On 31st March the participants of the workshop were welcomed, in the Teatro delta Concordia, by Roberto Cerqualgia and the Honorable Ripa di Meana in the presence of the public and press. On the last day, 4th April, a press conference was held in the theatre at which the Honorable Ripa di Meana spoke, followed by the Mayor of Montecastello, Silvano Mariotti, Holt and Notarbartolo di Sciara.
It was also agreed that the workshop would be conducted partly in plenary session, partly in working groups (with named convenors and optional participation) and that the timetable and structure would be flexible. All substantive items would be discussed first in plenary, then in one or more working groups and then again in plenary as far as time would permit. The reports from the working groups were used to assemble a consensus report, which, subject to general approval, was adopted as a whole before the close of the workshop. The introduction and executive summary were, however, written by the Steering Group after the meeting.
The participants, with their contact addresses, are listed in Appendix 1.
| whale watching | watching cetaceans in the wild. Almost invariably, whale watching is conducted from a platform (e.g. ship, cliff or airplane). However, activities such as feeding or swimming with cetaceans are not excluded |
| commercial whale watching | whale watching with some commercial element |
| research whale watching | the conduct of non-lethal research on live cetaceans |
| opportunistic whale watching | non-commercial whale watching conducted by amateurs on an ad hoc basis |
| rule | any guideline, code of conduct or regulation |
| framework | a strategy to arrive at rules |
| impact | the alteration of any characteristic of the cetacean individual, group or population by whale watching, An impact is not necessarily negative and could also be positive, neutral or unknown |
| policy | the plan of action of a governing body or association (e.g., ways to promote, control, limit or ignore whale watching) |
Animals react in various ways to noise and other aspects of human presence. An important part of what we know about this comes from research into terrestrial mammals (see section 5.7). Animals either change their behaviour or physiology in response to human presence, in the short or long-term, or they ignore such presence. An apparent lack of response to human presence may indicate no effect, due usually to habituation in which the animal no longer reacts to a stimulus. Alternatively it may indicate tolerance, a condition in which the animal may be stressed physiologically but tolerates the stimulus simply because the area is important for other activities, such as foraging, or because the animal is unable, or unwilling, to show an avoidance reaction. A particular kind of reaction is sensitisation, when the animal reacts more strongly to an ongoing activity, or disproportionately more strongly to several activities, in a synergistic manner. All mammals can exhibit the above reactions though it is more difficult to measure reactions in cetaceans than in terrestrial mammals.
As a first step towards assessing the impacts of whale-watching activities on cetaceans, it is necessary to identify all the parameters that can be used to measure the short and long-term impact of whale watching at the individual, group and population level (Table 2). The various measurement parameters which can be categorised are behavioural, physiological and/or acoustic. The various influence parameters include the variable impacts from the type of whale watching conducted, everything from different kinds of boats to swimming with cetaceans. In addition, there are parameters relating to the animal and also environmental parameters which are essential to consider in designing controlled studies. The studies to date that have focused on collecting data on the various measurement parameters for short-term reactions or impacts have proved easier to interpret than those that have focused on long-term impacts. The parameters for long-term impacts have more significant and direct implications on the productivity, physical condition, distribution and behaviour of cetacean individuals, groups and populations, but they are much more difficult to measure.
Almost always, the startle or other short-term impact is more readily measured and correlated to human action than are the generally more important long-term behavioural or physiological changes. Moreover, different types of short-term impacts are measured with different efficacy from different platforms and assessments of long-term changes can require still different techniques. The following is a basic but not exhaustive listing of our present abilities to measure impacts.
Behavioural parameters can be measured from shore or stationary structures in the water, often with the use of theodolites for precise tracking. They can also be measured from boats, circling aircraft, or with the use of telemetry. The most benign technique is probably observation from high vantage points on fixed platforms but suitable platforms are often not available. Boats and aircraft have the potential of disturbing the animals being watched, although with appropriate "before, during, after" disturbance experiments or monitoring, potential disturbance from the observation platform can at times be assessed and effectively factored out. Telemetry usually involves the placing of an electronic device on the animal and that too can be a disturbance. Recent and developing studies of passive directional location (listening) or active interrogation (by echolocation devices, for example) help to obtain information on vocalizations, movements and even the physiology of animals at a distance (by listening for indicators such as heart rate). One important consideration is that it is usually difficult to evaluate observations of disturbance from the vessel that is causing that disturbance. This is in large part because one has incomplete knowledge of the situation before and after vessel proximity to the animal(s).
