Young scientists from ESO and Future Seas get a taste of humpback whale research in the Gulf of Masirah in November 2021.  Photo by Gianna Minton.

Press release shared by ASWN partner, the Environment Society of Oman (ESO):  In recent weeks, the ESO signed a two-year sponsorship agreement with HSBC Bank Oman to support its efforts towards the conservation of the Arabian Sea humpback whale. Under the partnership, ESO will carry out two new projects; a Conservation Management Plan that aims to work with local authorities to implement alternative solutions to harmful marine practices that threaten the whales’ survival, and a Capacity Building programme that focuses on developing the next generation of cetacean (whales and dolphins) researchers.

Maia Willson, Research and Conservation Manager at ESO, said, “We’ve been researching Oman’s whales for the last 20 years with the help of local and international collaborations. Whilst this work is still ongoing, we now have sufficient scientific information to inform conservation actions. As we move into 2022, our attention turns to how we tackle the issues threatening the survival of the endangered Arabian Sea humpback whales. With the valuable support of HSBC, we are able to move towards tangible action, to help implement policies for greater protection, and to prepare the next generation of local marine research and conservationists needed to continue this vital work.”

“HSBC has a longstanding commitment to support the communities in which we operate. Through our partnership with the Environment Society of Oman, this conservation and capacity building programme will give a valuable opportunity to develop the next generation of marine researchers and activists and support one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals on building human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation,” said Melika Betley, CEO of HSBC Oman.

The Arabian Sea humpback whale is one of one of 20 species of marine mammals found in Oman’s waters. Classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species in 2008, it is estimated to be one of the smallest and potentially most vulnerable whale population in the world, numbering fewer than 100 individuals. Research supported by ESO has also proven Oman’s humpback whales to be the only known population in the world not to migrate between high and low latitudes, staying instead to breed and feed in the waters surrounding Oman.

Believed to have been isolated in the Arabian Sea region for c. 70,000 years, they are a highly distinct population with photo-identification studies resulting in no matches outside of the Arabian Sea region and acoustic studies revealing a highly distinctive song.

Since its inception in 2004, ESO has focused on developing a better understanding of the distribution and ecology of the different whales found in Oman’s waters. Among its achievements last year, the country’s only non-profit organization focusing on environmental preservation launched the Marine Mammal Atlas of Oman, a publication that is the culmination of 20 years of scientific research and serves as an important reference for studies on environmental diversity, while also raising awareness on the species.

As a non-profit organization, ESO continues to rely on the generous support of sponsors and members to deliver this work. For more information on how to support, make a donation, or to find out other ways to get involved, visit eso.org.om.

ESO partners with HSBC Oman for Arabian Sea humpback whale conservation

The rescue team working to free the whale from gillnets. Duqm Port. Photo courtesy Port of Duqm Company.

On the evening of January 18^th, 2021, staff at the Environment Authority – Oman (EA) were notified that  an Endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale had been observed entangled in fishing gear inside the Port of Duqm. This information was shared with the Oman Stranding Network. The whale had apparently been trapped for days, with net and line wrapped inside its mouth and around the flippers, dorsal fin and tail stock. This situation was immediately recognised as a significant risk for both the whale and Port operations.

Recalling the entanglement response training that had been conducted by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Oman in 2015, specialists from the Environment Authority, Five Oceans Environmental Services LLC and Future Seas Global SPC, supported by the Environment Society (ESO) and the Port of Duqm quickly mobilised a team and equipment to drive down from Muscat to Duqm, reaching the Port on the following day.  With assistance and personnel from Oman’s Coast Guard, Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) and the Port of Duqm, as well as real time advice from members of the IWC entanglement expert panel the team spent the afternoon of the 19^th initiating disentanglement.

Click here to watch a video clip of the response.  This shows the team in the day’s last light, attaching buoys to slow the whale down and the prevent it from diving during while the team was working to remove the net. During this intervention, the team noted that as the whale attempted to dive, the upwards force of the buoy helped to unwrap rope and net from the mouth, followed by more rope being dislodged from the flippers and area around the dorsal fin. By the end of the day it was apparent that the only net remaining was on the tail stock.

