program that all the cool scientists use these days. And don’t forget GIS! Yeah, I’ve got that too. Sometimes I wonder why I chose such a challenging project. It’s hard to stay motivated when often I feel like this:

How dare you give me an error, R?! I will kill you with the closest thing I have to a weapon at this given point in time!

And so my experience thus far has not fluctuated much outside of anger, sadness and stress, but that “aha” moment will come. At least that’s what everyone around me is saying. It’s important to remind oneself of the fact that we make choices, difficult choices that may push us beyond our limits. And then we realize we have a much higher threshold when it comes to leaps and bounds. And sometimes, just sometimes, something does work:

 

This is what I look like on the rare occasions that a code worked in R.

Research is full of so many waves: changes to methods, computer and program malfunctions, unresponsive partnerships, missing tools, missing brain…But when you get to the end, you discover that you’ve done something. Maybe I’m not in Kenya interacting with a new culture and stereotypically watching the sunset, but I’m learning how to be a good scientist and conservationist. I have the opportunity to gain vital skills to do more great work in the future. And I’ve already come a long way in witnessing the various barriers that come with doing this kind of work. You can’t run from politics, and so many places are unfortunately ignored because of civil unrest and war, which is a whole other topic! But don’t worry; I’ll get to Kenya one day. Go back to previous photo.

BRUV, Cameras and Pilchards

Before our fieldwork could commence on Pitcairn, getting the necessary equipment onto this distant isle proved a major logistical challenge. Through a combination of alarmingly overfilled suitcases, serious abuse of airline baggage limits and endless emails to New Zealand freight companies, all of the gear eventually ended up in the right place. I am grateful to my supervisor, Tom Letessier, for his efforts in getting the equipment either shipped in advance or crammed into his bags. Among other things, the inventory for this project includes 18 GoPro cameras, 12 terabytes of hard drives, several miles of duct tape and, most awkward of all, 2 large freezers containing 160kg of pilchards. I will now attempt to explain what exactly we are doing with this pile of technology and frozen fish.

The core component of my work on Pitcairn is a method known as Baited Remote Underwater Videography. As we all know, conservationists like nothing better than a good acronym, and this technique is better known by the very catchy title of BRUV. In brief, two GoPro cameras are attached to a rectangular metal frame, with the cameras focussing on a bait arm which extends in front of the frame. At the end of the bait arm is a wire bag containing pilchards which must be defrosted and mashed up before every day of BRUV-work, a fairly unpleasant task with the aroma of pilchard lingering for hours afterwards.

We have 5 BRUV frames in total, and the frames are being deployed (hurled over the side) from the Pitcairn Island longboat and lowered to the seabed by rope. The cameras are then left to record for an hour before being hauled back to the surface. The primary aim of the footage recorded by these BRUV ‘drops’ is to assess the diversity and abundance of fish species at various sites and depths around the island, in addition to revealing the coverage of different habitat types. The use of bait will ensure that fish are actively attracted to the cameras, allowing for a higher percentage of the total fish assemblage to be sampled than if cameras were deployed without bait.

 

Black Trevally fish (Caranx lugubris)

Due to its remoteness, Pitcairn’s coastal marine ecosystems have not been extensively studied, and this is the first time that baited cameras have been deployed here. Through this novel method we are hoping to gain new insights into the diversity, composition and health of the fish communities, with the added hope of discovering formerly unrecorded species on Pitcairn. Highlights so far include octopus, tuna, large trevallies and Smith’s Butterflyfish, one of the world’s rarest Butterflyfish species which is only known from Pitcairn and two other tiny Pacific islands. There are also hordes of Gray Drummers (known on Pitcairn as Nanwe), a nondescript silvery fish that descend voraciously on the bait and rip it to shreds. We know that sharks have recently been sighted here, so hopefully they will be tempted into making an appearance on camera. 32 camera drops have been completed so far, and field work will be continuing (depending on the unreliable South Pacific weather) over the next few weeks.