Surfacing, ventilation and dive (SVD) patterns can best be obtained on only a few animals at a time, or in the special case when schools or groupings behave synchronously. The appropriate choice of platform depends on species type and other factors. For example, humpback whale SVD patterns for one whale can be described from shore, airplane or boat. However, as soon as two or more whales are close together, the most consistently useful data can be gathered from the air by a circling aircraft from which several individuals can be identified and SVD patterns described by individual.
Swimming speed, course, and orientation relative to disturbance can usually be most accurately describe from theodolite viewing stations, allowing the precise location of both the potentially disturbing human platform and the animal(s).
Spacing and cohesion (within several body lengths to a few hundred metres) can usually be best describe from the air, second-best from elevated platforms, and third-best from boats.
Aerial displays can be detected and counted from all platforms, but interpretation relative to potential disturbance is especially difficult because so much of cetacean communicative (aerial) activity is social- related. Nevertheless, counts of flipper or tail slaps, for example, relative to human activities (before, during, and after, and at different levels of human action) can help to assess potential disturbance responses. Again, work from the air allows for detailed assessments of individuality and orientation, for example, relative to the potentially disturbing vessel. However, detailed information on distances between the surface-active cetacean(s) and the vessel can best be made by theodolite. Observations from the air are the best way of recognising which cetaceans are being surface-active, their age (and sometimes sex) class and whether social activity (for example) is responsible for the behaviour. General behaviour states and activity patterns can be assessed from platforms on the ground, water, and in the air with varying degrees of success. When possible the use of multiple platforms is preferable to allow comparisons to be made.
Sound plays an important part in the lives of cetaceans. Underwater recordings of sounds can help greatly in judging whether communication is compromised by an activity, either by sound masking due to the activity or by a change in vocal production. However, a result which apparently shows no change in the acoustic behaviour of a cetacean should not necessarily be taken to mean that there is indeed no impact. Priorities for future acoustic research include;
Long-term changes can be measured with a variety of tools, including assessments of physical condition. Individual identification and tracking of animals is an important research tool to address these issues. It allows for focal animal behavioural assessments before, during, and after human activity. Assessments of longer term shifts in affiliations between individuals and shifts in habitat use, can be taken into account in interpreting results.
At the same time, dedicated surveys, such as line-transect surveys and acoustic detection techniques, provide information on overall habitat use and numbers and are important for assessing habitat use before, during and (if applicable) after, human use of an area. An especially confounding factor for habitat shifts is our knowledge that cetaceans sometimes move in response to shifts in their prey. Such shifts in prey are often incompletely known. it is therefore critically important to assess oceanographic and prey features at the same time as describing cetacean use of areas. Another approach is to limit cetacean distribution analyses to areas where we know food to be stable or where animals such as large whales on mating/calving grounds are not generally feeding.
Long-term physiological and potential pathological effects are especially difficult to discern. Evidence of reduced reproductivity or from analysis of blood chemistry, blubber or gross morphology changes (from body samples of live or dead animals) may indicate potential links to some aspects of human disturbance. Potentially confounding factors are many, with toxin input through prey and parasite-related factors probably of particular significance.
The workshop noted that present short-term and long-term assessment techniques are clearly inadequate properly to describe important shifts in behavioural, physiological, and habitat use parameters. Long-term changes can only seldom be inferred from short-term reactions, although some data exist from terrestrial mammals, manatees, and several pinnipeds.
The workshop recommended that it is incumbent on scientists to find ever better techniques, both to measure potential long-term reactions to human tourism and, of infinitely greater importance, to measure potential anthropogenic influences on individuals, populations, and species of cetaceans. Anthropogenic influences include habitat degradation such as large scale noise pollution, toxins in both water and prey, prey decimation, and wholesale habitat destruction. Important new techniques may consist of aspects of telemetry, sophisticated passive remote sensing and a cadre of physiological measurement capabilities in free-swimming animals.
Some general recommendations to improve such scientific research include:
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