WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:06.680 - All right. Welcome, everybody, to our National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series. 00:00:06.680 --> 00:00:11.920 I wanted to start with a few little logistical things. During today's presentation, 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:15.600 all of you, as attendees, will be in listen only mode. 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:18.960 You're welcome to type in questions to the presenter 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:24.520 or any issues technical issues you might be having with the webinar into your control panel 00:00:24.520 --> 00:00:26.560 on the right hand of your screen. 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:34.380 This is the same area that you can put in those technical questions, like I mentioned. 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:39.800 We'll be monitoring these questions and any issues you have as soon as we can. 00:00:40.220 --> 00:00:42.820 We will be recording today's session 00:00:42.820 --> 00:00:48.960 and we I'm excited to share that we have 257 direct registrants for today's webinar 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:53.320 that are representing about 326 participants. 00:00:53.800 --> 00:00:58.380 And I thought I'd give a little shout out to some of the the larger groups that are participating today. 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:02.060 We have Save the Whales from Hudson Falls, New York. 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:08.420 We have a group participating from France, as well as another group in British Columbia. 00:01:08.420 --> 00:01:12.220 The Santa Barbara Sailing Center has put a group together. 00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:17.360 The Living Classrooms Foundation and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. 00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:20.080 So welcome to all of you. 00:01:20.080 --> 00:01:26.500 And now we'll go ahead and share a little bit about our webinar series. 00:01:26.500 --> 00:01:31.900 So this series is hosted by the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:37.180 and we find that it's a great way for us to connect with educators and other interested parties 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:42.500 to provide you with the educational and or scientific expertise, 00:01:42.500 --> 00:01:47.300 as well as resources and training to help support ocean and climate literacy 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:50.780 and sometimes even conservation in your classroom or your facility. 00:01:51.520 --> 00:01:58.720 So let me start with our obligatory introduction to the National Marine Sanctuary system. 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:02.000 Each of these blue dots on this map of the United States 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.460 shows you one of America's underwater treasures. 00:02:05.460 --> 00:02:11.700 So me, as an employee of NOAA and the National Marine Sanctuary system, 00:02:11.700 --> 00:02:18.260 I am a trustee with my other colleagues of this 600 000 square miles 00:02:18.260 --> 00:02:21.360 of protected ocean and Great Lakes areas. 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:27.460 And so this network goes from Washington state, you can see there at the Olympic Coast, 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:30.120 down to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:33.680 into the south Pacific at our in American Samoa, 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:37.480 and then all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, and 00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:42.100 and up into our Sweetwater Sanctuary Thunder Bay in Lake Huron. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:47.500 And so this network includes a system of 13 national marine sanctuaries 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:53.400 and the Papahanaumokuakea and the Rose Atoll National Marine-- 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:55.360 sorry, Marine National Monuments. 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:00.000 I do also want to share some very exciting breaking news. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.840 Well let me go back. There's two boxes on here that are white: 00:03:02.840 --> 00:03:08.160 Mallows Bay and Wisconsin. And these are proposed National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:03:08.160 --> 00:03:13.580 and the exciting news is that our mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:16.480 is very close to being designated. 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:19.260 So there's been significant movement on that 00:03:19.260 --> 00:03:25.960 and it'll likely be our country's next National Marine Sanctuary and the first one in nearly 20 years. 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:31.640 Mallows Bay-Potomac river protects more than a hundred abandoned steam ships and vessels 00:03:31.640 --> 00:03:35.500 that were built as part of America's engagement with World War One. 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:42.020 And this is, as you can see in the map, board in Maryland and near Washington DC. 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:47.040 So with that, a little bit more about National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:03:47.040 --> 00:03:51.280 These are these special ocean areas that are set aside for a variety of reasons. 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:57.800 You can see them listed, here, in some cases, ecological, historical, cultural and aesthetic. 00:03:58.520 --> 00:04:02.540 We also like to call our National Marine Sanctuaries living classrooms. 00:04:02.540 --> 00:04:08.300 This is where people can see, touch, and learn about these treasures and recreate. 00:04:09.740 --> 00:04:13.060 Now, quick introduction to ourselves as webinar support. 00:04:13.320 --> 00:04:18.960 My name is Claire Fackler and I am based in Santa Barbara, California 00:04:18.960 --> 00:04:24.100 as the national education liaison for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:29.440 And today I'm excited to let you know that we have Jezella Paraza, who is joining us, 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:36.120 and she is an intern as part of the NOAA Educational Partnership program with minority serving institutes. 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:40.680 And this is an undergraduate scholarship program that Jezella is a part of. 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:43.560 And she's helping out with today's back end administration 00:04:43.560 --> 00:04:46.200 and running our poll questions for the webinar. 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:49.140 Now let's get to the good stuff. 00:04:49.880 --> 00:04:52.480 I would like to introduce you to our speaker today. 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:56.380 We've got Ed Lyman, who is, I believe, on Maui. 00:04:56.380 --> 00:04:58.980 You can correct me if I'm wrong, momentarily, 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:04.740 but he's going to be presenting a webinar titled Catch and Release: Large Whale Entanglements 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:07.480 and Response Efforts to Mitigate the Threat. 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:12.160 So Ed currently works for the NOAA Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:13.280 National Marine Sanctuary. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:16.300 He's the natural resources management specialist 00:05:16.300 --> 00:05:22.740 and the large whale entanglement response coordinator for the National Marine Sanctuary system. 00:05:22.740 --> 00:05:25.340 He works closely with NOAA Fisheries 00:05:25.340 --> 00:05:29.760 and under their Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response program. 00:05:29.760 --> 00:05:34.460 For more than 25 years, Ed has worked with NOAA, with state agencies and others 00:05:34.460 --> 00:05:38.880 to better understand the animals and to address the threats that impact them, 00:05:38.880 --> 00:05:42.000 especially ship strikes and whale entanglement. 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:47.919 So his efforts have taken him to Alaska, the East Coast, West Coast, Hawaii and other countries. 00:05:47.919 --> 00:05:52.860 He's participated in over 110 disentanglement efforts 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:54.020 and helped free more than 50 large whales, 30 of which were off the Hawaiian Islands. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:03.560 So it's impressive, yet sad, that this many whales are needing disentanglement. 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:07.860 But he assists NOAA in coordinating a community-based network to provide safe 00:06:07.860 --> 00:06:11.260 and authorized response to entangled large whales. 00:06:11.740 --> 00:06:14.120 However, the ultimate goal of what Ed is doing is 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:18.680 to work with the fishermen, the scientists, managers and others in the community 00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:23.180 to gain valuable information that may reduce the entanglement threat, in the future. 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:27.840 A little bit about Ed's background. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire, 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:34.160 where he received a Masters of Science studying semi-aquatic mammals and island biogeography. 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:38.540 He worked for the Shoals Marine Laboratory and the Sea Education Association, 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:41.700 where he gained a strong marine background. 00:06:41.700 --> 00:06:48.200 Ed has studied whales since 1994 when he worked with the Provincetown center for coastal studies, 00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:53.860 which was a non-profit whale research and rescue organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:57.640 He's also worked for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, 00:06:57.640 --> 00:07:00.780 where he worked with fishermen to reduce entanglement impact. 00:07:00.780 --> 00:07:07.220 So we are talking to a major large whale response entanglement response expert. 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:11.240 So with that, I'm going to pass the controls on to you, Ed, 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:13.840 and we'll go ahead and get started with your presentation. 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:18.440 And don't forget, Ed, to unmute yourself and turn on your web camera, please. 00:07:19.640 --> 00:07:20.800 -[Ed] Okay. 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:26.500 I'm unmuted, so aloha, everyone, Claire and let's see... Show that. 00:07:27.640 --> 00:07:28.900 See how I do, here. 00:07:31.940 --> 00:07:35.220 - [Claire] Things are looking good for your presentation once you get it in play, 00:07:35.220 --> 00:07:39.440 but we do want to see your face, when you have a chance to hit that webcam. 00:07:44.200 --> 00:07:45.020 - [Ed] I'll hit it again. 00:07:45.500 --> 00:07:49.040 Here it goes. - [Claire] All right. 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:51.200 - And the presentation is up and running? 00:07:52.620 --> 00:07:55.900 - [Claire] Yup. Kick it into your play mode and then i'll give my final confirmation. 00:07:56.940 --> 00:08:02.100 She's in play and again, thanks, Claire and and Jezelle, and great introduction. 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:05.280 That was a lot of information. One thing this is a team effort 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:08.660 and I like acknowledging as many people as I can. 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:12.760 Okay, that's what part of what you were doing with that introduction, showing the team. 00:08:12.760 --> 00:08:16.460 If we're good to go we're up and running on duran. 00:08:16.460 --> 00:08:20.880 - [Claire] We're not we're seeing the slides on the side, so... 00:08:21.900 --> 00:08:23.800 See if you can press that 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.660 key note play button again and pop you into the presentation mode. 00:08:31.140 --> 00:08:34.020 Okay, let's try it again, boom, and... 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:37.580 - [Claire] Of course, we always work on this in advance and it's seamless 00:08:38.400 --> 00:08:40.060 - Yeah, We're okay, we're okay. 00:08:41.660 --> 00:08:42.900 Let's try... 00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:44.720 - [Claire] Okay, perfect. 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:46.700 We're on your second slide of the Hawaiian islands. 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:50.360 I will mute myself and move ahead. Thank you, Ed. 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:52.320 - Okay, thank you, guys. 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:55.300 Well I want to talk to you guys about something very dear to my heart. 00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:58.140 So I've been doing for actually a couple decades, now, 00:08:58.140 --> 00:09:01.040 and that is this large whale entanglement response effort. 00:09:01.040 --> 00:09:03.340 A very broad topic, by the way. 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.840 So I'm going to do is I'm going to bring it a little close to home. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:10.240 I want to add a little bit more to what Claire was talking about and that is 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:13.960 my work at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.000 Want to give you a little bit more detail there 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.720 because, again, we're going to kind of focus here around the Hawaiian Islands 00:09:19.720 --> 00:09:23.400 and dip our toe into the other areas in that broader topic of 00:09:23.400 --> 00:09:27.740 how this affects other large whales in other areas, like those North Atlantic right whales, 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.520 the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, 00:09:30.520 --> 00:09:34.540 five marine protected areas, essentially, around the main Hawaiian Islands. 00:09:34.540 --> 00:09:37.240 About 1400 square nautical miles. 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:40.260 Typically the shallow areas less than 600 feet. 00:09:40.260 --> 00:09:42.580 These are the areas where the humpback whales are found. 00:09:42.580 --> 00:09:45.300 Very important environment for them. 00:09:45.300 --> 00:09:51.880 Claire mentioned a special place the National Marine Sanctuaries and that is indeed very true 00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:54.700 of the Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Sanctuary 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:58.560 because it is the primary breeding category 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:03.200 for a majority-- more than 50 percent-- of the humpback whales in the north Pacific. 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.780 They're not going to make it down here every year, 00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:11.000 but they're going to make it take advantage of this environment-- the clear blue waters, 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:15.560 warm waters, give birth to the young, nurse those calves and breed. 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:20.440 I also want to show you, on the right there, is the population growth over time. 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:24.800 Many researchers contributed that data. You see their references on the bottom. 00:10:24.800 --> 00:10:29.360 See, generally speaking, the humpback whale population has increased over time. 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.760 when it comes to the entanglement threat, what I want to point out here 00:10:32.760 --> 00:10:38.380 is that it is least not for humpback whales in this central north Pacific stock 00:10:38.380 --> 00:10:43.680 that part of the population-- one of 14 distinct population segments-- 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:46.000 it's not overtly affecting the populations. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.400 I want to give you that background there, as well. But for other species, 00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:52.960 like the north Atlantic right whale, is a different story. 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:56.900 So here's what i'd like to cover for you, today. 00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:00.900 Give you a little bit more background on the threat. Just kind of set the stage. 00:11:00.900 --> 00:11:05.860 And very important to me and to many of us to do this type of work, is the goals and objectives. 00:11:05.860 --> 00:11:10.400 Again, it's not just about cutting the whale free, there's much more to it than that. 00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:12.240 So give me a little broad brush stroke there. 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:17.400 You wanna-- I do want to address that catchy title that we gave you, 00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:23.460 Catch and Release, and tell you how do we cut the 40 ton, or in the case of a right whale 60 70 ton, animal free. 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:27.940 It's likely free swimming, doesn't know you're there to help it, very dangerous task. 00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:30.680 How do we do it? Give you a little bit of an overview, there. 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:34.200 In doing so, I'll give you a couple case histories 00:11:34.200 --> 00:11:38.520 and again, you can see, we're going to focus on mostly humpback whales, 00:11:38.760 --> 00:11:41.940 central north Pacific stock and around Hawaii, here. 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:47.500 but give you some examples of the technology, the tools and some of the mitigating measures. 00:11:47.500 --> 00:11:51.340 Remember, well don't remember, but I'm going to tell you and emphasize it, 00:11:51.340 --> 00:11:55.900 this is about prevention, or going towards prevention, reducing the threat, overall. 00:11:55.900 --> 00:11:59.340 We will not solve the problem by trying to cut every whale free. 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:02.420 And a little summary there in our accomplishments at the end. 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:06.120 Okay. So a little background, here. 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:10.580 Global threat, I mean, again, this is even though i'm going to focus on Hawaii for the most part, 00:12:10.580 --> 00:12:14.280 at least north Pacific, it is global issue. 00:12:14.280 --> 00:12:17.560 Okay, it affects all kinds of marine animals and animals in general. 00:12:17.560 --> 00:12:21.500 So many species impacted it involves a variety of gear. 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:22.860 Everyone always thinks it's fishing gear, 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:27.660 but I will tell you that the majority of the gear, at least on the reporting that we can figure out, 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:29.720 is indeed fishing gear. 00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:35.540 And we tend to know more about this the smaller animals that are entangled 00:12:35.540 --> 00:12:39.600 and the reason is more likely the entanglement threat is more immediate. 00:12:39.920 --> 00:12:42.760 ^ They will drown in the gear more times than not 00:12:42.760 --> 00:12:44.100 and they're there to be counted. 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:48.420 So we can we can gather more information. It's kind of a good news/bad news kind of thing. 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:49.320 so 00:12:50.040 --> 00:12:54.860 And I think there was a poll question real quick. 00:12:55.420 --> 00:12:58.140 - [Jezelle] Let's do our first poll question for the audience. 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:05.940 So our question is around what percent of the gear entangling large whales reported in the U.S. 00:13:05.940 --> 00:13:08.080 is believed to be fishing gear? 00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:16.100 Less than 25 percent, between 25 and 49 percent, between 50 percent and 74 percent, 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:17.960 or greater than 75 percent. 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:33.600 So we have 70 percent of you voted. I'll give it a couple more seconds and then I'll close the poll. 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:44.880 And these are the results. 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:48.780 Two percent of our audience say less than 25 percent, 00:13:48.780 --> 00:13:53.180 nine percent of our audience said between 25 percent and 49 percent, 00:13:53.180 --> 00:13:57.440 33 percent said between 50 percent and 74 percent, 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:01.180 and 57 percent said greater than 75 percent. 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:04.920 And our answer was greater than 75 percent. 00:14:06.020 --> 00:14:08.540 - Yep, exactly. Most people got it right there 00:14:08.540 --> 00:14:13.060 And indeed now there's a couple things here is there is a lot of fishing gear out there, 00:14:13.060 --> 00:14:14.360 so it's just a matter of probabilities. 00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:19.620 And also the fishing gear is well marked. It makes it easier for scientists, managers 00:14:19.620 --> 00:14:23.120 to identify that gear. So there's some surprises in the science, 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:25.000 but that's what we're looking at. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.500 So thank you everyone for that. Wanted to also look at the impacts at the individual levels. 