The following is a media release about a meeting which was held at SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme; www.sprep.org).

In response to international concern by scientists and conservationists about recent live-captures and exports of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins from the Solomon Islands, a workshop to identify methods for assessing the potential impacts of captures of dolphins was held on 21-23 August 2008 at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP; www.sprep.org ) in Apia, Samoa.

Removals from Solomon Islands waters have included 28 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins exported to Mexico in 2003 and 28 sent to the United Arab Emirates in 2007. The workshop, organized and conducted under the auspices of the IUCN/SSC Cetacean Specialist Group , was attended by 18 scientists and managers with decades of  relevant experience and expertise from eight countries (Fiji, New Caledonia, Canada, United States, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Samoa, United Kingdom).

The workshop concluded that there is an urgent need to assess Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin populations around any island where human-caused removals or deaths are known to be occurring . This species is limited to coastal habitat except in areas with a wide continental shelf. Their near-shore, shallow-water distribution makes these dolphins particularly vulnerable to exploitation and other threats related to human activity. In some regions where they have been studied, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin populations are naturally small (often in the low to mid hundreds) compared to open-ocean populations of common bottlenose dolphins, a closely related species that often occurs in adjacent offshore waters.

It is widely recognized (e.g. by the International Whaling Commission) that annual removals of more than 1% or 2% of a dolphin population are unsustainable, meaning that over a number of years the population would decline to low levels and be at increased risk of extinction. According to those standards, the local population would have to consist of at least 5,000 dolphins to sustain removals of 100 dolphins per year for export, which is the current limit in the Solomon Islands.

Based on the present state of knowledge of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins throughout their range, as well as the preliminary information on this species in the Solomon Islands reviewed at the workshop, abundance in the area of recent live-captures may be well below 5,000. This signals an urgent need to expand and intensify research efforts to assess the population prior to further removals. Workshop participants indicated a desire to work with the Government of the Solomon Islands to assure that any future removals from the local dolphin population are sustainable.

Guidelines were drafted for research and monitoring of small coastal populations of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, and specifically for those in the Solomon Islands. These and the other findings of the workshop will appear in the final report, which will be made public once finalised by the participants. Financial and administrative support for the workshop was provided by WWF (International), The Ocean Conservancy, Animal Welfare Institute, Humane Society of the United States, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and SPREP.



Supplemental Information:

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) seeks pragmatic solutions to pressing environmental and developmental challenges. It supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practice.
The Species Survival Commission (SSC), a volunteer commission of IUCN, is a source of information about biodiversity and its conservation. S SC members provide technical and scienti fic advice on conservation projects throughout the world and serve as resources to governments, international conventions, and conserva tion organizations.

Since the 1970s, the Cetacean Specialist G roup, a volunteer network of experts established by the IUCN Species Survival Commission, has sought to identify pro blems in the conservation of the world’s dolphins, whales and porpoises, and to develop approaches towards solving them. Some progress has been made but grave threats to the continued existence of many species still exist. China’s Yangtze River dolphin (baiji) is probably extinct, while Mexico’s vaquita, a small porpoise in the Gulf of California, and the North Atlantic right whale are near extinction. Local populations of other species are seriously threatened. The Cetacean Specialist Group does not take a position on whether dolphins and whales should or should not be in captivity; its principal concern is for the conservation of species and populations.


Point of Contact: Randall Reeves, +1 450-458-6685; rrreeves@okapis.ca

SSC: Species Survival Commission
IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature