Fifty Years of Flukes & Flippers: A Little History & Personal Adventures With Dolphins, Whales & Sea Lions (1958-2007)

Fifty Years

of Flukes and

Flippers A Little History and Personal Adventures With Dolphins, Whales and Sea Lions (1958–2007)

William E. Evans

FIFTY YEARS OF FLUKES AND FLIPPERS A Little History and Personal Adventures With Dolphins,Whales and Sea Lions (1958–2007) William E. Evans

Fifty Years of

Flukes and Flippers A Little History and Personal Adventures With Dolphins, Whales and Sea Lions (1958–2007) William E. Evans, PhD

Sofia–Moscow 2008

FIFTY YEARS OF FLUKES AND FLIPPERS A Little History and Personal Adventures With Dolphins, Whales and Sea Lions (1958–2007) William E. Evans

First published 2008 ISBN 978-954-642-326-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-954-642-420-4 (e-book)

© PENSOFT Publishers All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Pensoft Publishers Geo Milev Str. 13a, Sofia 1111, Bulgaria Fax: +359-2-870-42-82 [email protected] www.pensoft.net

Printed in Bulgaria, August 2008

CONTENTS: Dedication

6

Acknowledgement Preface

7

9

Chapter 1: Introduction: History: In the Beginning

12

Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals Chapter 4: Studying Marine Mammals

33

45

Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

59

Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s 73 Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World Chapter 8: The 1980’s and Biopolitics

103

Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls of Academia: (1990’s and beyond) 120 References Apendix I Apendix II

133 141 143

91

21

DEDICATION

T

his memoir is dedicated to my many mentors, most of whom have passed on – Dr. Vic Schaeffer, Dr. Ken Norris, Bill Schevill, F.G. Wood, Dr. Doug Chapman, Dr. C. Scott Johnson, Dr. Steve Leatherwood, Dr. Nishiwaki and several who are still having an impact. Fortunately Dr. Sam Ridgway, my Russian colleagues – Dr. Alexey Yablokov, Drs. Mischa Mina, and Galina Klevesal – and my former shipmate Dale Rice, Dr. Bill Parrin and Dr. Gary Sharp are still making significant contributions. I offer special thanks to my wife and sons who tolerated a part-time husband and father who seemed to be somewhere else in the world, usually on the sea. Last but not least I honor those fascinating ocean creatures who made it all exciting and worthwhile.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I

t would take another book to acknowledge the contribution of everyone to my adventure, especially Bill Powell, Capt. Bruce Parks and Larry McKinley. In addition, I want to mention all those former students at Hubbs Sea World and Texas A & M University who made the trip worthwhile. Many of them have become the new and future pioneers in Marine Mammal Science. A special mention is needed for Beth Wallace, editor, and Dagmar Fertl, who made sure this all made sense and was readable. I also am indebted to those colleagues who served as peer reviewers.

PREFACE

W

ho is the audience for this book? That is a question I have wrestled with for several months. I finally decided I have written this for the millions of parents and children, young and old, who have visited an aquatic zoo or an oceanarium, or who have been on a whale watching trip. At several Marine Mammal meetings in the past several years, I have become aware of how little this latter group knows of our history. I have been asked by many students, and some teachers, and a whole lot of 2nd to 5th graders, “How did you get started working with seals, dolphins and whales?” Occasionally I am asked a similar question by my wife Phyllis, but in another context: “How did we get here from beginnings in Ohio?” My first answer to this question is, “It is a long story.“ Although this is a history of the development of Marine Mammal Science during the past fifty years, I have included a bit of my personal history. It dawned on me early on that I can’t answer that question without a bit of that personal history. I feel this background has a lot to do with my growth as a scientist and how I got to where I am now. Events in my childhood and youth led to my study of these magnificent animals. Therefore, I have included a number of events in these first chapters that the reader might have trouble in relating to dolphins, whales and all the other marine mammals. I have described some of these early adventures because I feel that there are many twists, turns, and forks in the road to the right career. Although my early adventures might not seem immediately connected to a scientific career and my years of association with dolphins,

Preface

9

whales, and especially environmental policy making, in many ways they are critical in shaping of all of my careers. John Steinbeck defined a biologist in words which I think aptly describe my experiences in the field. I can relate to it because all my mentors can be classified as naturalists. Ah, you are probably asking yourself, “What is a naturalist?” If you are a biologist, you already know. If you are not, I will try to give a simple answer. I am not referring to the naturalist in your local park or nature preserve. The naturalists of years gone by are most likely called ecologists today (McIntosh, 1990). In my mind the naturalist is one who does a bit of both fieldwork and laboratory research. It is hard to study marine mammals sitting in an office or laboratory! Here’s what Steinbeck says: “…what good men biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world – temperamental, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy… The true biologist deals with life, with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it; learns that the first rule of life is living….” Steinbeck was, of course, referring to his experiences with Ed Ricketts, who was the model for the character of Doc in Cannery Row. I like this quote because it defines the field biologist-naturalist, which is what I consider myself. During almost 50 years as a scientist and researcher, I have had the opportunity to know and work with a variety of marine mammals, two families of pinnipeds (phocids and otariids), two orders of cetacea (mysticeti, and ondontoceti). This includes 10 different dolphins, 2 small whales and two large whales, one sea lion and 3 true seals. I will try to discuss the research on each individual or group in the case of field studies. I have listed the scientific and common names of all of these in an Appendix. In addition to marine mammals I have done research on birds and reptiles and amphibians. Although these latter are not directly related to the major theme of this personal history, they 10

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

do fit in to the context of my interest in natural history and living things. During the course of my adventures I mention snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises, salamanders, frigate birds, and a few parrots here and there. Today’s students of biology, I believe, make a mistake if they limit themselves to working on, or being interested in, a very narrow specialized area too soon in their careers.

Preface

11

CHAPTER 1 Introduction: History: In the Beginning

P

eering On Tiptoes into My Future. Although I have lived in and was born into a very different time and culture, I think that history is important in understanding my view of Marine Mammal Science. I was born in 1930 in what was then a small town in Indiana, Elkhart. Like many towns in the Midwest, Elkhart was suffering then from the Great Depression. I was one of the fortunate ones, since my father worked for the New York Central Railroad, which was still operating. So he ended up supporting the extended family, including my older brother, his family and my maternal grandparents. This was a very common arrangement during the Great Depression. To help this we moved to the summer cabin owned by my parents, on a small lake in a large wooded area in Elkhart. My father and grandfather winterized the cabin, we all moved out there, and so I became a country boy. It was the perfect place to chase lions, tigers and bears, fight Indians and play Tarzan. I was fascinated by all the creatures of nature, and if it moved, I collected it. I was intrigued by all the strange creatures that lived in the lake; certainly there was a sea monster in there somewhere. I firmly believe that this early experience was my inner biologist showing. Living by the lake started my love for water and my desire to be associated with things aquatic. I also learned that not all furry things are friendly. One day I saw a flying squirrel fly into a hollow in an old tree so I reached in to pet it. Did I get to pet it – not exactly!

12

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

I pulled my hand out with a flying squirrel firmly attached to my index finger. My mother saved me by prying it off using a screw driver. I stayed away from flying squirrels after that, and in fact I approached all things with teeth with great caution. This included girls for a while. In 2005 Texas Tech University sponsored a unique mammalogy symposium designed to capture the career experiences of a group of senior scientists who shared a common bond of having conducted scientific field studies on mammals. The symposium focused on the personal experiences of growing up, becoming a scientist and having a successful career. One common feature of all who participated, including me, was that we had a rural experience during our formative years. Living through the Great Depression of the 1930’s was an experience that is difficult to relate to modern day young people. As the old saying goes, “You had to be there.” Significant numbers of people were out of work. There were “bread lines” the equivalent today of the “Soup Kitchen” found in many large cities. Food in general was limited and, if available, too costly for most. We were among the more fortunate families. First of all, my father was working, although at reduced wages. Secondly, we lived very close to a large Amish family. The Amish religion is all about community and sharing. So when they had a good crop of vegetables, or extra bread, or meat at butchering time, they shared. These are great memories and may be part of the motivation for our moving back to Indiana after retirement. The years 1937 and 1938 changed my focus from the childhood imaginings of jungles and plains of Africa, Frank Buck and Tarzan, to sea monsters, Jules Verne and the oceans. Since we were only a short train ride from Chicago and my father had an annual family pass on the New York Central Railroad, I made frequent trips to the then new Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum in Chicago. There weren’t any whales or sea monsters at Shedd then, but there were many marvels of the sea that could spark a young boy’s imagination and fantasies. I Chapter 1: Introduction: History: In the Beginning

13

was especially impressed by the large fishes like sturgeon and alligator gars. I spent hours just watching the fish and listening to an occasional lecture. The Field Museum of Natural History did indeed have skeletons and models of whales and dolphins, and these were exciting. My parents also took me to the opening of the famous Brookfield Zoo just outside of Chicago. I really wanted to take a couple of monkeys home, but I got a hearty NO! As a consolation prize, my parents bought me an aquarium and a few tropical fish. What a good way to keep a young boy occupied! I still would have liked the monkeys, but what I really wanted to see were real whales like Moby Dick, and I dreamed of sailing the oceans looking for whales and other sea monsters! Then something happened that truly piqued my interest. An opportunity of “circus” proportions came to town. During that period, Elkhart was visited by an eighty-foot preserved fin whale. The following year a preserved sixty-foot sperm whale came to town. For 25 cents I could walk up the steps on the specially designed railroad cars and stare in wonder at these enormous beasts. They were even more enormous that I thought. The smell of formalin was overwhelming, but it was surpassed by the greatness of these special creatures. My interest in whales and oceans was locked in by this amazing boyhood experience. I began to read the tales of the great sea adventures – Moby Dick, The Cruise of the Cachalot, Darwin’s Voyage of the HMS Beagle, The Cruise of the HMS Challenger, and, of course, stories by Jules Verne. My parents tolerated all of this and in some subtle ways encouraged it. If it had that kind of impact on me a child of 7 or 8, then what is the impact now when children have access to many such creatures though television and at marine parks like Sea World and many others? Maybe in today’s information saturation the impact is very small – what a shame. On December 7, 1941, I was sitting in front of our radio listening to the major of New York, Fidelio LaGuardia, read 14

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

the funnies from the Sunday New York Times when the station interrupted for a news bulletin. The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, came on and announced that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. We were all in shock, and the rest of the day was taken up with news for the event and our declaration of war. It was decided that since we needed to be closer to my dad’s work and grandpa’s work we would move back into Elkhart. My dad bought a house on Harrison Street, which in those days was “Little Italy.” Our house was across the street from my dad’s office. My grandpa was called back to work at the Elkhart Brass Company as a pattern maker, and my mother also went to work at the Elkhart Brass Company making cores to go inside of brass fire hose nozzles. There was the Italian American Club opposite our house, and we had a great family next door, the Pappa family. Mrs. Pappa was a great cook. You could smell the sauce for the pasta cooking all day. This was also the time that I got to taste red wine. The neighborhood was seriously impacted by the war since Italy was part of the Axis forces, the “Enemy” during World War II. This was my first opportunity to see deep prejudice and the anger it generates. I had trouble understanding people saying things to my friends like, “Kill the Dagos” or “Wipe out the Wops.” I was used to being exposed to only the positive side of human beings. I am sure this exposure has had a lasting effect on how I now view the world. This was the start of a whole new adventure for me. I had struggled with education at the elementary level. My first four or five years were at a rural school outside Elkhart that covered all the grades from first through the eighth. Since we had moved back into the city of Elkhart after my fifth grade year, we found out I did not qualify for the sixth grade because of math. It was suggested that I go to summer school or work with a tutor. My father had a couple of men at his work that were trustees of the local Catholic School, the only school with a summer Chapter 1: Introduction: History: In the Beginning