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:34.080 So it's going to be obvious, but there's the physical trauma of lines cutting through flesh 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:37.840 at the Chris Gabriel's image there at the top of the tail wrap. 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.420 This also shows you where the whales get wrapped up, by the way. 00:14:40.420 --> 00:14:42.540 Then there's general deterioration of health, 00:14:42.540 --> 00:14:47.320 next image to the right you know you see the rough skin, a little lighter colored, 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:50.920 the whale lice covering the side of the bodies, indicators, 00:14:50.920 --> 00:14:53.460 the animals can compromise by an entanglement. 00:14:53.460 --> 00:14:55.580 And there's chronic and systemic infections. 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:59.420 That is by the way Dr. Sterling Mayo, one of the pioneers in this field, 00:14:59.420 --> 00:15:03.320 We're-- that's a right whale, unfortunately it didn't make it. 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:05.680 It had some wraps on the right flipper, there. 00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:08.140 I'm going to show you that image a little later when the whale was alive. 00:15:08.140 --> 00:15:12.480 But that was a systemic infection that ended up killing that whale. 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:15.160 And there's associate factors, like ship strikes. 00:15:15.160 --> 00:15:19.840 Just as an example, you see the prop scars and the head rope there from the gill net. 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:23.920 Two can be linked. In fact, all these can be associated or linked together. 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:28.940 It's a starvation that's a big one for the large whales. Again, impacts are typically not immediate. 00:15:28.940 --> 00:15:32.940 And then it but it can be the last one I put there is drowning. 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:40.240 In some cases, whether it builds to that as they get weaker, leaner, more compromised or 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:46.940 a more-- in this case the lower right image --a very compromising entanglement in a juvenile whale. 00:15:46.940 --> 00:15:50.920 The two combined, the animal did drown in the gear pretty quickly. 00:15:51.960 --> 00:15:53.480 Those are the individual impacts. 00:15:53.480 --> 00:15:57.960 Quickly, I want to give you the population or at least some population level impacts , 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:02.980 This is a rather old number. It's over a decade old but standard read and others. 00:16:02.980 --> 00:16:09.900 You know the number using our-- in that our being the U.S.'s stranding data and our reports in the U.S. 00:16:09.900 --> 00:16:11.920 and extrapolating it worldwide 00:16:11.920 --> 00:16:13.980 and came up with a number for all cetaceans. 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:20.180 This is the dolphins, the porpoises, of the large whales of 308,000 whales, again, all whales, 00:16:20.180 --> 00:16:23.500 dying each year due to entanglement, worldwide. 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:28.240 So, it's a very quantifiable, very scientific based number and it's an underestimate. 00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:29.740 We know that. It still is. 00:16:30.280 --> 00:16:32.680 However it's still considered entanglement, 00:16:32.680 --> 00:16:37.720 a one of the largest, severest anthropogenic human caused threats 00:16:38.180 --> 00:16:41.520 And pulled up some of the national data. Again, we work as a team. 00:16:41.520 --> 00:16:44.840 All the different response networks combining our efforts. 00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:49.200 And it looks like for humpback whales, about two-thirds of the reports, at least, 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:51.060 end up being humpback whales. 00:16:51.060 --> 00:16:54.360 And again there could be some biases here. We do like watching humpback whales. 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.000 Very that's the acrobat of the whale world, 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.060 so we tend to look for them and find them whale watching and so on. 00:17:00.060 --> 00:17:04.760 So but still a lot of the whales are humpback whales they're found entangled report. 00:17:05.300 --> 00:17:06.780 But I want to mention other species. 00:17:06.780 --> 00:17:10.340 This is a current event, by the way, because there's it was late last week, 00:17:10.340 --> 00:17:14.280 three entangled right whales reported up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:22.480 There's already been six fatalities there in month of June, in Canada, back East, maritimes. So, 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:26.620 So for some species like the north Atlantic right whale the impact is significant. 00:17:26.620 --> 00:17:33.040 That population curve is not increasing. In fact, it's dropped now to around a little high above 400 animals, 00:17:33.040 --> 00:17:33.700 we think. 00:17:34.020 --> 00:17:36.200 Scar rates, when it gets to the scar rate analysis, 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:39.960 because it's another way we can get at the magnitude of the threat. 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:45.900 Right whales it's it can be as high as 87 percent of the population showing scars, 00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:47.600 indicating they've been recently entangled. 00:17:47.600 --> 00:17:49.340 And that doesn't tell us the whole picture 00:17:49.340 --> 00:17:55.780 because those are the only those are the ones we either cut free or that we that have freed themselves 00:17:55.780 --> 00:17:58.600 and have just been around to be seen afterwards. 00:17:59.100 --> 00:18:02.580 And also right whales, and I do need to move on here, 00:18:02.580 --> 00:18:05.500 but they're the urban whale. This is a turn that Scott Krauss and others applied. 00:18:05.500 --> 00:18:08.520 They're on the East coast and around the areas overlapping the gear 00:18:08.520 --> 00:18:11.680 and that's obviously going to increase their threat, as well. 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:14.800 So again, it can be other species. 00:18:15.300 --> 00:18:20.520 But I want to get back to the fact that that impact is typically not immediate for these large whales 00:18:20.520 --> 00:18:27.860 and 40 60 70 tons in weight, maybe up to 65 feet, threat still remains. 00:18:27.860 --> 00:18:32.140 You know the impacts now, but here's the kind of silver lining of sorts. 00:18:32.140 --> 00:18:37.020 Okay, and that is it buys them time, and as a result, can buy us time. 00:18:37.020 --> 00:18:40.280 Authorized responders, these networks around the country. 00:18:40.280 --> 00:18:44.660 there's David Matilda by the way on the bow the inflatable another pioneer here on the effort, 00:18:44.660 --> 00:18:49.760 myself, a sanctuary boat, support boat, working together to try to free the whales. 00:18:50.300 --> 00:18:54.600 At least free some of them. It can be difficult, it can be dangerous. 00:18:54.600 --> 00:18:58.700 They're not always-- certainly we don't think they're aware-- 00:18:58.700 --> 00:19:01.100 likely not aware of the fact that you're there to help them. 00:19:01.100 --> 00:19:03.039 They may not be gentle giants. 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:06.640 This is an entangled whale we're working on. Somebody breached in front of us. 00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:09.500 We've got to be aware of these dangerous risks involved. 00:19:09.820 --> 00:19:10.320 okay 00:19:10.320 --> 00:19:16.920 And for that reason because the risk to the animal from the response and the risk to the responders. 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:20.160 These authorized responders that are trained and well-equipped and all that. 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.120 You can see the criteria there on the bottom bullet. 00:19:22.120 --> 00:19:26.020 And you want the experience level you want people know whales, know gear. 00:19:26.020 --> 00:19:31.540 You want trainings involved, the availability and the right resources, tools, tool use, 00:19:31.540 --> 00:19:32.360 and all that. 00:19:32.360 --> 00:19:36.740 And that all falls under NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Strain Response program. 00:19:36.740 --> 00:19:41.840 They're the overall overseer and trying to keep everyone safe and doing a good job here. 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:43.900 So we give them acknowledgement credit. 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:50.720 But with all those risks, as difficult as it is, okay, why why should we respond? 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:56.280 I mean, what's and here's my goals when I got to them, but we want to increase awareness, 00:19:56.280 --> 00:19:59.980 it's always you know outreach and education foundational in so many ways. 00:19:59.980 --> 00:20:01.280 Public safety. 00:20:01.280 --> 00:20:06.060 Now, the sanctuaries or NOAA fisheries and others our mandate isn't public safety, 00:20:06.060 --> 00:20:10.320 but it's part of what we do and we're going to increase public safety by having the right people 00:20:10.320 --> 00:20:14.080 mount these responses. People that are equipped, trained, authorized. 00:20:14.080 --> 00:20:17.540 And we do hope to release some whales from life-threatening entanglements 00:20:17.540 --> 00:20:20.480 and we've done really well. Give you some accomplishments at the end, there. 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:23.919 And here's the big one. You probably already know it. 00:20:23.919 --> 00:20:26.400 We want to gather information towards reducing the threat. 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:31.460 That's why the title there and made these title slides. You don't see this disentanglement listed, 00:20:31.460 --> 00:20:34.940 you see it as entanglement response. That's how broad this effort is. 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:36.980 It's not about cutting every whale free. 00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:38.620 Okay. So, 00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:41.960 But here's the other thing. I mean it's difficult to cut the whale free, 00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:47.540 it's also challenging to get the information from some of the many many reasons same reasons. 00:20:47.540 --> 00:20:52.800 They're large animals, that's, they're challenging, they're needles in a haystack out there, 00:20:52.800 --> 00:20:55.180 we don't get that many data points out there. 00:20:55.180 --> 00:21:00.300 I already said we underestimate, so we've got to pour resources and build that data set up. 00:21:00.300 --> 00:21:05.160 A lot of reporting is opportunistic in nature. We're relying on our whale watch 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:07.540 and fishermen and others that they have another job. 00:21:07.540 --> 00:21:12.440 But they're they help us out and report this information in which, again, it's great. 00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:16.560 There's challenges in identifying gear. It could be just a piece of line 00:21:16.560 --> 00:21:19.820 and you can't just check the box. You've got to figure out what it is, where it came from, 00:21:19.820 --> 00:21:24.140 what part of the gear it was, so we can get that information towards a prevention. 00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:29.620 And a lot of times these cases for the large whales are removed in time and space. 00:21:29.620 --> 00:21:32.560 And what I mean by the that, and we'll give you some case histories, 00:21:32.560 --> 00:21:38.640 a whale that is reported say off of a Santa Barbara there may have gotten caught off of Mexico 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:42.420 and carried the gear more than a thousand miles northward. 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:46.540 So there's an example. And, of course, you got a big ocean, big animals and they're mobile. 00:21:46.540 --> 00:21:50.280 These whales are typically not anchored by the gear in many many cases. 00:21:50.600 --> 00:21:51.260 Okay. 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:54.880 And I said i was gonna emphasize Hawaii and there was a good reason. 00:21:55.360 --> 00:21:57.460 And that is there's many advantages. 00:21:57.460 --> 00:21:59.860 One of them is just it's an increase in scope of our effort. 00:21:59.860 --> 00:22:02.400 There's really not too many efforts out there 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:05.280 that are focused on the breeding calving grounds for humpback whales. 00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:08.660 Not to the degree that we are focused, here in Hawaii. 00:22:08.660 --> 00:22:13.960 So it's a scope of effort you're asking different questions you're going to get different answer 00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:18.440 or you're going to get broader or more data towards answering your questions. 00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:20.640 It's increasing our effort. It's a filter. 00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:26.440 I mean it's a 2,000 2,500 nautical mile filter of what happens to the animals 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:30.860 when they carry it let's say from Alaska or British Columbia to Hawaii. 00:22:30.860 --> 00:22:33.840 What's the impact of that distance in time? 00:22:33.840 --> 00:22:34.880 Things of that nature. 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:41.680 If the whale is reported we can respond behind one of the mountains in the league of the Hawaiian Islands. 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:47.180 One of the islands and we've got some generally calm water, it's warm, the water's warm, 00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:52.100 clear water. All that safety out is a good core safety of the operation. 00:22:52.320 --> 00:22:56.080 And then the assessment, gaining information, or was that clear water. 00:22:56.080 --> 00:22:59.680 I know a lot of the other responders are jealous of our efforts here, 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:06.200 in that we get this clear water to get good imagery and figure out the information in that regard. 00:23:06.200 --> 00:23:08.800 And i'll be showing you some of those images more soon. 00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:13.680 And then there's, lastly, there's the aloha spirit. I've worked many places and everyone's great, 00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:19.960 but I have to give points to more so it's just Hawaii, Hawaiian culture 00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:24.020 and everything lot of spirit people working together. There's that. 00:23:24.320 --> 00:23:26.020 I'll give you some data here. 00:23:26.020 --> 00:23:30.000 And I'm just sorry. I'm moving along. I want to give you guys a lot of information. 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:31.480 But for Hawaii here, 00:23:33.740 --> 00:23:36.840 - [Jezelle] We have another fun poll question for the audience. 00:23:37.680 --> 00:23:39.340 - I'm holding, Miss Jezelle. 00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:44.460 - [Jezelle] (laughing) The objectives of large whale entanglement response are? 00:23:44.460 --> 00:23:50.160 Free whales from gear, have trained experience well-equipped and authorized people, 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:54.340 increase awareness as to reduce threat and increase reporting, 00:23:55.040 --> 00:23:58.720 gain info to better understand and ultimately reduce threat, 00:23:58.720 --> 00:23:59.780 or all the above. 00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:14.100 So about 70 percent of you have voted I'll give it a couple more seconds and then I'll close the poll. 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:24.960 So the results are 99 percent of our viewers said all of the above 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:29.960 and one percent said increase awareness as to reduce threat and increase reporting. 00:24:32.080 --> 00:24:34.120 And the answer is all the above. 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:41.740 - Exactly, Jezelle. Yeah, I mean it was a bit of a maybe a bit loaded, 00:24:41.740 --> 00:24:44.240 but I wanted to emphasize the objectives again. 00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:45.740 That was one way we could do it. 00:24:45.740 --> 00:24:49.300 So it's very important to us that we have those broad-based objectives. 00:24:50.760 --> 00:24:51.902 Thank you, everyone. 00:24:51.902 --> 00:24:55.480 Well, I'm going to give you some of our data from Hawaii, here. 00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:59.180 And there's two things i'm showing you, here. One is just the overall number of reports. 00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:02.740 Lots of reports come in but a lot of them you can't confirm. 00:25:02.740 --> 00:25:05.420 You've got to do your homework even at this stage of bedding it 00:25:05.420 --> 00:25:08.980 and getting the additional information. Is it truly an entangled whale, for instance. 00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:11.940 So then you drop 50 percent of your data is dropped, right there. 00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:15.680 And then you try to filter out, well, how many whales does that actually represent? 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:21.300 And our best guess here on that data is 141 different cases of different animals. 00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:27.320 And again it's all underestimated. We know we're we're not getting all the information. 00:25:27.320 --> 00:25:29.780 As good as that community on what community is. 00:25:30.140 --> 00:25:34.780 The chart, the bar graph shows you the reports per season for us. 00:25:34.780 --> 00:25:40.760 It's more of a season. Our season runs more kind of November through April into May. 00:25:40.760 --> 00:25:44.380 Our breeding calving season you see the numbers aren't very big. 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:49.120 So if you're thinking, gosh, he said it was a big threat, but remember we're not getting them all. 00:25:49.120 --> 00:25:53.680 And you see some cycling there. You've seen changes for some variation over the years. 00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:57.260 Then in the background, the image shows where those reports are coming in. 00:25:57.260 --> 00:26:02.060 Those, for the most part, almost all those are not where the whale got entangled. 00:26:02.060 --> 00:26:05.040 So it's showing you the effort base more than anything. 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:10.980 And then I wanted it, again, I know it's a broad issue and I said I'd stay close to Hawaii, but 00:26:10.980 --> 00:26:15.420 I wanted to point out that, again, the efforts of many knowledge, everyone's efforts, 00:26:15.420 --> 00:26:19.180 Here are some of the other regions. You see the southeast in yellow at the bottom. 00:26:19.180 --> 00:26:22.880 You know, some lower numbers that's basically where they're at by the way too. 00:26:24.180 --> 00:26:28.500 And then you've got kind of above that the blue and the gray Hawaii and Alaska, 00:26:28.500 --> 00:26:30.880 cycling along and in the middle. 00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:35.340 California's down there early on and, suddenly, that darker blue jumps up pretty high. 00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:38.200 You know, four or five years ago it spiked. 00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:42.800 And you see the northeast, also generally very high and cycling variation, 00:26:42.800 --> 00:26:46.680 here at a much higher level than all the other regions in that regards. 00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:48.140 Kind of give you a general picture there. 00:26:48.800 --> 00:26:51.060 And, obviously, just focus on the U.S. at this point. 00:26:52.100 --> 00:26:55.740 And then I want to give you another means of getting a sense mentioned earlier. 00:26:55.740 --> 00:26:57.940 The scar analysis can be done for many species. 00:26:57.940 --> 00:27:00.820 For the humpback whales we tend to focus on the tail region. 00:27:00.820 --> 00:27:01.540 Okay. 00:27:01.540 --> 00:27:06.320 And what we've found and others have found-- you know, there's I showed some other references there-- 00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:10.420 Duke Robins, Dave Matilla, Janet Nielsen up in Glacier Bay, 00:27:10.420 --> 00:27:14.760 they've done these analysis generally got around 50percent for humpback whales. 00:27:15.460 --> 00:27:19.440 But these values can run from 30 to 70 percent, even outside those ranges. 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.260 It shows that the threat is pervasive. 00:27:22.260 --> 00:27:25.180 I mean everywhere we go we find there's entangled whales. 00:27:25.180 --> 00:27:27.720 And here we're only seeing the scar analysis, 00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:32.000 just shows us, again, those that survive those likely through the gear 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.220 and are just leaving scars behind to give us that indication. 00:27:36.080 --> 00:27:38.840 So it does say many animals throughout the gear by the way. 00:27:38.840 --> 00:27:40.240 Some of the work in the Gulf of Maine, 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:44.340 if you were to test me based on this the fewer than 10 percent are actually reported. 00:27:44.340 --> 00:27:46.180 There's your needle in your haystack. 00:27:48.100 --> 00:27:50.940 Our scar analysis here. We were just crunching these numbers. 00:27:50.940 --> 00:27:56.820 I think it's this season it's 17.3 is our is our kind of a midline, best estimate. 00:27:56.820 --> 00:28:00.780 That value has been slowly decreasing-- not specifically significant-- 00:28:00.780 --> 00:28:06.020 and you see the range there. About one in six, one and five of the humpback whales here 00:28:06.020 --> 00:28:10.400 that we're documenting have scars, indicating they've been recently entangled. 00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:17.560 Now you do want to get-- I promise you this-- that that title of Catch and Release. 