Video and photographs of the whale during the disentanglement allowed the research team to recognise it as one of the individual whales catalogued in a long-term photoidentification study that has been undertaken in Oman since the year 2000. The whale was identified as individual ‘OM11-016’, which was first photographed near the Port of Duqm in 2010, and then again further south near Hasik in 2011 and 2014.  Most recently this whale had been observed again just outside Duqm Port in October, 2020.

On January 20th, when the rescue team returned to the scene to continue the disentanglement, the whale was no longer in the port. Neither a search of the immediate area using port pilot vessels nor a helicopter search by the Royal Air Force of Oman detected the whale still towing the attached  buoys. However, video shared by a coastguard vessel showed a whale swimming freely in the port later on the day of the 20^th. Although the video footage did not allow for definitive identification of the whale, the habitual appearance of this whale in the port over the last 3 months, the absence of any detection during the aerial search, and the observations of the net unwrapping on the previous day all lead the team to conclude that this was very likely the same whale, and that the actions taken on the 19^th had enabled the whale to shed the rest of the fishing gear and swim free. In addition, no further sightings of the whale have been recorded since Jan 20th, which, if it were still entangled, might have been expected.

With fewer than 100 individual humpback whales believed to remain off the coast of Oman, the incident highlights a number of issues of critical importance to efforts to protect the species and prevent its extinction:

• Published research as well as the sighting history of OM11-016 and many other humpback whales in the Oman photo-identification catalogue indicate that whales have a strong affinity to the habitat in the Gulf of Masirah near the Port of Duqm.
• This highly productive area is also known to be a hotspot for intensive artisanal fishing, with some vessels (referred to locally as dhows) used to set gillnets similar to that found on the entangled whale. These nets are regularly set within the core feeding grounds of humpback whales and are intended to catch large fin-fish that feed on smaller fish like sardines, which are a prey species for the whales. .
• A recent study presented to the IWC Scientific committee found that 67% of humpback whales photographed off the coast of Oman have scars on their tail stocks consistent with entanglement in fishing gear. Whales can become entangled in both active and abandoned gear. ESO conducted a behaviour change study to address marine wildlife entanglement in fishing nets on Masirah in 2018/2019. The study revealed a low rate of change, highlighting a pressing need to further engage with the fishing community and increase their knowledge of socio-economic and environmental impacts of fisheries. Two awareness-raising videos were created to support the project- a short animated piece and a 5-minute-long feature on the project.
• Similar gillnets are used throughout the Arabian Sea by registered legal fishing fleets as well as illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fleets. Scientists in the Arabian Sea Whale Network have shared incidents of entanglements occurring off the coasts of Oman, Pakistan, Iran and Somalia. In some of these incidents fishing crews have attempted disentanglements that are extremely dangerous, such as hanging from ropes and entering the water with whales, highlighting the need for more training and guidance throughout the region.
• Finally, the incident also highlights the persistent threat of ship strikes to Arabian Sea humpback whales and other whale species in the region. Five Oceans Environmental Services LLC spent 3 years working with the Port of Duqm to develop and implement a Whale Management and Mitigation Plan, a programme that could be further strengthened at the Port of Duqm as well as adapted for implementation at other ports in the region. Click here to see one of the key outreach tools used in this plan.

A photo shared on social media of a fisherman from an Iranian vessel operating of the coast of Somalia, attempting an extremely dangerous rescue of a female humpback whale as a calf swims nearby.

Several ASWN members have been involved in the discovery and description of a new blue whale song, that defines a unique population of blue whales in the Arabian Sea and Western Indian Ocean.  The official press release is copied here below, and a link to the newly published paper in Endangered Species Research can be found here .

Blue whale off the coast of Oman. Copyright Robert Baldwin/Environment Society of Oman.Blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived on our planet, and they are found around the globe in all oceans. All blue whales sing very low-pitched and recognizable songs, and conveniently for researchers, every population has its own unique song. In a recently published paper in the journal Endangered Species Research, the researchers describe a new blue whale song that is heard from the Arabian Sea coast of Oman across to the Chagos Archipelago in the central Indian Ocean and as far south as Madagascar in the southwest Indian Ocean.

