Vets into the Wild

This is one of the presentations I prepared for Prof. Schwarzenberger’s course “Conservation Genetics”. It basically summarizes some of the reference papers on a certain topic. In this case: molecular identification techniques, problems and advantages in marine mammals, and specifically Minke whales.

1) A truer measure of the market: the molecular ecology of fisheries and wildlife trade

C. SCOTT BAKER

Invited Review

Molecular Ecology (2008) 17, 3985–3998

Abstract

Wildlife and fisheries markets are end-points in the supply chain of both legitimate and illegitimate or unregulated trade in species and natural products. Molecular ecology provides powerful tools for surveillance and estimation of this trade. Here, I review the application of these tools to market surveys and species in trade, including species identification and molecular taxonomy, population assignment and ‘mixed-stock’ analysis, genetic tracking and capture–recapture by individual identification. I consider the analogy of markets to natural populations and also the unique features that require novel analytical approaches and sampling design. In the most developed of these applications, the molecular ecology of market surveys and confiscated trade shipments has provided independent estimates of illegal, unregulated or unreported exploitation for sharks, elephants and whales. Although each study has taken advantage of information from trade records or official government reports concerning the ostensible levels of exploitation, it is telling that the truer measure of exploitation seems to arise from the market end-point of the supply chain.

Keywords: bushmeat, bycatch, capture–recapture, CITES, DNA register, genetic tracking, IUU exploitation, IWC, molecular taxonomy

-          Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) catches are common and represent a big percentage of underground economy.

-          Molecular identification through 2 methods:

• An amplified and sequenced target DNA from a market sample is compared to a database of references sequences (GenBank).
• A multiplex of species specific mtDNA primers are used to identify the species. (Non targeted species remain unknown)

-          Many unknown species were discovered via molecular identification in rural animal markets in Laos, Burma.

-          An improved molecular taxonomy, including comprehensive reference databases for these taxa, is urgently needed to control trade and direct conservation efforts for ‘true’ species under threat.

-          Mixed-stock analysis has more applications: species conservation, legal procedures, building a “DNA register”.

2) High proportion of protected minke whales sold on Japanese markets due to illegal, unreported or unregulated exploitation

V. Lukoschek, N. Funahashi, S. Lavery, M. L. Dalebout, F. Cipriano & C. S. Baker

Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430

Abstract

Whale meat products sold on Japanese markets originate from two stocks of North Pacific (NP) minke whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata scammoni: the depleted J-stock, which has been protected since 1986 but continues to be killed as fisheries ‘bycatch’, and the more abundant O-stock, which is hunted under special permit (scientific whaling). We investigated the geographic distribution and temporal changes in stock composition of NP minke whale products sold on Japanese markets between December 1997 and June 2004. From nearly 1200 ‘whale meat’ products purchased during this time, 250 were identified as NP minke whales by phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences. The 250 NP minke whale products were found to represent 201 unique ‘market individuals’ after exclusion of replicate products using microsatellite genotypes. Market individuals were further classified into four mtDNA haplogroups, three of which are characteristic of the J-stock (J-type) and one characteristic of the O-stock (O-type). There were moderate differences in the proportions of J-type individuals found in coastal prefectures, perhaps reflecting regional differences in the sale of local bycatch, but no significant difference across time. The absence of a change over time was inconsistent with the four- to fivefold increase in reported bycatch, from an average of 25–122 whales year_1, following a 2001 regulation allowing commercial sale of whales taken as bycatch. Using a mixed-stock analysis based on haplogroup frequencies over the entire survey period, we estimated that 46.1% (SE, 4.2%) of all market individuals originated from the J-stock. This estimate of illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) exploitation is higher than expected from the officially reported bycatch, suggesting either large-scale underreporting and/or unrecognized takes of J-stock minke whales from Pacific coastal waters by the scientific hunt. Our estimates of the true level of IUU exploitation have important implications for recovery of this depleted coastal stock.

Keywords IUU exploitation; IWC; fisheries bycatch; DNA profiling.

-          In 1983, the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) recommended that the J-stock should be classified as a ‘protection stock’.

-          2 documented sources of whale meat:

• whales killed by the Japanese scientific research programme (scientific whaling);
• whales killed in the extensive set nets (bycatch) along the coast of Japan;

-          Combined estimates of IUU exploitation in Japan, and in Korea are approximately twice as large as the Japanese scientific hunt, with J-stock likely to become extinct in the next few decades under reported rates of bycatch.

-          Greater transparency reporting data from both the scientific hunt and Japanese coastal bycatch is needed.

-          A comprehensive genetic investigation of minke whales throughout Japanese coastal waters is needed, with particular emphasis on the Pacific coast.

