UK Government scores 1/10 in efforts to protect UK whales and dolphins

WDCS has released a new 122 page report highlighting the growing dangers in our seas to the UK’s whales and dolphins.
 
The report, which brings together for the first time all current threats facing UK cetaceans, calls on the UK government to commit to improving the protection of whales and dolphins and highlights threats and possible remedies.
 
To accompany this report, WDCS has produced a ‘UK Government score sheet’ which grades the current government action on a number of the most serious threats to the UK’s wildlife on a scale of 1 – 10. Worryingly, many of the conclusions rate the government’s action at just 1 out of 10.
 
The senior author of the report – The Conservation of British Cetaceans* - is Professor Chris Parsons of George Mason University in Virginia, US (who was previously based in the UK) who was assisted in producing this comprehensive document by some of WDCS’s own experts.

Professor Parsons comments, "There are legal structures in the UK that make a high level of protection for whales and dolphins possible. What is lacking is ultimately funding, manpower and political will to actually get this done. Numerous polls have shown that the British public consider the conservation of whales, dolphins and their habitats to be an environmental priority. The vast amount of media attention towards, and the massive public outpouring  of affection for, the bottlenose whale in the Thames is an illustration of this fact. But too often the government merely pays lip service to cetacean conservation.

One of the problems, with the noise issue in particular, is the myriad conflicts of interest. For example, many of the supposed independent scientists who are supposed to be giving unbiased advice to the government to deal with the issue have received substantive funding, either directly or for their organisations, from the major producers of noise pollution. There are also substantive conflicts of interest within other research funding agencies. So getting what little money there is to where it's really needed is an issue.

There's an urgent need for a truly independent (and non-conflicted) funding and oversight agency for cetacean conservation to help fund and progress whale and dolphin conservation, for example, moving the UK's biodiversity action plans for cetaceans forward. Ideally a UK equivalent of America's extremely successful Marine Mammal Commission."
 
WDCS International Director of Science, Mark Simmonds, an author of the report, said: “These scores demonstrate how seriously the Government is underachieving and show how little is being done to stop harmful threats to whales and dolphins in UK seas. Too often it is a case of ‘out of sight out of mind’ and this attitude needs to change if we are to avoid loosing these magnificent animals from our waters forever.”
 

The report, which has gone out to all UK MPs, makes a number of urgent recommendations for the improvement of the protection afforded to marine mammals, all of which experts agree are necessary if whales and dolphins are to survive in British waters. The issues evaluated include fisheries bycatch (2/10), chemical pollution (4/10), noise pollution (1/10), boat traffic (1/10) and climate change (3/10).
 
The full report is available below.

 
Notes:

The full title and authors of the new report: The Conservation of British Cetaceans: A review of the threats and protection afforded to whales, dolphins and porpoises in UK waters by E.C.M. Parsons, J. Clark, A. Ross and M.P. Simmonds.
 

Source: WDCS