The 2018 updates

OMG, I have apparently missed the whole 2018 for any updates!

This book has my chapter!

I’m still alive (and healthy, thank you, Universe!) and still working with sustainable tourism, tourism economics and marine mammal issues in general. I was teaching for the second semester at James Cook University, thus it kept me busy during the last half of the year, while the first half of the 2018 was busy with me getting married to my partner in mid-April (we started dating in mid 2010).

I’ve also been collaborating on some papers. Three of them are under review now; one on old stranding paintings with Rodney Westerlaken, the other one on the habitat suitability of marine megafauna in Solor Islands with Muhammad Iqbal Herwata Putra, and the last one is on cetacean bycatch in Gorontalo Sulawesi with Elena Wonneberger, Karim Erzini and Nuralim Pasisingi. Five papers are being cooked as we speak: the first one is on the economics of shark tourism in Indonesia (with Hollie Booth and Muh Ichsan), the second one is on the habitat suitability of cetaceans in Solor Islands with Iqbal Herwata Putra, the third one is on the habitat suitability of cetaceans in Indonesia (with Achmad Sahri and Iqbal Herwata Putra), the fourth one is on the governance of marine mammals in Indonesia (with Achmad Sahri) and the fifth one is on the souvenir sellers in Lovina (with Riccardo Welters, Neil Loneragan and Carol Warren). There’s a batch of data on environmental education that I want to analyse, but I really have to set time for that to make it happen (!).

Indonesia's National Plan of Action for the Cetaceans

Just a short post to inform you all that Indonesia (the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries) has released its National Plan of Action for the Conservation of Cetaceans. The document is still in Indonesian language. I have the English version of the earlier draft (because I was one of the authors), but we will need time (and funding, I suppose) to translate it into English. Based on the 2002-2010 Conservation Action Plan for the World's Cetaceans (Reeves et al 2003), the document contains strategies to address unsustainable anthropogenic activities (bycatch, blast fishing, direct catch, tourism in the wild, captivity, marine debris, vessel strikes, and competition with fisheries) and disturbance to cetacean habitats (coastal and riverine development, commercial and military sonar, chemical pollution, biotoxin and climate change). The national marine mammal stranding network is also mentioned as one of the action plans. Click here for the document in Indonesian language. (terjemahan bahasa Indonesia di bawah break)

New Year notes for the past semester

A Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera edeni) we encountered off the Uluwatu Temple, Bali, November 2015

Since this is the last day of the year, I thought I’ll just write myself some pointers of what I did during the second semester of 2015. Starting with July-August where my colleagues and I were trying to set up CETASI, real pain in the admin. I have to credit Yanti Purnomo as the star in navigating the bureaucratic waters in Indonesia, but Adityo Setiawan, Jaya Ratha and Erdi Lazuardi also provided tremendous support.

August saw me returning to Bali for the Cetacean National Plan of Action (NPOA) meeting. It was a productive meeting; I assisted WWF Indonesia and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to build up the early version of the document. So far, the document includes issues such as bycatch, tourism, seismic and acoustic, ocean noise, alternative livelihood, captivity and Marine Mammal Protected Areas. Kudos to Sarminto Hadi, Miasto Yudha and team for pulling off the meeting. We also had our first stranding training workshop for the expatriates in Bali at Seminyak with Whale Stranding Indonesia and Soul Surf Project Bali. Well, not just for the expats, for we also had local participants (and a girl flying from Sabah Malaysia just for this training!), but it was definitely the first English-speaking training that I delivered, and I actually enjoyed it. The CETASI also had our first annual meeting (at my father’s place in Bali, actually), and we carry with us a list of homework to be done... which hasn’t all been done...(palm/face).

The final report for the cetacean bycatch study, funded by the International Whaling Commission

Berikut ini adalah abstrak dan tautan untuk laporan akhir cetacean bycatch di Paloh dan Adonara Indonesia yang didanai oleh the International Whaling Commission. Di bawah ini adalah artikel bahasa Inggris. Untuk bahasa Indonesia, klik tautan ini. 

Fishing boats in Paloh, West Kalimantan (@Putu Liza Mustika 2014)

The followings are the abstract and link to the final report of cetacean bycatch in Paloh and Adonara Indonesia, generously funded by the International Whaling Commission. Our many gratitudes to Dr Toni Ruchimat as the Director General of the Capture Fisheries of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries for his support and introductory letter. Our many gratitudes as well to WWF Indonesia, particularly Dwi Suprapti, DVM and Agri Aditya who have taken us everywhere in Paloh, West Kalimantan during our field work. We would also like to acknowledge Dr Danielle Kreb (RASI Foundation) and Dr Tara S. Whitty who had conducted their independent cetacean bycatch studies in East Kalimantan prior to this study. Dr Whitty had also provided us useful suggestions during the design phase of the work. Our thanks are also extended to our research assistants (Emitha Wulandari, Tyas Woro Prasasti and Abdul Hamid Sidik) for the data collection and data entry.

If the link is not working, do contact me at putuliza at gmail dot com for the PDF.

A pilot study to identify the extent of small cetacean bycatch in Indonesia using fisher interview and stranding data as proxies

Final report to the International Whaling Commission

By Putu Liza Mustika¹, Februanty S. Purnomo², and Simon Northridge³

1, 2 Whale Stranding Indonesia

3 School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom

Abstract

This study examines the extent of artisanal fishery bycatch of cetaceans at two locations in Indonesia. The study locations were at Paloh (West Kalimantan) and at Adonara (East Nusa Tenggara); each site represents different gear types and different cetacean species. We used three methods: semi-structured interviews of fishermen; examination of stranding data and direct observations. The work was preceded by a workshop to identify signs of fishing gear interaction on cetacean stranding cases in Bali in November 2013, followed by direct observations and interviews from late February to early May 2014. 

Laporan akhir cetacean bycatch yang didanai oleh International Whaling Commission

The followings are the abstract and link to the final report of cetacean bycatch in Paloh and Adonara Indonesia, funded by the International Whaling Commission. The article is in Indonesian. Click here for the English version.

 

The Lamahala beach in Adonara, East Nusa Tenggara (@Februanty Purnomo 2014)

Berikut ini adalah abstrak dan tautan untuk laporan akhir kegiatan pemantauan cetacean bycatch di Paloh dan Adonara yang didanai oleh the International Whaling Commission.Terima kasih banyak untuk Dr Toni Ruchimat sebagai Direktur Jenderal Perikanan Tangkap di Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan atas dukungan dan surat pengantar resmi dari beliau. Terima kasih juga kepada WWF Indonesia, terutama Drh Dwi Suprapti yang telah mengantar kami melakukan ke mana-mana di Paloh, Kalimantan Barat. Kami juga mengucapkan terima kasih dan menghargai hasil kerja Dr Danielle Kreb (RASI Foundation) dan Dr Tara S. Whitty yang telah melakukan penelitian bycatch cetacean secara terpisah di Kalimantan Timur beberapa tahun sebelum riset kami dilakukan. Dr Whitty juga telah memberikan masukan kepada kami saat perancangan riset ini. Kami juga berterima kasih kepada para asisten riset kami (Emitha Wulandari, Tyas Woro Prasasti and Abdul Hamid Sidik) yang telah membantu pengumpulan data dan data entry.

Jika tautan tidak berfungsi, silakan hubungi saya di putuliza at gmail dot com untuk PDFnya. 

A pilot study to identify the extent of small cetacean bycatch in Indonesia using fisher interview and stranding data as proxies

Final report to the International Whaling Commission

By Putu Liza Mustika¹, Februanty S. Purnomo², and Simon Northridge³

1, 2 Whale Stranding Indonesia

3 School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom

Abstrak

Dokumen ini mengkaji tangkapan samping mamalia laut dalam perikanan tradisional di dua tempat di Indonesia. Studi ini dilakukan di Paloh (Kalimantan Barat) dan Adonara (Nusa Tenggara Timur); setiap lokasi mewakili alat tangkap yang berbeda dan spesies mamalia laut yang berbeda pula. Studi ini menggunakan tiga metode: wawancara semi terstruktur dengan nelayan; pemeriksaan kejadian terdampar dan pengamatan langsung. Kegiatan ini didahului oleh pelatihan untuk mengidentifikasi tanda-tanda interaksi alat tangkap pada kasus mamalia laut terdampar pada bulan November 2013 di Bali, yang diikuti dengan pengamatan langsung dan wawancara pada bulan Februari sampai dengan Maret 2014. 

Sousa chinensis mum and baby: Another bycatch from Paloh

The female Sousa chinensis by-caught in Paloh, pic by Taufik

17 February 2014

Februanty Purnomo and I were packing our stuff for one night overnight at Temajuk by the border of Sarawak when Dwi Suprapti, DVM rushed in, declaring that a fisher just caught a dolphin in a village nearby. We dropped our overnight stuff, grabbed our GPS, camera and note book, and drove out to Guntung, about 20 min drive south from the WWF Paloh basecamp where we had been staying since last Saturday.

We arrived about an hour too late, apparently, for when we arrived there, the dolphin had been cleanly dissected by the locals for personal consumption, leaving only about 30x30x30 chunk of meat in whitish skin on the ground. Thanks to technology tho, even fishers nowadays have smartphones. One of them produced his Blackberry and showed us the picture of the dolphin. As I suspected from the white skin, it was a Sousa chinensis (Indo Pacific humpback dolphin).

An ode to a finless porpoise

The by-caught finless porpoise in Paloh, West Kalimantan (photo: WWF Indonesia)

I have one wish at the moment. I wish I knew the ancient prayers of the Maori in New Zealand or the Native North Americans in the Arctic circles. For I would be able to chant a prayer to a particular finless porpoise who died last Sunday (13/10/13), by-caught by a fisher in Paloh, West Kalimantan. The finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides), very likely female and pregnant, was by-caught on Sunday afternoon and was about to be sold to the market when my WWF friends (led by Dwi Suprapti, DVM) intervened and asked the fisher to let the porpoise go. The fisher did, and thus we have our Code 2 carcass for the November stranding workshop in Bali.

Dwi (and her WWF team) and I (and my team) have been on alert for the last few months since I asked her assistance to obtain a Code 2 carcass for the stranding workshop. The alert went to Red level when a few weeks ago Dwi et al. obtained a finless porpoise carcass, also from Paloh. But the carcass was already Code 4, such that it would be ‘a smelly soup inside’ when opened, as my vet friend Nimal told me. Turned out, the Paloh harbour folks also agreed that the animal was already very smelly; they asked us to ditch the carcass from their fridge (er, yes, we did put the carcass for a bit in their refrigerator...). So, no carcass to examine. Not that I was sad about it, I had no intention in examining a Code 4 carcass either...