Killing the seagulls to save the whales, a questionable solution to say the least. The Chubut state government has instructed sharpshooters to shoot the hungry gulls that attack the cetaceans, injuring the adults and killing the young. The Larus domenicanus, also known as the Kelp Gull, represents, according to them, an ever greater danger for the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), of which it is estimated that there are just about 3000-4000 specimens
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Kill the seagulls to save the whales, a solution that is questionable to say the least. The Chubut state government has instructed sharpshooters to shoot the hungry gulls that attack the cetaceans, injuring the adults and killing the young. The Larus domenicanus, also known as the Kelp Gull, they say is a growing danger to southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), of which it is estimated that there are just about 3000-4000 specimens.
The type of ammunition that will be used has not yet been defined, as reported by the daily Clarìn, but to know if it will be fired with a air rifles, rubber bullets or other, will not serve to placate the heated controversies, which broke out at the announcement of the immediate implementation of the plan. It is already official, however, that the Centro Nacional Patagónico (Cenpat) will follow the operation. Marcelo Bertolotti, a biology researcher, explained that the damage that seagulls are causing to whales in the waters of the Valdés Peninsula "are so important that cetaceans have changed the way they breathe".
Until a few years ago, the expert says, the whale made an oblique movement, coming out of the water at 45 degrees. It stuck out its head, then its back, and finally its tail. So he breathed. Seagull attacks have it forced to pull only her head out of the water. According to recent studies, the "attack rate" is 25%: "if you observe whales for 4 hours, the gulls will attack for at least a whole hour", concludes the biologist, explaining that in young specimens "these wounds become a kind of gutter on the back ", exposing them to infections, retarding growth and stopping breastfeeding.
But is this really the problem or is there something else? Just to give an example, if the whales do not emerge, the tourists decrease, who go to those areas to observe the splendid cetaceans. "Whales are still seen as an economic resource rather than part of the ecological system," he criticizes Milko Schvartzman, coordinator of the Greenpeace's Oceans campaign for Latin America, according to which this solution is absolutely useless.
“What the Chubut government proposes is one palliative measure that does not solve the real problems: open landfills, waste that ends up in the waters and waste thrown by fishing vessels. This also attracts the seagulls ", concludes Schvartzman, rhetorically asking:" what is worse? Those birds that peck at the skin of whales or humans who have not yet given birth to a plan to reduce waste generation?". How to say, shooting seagulls certainly won't save whales.
Roberta Ragni