15

session. So he arranged for me to attend summer school at Saint Vincent’s, the local Catholic school. A summer with two nuns will teach anyone math. Rulers and knuckles help. This was also the period in my life when I became a fishmonger. My dad always had a plan on how to make some extra income. He had friends in Sandusky, Ohio, who were railroad buddies. Sandusky had a large commercial fishing port. The main catch was Lake Erie blue pike and perch. My dad built some special boxes which he put on the morning express which stopped in Sandusky. His friend would take the boxes, fill them with ice and fill the fish orders that my dad had gotten a few days before. During this period most of people on Harrison Street ate fish on Friday, but there wasn’t a good supply locally. So the orders were filled and shipped back to Elkhart on Thursday, and they were delivered to the customer at a bit of a profit. Guess who the delivery boy was? Good guess – Little Billy and his red wagon. Was this another cue to my later involvement in fisheries? Academically, junior high school wasn’t much better than elementary school. I flunked manual arts, although I still use some of the primitive drafting techniques I was exposed to. My project was to make a doggie bed for my cocker spaniel. The instructor said that if this was a class in abstract art I would get an A, but it wasn’t. Even though I struggled with education, especially in the beginning, I believe that education is a personal ticket we give ourselves in order to board whatever train or opportunity that might come along. I always try to convey the importance of this to my students. I think it is important to encourage our youth to stay in school regardless of how useless they feel it is. During my era kids had the choice of staying in school or getting a job. After I went to the seventh grade in Elkhart, we moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, where I finished junior high school and high school. They moved my dad’s shop there since it was a direct 16

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

route to the big steel mills in central and southern Ohio, and the New York Central was scrapping old engines and rail cars for steel to feed the war effort. I was lucky since I had a friend next door to ease the shock of being in a strange town. In addition, my folks had bought me a chemistry set. This started another part of my science career. I wasn’t satisfied with the experiments that came with the set – instead I looked up how to make things that went boom and flash. When I entered junior high, I started to design rockets with my friend, Kenny Waters. Most of them blew up – but some actually flew. With continued success, we built bigger and better rockets. Some of them turned out to be pipe bombs. One of our better efforts was launched from my bed room window. It was a success – it flew about two city blocks and landed in a park. The problem was that it caught my wooden window sill on fire and almost caused a major fire. For some reason my parents were very angry and grounded both Kenny and me for several weeks. The biggest and best missile we built in 1945 when we were about fifteen, by using a casing from a 75 millimeter howitzer shell. We packed it with our special solid propellant and used an old Model T Ford coil for our sophisticated ignition system with a piece of drain pipe as a launch platform. The big day came on VJ Day, August 15th 1945. We dug a trench, mounted the launch ramp and started the launch – our answer to the German’s V2 rockets. “Five – four – three – two – one – ignition!” Fire flew and the rocket moved up the ramp, got about twenty feet in the air and BANG – it blew up. It scared us so much that we got on our bicycles and headed home as a crowd of people, including the police and sheriff’s department, headed for the field. Our biggest mistake was that the field we used to launch our rocket was adjacent to the city power plant. We went home and hid. The police came by, but my sister inlaw told them we had been there all day. Kenny Waters went on to become an aerospace electrical engineer working on the NASA Space Shuttle. Chapter 1: Introduction: History: In the Beginning

17

I was not the best student in high school. This was mostly a problem of focus and interest. As I have grown older, I now know how important those early years were. I had several summer railroad jobs during high school. I worked at the NYCRR Scrap and Reclamation Yard sorting scrap metal to be shipped to the mills in southern Ohio and West Virginia, and I worked cutting up steam locomotives going out of service. I worked in the Ashtabula shipyard repairing ore cars, with a riveter. Now you may ask- what on earth is the job? In those days before arch welding steel plates were held in place with steel rivets. The rivets had to be heated until white hot. Then they were put in place by what was called the bucker, who held the rivet in place while the riveter on the other side hammered it into place. One summer I also worked on a road gang repairing rail on the main line. On my first day, I was told to stand on the corner and a NYCRR truck would drive by and pick me up. I jumped in the truck to discover I was truly a minority. First of all, I did not weigh 200 pounds and could not bench press 20 pound weights (let alone 500 pound weights). Secondly, I had blue eyes. My first job was as water boy. I discovered how heavy 20 pounds of water can be. The nearest farm house was a half a mile from the work site. I also discovered how much water 200pound-plus men can drink. I began to rethink becoming the third generation of railroaders in my family. These summer jobs were all hard physical labor. I learned good lessons about what this kind of labor was and gained respect for the people who work in those hard but needed jobs. I enjoyed using the money to go to dances and the Genevaon-the-Lake recreation area with my girl friend or girl friends. It seems as if I spent too much time in a local drug store with friends drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, which have now come back to haunt me with very complex breathing problems. I often think of that saying I saw on a t-shirt once – “If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better 18

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

care of my body.” The highlights of my high school years were actually few compared to some of my classmates. I enjoyed participating in the class plays, chemistry, and biology, and just tolerated the rest. I was not, at least in my re-collection, a part of the class movers and shakers. I joined the Ohio National Guard in my junior year in order to finish high school. Since I had turned 18 in October, I was eligible for the draft. My senior year I missed my high school graduation because the 3rd Armored Division of the Ohio National Guard was activated for the Korean Conflict by President Truman. While my classmates were enjoying their graduation, I was having fun at Camp Polk, Louisiana – the mosquito capital of the world. These childhood experiences from 1936 to 1949 I think led to my focus on science, marine mammals and things aquatic. I have continued my interest not only in mammals, but also in technology, which led me to the development of radio tracking and the study of bioacoustics. I did not know it at the time, but it’s clear to me now that I was preparing to be a scientist. Little did I know that I would be training and studying marine mammals and participating in preparing marine mammals for use in the military, including Vietnam. That was the start of a program that continues today with dolphins and sea lions in the Middle East and Iraq. I know there are many who feel that human society has moved beyond the use of animals in the military, a practice with over a thousand year history to times before Hannibal crossed the alps with his elephants, horse and dogs. A lot of this has to do with the image created by whales and dolphins in various zoos and aquaria. This is a debate that will continue for a long time. During the past fifty years I have had the opportunity to work with marine mammals in industry, the military, the private sector and academia, all of which has given me a rather broad view of marine mammal science. In the process of remembering and writing about this phase of my life I now fully understand why most of the genChapter 1: Introduction: History: In the Beginning

19

erations that followed have trouble relating to this period of history. I now understand why it is sometimes so difficult for those of my generation to relate to many of the current generation. As I mentioned before, “you had to be there.“

20

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 2 The Gift of Education: A Little More History Although this chapter deals mostly with my college years, I don’t want to downplay the importance of the early years. I was not the best student, as reported earlier in the book. This was mostly a problem of focus and interest. As I have grown older, I now know how important those early years were. It took the writing of this history to help me focus on that fact. But let me return to my own search for a career. After high school I had no intention of going to college. I tried summer theater at a summer stock theater called Rabbit Run. Because of my roles in two plays in high school, I was going to be a star of stage and screen. My summer theater experience turned into an adventure and education. For one of the summer productions, a version of “The Milkman Cometh,” I was given the job of prop person. Actually I was in charge of just two props – two 100 pound plus, untrained Saint Bernards. Being a smart young man, I tied one to the left side of the bed and one to the right side of the bed. This it turned out was not too smart and certainly not scientific. That night we had a thunder storm. Guess what? One dog went one way and one the other, and I went straight up. At that point I decided that a career in the railroad would have been safer. Since the war in Korea was not a declared war, it was decided by Congress and the courts that they could not automatically renew enlistments. So at the end of my tour in the National Guard, I did not re-enlist and went back to the New York Central Railroad where Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

21

again my boss suggested that I was not in the right place for my real interests. He said, “Bill, you belong in college.” I told him I didn’t qualify based on my high school grades. He suggested that I should give it a try anyway. He sent me off to Bowling Green State University. They gave me an entrance exam – and believe it or not, I scored in the 90th percentile and was accepted. This was the start of a whole different direction in my life. It was one of the most important roads I have taken in the past fifty years. When registering at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), I was informed that I was still eligible for the draft. It was suggested that if I joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). I would be able to finish college and only have to go on active duty after graduation. So I applied for the ROTC program. The master sergeant who was registering incoming students for the Corps told me that because of my tour with the National Guard, I did not have to attend classes the first two years. I was only required to show up for the formations and drill practice. I enjoyed college even though I had to work. Since I went to summer school, I finished in about three and a half years. In 1953 I finished a Bachelor of Science degree in speech pathology/audiology with a double major in dramatic arts as well as completing all the requirements for ROTC except the summer training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Speech pathology and audiology may not seem to be the right training for my future career as a marine mammalogist. However, it turns out that audiology is related to psychoacoustics and was a good door to that future. My work in psychoacoustics provided many opportunities since it changed my focus from clinical work to experimental work. The theater arts came in handy during my later political career in Washington D.C., which involved testifying frequently before less-than-friendly Congressional Committees. I met Phyllis, my future wife, during my involvement with the University Theater. She was taking the same majors I was, 22

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

so we started to see a lot of each other and became very good friends. This was probably the most important event on the road to the rest of my career and life. She was the single most important component in my success in most of my adventures. Unfortunately I had not totally ended my relationship with a girl in Ashtabula, Ohio. I thought I ended it but she still had my fraternity pin. Whoops – this was a bit of a problem which I managed to solve, but it caused Phyllis to have second thoughts. Although I sometimes made it difficult for her to decide, fortunately she accepted my proposal of marriage. Phyllis graduated in 1952 and started work as a speech and hearing therapist. We didn’t like being separated, so we decided to get married between semesters in December of 1952. We were married in Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio, on December 27th 1952. We selected this date since the church was still decorated for the holidays, saving a bundle of money we did not have. When we went to the car to head south for our honeymoon we found the two of the car’s tires were flat. We hoped this was not an omen. That was the start of our married student life and of many adventures together and the learning of many lessons. We spent what was supposed to be a honeymoon in a house trailer belonging to Phyllis’s matron of honor. It was in Cincinnati, and it was cold and snowing. It was a real learning experience. First, I learned that Phyllis was not a cook, unless boiling water counts. However, she could boil a mean hotdog. Within a year or so, with my help and that of Betty Crocker, she was a fabulous cook. Secondly, I proved that I also was not ready for prime time as a chef. One of my signature dishes which did not go over very well was a medley of canned spinach and canned sauerkraut. In addition I was not very good at fixing broken things; and neither of us were wine connoisseurs. I took Phyllis to dinner at a very fine upscale restaurant in downtown Cincinnati. The waiter asked “madam” for her choice of wine. After a great Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