00:28:17.560 --> 00:28:22.600 How do we cut-- - [Jezelle] So Ed, we have one more fun poll question coming up. 00:28:22.600 --> 00:28:24.320 (laughing) 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:32.820 who has seen one of the Moby Dick or initial Jaw movies or TV series Wicked Tuna? 00:28:36.240 --> 00:28:37.360 Yes or no? 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:41.020 - Simple, easy question. 00:28:42.700 --> 00:28:46.280 So over 70 percent has voted. I'll give it a couple more seconds. 00:28:54.080 --> 00:28:59.080 88 percent of our viewers said yes and 12 percent of our viewers said no. 00:29:00.320 --> 00:29:01.260 Okay, 00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:03.180 okay. Thank you, Jezelle, 00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:06.380 because that's that helps me because those 88 percent, 00:29:06.380 --> 00:29:10.160 in a sense, they know the kind of the main technique, already. 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:16.380 Okay, because the Jaws movie, you know, not three barrels, not the three barrels you can't, 00:29:16.380 --> 00:29:20.620 and the Moby Dick movies, the old keg technique, let me hit the next slide, 00:29:20.620 --> 00:29:25.780 because that essentially is the main part of our technique of you've got this large whale, 00:29:25.780 --> 00:29:29.520 doesn't know you're there to help it. It's likely free swimming with that gear 00:29:29.520 --> 00:29:32.500 or even if it's anchored, it's probably got some scope and it's moving around. 00:29:32.500 --> 00:29:37.480 And you need to constrain the animal a little bit and rein it back, maybe to get access to it 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:38.840 and to better assess it. 00:29:38.840 --> 00:29:43.280 And we're basically using a modification, let's use the Moby Dick one as an example. 00:29:43.280 --> 00:29:50.460 The great fish, right? It's fishing and you're trying to use this old technique of whaling, 00:29:50.460 --> 00:29:52.460 which-- let's go through it-- 00:29:52.460 --> 00:29:56.040 the old whaling technique was, you know, launch the wooden skiff from the tall ships, 00:29:56.040 --> 00:30:00.560 grow out after the whale, throw a harpoon to get a hold of the whale-- not kill it-- 00:30:00.560 --> 00:30:05.660 well in our modification, we're throwing a grapple hook to get ahold of the whale via de-entanglement. 00:30:06.120 --> 00:30:09.180 Okay then you're gonna take the ANTSA rod, you know, both parties, here. okay. 00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:12.840 You whale dives, you don't want to hold on, you've got to let go. 00:30:12.840 --> 00:30:17.460 But you leave a barrel in the old whaling technique, the kegging, okay, hence kegging. 00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:22.740 In our technique we don't use wooden barrels we're using the polyballs. We're actually adding more gear 00:30:22.740 --> 00:30:26.120 to hopefully get the gear off, in controlled manner. 00:30:26.120 --> 00:30:28.840 So those polyballs, those red buoys you see in the image there, 00:30:29.500 --> 00:30:33.840 and then instead of the lance at the end, like the whalers did to bleed the whale out, 00:30:33.840 --> 00:30:38.300 we're using hook knives you see it on the lower image there on the end of long poles. 00:30:38.300 --> 00:30:42.780 We're going to keep our distance, stay safe and cut the whale free, very methodically. 00:30:42.780 --> 00:30:43.560 Okay. 00:30:43.560 --> 00:30:46.960 So there's the general technique. I'm going to show you. We'll get some videos in here, 00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.640 and here's one of them, hopefully, cross our fingers, 00:30:50.320 --> 00:30:50.820 okay. 00:30:50.820 --> 00:30:54.420 You see the grapple in the upper left, if it's working, I hope. 00:30:55.060 --> 00:30:57.919 And there's whale and there's the throw. Gonna get a hold of the whale, 00:30:57.919 --> 00:31:02.460 not onto the whale itself, but there is trailing gear on that animal. 00:31:02.460 --> 00:31:03.760 This is helmet cam footage. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:07.800 And it's already jumpy by the way because when you're getting Nantucket sleigh ride, 00:31:07.800 --> 00:31:11.500 it may not be a smooth ride. So now we're getting a Nantucket sleigh ride, 00:31:11.600 --> 00:31:16.300 You add the polyballs, the whale stops diving, hopefully slows down to maybe two knots, 00:31:16.300 --> 00:31:21.560 nice thing as whales don't go in reverse, you pull it behind the whale, maybe two or three hours later, 00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:25.840 reach out with a long pole. let's show you that, and make the cut. 00:31:25.840 --> 00:31:28.440 And this part might be literally 10 seconds. 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:37.180 There is that was the last cut of four cuts to a female humpback whale that had five wraps around her tail. 00:31:37.180 --> 00:31:39.460 And that was the last cut and the whale was free. 00:31:40.580 --> 00:31:42.340 This is that whale, by the way. 00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:44.900 This is a couple years ago. Five wraps around her tail 00:31:44.900 --> 00:31:48.640 and what I want to do is use her as an example of some of the technology. 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:55.480 She was first seen off the Big Island, off the northeast corner of the big the Hawaii Island, 00:31:55.480 --> 00:31:57.960 and what we did is we didn't have responders there, 00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:02.920 so but they had we had teams there that could put a tag on the entangling gear. 00:32:02.920 --> 00:32:07.300 So in the upper right corner, you see the buoy and the tag itself, it would be held in that buoy, 00:32:07.300 --> 00:32:14.040 and then the rest of that white line going around the island in a counterclockwise matter 00:32:14.040 --> 00:32:19.039 is her track around the island. Then she hops over to Maui and we're sitting there waiting for her 00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:23.120 because at this point we know her speed and we can estimate when she'll arrive 00:32:23.120 --> 00:32:26.940 in the league of Maui, in the calm water and take advantage of it. 00:32:26.940 --> 00:32:31.180 Here we are, right behind her. Someone's holding on to the inflatable 00:32:31.180 --> 00:32:34.560 and the other guy is reaching out with the hook knife to make the cut. 00:32:35.860 --> 00:32:39.620 And there is a still image of that cut being made. That's what you just saw on the video clip 00:32:39.620 --> 00:32:41.860 and there's the last wrap coming off of her. 00:32:43.360 --> 00:32:46.980 Yes, I want to give you another case history, here. This is just last season. 00:32:46.980 --> 00:32:50.159 I think this is a sub adult male humpback whale. 00:32:50.159 --> 00:32:52.440 This is a mouth entanglement instead of a tail wrap. 00:32:52.440 --> 00:32:56.480 It also giving us some sense of the parts of the body to get entangled 00:32:56.480 --> 00:33:03.760 and it's got a long bridle, I think this is like 450 or more of line-- graded line-- traveling behind the animal. 00:33:04.300 --> 00:33:04.800 okay. 00:33:05.060 --> 00:33:08.180 I'm going to show you another tool that we've been using, for a number of years now, 00:33:08.180 --> 00:33:13.160 and this is all under the permit and this is our drones, our UAS's, okay. 00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:16.420 And this is some drone footage. We've already done some assessment, 00:33:16.420 --> 00:33:21.260 but now the drone is used to help us on the assessment of the operation. 00:33:21.260 --> 00:33:26.600 And we're getting ready, by the way, see how much that whale is kicking its tail, to stand down. 00:33:26.600 --> 00:33:28.040 They're not going to take any risk there. 00:33:31.040 --> 00:33:32.780 So this would be a stand down operation 00:33:32.780 --> 00:33:37.300 and we tag the whale, we let it go for the night and the next day-- 00:33:37.300 --> 00:33:40.540 let's jump to this next video clip- if they're working-- I'll cross my fingers. 00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:44.220 And that is our whale that has just been freed 00:33:44.220 --> 00:33:51.280 and we have, literally, just just kind of pulled up above it and just pulled the line right from his mouth. 00:33:51.280 --> 00:33:54.560 Didn't have to pull on it, keg it or anything. 00:33:54.560 --> 00:33:59.780 We worked with the whale's behavior, got a sense of it from the day before, didn't like being kegged. 00:33:59.780 --> 00:34:02.560 And now we have an animal that's free of gear 00:34:02.560 --> 00:34:05.800 and got all and mouth entanglements are very challenging, by the way. 00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:09.140 One last case here on this team. 00:34:09.140 --> 00:34:14.640 This is a sub-adult humpback whale, this year-- this season-- sorry. 00:34:14.640 --> 00:34:17.400 Kind of a hog tie, mouth and tail, 00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:19.260 but here's the unique nature of this. 00:34:19.260 --> 00:34:24.680 There was a crab pot, a dungeness crab pot, hanging about 100 feet below the tail. 00:34:24.680 --> 00:34:28.800 And that line goes straight down. It's going to a pot that you see in the lower left, there. 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:32.980 First time we've had the whole the entire pot with the animal. 00:34:32.980 --> 00:34:36.300 And what I want to point out is-- I think in the upper right-- you see a little disc 00:34:36.900 --> 00:34:41.180 that buoy system of this gear that was recovered had a chip in it 00:34:41.180 --> 00:34:45.680 and we worked with Division Fisheries Oceans in British Columbia. 00:34:45.680 --> 00:34:49.940 They've been tagging some of their gear, working these little chips, some pit tag chips, 00:34:49.940 --> 00:34:54.400 and we were able to give that back to them, they scanned it for us and gave us a wealth of information. 00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:56.780 This is back to gaining information towards prevention 00:34:56.780 --> 00:35:03.520 and we found out that the gear had been set or last hauled January-- you see the date there-- so January 2nd 00:35:03.520 --> 00:35:06.800 in the northeast corner of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia. 00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:09.440 So a wealth information, the location and everything. 00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:13.440 And what I want to get to is, all those cases I just showed you, 00:35:14.080 --> 00:35:16.620 where entanglements or efforts, 00:35:16.620 --> 00:35:20.640 at the end, when we covered the gear, we found out the gear had come from the feeding grounds. 00:35:20.640 --> 00:35:24.220 They carried it thousands of miles down to Hawaii. 00:35:24.220 --> 00:35:28.000 And there was a couple cases-- the other case I showed you was from Lunac Pass, 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:30.260 several now from British Columbia. 00:35:30.260 --> 00:35:35.520 And I also want to get to something here and that is-- well first, gear types. 00:35:35.520 --> 00:35:39.160 Give you a sense of what all the gear that we're recovering and documenting. 