-          The authors recommend that such a genetic study be conducted using biopsy sampling, rather than the lethal methods used in the current scientific whaling programme.

3) Bushmeat and bycatch: the sum of the parts

PHIL CLAPHAM and KOEN VAN WAEREBEEK

Molecular Ecology (2007) 16 , 2607–2609

Abstract

In many developing countries, the killing of wild animals for commercial purposes (the bushmeat trade) is a significant factor in the reduction of biodiversity, and probably represents a major threat to the survival of many more populations than we know. This includes marine species such as cetaceans, sea turtles and sirenians (‘marine bushmeat’), which are often neglected in the discussion of this issue. Estimating the impact of the bushmeat trade anywhere is problematic because even the most thorough visual surveys of meat markets cannot easily translate an observed quantity of butchered products into the number of animals killed. In this issue of Molecular Ecology , Baker et al . provide a powerful new tool for such assessments: molecular identification of commercially available products from a depleted population of minke whales in South Korea is combined with genotyping and novel capture–recapture methods to estimate not only the number of individuals taken, but also the persistence of the resulting products in the marketplace.

-    Capture–recapture technique used to estimate that 827 minke whales had passed through the markets between 1999 and 2003 — a number considerably larger than the 458 reported by South Korea to the IWC for the same period.

-    Availability of products from an individual animal diminishes with time as the butchered parts are sold, in a manner analogous to the decay of radio-isotopes= critical information, because it can be used to determine the effective frequency with which markets should be monitored to give the most accurate survey results

-    In Japan and South Korea it is legal to kill and sell whales caught in nets as long as the event is officially reported.

4) The rise of commercial ‘by-catch whaling’ in Japan and Korea

V. Lukoschek, N. Funahashi, S. Lavery, M. L. Dalebout, F. Cipriano & C. S. Baker

Response

Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430

In his Commentary, Read reminds us that Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) catches are common in the world’s fisheries (Agnew et al., 2009) and that incidental bycatch may constitute more than 40% of total catches for marine fisheries (Davies et al., 2009). How is the by-catch of whales in Japan and Korea (the other country that reports a large by-catch of minke whales, Table 1) any different? Unlike most IUU fisheries, the by-catch of whales in Japan and Korea is neither illegal nor unreported, only unregulated and under-reported (e.g. Baker et al., 2006, 2007). Unlike most marine fisheries, products from the by-catch of whales can be sold openly on commercial markets in both countries and there has been no systematic effort to limit or mitigate the by-catch. On the contrary, the commercial value of whale products (reportedly up to US$100 000 for an adult minke whale, Neff, 2004), provides an incentive to promote, rather than reduce, any net entanglement. In this regard, the by-catch of whales in Japan and Korea is more like an unregulated commercial hunt than an incidental or illegal fishery.

We agree with Read that the increase in the reported numbers of whales killed in Japan since the 2001 change of regulations represents an improvement in the estimate of the true take from by-catch. However, we do not agree with his conclusion that the Government of Japan acted wisely in implementing this change. Without some effort to mitigate by-catch, the improved reporting alone has done nothing to protect the depleted J-stock of minke whales found in the coastal waters of Japan and Korea. After the abrupt increase in reported by-catch following the 2001 change, the numbers have continued to increase (albeit, more slowly) to a high of 156 in 2007 and 134 in 2008 (Table 1). With the inclusion of Korean records, the number of minke whales reportedly killed as by-catch has averaged more than 200/ year since 2001. Since 1996, when Korea began keeping records, the total reported by-catch of minke whales has exceeded the number killed in Japan’s controversial scientific whaling programs in the North Pacific (JARPN and JARPNII). Given our estimates from molecular monitoring of whale-meat markets in Japan (Baker et al., 2000; Lukoschek et al., 2009) and Korea (Baker et al., 2007), these ‘official’ reports are likely to represent perhaps only half of the true level of IUU exploitation during much of this time.

The rise of commercial ‘by-catch whaling’ and its threat to the survival of the J-stock can only be reversed by greater oversight of the International Whaling Commission and greater regulatory control by the Japanese and Korean governments, including strategies for mitigation. Without such action, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that ‘bycatch whaling’, like ‘scientific whaling’, is simply another way to circumvent the current moratorium on commercial whaling and to skirt the imperative for a scientific-based conservation and management procedure.

-    The rise of commercial ‘by-catch whaling’ can only be reversed by greater oversight of the IWC and greater regulatory control by the Japanese and Korean governments, including strategies for mitigation.

-    ‘By-catch whaling’ & ‘scientific whaling’, is simply another way to circumvent the current moratorium on commercial whaling.