Category: news

A young minke whale that was washed ashore on Bredene beach on 11 December turned out to have a very unfortunate history: an empty stomach, intestines full of parasites and an abnormal spine. To make matters worse, two broken mandibles added to the problems. It is only the eighth minke whale that has been documented in Belgium during the past 20 years, and only the third stranding.

In the morning of Thursday 11 December 2020, the fresh carcass of a young minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) washed ashore on the beach of Bredene, near the border with Ostend. The animal, 3.89 m long (an adult minke whale can grow up to almost 10 m long) and weighing 489 kg, looked very skinny, and had a broken right lower jaw of which the bones protruded through the wound. A healthy specimen of the length of the Bredene minke whale should weigh about twice as much, so it was immediately suspected that it was in poor health even without fractures.

Autopsy reveals cause(s) of death

The carcass was immediately transferred to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UGent, where a team from UGent and the ULiège performed an autopsy on 12 December. This post-mortem examination confirmed the poor condition of the unfortunate minke whale: no remains of a recent meal were found in the stomach, the digestive system was full of parasites and the spine showed abnormalities. The open fracture in the lower right jaw turned out to be less old than first suspected, and the lower left jaw also turned out to be broken. Eventually, the emaciation was not related to the fractures: the animal must have contracted them only very recently, and they were the result of a collision with an obstacle such as a vessel or a breakwater, or with the seabed.

Minke whales in Belgium

Although the minke whale is part of the North Sea fauna, its range is mainly limited to the northern and central parts of the North Sea. In recent years, however, they were more commonly observed in the south, probably due to changes in the marine ecosystem. “In Belgian waters, only seven proven cases are known to us from the last 20 years, three of which concerned carcasses while the other four referred to observations of live specimens.” explains Jan Haelters, expert on marine mammals at the RBINS. “The carcasses date from 2004 (found dead at sea and landed; died by bycatch), 2013 (stranded; died by swallowing a large amount of plastic) and 2017 (carcass in a far state of decomposition at sea). The live minke whales were observed in 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2020.” It is not known with certainty whether a number of reports from October 2020 actually concerned minke whales.

The skeleton of the Bredene minke whale will be preserved for science.

Following the assessment of the ecological state of Belgian marine waters in 2018, monitoring has now been adapted for the second six-year cycle of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The extension of the monitoring with a number of new partners and parameters will lead to a more complete understanding of the state of the Belgian marine area, and will help underpin a policy aimed at achieving and maintaining good environmental status.

The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) establishes a framework within which Member States document the state of their marine waters and take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain good environmental status. In this way, marine ecosystems throughout Europe are to be protected and, where necessary, restored.

DG Environment coordinates the implementation of the MSFD for Belgium. The Scientific Service Management Unit of the Mathematical Model of the North Sea MUMM (part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences) is responsible for the coordination of the monitoring and the assessment of the state, and cooperates with 7 other institutes (ILVO, INBO, FASFC, AFCN-FANC, VLIZ, Continental Shelf Service- FPS Economy and Ghent University; see partners).

A total of 29 monitoring programmes describe measurements in the various compartments of the marine environment using a wide range of techniques (from sampling by divers, analyses in the laboratory to aerial censuses and satellite observations). They contribute to the 11 themes (the so-called “descriptive elements”) defined in the MSFD. Eutrophication, fisheries, chemical pollution, waste and biodiversity of species groups and habitats are only some of the aspects addressed.

The newly included programmes include observations of plankton by VLIZ, seabed waste by ILVO, macrobenthos (organisms living on the seabed and visible to the naked eye) in the wind farms by Ghent University and radionuclides by AFCN-FANC.

Together, the measurements will make it possible to evaluate the state of the marine environment in Belgium and, where necessary, to define action points for a favourable future evolution.

For more details, consult the monitoring programmes (NL – FR) and/or the 2018 assessment (NL – FR).

Spatial planning is a discipline mostly associated with onshore built-up areas, but if there is one region in the North Sea that requires a rigorous mapping of activities it is the Belgian offshore area. Nature conservation, shipping, fishing, sand extraction, energy production, cables and pipelines, military exercises, … are all competing for space in this little patch of sea.

The Norwegian Expronews linked the Belgian marine spatial planning nicely with some of the RBINS work in relation to the assessment of reserves of certain abiotic resources and their potential for exploitation in a summarizing article.

Special attention is attributed to

• the state-of-the-art 3D resource model that describes the distribution and availability of all non-hydrocarbon geological resources in the Belgian and adjacent Dutch marine waters, and can also serve as a resource decision support system and to underpin long-term adaptive management strategies (TILES, Van Lacker et al. 2019, Hademenos et al. 2019)

• the work of the Geological Survey of Belgium, explaining why there is no interest from the oil industry in the Belgian waters and why the Belgian offshore is highly unlikely to be a suitable area for sequestration of CO2 (dedicated article on expronews.com)

On Tuesday 24 November 2020, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Ghent University and the Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO) jointly organise the first Belgian Flat Oyster Day.

The European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) is an iconic species that was once abundant throughout European seas. It formed extensive reefs harbouring diverse communities of marine organisms and was the target of a considerable fishery. Already by the end of the 19^th century, flat oyster populations in Europe have been drastically reduced due to overfishing, and disease outbreaks in the 20^th century gave the species a final blow. In Belgian waters, the species is now regarded as functionally extinct.

Recently, there has been an increasing interest to restore flat oyster populations in Europe, both from conservation and aquaculture points of view. In Belgium also, some initiatives on restoration and aquaculture of this important species are being started.

The Belgian Flat Oyster Day wants to address this increased attention and aims to bring together all relevant actors and interested parties in the Belgian flat oyster scene. By means of two keynote presentations, setting the scene of flat oyster restoration and aquaculture in Europe, and additional presentations on biosecurity and visions for flat oyster restoration and aquaculture in Belgium, the event starts with a broad perspective. Thereafter, a clear overview is presented of the ongoing initiatives concerning the flat oyster in Belgium, with regards to both restoration and aquaculture. The event will be concluded with an example of the Dutch Flat Oyster Consortium and a reflection on how the flat oyster scene can proceed in Belgium. You are kindly invited to have a closer look at the tentative programme, and register through the link below.

PROGRAMME

REGISTRATION

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the first Belgian Flat Oyster Day will be an online-only event (WebEx) on the morning of Tuesday 24 November 2020. The event will be conducted in English. Registration will be closed on Thursday 19 November at 17h.

We are looking forward to welcome you!

Belgian Flat Oyster Day organising committee

Annelies Declercq (Ghent University), Steven Degraer (RBINS), Daan Delbare (ILVO), Thomas Kerkhove (RBINS), Brigitte Lauwaert (RBINS) and Nancy Nevejan (Ghent University)

A new study published in the leading scientific journal Biological Conservation reveals a striking increase in the number of stranded porpoises along the North Sea coast. Scientists from the various North Sea countries compiled their data for this purpose. This also provided insights into the distribution and mortality of the different age groups, but does not yet allow definitive statements to be made about the effects of different human activities.

An international study led by Utrecht University, in which RBINS participated, revealed that more than sixteen thousand dead porpoises have been registered on the North Sea coast since 1990. More than 1500 of these were washed ashore in Belgium. In the Netherlands, with its much longer coastline, the highest numbers washed ashore. The researchers discovered that since 2005 porpoise strandings have become remarkably more frequent in the southern North Sea, while the number of strandings in the more northerly parts of the North Sea hardly changed.

Valuable information through strandings

It is not easy to study porpoises at sea. Researcher and marine ecologist Mariel ten Doeschate, connected to the Scottish stranding network, says: “Research is being done into the numbers and distribution of live animals, but this can only be done in limited periods of time. Strandings, on the other hand, are recorded throughout the year, and have been for decades. We can also determine the sex and age of stranded animals”.

Although the increase in the number of strandings coincides with an increase in the number of sightings of live animals in this region, it cannot simply be concluded that the continuing sharp increase in the number of strandings is only due to the presence of a larger number of animals (where the mortality rate could have remained the same). Indeed, the number of animals at sea is much more difficult to determine accurately than the number of strandings, which means that the two sets of data are not directly comparable and that the strandings are therefore supposed to better reflect what is happening in the population.

Impact of human activity

There is uncertainty about the possible effects of human activities on the numbers and distribution of porpoises. A potentially important factor is a changing climate, with changes in the food situation. Research programmes are also being carried out into the impact of the construction of offshore wind farms. It is important that data collected in countries around the North Sea is pooled: this has never happened before. Researcher Lonneke IJsseldijk (Utrecht University): “Our study has provided new and valuable insights and is a first step in improving our knowledge about the distribution of different age groups, seasonal and age-specific mortality among porpoises in the North Sea. Among other things, the study showed that more newborn animals stranded on German and Danish coasts, while in the Netherlands, Belgium and southern England it was mostly young males.

Research following this study will analyse additional information, including on health and disease.

This research is a collaboration between the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University, the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, the Department of Bioscience of Aarhus University, the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Cetacean Atlas of Denmark, the Globe Institute, the Natural History Museum of Denmark en the Fisheries and Maritime Museum Denmark.

BT Global Services Belgium BV has submitted an application for the authorization for the laying and an environmental permit for the exploitation of the telecommunication cable MERCATOR between Broadstairs – Joss Bay in the south east of England and the beach of Ostend (west of the harbour). This application is subject to an environmental impact assessment procedure.

The application (in Dutch), the environmental impact statement (in Dutch, including a concept of the appropriate assessment) and the non-technical summary (in English) can be consulted from 23 August to 21 September 2020 at the offices of MUMM at Brussels (Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels; mdevolder@naturalsciences.be; tel 02/627 43 52) or at Ostend (3de en 23ste Linieregimentsplein, 8400 Ostend; jhaelters@naturalsciences.be; tel. 059/24 20 55), by appointment only and during office hours between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, and depending on the prevailing measures imposed by the government with regard to Covid-19. The application can also be consulted at every coastal community, during office hours. The list of locations and corresponding contact details can be found here: Coastal_Communities_2020.

The application is also available electronically:

• Application_Offshore Telecommunication Cable UK-BE
• Environmental Impact Statement_Offshore Telecommunication Cable UK-BE
• Non-Technical Summary_Offshore Telecommunication Cable UK-BE

Any interested party may submit its views, comments and objections to Ms Brigitte Lauwaert by letter or email until 6 October 2020:

MUMM Attn. Ms. Brigitte Lauwaert

Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels

blauwaert@naturalsciences.be