The importance of the oceans, their wildlife and ecosystems

Whenever I see a wildlife spectacle, I’m always asking myself this question … or I often get asked the same: what is this animal doing here? This isn’t the hardest question to answer, so why don’t our greatest global conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More organisations ask this? And how is leading to terrible outcomes for nature and humanity? In this blog, I’m taking a look at Long-tailed Duck, a beautiful bird that congregates in northwest European coasts in winter. Let’s answer the question, why are Long-tailed Ducks important?

The Baltic Sea is one of its strongholds and on the coast of Estonia is the Küdema Bay protected area, off the island of Saaremaa. It’s here that researchers from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) invented a device to reduce the risk of ducks being caught in gill-nets. Their work was published in a sensational media blast last week but while it might seem like a good idea, it’s another missed opportunity to set the record straight about the sheer importance of wildlife for human survival.

More importantly, it may actually contribute to a more rapid decline of the species. Let me explain why.

Why managing wildlife is the wrong approach

Gill nets are terrible fishing devices that anchor to the seabed and indiscriminately catch everything from fish to Harbour Porpoises and Long-tailed Ducks, which dive to the seabed to feed on mollusks and crustaceans.

Naturally, scientists wanted to find a way to protect the birds, so they designed a set of rotating, flashing eyes (like the eyes on the back of a butterfly’s wings) to sit on top of marker buoys, that dissuade ducks from feeding nearby. In fact, on Twitter, RSPB Science claims:

“This googly-eyed scarecrow reduced abundance of long-tailed ducks nearby by up to a quarter”

@RSPBScience on Twitter

The objective of scaring birds away is not conservation and could only benefit wildlife if animals weren’t connected to the ecosystem at all–the device would be fine for domestic chickens and maybe even town pigeons. But the undeniable truth is, Long-tailed Ducks and their habitat cannot be disconnected, so the RSPB’s work belies their real nature, as part of the Baltic’s ecosystem function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More.

FACT #1 Lose the ducks and you lose the marine processes and the fish disappear with it.

FACT #2 Lose the ducks from the places they traditionally need to feed and you cause population decline, which flows onto impact other areas they occur.

I wonder if anyone has taken adequate time to explain to Baltic fishermen, the consequence to their livelihoods, of killing Long-tailed Ducks?

The ducks were there before the fisheries so if ducks don’t deplete shellfish and fish abundance, the only possible explanation for their presence, is that they are part of a mutually dependent system.

What is the point in a device that scares birds away from traditional feeding areas and protects them from being killed in fishing nets, when the fish being caught, are dependent on the birds to supply the fish in the first place?

Here’s where scientists ask … where’s my proof?

To which I answer … isn’t it obvious enough from the sheer historic abundance of these birds, that they have an integral connection to ecosystem processes? Why else would they be there?

The question of wildlife’s significance for ecosystem processes should be widely accepted but it isn’t. The mere fact it needs ‘proving’, is testament to how little most conservationists know about how ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More work.

