(San Juan) The small Caribbean island of Dominica, located south of Guadeloupe, creates the world’s first marine protected area for one of the largest animals on the planet: the endangered sperm whale.
Nearly 800 square kilometers of royal blue water on the island nation’s west coast, which serve as essential nursing and feeding grounds, will be designated as a reserve, the government announced on Monday.
“We want to ensure that these majestic and highly intelligent animals are safe from harm, and continue to keep our waters and climate healthy,” Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a statement.
Scientists say the reserve will not only protect animals, but also help combat climate change.
Sperm whales defecate near the surface because they shut down non-vital functions when diving to depths of up to 3,000 meters. So the nutrient-rich feces stay on the ocean surface and create blooms of plankton, which capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and carry it to the ocean floor when they die.
Sperm whales in Dominica are thought to defecate more than whales elsewhere, said Canadian biologist Shane Gero, a cetacean specialist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, a research program focused on sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean.
It is not yet clear why sperm whales appear to be defecating more in Dominica. Mr. Gero said it could be that they eat twice as much, or that there is something special about the type of squid they eat.
“In some ways, sperm whales are fighting climate change on our behalf,” said Gero, who is a scientist in residence at Carleton University in Ottawa and a graduate of Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Fewer than 500 sperm whales are estimated to live in the waters surrounding Dominica, part of a population that moves along the Lesser Antilles chain, swimming south to the island of St. Vincent, and as far as Guadeloupe North.
Unlike sperm whales elsewhere in the world, those in the eastern Caribbean do not travel very far, Gero said.
He noted that sperm whales constitute a matrilineal society, in which young males leave and change oceans at some point in their lives. As a result, protecting the species is essential, especially if few females are born, he said.
“The entanglement of a calf can mean the end of a family,” he said.
Sperm whales can produce a single young every five to seven years.
In the waters around Dominica and elsewhere, sperm whales have been struck by ships, entangled in fishing gear and affected by agricultural runoff, limiting their survival. Before the days of whaling, about 2 million sperm whales roamed the Earth’s deep waters, and then they were hunted for the oil used in lamps and lubricating machinery. Today, there are only 800,000 left, according to Mr. Gero.
Regulated whaling tourism
The Dominica government announced that the reserve will enable sustainable artisanal fishing and mark an international shipping route to prevent more deaths of sperm whales, which have the largest brains in the world and can measure up to 15 meters.
Once the reserve is created, the prime minister said his administration will appoint an agent and observers to ensure the area is respected and whaling tourism regulations are enforced. Visitors can still swim with sperm whales and view them from a boat, but in limited numbers.
The move was welcomed by scientists and conservationists, including Enric Sala, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic.
“The government of Dominica has realized that sperm whales, which were probably here before humans, are also citizens of Dominica,” he argued. These whales will spend most of the year off the island. So, they take care of some of their citizens in a way that few countries have done before. »
An estimated 35 families of sperm whales spend most of their time in the waters surrounding Dominica. Gero said some sperm whales are likely older than 60 years, and they communicate using clicking sounds that are part of a vocalization known as a “coda.”
Mr. Gero and his team of researchers also named individual whales. One of them is nicknamed “Snow” because a scientist was reading a book by Margaret Atwood with a character named “Snowman”. Another sperm whale was nicknamed “Fruit Salad” because a researcher was munching on it at the time. The calf of this whale was named “Corossol”, in line with the theme.