Species on The Brink & SIO 296 Wrap Up

Species on The Brink & SIO 296 Wrap Up Phaedra Doukakis Sarah Mesnick

Vaquita Sturgeon New concepts, common themes Abalone

Baiji

Where are we in the spectrum of decline? • Stages of decline: • Pre-exploitation (“natural”) • Exploited • Overfished • Commercially extinct • Locally extinct • Functional extinction (biological or ecological extinction; intervention required, e.g., condor) • Globally extinct Murphy 1966 and Hill et al. 2009 Often, we begin to act too late and do too little… Compared to decline, we know relatively little about recovery

Pollutants (no threat …cleanest blubber) Inbreeding depression (no threat (yet)…many calves, naturally rare) Lack of Colorado River flow (no threat now) Dead vaquita fat Many calves Many fewer vaquita than normal levels Bycatch (accidental death in fishing nets) Estimated 78/year…is that too many? PRIORITIZING THREATS I’m fat…. but not so happy

Looking closely at the effects of some threats and at mitigation options

Life-history Important Late maturity, infrequent reproduction Caspian Sea 1966

3 San Diego Vaquita: Tiny distribution; Naturally rare Described as a new species In 1958 (Norris & McFarland)

Breeding Strategies, Social Structure, Allee Effect, Sex Ratios

Serial Depletion: Species and Populations/Areas From Hobday et al. 2001 .

Value & Rarity $8,000/kilo for black caviar $115.00/lb for abalone Guinness World Record Most Valuable Fish: Russian sturgeon 2,706 lb caught in 1924: 540 lb of caviar, today worth nearly $1.35-2.7 million.

Tools: Using genetics to regulate trade and markets Eggs look like eggs; high potential for fraud.

Genetics & Restoration • Museum specimens • Atlantic sturgeon in some area of western Europe as of 1000 years ago • Reintroduce with this species; will it work? Releasing juveniles in river systems

Genetics: Taxa designation - GS Northern DPS Southern DPS

Genetics: DISEASE RESISTANCE? Wild Black Abalone +/- WS Red Abalone +/- WS

Tools: AQUACULUTRE AS A REPLACEMENT FOR WILD World Abalone Production (FA0)

Total Production Can we distinguish wild from farmed? FAOSTAT data

Tools: Estimating Abundance: Acoustics

ROV Operations: abundance & habitat estimates

Green sturgeon: Abundance estimates Habitat use and characteristics Critical Habitat

Application • Risk Assessment: assess information on threats (anthropogenic and environmental) + • Population Assessment: determine population abundance, status and trajectories under different management scenarios = • Set conservation priorities and recovery plans • Is sustainable take possible and under what circumstances? • Monitoring & Enforcement: fisheries and markets

Take-homes (latest version) • Holistic - taking into account all sources of mortality and risk • Multilateral – unilateral management does not work; need all stakeholders and countries (inter-connected and global economy) • Adaptive – because change is fundamental to population dynamics, management must be adaptive; response times may differ … adaptive (real-time) management requires new (and real-time) knowledge of the biology, ecology and movement patterns of oceanic conditions, fishes, protected species and human activities • Precautionary - necessary to deal with uncertainty in the direction of change and importance of the species ecosystem role. • Prioritized - Prioritization important (limited resources (dollars, time and attention) so must prioritize species and threats quantitatively) • Long-term data sets are critical for understanding trends, relationships, cycles. • Long-term commitment is needed (recovery takes time); timeframe may be short (no time to waste) • Creative, synergistic alternatives (products, fishing gear), solutions (agreements, MPAs, catch shares) and monitoring (genetic, acoustic, markets) are needed – this is where you come in

1. Natural population fluctuations in abundance, recruitment and geographic range can contribute to natural variations in extinction risk below critical points in population structure. 2. Variations in extinction risk affect the potential for extinction from natural causes (which could be stochastic) and can be exacerbated by human activities whether these directly target the species or not (Vaquita). 3. The slow pace by which humans recognize threats to species and the lags in political systems mean that valuable species or those with large natural fluctuations in abundance are particularly threatened. 4. Climate change adds a particularly damaging aspect to threats to species since future changes are expected to: (a) increase natural variability, and (b) have considerable built in momentum that will make it difficult to reduce a threat once it appears (like acidification). 5. Little or no money to monitor or regulate international trade in species for which there is no commercial take (other than ESA).

6. We have lots of data for some species (sardines, pollock, Med Bluefin Tunas) but still are unable to predict populations to prevent over-exploitation, or unable to do so on a time scale that allows the political system to react to protect an already overexploited species. There are, in effect, multiple intersecting time scales to consider: a) the natural population variation in extinction risk, b) the lag time involved in effective monitoring of those natural cycles (particularly when there is no money for monitoring), c) the lag time involved in taking regulatory action to protect the species, and d) the lag involved in political alterations in regulatory decisions. Since the later phases of this cycle can involve many years, particularly if international trade or highly migratory species are involved, species who's population dynamics can place them rapidly at risk are particularly susceptible to extinction.

Take-homes (Species on the Brink) • Ideas?

Species on The Brink & SIO 296 Wrap Up