Why Long-tailed Ducks are critical for ecosystem processes and fisheries

There are many studies linking seabird nutrientA substance that contains the raw materials for life. At a chemical level, these are contained inside compounds that are absorbed into the body and essential energy-containing molecules are extracted, so that energy can be transformed into other chemical processes that use the energy for living. More transfer(of nutrients) the thing that sets animals apart from plants, is that they can move. Some of the biggest migrations on Earth every day, are the movement of insects like caterpillars, from the stem of a plant to a leaf and back, before turning into butterflies and transferring the energy elsewhere. Large-scale migration of grazing animals and migratory songbirds moves More, amplificationAmplification (of nutrients and energy). Animals consume plants and other animals and in doing so, reintroduce important energy-containing nutrients back into the environment, at even higher concentrations and in patches. Amplification of energy is driven by migration and happens at every scale, from insects moving daily in and out of your vegetable patch, to African wildebeest herds and the seasonal More and concentration, to fish biomassThe weight of living organisms. Biomass can be measured in relation to the amount of carbon, the dry weight (with all moisture removed) or living weight. In general it can be used to describe the volume of energy that is contained inside systems, as the size of animals relates to their metabolism and therefore, how much energy they contain and More as well as climate. The bioavailableMolecules that can be metabolised by animals. Iron, for example, is extremely abundant in nature but as iron oxide (rust) which isn’t soluble in water. Iron is nonetheless vital for all animal respiration and plant photosynthesis. We rely on micro-organisms to fix the iron into forms that can be used and on animals, to concentrate it in the right time More nutrientsEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More that seabirds introduce into coastal waters drives the entire food chainA single thread in a food web illustrating the chain of animals that eat each other. At the base of the food chain are small high-energy (fast metabolism) animals and at the other end large low metabolism animals. An example would be whales eating krill that eat plankton that eat algae. Or lions that eat gazelles that eat grass. More, because the patterns of consistent and reliable resource availability (on which fisheries also depend) have been built over thousands of years. Remove the seabirds and that structure breaks down, leading to an increase in free surplus energyThe energy of a system that is emitted as waste and is not part of ecosystem processes. There is always some free surplus energy as this creates the basis for evolution where new species exploit gaps in the ecosystem where free energy becomes available. Surplus energy can occur as a result of disruption or disturbance. When free surplus energy reaches More, which dilutes down the food chain, leading to invasive species infestations, lowered fish biomass and ultimately, impoverished fisheries and coastal communities. It’s happening all over the world.

Massive decline of Long-tailed Ducks and numerous other seabirds from the Baltic Sea is causing the collapse of ecosystems on which fisheries depend.

Leading conservation groups like the RSPB, scientists and policy-makers right up to the UN, are failing to communicate the inherent importance of wildlife to food security and climate. Combined with desperate measures to protect rapidly-declining species’ from extinction, this is creating problems for advocacy and outcomes. Until people are retrained in key principles, there seems to be little hope of winning over support from the general public, including Baltic Fishermen. Instead, we end up making matters worse.

The scale, magnitude and intensity of impacts of Long-tailed Ducks on the Baltic environment

Let’s take a fresh look at the scale, magnitude and intensity of impacts of Long-tailed Ducks on the Baltic environment – this time, in terms of their impact on the ecosystem.

Long-tailed Ducks are one of three species of sea duck accounting for 80% of the birds wintering in the Baltic Sea [1]. Surveys suggest that the Baltic Sea population in 2007-2009 was about 1.5 million birds, down from 4.2 million in 1992-1993, a decline of 65% but an 83% decline in the region where the RSPB research was done (down from 1,095,000 to 182,000). It’s very likely that most of the region’s birds will pass through the Baltic at some point during winter.

Let’s assume in the distant past, the numbers were double the 1992-1993 estimates. Ten million Long-tailed Ducks would have been cultivation grazingHow animals evolve to graze selectively between patches, to promote greater plant growth between grazing periods. The ability to cultivate-graze is partly driven by an animals' parentage, through genetic fitness handed down over generations and it is partly learned. Knowing where to feed increases the carbon capture potential of an ecosystem and also plays a role in maximum entropy production. More mussels, clams, periwinkles and crabs, reintroducing bioavailable nutrients for several months of the year, concentrated at locations with the greatest accumulated biomass of other animals –whale, dolphins and porpoises, seabirds and fish. All in all, this annual flourish of activity provided the basis for a monumental, seasonal bounce-back, maintaining levels of water quality, food biomass and fisheries, on which human coastal cities were established.

All of this is lost, if the ducks are lost.

