Conservation Letters 4 (2011) 228\u2013233 <\/p>\n
cetacean carcasses and oil spills 1<\/a><\/p>\n Author affiliations: Keywords Correspondence Received 23 September 2010 Abstract Special thanks to Richard Charter <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conservation Letters 4 (2011) 228\u2013233 cetacean carcasses and oil spills 1 Author affiliations: 1Marine Mammal Research Unit, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada 2Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada 3Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, Cetacean Research Unit, Murdoch University, Western Australia 4Cascadia Research Collective, Olympia, WA, USA 5New England Aquarium, Boston, MA, USA … Continue reading Conservation Letters: Underestimating the damage: interpreting cetacean carcass recoveries in the context of the Deepwater Horizon\/BP incident Rob Williams1, Shane Gero2, Lars Bejder3, John Calambokidis4, Scott D. Kraus5, David Lusseau6, Andrew J. Read7, & Jooke Robbins8<\/span>
\n1Marine Mammal Research Unit, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
\n2Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
\n3Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, Cetacean Research Unit, Murdoch University, Western Australia
\n4Cascadia Research Collective, Olympia, WA, USA
\n5New England Aquarium, Boston, MA, USA
\n6School of Biology, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
\n7Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC, USA
\n8Humpback Whale Studies Program, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, Provincetown, MA, USA<\/p>\n
\nAnthropogenic impacts; dolphin; Deepwater
\nHorizon; Gulf of Mexico; mortality; oil;
\nstrandings.<\/p>\n
\nRob Williams, Current address: Sea Mammal
\nResearch Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute,
\nSt Andrews Fife KY16 8LB. Tel: +44 (0)1334
\n462630; Fax: +44 (0)1334 463443.
\nE-mail: rmcw@st-andrews.ac.uk<\/p>\n
\nAccepted 15 February 2011
\nEditor Leah Gerber
\ndoi: 10.1111\/j.1755-263X.2011.00168.x<\/p>\n
\nEvaluating impacts of human activities on marine ecosystems is difficult when effects occur out of plain sight. Oil spill severity is often measured by the number of marine birds and mammals killed, but only a small fraction of carcasses
\nare recovered. The Deepwater Horizon\/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest in the U.S. history, but some reports implied modest environmental impacts, in part because of a relatively low number (101) of observed marine mammal mortalities. We estimate historical carcass-detection rates for 14 cetacean species in the northern Gulf of Mexico that have estimates of abundance,
\nsurvival rates, and stranding records. This preliminary analysis suggests that carcasses are recovered, on an average, from only 2% (range: 0\u20136.2%) of cetacean deaths. Thus, the true death toll could be 50 times the number of carcasses recovered, given no additional information. We discuss caveats to this estimate, but present it as a counterpoint to illustrate the magnitude of
\nmisrepresentation implicit in presenting observed carcass counts without similar qualification. We urge methodological development to develop appropriate multipliers. Analytical methods are required to account explicitly for low probability of carcass recovery from cryptic mortality events (e.g., oil spills, ship strikes, bycatch in unmonitored fisheries and acoustic trauma).<\/p>\n