Dr. Salvatore Cerchio, Director of the African Aquatic Conservation Fund’s Cetacean Program and Visiting Scientist at the New England Aquarium, led the analysis of recordings of the whale from three locations in the western Indian Ocean. Dr. Cerchio first recorded the novel song in 2017, during research focused on Omura’s whales in the Mozambique Channel off Madagascar, and he recognized it as a blue whale song that had never been described. Cerchio was also working with a team of scientists collecting acoustic recordings off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea. This is part of a research effort focused on the highly endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale, an ongoing collaboration between the Environment Society of Oman, Five Oceans Environmental Services LLC, Oman’s Environment Authority and Oman’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources.

While analyzing the Oman acoustic data, the team recognized the same unusual song. This novel blue whale song was recorded even more prevalently off Oman than Madagascar, and it became clear to the researchers that they had found what was likely a previously unrecognized population of blue whales in the western Indian Ocean.

“It was quite remarkable,” said Cerchio, “to find a whale song in your data that was completely unique, never before reported, and recognize it as a blue whale.” Blue whale song has been extensively studied globally, and several blue whale populations have been identified based on their distinct songs throughout the Indian Ocean.

“With all that work on blue whale songs, to think there was a population out there that no one knew about until 2017, well, it kind of blows your mind,” Cerchio said.

In 2018, the team reported their findings to the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which was in the process of evaluating the status of blue whale populations in the Indian Ocean. The finding created quite a bit of excitement at the meeting, and raised many new questions about blue whale population movements and structure in the Indian Ocean.  Emmanuelle Leroy and Tracey Rogers of the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia, were also conducting acoustic research on blue whales in the Indian Ocean. Upon reading the IWC report on the new song, Leroy recognized that they also had recorded the same song off the Chagos Archipelago in the central Indian Ocean.

“Shortly after we made the first report at IWC,” said Cerchio, “I received an email from Emmanuelle saying, ‘Hey Sal, I think we have that Oman song off the Chagos!’”

The collaborative team grew, and analysis of data from all three sites suggested that the population may spend most of its time in the northwestern Indian Ocean, in the Arabian Sea and to the west of the Chagos. It has long been recognized that a unique population of blue whales resides in the Northern Indian Ocean, but it was assumed that whales in the Arabian Sea belonged to the same population that has been studied off Sri Lanka and ranges into the southcentral Indian Ocean. However, the songs tell a different story.

“Before our recording effort off Oman, there were no acoustic data from the Arabian Sea, and so the identity of that population of blue whales was initially just a guess,” said Andrew Willson from Five Oceans Environmental Services LLC, who led the deployment of the recording units. “Our work shows that there is a lot more to learn about these animals, and this is an urgent requirement in light of the wide range of threats to large whales related to expanding maritime industries in the region.”

Blue whales were hunted to near extinction around the globe during the 20^th century, and populations have only started to recover very slowly over the past several decades following the global moratorium on commercial whaling. The Arabian Sea was targeted by illegal Soviet whaling in the 1960’s, an activity that nearly eradicated what were already likely to be small populations of humpback whales, blue whales, sperm whales, and Bryde’s whales.

Some researchers consider both the northern Indian Ocean blue whales and Arabian Sea humpback whales to comprise unique subspecies, not simply populations, making them particularly special and important to biodiversity.

“These populations appear to be unique among baleen whales, in the case of the Arabian Sea humpback whales because of their year-round residency in the region without the same long-range migration of other populations,” Willson points out.

“For 20 years we have focused work on the highly endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale, for which we believe only about 100 animals remain off the coast of Oman,” says Suaad Al Harthi, Executive Director of the Environment Society of Oman. “Now, we are just beginning to learn more about another equally special, and likely equally endangered, population of blue whale.”

