WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.780 --> 00:00:01.820 [Whale spout blows] 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:08.660 When we started doing the work, in the first couple of disentanglements, 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.440 we were trying to figure it out ourselves. 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:13.860 The first real organized effort was one that 00:00:13.860 --> 00:00:18.860 David Mattila and I undertook on Thanksgiving Day in '84. 00:00:18.860 --> 00:00:22.140 We were confronted by a whale we knew, 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:26.400 an animal that had spent a lot of its life on Stellwagen, 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:33.120 that I named, whose mother I named, so in a sense was kind of a friend. 00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:36.420 And she was clearly lethally entangled. 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:39.680 So we started to work on freeing her. 00:00:39.680 --> 00:00:44.460 How do you do it? You have to figure out two things. 00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:50.360 How do you stop them and how do you get close enough without losing your life. 00:00:57.340 --> 00:01:00.880 Charles "Stormy" Mayo. 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.460 I am senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies 00:01:04.460 --> 00:01:08.520 and I direct the North Atlantic Right Whale Ecology Program 00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:10.860 here at the center. 00:01:10.860 --> 00:01:14.620 The center started with just three of us PhDs 00:01:14.620 --> 00:01:19.540 who were anxious to kind of drop out and come to Cape Cod 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:25.140 and really without a plan, we started teaching simple courses. 00:01:25.140 --> 00:01:29.780 And that was the beginning of it, but it was a very humble beginning to be sure. 00:01:29.780 --> 00:01:33.720 We had no budget and made no money 00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:39.020 but the institution grew and it grew around my interest in whales. 00:01:39.020 --> 00:01:43.560 So we still have a big presence in the study of whales. 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:47.300 We know now, although we didn't in the beginning, 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:50.440 that entanglement and fishing gear is a big issue. 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:53.320 It's maybe for right whales one of the biggest issues. 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:54.930 They have to swim. 00:01:54.930 --> 00:01:57.900 Eventually they starve. 00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:02.980 On that memorable first effort, 00:02:02.980 --> 00:02:09.080 We actually had worked on this whale Ibis earlier but without success. 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:10.860 We didn't really know what to do. 00:02:10.860 --> 00:02:17.540 So when we got this last chance, my father was the captain of our research vessel. 00:02:17.540 --> 00:02:20.220 We were kind of scratching our heads. He said "keg 'er." 00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:25.060 He was one of the last people to take a whale in Provincetown. 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:28.620 He used kegs to act as floats 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:31.320 to drag the whales, to slow them down. 00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:34.580 We didn't have a keg but we had big orange floats. 00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:38.700 David came up with the idea of using the anchor we had aboard the boat. 00:02:38.700 --> 00:02:41.500 We threw that in the trailing gear. 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:43.880 The whale, she was very weak. 00:02:43.880 --> 00:02:48.000 She'd been tangled and tortured for probably a whole summer. 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.580 So she quit and we were able to free her. 00:02:52.320 --> 00:02:55.120 Now I no longer do disentanglements. 00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:01.640 I'm happy to say my sons eight years ago told me to get out of the bow of the boat. 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:02.960 And they were right. 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.260 It was in fact a lot more dangerous than I had thought. 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:08.340 Decision-making is critical. 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:13.940 Make the wrong decision, maybe at best you make a fool of yourself. 00:03:15.160 --> 00:03:18.640 We now have a full-on disentanglement program 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:21.760 and they continue to develop and train. 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:24.700 It's still an expanding work-in-progress. 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:28.660 Stellwagen, Middle Ground as we called it, 00:03:28.660 --> 00:03:32.120 was an area of particular richness for marine mammals. 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:37.840 It struck me that this was an area that deserved some attention. 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:41.980 And I was aware that the marine sanctuary program was 00:03:41.980 --> 00:03:46.040 developing a list of places for designation. 00:03:46.040 --> 00:03:48.040 Made a lot of sense to me. 00:03:48.040 --> 00:03:53.140 My lord, a marine protected area, and looked to me like Stellwagen made sense. 00:03:53.140 --> 00:03:57.920 And I called around and found out that Stellwagen had been thought of, 00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:02.640 but from what I understood, it was not being vetted. 00:04:02.640 --> 00:04:05.660 Thanks to whale watching and our first research vessels, 00:04:05.660 --> 00:04:08.120 we had a huge amount of data. 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:13.180 I wrote a lot of material to try to substantiate the value of the place and 00:04:13.180 --> 00:04:17.540 I'd like to think that our data, well, made all the difference. 00:04:17.540 --> 00:04:22.420 And it got reconsidered and eventually considered for designation, 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:25.720 and eventually of course named. 00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:33.500 In the case of right whales, the situation I've described it as grim. 00:04:33.500 --> 00:04:38.100 We don't know for sure where the story is going 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.000 but we do know in the last two years, 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:48.800 we've had a minimum of I think 17 or 18 mortalities 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:52.300 and a maximum of five births. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.700 So the arithmetic is bad, and it is simple arithmetic. 00:04:56.700 --> 00:05:00.660 People ask me why I now talk about extinction. 00:05:00.660 --> 00:05:04.280 The arrow at the end of the trajectory is pointing at zero. 00:05:04.280 --> 00:05:10.500 The underpinning, the foundation of the population, is in dire shape. 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:14.320 The thing that I think makes the sanctuary program 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:18.320 and particularly Stellwagen sanctuary important 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:21.880 is that it does take a holistic approach. 00:05:21.880 --> 00:05:24.800 We have at last come to understand that 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:28.320 although whales are an outstanding part of the story, 00:05:28.330 --> 00:05:30.880 barnacles are pretty damned important. 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:33.060 Incidentally, they're eaten by right whales, 00:05:33.060 --> 00:05:36.100 so I have a love for barnacles. 00:05:36.100 --> 00:05:38.820 That understanding and that willingness 00:05:38.820 --> 00:05:43.100 to not just look at the megafauna, the charismatic ones, 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:47.800 but also at these essential underpinnings, is crucial. 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:53.760 I wish Stellwagen were five to ten times as large as it is. 00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:57.820 Because the ocean system doesn't act as a box 00:05:57.820 --> 00:06:02.480 and it is crucial if we're going to protect our marine resources.