Measures taken in Puerto Rico

The Caribbean Stranding Network

On of the efforts done in Puerto Rico to preserved and take care of endangered species has been offered by the Caribbean Stranding Network. The purpose of this effort is to understand the mortality and stranding problems of endangered marine mammals in Puerto Rico. This network required a new integrated and funded program in which all the efforts and talent from all the responsible and interested people in the conservation of endangered species. One of the objectives of this program was to develop a new protocol for the recovery of the dead bodies, necropsies, rescue, rehabilitation and the liberation of animals that strand alive.
This program was proposed during the Workshop about marine mammals strandings in 1977, where two proposition of stranding network were presented: one for the Southeast of the United States (including Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands) and another for the West Indies (including from Puerto Rico to Barbados. Both proposals specified a small budget to develop the network. At the end of the workshop it was recommended that Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands should be under the jurisdiction of the Standing Network of the Southeast of the United States, but with certain autonomy to function efficiently as part of the Caribbean River Basin Network. However, the idea of a Caribbean River Basin Network was never developed and the Stranding Network of the Southeast of the United States never developed an autonomist sub region and did not manage the cases due to the long distance between the islands and the United States and did not train local governmental agencies nor universities to manage these situations.It was not until October 1989 that, in the absence of a program and with the initiative of Puerto Rican biologists, that the Caribbean Stranding Network was created.
As recommended in the 1977 stranding workshop, the new network was developed as a sub region of the Caribbean Islands of the already establish Marine Mammals Stranding Network of the Southeast United States, with plans of uniting all the Caribbean areas. The new Network joined forces with the Stranding and Conservation of Marine Turtles Network of the United States.
With its center of operation functioning in San Juan, the network is composed of participants, counselors and volunteers from more than forty organizations and governmental agencies in thirty-one Caribbean countries. Currently all the participant volunteers of the Network belong to the university private sector and the national and stately governmental agencies, whose personal has accorded to appear on the stranding scene and transport the animal for treatment or necropsy.

In the past 5 years, the CSN has rescued and rehabilitated 279 marine animals in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, including manatees (6), dolphins (7), whales (5), turtles (66), and marine birds (194). The success of rehabilitation depends on the severity of the case, health or condition of the animal, and the species involved. The average success rate of animals brought to the CSN is approximately 50.4%, varying between species as follows: 63.2% success rate for cetaceans, 83.3% for manatees, 84.8% for marine turtles and 37.6% for marine birds.

In 1994, the CSN volunteered actively in monitoring, rescuing and rehabilitating marine fauna directly affected by the Morris J. Berman tanker's oil spill in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The CSN's participation consisted in counting (keeping a tab) on more than 6,000 animals and rehabilitating dozens of birds and turtles. Moses the Manatee was the first manatee rehabilitated by the CSN since the age of two months old. It became an icon of conservation in Puerto Rico. Moses was re-introduced to the sea on March 1994 as part of a pilot program of re-introduction of orphaned manatees. After three years of hard rehabilitation work, Moses is free, healthy, and exploring by his own several areas off the east coast of Puerto Rico.

Mortality and Strandings

A Scientific Coordinator for the entire Caribbean directs the Mortality and Stranding project with the assistance of four investigative technicians and coordinators. This project intends to identify and study relationships between factors involved in the cause of death. Approximately 160 volunteers throughout the Caribbean work with the CSN in order to document stranding cases and conduct post-mortem analysis. When possible these analyses are conducted in the center of operations. Otherwise, the necropsies are conducted at the stranding site.

In its first five years, the CSN has attended more than 500 standing, mortality, and rescue cases involving marine mammals, turtles and birds. Some of these cases have been difficult and/or peculiar situations; as is for example one of the few known mass strandings for Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris); the second record for the dense beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) in the Caribbean; the first confirmed reports for the Antillean beaked whale (Mesoplodon europaeus) the melonhead whale (Peponocephala electra) and Grisso's dolphin (Grampus griseus) in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; the live stranding of a Bryde's whale (Baleonoptera edeni) on a reef and the release and rare stranding of two live loggerhead turtles (Carreta carreta) and two hooded seals (Cystophora cristata) in Puerto Rico. The epizootic condition of fibropapillomas in green turtles has been documented for the Caribbean in a study conjunct with the Health of Aquatic Animal Project of the University of Puerto Rico.

Photos provided by CSN