ECS News

News articles concerning the society are frequently added to this page so please check back regularly to stay up to date. If you have an article that you would like to submit please contact a member of the ECS Council. Your contributions are appreciated!

Peter Evans presented with ECS Conservation Award 2012 [Article added on 27.04.12 @ 10:14] Dr. Peter G. H. Evans is the winner of the 2012 ECS Conservation Award in recognition of his outstanding commitment to cetacean conservation in European waters. Peter was unananimously selected from seven candidates for the award by the ECS Conservation Award Committee. Funding for this award has been made available from members. The award includes 1000 euro and an engraved crystal, but more importantly it is a small recognition from there appreciative colleagues. In addition to this, the first award winner, Dr. Krzysztof Skóra, presented a beautiful oil painting of ECS logo Orca and the map of Europe (painted by Monika Kuropatnicka-Marciniak), as a perpetual award to be passed on to the successors. Peter has been working on the conservation of cetaceans in Europe for many year and his influence across Europe has simply been enormous. He occupies a niche that can only be described as uniquely Peter Evans-shaped. He brings a widely-respected integrity to all his work and somehow manages to span the weird divides between academe and NGOs and science and conservation policy. The fact that he does most of this from a small NGO-platform, I think makes this all the more remarkable. Peter’s publications range from high-impact journals to the famous UK cetacean Atlases. There are also many Evans’ books and many of us always keep a copy of his 1897 classic “The Natural History of Whales and Dolphins” at hand at all times. Peter is also outstanding in the sphere of education. For many of us he has been a mentor; even if in some cases he did not know it. He birthed the Sea Watch Foundation in 1991 and more to the point here [at the ECS annual conference], he was fundamental in the founding of the European Cetacean Society; once there were five (he was the first Secretary) and now we are almost five hundred. For many years he was also, of course, the essential ECS editor, churning out those distinctive volumes and putting us all through our paces. If Peter Evan’s is not the Father of the ECS, he is at the least our beloved Dancing Uncle... it was of course only a question of ‘when’ and ‘how long’ we would make Peter wait - rather than ‘if’ we would pass this award to Peter. He epitomises in his career to date all that is appropriate in terms of moving science into conservation action, and he does this with energy, enthusiasm and modesty. (These paragraphs were extracted from the text kindly provided by Mark Simmonds/WDCS. Image courtesy of Shay Fennelly/Aquaphoto) TOP

ECS2012 Galway conference feedback welcome [Article added on 06.04.12 @ 08:24] To all those who attended the recent ECS2012 Galway conference a conference feedback form is up on Survey Monkey. Please go to www.iwdg.ie/ecs and click on survey form on home page (in yellow) to provide feedback to ECS Council and to future conference organisers. We hope to post links to the keynote speakers talks in the near future. TOP

Mairtin O'Connors THE MIGHTY OCEAN is available on your name tag and pen drive [Article added on 06.03.12 @ 10:41] We hope you got, or get, back home safely and thank you for participating at our conference. The name tag you received at registration is also a PEN DRIVE/MEMORY STICK. Pull out the black section to reveal the USB CONNECTION. Plug into your computer and open using AUTOPLAY. On the stick is: Mairtin O'Connors THE MIGHTY OCEAN composed especially for the conference An Abstract Book with Macromedia Flash search engines Enjoy the music created for you as a gift from ECS2012 Galway. TOP

ECS Conservation Award 2012 [Article added on 03.11.11 @ 00:53] The award is for an outstanding contribution to the field of marine mammal conservation and/or welfare, with particular emphasis on contributions to environmental education and/or to conservation in practice (e.g. leading to improved legislation or management). The award will be judged on the basis of a proposal made using the format given below and related material as described. It will be decided upon by consensus, or a majority vote of the ECS Conservation Award Committee. The winner of the award will be announced during the ECS Conference. Self-nominations are discouraged. The Committee reserves the right not to present the award if no appropriate nominations are received. The ECS Award Committee comprises: Ayaka Oztürk (Chair) Simon Berrow Thierry Jauniaux Mandy McMath Aviad Scheinin Mark Simmonds Pro-forma: Name(s) of person(s)/institution/body nominated for award Address and contact details Description of the work/body of work proposed for the award (maximum length of proposal 250 words) NB The award can be given for a single conservation-education tool (such as a book or for an entire body of work - i.e. a series of linked contributions) in the sphere of education relating to marine mammal conservation and or welfare. Full references for the material identified above and any relevant web-links. Name of nominator(s) Address and contact details This form, and any supporting material if deemed necessary, should be sent to the Chair of the Award Committee by 17 February 2012. Dr. Ayaka Ozturk, ECS Conservation Award Chair Email: mmonachus@ttmail.com TOP

