A project to re-introduce the Grey Whales in the North Atlantic

AMIS des BALEINES, CACHALOTS et DAUPHINS. (A.B.C.D.)

MOTIVATION OF THE PROJECT

Should we stand by, doing nothing and watch the grey whales disappear totally from the Atlantic Ocean ?

My answer is no, especially as we have all the technical means at our disposal to remedy the errors of the past.

I'm no longer prepared to witness the senseless deaths of more than 150 grey whales each year without doing something about it.

We should be taking a certain number of them out in order to try to recreate their lives in their oiginal habitat.

There is funding to do so. Some people are even willing to spend as much as up to 20 million dollars just to spend a week in space.

I used to think we were right in granting the aboriginal population a subsistence, these have no respect for conservation.

While their ancestors used to take a week to track and kill a Beluga – today it only takes a day to kill 40 (witnessed by a friend in Quebec).

The Japanese are encouraging all minority peoples to go back to their traditional whale hunting techniques.

We must be prepared to go even further on methods of protection, re-introducing wild-life sanctuaries in the water concerned.

Thank you for supporting this project by publicizing the information so that one day, in the future, we can witness the return of Whales into the Atlantic.

Only the major nations can organise and manage the project.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

This project which might look ambitious, would be the rightful return of this whale into an ocean where it has lived since the beginning of time and also a compensation for the follies of man.

To understand how the grey whale was in the Pacific and the Atlantic one has to look back to the time when north and south America were joined (Würtz and Repetto, 1999) and even further back to when theTethys Sea allowed the dispersion of the Cethotheres (Sylvestre 1995) and the Basilosaurus (Wong 2002).

We know that the grey whale existed in the Atlantic (Cousteau and Paccalet 1986) (Fontaine 1998) (Sylvestre 1995). We also know that this population has almost certainly disappeared due to over hunting (Gohier 1988) (Wandrey

1999), (Dumont and Marion 1997). Why are grey whales more numerous in the Pacific?

One is tempted to believe this because one of the two populations has been able to survive, but one must remember that whale hunting started much earlier in the north Atlantic (Cohat and Collet 2000) and its intensity was much greater because it also caused the disappearance of a serinien called Rhytime ( Hydromamalis Stelleri) discovered in 1741 by Behring (Ramade 1992) on the shores of the sea of Okhotsk and exterminated in 1768 by whalers who hunted it for its meat, an animal 9 metres long and weighing 3 to 4 tons (Engel 1961). As early as 1578, thirty armed boats from the Basque country were in the waters around Newfoundland, whereas hunting the grey whale only started on a large scale in 1851 (Grzimek 1971), in the Pacific.

Only C.Scammon gives figures for the grey whale for this period (Cousteau and Paccalet 1986) 30,000 for the Pacific alone! ?...

When the continental drift finally closed the passage between north and south America the north Atlantic population became separated as had that of the atlantic Spotted Dolphin (Stenella frontalis) (Wurtz and Repetto 1990).

Nobody knows how many grey whales there were in the north Atlantic. Only Cousteau and Paccalet, in 1986, estimated the original Pacific population to have been between 15000 and 18000.

There is no doubt that the grey whale could survive in the north Atlantic because it has lived there and would still be living there if it had not been hunted to extinction.

We also know that having almost disappeared from the Pacific the grey whale has restored its population from the remaining 160 individuals left in 1885-1886 (Cousteau and Paccalet 1986)

According to the study by Grzimek there were only 250 grey whales on the Californian coast in 1937 but by 1968 there were 18300.

Thus we can imagine that if we could transport 200 animals via the Panama Canal, a viable population could be achieved within 100 years in the north Atlantic.

This would be possible if one remembers the pictures of the rescue of the grey whales that had been trapped in ice in 1988 (Dumont and Marion 1997).

It could be done with adapted barges, from the Cortes Sea. As a result of Scammon's work it is known that these whales lie on the seabed in sixty to eighty centimetres of water (Grzimek 1971). They could therefore be transported in adapted barges of the L.S.T. type.

The I.W.C. has an exemption clause and allows the Inuits and other “aboriginal” or Indian populations to kill 140 grey whales per year (Cohat and Collet 2000).

In fact the average number is 165 to which must be added some killed for scientific purposes, 316 between1959 and 1969 (Cousteau and Paccalet 1986).

In addition it has been proved that the exemption clause is apt to be circumvented by the Soviet people (Cousteau and Paccalet 1986) (Watson 1996) (Gontier 1988).

As we find that at least 165 whales are destined to be killed we could take the risk of re-introducing this number.

What are they going to do in the Gulf of Mexico? Be lost and turn in circles? No, because their migratory instinct is pre-programmed and besides, they will have currents to guide them during their first migrations. We know that they migrate at the speed of 5 to 6 knots and that while migrating they communicate with one another; that their cries can be heard one hour ahead (Diolé and Cousteau, 1973), so we have the possibility of guiding them during their first migrations.

Where will they feed? Probably in Baffin Bay, an important whale-hunting ground until the end of the XIXth century (Dumont and Marion 1997), or with the Northern Right whales which migrate annually from the Gulf of Mexico to Greenland (Dumont and Marion 1997) (Fontaine 1998) because these latter whales live in the north Atlantic in the same area

. Do we wish the grey whale to be hunted to extinction or do we wish to give it the possibility of a new lease of life? We will be vigilant, we will equip them with Argus beacons and we will track them with the aim of protecting their new environment in order to avoid the strange death of the whales in Corsica (Roux and Braconnet 1974).

We would learn from the canadian plan to re-establish the Black Whale in the North Atlantic (Collective, 2000).

