{"id":144439,"date":"2024-11-04T18:10:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T18:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=144439"},"modified":"2024-11-04T18:11:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T18:11:36","slug":"this-marine-biologist-discovered-a-unique-blue-whale-population-in-sri-lanka-by-sandy-ong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/this-marine-biologist-discovered-a-unique-blue-whale-population-in-sri-lanka-by-sandy-ong\/","title":{"rendered":"This marine biologist discovered a unique blue whale population in Sri Lanka-by Sandy Ong"},"content":{"rendered":"

This marine biologist discovered a unique blue whale population in Sri Lanka-by Sandy Ong<\/span><\/h2>\n

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\"elanka\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Growing up, Asha de Vos was taught to fear the ocean. But secondhand\u00a0National Geographic\u00a0<\/em>magazines turned that fear into awe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spencer Lowell,\u00a0Wired<\/em>\u00a0\u00a9 Cond\u00e9 Nast<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong><\/span>Sciencenews<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Pooping whales changed the course of Asha de Vos\u2019 career.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan marine biologist was aboard a research vessel near her home island in 2003 when she spotted six blue whales congregating. A bright red plume of whale waste was spreading across the water\u2019s surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Seeing whale poop, colored red thanks to the whale\u2019s diet, was the first clue that Sri Lanka\u2019s blue whales don\u2019t migrate between feeding and breeding areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Vos, then a master\u2019s student, recalls being \u201csuper excited.\u201d What she witnessed went against prevailing dogma: Her textbooks and professors had taught that blue whales, like other large whales, embark on long-distance migrations between colder feeding areas and warmer breeding and calving areas. But seeing whales pooping in tropical waters meant the behemoths must be feasting locally.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intrigued, de Vos spent the next few years documenting how blue whales near Sri Lanka differ from those elsewhere in the world. For one, the population feeds on shrimp rather than krill. The whales also have unique songs. But the key difference, she realized, is that they remain year-round in the waters between Sri Lanka, Oman and the Maldives \u2014 making them the only nonmigratory blue whales in the world. Abundant upwellings of nutrient-rich water from the ocean depths support a steady food supply for the whales.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, the International Whaling Commission, the intergovernmental body dedicated to protecting whales, recognized Sri Lanka\u2019s blue whales as a distinct subspecies called Balaenoptera musculus indica.<\/span><\/p>\n

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By studying the blue whales around Sri Lanka, marine biologist Asha de Vos discovered they are the only nonmigratory blue whales in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

This distinction is crucial for conservation management, explains retired whale biologist Phillip Clapham, formerly of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s National Marine Fisheries Service. Small, localized populations \u2014 like the one in Sri Lanka \u2014 face higher risks of being wiped out in the face of environmental or human threats, such as deep-sea mining.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than two decades on, de Vos is now one of Sri Lanka\u2019s most renowned scientists \u2014 famed for nurturing the country\u2019s nascent marine biology scene. She is also an ardent champion for greater diversity among researchers in ocean conservation.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Vos has garnered numerous accolades, including being named a\u00a0National Geographic Explorer<\/a>, a\u00a0TED Senior Fellow<\/a>\u00a0and one of the\u00a0BBC\u2019s 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2018<\/a>. But such recognitions don\u2019t spur her on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m driven by trying to make a change,\u201d especially around the negative narrative many Sri Lankans hold for the ocean, she says. \u201cI want people to fall in love with the ocean \u2026 to recognize the ocean as this incredible space that is life-giving in so many ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Setting her own course<\/span><\/h2>\n

For all her love of the deep, de Vos\u2019 early memories of the ocean \u2014 a mere mile from where she grew up in Sri Lanka\u2019s capital, Colombo \u2014 are, surprisingly, tinged with fear. Like her compatriots, she was raised with repeated warnings that the ocean was \u201ca big beast\u201d to avoid, unless you were fisher\u00adfolk with little choice but to venture into such unforgiving territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were often stories of drownings that came with people who went to sea,\u201d she says. Most people in Sri Lanka never learn how to swim, despite living on an isle so picturesque it\u2019s often called the \u201cpearl of the Indian Ocean.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have this disconnect with the sea\u201d de Vos says. \u201cLife always ended at the shoreline.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The few people who do learn how to swim usually stick to swimming pools. The ocean is \u201cnot recreational space,\u201d de Vos says. \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s a common problem, particularly in poorer nations where you don\u2019t have time to waste and there\u2019s no frolicking on the beach.\u201d But her forward-thinking mother sent her for swim classes. The young girl took to the water so well that she soon began competing in freestyle sprint events.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her love for the ocean, however, stemmed from another source: secondhand\u00a0National Geographic\u00a0<\/em>magazines her father would bring home from the local bookshop. \u201cIt was just the pictures that really drew me in,\u201d de Vos says.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time she turned 17, de Vos had narrowed her career path to marine biology. No local universities offered such a course, and she hadn\u2019t heard of anyone from Sri Lanka who had ever ventured abroad to pursue the subject, but that didn\u2019t deter de Vos. Nor did just missing the required grades for her dream school, the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which has a strong marine biology program. \u201cI called [the university] and said, \u2018Look, I really want to come to your school. I know I\u2019m capable,\u2019 \u201d she recalls with a laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nAsha de Vos (shown here in 2015) made the observation that Sri Lanka\u2019s blue whales are nonmigratory while a master\u2019s student.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her powers of persuasion worked, kick-starting an academic journey that would take her through three continents \u2014 including a Ph.D. in Australia and a postdoc in the United States that she completed in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

The journey hasn\u2019t always been smooth sailing. The naysaying began when she applied for university. \u201cThere\u2019s no scope in this country for a marine biologist,\u201d people would say. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t understand that there could be work, there could be jobs out at sea,\u201d de Vos says. \u201cI always joke now that maybe people thought I was going to go to university and then become a fisherwoman.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As de Vos progressed in her career, the criticism continued, both from within and outside her country. In\u00a0a personal essay<\/a>\u00a0she penned for the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, de Vos recounts a handful of fellow scientists from wealthier nations who questioned her authority as a researcher from an impoverished country, assuming that she would \u201clack the knowledge, know-how and interest to participate in marine conservation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, fellow Sri Lankans criticized de Vos for not staying within the boundaries of a \u201crespectable\u201d woman, engaging in relatively risky, labor-intensive outdoor tasks. A fisherman piloting a boat she was on demanded to know what her husband thought of her being out on the water and \u201cgetting black in the sun.\u201d De Vos replied that she wasn\u2019t married. The man retorted, \u201cI thought as much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Such critics served only as fire starters. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, whatever. I\u2019ll show you,\u2019 \u201d she says. \u201cIn many ways, I\u2019m grateful for the challenges \u2014 they really made me who I am. They made me have to think outside the box. They made me have to work superhard and really grind at what I do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Clapham, who was one of her Ph.D. examiners, it is this steely, determined de Vos he knows and loves. \u201cShe\u2019s just a force of nature\u201d and is simply relentless, he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Creating a lasting legacy<\/span><\/h2>\n

Today, de Vos continues to study cetaceans through the\u00a0Sri Lankan Blue Whale Project<\/a>, which she launched in 2008. \u201cWe have the longest running dataset of blue whales in this part of the world,\u201d she says, including a\u00a0photo catalog<\/a>\u00a0of hundreds of individuals in the population.<\/span><\/p>\n

But much about the creatures remains unknown, including their precise numbers and what drives long-term fluctuations in their abundance. During the project\u2019s first five years, de Vos and her team observed numerous sightings of the giants, sometimes between 10 and 12 creatures at a go \u201cjust blowing everywhere,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut now on the southern coast, we don\u2019t see as many blue whales.\u201d She and her team are trying to figure out why and whether it\u2019s cause for concern.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the researchers are limited by their vessels, which can only support day trips rather than longer journeys farther out to sea. \u201cWe are searching such a tiny sliver of ocean,\u201d de Vos says.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the whales, de Vos also surveys the biodiversity of their deep-sea environment. She conducted, as far as she knows, the first such audit of the northern Indian Ocean in 2022. \u201cI do these things from a conservation perspective.\u2026 People are getting more and more bold about what can be done in these deep-sea environments,\u201d she says, citing underwater mining as a potential threat. \u201cI work with whales and that\u2019s my primary love. But the whales need a perfectly healthy ecosystem because they don\u2019t just live in a bubble where everything around them doesn\u2019t bother them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A key aim of de Vos\u2019 work is to protect blue whales from ship strikes. Sri Lanka lies along one of the world\u2019s busiest shipping routes, and in a\u00a0survey of 14 stranded whales<\/a>\u00a0that had died from ship strikes in 2010\u20132014, a total of nine, or more than 60 percent, were blue whales.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Vos brought the\u00a0danger of shipping to light in 2012<\/a>. It \u201cstarted a whole cycle of conversations\u201d with the Sri Lankan government, International Whaling Commission, World Shipping Council and other bodies. These talks culminated in victory in 2022, when the world\u2019s largest container shipping firm, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, announced it would\u00a0reduce the speed of its ships<\/a>\u00a0when traveling around the island and adopt a more southerly route that avoided the whales.<\/span><\/p>\n