23

deal of thought, she asked for Muscatel. The waiter thought a minute, and then said with a curled lip, “I will check to see if the chef has any in the kitchen.” Other than that the dinner was expensive and good. After our honeymoon I went back to school and work at the university medical facility, and Phyllis continued working as a public school speech and hearing therapist. I qualified for the position at the University medical facility because of my National Guard training as a medic. This worked out well since I had the night shift and could study. My experiences at Bowling Green and Ohio State contributed to my overall education in three ways: I learned how to focus and study; I learned how to communicate my ideas to others; and finally, I learned what I didn’t want to do for the rest of my life. Although these are not directly related to the study of biology, science, or marine mammalogy, they are the foundation, that allowed me to venture into other areas. [A]College and Marriage In the summer of 1953, I was sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, for an eight-week training to complete my Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) required training, which I had missed the year before. I had to finish this requirement before I could graduate. At the end of the summer training I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve as a field artillery officer. This, too, was a learning experience. I was assigned, along with other cadets from small schools who only had one or two in attendance, to a barracks that we were to share with cadets from the Citadel. This was not a good match for three cadets from Howard University and three Yankee boys from northern schools. This was my second experience with prejudice on a major scale. Remember that this was 1953. Even though the Army was beginning to be integrated, there were some who were not ready for that yet. The barracks which were left over from World War I were an exercise in true communal 24

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

living, not something some, especially those from the South, were ready for. On a brighter note my wife had driven to Fort Sill for the graduation and commissioning. At that point, Phyllis and I decided that we needed a real honeymoon, so we headed west with a little prodding from my mother and father who were visiting my Great Aunt Charlotte in Santa Monica, California. Quite unannounced to us, Aunt Charlotte had made arrangements for us to stay in the guest house of Mrs. Mandel, her neighbor, and the widow of the founder of Mandel Shoe Companies. There was only one catch – I was to be Mrs. Mandel’s houseboy and chauffeur while we were visiting in California. Mrs. Mandel took me to the garage below our guest quarters (servants’ quarters) to show me the car. She opened the door of the garage and there before me was a pre-WW II stretch Lincoln Town Car with less than 2000 miles on the odometer. By summer’s end I had added many more miles for her. After several weeks, we had had enough of the good life and headed back to Ohio. It was certainly a lesson in using an opportunity, one that never failed me in taking “the road less traveled.” During our stay in California we bought a little dog, a fawn colored Chihuahua. He was small but ferocious enough to keep Mrs. Mandel’s Boston terrier and Aunt Charlotte’s Pekinese at bay. So with dog in the car, map and a book called Traveling with Bowser, we headed east. We stopped at a hotel outside Las Vegas that advertised that they allowed dogs. It didn’t say “all dogs except Chihuahuas” – but that turned out to be the case. So the poor dog was confined to the car, attacking anyone who walked by, while we went to see the Peggy Lee show. Little did we know that this was to be our mode of travel forever – family with pets always looking for a motel while on the way to somewhere. Reflecting on all this, it becomes evident to me that life itself is a vital part of the education experience! In September, 1953, we returned to Columbus, Ohio, where we bought a trailer and settled down to life in the GraduChapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

25

ate Student Trailer Court. I was working on a doctorate in audiology at Ohio State University. I was fortunate, actually more than I knew, to have a research grant from the Office of Naval Research Voice Communication Laboratory in Pensacola, Florida, with my major professor, Dr. John Black, a noted experimental phonetician. This was the beginning of my doctoral work and it was my start in a career as a researcher. I was still at risk of going on active duty since the Korean conflict was still active. Dr. Black arranged for me to write up my preliminary research results as a master’s thesis just in case I was called back on active duty. Then my short Navy grant ended, and I had to find another form of funding. Fortunately the Columbus State School for the Mentally Handicapped needed someone to work with the students they suspected to be hearing impaired. Working at the Columbus State School brought much more focus to my interest in research. How did young people with severe hearing handicaps end up in an institution of the mentally retarded? Were they really mentally retarded? The answer was no, and the problem was more political and administrative than scientific. At that time there was a rule that in order to qualify for the State School of the Hearing Impaired or the State Prison System, a person had to have an IQ greater than 60 on based on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. As ridiculous as this was, it was the law. Now you have to understand how crazy the use of that test was. The Stanford-Binet test was designed for people with normal hearing. I selected a few of my students to test just how ‘retarded’ they might be and how severe their hearing loss was, if indeed they had a loss. The purpose of this project was to demonstrate that it was possible to get better data on so-called “mentally retarded students” who really might be hearingimpaired and not severely retarded at all. Actually with some training it is possible to detect someone with a severe hearing loss. The speech is mostly vowels without consonants. 26

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

My preliminary tests were done with a ten-year-old Hispanic girl. Why was it important to mention that she was Hispanic? Since she had heard only Spanish growing up, I had her mother, who was bilingual, help me work with her. The other four students I worked with were sixteen- to twenty- year-old girls who were picked up for prostitution. They, too, did not qualify for the Ohio State Women’s Prison based on their Stanford-Binet IQ results. I was suspicious that anyone who could make change for a one hundred dollar bill and tell the difference between American, Canadian, and Mexican currency was not mentally retarded. Since many audiometric tests depend on oral instructions, I tried to test using a crude form of sign language – pointing and/or touching where the sound was heard, either right or left side. Instead of starting with the standard audiometer, I used a high fidelity system capable of sound levels that would vibrate the building. (I got many complaints about the noise coming from my classroom.) I started with a directional sound source on the right and one on the left. I started with about 140 db at 70 Hz and worked down. When the sound came on I took the student’s right or left hand and pointed at the source. After a while they could point without help. After running though the frequency range used in most testing, I switched to the regular audiometer. Eureka! They made the transfer! When the sound was heard in the left ear, they pointed left, and when on the right, they pointed right or touched the appropriate earphone. I had several other graduate students help me administer the tests, and the research resulted in my first peer-reviewed scientific paper. It was published with several authors in 1954 in the American Journal of Mental Retardation. After leaving the Columbus State School I lost contact with our subjects. I do know that the Hispanic girl ended up in the Ohio School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. My “ladies of the night” eventually went to the State Prison. I am not sure I did them any favors. After this research project my total concentration was on finishing a thesis. My thesis research was much more related to Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

27

the rest of my career, since it was a study of the effects of noise on speech intelligibility. Little did I know what effect my association with Dr. John Dreher, one of my thesis advisors, would have on my future. I finished my thesis, turned it in on the last possible day and received a Master’s of Science degree in audiology and psychoacoustics from Ohio State University on December 4, 1954. I was not there, however, because on December 3rd I was off to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to fulfill my reserve officer obligation with the United States Army. I have included this because it relates to the experience of many of the graduate students I have encountered during my academic career. Many things happen in this complex world that force us to change our plans. That is why I advise all students to be flexible. There will be many forks in the road. As they say in Texas “S__t Happens” or to put it a bit more civilly, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. [A]Fort Knox Since I was not sure what my assignment would be and what arrangements I could make for my pregnant wife, we decided that Phyllis would stay in Columbus with the trailer while I headed south to Kentucky. While awaiting assignment, I checked into transiting officers’ quarters, but the only uniforms I had were those left over from my tour in the Ohio National Guard in high school. I quickly purchased the appropriate brass for a 2nd Lieutenant Field Artillery and pinned them on to my old olive drab National Guard uniform and headed off to the Post Exchange (PX) to buy more appropriate uniforms for an officer. On the way to the PX, I noticed several new inductees hesitant about saluting. I marked it off as inexperience. Then a senior Master Sergeant gave a sharp salute and stopped. He addressed me with a smile on his face and said, “Sir, you might want to remove those Buck Sergeant stripes from your sleeves. They are confusing the new recruits.” He saluted again and said, “Welcome aboard and have a good tour.” 28

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

They finally assigned me to the Eleventh Armored Calvary, a pretty gung-ho outfit. In the Eleventh Armored Calvary all officers wore riding boots and carried swagger sticks. A swagger stick is a short, sometimes ornate baton that was used to strike wayward soldiers – a practice that is no longer condoned. I felt a bit strange dressed in that costume, looking like I was ready to mount up and charge. I was ready though, since I did know how to ride. After about a month at the Eleventh Calvary, I was reassigned to what was then the 695th Armored Field Artillery Unit. The 695th was an activated New Jersey National Guard Unit about ready to be deactivated. After the deactivation, when some of the officers and men went home to New Jersey, the unit was changed to the 276th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, now a part of the Fort Knox School Troops Regiment. Our mission was to train new officers and enlisted men on the use of Armored Field Artillery. We had at least one each of every armored artillery weapon in use at that time by the Army. After I had settled into Army life, I sent for Phyllis and our graduate-school trailer. Unfortunately the Officers’ Trailer Court was full so we ended up in a somewhat more primitive trailer court off-base. We were parked in a grove of trees at a strange angle, with one side slightly higher than the other. This was when we got proof that fluids run downhill. One of our little dogs couldn’t wait to go outdoors, so he relieved himself, and sure enough the fluid ran downhill. Also the park came with some electricity but no plumbing except water for the sink. All toilet facilities were in a separate building. Eventually we ended up in the Officers’ Trailer Court on the post at Fort Knox where we stayed for the rest of my tour of active duty. It was a good tour. It improved my teaching and leadership skills and introduced me to fatherhood with two sons, Jonathan and Timothy. Although mathematics was my weakest subject in high school and college, guess what I ended up teaching? Trigonometry. I found out how valuable my course in gunnery mathematics at Fort Sill was. Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

29

Unfortunately I missed Jon’s birth since I was on temporary duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, attending the junior officers’ course. When I finished the course and returned home, I was anxiously looking forward to meeting my firstborn. I entered the trailer and Phyllis was changing Jon’s diaper. As I saw him for the first time I was greeted by a salvo of pee which hit me right between the eyes. What a start to fatherhood! Although I originally was not happy with Army life and saw it as an interruption in my career, it turned out to be a great learning experience. This is a good example of when life gives you lemons instead of what you really wanted, make lemonade. Having a family while in the military has many advantages. I can’t imagine what baby sitting would have been without the noncommissioned officers who passed through our doors to serve as baby sitters. All I had to provide was a couple beers in the refrigerator. Neither would I have been able to survive without a few “repairmen” who arrived to help out with the housing unit, by now a very large mobile home. We enjoyed our stay in the trailer Court with our two sons and two little dogs. The only problem we had was when Perez, our male Chihuahua, was chased by a neighbor’s boxer. Perez went under the trailer and every time the boxer would try to get him, he bit the boxer on the nose. Later the Military Police came to our door and wanted to see the dog that attacked the Major’s boxer. Also, apparently Perez bit someone’s child, though it turned out that the child was teasing him. This also resulted in a visit from the Military Police. When we brought Perez out, they started to laugh and left with no further questions. Although our relationship with some in the trailer court was questionable, we are still in touch with the friends we made during our short military career. In 2006 I had a chance to visit Fort Knox again on our way back from Memphis and Nashville with cousins from England. It was a little more than 50 years since my last tour (19541956). We went to the Patton Museum which has a complete 30

