UA researcher and her fight to protect the whales in Mejillones: “We have done something that crosses borders”

Dr. Ana García Cegarra has been working for years to protect the species that frequent the local coasts, which are threatened by the presence of large merchant ships. In January, her work was crowned with the signing of a voluntary agreement that establishes shipping routes in the bay.

The first time Ana García Cegarra saw a whale was when she was 18 years old, during a whale watching tour in the Strait of Gibraltar. “I was a student of Marine Sciences at the University of Cádiz, I remember that we saw a sperm whale. It was a wonderful experience that led me to think: I want to dedicate myself to this”, says the researcher, born in San Javier, Spain, on the shores of the Mar Menor.

It was this attraction to cetaceans that brought Ana García to Chile in 2014, to study a doctorate in Coastal Marine Systems at the University of Antofagasta, and from there begin to build much of the knowledge that currently exists regarding whales and whales. threats they face in Mejillones. All this, with the support of fishermen from that commune, with whom she created the NGO, Cifamac.

Thanks to her studies, García was the first to warn, in a 2019 scientific publication, of the risk of death from collisions that existed in that bay due to the great shipping activity, which was verified a year later, with the appearance of the first whale to die from this cause, which was followed by the discovery of more specimens, up to seven in just one year.

“So there, with my colleagues from Cifamac, we said: we have to act, we have to do something, this cannot be just a prediction, an article in English that nobody reads, but the community has to be aware of what is happening and we have to propose some mitigation measure”, narrated the researcher, today an academic at the UA.

SHIPPING CODE

In January of this year this work bore fruit. The Chilean Navy, together with the shipping industry, signed the agreement that establishes a voluntary code for operations in the bay, which implies creating an “imaginary highway” that avoids the whales and thus protects them from large ships. merchants.

Why are there so many collisions in Mejillones?

This is a global problem, maritime traffic is increasing a lot due to globalization, and here in the north even more so because we have mining, and mining has to export its products and receive inputs as well. Ships of liquefied natural gas, ammonia for the explosives factory, sulfur to make sulfuric acid, coal for thermoelectric plants arrive in Mejillones, add to all that what is exported. The year I studied there were 1,200 ships and now there must be 1,400 a year that enter or leave the bay.

What does the voluntary code establish?

The code establishes a route and a maximum speed of ten knots, and the route is one that avoids the area where the highest density of whales is, spending as little time as possible through the 200-meter depth isobath, which is the depth at where the whales are usually.

Do these measures exist in other regions of the world?

In the Strait of Gibraltar, which is the passage from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, there are ships entering from the right side, attached to Africa, and exiting from the left, attached to Spain. Then, in the Gulf of Maine, in the Northwest Atlantic, there are also routes to avoid collisions with whales. And in the San Francisco Bay, the same. But all of these are mandatory, that is, the International Maritime Organization has established that the search for them, yes or yes, must go through those routes, but what happens when the distribution of the whale’s food changes… Here, for example, last year In winter, we had abundant krill in the San Jorge Bay (Antofagasta) and there were at least 40 whales that spent three months feeding, but this year the krill is in Punta Angamos. That is to say, it changes the distribution of food and it changes the distribution of whales, and if the ships have a compulsory route, in the end it is useless. The advantage of what we did in Mejillones is that the code is voluntary, which means that we can continue studying the whales and next year, if the food distribution changes, propose another route.

How have shipping companies responded?

The first industry that supported us was Enaex, Enaex said: I believe in you, I believe in the project, we are going to help you so that this is transmitted to the rest of the shipping companies. Then came Ultraport, Ultramar, Puerto Mejillones, Puerto Angamos, and in January we had a meeting with all the representatives of the ports and terminals where they were shown the code and they were all willing to follow it and transmit it to the ships. Likewise, thanks to the Great Whale Conservancy (an international NGO that protects whales) the information is being disseminated among the captains so that everyone knows that there are whales in Mejillones and a voluntary route that they can follow.

How much is the risk of collisions reduced with this road?

We don’t know, we have to investigate. It is never zero risk, impossible, because in the same way that an animal can cross your path when you are on the road, you can find a whale, but we believe that it can be avoided in a percentage.