00:35:39.820 --> 00:35:42.840 This pie diagram will show you kind of two things. 00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:45.340 One it's everything and anything, okay. 00:35:45.340 --> 00:35:49.320 We've learned that it tends to be fixed gear, gear that's set and left. 00:35:49.320 --> 00:35:52.960 Some of which is, again, the majority of which, is indeed fishing gear. 00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:57.040 Okay, pot is trapped, here, by the way. See marine debris, there. 00:35:57.040 --> 00:35:58.800 And some other other things. 00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:02.500 Okay, so give you a sense of the gear type. This would hold for many regions, by the way. 00:36:02.500 --> 00:36:03.780 Many other areas. 00:36:03.780 --> 00:36:05.980 And then we're seeing changes in those gear types. 00:36:05.980 --> 00:36:11.420 We're seeing whales getting caught more in anchor lines or anchored ropes, cables, chains, 00:36:12.380 --> 00:36:13.600 we're seeing FADs. 00:36:13.600 --> 00:36:16.620 This is the fish aggregating devices, out there. 00:36:16.620 --> 00:36:21.740 The picture here shows a humpback whale sub-adult with cable through its mouth, 00:36:21.740 --> 00:36:23.660 embedded in the back of its mouth for that matter. 00:36:23.660 --> 00:36:25.120 It's coaxial cable. 00:36:25.120 --> 00:36:28.540 There's the deceptive image of i,t the lower right hand corner. 00:36:28.540 --> 00:36:30.580 So you can see it's a communications type cable. 00:36:30.580 --> 00:36:34.340 What it was doing-- best of our knowledge-- we think it was part of a FAD. 00:36:34.340 --> 00:36:39.460 And basically FADs are throwing anything and everything back into water column to create an ecosystem 00:36:39.460 --> 00:36:42.720 for small fish which attracts the larger fish. 00:36:43.100 --> 00:36:49.340 So as fish stocks decrease, fishermen are using these kind of things to help them fish. 00:36:51.020 --> 00:36:55.500 A lot of these changes, by the way, and I'm only going to be able to kind of just touch upon this subject, 00:36:55.500 --> 00:36:56.200 by the way, 00:36:56.200 --> 00:36:58.640 may be due to environmental changes. 00:36:58.640 --> 00:37:02.120 Environment changes, changes food resources changes whales behavior, 00:37:02.120 --> 00:37:03.680 which may change their threat level. 00:37:03.680 --> 00:37:06.580 I just want to point out here-- you guys are probably aware of this-- 00:37:06.580 --> 00:37:09.760 is there have been some changes last four years. 00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:14.240 North Pacific, it's the blob is the big one. I think it's made the news the most. 00:37:14.240 --> 00:37:17.960 It's some kind of a mid upper latitude warm water cell. 00:37:18.420 --> 00:37:20.160 It's built again over the last couple years. 00:37:20.160 --> 00:37:22.860 A longer cycle, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, 00:37:22.860 --> 00:37:28.640 plus cycle by the way is when warm water is on the east side of the higher latitude north pacific and 00:37:28.640 --> 00:37:31.780 then you got El Nino, I think everyone knows the El Nino, La Nina. 00:37:31.780 --> 00:37:36.860 You have that. We had all three of them a couple years ago. Kind of all line, perfect storm, environmentally. 00:37:36.860 --> 00:37:40.480 And we think it did-- well, we're seeing effects the humpback whales 00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:45.440 and those effects may change the threat levels, like entanglement, as well. 00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:50.320 Let me show you, again, plots here of the reporting for different reasons. 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:53.980 Hawaii there first, there's Alaska, you see some cycling there changes maybe 00:37:53.980 --> 00:37:58.160 maybe environmental factors coming into play, remembers small sample sizes. 00:37:58.160 --> 00:38:00.760 So we got to be careful. Then you see the West Coast. 00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:04.800 I mean their their numbers have spiked. They were down towards Hawaii and Alaska 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:07.760 But around 2013-14 changes occurred. 00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:11.480 And we know that a lot of humpback whales have come in closer to shore 00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:15.540 in areas around San Francisco Bay and places like that further south along the coast. 00:38:15.540 --> 00:38:20.340 And that puts them in not only the effort side of things, being seen and reported, 00:38:20.340 --> 00:38:22.500 but overlapping the gear that much more. 00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:23.900 So just introducing that. 00:38:25.680 --> 00:38:27.300 I'm doing a time. Okay. 00:38:27.680 --> 00:38:28.580 And... 00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:33.840 That's showing you the vertical lines are showing when the environmental changes are occurring. 00:38:34.340 --> 00:38:37.120 And then I wanted to point out some of these are obvious, maybe, 00:38:37.120 --> 00:38:41.820 but the more whales in the West Coast net that was also British Columbia 00:38:41.820 --> 00:38:45.640 and they were getting more entangled reports up there over that time frame . 00:38:45.640 --> 00:38:50.880 and lo and behold, this is showing that we got more reports than we had been getting. 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:55.780 I got four year bins there. I got that vertical line showing the change, environmental change 00:38:55.780 --> 00:38:59.960 showing you before our reports and after our reports. 00:38:59.960 --> 00:39:02.780 Big change in the number of reports. Again, small sample size. 00:39:02.780 --> 00:39:04.720 So more mouth entanglements. 00:39:04.720 --> 00:39:12.180 I got the bins again, before on the vertical line, okay, and then after as well on the vertical line 00:39:12.180 --> 00:39:16.100 showing it twice as many mouth entanglements. 00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:18.820 And... 00:39:20.100 --> 00:39:21.040 Okay, there we go. 00:39:21.040 --> 00:39:23.620 And then I want to give you another case history, here. 00:39:23.620 --> 00:39:28.820 This is a a calf. We've only had six calves, so far, 00:39:28.820 --> 00:39:33.140 onthe entanglements down here in Hawaii. 00:39:33.600 --> 00:39:36.840 And we'll give you another video clip if it'll work here. 00:39:38.720 --> 00:39:42.980 - [Claire] Hey Ed, while you're doing that, there's something on the screen. The drive pulse log in. 00:39:42.980 --> 00:39:45.220 Is that not easily... 00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:50.040 - I can just jump out for a second, right, and and get rid of that, I believe. 00:39:50.040 --> 00:39:51.720 - [Claire] Yeah, sure. Go ahead and give that a try 00:39:52.560 --> 00:39:55.200 - Yeah. - [Claire] Fingers crossed, right? 00:39:55.980 --> 00:39:57.900 Ignore and boom. 00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:02.740 Let's hope this doesn't mess everything up. I'm trying to bring it back up, again. 00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:04.780 Oh, please do this. 00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:08.300 Okay, hold on. 00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:23.880 - [Claire] Yup, we have your screen back up. 00:40:24.840 --> 00:40:28.520 - Okay, we may lose the calf being safe because i'm not oh there goes. 00:40:28.520 --> 00:40:32.700 Okay, sorry about that guys. A little warning there on my screen. 00:40:32.700 --> 00:40:38.200 here's a humpback whale calf, wrapped up pretty tight some monofilament line, here comes the cut. 00:40:38.200 --> 00:40:40.660 These are very challenging, mothers are protective, 00:40:40.660 --> 00:40:44.660 and there's the cut to free the whale. This is obviously an animal we did not tag. 00:40:45.320 --> 00:40:51.200 So the technique does differ. We need to make a special knife to this animal, by the way. So, 00:40:51.600 --> 00:40:55.340 Okay and I just want to point out, I showed you some young animals, there, because 00:40:55.900 --> 00:41:02.500 not so much the calves, but for the juveniles, it's definitely a high predominance of youngsters 00:41:02.500 --> 00:41:06.140 getting caught in the gear out there. It might be a matter of their experience levels. 00:41:06.140 --> 00:41:10.040 And this would hold for Alaska and many other regions would give you similar data. 00:41:11.040 --> 00:41:13.780 So experience might be a factor. 00:41:14.080 --> 00:41:16.100 Here's our accomplishments in Hawaii. 00:41:16.100 --> 00:41:21.520 We've mounted more than 180 responses, we've removed gear from 32 whales. 00:41:21.520 --> 00:41:24.000 Now, 28 of those we think we've made a difference. 00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:27.020 And again most of those have been humpback whales. 00:41:27.020 --> 00:41:29.140 They've had one sei whale, here in the region. 00:41:29.140 --> 00:41:35.300 About a 43 percent success rate, more than 12,000 feet of measurable gear removed 00:41:35.300 --> 00:41:37.600 and over 70 sets of gear identified. 00:41:37.600 --> 00:41:41.040 There's that I want to give you a sense of the information side, as well. 00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:44.980 Okay and I promise you, it's all about gaining this information. 00:41:44.980 --> 00:41:49.060 I've given you some ideas of how we might use it in increasing our understanding. 00:41:49.060 --> 00:41:53.200 But here's some examples I've broken up the two categories. Mitigating measures. 00:41:53.200 --> 00:41:56.380 The first one is about reducing the frequency. Trying to avoid it. 00:41:56.740 --> 00:41:58.220 Avoid the animal from hitting the gear. 00:41:58.220 --> 00:42:01.060 And some of these are obvious. It's time area closures. 00:42:01.060 --> 00:42:07.120 It might be reducing the scope of the gear, the amount of line, the slack line up to that buoy. 00:42:07.120 --> 00:42:08.160 If they're using a buoy. 00:42:08.160 --> 00:42:10.840 Or having sinking line between the traps. 00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:16.360 If they have a troll or a line of traps, you see an image on the lower part of the screen, there, 00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:20.920 to give you a sense that, you have sinking line, it's laying on the bottom. It's not up in the water column. 00:42:21.300 --> 00:42:24.740 Ropeless gear. It's something that's really been pushing lately for. 00:42:24.740 --> 00:42:28.300 It's been around for over a decade. Trying to figure this out. 00:42:28.300 --> 00:42:34.560 We're trying to get rid of all those buoys you see in the upper image by having the buoy line be at the bottom 00:42:34.560 --> 00:42:38.480 and the fishermen have a transponder that would call up the buoy line, 00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:42.560 so they could be then harvested. The trap could be then hauled to surface. 00:42:43.040 --> 00:42:46.900 Folks that knowing aquarium and others have talked about colored line to make it more visible. 00:42:46.900 --> 00:42:53.840 to speak to the whales, acoustic alerts to actually let the whale know that the gear is there. 00:42:53.840 --> 00:42:58.780 And, however, I will say any of these there are downsides, so it's not an easy solution. 