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

history of armored equipment during several wars. The new museum was several times bigger than the one I visited several time with students during my active duty tour. As we were touring we came to the exhibit for the Korean era. As I was checking out some of armored equipment we used in school troops, I came across one of the model self-propelled 105 armored howitzers we used in my unit. As I was checking it out, I realized that it was labeled “276 Armored Arty Battalion No. 3 C Battery.” Good Lord, it was from my unit – now I felt like a museum piece. At least we made the museum. As I approached the end of my tour of active duty, I tried to decide if I wanted to stay in the military or return to Ohio State University to finish my Ph.D. I was offered the chance to stay in with a regular Army commission instead of a reserve commission and go to flight school. I would have made the rank of Captain, and the pay wasn’t bad. At the same time I was getting family pressure to move to California where my mother and father had moved. My mother was not in good health. I told them I did not have a job, so I would probably go to Ohio State and finish. My older brother intervened and said that I could probably get a job at the Douglas Aircraft Co. in Santa Monica, California, near my parents’ home. He had seen an ad in Noise Control Magazine that Douglas was looking for someone with training in psychoacoustics. I applied and was offered the job sight unseen. It was 1956, and I was offered $5,000 a year – wow, that was a lot of money! The decision was made, and we made plans to go to California for the start of a new life. While I was finishing my tour of duty, we decided that the family would go to California before me and stay with my parents. So I proudly put my family on the big four engine propeller airplane and watched it take off. As I started to leave the airport, I put my hands into the pocket of my trench coat and froze. In my pocket was all the money I was going to give to my wife for the trip. So here was this young woman with babe in arms and trailing a toddler – with zero funds. Even to this day Chapter 2: The Gift of Education: A Little More History

31

I get reminded of this event from time to time and occasionally have a nightmare. Ah! The best laid plans!! But, she showed the flexibility that has served her well in her very successful career as an educator. When I was finally discharged on December 4, 1956, I packed up our almost-new, tomato-soup-red Volkswagen Beetle, and with our two Chihuahuas perched on a trunk in the back space, headed for California. We stopped at night along the side of the road for a few hours. I slept under the car, and the dogs slept inside. In New Mexico, I stopped for gasoline and a quick sandwich at a little roadside Mexican café. There was a large Mexican-style wedding in progress next door. When I left the café to get back on the road, my dogs were gone. I looked all over, and then went next door to the wedding to ask if anyone had seen two Chihuahuas. To my surprise, there were both dogs on the table, eating rice and beans and drinking whatever was left in the glasses. I picked up two very happy dogs, put them in the car and off we went heading west. For the next four hours I had to drive with the windows down because of those two gassy chow hounds. I arrived in Santa Monica, California, two days later and settled into staying with my parents until our trailer arrived from Fort Knox. We finally found a location in a trailer park in Venice. I was all set to start my new job with Douglas Aircraft Company. Now that I reflect back on it – life is an education. I am sure by now the reader is asking why do I have wade through all that history or reminiscences of an old man? Well, the purpose is point out we al have to travel many roads sometimes to find the the right one.

32

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 3 A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

M

y first professional job was as an acoustic science specialist with the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, California. My main job was to look at the impact of aircraft jet engine noise on animals. I began my position in January, 1957. In those days engineers were all in one large area and everyone had a drawing board. You have to remember that computers were not on everyone’s desk. I was fortunate in that I was in a special group, the Acoustics Group. Their primary job was to make the Commercial Jet (DC 8) quieter. My job was to collect data on just how noisy they were both outside and inside the aircraft. With jet engines the most noise is in the aft cabins; the front is quiet. One of the main problems was insulating the first class toilets so you couldn’t hear flushing, etc. To test this we had a mock-up of first class toilets on the flight line and had recording and acoustic measuring devices installed. Some of the conversation and noises were interesting! There was concern from the airlines and some of their customers about the effect the jet noise would have on livestock on the ground. Some producers were suing, claiming that cows quit milking and chickens quit laying eggs and turkeys quit breeding. Also, companies who shipped canaries by air were concerned that the noise levels would impact the birds hearing. Deaf canaries are not very useful. After the noise levels on the DC 8 were reduced, we started to work on the much greater noise field of Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

33

ballistic missiles, making it even more difficult for me to work on marine related problems. [A]Marine Mammals A reintroduction Surprisingly enough, my time with Douglas Aircraft was also the return of my interest in marine mammals. Donald Douglas, the CEO of Douglas Aircraft, had a doctor friend, Earl Dudley White, the cardiologist for President Eisenhower, who wanted to measure the electrocardiogram reading (EKG) on a whale. Because of the whale’s size and its activities of diving and swimming long distances, he wanted to compare their EKGs with human EKGs of divers and swimmers. Mr. Douglas was aware that the California gray whales were abundant in the lagoons of Baja California, Mexico, in the winter and spring. Since I was the only person in the research group that had anything that sounded like biology in my background, I was given the task of providing all the background available on gray whales and the breeding lagoons of Baja. So I was off to the library, followed by a visit to the new oceanarium at Palos Verde, California (Marineland of the Pacific) and a first interview with Dr. Ken Norris, director of the oceanarium and John Prescott, his assistant. Ray Gilmore from the San Diego Museum of Natural History and Carl Hubbs at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography were especially useful, having been to Scammons’ Lagoon many times. They knew the best time to be there. They knew the best areas for a small air field and what the logistics problems would be. Since they had seen gray whales and had been to the Baja breeding lagoons, they were valuable sources for my research. After about a week I had my report ready to deliver. The job was done, but my interest was not finished. I so wanted to go south with what became known as the Douglas Expedition, but that wasn’t in the cards. Fortunately, I had many other opportunities to visit gray whales in Baja later in my career. (Details on the Douglas Expedition can be found in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Hunt for The Desert Whale, 1960.) 34

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

My association with Dr. Ken Norris grew over time, and he accompanied me on many of my future adventures while I was at Lockheed and later as his graduate student. At the time of the Douglas Expedition, he tried several times to convince me that I needed to join him at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and finish my Ph.D. But I was having too much fun and was not ready to join the ranks of the starving graduate students again. My involvement in the Douglas Project changed my focus and rekindled my long-held interest in things wet and marine. It also improved my technical skill in acoustics. The Douglas Expedition was my introduction to the field of animal acoustics. Apparently, the pursuit of preserved whales at an early age had not been enough for me! [A]Underwater Acoustics In 1959 I ran into Dr. John Dreher, one of the members of my thesis committee at Ohio State, at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Los Angeles. He had left Ohio State and accepted a job to start a psycho/bioacoustic program at Lockheed Aircraft Inc. in Burbank, California. Lockheed was in competition to develop a new Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) Aircraft, the P3V, for the US Navy based on their new passenger turboprop aircraft, the Lockheed Electra. John asked if I knew anything about underwater acoustics. I hesitated – then regurgitated all that I could remember from everything that I had ever read and heard about underwater acoustics – and threw in a few whale tales. He was impressed, and I was offered a job as part of his new psycho/bioacoustics group at Lockheed. I was now armed with the support and new equipment including hydrophones, recorders and equipment on loan from the Navy to concentrate on marine acoustic problems. I stayed at Lockheed until 1964 when I left to begin a PhD program at UCLA under Ken Norris. My time at Lockheed formed the first part of my most significant research years, from 1960–1976. Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

35

In the psycho/bioacoustic program at Lockheed, we were allowed a certain amount of time for basic research but also tasked with looking at psychoacoustic problems that might arise during the development of the P3V aircraft. There were two major concerns, noise levels and the accuracy of longterm monitoring at passive sonar stations. Passive sonar is listening for certain signals, and the Navy wanted to know how the noise of the P3V would affect the efficiency of the sonar operators. These were the major concerns of the Navy and therefore our concerns. Since my master’s thesis research at Ohio State (funded by the U.S. Navy) was on the effects of noise on speech intelligibility in a communications net, this was a good starting place. So I started looking at the effects of noise on operator performance in long-term monitoring tasks, e.g. staring at a sonar screen for long periods and listening to nothing but ocean noise for extended periods. In the meantime I was making recordings at Marineland of the Pacific Oceanarium, including the pools with bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales. We were interested in how listeners would respond to false passive sonar targets. Unfortunately many of the sounds in the ocean made by biological sources, such as fish and marine mammals, sound like ship and submarine noise. This is especially true of sperm whales and fin, blue and sei whales. Sperm whales were a special problem since what we now know are their sonar clicks sounded very much like the noise made by some submarines. (They also sounded like someone hammering on wood, and for this reason the whales were called “carpenter fish” among other things.). Our task was to make it easier to identify the difference between the normal biologicallyproduced “noise” of the ocean and the „signal“ of a submarine or ship. This had to be accomplished through training. As they say in the ASW business, “one man’s noise is another man’s target (signal).” 36

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

In 1961, with support from the Office of Naval Research, I started to investigate the possible anatomical mechanisms suspected as possible sources of dolphin sound production. In order to understand the structure of the sound you have to understand the mechanism that makes it. If you hear someone singing you know what the source of the sound is. If you hear a musical instrument you can identify the source. These are basic principles necessary to understand the basic structure of biological sounds. Although this did not directly relate to the noise on sonar problem, it was considered a necessary piece of the bigger puzzle of animal bioacoustcs. At that time there was a theory that the sounds were coming from the rather strangely constructed dolphin larynx. On the other hand, I was fascinated by the complex series of nasal sacs of the small toothed whales. So with the help of John Prescott from Marineland of the Pacific, I started my adventure into the anatomy of the dolphin respiratory system. John Prescott is an excellent example of the many people in this business who came from hands-on rather than academic experience. John started out cleaning aquaria at Marineland of the Pacific and ended up as the head of the New England Aquarium. We were able to procure specimens of small pelagic (open ocean) dolphins caught in the yellow fin tuna fishery in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, as well as some bottlenose dolphin skulls. We placed a small sound source in the blowhole of a small dolphin skull, attached it to a harness and onto a device designed to allow us to slowly turn the carcass in an arch, while recording the sound pressure level of the sound source at various frequencies as a function of angle. Using this data we plotted the possible sound field around the carcass (Evans et al., 1964). Although this was not directly related to the sound source issue, it was a related piece of that puzzle. Each type of sound-producing mechanism, such as drum versus horn versus stringed instrument has a unique sound field. If the dolphin mechanism was from the tube or horn shaped larynx you Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

37

would expect a different sound pattern than if it came from a complex of nasal sacs. In addition to the above work, Dr. Dreher and I were working on analyses of the dolphin’s unique whistle vocalizations. We had good recording of the vocalizations of captive dolphins but really wanted recording of dolphins in the wild for comparison. In order to look more closely at dolphin behavior, we procured two dolphins from Marineland and housed them in a twenty-five-foot diameter, thirty-foot-deep steel tank at Lockheed Burbank. The facility had been used to test jet aircraft ejection seats for the Navy. Unfortunately this was not a good idea, and we lost both dolphins before we could transport them back to Marineland. We had problems with water quality; it was difficult getting to the animals to study them; we did not have a good source of the right kind of fish to feed them. We had to make our own sea water, a process which at that time had not been fully developed. It was one problem after another which was characteristic of the early-learning phase of marine mammal research. The main thing we did learn was that we did not have the technology and understanding of the requirements of the animals to maintain them properly. The most useful work I did at Lockheed was to find a way to record dolphin sounds produced in the wild while observing the animals’ natural behaviors. I will discuss this in some detail later. [A]Roxie After the experience with the dolphins, I decided our facility was better suited to working with pinnipeds, especially sea lions. Next, I decided to test the hypothesis of Dr. Tom Poulter at Stanford Research Institute, that California sea lions were echolocators. I contacted my friend John Prescott, the curator of Marineland of the Pacific, and procured a beached California sea lion pup. At the time the Fish and Wildlife Service and various humane groups did not have the facilities to keep stranded 38

