Wild Harbour

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DeRuiter SL, Bahr A, Blanchet MA, Hansen SF, Kristensen JH, Madsen PT, et al. Acoustic behaviour of echolocating porpoises during prey capture. J Exp Biol. 2009;212: 3100–3107. pmid:19749102 Read AJ, Waples DM, Urian KW, Swanner D. Fine-scale behaviour of bottlenose dolphins around gillnets. Proc Biol Sci. 2003;270 Suppl 1:S90–2. pmid:12952646 Dawson SM, Northridge S, Waples D, Read AJ. To ping or not to ping; the use of active acoustic devices in mitigating interactions between small cetaceans and gillnet fisheries. Endanger Species Res. 2013;19: 201–221. Kastelein, R. A., Hoek, L., de Jong, C. A. F. & Wensveen, P. J. The effect of signal duration on the underwater detection thresholds of a harbor porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) for single frequency-modulated tonal signals between 0.25 and 160 Khz. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128(5), 3211–3222 (2010).

Melcón, M. L., Failla, M. & Iñíguez, M. A. Echolocation behavior of franciscana dolphins (Pontoporia blainvillei) in the wild. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131, 448–453 (2012). Though we depart, leaving our cave to the fox or the wild cat or the cleanly badger, this place, this land, is ours, and we, tied to it as the wild creatures are, cannot escape from it by going. But we belong to it, we have given ourselves up to it; no other abode can ever break this strange allegiance. (p. 180) Tougaard, J. & Beedholm, K. Practical implementation of auditory time and frequency weighting in marine bioacoustics. Appl. Acoust. 145, 137–143 (2019). Cox, T. M., Read, A. J., Solow, A. & Tregenza, N. Will harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) habituate to pingers?. J. Cetacean Res. Manage. 3(1), 81–86 (2001).

Verfuß UK, Miller LA, Schnitzler HU. Spatial orientation in echolocating harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena). J Exp Biol. 2005;208: 3385–3394. pmid:16109898 Wisniewska, D. M. et al. Fast dynamic control over acoustic field of view by echolocating porpoises. Elife (2015).

Johnston, D. W. The effect of acoustic harassment devices on harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. Biol. Conserv. 108, 113–118 (2002). Macpherson’s only science fiction novel is a bleak and truly prescient novel of future war first published in 1936, just 3 years before the outbreak of conflict in Europe. A carefully drawn tale of survival in the wilderness and the value of our connection with others, Wild Harbour is both beautiful and heart-rending. Although harbour porpoises preyed on fish around the bottom-gillnet, this does not indicate that the porpoises’ foraging activity around the net was depredation. Ammodytes sp. was not caught in the bottom-gillnet because their body height (<3 cm) is much smaller than the mesh size (7.5 cm). Therefore, it can be concluded that while harbour porpoises foraged around the net, their proximity to the net was not related to depredation. Since Ammodytes sp. is abundant and the targeted species of the bottom-gillnet including righteye flounders and sculpins also feed on Ammodytes sp. there, this location is a good fishing ground. It seems that their feeding place and the fishery ground are simply overlapping because of the distribution of Ammodytes sp. To the best of our knowledge, no study that directly observed foraging activity of harbour porpoise around gillnet is reported. A study [ 35] just suggested the possibility that harbour porpoises had been feeding just before becoming entangled because the stomach contents of individuals in the fishing net included intact herring. Alternately, another study [ 36] suggested that harbour porpoises will not approach gillnets when foraging. Thus far, no study has presented clear evidence that harbour porpoises prey around gillnets.Discussing the demise of Freight Books, Sinclair added: "We are sad to see Freight being wound up, and had hoped that a buyer would emerge over the past few months. That has not happened. It is sad to see a company disappear from the publishing landscape in Scotland and to see the effect it has had on all concerned. We put our efforts into helping Freight find a buyer and to help them with publishing issues as they emerged so it is a blow that they have not managed to do so, and that most of the authors will be without a home for their titles, in the short term at least.” Ydesen, K. S. et al. What a jerk: Prey engulfment revealed by high-rate, super-cranial accelerometry on a harbour seal ( Phoca vitulina). J. Exp. Biol. 217, 2814–2814 (2014). Graham Isla, M. et al. Harbour porpoise responses to pile-driving diminish over time. R. Soc. Open Sci. 6, 190335 (2019).

Fleiss, J. L. Measuring nominal scale agreement among many raters. Psychol. Bull. 76, 378–382 (1971). Davoren GK. Effects of gill-net fishing on marine birds in a biological hotspot in the Northwest Atlantic. Conserv Biol. 2007;21: 1032–1045. pmid:17650253 Verfuß, U. K. et al. Geographical and seasonal variation of harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) presence in the German Baltic Sea revealed by passive acoustic monitoring. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. UK 87(1), 165–176 (2007).

Acknowledgments

While studies show a decreased presence of porpoises in relation to active AHDs 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, detailed information on the behavioural and physiological responses of individual cetaceans to AHDs is non-existent to our knowledge. Porpoises and other prey species may have evolved innate anti-predator responses to sounds akin to those of their predator species. Given the similarity to killer whale vocalisations (frequency range from below 1 kHz to 20 kHz 13, 14), tonal sounds from sonars or AHDs may thus trigger innate defence responses in prey species such as harbour porpoises. AHDs may therefore provoke costly anti-predator responses 15, 16, such as freezing in silence 17 or flight 18. Furthermore, the high SL and fast rise times of AHD pulses may evoke acoustic startle responses 19 as recently documented in captive odontocetes including harbour porpoises 20, 21, 22. In the startle response, muscles of the whole body flinch instantly as a pre-cognitive protective measure from potentially harmful sudden stimuli 3, 23, and may be accompanied by heart rate fluctuations 24. Bjørge A, Skern-Mauritzen M, Rossman MC. Estimated bycatch of harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) in two coastal gillnet fisheries in Norway, 2006–2008. Mitigation and implications for conservation. Biol Conserv. 2013;161: 164–173.

The harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) is one species that is incidentally caught by gillnets. Because their habitat is close to coastlines, they are subject to incidental capture in gillnets throughout their habitat, including in fishery waters off Canada, United States, Japan, Scotland, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Greenland [ 12]. Populations of harbour porpoise are threatened in some areas [ 6, 13– 15]. To reduce the bycatch of this species, mitigation measures have been attempted both in Europe and North America (e.g. [ 16– 18]), such as time–area regulations of a fishery, technological modifications of the fishing gear, and use of acoustic deterrent devices called pingers. Despite these efforts, harbour porpoise bycatch still occurs [ 19]; for example, even though pingers are temporarily effective in reducing bycatch, the widespread use of them with gillnets would likely be insufficient to eliminate porpoise bycatch [ 20], as their effectiveness remains a subject of dispute [ 21– 24]. But at the heart of the business was fair prices for fishermen: Wild Harbour pays its fishermen every week rather than by the month. And, of course, fishermen are a core part of their product. Jensen, F. H., Beedholm, K., Wahlberg, M., Bejder, L. & Madsen, P. T. Estimated communication range and energetic cost of bottlenose dolphin whistles in a tropical habitat. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131, Freeberg, T. M., Dunbar, R. I. M. & Ord, T. J. Social complexity as a proximate and ultimate factor in communicative complexity. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 367, 1785–801 (2012). Siebert, U., Jepson, P. D. & Wohlsein, P. First indication of gas embolism in a harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) from German waters. Eur. J. Wildl. Res. 59, 441–444 (2013).Elmegaard, S. L., Johnson, M., Madsen, P. T. & McDonald, B. I. Cognitive control of heart rate in diving harbor porpoises. Curr. Biol. 26, R1175–R1176 (2016). Andersen, S. H. & Amundin, M. Possible predator-related adaption of sound production and hearing in the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). Aquat. Mamm. 4, 56–57 (1976). Increasing anthropogenic noise in the oceans is of growing concern due to the adverse effects noise may inflict on marine life 1. Most anthropogenic noise is produced incidentally by activities at sea, but in some cases noise is produced purposefully to deter marine mammals from specific locations or areas. The most common example is the noise produced by Acoustic Harassment Devices (AHD, source level > 185 dB re 1 µPa @ 1 m root mean squared, rms 2) and Acoustic Deterrent Devices (SL < 185 dB re 1 µPa rms 2, 3), also known as ‘seal scarers’, which have been developed to deter pinnipeds from fisheries and aquaculture to prevent depredation and damage to fishing gear 4. While the efficacy of the largely unregulated AHDs in terms of scaring seals away from lucrative sources of concentrated food is debated 3, mounting evidence suggest that AHD sounds may have substantial negative collateral effects on sympatric species such as harbour porpoises 5, 6, 7, 8. Gaskin D, Yamamoto S, Kawamura A. Harbor porpoise, Phocoena phocoena (L.), in the coastal waters of northern Japan. Fish Bull. 1993;91: 440–454. Matsui N, Sasaki M, Kobayashi M, Shindo J, Matsuishi TF. Growth and reproduction in the western Pacific subspecies of the harbour porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena) inhabiting Hokkaido, Japan. Aquat Mamm. 2021;47: in press.