Additional coauthors of the paper include Robert Baldwin of Five Oceans Environmental Services LLC, Danielle Cholewiak of NOAA Fisheries, Tim Collins of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Gianna Minton of Megaptera Marine Conservation, Charles Muirhead of Duke University, Tahina Rasoloarijao of the Institut Halieutique et des Sciences Marines, Madagascar, and Maïa Sarrouf Willson of the Environment Society of Oman.

The work was supported by the International Whaling Commission, Renaissance Services S.A.O.G., Shell Development Oman LLC (SDO), and NOAA Fisheries.

The IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task force has recently updated and upgraded several features on the IMMA e-Atlas.  The e-Atlas includes a number of sites in the Arabian Sea, but now also includes a host of new Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), candidate IMMAS (cIMMAs), and Areas of Interest (AOIs) in the Extended Southern Ocean and the waters around Australia and New Zealand.  Further more, the map-based interface is now complemented by a user-friendly menu that facilitates filtering by IMMA category or region, as well as targeted searches for specific Areas.  https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/imma-eatlas/

A searchable database also allows more targeted searching by country (EEZ) or species: https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/immas/immas-searchable-database/.

The MMPATF site also features a new report that is the result of collaboration between WWF, the IUCN MMPATF, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and Oceanmind.  The report features an analysis of vessel traffic in 114 IMMAs around the world, including IMMAs identified primarily on the basis of their importance for Arabian Sea humpback whales and other whale species. For every IMMA, a table has been generated with statistics of unique vessels transiting the IMMA each month, as well as heat maps and graphs depicting categories of vessel traffic by month. The report also features a ranking of the sites where the overlap between vessel traffic and whale populations indicates possible risk of ship strikes, and two case studies examining the patterns of vessel traffic in relation to cetaceans in greater detail.   The report highlights two IMMAs in the Arabian Sea as potential hotspots for interactions between ships and whales.

The report can be accessed and downloaded in different formats on this page of the IUCN MMPATF website:  https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/mmpatf/activities/geospatial-analysis-of-threats/

Arabian Sea whales once again featured prominently in discussions of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee, which was held between May 11th and 24th, 2020.  The meeting was originally scheduled to take place in Cambridge, UK, but for obvious reasons had to shift to a virtual format instead.  In order to accommodate different time zones around the globe, live discussions were limited to two-hour time slots each day, during which parallel Zoom sessions were conducted for different subcommittees.  Many members of the ASWN were able to participate in this virtual format, and some of the key documents and outcomes are highlighted below:

• As most of you are aware, network members collaborated to produce the annual ASWN Progress report (SC_68b_CMP_11_Rev1). This report summarised ASWN activities over the past year, highlighting progress of individual projects within the network (Oman, the UAE, Iran, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka), and the extension of the CMS Concerted Action for Arabian Sea humpback whales.  This was complemented by a report submitted by the IWC’s Standing Working Group on Conservation Management Plans (CMP), which included an update on progress toward a joint IWC-CMS CMP for Arabian Sea humpback whales (SC_68B_CMP_17).
• WWF Pakistan prepared an annual update of the whale sightings reported by the crew-based observers working on the tuna gillnet fleets operating out of Karachi.  This report is available as SC_68B_CMP_08 .

Map showing all Arabian Sea humpback whale sightings reported by the WWF Pakistan Crew-based observer programme between 2015 and 2019.

• The team from Oman submitted a report on the visual health assessment of ASHW off the coast of Oman, a project that was funded through the IWC SC in 2018.  This report (SC_68B_CMP_16_rev1) highlighted a relatively high prevalence of tattoo-like skin disease in the population, as well as evidence of ship strikes and entanglement scarring.
• The Oman team also shared the results of a preliminary study using unoccupied aerial systems (drones) to assess the body condition of ASHW in Oman.  This work was conducted with Fredrick Christiansen of Aarhus university and was presented as SC_68B_CMP_23_rev1.
• Sal Cerchio and colleagues shared a paper that has been submitted to a peer reviewed journal, providing evidence for a new blue whale song in the Indian Ocean termed the ‘Oman song’.  It was submitted to the meeting as SC_68B_INFO_28.
• The Flukebook team submitted a paper that includes updates on features being added through collaboration with the Indocet and ASWN teams.  This also includes information about multiple new species for which ‘computer vision’ matching algorithms are now available (SC_68B_PH_06). The Flukebook team also collaborated with Happy-whale to provide a side-by-side comparison of the two photo-ID platforms, which is very helpful (SC_68B_PH_01).
• A group of researchers working on Sousa plumbea (Indian Ocean humpback dolphins) have collaborated to provide a training dataset of photos that the Flukebook team will now use to develop computer-vision matching algorithms for this species (SC_68B_SM_05).