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

pinnipeds so they ended up at aquariums and oceanaria. This was the 1960’s, and the concerns for sea life were much different then than now. Places like Marineland of the Pacific were by far the better places for isolated animals than someone’s backyard swimming pool. For lack of anything better I called the pup Roxanne or Roxie for short. She became a very important part of not only my professional life, but my personal life as well. While at Lockheed Roxie was trained to wear a blindfold and tested to see if she used sound while retrieving rings underwater. Although she was successful in finding the rings, it was by using the “hunt-and-peck” method. She was totally silent during all the tests. Instead of echolocation, the research demonstrated what good tactile sense she had. (Evans and Haugen, 1963). This turned out to be a very important bit of information for much of the future work with California sea lions as well as other seals. This was the start of the Roxie Project, which continued after I left Lockheed Martin, and will be discussed in chapter 4. I must mention that of all the animals I have worked with in my career, sea lions hold a very special place in my heart. They have incredible personalities, and each one is different. [A]Lessons Learned From Whales While at Lockheed I also got my first chance to really observe dolphins and whales at sea. In January, 1961, one of the oceanographers hired by Lockheed in their Antisubmarine Warfare group in San Diego invited me on a cruise to Scammon’s Lagoon in Baja California to make recordings of the noise levels in the lagoon. At last, I’d got the opportunity for my version of the “Douglas Expedition.” Scammon’s Lagoon is one of a series of coastal lagoons along the coast of Baja Califonia, Mexico. Captain Scammon, a Yankee whaler, was the first whaler to find the lagoon and the large aggregation of breeding and calving whales in the mid1800’s. For a couple of years he was able to harvest his full load Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

39

of whales in a very short time which was a mystery to the other whalers working out of San Francisco. Once the lagoons were discovered by others, the gray whale was almost harvested to extinction. Their population got so small that it was not worth the whalers’ efforts to harvest them. The Eastern Pacific population of gray whale was thought at one time to be extinct. Then it was rediscovered and classified as endangered by both Mexico and the U.S. We headed south in Lockheed’s research vessel, the RV Sea Quest. We decided to test whether or not gray whales could echolocate. To our knowledge at the time no one had experimentally looked at the possibility of echolocation in mysticete whales. We stretched a barrier of acoustically reflective buoys across a narrow passageway used by the whales and observed their behavior as they approached the obstacle. Would they be able to avoid it in the turbid water? A mother gray whale and calf approached the barrier. They apparently did not detect it and swam through getting tangled in the ropes tying the buoy together. Trying to untangle themselves, they totally destroyed all the buoys. We had not remembered all of Erle Stanley Gardner’s discussions of the adventures with gray whales by the Douglas Expedition in Scammon’s Lagoon. In Hunting the Desert Whale (Gardner 1960), he described the aggressive behavior which resulted in their nickname, “devil fish.” Feeling sorry for the whale, Dr. North, a scientist from the University of Southern California, and I jumped into the water wearing wetsuits, and swam toward the female with the intent to untangle her. She apparently misinterpreted our intent and tried to swat us like flies with her tail flukes (Evans and Eberhardt, 1962). The impact was so great that it knocked my face mask off. We found out later that the water had been shark infested, as well. This was only the beginning of my relationship with gray whales and through which I was introduced to several really special people. 40

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

During that same trip we observed a group of bottlenose dolphins approaching the barrier. They stopped about 200 meters from the barrier, and we could hear them echolocating and scanning the pipes. Two of the dolphins swam quickly up to the barrier and through it. Lots of whistling followed, and the entire group swam quickly past the barrier. It appeared as though they were scouting the obstruction before proceeding. (Evans and Dreher, 1962). Since John Dreher was a psycholinguist and interested in whistle languages, he was very excited by this behavior. This was the start of many more experiments and analyzes of dolphin whistling (Dreher 1961, Dreher 1964, Dreher and Evans, 1964). Let me tell you a little bit about this very interesting character, Dr. John Dreher. When I was at Ohio State I knew John only as a professor who was also an experimental linguist. After I had a chance to join John at Lockheed, I learned a lot more about him. He graduated with a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Michigan. He had been on the University’s fencing team as a specialist in saber. It was the beginning of World War II and he was drafted. As I was told, he was sent to a military language school where he learned several dialects of Chinese. He was then sent to India and on to China where he joined a part of the Chinese Army fighting the Japanese. It turned out to be a part of the Communist Army. According to John he spent most of his time trying to get them to quit pointing their cannons at the Nationalist Army and concentrate on shooting at the invading Japanese Army. At the end of the war he was given some meager supply and pointed in the direction of the closest allied forces and left on a trek across China on foot. During his trek he said he found out that the best places to eat were the few kosher restaurants he discovered. Kosher restaurants in China? He was full of exciting stories, and I hope he writes a book some day. The cruise with Bob Eberhardt was the first of two or three more cruises to the Baja gray whale breeding lagoons. The next Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

41

season, I invited my mentor and soon-to-be major professor, Ken Norris, to cruise to Scammon’s Lagoon with the RV Sea Quest. In the time between the first visit by the Lockheed group in the RV Sea Quest and this one, the government of Mexico had declared Scammon’s Lagoon, and some of the other lagoons where gray whale congregated, biological reserves. So we were headed for San Ignacio Lagoon which was called Laguna Ojo de Libra in the Mexican maps. In order to get permission for this trip we had to pick up a Mexican Naval officer in Ensenada. Our escort was young, about 20, and a lieutenant in the Mexican Navy. I can’t remember his name, but he was a fine addition to our crew. He and Dr. Norris really connected, and they would spend the evenings while we were cruising south playing their guitars and singing Mexican folk songs. Ken was a big hit when he taught our young Naval officer how to play and sing about Pecos Bill. I think he thought I was Pecos Bill. We would also read excerpts from Steinbeck and Rickett’s Log of the Sea of Cortez. Bill Kielhorn, head of the Lockheed oceanographic group, was to fly down and meet us at the lagoon. He would use the landing strip that was built to accommodate the Douglas Expedition several years earlier. When he arrived, he told Ken he had seen a stranded gray whale along the beach. Ken was determined to investigate it further, as any true naturalist would be. So Ken, Bill Kielhorn, and I prepared a lunch and the tools necessary to necropsy the whale and rowed ashore in the RV Sea Quest’s dinghy. It turned out that the whale was quite distant from where we beached the dinghy. After a long hike Ken spotted the whale and started to run towards it with great excitement. When we arrived he unsheathed a machete and started to dissect the whale to determine its stomach content, if any, and collect its ear bones. Well, this whale had been lying in the hot sun for a week or more. When Ken cut deep enough, all the gas, entrails and 42

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

bits of whale gushed out, soaking all three of us in rotten whale meat and fluid. What a mess! We washed ourselves off as much as possible and headed back to the dinghy which was now high and dry since it was low tide. (There are 12–15 foot tides in the lagoon.) After pulling the dinghy several hundred meters to the water, we headed back to the RV Sea Quest. When we were about a hundred meters from the boat, the captain waved us off and would not let us on board. We ended up on the beach until we were delivered a change of clothes. It had been a great cruise, but we ran out of clothes and decided to return home with Bill Kielhorn by airplane. On the way back to San Diego we stopped in Mulege, a small village on the Sea of Cortez. During his historic voyage to the sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck bypassed Mulege since it had a reputation as a dangerous place. Dangerous or not, we needed to refuel our airplane because there were few choices in Baja California. It turned out to be a very quaint little village consisting mostly of fisherman, both commercial and recreational. There was a small group of cottages for visiting fishermen, so we decided to stay over while our plane was being refueled and checked over. Things do not move fast in Baja, and it would take a day or two. We decided to explore the village. There were signs that whaling ships of the past had also visited. Many of the houses were constructed with what appeared to be parts of the wrecks of old sailing ships. A few of the houses had large iron pots outside being used to bathe in. They were flat on one side like the try pots used by Yankee whalers to render down whale blubber. The small chapel had what looked like whale oil lamps. One day we had lunch under a grove of palm trees near a small reservoir formed by a dam on the small Mulege River. We were in for a great surprise – as we sat enjoying our tacos and cold beer, a large number of frigate birds started to use the fresh water in the reservoir to wash off the salt water they had accumulated while feeding at sea. This resulted in one of my Chapter 3: A Real Job at Last: Adventures with Marine Mammals

43

early scientific papers, “The Bathing Behavior of Frigate Birds (Frigata fregata magneficens)” co-authored with Ken Norris and Bill Kielhorn. Shortly after this adventure in 1964, I decided to quit Lockheed and return to graduate school. Ken Norris had offered to take me on as a Ph.D. student. With the encouragement of my wife, I finally decided to take the leap. I was not aware that Dr. Norris was the Zoology Department herpetologist and most of his graduate students were herpetology students including my office mate Howard ‘Duke ‘Campbell. I was at that time the lone marine mammal type in the lab. In fact, my first teaching assignment was helping with teaching the herpetology laboratory.

44

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 4 Studying Marine Mammals

W

hy has there been a roaring popularity of dolphin and whales during the past forty-plus years? To answer that question, I must reflect on some early history. In 1938 Marine Studios in St. Augustine, Florida, was successfully maintaining a colony of dolphins in a large aquarium, which allowed for upclose viewing. Attempts to keep dolphins and small whales in a captive environment have a long history, but most of the early attempts before the Marine Studios were less than successful. With the advent of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the Marine Studios was forced to close before it had started to gain popularity. This unfortunate closing necessitated the release of its dolphin colony back into the Indian River. In 1946 Marine Studios (later named Marineland of Florida by its new curator, F.G. Wood) re-opened with a collection of new animals and started what truly became a public romance with dolphins and whales. Who would not be impressed by a very large animal with a built in smile that could jump through flaming hoops and play basketball? Also the advent of an increasing number of homes with television sets during the 1950’s and early 1960’s had a major impact on the public image of dolphins, especially for children. Flipper, a bottlenose dolphin, was portrayed as a sort of an aquatic “Lassie,” friendly companion and protector of man. The animal’s weekly adventures developed into a cultural love affair with marine mammals. After talking to some elementary school teachers about marine mam-

Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

45

mals, I found out that while in my day the heroes of Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick, were the brave whalers, in the 1960’s this changed, and some thought the whale was the hero and the whalers the evil ones. [A]Man and Dolphin The dolphin’s new-found image spread gradually among a public whose interest in marine life was quickly expanding due to an increasing number of new marine aquariums. The ability to view the charm and behavior of sea lions and dolphins up close created great public appeal. In the meantime, the popularity of dolphins was accelerated by the popularization of several books on dolphins published from 1961–1975. One of them, Man and Dolphin, was based on the research during the 1950’s of a psychiatrist, Dr. John C. Lilly. John was probably the most controversial of all the amazing people I have met on my adventures. Just what was so interesting about John C. Lilly’s research? It provided a lengthy but intriguing story in the total scheme of marine mammal and dolphin research. Remember, in the 50s there were a lot of things we didn’t know yet about marine mammals. The taxonomy of the of many dolphins wasn’t yet established; it wasn’t known how dolphins produced their vocalizations,; that not much was known about whale migration or populations; that radio transmitters weren’t being used to track animals yet; that undersea vehicles hadn’t been used yet to research the ocean.Those were the questions that we were trying to solve in the 50–70’s. Many of the young scientists entering the field today take the results of that research for granted now. Dr. Lilly first visited Marine Studios in 1954 as a member of what is called the “Johns Hopkins Expedition” because three of the eight members were from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. All the participants were distinguished neurophysiologists, and their purpose in coming to Marine Studios was to map the cortex of the bottlenose dolphin – to determine the function, as much as possible, of different portions of the layers 46