SANCTUARY

Ana García’s work to record the presence of whales in Mejillones began in 2014, as part of her doctoral studies at the University of Antofagasta. At first, she limited herself to observations from the Punta Angamos sector to record the position of the whales and identify the species, but later she, together with Cifamac, obtained resources to complement such records with data obtained in navigations through the bay.

“Until then, the records of cetaceans were opportunistic, there was no one dedicated in depth or in systematic work to study cetaceans in Mejillones. The last studies were by Professor Carlos Guerra, from 1987, and I was born in 1985, that is, very little was known about whales”, comments the researcher, who humorously recalls the sacrifices of those years. “I spent five hours a day up the hill, alone, people looked at me from below and said, oh my, who is that crazy woman up there, what will be there?”

According to your studies, what species of whales are there in Mejillones?

There are two species that are the most frequent, the fin whale and the humpback whale, which can be seen practically all year round, the most abundant fin whale. And then we have other species, such as the blue whale, which can be seen once a year, the southern right whale, every two years, and the bryde’s whale. They are like five species in total.

Are there individuals who regularly live in Mejillones?

This is what we are trying to discover, we have been there for six years and everything indicates that the fin whale is a resident population of the southeast Pacific and of this latitude of the Humboldt Current, and when I say of this latitude, I also refer to Chañaral, Mejillones, Iquique, Arica. We have 102 individuals identified by their fin and of those 102 whales, in six years we have a recapture (resighting) of 9%. There are whales that we see in December and then in August, and that means that they are in the area for a long time.

Why is the fin whale so collision-prone?

It is not known very well. This animal is the second largest in the world after the blue whale, and it is believed that young individuals, who are inexperienced, for some reason when they are feeding are not alert and do not hear the ship. It also influences if the boat is fast and sails at more than 14 knots, as this greatly reduces the chances of the whale to escape. In addition, we believe that the sound emitted by the ships, which are 300 meters long, is masked because they have their propellers behind, but it is difficult to say why these whales die and not others, that is, others die as well, but the fin whale is the most susceptible to collisions.

What other threats do whales face?

We have seen whales with skin diseases, which may be associated with pollution. We also have purse-seine fishing and the purse-seiners are destroying the anchoveta, because Mejillones is a spawning area, the anchovy arrives here to lay its eggs and the small anchovies stay in the bay until they are adults, so as this fishing decreases the availability of food, not only for whales, but also for birds, dolphins, penguins, sea lions, etc.

Another threat is the probability of entanglement or entanglement, both of whales and dolphins. A purse seiner is not going to catch a whale, but we have had whales with ropes or nets tied to their tails. In November a humpback whale came to feed, and we tracked and photographed it until March, and in March the same whale had many more marks on its body, marks from interaction with humans from being so close to shore, or from entanglement in fishing lines or cuts with the propellers of the boats, which indicates that during the period that they come to feed they suffer a lot of stress.

What about other species, like dolphins?

Dolphins are much more threatened by fishing than whales, especially the spiny porpoise, which lives all year round in the bay and feeds at a depth of 50 meters, close to the coast, so it is highly exposed to pollution. This species is the one that dies the most by incidental fishing, the last death we had was in May, a calf that approached the fishing nets, and then there is the dusky dolphin, which occurs in groups of hundreds, up to a thousand individuals, and feeds on anchovy, then approaches purse seiners.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

Has environmental awareness grown in these years?

That is my greatest pride as a researcher. I think we have done something that crosses borders, we have put Mejillones on the map. Before there were no studies in all of northern Chile, but now people know that there are whales in Mejillones, especially the local community. Ten years ago most of the people of Mejillones did not know that there were whales on their coasts, but today everyone knows, from children to adults, many of them even know what species they are, they know that there is the porpoise (a species of Dolphin). Now there is a tourism company that does the porpoise route, and that is information that we have collected. This makes us happy, because people knowing that they have these animals generates in them a feeling of identity and of wanting to protect them.

From science is there a more interested look too?

Yes, especially at the level of cetaceans. There are many researchers who want to get to Mejillones to study the cetaceans, to set up acoustic buoys, but in terms of biodiversity in general, we still have a lot to learn. We are collecting information on sunfish, rays, chungungos, penguins, there are still no focused studies of these species, there will be in the future, that is the task ahead.