And then there are the marine currents. Looking at them, there is no incompatibility: in the Pacific they meet the current of the same name along the coasts from north to south. In the Atlantic they will meet the Labrador current, a similar cold current coming down from north to south, then all along the American coasts sculpted by the Gulf Stream,(Carson 1959) (Leip 1956).

Besides the whaler captain Timothy Folger, cousin of President Benjamin Franklin, during the preparation of the map of the Gulf Stream, remarked that the whales always remained on its edge and never in the middle. The cetaceans were attracted by the abundant plankton which proliferate on its edges (Whipple 1984).

During their migration northwards, in the summer they will find maximum temperatures of 10º between Newfoundland and Iceland going down to 5° or less in Baffin Bay and along the coasts of Greenland, the place where they disappeared in the XVIIth century (Leip 1956) (Cawardine 1996).

The grey whale lives mainly in shallow waters and we find it mainly along the east coasts of the Pacific (Sylvestre 1995). It will find shallow waters along the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, north America, Canada and Greenland that is if it crosses the trough of the straits of Davis (Coulmy and Page 1974).

The maps established by the satellite Seasat (1978) concerning the average wind strengths on the surface and the wave heights between the months of July and October give the same values for the area where these whales spend the summer in the north Pacific now, as that where they would be spending their future life in the north Atlantic (Whipple 1984

The study of colour-coded pictures from the satellite Nimbus 7 show the chlorophyll content. These indicate a strong concentration of vegetable matter along the west coast, which augurs well because the animals feed on benthic organisms (Wandrey 1999) (Whipple 1984).

The food of the grey whale is composed of small animals living on the sandy bottoms such as crustaceans, amphipods, marine gastropods, diverse micro-organisms as well as fish (Sylvestre 1995). The benthic amphipods include Amplisca eschrichti, Amplisca macrocephala, Atylus carcinatus which are filtered from the mud bottom (Dumont and Marion 1997). Other organisms consumed are worms (Polychaeta) cuttlefish, small herrings and sardines as well as vegetable matter (Wandrey 1999).

In the north Atlantic, the benthos is much richer in the tropical zones than in the arctic coastal zones, the Gulf Stream having an influence as far as the north of the Lofoten islands. On the other hand, the cold Labrador current which moves southwards, comes close to the atlantic coasts of Canada and the United States so that these coastal waters are cold as far as Cape Cod and only contain 143 species instead of the 450 species of the Mollusca Prosobranchia living in the same latitude in the Bay of Biscay (Torson 1971).

In his book “La Vie dans la Mer” (Life in the Sea) two chapters illustrate the potential food: “La Vie sur le Fond” (Life on the Bottom) and “La Zone Sublittorale” (The Coastal waters Zone) the area of 200 metres of water at low tide, that is to say the limit of the Continental Shelf. The author describes in detail the benthic life of the North Atlantic and there is no doubt that the grey whales would have plenty to eat.

Another book “L'Atlantique, Histoire et Vie d'un Océan” (The Atlantic - History and Life of an Ocean) by Edouard Le Danois, 1938, describes the resources and quality of the benthos. I believe that there is no doubt that the whale could live again in the North Atlantic.

There now remains the winter season. There is no doubt that the types of environment found in the Gulf of Mexico, along the coast of Florida, in the the Bahamas archipelago and in the Carribean Sea are very similar according to the maps made by the climatologists of CLIMAP (Chorlton 1984) between December 20 and March20, time of its wintering in the seas surrounding Lower California (Olivier 1985).

The Seat satellite maps of the temperatures of the seas around Lower California and in the Gulf of Mexico show that they are almost identical (Whipple 1984). In any case the species is not sensitive to big changes in temperatures which characterise shallow waters (Wandrey 1999).

An examination of the coastal maps of Florida (carr,1975), shows that bays suitable for calving are not lacking. Prospections for shallow bays should be made. At first sight, it appears that “Biscayne National Monument” together with Card Sound and Barnes Sound could be breeding sites for the Grey Whale

There now remains the will to achieve this. Like Paul Spong, I believe firmly that all changes can occur at the speed of thought (Hunter 1983).

Asking the aborigines to stop hunting whales had no effect, but to suggest to them that their whales would stock another ocean might be worthwhile. To quote the words of chief Seattle “It is not man who has woven the tissue of life, he is only a thread. Everything that he does to this tissue he does to himself” (Rivière 1989).

I present to you my thoughts for a reintroduction project for a whale into an ocean where man has caused its disappearance.

It is reasonable that you ask: but how is it going to survive?

We will save the whales from a certain death, but it will have to find new bearings, new bays for breeding and these are numerous on the east coast of Florida, Georgia, Carolina, Maryland,etc. (Eand McNally, 1988), new sources of food in the currents off Florida and Labrador (Le Danois 1938), and find resources in the Atlantic (Thorson 1971) (Coulmy and Page 1974). The Atlantic has nothing hostile for it. Like other cetaceans it will adapt to its new life.

It is possible that it would be difficult to move 200 animals in one move but we know that grey whales normally live in groups of 2 to 3 which join up with others when migrating to form groups of 10 to 16 whales (Wandrey 1999).

It would be sufficient to move 20 whales a year because as Scammon explains, in 1874 he saw only about 40 whales migrating (Grzimek 1971).

Nothing, but absolutely nothing stands in the way of our trying to save about twenty whales a year from certain death in order to give them a new chance of survival in the Atlantic Ocean.

Viewed from space the earth is a blue planet. Viewed from space the earth is the planet of whales and not that of man – “Whales Nation”, according to Heathcote Williams (Carwardine et al. 2000).

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Andréas GUYOT

7, rue Jules Verne

64000 PAU

M.J.C. du Laü

81, avenue du Loup

64000 PAU

e-mail : greywhaleprojet@ipvset.com

This project is yours, if you like it and will belong to everyone who invests in it.

I am entirely at your service, Whales.