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

of gray matter that invest the brain’s surface. Having studied a number of land mammals, they did not anticipate any problems. Unfortunately they did not understand the difficulty they would encounter in anesthetizing a dolphin which has a very different respiratory system than land mammals. Dolphins are apenustic breathers – they inhale and hold their breath, then exhale when at the surface. Because of its lack of understanding of this specialized breathing adaptation, the Johns Hopkins Expedition ended up killing several dolphins, forcing them to abandon the project. John Lilly did not stop there, however. Following the unsuccessful attempts to anesthetize a dolphin at Marine Studios, Lilly returned to his laboratory at Bethesda and spent time devising a method of gaining access to the dolphin brain without the need of anesthesia. Experimenting with monkeys, he found it possible to hammer a slender stainless steel sleeve guide through the bone of the skull. The sleeve contained a pin which could be withdrawn and replaced with a miniature electrode. This required only a local anesthetic, and allowed him to do some cortical mapping. In 1960 Dr. Lilly delivered a paper based on his 195456 research entitled “Some Considerations Regarding the Basic Mechanisms of Positive and Negative Types of Motivations” at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco. In his San Francisco talk, Dr. Lilly told of his experiences in electrically stimulating “negative” and “positive” zones of the dolphin brain. Accounts of his talk appeared in several newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Examiner, under the following headlines: A Scientist Has Shaggy Dolphin Tale A Good Dolphin Is Kind, Loyal, Brave – Psychiatrist Wants To Make Dolphin Talk Shock-Happy Dolphin Laughs With Scientist’s Wife… Then Dies These headlines resulted from the talk discussed above, the one on basic mechanisms of positive and negative motivation. Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

47

Why did this paper trigger the remarkable publicity that followed? Well, John Lilly had a tendency to go beyond his research results and speculate as to what it all meant. It seems more often than not, the public is more interested in his speculation than the results (or lack thereof ). Also, the press has a tendency to sensationalize science especially that which involves charismatic animals, such as gorillas or dolphins and whales. Lilly told the group that one time the dolphin mimicked his voice so well that his wife laughed, and then the dolphin copied her laughter. The vocalizations of this animal were the start of Dr. Lilly’s belief that it should be possible to establish communications with dolphins and even teach them to speak English. He expressed his views this way: “Eventually it may be possible for humans to speak with another species. I have come to this conclusion after careful consideration of evidence gained through my research experiments with dolphins. If new scientific developments are to be made in this direction, however, certain changes in our basic orientation and philosophy will be necessary. We must strip ourselves, as far as possible, of our preconceptions about the relative place of homo sapiens in the scheme of nature.” (Lilly, 1960) This kind of speculation was a trigger for much of the concern of the scientific community, especially those of us working on similar issues. I was a supporter of Dr. Lilly and included him in many of the discussions in the field at the time. For example, I invited Dr. Lilly to a symposium on animal intelligence at Hubbs Research Institute. Since the symposium was on the grounds of Sea World San Diego, I told John the rules – no drugs of any kind. Unfortunately I caught him in the men’s room injecting ketamine, a controlled substance, and had to have him removed from the symposium. Many of us in marine mammalogy tried to change his views and get him to identify speculation versus scientific findings, but to no avail. 48

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

I got to know John very well in later years through Burgess Meredith, the actor. Unfortunately, John’s experimentation with drugs and isolation tanks seems to have had an effect on his judgment. My wife and I attended his 70th birthday party at his home in Malibu, which was like something out of the twilight zone. The guest house was a teepee with wall to wall pillows and an ample supply of several kinds of marijuana. In addition the guests also took turns getting in and out of his isolation tank which was one of his “therapies.” I have been to a lot of strange birthday parties, but this one was by far the strangest. It was all too much for our Midwest mindset, which I found out is quite different from California. John Lilly was all in all a brilliant scientist, physiologist, and psychiatrist, with a magnetic personality. Unfortunately in the later years of his research on dolphins he depended more on his imagination than on his science. (See appendix letter to John Lilly). During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the bulk of funding for marine mammal research came from the U.S. Office of Naval Research with an emphasis on the dolphin’s biosonar capability. Some of my Navy research support, therefore, followed me to UCLA and my graduate program. This funding helped tide me over while I was adapting to the life of a graduate student. It was a whole new experience for someone who had been a senior researcher. Also, I was in the hunt for a research project that would be acceptable to my graduate committee as a dissertation topic. Of course continuation of the Roxie work was a strong possibility. Unfortunately Navy projects that are successful take on a life of their own. This will be clearer in the section that follows. [A]Roxie Encore When I left Lockheed in 1963, they did not want Roxie, the sea lion, and suggested euthanasia. This was not an acceptable solution to me. We were raising, breeding and showing Irish setters at home at the time so I had fairly large dog runs, with a bathroom and shower in the building next to the runs. Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

49

So I put Roxie in a dog crate and took her to my home in Chatsworth, California. I put Roxie in a run adjacent to some of my Irish setters. She was not very welcomed by any of them except my main stud dog, who didn’t care what kind of animal it was as long as it was female. So that Roxie could get wet when necessary, I rigged the nearby shower with a pull lever with a ring. She could pull it to turn on the water. Unfortunately this ran up the water bill since she would stick her head in the ring, turn on the water, and fall asleep. This was not very satisfactory. Fortunately we had a very famous showman and animal trainer living in Chatsworth, not far from us. J. King Ross had a troop of trained poodles, and seasonally went on the road with his dog and sea lion acts, the famous Poodelaires. J. King was quite a character and told stories of how he would be able to turn his trained sea lions loose to work in the open ocean, Great Lakes or whatever body of water was available. He offered to keep Roxie for me, as long as he could use her from time to time in his shows. He had a great facility with ponds, and four or five sea lions. So three weeks after she arrived in Chatsworth in October, 1963, Roxie went to her new home until I had a better place for her. My dogs were delighted to get rid of their strange kennel mate! J. King was the first “circus personality” that I encountered. He was a showman and you could tell that from your first encounters. I am not sure if he was ever different from when on stage or in the main ring at a circus. In 1964 I was brought aboard for a summer internship at the Navy’s Point Mugu Marine Bioscience facility. As a Ph.D. student with two sons and a wife, I badly needed the money as well as the opportunity to use their facilities to continue my dolphin and pinniped research. At Point Mugu I had a place for Roxie (F.G. Wood, 1973).The Navy did not know that they hired two for one and that I had brought my own sea lion. At the marine mammal research facility, Roxie got a new home, even better than J. King Ross’s, with real seawater and a better diet and an excellent health care plan. 50

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

My task for the summer was to train Roxie to retrieve rings similar to those in the echolocation study but fixed with an acoustic pinger. This procedure was adapted to train her to retrieve submerged objects and give her a target which could be lowered progressively deeper. Fortunately a very experienced sea lion trainer, Wally Ross, was at Point Mugu working with Dr. Sam Ridgway’s research dolphin, Tuffy. Although Wally was very busy with Tuffy, deep in his heart he was a sea lion trainer extraordinaire. Sea lions were his first love, and he considered it a great opportunity to work with them again. Wally and J. King Ross convinced me that researchers could work with sea lions in the open ocean. So Wally helped me get Roxie ready for open-ocean work. Wally had trained many animals including dolphins, dogs, pigs, elephants, sheep, and list goes on. His first love was the circus and he had a thousand stories, some of them not for mixed company. Wally was selected as the head trainer for the original Dr. Doolittle movie, including training some very fine sheep dogs as well as the sheep. Wally became a close friend, and still is one, even though I haven’t seen him in years. I still can’t see a movie where animals are doing incredible things without thinking of Wally. Wally’s favorite animals were elephants although, of course, he had a long list of favorites. One of his favorite stories was about his elephant act where he had the elephant sit on him, then pick him up in her mouth and carry him out of the circus ring. With Wally’s help we took Roxie through several steps to transition her into the ocean – first in a dive tank, then in the lagoon. We didn’t use any of the dolphin pens since Roxie did not like being harassed by dolphins. The goal was to start training Roxie to retrieve rings at increasing depths. We used very much the same protocol that Wally used in training Tuffy for his open ocean work (see Ridgway, 1987). Transporting Roxie to the test site was considerably easier than transporting Tuffy (Sam Ridgway 1987). Sea lions are amphibious and walk quite well, so it is easy to train them to get in a crate. Dolphins, on Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

51

the other hand, must get in a stretcher and be lifted into a boat for transport. The sea trials were conducted near Anacapa Island, some fifteen miles west of Point Mugu. Here the water was clear, and we were able to photograph Roxie’s behavior. One of the underwater photographers from the Naval Missile Center followed her with his camera as she approached the ring at 120 feet, stuck her head through the ring and headed to the surface, not directly but in several oblique spiraling excursions. Dr. Ridgway speculated this might be to avoid the bends by allowing time for the system to adapt to the greater depths. After so many minutes of various depths, humans must spend time at decreasing depths to avoid the bends. However, Roxie would return from depths greater than 200 feet by a straight path. As it turns out, California sea lions are adapted to deep diving but are limited in the amount of time they can spend at great depth. When the Photo Department was assembling the movie footage for my final report in 1965, they called and asked about a title. We thought about it and said, “Just call it Project Roxie.” It wasn’t until later, when I was presenting the film to VIP’s from the Pentagon, and the project was introduced by a Navy commander, that I discovered it was an acronym for Retrieval of Xperimental Immersed Elements (F.G. Wood 1974). The Government has an acronym for everything! [A]Navy Adventures I left Pt. Mugu at the end of the summer of 1964, which was the end of my summer internship at the Marine Bioscience facility. I decided to leave Roxie at Pt. Mugu, which had resources I did not have, such as appropriate food, sea water, and veterinary care. Roxie’s training continued with members of the Navy’s underwater demolition team since she was being trained to mark submerged targets. Roxie later dove to 240 feet, and there were no indications this was her depth limit, (Harmon and Evans, 1968). Roxie was truly a pioneer – she 52

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

was the first Navy sea lion. Now sea lion teams are stationed all over the world. The Roxie project was really a combination of a research project and a demonstration project. We could measure the diving capability of a marine pinniped and also demonstrate they could be trained to work free in the open ocean and to do work useful to the Navy. Sea lions can dive deeper and stay longer than human divers, thus extending the depth at which objects could be detected and recovered. Unfortunately Roxie died in 1969 from a virus that was having an impact on sea lions both in captivity and in the wild. I still think about her and how important she was to my early career: one of the many ladies, both human and non-human, I have had contact with. [A]Harbor Seals Shortly after my return to UCLA and my graduate studies from my summer internship with the Navy, I received a call from Dr. Bill McLean, Technical Director of the Naval Ordinance Test Station, China Lake, California. He complimented me on the success of the Roxie Project which had now been accepted as a systems development program and was no longer a basic research program into sea lion diving behavior. The Navy has a three-tiered funding process, which controls both the amount and the duration of Navy funding. The first tier is basic research, and this is how the Roxie Project was originally classified. The second tier is the development of systems to evaluate their usefulness for the Fleet. Systems development and testing in the Fleet is the third tier. Dr. McLean offered me a full-time GS-13 civil service appointment to work on the Navy’s growing Marine Mammal Program at the Point Mugu Marine Mammal facility. This was again an opportunity that I felt I had to take. The question was: Could I handle this and my graduate program at the same time? I took as many required courses as I could before I Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

