Apologies for
the hiatus; I’ve been busy with my returning back to Australia and wrapping up three
1st responder training workshops in Indonesia beforehand. I realised
that I had not given a report on the 1st National Indonesian Marine
Mammal Stranding Workshop we conducted in Bali last November (25-28 Nov 2013),
hence I whipped up the report I made to our funding agencies and tailored-suit it
for this blog. The followings are the gist:
The 1st
National Indonesian Marine Mammal Stranding Workshop was conducted in Bali from
25 to 28 November 2013 to increase the capacity of Indonesian and Asian 1st
responders in the handling of live stranded marine mammals, increase the
understanding of the science behind marine mammal stranding events, provide
skills on how to determine the cause of death of marine mammals through
necropsy and strengthen and widen the Indonesian and Asian stranding networks,
including capacity building and public awareness strategies.
The first day of
the workshop covers key identifying features of the species most likely to
occur in Indonesian and adjacent waters, stranding networks , the basic biology
needed to make initial assessments of stranded cetaceans and onshore and in
water training for 1st responders, covering several common live-stranded cetacean
scenarios. Main mentors were Lindsay Porter (University of St Andrews) & Grant
Abel (Ocean Park Hong Kong).
The following
two days had a series of lectures covering topics including cetacean anatomy,
triage, acoustic trauma, by-catch, acoustics & acoustic pathology,
toxicology and cetacean necropsy procedures. Key speakers included Nimal
Fernando (Ocean Park Hong Kong) for triage, medicine, acoustic pathology,
bycatch pathology, general pathology and necropsy, Simon Northridge (University
of St Andrews) for by-catch issues, Pat Fair (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration - NOAA) for toxicology, Kathy Larson (Ocean Park, Hong Kong)
Cetacean Anatomy and Cetacean Disease and Dr Matthias Hoffman-Khunt for
acoustics. A wet lab demonstrating general cetacean necropsy procedures and the
extraction and preservation of ear bones for the investigation of potential
acoustic trauma was conducted on the last day by Nimal Fernando.
The workshop
involved 60+ participants from seven countries (30 from Indonesia; the rest
were from Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka) and
international speakers from Hong Kong, the USA, UK, and Singapore.
Workshop in a glance
The first day of
the workshop was dedicated for first responder workshop and training, both led
by Grant Abel (Ocean Park Hong Kong) and Lindsay Porter (University of St.
Andrews). The majority of participants felt that the first responder section
was most beneficial for them; likely because most participants were field
practitioners instead of veterinarians.
The veterinary
section covered the 2nd and 3rd day of the workshop. ‘Triage
and First Response’ (by Nimal Fernando) was considered very useful for the
know-how of 1st responders (in hindsight, this lecture should be
moved to the first day to give participants a better understanding of 1st
responder principles). The bycatch
session was well-received by the participants, possibly because many of them
are involved in fisheries-related conservation programs. The combination of
bycatch theories (including how to identify fishing net marks on an animal’s
skin – delivered by Simon Northridge of the University of St Andrews) and bycatch
pathology (delivered by Nimal) was conducted seamlessly to give the audience a
better understanding on how to investigate possible bycatch fingerprints in
stranding cases. Some participants were asking about chronic entanglement
(i.e., cases where animals are found moving around the waters with entangled
fishing gears) and how to release the animals from such entanglement. Two
participants specifically considered bycatch and bycatch pathology as one of
the most useful topics for him/her in the evaluation forms.
Patricia Fair
delivered two toxicology lectures: ‘Introduction to Toxicology’ on Day Two and
‘Marine Mammals and Toxicology’ on Day Three. The second lecture was particularly
more practical for field practitioner. A participant specifically mentioned the
need of another toxicology training for him/her.
Acoustic was an
interesting topic for many participants, particularly those coming from
countries or regions where seismic activities are often conducted (such as Indonesia
and the Philippines). Matthias Hoffman-Khunt (University of National Singapore)
explained the theories behind underwater acoustic and why excessive noise could
be lethal to cetaceans. Nimal then delivered the acoustic pathology lecture
that explained the veterinary aspects of acoustic trauma. The two combined
lectures were also considered well-executed. A participant specifically
considered acoustic pathology as most useful for him/her in the evaluation
form.
The wet
laboratory work for cytology (Chan San Yuen, Ocean Park) was an interesting
break from the lecture. For future workshops, this session could be allocated
for the end of Day Two (first day of vet) to reduce fatigue and provide
participants some relief from lectures.