By Henry Duffy

 

 

Witnessing a little miracle

My last village left me with a sense of pure amazement.

I was staying at the village chief’s house, a lovely family – husband, wife and three children – two boys and a girl between the ages of 10 and 18 and one on the way. One day as I stumbled out of bed and walked downstairs, barely functioning, I saw the husband erecting what looked like a little room around the platform underneath their house.  I wondered what was going on. When I asked the mother, she replied: ‘I will have my baby today’. And that was that. Suddenly it struck me, I have the chance of witnessing a Bunong birth.

During the day a chicken was sacrificed, jar wine drank and prayers said to ask the spirits for a pain-free and successful delivery. The village healer tended to her all day constantly checking things were progressing as intended. The husband never left her side making sure she had special tea to drink made from specific leaves gathered from the surrounding forest and that she was completely comfortable. It was fascinating to be apart of.

As the day progressed, village elders came to check on the mother-to-be. When darkness approached I thought maybe it won’t be today, maybe tomorrow is the day. After dinner and drinks a small charcoal fire was lit underneath the platform to keep the mother warm during the night, and I wandered up to bed. All the time the husband was with her.

It was around midnight I stirred in my sleep and heard the sound of a baby crying. It was the most breath-taking sound I have ever heard. Not a peep from the mother though. I had the biggest smile spreading over my face and was overjoyed that all was well.

The next day after waking I approached the platform. There lay a beautiful perfect little baby girl wrapped in a sarong. She was the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen. The mum lay sleeping exhausted from the night before. I am so privileged to be a part of and witness this very intimate event in this families’ life. It was magical.

My last village definitely holds some special memories. The research and interviews highlighted the complexity of rural community livelihoods. The heavy logging presence of outsiders surrounding this village is mainly due to tarmacked road access built by a logging concession over ten years ago. This presence scares the community: people either stay clear of the forest completely or join the logging gangs and profit from the harvested rosewood. Therefore, a decreasing number of people collect resin from the forest. Local people are threatened regularly if they report these illegal loggers. The young gangs race around with guns and chainsaws. It is not a pleasant situation for anyone to be in.

Data collection has now come to an end, and I leave Cambodia this coming Sunday. This is one trip to Cambodia I will never forget. I have learnt so much from the communities over the past few months through my research and just living with them. It has opened my eyes to a lot of complex and difficult situations they face in the rapidly changing economy of this country.

Life is never as straight forward as you think, and there is no such thing as a simple solution to a problem. However, nothing is going to stop me hoping and trying to find that ‘silver bullet’.

Lynx and the scent of fear

“You’re studying whether Lynx should be brought back? You mean the deodorant? HAHAHAHAHAHA ROFL”

The scent of one type of Lynx, allegedly, brings female humans running, or dropping out of the sky. The other, it seems, could have the opposite effect on prey species such as deer.

Lynx – Harald. Used under Creative Commons Licence https://www.flickr.com/photos/harald/

One of the arguments for reintroducing Eurasian Lynx to the UK is that they would help to control the population of deer. Some argue that lynx predation of deer might not have the dramatic ecosystem changing effect that wolves could provide. However, presence of carnivores is also likely to control the movement of the deer. In this fascinating piece about “Landscapes of Fear“, Cristina Eisenberg discusses how “nonlethal effects of predators can be ecologically more important than the direct mortality they inflict” .

When a group of animals such as elk believe a predator could be in the vicinity – by picking up scent markings left by the carnivore, for example – they behave warily, quick to move on if something disturbs them. The advantage to an ecosystem is that overgrazing is reduced with the elk moving on before depleting an area of vegetation.

Although lynx have been missing from our landscape for a long time, it’s likely that prey species will soon recognise the threat they pose. Berger et al (2001) recorded adjustments in the behaviour of moose in response to the return of carnivores over a single generation.