53

had to report back to Point Mugu in early 1965. First I had to get permission from my major professor, Dr. Norris, to start on my doctoral research project. The Navy job was going to be my “fellowship.” The lagoon had a resident population of harbor seals (Phoca vitulaina). I decided that the natural history of this species could possibly be a good doctoral study. I started collecting data on haul-out patterns, pupping behavior and feeding behavior. The feeding studies were the most difficult since they involved crawling around on the pupping beach and haul-out areas collecting scat. Although this was a ‘dirty’ job, it yielded some interesting data on feeding habits. After several months of data collection, the study of harbor seals was beginning to shape into a real potential dissertation. One week several months into the project I left for the weekend, and when I returned on Monday morning, to my surprise and shock, the lagoon was full of Corps of Engineers dredging equipment including tug boats and barges. There was lots of activity and, of course, no harbor seals. It turned out that at one time the Navy thought about building a pleasure boat facility for the Officers’ Club. The project was denied, but they forgot to tell the Corps of Engineers. There went my dissertation research. In an attempt to save what I had done so far, I decided to check out the range of this southern population of harbor seals. Some old sightings by fishermen indicated they occurred as far south as San Quentin in Baja California, Mexico. I had an old 1950’s green GMC panel truck I purchased from the Zoology Department at UCLA. It had been used for collecting by the Dickey Bird Collection. I made arrangement with Bill Powell and one of my UCLA herpetology colleagues, Howard (Duke) Campbell, to accompany me on a trip down to Baja California in the spring of 1969. In the late 1960’s there were few, if any, roads past Ensenada, Baja Del Sur, but we went off on our adventure anyway. 54

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

We stopped in Ensenada, Mexico, on the last of the ‘improved roads’. While there we had dinner at a well known French restaurant, and then decided to continue on our way even though it was night and dark, but cooler. Outside of Ensenada the road ended very abruptly, and what springs were left in the truck were now non-functional. We followed what looked like cow paths. We stopped very late the first night in the middle of a group of big cactus. When we arose the next morning we were in the middle of the desert with cactus, cattle and burros. We forged on toward San Quentin Bay, Baja California, and found many sea lions but no signs of harbor seals. There was an old inn in San Quentin which seemed to be closed for the season. During the peak fishing season, San Quentin was a popular surf fishing area. We checked it out to see if we could get something to eat before we headed back. We were fortunate, and I had the best tacos I have ever had. A short way out of San Quentin, we passed a very small village that had a small cantina. We stopped to have a beer. Outside there was a very sad and skinny horse. Inside there was a Mexican cowboy. He was wearing sandals and what looked like hand-made spurs. Since I collect spurs I couldn’t resist and traded a couple of pack of cigarettes for those spurs which had silver inlay that was hand hammered. They are still a prize in my collection. After our brief stay we headed back and stopped in the small village of Santa Tomas, famous for its old mission and winery. That evening we visited a small cantina full of Mexican fishermen. We tried to ask if they ever saw seals. They responded that they had lots of lobo de mar (sea lions) but no seals. So I turned to Bill and Duke and said, “I guess phoca does not get this far south.” Immediately one old fisherman spoke up. “Phoca, si, mucho phoca.” He offered (for a price) to show us. The next morning we boarded an old ponga patched up with pieces of sign board and what appeared to be the granddaddy of outboard motors, and out through the surf we went. Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

55

After a rough trip down the coast, he pulled into a small cove with surf crashing on the rocks. He pointed to the top of one of the rocks and yelled, “Las phocas!” There on the top of the rock were two harbor seals sunning themselves. It turned out they used the caves along that part of the coast to haul out in small sandy areas inside. Access was only at low tide. At last we found what we were looking for. One look at the habitat, however, and I decided I needed a different project. Collecting a reasonable amount of data would involve more resources than I had at that time We headed back towards the border with sacks of lizards and snakes for the UCLA herpetology collection. When stopped at the U.S. border, the customs officers were interested in the contents of those sacks. We told them about the snakes and lizards and showed them our collecting permits. They didn’t seem to accept that story and decided to check our sacks. As they started to open one of the sacks, the sidewinder inside started to buzz. That stopped the inspection, and we were told to leave immediately. [A]Cruising the Pacific When we returned to Los Angeles, I had an opportunity to take a ship-of-opportunity cruise on a commercial freighter as part of an Office of Naval Research (ONR) project to evaluate the use of large commercial oceangoing ships (“ships of opportunity”) as oceanographic platforms. Dr. Bill Aron, an oceanographer of the General Motors Oceanographic Research Laboratory, was the chief scientist. I was asked by ONR to accompany the ship as a Navy observer. I boarded the SS Java Mail in Dupont, Washington, where she was loading dynamite and fuses for delivery to the Far East. Our route was across the North Pacific along the Aleutian Islands, stopping in Japan, on past Taiwan, stopping in Saigon, and then on to Hong Kong. The researchers, including me, left the ship in Hong Kong. The ship was equipped with a portable oceanographic lab and a different group installed an automatic 56

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

“air quality analyzer.” We were instructed if a warning buzzer went off we were to increase the data collection speed of the analyzer to increase the data captured. We were also directed to have the ship cruise between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. During that portion of the cruise the buzzer went off big time, and we rushed to re-set the data collected speed. I found out when we got back home that China had tested a hydrogen bomb two days before we were in the pass. Interesting. I had been asked by several of my herpetology friends at UCLA to collect some snakes of various species at the Hong Kong snake market. After I checked into the hotel, I telephoned the University of Hong Kong Biology Department and asked if they had anyone studying reptiles. They put me in touch with Dr. Paul Maderson, the resident herpetologist. Paul was very friendly and said he would pick me up at the hotel to accompany me to the snake market. I waited outside the hotel for my guide and ride. Paul pulled up in front of the hotel in his Morgan 4-plus-4 sports car. The passenger seat had been removed because he was getting ready to race in the Macao Grand Prix. Instead of a seat he had tied down an orange crate. Off we went for a tour of Hong Kong. I didn’t see much because I had my eyes closed for most of it. I thought several times we were going to hit a pedestrian, but Paul explained that the Chinese in Hong Kong felt that if a car came close, it would scare off the evil spirits. I am not too sure how true that is, but it made a good story. After an hour or so we arrived at the city market, and Paul gave me a tour of the fish, snake, bird and wild animal markets. Such a menagerie and all for human consumption! Much of it was for traditional medicine, including various animal body parts and “vital fluids.” Apparently much of it as an aphrodisiac!! I purchased several species of snakes, as well as several amphibians, and eight giant Chinese salamanders (Andrias davidianus). Later I conducted some bioacoustic studies on the latter, which were recently published (Evans and Wang, 2005). Chapter 4: tudying Marine Mammals

57

Paul helped me to inspect the snakes to make sure that their gall bladders had not been surgically removed. This was apparently done for use in traditional medicine, and then the snake was sold for meat. Paul helped me package the specimens and ship them off to UCLA via the naval base in Okinawa. When they arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport, the boxes full of live snakes were inspected by customs with the help of a couple of graduate students from UCLA. They were surprised to find about half the number of banded kraits (a poisonous snake) in one of the boxes as were listed on the box. The search began. First the plane – no snakes. Next, the customs area – no snakes. Later the herpetologists noticed that one of the remaining snakes in the box was a king cobra. King cobras eat other snakes, so we had one very happy king cobra. Hopefully this was the answer to the missing banded kraits. After I returned from my cruise, I was given an opportunity to switch dissertation topics and work on a Navy project involving dolphin discrimination experiments. Some of them were classified, but the others became my next stab at Ph.D. dissertation research and are described in the next chapter.

58

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 5 Marine Mammals I have known

I

n1964 I began the Navy research on dolphins that I expected would form my Ph.D. dissertation research. At UCLA Ken Norris and Ron Turner were working with a dolphin named Alice that they had on loan from the Navy. Alice, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, was trained to detect the presence of a stainless steel ball of a certain size when compared with other stainless steel balls of slightly varying diameters and, thus, have different strength of the echo or target strengths. Alice turned out to be very difficult to train for a variety of reasons, possibly including age. We guessed her to be over twenty five years old – old for a dolphin in the wild, but young for a captive animal. Mostly she was not very cooperative. Regardless of the difficulty the final results of the experiment indicated that she could detect very small differences in the spheres with a target strength difference of 1 or 2 decibels. After the experiment Alice was returned to the U.S. Navy who had sent her on loan to the Norris project. [A]Doris After finishing his work with Alice, Ken decided to leave his faculty position at UCLA for a position in Hawaii. He was asked to take over the Research Institute at Sea Life Park on Oahu. At about the same time, based on discussions with F.G. Wood, Director of the Navy’s Marine Facility at Point Mugu, Scott Johnson (a physicist interested in sharks), and Bill Powell Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

59

at the Navy’s Point Mugu Marine Mammal Facility, I began a series of experiments to follow up on my earlier work in measuring the directionality of the dolphin echolocation signals. The new experiment was to measure echolocation during sonar discrimination tests. The animal selected for these experiments was a four-yearold female bottlenose dolphin called Doris (another Atlantic bottlenose dolphin). She turned out to be a very quick study. With the help of Clark Bowers, a senior dolphin trainer, Bill Powell and I trained her to wear blindfolds and then to detect the presence and absence of specific targets made of copper, bronze and aluminum. These targets were placed in a special area in a redwood pool with several hydrophones. On the floor of the pool there was a white grid area divided into twentycentimeter squares. A video camera was placed directly above to record her movements as she approached the target. It was necessary to control her position if we were to get accurate measurements of her sonar beam while she was actively echolocating. We then turned the task into a discrimination task by adding targets that varied in target strength by one-decibel increments. The target strength could be controlled by varying the thickness of the metal plates that were the targets. Doris was trained to swim through a series of metal pipe guides designed to control her approach to the target area. In the morning after installing the pipe guides, I went to the pool and found all of them flat on the floor of the pool. I was concerned because they were put together with nuts and bolts, which were nowhere to be seen. Dolphins in captivity were notorious for swallowing foreign objects, and Doris was especially known for this trick. Hours of searching the bottom of the pool and the drains resulted in no nuts or bolts. We were ready to have her x-rayed when she swam to the side of the pool, opened her mouth, and presented us with all the nuts and bolts. We used lock nuts instead, and that appeared to solve the problem. Still, the mystery remained: how does a creature with no fingers 60

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

or thumbs undo nuts on bolts put together with a wrench? I am mystified to this day. The results of the research verified that dolphins could detect as much as one decibel difference in target strength, and that they used a very directional echolocation signal. [A]Beware the Press! In 1964 Bill Powell and I were invited to present a paper at a Los Angeles Conference summarizing the Navy’s dolphin research program. We decided to summarize the work with Doris as an example and also discuss the open ocean work with Sea Lab I and the dolphin Tuffy. The Navy wanted to present the results of its research to date in a public forum to prove they were not hiding anything. We had a movie which presented some of the projects, but the results of our presentation were not what we expected. F.G. Wood, in Marine Mammals and Man: The Navy’s Porpoises and Sea Lions, (1973) gives a more objective description of what happened when we gave our presentation, and the resulting media flurry, than I could: “Bill Evans, who was conducting the sonar study, and his coworker Bill Powell, had been invited to participate in a symposium on “Modern Developments in Marine Sciences” in Los Angeles… The two investigators had found that a dolphin named Doris could by sonar alone distinguish different materials. Their presentation, entitled “Current Cetacean Research,” consisted primarily of film footage and spoken commentary illustrating some of the work that they had been doing. Also included was a reference to a dolphin called Tuffy’s participation in Sea Lab 1.” It was the juxtaposition of the two subjects, echolocation and dolphins working in the open ocean that got us and the Navy into trouble. A reporter who two years earlier had written about a secret Navy communications study attended the Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

