Shifting baselines of cetacean conservation in Europe

Abstract

Abstract Within just one human lifetime, the underlying motivation to conserve whales, dolphins and porpoises has shifted from being purely practical and anthropogenic to something much broader, reflecting a desire to protect populations as well as individual animals. In European waters, cetacean conservation currently tends to focus on direct and obvious threats, whereas those originating from widespread human encroachment and consumption patterns tend to be overlooked, even when they are pervasive enough to seriously affect cetacean populations. Cetacean habitat and prey rarely benefit from actual protection (including within Marine Protected Areas), while only moderate and often nominal protection is granted to the cetaceans, without clear conservation baselines and quantitative recovery targets. Meanwhile, historical baselines of cetacean diversity, abundance and distribution appear to be shifting, and the memory of past culling campaigns is fading. Here, we argue that cetacean conservation should go beyond just avoiding further population decline or warding off the extinction of single species. Allowing only the most opportunistic and resilient species to persist, often by merely attempting to mitigate direct mortality (e.g. bycatch in fishing gear), should not pass for actual cetacean conservation. We should strive instead for the full recovery of multiple species throughout their historical ranges.