Some of the farmers I’ve spoken to have pointed out that the return of a carnivore will also have an effect on the behaviour of sheep and question whether it is ethical for them to be involuntarily placed into this “landscape of fear”. What do you think? If you haven’t already filled out my survey, please take a look here: Lynx Reintroduction Survey 

Scent marking is important for Eurasian Lynx and the impact of that behaviour could have a potent effect on potential prey animals. But it’s probably sensible not to confuse one type of Lynx scent with the other.

Drive-through, Likouala.

Shopping for a bargain on the Likouala River

“You’re in BVI now…”

Stepping out of the plane in my British “summer” clothes, and being hit by the wall of heat and humidity at 10pm in Tortola was just the first taste of what I will experience for the rest of my time in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). After adjusting to the time change and accepting the fact that I was going to be hot and a little sweaty all the time, work commenced on Virgin Gorda or the “fat virgin’”. My work with the Kew UKOTs Team on this volcanic isle, in collaboration with members from the BVI National Parks Trust (NTP), was to create species lists of the national parks.

Left to right: Keith Grant (NTP), Martin Hamilton (Kew), Natasha Harrigan and myself.

The second we leave the car at each national park (and sometimes before) we are staring into the bush, identifying every species we see. At first I stare blankly into the wall of green, unable to differentiate one spiky leaf from another, but as the days go by I am calling out species left and right.

I make my very first collection, Reynosia guama (common name guama), of the Rhamnaceae family, in Gorda Peak National Park.

This national park is home to some of the rarest plants in BVI, and our team was there to monitor the known individuals and survey for more. The excitement of finding a few more individuals, for example a large specimen of Zanthoxylum thomasianum (St. Thomas Prickly-ash),a rare and endangered species within the park, was cause for celebration amongst the team. However, though the plant is found within a Protected Area (PA), it is still subject to threats from browsing by feral livestock or being chopped down by the illegal farming that occurs on Virgin Gorda.

Photo of Zanthoxylum thomasianum. 

The first 3 weeks of work in BVI also took us to two uninhabited islands: Fallen Jerusalem and Prickly Pear. Fallen Jerusalem is a beautiful collection of massive boulders to be accessed by jumping from our boat onto one of them. It is home to another rare species, Acacia anegadensis (Pokemeboy), found only there and in Anegada. The other, Prickly Pear, has been devastated by the impact of feral goats. The evidence is clear in the fields of less edible plants and high erosion on the hillsides of the island.

 

 

Top: Fallen Jerusalem and bottom: Prickly Pear.

Now, leaving the altitudes of Virgin Gorda behind, we arrive at Anegada where the stark contrast of a lack of elevation hits you upon arrival at the jetty. The invasive Casuarina trees are the tallest thing you can see from the boat. The flora of Anegada is also subject to the browsing of feral goats, cows and donkeys as well as the bulldozing of roads and development of goat farms (even inside the current Ramsar site).

The Western Salt Ponds are a Ramsar Site: an important area for many bird species as well as flora.

The first few days of surveying involve sampling of the limestone (somehow the plants grow out of pockets of soil within this pavement of rock) and sand dune habitats covering the East and West of the island, respectively.

I find Metastelma anegadense, with its beautiful little flowers and seed pods, in the expected sand dune habitats and a bit farther than predicted next to the salt ponds.

Arygythamnia stahlii growing in pockets of soil in limestone.

Senna polyphylla var. neglecta makes for an exciting find in an extension of the Anegada endemics population to the West of current known individuals. Unfortunately, this species lies outside the PAs on the island. Perhaps further investigations will lead to discoveries within PAs offering some protection for this shrub.

Photo of Senna polyphylla var. neglecta. 

The next three weeks will include further surveys around the island, including onto the cays. These are small limestone islands within the salt ponds. There we hope to find more Leptocereus quadricostatus, a very rare cactus of Anegada and Puerto Rico and to extend the known populations of the other threatened species of Anegada.

By Jean Linsky

 

 

Can Lions and Warriors Peacefully Coexist?

I’ve been in the Westgate Community Conservancy within the Samburu District of northern Kenya for three weeks now. This country never stops surprising me. Although I’ve been here several times, have seen many different places, met many different people and encountered many different species of wildlife, this time it’s different. It’s even better. Not only am I in my favourite place in the world, but I am also here to do research which for me, will contribute to the long-term existence of what makes it the best place in the world.

Samburu is an arid area with extremely variable rainfall and with only one permanent source of water, the Ewaso Nyiro River. The people living in the area where my study takes place, mainly belonging to the Samburu and Turkana tribes, are semi-nomadic pastoralist communities. They form impermanent settlements called manyattas and move with their livestock to different grazing grounds according to season. This is one of the few regions in Africa where lions are found outside of Protected Areas (PAs), coexisting with people and livestock. Inevitably, this coexistence causes conflict, as habitat loss and the depletion of natural prey populations forces lions and other carnivores to predate on livestock, threatening people’s already fragile livelihoods. Lions are killed in both prevention and retaliation of livestock depredation. More than 100 lions are lost every year in Kenya alone, from a population of only 2,000 individuals. Encouraging coexistence between people and lions is the main purpose of Ewaso Lions, the NGO that gave me this fantastic opportunity to come out here to conduct my study.

The landscape in Westgate Community Conservancy: here people live together with elephants, leopards, lions, wild dogs and plenty of other wildlife.

Recently, a network of Community Conservancies has been established under the Northern Rangeland Trust to empower local communities to manage their land collectively for livestock and wildlife. These conservancies provide important dispersal areas for lions, connecting known populations in PAs such as Shaba, Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves and Commercial ranches in Laikipia. It is vital to ensure that lions are able to use these corridors without being killed as a result of conflict. My research will investigate how the propensity to kill lions varies across the landscape and will identify conflict hotspots, where retaliatory killing of lions is more likely to occur.

The first step of my research has been Participatory Mapping (PM) exercises with local communities to better understand how people use the landscape, pastoralist/livestock movements and to identify human/lion conflict hotspots. The results have been positive with people having drawn very detailed maps showing the main grazing grounds of lions, seasonal movements and conflict hotspots. I will conduct these exercises within all eight communities which are part of my study area.

 Samburu women (above) and warriors (below) producing the maps

In addition to the qualitative data I will get from the PM exercise, I am using a questionnaire to see what factors influence the propensity to kill lions in the different communities. I expect that factors such as wealth, sources of income and education level will influence people’s tendency to kill lions. Also, the frequency of livestock loss to predators will probably be a predictor of tolerance towards lions. Cultural differences between Samburu and Turkana tribes are likely to shape the way in which people respond to conflict as well.

I also expect a difference in proportion of lion deaths where Ewaso Lions has been conducting their conservation programmes. In Westgate Community Conservancy, a lot of people walk around in bright red t-shirts sponsoring Lions Kids Camp, Lion Watch and Running for Lions, all projects which actively involve the local communities in lion conservation. In other areas that Ewaso Lions hasn’t yet reached, however, people are still likely to hold negative attitudes and low levels of tolerance towards this species.

By combining both qualitative and quantitative data, I hope to produce a “risk map” that will inform Ewaso Lions on where to focus their conservation efforts.

I haven’t seen lions yet. But they are in people’s stories, they are a part of their culture and they are part of this beautiful landscape. It brings me great joy to think that I am doing my little part to ensure they remain like this forever.

By Clio Maggi

*Note: This post was written last month. Sorry for the delay!*

 

 

Steppe In Wolf

My eyes are sore. I stayed up late last night squinting at a pixelated England fall yet again. My first thoughts are of Gerrard and compatriots—Rooney’s short-lived redemption thwarted by a moment of pure South American passion. Sickening. But when will their performance reflect their salaries, and the hopes and dreams of the British masses? Dream on.

