KARACHI: The DNA test to ascertain why two whales were recently found dead in the waters of Sindh and Balochistan has hit a snag. However, the foreign expert, Dr Mauvis A Gore, who is looking into the matter, published a paper last year, documenting the first stranding of a sperm whale. Possible (but unlikely) seismic or military activity and ship-wrecking could have contributed to the sperm whale death in 2007 or it could have even hit a ship.

“We need a lot of samples and the Convention on International Trade of Endangering Species (CITES) does not allow us the test these whales,” said Dr Mauvis A. Gore, a research scientist and team leader of the cetacean conservation project of Pakistan. She said that they would wait to collect a minimum of 10 samples before they could send them for testing to any place outside Pakistan, which does not have the facilities.

The team found a dead Bryde’s whale at Sonari village in Sindh on April 2 and a Baleen whale in Dam village near Sonmiani, Balochistan on April 5. According to Gore, the whales could have possibly died after hitting a ship or after being caught in a fishing net and then released. She explained that as the waters by Sindh were less deep than the waters of Balochistan, it was rare to see a big cetacean here.

Gore had luckily come to Pakistan for a routine survey of the coastal belts. The survey would be on the types and number of cetaceans and the threats to them.

During the recent survey, the team found increasing marine pollution in the Arabian Sea. Korangi, Phitti and the surrounding areas of Bin Qasim Port had higher pollution than other areas.

Cetaceans are whales, dolphins and porpoises, which are key marine mammals in Pakistan. The Marine biodiversity and WWF teams have found over 20 species within the Pakistani EEZ (North Indian Ocean sanctuary). The cetacean conservation team, in its previous surveys of February 2007, found 2,196 cetaceans in Pakistan, of which 253 were from the Sindh coastal belt and 1,943 belonged to the coastal belt of Balochistan.

Gore said that the increasing chemicals, plastic bags and industrial waste are affecting the cetacean population in Pakistan. “The fishing nets, unaware fishing communities, oil and gas emissions into the sea, are also some factors why their number are decreasing,” she explained. They are organizing different programmes for the awareness of fishermen and have initiated a syllabus for gradates and undergraduates.

The London University Marine Biological Station (UMBS) Millport in Scotland, WWF – Pakistan, Centre of Excellence in Marine Biology (CEMB) and University of Karachi are conducting the survey together.

Daily Times Monitor adds: Gore and the teams documented the first stranded Sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, on the Pakistani coast in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom in 2007. Sperm whales occur frequently in stranding records worldwide.

The skeleton of the sperm whale was found on Soneri Beach on 8 December 2005, near Manjar Goth during a routine survey for beach-cast cetaceans.

The Manjar villagers reported that the whale stranded freshly dead during the night on the high tide, approximately two to three months prior to the survey date. The bones recovered are archived at the Centre of Excellence in Marine Biology, University of Karachi. Much of the skeleton was found; the most noticeable pieces missing included the teeth and the lower right jaw. Out of the 47 to 51 vertebrae that sperm whales are known to have, they recovered 20 vertebrae, with the majority being retained by the villagers. There was very little soft tissue left, but samples of the remaining dried skin were taken for future genetic and toxic chemicals analysis.

Sperm whales form a key part of the mesopelagic ecosystem due to their size, global distribution and relative number. They are one of the more deep-diving species and generally feed at depths ranging between 200 and 2000 m, principally feeding on squid in the hundreds to thousands of kilograms daily. They generally move at about 4 km per hour within large ranges spanning about 1000 km in females.

Using the length of the skull (2.18 m), they estimated the whale to be approximately 9.5 m in length. Given the estimated body length, it was likely that the whale was either a relatively young male that had not yet reached sexual maturity, or a young female that was likely to be sexually mature.

The remains of the sperm whale were found on the west coast of the Sindh province, close to the mouth of the Hub River, which divides the Sindh and Balochistan provinces. The coastal regions of Sindh are relatively shallow, with the 100 m contour occurring more than 40 km from the stranding site. This seems an unlikely habitat for sperm whales as they are an offshore species and tend to inhabit deep oceanic waters.

In comparison, the waters off neighbouring Balochistan reach depths of over 3000 m relatively close to the shore, which is a sufficiently deep habitat for sperm whales. Aside from squid, sperm whales are also known to feed on octopus, demersal rays, sharks and bony fish, which might be found in the relatively shallow waters near the Hub River and could account for the whale’s presence there.

Interestingly, there have also been several individual strandings of smaller odontocete species reported around Manjar Goth over a period of years. Without pathology on the whale, the cause of death remains undecided and it is not known whether seismic surveys or military activity took place nearby prior to the stranding, or whether a ship strike was the cause. This is the first, and to date the only, report and speculation on underlying reasons that might involve large-scale climate events would be unreasonable. However, there is a ship-wrecking area within kilometres of the stranding site, where toxic chemicals and heavy metals are byproducts of the activity and may have had some effect on the cetaceans that died in the area.


Daily Times