In one study in the Gulf of Gdańsk in 1995 [2], it was found that Long-tailed Ducks consumed a total of 6,350 tonnes of bivalves (such as mussels), 1,120 tonnes of fish, 400 tonnes of crabs and other crustaceans and about 325 tonnes of other prey (a total of 8,195 tonnes). Assuming a 65% decline since 2007-2009 and double the population in the mid-century, the Gulf’s Long-tailed Duck population could have been about 116,000 birds [1] – meaning a mid-1990s total Baltic Sea prey consumption in the order of 1.2 million tonnes per year.

In the mid-1970s, total fisheries catch in the Baltic Sea was about 850,000 -990,000 tonnes. Today, globally, seabirds consume about the same as world fisheries and aquaculture combined, so it’s no surprise to me, to find that sea ducks are so significant.

Final point – remember, the ducks were there before the fisheries so if ducks don’t deplete shellfish and fish abundance, the only possible explanation for their presence, is that they are part of a mutually dependent system. There is no other explanation for the presence of super-abundant wildlife, than they are part of the functioning of the ecosystem and in this case, fisheries are completely dependent on their ongoing presence!

Long-tailed Ducks, particularly juveniles, prey selectively on crustaceans. Today, there are invasive crabs destroying mussel beds in the Baltic and causing an imbalance in the benthic ecology, leading to declining fish habitat. Is that any surprise, when you’ve reduced the influence of millions of stabilising predators?

Conservationists and primary industry must change their way of thinking about ecosystems and wildlife

The harsh reality is, that massive decline of sea ducks including Long-tailed Ducks from the Baltic Sea is causing the collapse of ecosystems on which fisheries depend.

If bordering nations want more fish, they need to reverse the sudden and catastrophic decline in Long-tailed Ducks … and the conservation NGOs must not be part of initiatives that dissuade the birds from feeding at traditional locations (and that goes for other declining wildlife too–deliberate underwater noise is now being used to scare Harbour Porpoises away).

There are countless examples all over the world of massive and rapid decline in biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More values as a result of taking away large biomass of top predators. It’s not rocket-science.

Conservationists over-simplify the situation and look at numbers of wildlife, rather than ecosystem processes. If you search for ‘conservation of Long-tailed Duck’ on Google, you’ll find lots of studies of what they eat and what they are ‘dependent’ on. You will find nothing that draws the connection between the immense numbers of birds and the nutrient processes that deliver rich fishing grounds.

You’ll read industry studies about the collapse of fishing, reduced quotas and maybe even ‘competition’ for fish, with seabirds and marine mammals but such opinions are dangerously incorrect.

Very few conservation scientists are able to explain why wildlife is important. Few ecologists with relevant experience are being consulted about the underlying problem – the collapse of animal-driven ecosystem structure, function and process.

Just in the same way humans believe we are capable of ‘managing’ our way out of a free-fall wildlife extinction crisis, we think that over-fishing is the principle cause of fish decline. It’s a factor, yes, but what we’ve really done is broken the food bowl. The leaks are happening so fast now, that we don’t have much time left to get this right.

We’ve smashed the system that provides for us and the only way we’re getting that back, is to start protecting and restoring animal populations.

References

1. Henrik Skov, Stefan Heinänen, Ramūnas Žydelis, Jochen Bellebaum, Szymon Bzoma, Mindaugas Dagys, Jan Durinck, Stefan Garthe, Gennady Grishanov, Martti Hario, Jan Jacob Kieckbusch, Jan Kube, Andres Kuresoo, Kjell Larsson, Leho Luigujoe, Włodzimierz Meissner, Hans W. Nehls, Leif Nilsson, Ib Krag Petersen, Markku Mikkola Roos, Stefan Pihl, Nicole Sonntag, Andy Stock, Antra Stipniece and Johannes Wahl. (2011) Waterbird Populations and Pressures in the Baltic Sea Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen 2011.
2. Stempniewicz, Lech. (1995). Feeding ecology of the Long-tailed Duck Clangula hyemalis wintering in the Gulf of Gdańsk (southern Baltic Sea). Ornis Svecica. 5. 133-142.