Krzysztof Skóra wins first ECS Conservation Award [Article added on 27.03.11 @ 12:38] Krzysztof Skóra is the winner of the first ECS Conservation Award in recognition of his outstanding commitment to trying to save the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise. Krzysztof has not only used his considerable scientific reputation to try and address conservation issues in the Baltic but has used public campaigns, media and even the market economy to try and achieve his objectives. ECS Conservation Award After the last ECS conference in Stralsund, Germany a number of ECS Members approached the Council with the idea of establishing an award to recognize those groups or individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the field of marine mammal conservation and/or welfare, with particular emphasis on contributions to environmental education and/or to conservation in practice, for example leading to improved legislation or management. A Committee was formed including Council members and ECS Members. Funding for this award has been made available from members and we have enough to secure this award for the next four years. The award includes 1000 euro and an engraved crystal but more importantly it is a small recognition from there appreciative colleagues. We invited nominees from the Membership and five were received. Two were of individuals and three were groups. The ECS Conservation Award Committee has decided to award the first ECS Conservation Award to Krzysztof Skóra . About Krzysztof Skóra Krzysztof is now Prof of Oceanography, at the University of Gdansk, but his work started long before that. As a boy he had a great interest in fish and as a student he was active in campaigning to 'STOP POLLUTING THE BALTIC.' We are only now assembling the scientific understanding of how right he was in that cause. In 1977 he founded Hel Marine Lab, and worked hard at the huge task of rotating the whole of Poland to face and appreciate its sea, instead of facing away from it. In 1986 he took on porpoises, even though they were not fish, and the last one he saw alive in the Baltic was more than 12 years before. He was encouraged in this by Iwona Pawliczka and they published the first ever summary paper on Polish Baltic Harbour Porpoises in 1988 with Margaret Klinowska. In 1992 his work extended to the plight of the grey seal and the task of securing its restoration to the southern Baltic, and in 1997 the station at Hel was equipped with its first pool for seals. Poster B5 describes the results of a decade of seal releases. He has worked with Ministry of the Environment, and fisheries. He has worked hard towards the restoration of the sturgeon, and other native fish populations, to the polish part of the Baltic. He has always had an infectious enthusiasm for the causes he has supported. We don't know where it came from. Some believe it may have something to do with the fact that he ate a large part of a zoological atlas before he could walk. But we can be sure that he has contributed hugely to the conservation of the Baltic and its mammals, and we all hope he, and we, will see the Balitc porpoise recovering as strongly as the Baltic grey seals. Dr. Simon Berrow, Chair of the ECS Conservation Award TOP

ECS publications [Article added on 12.11.10 @ 06:55] The 2010 "marine mammals" special issue of JMBA is now available online here. Information on how ECS members can access full articles will follow shortly! The 2009 ECS Conference Proceedings have now been completed and the pdf will be posted online as soon as possible. TOP

ECS RESOLUTION ON THE NEED TO REGULATE SONAR MITIGATION [Article added on 11.03.09 @ 10:21] ECS RESOLUTION ON THE NEED TO REGULATE SONAR MITIGATION Adopted in Istanbul, Turkey on 4th March 2009 There is sufficient evidence that active sonar exposure even at relatively low levels can have significant impacts on some cetacean species. Beaked whales in particular are vulnerable to serious impacts including mortality from exposure to mid-frequency active sonar (1-10 kHz). Here we reaffirm the ECS 2003 Statement of Concern on Marine Mammals and Sound. The development of knowledge since this ECS 2003 resolution was adopted underscores the need for urgent action on sonar mitigation. Current mitigation efforts are generally untested and insufficient for beaked whales. Recently available data includes further evidence on the causal link between sonar and beaked whale mass-strandings. This includes spatio-temporal coincidence between naval exercises and mortalities and a consistent pathology on necropsied whales, pointing to an acoustic source as primary cause of death/stranding. In addition, abundance estimations of local populations of beaked whales indicate that populations are small and that the reproductive rate of some beaked whales may be low. Small, sometimes isolated, populations with reduced recruitment rate are vulnerable to human impacts as they may have a limited capability to recover after trauma. This means that there is the potential for unsustainable impacts on beaked whales to occur in relatively short time periods. The advances in our understanding of behavioural reactions of beaked whales to sonar indicate that required mitigation ranges are larger than practical mitigation ranges in many cases. In consequence, regulation of standardised mitigation protocols, including practical measures recently available, becomes a priority. Mitigation should be applied by all countries using military sonar in the three stages of sonar exercises: before (the planning phase), during and after sonar use. As sonar may have transboundary effects, mitigation procedures need regulatory support at both international and national levels. Thus, the European Cetacean Society requests competent authorities to urgently adopt and enforce regulations for effective mitigation. The Workshop organisers propose to set up a small Working Group of relevant experts to produce a technical document providing practical effective techniques to apply mitigation in order to reduce impact of active sonar on cetaceans. TOP