CITES to vote on trade ban on Black Sea dolphins
Date: 11-Nov-02
Country: CHILE
Author: Louise Egan
Georgia, one of six countries with a Black Sea coastline, wants the 160-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to ban all trade in the bottlenose to prevent it from being wiped out.
Delegates are expected to vote on the proposal, the first large animal considered last week or Friday at the CITES meeting, which opened in Santiago on Nov. 3 and runs until Nov. 15.
Bottlenose dolphins, also found in other water bodies, are in demand from amusement parks and circuses because of their playful acrobatics and receptivity to training. Trade in the Black Sea specimen has been curtailed under CITES since 1979.
But conservationists argue those restrictions are not enough, saying increased trade in live dolphins from the Black Sea since 1990 threatens their survival. That risk is aggravated by the dolphins' slow reproductive cycle and polluted habitat, they say.
"The situation in the Black Sea is really quite a desperate one. A degraded population is now being strongly affected by a highly degraded environment," said Mike Simmonds, Director of Science at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
Russia, the world's top exporter of the dolphins, leads the opposition to a ban, saying its studies show the population is thriving and unharmed by pollution and trade.
The vote could go either way as several countries - including Black Sea coastal nations Romania and Bulgaria - have voiced support for Georgia's proposal.
GENETICALLY DISTINCT
Environmentalists say research shows bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea are genetically distinct from those found in the Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic and therefore merit special protection but Russia questions those findings.
There is also disagreement on the size of the population, which Russia believes is stable.
"Russian scientists did a survey of fishermen and sailors on the Black Sea. The result is that 70 percent of Russian people are saying the population is increasing," Valentine Iluashenko, a Russian delegate to CITES, told Reuters in remarks translated into English.
The Black Sea dolphins, which form small social units and breed at about the same rate as humans, were depleted from heavy hunting from the late 19th Century until the 1980s, first for meat and later for their oil, Simmons said. Now, chemical contaminants dumped into the enclosed sea are also killing the marine mammals.
About 120 live Black Sea bottlenose dolphins were traded internationally - at about $20,000 each and sometimes via Internet - between 1990 and 2001, conservationists say.