Yuri, the General, arrives into my room wearing the baggiest boxers ever and announces that it’s time for tea. It’s half-six, and the day promises to be fruitful (not that I’ve seen much fruit yet). Today we head to the mystical farms in the steppe to conduct my questionnaires on attitudes to, and social norms surrounding, the saiga antelope. The herdsmen of the steppe are known to be both highly knowledgeable regarding saigas, but also partial to a wee bowl of saiga stew now and again…

The Lada Niva revs at the ready, and we head to the first port of call, Yashkul’, for gas and steppe supplies. It is another scorcher, with a crystal blue and dusty horizon. The General needs to ‘swing by’ the districts road and construction HQ to sweeten up a local excavator to dig a new water pipeline for the saiga centre. Left in the car park, I toy with dozing. After 40 minutes, the District’s Head of Construction appears alongside the General. He is in his 60s, tanned, fingers littered with gold, and as I shake his hand, there is a scent of vodka in the air. As our eyes meet I understand that his prestige has been fought for, not inherited. Immediately he begins with a gag of how I’m MI5, but he’s CIA, so it’s all cool. We are ushered into his office, which is a scene from Mad Men—tumblers-a-ready, ash tray steady. As we wait for some sort instruction, the Boss’s phone rings incessantly. He hangs up and stands, and we follow him back out towards a white Land Cruiser (number plate 0001). Anatoly, my translator, touches my shoulder and somewhat clarifies the situation. It’s lunch time and the Boss has ordered the local restaurant to ready a table for 6.  It is already 11, and I’ve not been to one farm…

Indeed, the table is laid: iced vodka, salads, cold meats, bread and goodness knows what else to come? Probably hot mutton soup. We sit, glasses in hand, and the speeches begin. Russia is really keen on speeches. I think at every semi-formal occasion (which has been many), I have had to say some words. It’s a good exercise in improvisation and is delightfully nerves-free (probably not for the translator).  The Boss enjoys the spotlight and others seem keen to give him juice. We toast to the words spoken with a clink and a swift salute. Vodka before breakfast, nice.

The Boss begins with some welcoming and earnest words before quickly reverting to the CIA gag; this pattern of utter sincerity to complete jest continues, swaying more vigorously as the bottle drains. Anatoly, who the Boss now refers to the as ‘The Shadow’, struggles to keep on top of everything. Eventually with a look of slight exasperation he quivers to me, ‘this is without borders now’—a perfect translation. The Boss, now bathing in ego, continues his rhetoric onto Churchill, the great alliance of WWII and the wisdom of the Queen. Fair-play, my toast on family looks really lame now. Maybe Gerrard and Co need to visit Russia for some spunk before the next WC.

Vodka is a great drink. Especially when drunk properly and properly drunk. The Russians shot the bottle until empty, serenading each down with carefully chosen words. This iterative (that one’s for B. Evans) culture seems to keep the knife sharp for longer, before inevitably blunting. As a sucker for ceremony, it’s also classic theatre. The Boss, who is master of ceremony and whose elevated performance has now embodied Sasha Baron-Cohen’s next big character, dictates who speaks. He even gives one to ‘The Shadow’.  As the chosen one speaks, we must hold our glasses and pay up most attention to the words spoken. Again, these bursts of sincerity and concentration (plus bread, lots of bread) seem to keep the mind from dulling under increasing intoxication.

Eventually though I’m blunted. Well blunt. I wonder what the General shall order—is it game-over for the farms? It seems like the sensible, if a little boring, option. No, of course not, it’s only 2 O’Clock. The party continues, into the steppe, following a single electrical line into nowhere…with me wondering how on earth to control for this bias…

