What’s new in exploration

The on-again, off-again debate about offshore seismic acquisition and its potential harm to marine life, and particularly marine mammals, is on again. In mid-April, Oceana, a marine conservation group, estimated that nearly 140,000 whales and dolphins would be injured or displaced if the Obama administration allows offshore seismic to be shot along the U.S. Atlantic coast. The group cited a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) environmental study released in 2012 that estimated that seismic acquisition could negatively impact as many as 11,748 bottlenose dolphins, 4,631 short-finned pilot whales and 6,147 short-beaked common dolphins, in addition to eliminating some of the remaining 500 endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Industry reaction. The response has been what one might expect. Industry pointed to a study by San Diego scientists in which experimenters could not induce temporary losses in hearing sensitivity in dolphins after exposing them to 10 air gun impulses. In fact, the scientists could not identify any significant behavioral reactions to the air gun exposures in dolphins and, therefore, concluded that the risk of harm to the mammals is minimal. Going further, the industry spokespersons noted that exploring with seismic was less intrusive on marine life than the previous practice of exploring with a drill bit.

The arguments are more than familiar and, as is typical, miss the most important points. It is true that there is a crisis in injury and mortality among marine mammals offshore the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. It has been studied extensively among dolphins. It is also not new. In 1987-1988, there was a massive—and, apparently unexplained—die off of coastal bottlenose dolphins. It may have been disease, changes in water quality, shortages of food or any other of a number of factors. The threats to dolphins are numerous. According to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), naturally occurring threats include predation by large sharks, disease, parasites, exposure to naturally occurring biotoxins, changes in prey availability and reduction or loss of habitat due to environmental variation. The group also notes that man-made threats include loss of habitat due to coastal development, exposure to pollutants, vessel strikes, entanglement in debris and fishing nets, noise and pollution due to oil and gas development. In other words, it is tough being a dolphin off the U.S. coast.

Realistic factors. A much more direct investigation, the PloSONE Study, reported in Nature magazine, points to three overriding factors in the decline in dolphin population along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. Cold weather in the winter of 2010 is the first of the three factors. This was exacerbated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the second factor. The third factor was large volumes of cold, fresh water from melting snow that entered Mobile Bay, an inlet to the Gulf of Mexico, in 2011. According to Ruth Carmichael, a marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, none of the factors, alone, would cause injury or death to dolphins But, according to Nature, “the cold fresh water pulses may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, if the dolphin population was already weakened due to depleted food resources caused by preceding events, such as oil in the northern Gulf food chain, or bacterial infection . . . for animals already stressed and in poor condition, this freight train of cold fresh water could certainly have affected the timing of mortality.”

More broadly, Moby Solangi, Executive Director of the institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi, noted in Nature, “with multiple environmental challenges, we may not be able to say it was one thing or another. We do know that dolphins in the northern Gulf have been subjected to a number of environmental challenges in the past few years, and we do know that each of those challenges will have affected their ability to deal with the others.”

But, could it be that the same environmental activists and dolphin lovers who are lightning-quick to point fingers at our industry and others might, themselves, be part of the problem? SCDNR sheds some light. “Bottlenose dolphins have also increasingly become the target of dolphin watching and wild dolphin interaction programs. There is growing concern that these activities may result in altered behavior patterns, especially where people enter the water with the dolphins and where they are fed. In the latter case, behavioral patterns are altered significantly and increased aggression may occur.” While Oceana may not participate directly in these activities, or even condone them, it is this sort of dolphin-hugging, potentially destructive in itself, that spawns mostly unfounded accusations against our industry.

No single solution. So, how do we protect the dolphins? Amazingly, I was reminded of the answer while making a plant purchase at a local plant nursery a couple of weeks ago. The plastic card stuck in the dirt in the pot identified the plant as invasive. That is the problem. Dolphins, whales and their kinfolk are under attack from invasive species and natural elements—us and nature. Cold water, cold weather, pollution, fishing, depleted food stocks, bacterial infections, oil spills . . . all threaten marine mammals. To single out seismic as a single, or significant, cause of damage to marine mammals is akin to identifying grilled meat as the single cause, or one of the most important causes, of cancer. It is very convenient if you are a vegetarian with an agenda, but it misses the target by a mile.