It’s a weird, lopsided fight if ever there was one: seagulls divebombing to attack and feed on the fat of 45 tonne whales and their babies. And the birds are winning.
The battle, new in recent years, is playing out in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina’s Patagonia region, and is not known to be happening in waters elsewhere in the world that are home to the mighty mammals.
The effect of all the relentless nibbling is a pernicious disruption of an eco-system. One theory as to why it is happening is there is an overpopulation of seagulls — in this case, the kelp gull. Whales use these Argentine waters to mate, give birth and nurse their young, and what with all the airborne harassment, whales are taking new evasive measures as they swim, separating mothers from their calves and denying them nourishment.
Whales do not have lips for sucking, so mothers expel a thick milk in the water for their calves to ingest. The babies need more than 100 liters of it per day.
“With each attack this process is interrupted, and it is a crucial moment for the growth of the whales,” said Mariano Sironi, director of studies at Argentina’s Institute for Whale Conservation.
Last year, Sironi tallied 116 whales found dead in these waters, and all but three of them were calves. That mortality rate was up 100 percent from 2011.
Every year, for six months starting in June, hundreds of whales — their formal name is the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) — come to waters off the Valdes Peninsula to reproduce. The area has been declared a UN World Heritage site, and every year more than 100,000 tourists come to watch the spectacle.
It is estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 whales, who like the cold waters of the South Atlantic, come for the annual mating fest. The species also live in the Antarctic, South Pacific and southern Indian Ocean. Adults measure 13m to 16m, while the calves are 3m to 5m at birth.
“The lack of nursing causes serious nutrition problems for the calves. Post-mortem studies have shown evidence of malnutrition, and this is a working hypothesis that needs to be confirmed with several studies,” Sironi said.
Indeed, in recent years the gulls have been wreaking havoc. They used to feed on refuse tossed overboard by fishing boats. Now, they have added whales to their menu in frenzied waves of pecking.
“The seagulls attack the skin first, and then the fat of the whales. They peck several times in each attack. Then the whale submerges, and when it comes back to the surface, the gull is there waiting,” said Jose Anibal Cepeda, a guide who takes tourists out on the ocean to see the whales.
The calves are a riper target because they have less lung capacity than adults and thus have to come up for air more often, he added.
Seagulls may be small, but their beaks leave a grisly toll: gashes up to 10cm deep and scabs up to 1.5m long.
Biologist Ana Fazio of the Patagonia National Center says whales have even changed the way they swim so as to dodge the birds.
“They arch as they swim to avoid exposing their backs. You can only see their head and their tail. They swim deeper. They are constantly fleeing. They spend an enormous amount of energy reacting to the seagull attacks,” Fazio said.
Last year the center’s director, Marcelo Bertoletti, hired professional hunters to cull gulls. They downed 140 of them.
About 10km from the fishing port of Puerto Madryn, Bertoletti looks on as a monstrous flock of up to 8,000 gulls feed madly on rotting fish remains at a landfill. Those remains are supposed to be buried, but companies rarely do that, so the gulls gorge themselves on fish heads, tails and guts that helps their numbers multiply.
“This is like a McDonald’s for seagulls,” Bertoletti said.
Whales of the same species in waters off South Africa or Australia have no seagull problem, so scientists reckon the Argentine phenomenon is caused by seagull overpopulation.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese