By Mark J. Palmer
Our friends in Russia returned from another successful trip to Russia’s Tyuleniy (Seal) Island, disentangling 64 Northern fur seals and training four Russian veterinarians in disentanglement techniques they learned from exchanges in America.
The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) and Baikal Watch Project of Earth Island Institute have been cooperating with our Russian conservation friends for several years.
We’ve hosted them in the United States, where they met with marine biologists and disentanglement experts, learning the various techniques used to tranquilize and immobilize fur seals, to remove deadly necklaces of plastic nets and shipping straps from their necks and other extremities, and to treat the ugly wounds left by the plastic material.
In 2020, in their first visit to Seal Island, the conservationists were able to disentangle 28 smaller fur seals, but they did not have the drugs or the legal authority to administer tranquilizers & immobilizers to be able to handle larger, mostly male, fur seals.
So this year, four Russian veterinarians joined the group and provided supervision on administration of the drugs using dart guns. They, in turn, learned disentanglement procedures, something not taught in veterinary schools. The veterinarians came from several Russian institutions, including the Pacific Institute of Geography and the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as from St. Petersburg State University of Veterinary Medicine, and the Krokodil Veterinary Center of Kamchatka.
Our Russian allies also thanked the local Poseidon Fishing Company for their support of the expedition.
A Northern fur seal bears a necklace of netting around its neck, unable to shake it off. Such plastic debris can cling to the seal for years, cutting into the skin as the seal grows. This seal has been darted (bright red dart tail) and will soon be calm enough to be handled safely.
The conservationists are keen to conduct disentanglement for the much larger Steller sea lions in the future, which also suffer from entanglement issues with plastic nets and other debris. But the drug used in the US to tranquilize the larger seals is not currently available in Russia. Our Russian friends are slowly working their way through the difficult bureaucratic process of obtaining government permission to obtain the drug.
On this trip, one of the main challenges in immobilizing adult seals is that they must ensure that the seals cannot return to the water once the anesthetics are injected by dart. It is simply too risky for them to drown once the drug takes affect. So after careful evaluation this time around, it was determined that it would be safer to wait until each entangled seal came out further into the sandy dunes. Then it would be close to impossible for them to get back to the ocean, through the thicket of animals that were teeming on the island during the height of the breeding season.
Watch out for those teeth! A Northern fur seal is netted to remove plastic debris from its body.
The Russians wrote us: “In conclusion, we all know that our planet Earth serves as one common home for everyone, animals, plants and people alike. Here in Russia we have survived serfdom and concentration camps. More recently we were able to stop industrial whaling. We also have significantly reduced the senseless slaughtering of seals. Then, only last year we managed to close the infamous "Whale Jail” here in the Russian east – a small holding pen that once housed hundreds of marine mammals who were destined for sale to aquariums all over the world.”
“We now face new and growing challenges,” the conservationists continued,” such as the ravages coming from global climate change and the proliferation of plastic pollution in our oceans. Every one of our team members on Seal Island who helped save the lives of these animals still believes that the ‘point of no return’ has not yet passed. Humanity can still prevent a global catastrophe, mainly by changing our attitude towards nature and towards our animal friends.”
The plastic is carefully clipped off and removed. The fur seal's wounds will be cleaned and medicated before release.
“Ironically, on the same island where once there were seal-slayers in abundance,” our Russian friends stated, “we now have people who go out of their way to rescue the very same species. Humanity does indeed change! And we, the organizers of these rescue expeditions, are convinced that all these changes are taking place to the benefit of all.”
IMMP and Baikal Watch salute our friends in Russia for all their efforts on behalf of marine mammals and the Earth. These kinds of exchanges are priceless examples of how cooperation can help address environmental issues around the globe.
A beluga whale in the notorious Russian Whale Jail.
Breaking Russian News: Legislation to end the live captures of cetaceans in Russian waters has, at last, been introduced into the Russian parliament (the Duma), thanks to widespread opposition to the Whale Jail. It is unclear when or if it might be taken up and passed. This is a major goal of IMMP, Baikal Watch, and our Russian colleagues: to end the captures of Russian orcas and beluga whales, as well as dolphins, for sale to aquariums in China and other venues.