The necropsy location
was at the Turtle Conservation and Education Center in Serangan Island, about
20 minutes’ ride from the venue (Sanur Beach Hotel). Most participants had
never witnessed a necropsy before, hence it generated a lot of interest. A
turtle pond was dried to accommodate a depressed stage for the vet team (led by
Nimal) to conduct the necropsy (see Appendix 2 for photographs). Only
veterinarians, lecturers and participants who were willing to join the hands-on
demo were allowed inside the pool. Other participants would either stand on the
edge of the pool, looking down to the necropsy table, or watch the necropsy
process from two live-feed TVs. Necropsy target was a finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) with total
length of 135.5 cm, by-caught by a fisher in Paloh, West Kalimantan (click
here for the story of that finless porpoise, thanks to Dwi Suprapti and
her West Kalimantan WWF crew). Prior to the dissection, Simon gave some
technical comments on fishing net marks and other external features of bycatch on
of the finless porpoise skin. Nimal started and led the necropsy. He also gave
direct commentaries, translated by my dear friend Jaya Ratha from Conservation
International for Indonesian participants. Although we know that the circumstances of
death was bycatch, the necropsy process could not find the technical cause of
death, primarily due to the fact that storage time had reduced the carcass
condition (still Code 2, edging to Code 3 when frozen). However, the vet team
did find the stomach to be full of semi-digested fish and no sign of lung
drowning; the first sign was diagnostic for by-catch. Participants generally
viewed the necropsy demo as favorable. Six participants specifically considered
necropsy as one of the most useful topics for him/her in the evaluation forms.
Despite the many
suggestions for improvement, the workshop was considered a success by almost
90% participants. Due to the different nature of field conservation and
veterinary works, many participants were originally confused as to why the
workshop had a large section of veterinary aspects. They eventually understood
that the veterinary aspects were delivered to provide them with a larger
picture of the stranding phenomenon.
Nonetheless, for
future workshops with similar contents (e.g. the 2nd National
Stranding Workshop), a clear division of the workshop is suggested.
Participants should be clearly informed that the workshop consists of two
parts: the First Responder (with hands-on demo) and the Veterinary (with
necropsy subject to availability). Participants should be given a clear
instruction to indicate whether they are going to attend the First Responder
section only, the Veterinary section only, or the two sections. This division
is important to avoid any participants questioning their own participation in
the workshop due to irrelevant content.
Translation
process is another important aspect to the workshop. Due to human resource
shortage, I was the main verbal translators for the whole workshop. I was
assisted by Jaya Ratha for verbal translation of toxicology, anatomy, disease,
cytology wet lab and necropsy sessions. However, two translators were
insufficient for a three days’ workshop. We suggest adding 1-2 extra
translators for 2nd National Workshop to reduce fatigue and avoid
possible mistakes. Unfortunately, professional translators are not advisable
for this type of workshop due to the specific and technical terms translators
must master. The deployment of two LCD projectors (instead of just one),
beaming up two versions of the presentations (English and Indonesian versions)
was very helpful in supporting the translation process.
National discussion summary
The national
discussion on marine mammal stranding was conducted in the evening of 27
November with threat mapping as the main agenda (Figure
1). The
threat mapping discussion was based on a thematic mapping conducted by Grant,
Lindsay, Nimal, Yanti and myself back in May 2013.
The most frequently mentioned threats were by-catch (18 times), boat
collision (15 times), sonar and unsustainable coastal and riverine development (13 times), and oil and gas industry (12
times). Marine debris (9 times) and blast fishing (8 times) were perceived as
medium threats, whereas direct catch were mentioned three times. Managers at
six places perceived that the marine mammals in their waters might be subjected
to at least an unknown threat (hence, ‘unknown’).
General conclusion
We distributed evaluation
questionnaires at the end of the workshop. Of the 39
filled in questionnaires, 37 of them gave grading to the workshop. A total of
21 people (56.8%) said it was “good”; 12 people (32.4%) said it was “very
good”. With almost 90% people satisfied with the workshop, it is safe to
conclude that the 1st National Indonesian Marine Mammal Stranding
Workshop was successful, leading to the plan to conduct regular biennial
national workshops in the future.
The involvement of 20 overseas participants from Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, and Sri Lanka is viewed as favorable to the workshop process and also to
general networking. The need to bilingually translate any questions from
overseas participants for local participants’ benefit did, naturally, prolong
the workshop process. The involvement of overseas participants should be repeated for the 2nd
National Indonesian Marine Mammal Stranding Workshop in late 2015, with
additional countries, e.g., Timor Leste and Vietnam.
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