Sustainable Shrimp Coming Soon To Your Local Shop

The Greenland shrimp trawl fishery is up for certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), one of the most widespread eco-labels in the world. You may have seen this symbol on packages of pole-caught tuna or other ‘sustainably sourced’ fish in the grocery store. As far as fishing goes, the MSC is one of the good-news stories of the environmental sector. Industrial fishing operations extract an astronomical amount of fish from the oceans every year, with many stocks now overfished. Furthermore, there are the related problems of bycatch (unwanted animals caught in fishing nets), habitat damage and competition between nations over diminishing common resources….but I won’t get into all that here. Undergoing the MSC certification process means that the fishery must not be overexploiting the species it is targeting (Northern Shrimp in this case). In addition, the fishery must not be damaging the surrounding habitat (the continental shelf between Greenland and Canada) and must be equitable and transparent in terms of its management practices. There are now 173 certified fisheries throughout the world’s oceans and many more are currently undergoing the certification process. You can learn more about the MSC here. The eco-label provides an opportunity for consumers to purchase seafood responsibly and also confers an economic benefit on the fishery, which can charge a premium price for its fish. Sounds like a win-win situation, right?

…Perhaps, but as we always say in the ConSci course, there is no silver bullet. When I first heard that a shrimp trawl fishery was up for certification, I couldn’t believe my ears. Shrimp trawling is renowned as one of the most destructive fishing practices in the world. To put it simply, a trawl is a giant weighted net that drags along the bottom of the ocean and scrapes up everything in its path. It’s not hard to imagine why trawling is associated with higher levels of bycatch and habitat destruction than any other kind of fishery. How could such a fishery ever be certified as sustainable?

My MSc project is designed to help answer that question. Sustainable Fisheries Greenland (SFG) has contracted the Institute of Zoology (based at London Zoo) to look at the habitat impact section of the MSC certification, and my supervisors, Dr Kirsty Kemp and Dr Chris Yesson, have just finished collecting their 3^rd year of deep sea photographs off Western Greenland. My job is to analyse these images of the seabed in order to assess whether fishing has significantly impacted benthic biodiversity and habitat integrity. Although it may seem unlikely, there are many wonderful things living 300m down in the freezing waters of the Davis Straight. No light penetrates to this depth so there are no plants, but bizarre assemblages of animals take their place to create eerily familiar gardens of cold-water corals, bryozoans (‘moss animals’), sea spiders and feather stars.The seabed 200m deep on the Greenland side of the Davis Straight. The largest animals you can see are soft corals in the genus Duva. We are using >1000 of these photographs to measure the diversity of benthic animals in areas associated with varying levels of fishing pressure.

Despite the terrible reputation of shrimp trawling, preliminary results from this project have shown that biodiversity in non-fished areas does not actually differ from the biodiversity of fished areas around Greenland. Honestly, I’m still not sure whether it should be possible to certify any trawl fishery as non-damaging to benthic habitats, but then I also have to ask myself what would have happened in the absence of certification? I certainly would not be looking at photographs of sea spiders and feather stars because there would be no imperative to do science on ecosystem impacts. As it is, SFG has spent 3 years and millions of pounds on deep sea ecosystem research which simply would not have been done otherwise. The Government of Greenland is also spending money on building local scientific capacity so that they can carry out ecosystem assessments in the future.

Then there is the question of Greenland’s economy, which has depended heavily on shrimp since the collapse of the cod fishery in the 1990s. Northern Shrimp makes up more than half of Greenland’s export earnings, and the industry employs 1,400 people (only 57,000 live in the whole country). When the major purchasers of shrimp (including UK grocery stores like Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer’s) put pressure on the fishery to become more sustainable, Greenland had to either obtain certification or face losing a huge chunk of its economy. From what I’ve heard on this project, the shrimp fishermen are generally quite positive about moving into sustainable fishing, despite the added costs and hassle of having scientists running around on their boats and asking difficult questions.

Of course shrimp trawling will never be totally benign, but fishing practices will certainly improve through the MSC certification, and valuable ecosystem research is being done that was previously impossible to carry out. MSC certification doesn’t mean that the fishery is completely without consequence, but it does mean that the best standards of scientific research have been applied and that the certified fishery is as well managed and sustainable as it can be.

By Taylor Gorham