Aerial photograph (video still frame) of an adult ASHW, showing the location of the body length (purple line) and body width (yellow lines) measurement sites. The picture was extracted from the custom-programmed Graphical User Interface developed by Dawson et al. (2017). Note that this individual also has extensive lesions associated with tattoo-like skin disease.

Although time for discussion was limited, the papers presented raised some interesting questions and a number draft recommendations.  These are taken from the draft report, which is not yet final, and thus wording could be changed:

The Committee reiterates that Arabian Sea humpback whales are a priority candidate for a CMP (IWC, 2019a, p.31) and recommends that the IWC Secretariat and SWG-CMP continue efforts with Oman and India towards development of a CMP in partnership with CMS, which already hosts a Concerted Action for the population. It commends the efforts of scientists within the region and especially the Arabian Sea Whale Network to develop a strong scientific basis to guide the development of a CMP and recommends continuation of research presented at this meeting and the network’s regional collaboration.

Furthermore, the Committee:

(1) welcomes the measures put in place by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, India and the coastal State Governments in India along with local research teams, to promote research, awareness-raising, capacity building and bycatch reduction, and offers technical and scientific support for these efforts where appropriate;
(2) recommends that the work of the crew-based observer programme in Pakistan (SC/68B/CMP/08) continue, if possible mapping fishing effort as well as sightings, and that it be replicated throughout the region where possible, especially in areas where systematic cetacean surveys are not feasible;
(3) encourages continued collaboration between the Pakistan observer programme and the IWC Bycatch Mitigation Initiative (BMI), and also encourages broader collaboration between relevant national governments, researchers and the BMI including through pilot projects on bycatch management, knowledge exchange or requests for capacity building initiatives.
(4) recommends that the use of passive acoustic monitoring to document whale presence and to analyse song be continued in Oman and on the west coast of India and commences off the Sindh and Balochistan coasts of Pakistan, making every effort to ensure simultaneous recordings in all three counties, so that song comparisons can be made across the Arabian Sea;
(5) recommends the continued use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and other photographic methods (systematic assessment of images for evidence of disease, epizoites and anthropogenic scarring) to assess body condition and health of ASHW off the coast of Oman with the objective of adopting these metrics as proxy indicators of some of the key ecological attributes related to on-going population trend assessment and conservation planning for ASHWs;
(6) recommends that fishing effort and location of gear that may cause entanglements of ASHW are more accurately mapped throughout ASHW range, especially in the most dense and critical habitat, to assess co-occurrence and risk, in order to better inform mitigation measures;
(7) recommends that a comparative study be conducted between the Oman ASHW catalogue and other Southern Hemisphere Indian Ocean catalogues to assess prevalence and coverage of barnacle scarring and colonization, to determine whether this can be used as a proxy measure for distinguishing ASHW from SH whales.

Three funding proposals were submitted to continue acoustic monitoring for humpback and blue whales off the coasts of Oman and India, and to map human activity as well as carry out more UAS work to assess ASWH body condition off the coast of Oman. These proposals were supported by the Scientific Committee and will be sent to the Commission for endorsement by ‘post’ in the coming weeks.

Due to COVID 19, there will no Commission meeting in the autumn as originally planned. Urgent decisions will be dealt with by ‘postal votes’, and the meeting will take place in September/October 2021 instead. As such, the next IWC Scientific Committee meeting in spring 2021 will be labelled IWC/SC 68C.  We hope that meeting will be able to be held in person in Bled, Slovenia, as planned, and that it will provide an opportunity to assess progress within the network, and make more valuable connections with researchers around the world.