To maintain or improve local conditions for marine mammal populations

Professional fishing and marine mammals: what are the consequences?

The Réserve Naturelle participated in a commissioned study by the OFB staff at the Agoa sanctuary on the interaction between professional fishing and marine mammals within the Agoa sanctuary. A case based on the fact that marine mammals get tangled up on lines and cords of a fish aggregating device. After the inquiry, it looks as if the local techniques used around Saint Martin involve no, or few, interactions, but observations at large have provoked numerous meetings around the use of fish aggregating devices.

Listening to marine mammals

The managers of the protected marine areas in the Caribbean met in the Dominican Republic on October 30-November 4 2019, at the invitation of Cari’Mam (see inset). A majority of the meeting was a discussion of the project to install 20 under- water acoustic beacons throughout the Antilles archipelago from Trinidad to Bermuda. These submerged beacons will record the songs of marine mammals within an area of 10 nautical miles (18.5 km) during one minute, followed by a pause of four minutes in order to extend battery life. The beacon specific to Saint Martin was put into place during the first week of January, 2020, outside of the Réserve Naturelle, off the coast of Tintamare. The beacons for Anguilla and Saint Barth will be placed in accordance with that of Saint Martin, in order to cover the largest surface possible. The beacons will record the songs of the marine mammals on SD cards that will be collected every two months by the staff of the Réserve, when they both change the batteries and put in a new card. The cards will be read at a dedicated laboratory at the University of Toulon, where the sounds will be identified. The results will be communicated as a report. Three other ateliers at the meeting focused on best practices for whale watching, as well as environmental education to protect marine mammals, and the creation of a booklet to help the public identify marine mammals at sea. For this project, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), by way of the Agoa Sanctuary, provided a donation of 11,940€ to the Réserve Naturelle for the purchase of two hydrophones and pedagogical sculptures of marine mammals.

The Réserve Naturelle of Saint Martin naturally took part in a meeting of 70 specialists from protected marine areas, as well as marine mammal experts in Gosier, Guadeloupe, on May 9-10, 2019. Agoa and Cari’Mam — Caribbean Marine Mammals Preservation— the network for the protection of marine mammals in the Caribbean, organized the meeting. The French islands and Guyana were present, as well as the Dutch islands, Anguilla, The Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, The Turks & Caicos, and the United States. Various ateliers allowed the participants to exchange ideas about protected marine areas and their management, public awareness campaigns, beaching of marine mammals, and the sustainability of whale watching. Saint Martin, represented by Nicolas Maslach, director of the Réserve Naturelle, and Michel Vély, president of Megaptera, as well as Bulent Gulay, president of Métimer, commanded attention as they presented the latest Megara campaign. This campaign comprised deploying six beacon tags and following the humpback whales on their journey toward North America and Europe, as well as taking eight skin samples, a dozen photos of tail fins, and recording numerous songs by the male whales. The Agoa sanctuary, which offers protection for marine mammals, covers the entire economic zone of the French Antilles, or 143,256 square kilometers.