00:42:58.900 --> 00:43:00.800 There's another whole topic, by the way. 00:43:01.700 --> 00:43:06.140 On the another slide, here, I'm going to give you some mitigating measures that reduce the severity. 00:43:06.140 --> 00:43:10.360 The whale's going to get in it, make contact, but maybe we can help it get out of it. 00:43:10.360 --> 00:43:14.140 things like weak lines, weak links. You know, it breaks away. 00:43:14.640 --> 00:43:16.780 It takes less gear with it and unwraps. 00:43:16.780 --> 00:43:22.480 The reduced scope again on lines, the tighter lines, let's reduce scopes, make it tighter, 00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:23.700 more detectable, 00:43:23.700 --> 00:43:26.780 stronger anchoring. Let's get we'll have a purchase to work against. 00:43:26.780 --> 00:43:28.360 And tended fisheries. 00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:32.640 I know Canada was-- the Maritimes-- was talking about you know they have some right whales, nowadays. 00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:34.640 They're stepping up and doing much more. 00:43:34.640 --> 00:43:39.600 That they would shut down and stop some fisheries in certain areas, there in the gulf of St. Lawrence. 00:43:40.160 --> 00:43:44.240 I'll skip the imagery there because I want to get down to just wrapping up here, now. 00:43:44.240 --> 00:43:48.560 Give us some time for questions, but what is a success on disentanglement? 00:43:48.560 --> 00:43:51.120 Well to get potentially all the lethal gear off the animal, 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:54.280 minimal injuries to the whale, none to the rescuers. 00:43:54.280 --> 00:43:58.800 We have had a fatality and we don't want to repeat that. Lesson learned, there. 00:43:59.180 --> 00:44:02.920 ^ We increase awareness number foundational and we want to gain information. 00:44:02.920 --> 00:44:08.220 There's a lot of science here, behind this. And I've only just touched upon that topic in many ways. 00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:12.000 And some conclusions, here. Many I'm just reiterating some points. 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:14.400 You know the response efforts, again, in Hawaii, 00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:19.200 it just in many ways it's just a an increase in the scope of our effort 00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:20.960 as many have done, many regions. 00:44:20.960 --> 00:44:23.380 The entanglement threat continues to be very dynamic. 00:44:23.380 --> 00:44:26.460 I mean we always do that and I think it's even more so, nowadays. 00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:28.280 Changes is an example. 00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:32.280 This changing the animal's environment, the ecology, is likely to affect the threat level. 00:44:32.700 --> 00:44:36.079 The full extent of the threat, the impact, we're still trying to figure it out. 00:44:36.080 --> 00:44:38.400 Okay, we're still trying to piece this puzzle together. 00:44:38.760 --> 00:44:42.720 And meantime, though, we can cut some whales free, save some animals, 00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:45.680 help some individual animals, the animal welfare side of things. 00:44:45.680 --> 00:44:47.740 At the same time, we've all got to do this. 00:44:47.740 --> 00:44:52.600 Gaining information, working together to try to reduce the threat, overall. 00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.860 And lots of people to acknowledge. 00:44:54.860 --> 00:44:58.200 And I had to group people. It's very much team effort. 00:45:00.120 --> 00:45:05.600 I'll move on because I also wanted some resources here for people that have download the PDF 00:45:05.600 --> 00:45:07.220 afterwards or have access to this. 00:45:07.860 --> 00:45:12.520 Some web links, some materials, and lastly, again, mahalo to everyone. 00:45:12.520 --> 00:45:17.780 and there's one of our teams after we've cut some gear off of a sub-adult mount. 00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:20.300 So thank you guys and any questions. 00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:24.340 - Awesome, Ed. Thank you for a great presentation. 00:45:24.340 --> 00:45:26.920 Love all the videos, glad they worked out. 00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:34.060 I do want to point out that there's a one pager on whale rescue that Ed passed along 00:45:34.060 --> 00:45:37.640 that you can download, right now, from the handouts in the webinar. 00:45:38.160 --> 00:45:41.840 And it will also be in our webinar archive, online. 00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:48.880 Any of those other resources, I'll work with Ed to make sure they're put into another little one pager 00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:50.960 that'll make it easy for people to access. 00:45:51.680 --> 00:45:55.480 And then, with that, we're-- Jezelle and i are ready to take questions 00:45:55.480 --> 00:45:57.320 and pass them along to our expert. 00:45:57.320 --> 00:46:01.920 So I see that we have one question poised and ready to go. 00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:08.280 Oh, and in the meantime, Ed, can you go back to the slide with the educational or with the web links 00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:11.320 because some people do want to jot things down, right now, 00:46:11.320 --> 00:46:13.440 before we get them out to them in the archive. 00:46:14.260 --> 00:46:17.000 So I'll start with this question. Okay, perfect. 00:46:17.340 --> 00:46:22.280 How often are they able to retrieve the entangling lines and material? 00:46:24.560 --> 00:46:30.040 That is-- the way to answer it-- hmm. It depends on how you look at it. 00:46:30.040 --> 00:46:35.240 If we get me-- put it this way-- if we get on a whale, okay. So if we get a report 00:46:35.240 --> 00:46:39.560 and someone stands by long enough, so we don't lose the needle in a haystack, 00:46:39.560 --> 00:46:42.120 okay, that's how critical that standby effort is. 00:46:42.120 --> 00:46:44.380 Then and we can get to that whale, 00:46:44.380 --> 00:46:47.280 then I'd say we have about a 50 percent chance of getting-- 00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:50.160 a little bit more-- but somewhere around 50 percent in Hawaii-- 00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:52.960 and it's going to vary for different regions and they have different conditions and all 00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:55.320 of getting that animal free and getting the gear. 00:46:55.320 --> 00:46:58.180 We get the animal free, almost always, we get the gear. 00:46:58.180 --> 00:47:04.060 That's in a few cases, remember the calf, when we cut that calf free, that gear exploded off that calf. 00:47:04.060 --> 00:47:09.080 It had been growing around it and we never found it. Was like monofilament line. We couldn't find it. 00:47:09.080 --> 00:47:12.300 And we almost always get the gear. Hopefully that answers your question. 00:47:13.860 --> 00:47:17.560 - Excellent and so for others um you can type in your question to the question box. 00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:23.580 There is another way of doing this. If you feel bold, you can raise your hand in the control panel, 00:47:23.580 --> 00:47:27.260 which will alert Jezella and I to unmute you. 00:47:27.260 --> 00:47:31.680 And then you can actually ask your question directly to ed and have that engagement. 00:47:31.680 --> 00:47:35.280 So sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, but if you're feeling brave and bold, 00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:38.360 go ahead and raise your hand and we'll just try the unmute strategy. 00:47:39.140 --> 00:47:44.580 And, actually, there's a few hands raised, so I'm going to give people another 30 seconds 00:47:44.580 --> 00:47:49.920 to go to the control panel and if it truly is a raised hand, leave it there, if not, click on that button, again. 00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:52.380 It'll go away and we won't unmute you. 00:47:52.380 --> 00:47:56.940 But in the meantime, why don't you, Jezella, ask that, start going down-- 00:47:56.940 --> 00:48:00.860 Well we have lots of questions coming in, Ed, so go ahead Jezella. 00:48:00.860 --> 00:48:02.860 - So next question for you, Ed. 00:48:02.860 --> 00:48:07.420 Are there response teams outside of Hawaii that are responding to entanglements? 00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:14.500 - So because it was, that was, are there response teams outside of Hawaii, right? Is that what I heard? 00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:15.300 - Yes. 00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:18.160 - Okay, yes there are. 00:48:18.160 --> 00:48:22.640 And those are boy, I mean let's start with the U.S., first. 00:48:22.640 --> 00:48:29.200 I mean there are there's teams across the Alaska from zodiac down through southeast. 00:48:29.200 --> 00:48:32.360 Yes, British Columbia has their teams. I'm gonna throw British Columbia right in 00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:35.520 run it coast. West Coast, right on down Mexico has teams. 00:48:35.520 --> 00:48:37.960 So you're getting into the international side. 00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:43.920 And that's just the pacific and of course out in Hawaii and East Coast and South Africa and New Zealand. 00:48:44.160 --> 00:48:48.800 It's a global effort. We have, actually, a global team of people we meet together and share information, 00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:51.200 work together to figure out what's best. 00:48:51.200 --> 00:48:57.360 So it's many many places. Many countries and across our in the U.S., again, going back to that, 00:48:57.360 --> 00:48:58.760 throughout the U.S. 00:49:00.560 --> 00:49:04.040 - Great. We have a question here that's a little further down on the list, 00:49:04.040 --> 00:49:05.440 but I thought it was an interesting one. 00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:08.420 After the fatality occurred that you mentioned, 00:49:08.420 --> 00:49:11.760 this person heard that all the rescue efforts were halted. 00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:16.740 So how has that incident changed your response protocol, since we don't want to have another fatality? 00:49:17.620 --> 00:49:23.180 - Well it was it-- I mean, yeah, we all knew Joe. Different, many ways and 00:49:23.180 --> 00:49:29.220 and that hit home and he's doing the same thing we're all doing as as whale entanglement responders. 00:49:29.220 --> 00:49:31.620 And it was a good thing to stand down and kind of 00:49:32.760 --> 00:49:35.120 look at, you know, risk assessments what it was. 00:49:35.120 --> 00:49:39.380 And we stood and we all did our own risk assessment. We did it again to the U.S. 00:49:39.380 --> 00:49:43.260 and for, you know, under the NOAA Fisheries marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program 00:49:43.260 --> 00:49:49.420 did that risk assessment and, of course, slowly ramped back up, as need be. 00:49:49.420 --> 00:49:55.280 We do realize even those with those risks, that again, there's the value, there, the information gained 00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:00.240 and, even though we may be taking more risk, we are reducing risks elsewhere. 