Marine protected areas for whales, dolphins, and porpoises: a world ...

396 Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises
MARINE REGION 17: SOUTHEAST PACIFIC
After spending the summer feeding around the Antarctic, humpback whales
from the Southeast Pacific stock travel the entire length of this marine region,
ranging north along the west coast of South America some 5176 miles (8334
km) and crossing the Equator to the waters off Colombia and Panamá. This is
the longest migration of any whale.
This region also has southern right whales off Chile, and populations of
sperm whales throughout the region, both offshore and close to shore. As well,
there are blue, fin, sei, Bryde’s and both Antarctic minke and (northern) minke
whales in the region.
Rare cetaceans in this region include several small cetaceans with limited
ranges. The Chilean dolphin is endemic. Two other species are found only in
two regions – this region plus the South Atlantic Marine Region off eastern
South America: Peale’s dolphin and Burmeister’s porpoise. The Burmeister’s
porpoise is the most common cetacean species to be found stranded or caught
in nets along the Chilean coast. Three more species are found mainly in these
two regions with some distribution in the adjacent Antarctic and other southern
hemisphere regions: hourglass and Commerson’s dolphins, and the spectacled
porpoise.
This region has also produced findings of new cetaceans. In the 1990s, a
new species of beaked whale was described from this region, together with new
specimens of a rare beaked whale, electrifying whale researchers everywhere
and causing them to wonder how many more cetacean species might yet be
undescribed (eg, Reyes et al, 1991, 1995; van Helden et al, 2002). The pygmy
beaked whale and the spade-toothed whale were both thought to be found only
in the Southeast Pacific Marine Region until strandings turned up in the
Australian–New Zealand Marine Region and (for the pygmy beaked whale only)
in the southern part of the Northeast Pacific Marine Region.
In addition to the marine cetaceans, the rivers east of the Andes, in the
countries of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, have Amazon River dolphins and
tucuxi, some of them in protected areas.
This region has one of the notable national parks of the world, the
Galápagos Islands, which has been extended to surrounding marine waters.
The Galápagos MPA is designated as both a ‘Marine Resources Reserve’ and a
‘Whale Sanctuary’. It effectively forms the largest MPA in the region and one
of the largest in the world with an area of 61,000 mi 2 (158,000 km 2 ). In
addition, both Ecuador and Colombia have MPAs that include some coverage
of humpback whale mating and calving areas, although the three main areas in
Ecuador were designated before humpback whales were studied and became
well known. Chile is developing various MPAs to protect cetaceans and
ecosystems on its long coast, although there is some controversy as to the
effectiveness of the government proposals, both in terms of ecosystem and
cetacean habitat protection.
The Southeast Pacific Marine Region includes the jurisdictions of ten
national governments (see Table 5.1 on p89). The region covers the waters