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- Xref: sparky misc.activism.progressive:5749 alt.activism:14723 talk.environment:3232
- Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!agate!anableps.berkeley.edu!jym
- From: Greenpeace via Jym Dyer <jym@mica.berkeley.edu>
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism,talk.environment
- Subject: NEWS: Legistlative Action to Protect Marine Mammals Applauded
- Followup-To: talk.environment
- Date: 13 Aug 1992 06:29:05 GMT
- Organization: The Naughty Peahen Party Line
- Lines: 48
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Message-ID: <Greenpeace.12Aug1992.11pm3@naughty-peahen.org>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: anableps.berkeley.edu
- Originator: jym@anableps.berkeley.edu
-
- [Greenpeace Press Release from Greenbase -- Redistribute Freely]
-
- GREENPEACE APPLAUDS LEGISLATIVE ACTION
- TO PROTECT MARINE MAMMALS
-
- WASHINGTON, August 4, 1992 (GP) Greenpeace enthusiastically
- applauded last night's passage by the House of a legislative
- initiative promoting greater understanding of marine mammal
- deaths in U.S. waters.
-
- The Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Act (HR 3486)
- calls for closer examination of the health of marine mammal
- populations, some of which are showing serious signs of decline.
- Further, the act would lay the foundation for coordinated federal
- response to animal strandings and catastrophic events involving
- whales, dolphins, and seals. Existing federal marine mammal
- tissue banks would be centralized as well.
-
- "Marine mammals are significant indicators of the general health
- of the marine environment," said Bruce McKay of Greenpeace.
- "Though some 2,000 marine mammals wash ashore dead along U.S.
- coasts each year, there is no formal program to look at the
- underlying causes. The signs of environmental degradation are
- there, now we must address them."
-
- There have been four cases of unprecedented marine mammal mass
- mortalities in U.S. waters since 1987 excluding the Exxon Valdez
- disaster. In 1987/88 a die-off wiped out at least half of the
- population of bottlenose dolphin along the east coast as well as
- several humpback whales in Cape Cod Bay. Although these species
- appear to have been poisoned by a natural algal or "red tide"
- toxin, sewage discharge and agricultural runoff may have
- facilitated the growth of the algae.
-
- Such events have not been limited to the East Coast. Unexplained
- die-offs of bottlenose dolphin have occurred in the Gulf of
- Mexico in 1990 and again early this year. Even Alaska is seeing
- warning signs such as an 85 percent drop in the harbor seal
- population in the Gulf of Alaska between 1976 and 1988 and a 60
- percent decline of Stellar sea lions in the eastern Aleutian
- Islands and western Gulf of Alaska in 5 years. Overfishing is
- implicated in these Alaskan declines.
-
- "Our careless disregard of the ocean resources is contributing to
- a marine meltdown that we do not even fully understand," said
- McKay. "The Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Act is a
- first step toward taking responsibility for the link between our
- actions and the disruption of the ocean ecosystem."
-