Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005
An unprecedented 85 harbour porpoises stranded freshly dead along approximately 100 km of Danish coastline from 7–15 April, 2005. This total is considerably above the mean weekly stranding rate for the whole of Denmark, both for any time of year, 1.23 animals/week (ranging from 0 to 20 during 2003–2...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3584061 2023-05-15T16:33:29+02:00 Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 Wright, Andrew J. Maar, Marie Mohn, Christian Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob Siebert, Ursula Jensen, Lasse Fast Baagøe, Hans J. Teilmann, Jonas 2013-02-27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584061 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23460787 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584061 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23460787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2013 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 2013-09-04T20:26:19Z An unprecedented 85 harbour porpoises stranded freshly dead along approximately 100 km of Danish coastline from 7–15 April, 2005. This total is considerably above the mean weekly stranding rate for the whole of Denmark, both for any time of year, 1.23 animals/week (ranging from 0 to 20 during 2003–2008, excluding April 2005), and specifically in April, 0.65 animals/week (0 to 4, same period). Bycatch was established as the cause of death for most of the individuals through typical indications of fisheries interactions, including net markings in the skin and around the flippers, and loss of tail flukes. Local fishermen confirmed unusually large porpoise bycatch in nets set for lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) and the strandings were attributed to an early lumpfish season. However, lumpfish catches for 2005 were not unusual in terms of season onset, peak or total catch, when compared to 2003–2008. Consequently, human activity was combined with environmental factors and the variation in Danish fisheries landings (determined through a principal component analysis) in a two-part statistical model to assess the correlation of these factors with both the presence of fresh strandings and the numbers of strandings on the Danish west coast. The final statistical model (which was forward selected using Akaike information criterion; AIC) indicated that naval presence is correlated with higher rates of porpoise strandings, particularly in combination with certain fisheries, although it is not correlated with the actual presence of strandings. Military vessels from various countries were confirmed in the area from the 7th April, en route to the largest naval exercise in Danish waters to date (Loyal Mariner 2005, 11–28 April). Although sonar usage cannot be confirmed, it is likely that ships were testing various equipment prior to the main exercise. Thus naval activity cannot be ruled out as a possible contributing factor. Text Harbour porpoise PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 8 2 e55553 |
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Research Article Wright, Andrew J. Maar, Marie Mohn, Christian Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob Siebert, Ursula Jensen, Lasse Fast Baagøe, Hans J. Teilmann, Jonas Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
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An unprecedented 85 harbour porpoises stranded freshly dead along approximately 100 km of Danish coastline from 7–15 April, 2005. This total is considerably above the mean weekly stranding rate for the whole of Denmark, both for any time of year, 1.23 animals/week (ranging from 0 to 20 during 2003–2008, excluding April 2005), and specifically in April, 0.65 animals/week (0 to 4, same period). Bycatch was established as the cause of death for most of the individuals through typical indications of fisheries interactions, including net markings in the skin and around the flippers, and loss of tail flukes. Local fishermen confirmed unusually large porpoise bycatch in nets set for lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) and the strandings were attributed to an early lumpfish season. However, lumpfish catches for 2005 were not unusual in terms of season onset, peak or total catch, when compared to 2003–2008. Consequently, human activity was combined with environmental factors and the variation in Danish fisheries landings (determined through a principal component analysis) in a two-part statistical model to assess the correlation of these factors with both the presence of fresh strandings and the numbers of strandings on the Danish west coast. The final statistical model (which was forward selected using Akaike information criterion; AIC) indicated that naval presence is correlated with higher rates of porpoise strandings, particularly in combination with certain fisheries, although it is not correlated with the actual presence of strandings. Military vessels from various countries were confirmed in the area from the 7th April, en route to the largest naval exercise in Danish waters to date (Loyal Mariner 2005, 11–28 April). Although sonar usage cannot be confirmed, it is likely that ships were testing various equipment prior to the main exercise. Thus naval activity cannot be ruled out as a possible contributing factor. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wright, Andrew J. Maar, Marie Mohn, Christian Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob Siebert, Ursula Jensen, Lasse Fast Baagøe, Hans J. Teilmann, Jonas |
author_facet |
Wright, Andrew J. Maar, Marie Mohn, Christian Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob Siebert, Ursula Jensen, Lasse Fast Baagøe, Hans J. Teilmann, Jonas |
author_sort |
Wright, Andrew J. |
title |
Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
title_short |
Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
title_full |
Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
title_fullStr |
Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Possible Causes of a Harbour Porpoise Mass Stranding in Danish Waters in 2005 |
title_sort |
possible causes of a harbour porpoise mass stranding in danish waters in 2005 |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584061 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23460787 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 |
genre |
Harbour porpoise |
genre_facet |
Harbour porpoise |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584061 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23460787 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055553 |
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PLoS ONE |
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8 |
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2 |
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e55553 |
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