00:50:00.240 --> 00:50:03.140 That's there's that balance there, as well. 00:50:05.680 --> 00:50:06.520 - Awesome. 00:50:07.080 --> 00:50:10.900 What do you think, Jezella? Should we unmute somebody here and see how it goes? 00:50:10.900 --> 00:50:13.020 - Yeah, let's do it. (laughing) 00:50:13.020 --> 00:50:15.820 - All right. Let's go with Judith. 00:50:16.420 --> 00:50:19.760 I'm going to go ahead and unmute you, Judith. You can ask your question. Are you there? 00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:25.520 Judith, you're unmuted. 00:50:26.360 --> 00:50:27.200 Judith Weiss. 00:50:29.280 --> 00:50:32.800 All right. See yeah, sometimes this doesn't quite work. 00:50:34.640 --> 00:50:37.040 All right. We'll go back to one of the typed in questions. 00:50:37.040 --> 00:50:38.160 Fire away, Jezella. 00:50:40.020 --> 00:50:42.000 - I thought this question is pretty interesting. 00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:48.520 Since these are confirmed entanglements, has the effort and funding been the same across all years? 00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:52.520 Okay, effort in funding. 00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:56.240 That's a big picture question and it's in some ways, 00:50:56.240 --> 00:51:01.160 it's something I may not in the big broad picture, I probably do not have my fingers on the pulse. 00:51:01.160 --> 00:51:07.100 I mean I know in my own little realm Hawaii and trying to get, you know, and the north Pacific a little bit. 00:51:09.700 --> 00:51:15.839 No, I think funding has changed over the years, but I cannot speak for the broad picture of say, you know, 00:51:15.839 --> 00:51:20.060 with true NOAA Fisheries Oversight and Marine Mammal Health Training Response Program 00:51:20.060 --> 00:51:24.560 for like over the decade. And I certainly cannot speak for Canada. 00:51:24.560 --> 00:51:28.460 I think, lately though, I can safely say they've definitely stepped up. 00:51:29.220 --> 00:51:32.160 They're doing more effort, and of course, 00:51:32.160 --> 00:51:35.520 you've got the right whales now up in the gulf of St. Lawrence, especially. 00:51:36.220 --> 00:51:38.620 It's bringing that effort on. 00:51:38.620 --> 00:51:40.940 It's demanding it in many ways. 00:51:40.940 --> 00:51:44.460 So just examples, guys. It's all I can give there, I suppose. - Yeah. 00:51:45.020 --> 00:51:46.220 Okay, thanks for that. 00:51:46.500 --> 00:51:52.140 So, Lisa is asking what efforts have been made to regulate fishing gear, especially lines and buoys, 00:51:52.140 --> 00:51:56.880 so that it's more easily identifiable to the industry or to the specific boat it is from? 00:51:58.400 --> 00:51:58.960 - Gotcha. 00:51:59.560 --> 00:52:04.340 Well, the examples there, some of which you saw on the presentation, like British Columbia, 00:52:04.340 --> 00:52:10.740 for some of the fisheries having little chips that the fish fishermen the fishing industry puts into their buoys. 00:52:11.040 --> 00:52:14.880 So as they bring that aboard, it can be scanned and sent off to management. 00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:19.680 There is West Coast use a lot of they're almost like, well they're cattle ear tags, tags, 00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:25.580 on a kind of attached to the top of the buoys, surface marking system. 00:52:25.580 --> 00:52:31.320 There's the U.S. applies elsewhere too is fisherman required to put their permit number, 00:52:31.320 --> 00:52:34.080 their license number-- sorry-- on the buoys. 00:52:34.080 --> 00:52:40.680 So, you see, that's an identifier. By so if we get certain parts of the gear, 00:52:40.680 --> 00:52:44.300 and it really does help us figure out what the gear is. 00:52:44.300 --> 00:52:49.960 And there's the thing here, though, is because many fishing industries mark the gear in that regard, 00:52:49.960 --> 00:52:53.980 It there can be a bit of a bias, in that that gear is more identifiable, 00:52:53.980 --> 00:53:00.120 in that regard and certainly even changes-- notice think back to the graph of gear coming from Alaska 00:53:00.120 --> 00:53:06.180 and the white lines, I point them out, going from Hawaii to Alaska, vice versa. 00:53:06.540 --> 00:53:09.860 Hawaii gear is not as robust. It may not last as long. 00:53:09.860 --> 00:53:13.740 It's maybe more challenging to find Hawaii gear in Alaska, whereas Alaska gear 00:53:13.740 --> 00:53:17.520 in many areas, is very robust. It's meant to hold up to Bering Sea storms. 00:53:17.520 --> 00:53:21.820 You know, remember Deadliest Catch and it might hold up and be more identifiable. 00:53:21.820 --> 00:53:25.120 And I went on for a long one. That's a long answer, but hopefully that helps. 00:53:28.640 --> 00:53:29.400 - Thank you. 00:53:30.020 --> 00:53:31.160 The next question. 00:53:31.620 --> 00:53:37.100 Have you broken out the gear source analyst further, to help target fishery outreach? 00:53:37.100 --> 00:53:39.960 For example, the 19 percent long line, 00:53:39.960 --> 00:53:44.080 do you have a sense of how much of that is from state near shore fisheries? 00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:50.080 We've done some of this and we do, you know, we've done fisherman's workshops 00:53:50.080 --> 00:53:55.580 and that is to work with the fishermen, to work together, to gain information, to look at preventative measures. 00:53:55.580 --> 00:53:58.740 You know, can we make gear more whale safe. 00:53:58.740 --> 00:54:00.000 Things of that nature. 00:54:01.180 --> 00:54:06.160 On the long line one, that is a subset that we're only really getting a good grasp of-- or more so of a grasp-- 00:54:06.160 --> 00:54:12.040 more recently, especially in Hawaii, and this long line here being what's fished north of the islands now 00:54:12.040 --> 00:54:15.380 and south of the islands, not generally right around the islands. 00:54:15.380 --> 00:54:19.119 This is the tuna and the swordfish and things of that nature. 00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:22.360 There's more offshore pelagic long line fisheries. 00:54:22.360 --> 00:54:26.940 And this has been a challenge for us because the effort outside, that far abroad, out in the open ocean, 00:54:26.940 --> 00:54:29.440 unless they bring it right to us in the Hawaiian Islands, 00:54:29.440 --> 00:54:32.020 has been more of a challenge to gather the information. 00:54:32.020 --> 00:54:34.680 It's been some of the observer programs the fishermen, themselves, 00:54:34.680 --> 00:54:40.500 and the fact that maybe they bring it to where the effort is, where we can get the reports, gain information. 00:54:42.720 --> 00:54:46.720 - I think we have time for about one more question and I like this one. 00:54:47.120 --> 00:54:50.160 Has the use of citizen science 00:54:50.160 --> 00:54:54.140 with the use of apps, such as whale alert or currently being used at the 00:54:54.140 --> 00:54:58.880 Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary ocean alert been helpful in getting information for 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.160 entanglements and prompt response? 00:55:02.460 --> 00:55:06.800 - We have pursued that. I mean, some of the different apps we've asked them to add, 00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:10.580 you know, add in the hotline numbers and the different regions and things like that. 00:55:10.580 --> 00:55:14.040 Of course, you can have a geocentric now, so you know where the app lies 00:55:14.040 --> 00:55:17.280 and I'll call the right hotline number bring it up right hotline number. 00:55:17.280 --> 00:55:22.620 We haven't gotten that many reports through the apps. I can't actually think of one, right now, 00:55:22.620 --> 00:55:24.960 that have gotten through an app, 00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:30.240 but we are pursuing every avenue you know first thing you need to do is reporting. 00:55:30.240 --> 00:55:34.680 Again, small-- large needle in a very large haystack. 00:55:34.680 --> 00:55:41.900 And we need to get the effort out there to get, in any way possible, get those reports in. So. 00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:47.359 - All right well we do have several other questions. If it's okay with you, 00:55:47.359 --> 00:55:51.720 we will email them as follow-up and maybe within the next few days or a week, 00:55:51.720 --> 00:55:56.600 you can respond to the email and send it out to all registered attendees. 00:55:56.600 --> 00:56:00.000 So thanks, everyone, for the great questions and engagement. 00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:05.140 I did reach out to the folks that had their hand raised in the control panel. I didn't hear back from anyone. 00:56:05.140 --> 00:56:10.500 So I wasn't willing to try that one again, but let's go ahead. I'll take back the presentation 00:56:10.500 --> 00:56:11.900 to do a quick wrap-up 00:56:12.700 --> 00:56:16.020 and then we'll be on our way 00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:18.660 Okay, so, 00:56:19.780 --> 00:56:23.020 for those of you that are concerned about all of these URLs, 00:56:23.020 --> 00:56:27.780 quickly write them down, don't worry, fear not. 00:56:27.780 --> 00:56:33.360 We'll have the the web links that were just up on Ed's screen into a document 00:56:33.360 --> 00:56:37.740 available for download ,along with the handout that you can take now through the webinar 00:56:37.740 --> 00:56:40.380 or come to the archive space later. 00:56:40.580 --> 00:56:44.120 And then, of course, a recording of today's presentation will be made available. 00:56:44.120 --> 00:56:47.560 It generally takes us about a week or so to make it available online. 00:56:47.560 --> 00:56:51.660 That link will come to you in a follow-up email, so no need to jot it down. 00:56:51.940 --> 00:56:58.400 For all of you that are registered attendees, we send you a certificate of attendance 00:56:58.400 --> 00:57:01.920 and it gives you one contact hour of professional development. 00:57:01.920 --> 00:57:07.480 So for some of you that are collecting hours for continuing education, you can use this as a source. 00:57:07.480 --> 00:57:13.680 And I do want to mention that we are taking a break from our webinar series in August. 00:57:13.680 --> 00:57:17.200 We will be coming back in September, towards the end of the month 00:57:17.200 --> 00:57:20.319 with a presentation by Dr. Richard Coleman 00:57:20.320 --> 00:57:24.440 and it's going to be focused on native Hawaiian fishing communities. 00:57:24.620 --> 00:57:30.260 So with that, we'll see some of you back in September, after a little break. 00:57:30.260 --> 00:57:34.540 Thank you so much, Ed Lyman, for being a engaging presenter, today. 00:57:34.760 --> 00:57:39.140 We learned a lot about the whale entanglement issue and the response efforts 00:57:39.200 --> 00:57:42.980 and how to build community and and reduce the issue. 00:57:42.980 --> 00:57:48.400 And thanks for all of you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us on today's webinar. 00:57:48.400 --> 00:57:53.420 Thanks, Jezella, for being back in support and with that, it concludes today's presentation. 00:57:53.420 --> 00:57:54.520 Thank you so much.