61

meeting. Afterwards he went back to his office and composed the following: “Navy scientists have taught porpoises to tell one metal from another – a valuable trick for creatures that someday may be used to detect submarines, mines and underwater missile installations. For example: A patch of metal not customarily found on submarines could help wide ranging bands of porpoises identify friendly craft. Any craft not identified would be subject to ramming by the porpoises, trained to carry explosives in body harnesses.” (quoted in Wood, 1973) The plan to have dolphins blow up submarines was very far from the minds of anyone in the U.S. Navy at that time – it was strictly a figment of the writer’s imagination. However, it made the Associated Press wires and was widely distributed, and as a result it was considered to be true by the general public. This resulted in Bill Powell and me being burned in effigy several times in several countries, primarily by Flipper Fan Clubs. The worst part was having to explain all this to our bosses in Washington at the office of the Chief of Naval Operations. I was especially targeted and put under scrutiny. This story continued to be dug up out of the archives several times in the next ten years. Wood has examples of the thousands of letters he received as the director of the Navy’s Point Mugu research facility. Fortunately there was a recording of the actual interview, which proved that neither of us said anything about the research that could be interpreted as it had been written in the article. This saved our hides from the office of the Chief of Naval Operations. But from this time on we were hounded by the media. I learned how to say “No comment.” This shows the harm that media can do when it sensationalizes science without being sure of the facts. Right or wrong, this was part of the motivation for the Navy to tighten up on press releases about what was taking 62

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

place at Point Mugu. Maybe the Navy thought this wasn’t entirely a bad idea, even though we did not agree. My concern was that this tightening meant that some of my dissertation research might be (and was, in fact) classified, so it could not be published. Whether or not all of this media exposure sparked the imagination of the Navy leadership in the Pentagon cannot be determined. At the same time, however, there was intelligence information that the Soviet Navy was developing a very large marine mammal program at a base on the Black Sea. This information sent the U.S. program to a different level. It was shortly after that discussions into the potential of such ideas that research funding for dolphin research was increased, including funding for open ocean work. From this time on, the development of research on dolphins and other marine mammals was Navy-systems oriented. This emphasis of funding was to change although basic research also continued. During this time it was becoming very clear to me that I could not handle the job with the Navy and graduate school at the same time. In early 1964 I took a leave of absence from UCLA, so I could concentrate full time on my bio-sonar research program. That leave of absence would last for over six years. [A]Into the Wild By early 1965, Bill Powell and I had finished the experiment with Doris and were going to present the results at the first NATO Biosonar Conference being held in Frascati, Italy, in the fall of 1966. The conference covered bats as well as dolphins. After our presentations, Dr. Don Griffin of bat sonar fame, author of Listening in the Dark, asked the following question, “I am impressed by how sophisticated the dolphin sonar is, but how do they use it in the wild? It is all well and good that you can train a dolphin to use its obviously sophisticated sonar to discriminate metal plates and steel balls, but how do they use it in nature?” Of course the main emphasis of the bat Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

63

sonar studies was field-based, and the dolphin research at that time was exclusively laboratory-based. This was an excellent question. I thought about it all the way home. The answer was that we didn’t know how dolphins used sonar in the wild because we had focused all of our studies on captive animals. After the conference my research shifted to working on ways that we could follow animals in the wild and learn more about their foraging behavior. This resulted in my spending a lot of time at sea, the development of radio transmitters for dolphins, and the innovation of ways to view dolphins underwater. This eventually became the focus of my doctoral research. I was convinced that we needed to understand these animals in the wild, and fortunately the Navy agreed. Development of underwater vehicles and radio transmitters both had Navy applications. [A]Hawaii-Bound In 1966–67 the Navy started plans to move from the Point Mugu facility, with some of the staff going to San Diego and some to Hawaii. Many of the marine mammal research program results were beginning to spark interest in the Pentagon as to the possibility for operational programs. This also, incidentally, was the time period in which the U.S. active involvement in Vietnam began to increase – in fact, as a result of our research, dolphins were used to clear mines in Vietnam, and along with sea lions are being used in the same way today in the Persian Gulf and many other places in the world. To help me make up my mind about where to relocate, I was given the opportunity to ship my equipment and my family to Hawaii for the summer. One of my mentors and committee co-chairs, Ken Norris, had moved to Hawaii and started his research program at the Oceanic Institute adjacent to Sea Life Park. I arrived at the Hawaii lab in the summer of 1967. While I was unpacking my equipment for the research Dr. Norris and I were going to do, I had my first encoun64

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

ter with the then-famous author and animal trainer, Karen Pryor, who was in charge of animal training at Sea Life Park. Karen walked in and said, “Welcome to Hawaii. I understand you are Ken’s new electronic technician, so here, fix my portable recorder.” This bruised my ego a great deal since I considered myself Ken’s research colleague and not his technician. My other colleagues thought this was very humorous. I finally got over the ego shock, repaired her recorder and found out she had misunderstood my role there. She opened many doors for research that would not have been available otherwise. For example, because of Karen Pryor, Ken and I had the opportunity to work on sonar with a new species, the rough toothed dolphin, Steno bredadensis. In addition to research that summer, we had an exciting event at Sea Life Park with one of Karen’s trained bottlenose dolphins named Kiki. During a training session, Kiki swallowed a ball and quit eating. It was considered an emergency. Dr. Sam Ridgway, one of the researchers from Point Mugu, who worked in the open ocean and Sea Lab I with the dolphin called Tuf Guy, nicknamed Tuffy, had developed methods of giving dolphins anesthesia so he could do surgery. I called and asked if he would come to Hawaii as soon as possible. (For more detail, see Ridgway, 1987). Ken Norris and I picked up Sam and Lt. Harvey, Sam’s assistant, at the Honolulu Airport and rushed them to Sea Life Park for the operation. While they were in Hawaii, both Sam and Lt. Harvey stayed with us in Waimanalo. (Lt. Harvey’s only surprise was his first viewing of a super-sized Hawaiian cockroach perched on his bedpost.) As it turned out, one of the administrators at Sea Life Park, Tap Pryor, had a small hand and long arm. With Sam’s assistance he reached into Kiki’s stomach and removed the ball, accompanied by cheers from all. (The whole story in detail is in The Dolphin Doctor, by Dr. Sam Ridgeway). Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

65

[A]The Sea-Sick Machine During this time, perhaps remembering Griffin’s question at the Frascati conference, Ken Norris was developing a vehicle in Hawaii that would allow for unobstructed underwater viewing. It was towed behind a 40 foot fishing boat and didn’t have any propulsion of its own. Since I was interested in also developing a vehicle, this gave me an excellent opportunity to observe and participate in Ken’s machine. Ken dubbed it the “sea-sick machine” after the first open ocean trials. Due to the design, the viewing chamber had a pendulum motion, swaying from side to side under tow. While we were testing during the first sea trials Ken got sea-sick, so I got a chance to be the pilot…and decided to consider a different design when I returned to California! Unfortunately Ken had lost his lunch in the confined space of the capsule, which did not help in my ability to concentrate on what I was seeing and recording. Despite the nature of the sea-sick machine, the summer’s experience in Hawaii was an incredible one for someone whose view of dolphins had been confined to seeing dorsal fins on the surface and behaviors in pools at various oceanaria. I was given the opportunity to observe a few herds of pan-tropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata) underwater. The ability to see definite social organization patterns in the wild was to say the least “wild!” The herds of dolphin observed appeared to move in organized group patterns. The first was composed of five to nine adult females and juveniles; the second contained a single male, sometimes accompanied by one or two adult females; and the third consisted of only four to eight sub-adult males. The most interesting thing to note was that they were arrayed in a vertical fashion with what appeared to be the most dominant animal on the top of the stack and closest to that vital resource for a mammal – air. It was amazing to see individuals on the bottom pull out of the formation to the side, go to the surface, and return to take their place at the bottom. On occasion, an animal would improve its position in 66

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

the stack. The male groups, on the contrary, were distributed horizontally. At the time these were new revelations. They were to be verified many times in future studies, but for now it was like looking into a whole new world. In a real sense, this was the start of our research focus on what dolphins and whales were doing in the wild. Were they using echolocation during foraging? This was the initiation of both Ken’s and my future studies of dolphin societies, especially spinner, spotted, common and bottlenose dolphins (see Norris and Dohl, 1986; Norris, 1991; Evans and Bastian, 1969). It was also the start of a new direction in research for me, one that eventually resulted in my Ph.D. research on the natural history of the long beaked and short beaked common dolphins, Delphinus delphis (later the long beaked variety became known as Delphinus capensis – Evans, 1994; Heyning and Perrin, 1991). At the end of the summer in Hawaii, my wife and sons decided that they had had enough of “paradise,” and if we had to move, it would be to San Diego and not Hawaii. Both sons were pre-teens and did not take to being beaten up by older boys. Also, my wife did not take to driving out in the morning, turning right, and discovering she was on an island. In addition, all her friends were in California. I did not have a problem with the decision and was also aware that all the systems work would be in Hawaii, and the basic research, which interested me more, in San Diego. Working with Dr. Norris was exciting but in retrospect our relationship was also one of competition. I did not recognize this at the time but only as I have grown older. [A]San Diego and the RV Sea See Upon my return to California from Hawaii, armed with photos from Ken’s vehicle and inspiration from Dr. Don Griffin’s question about dolphins in the wild, I convinced the powers-that-be in the Navy’s program that we needed a mobile Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

67

underwater observation vehicle – a stable one! Most of the next two years was devoted to developing our new semi-submersible, which we christened the RV Sea See. With the help of Larry McKinley, an extremely innovative engineer at the Naval Ordinance Test Station at China Lake, we started the design of what became the RV Sea See. Fortunately the Navy already had a mobile catamaran vehicle that had been designed as a tender for a Navy experimental deep submersible, which was a prototype of a rescue vehicle for downed submarines. Larry McKinley came up with a unique design for the craft which included a movable observation chamber using two large acrylic hemispheres which allowed maximum viewing capability. We sent out request for bids to several shipyards to build the craft, and she finally was built in Oxnard California by Drakecraft Boat Company, a company that built large pleasure and fishing boats. Bruce Parks had been hired as her captain and was working hard to get the boat ready for operation. Bruce had worked as a marine animal collector and diver for Marineland of the Pacific. He also had a lot of experience operating boats in the local waters. He was hired as the captain of the RV Sea See in December of 1967, and this was the start of our many adventures together. Fortunately for me Bruce kept a very detailed set of log books which were extremely valuable in research for this book. The RV Sea See was finished and launched, on May 29, 1968, after many delays. The RV Sea See provided the opportunity for many adventures off-shore in the area of the Catalina Channel and Channel Islands. With the help of Bruce Parks and Larry McKinley, trips to Catalina Channel and the area around San Clemente Island provided for some unique adventures. She gave us an amazing platform not only for the underwater observation of dolphins and whales, but also for observing sharks. One of the shark trips was especially eventful. We sailed to San Clemente Island to test Scott Johnson’s innovative device 68

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

to protect downed airmen from sharks. It was a heavy plastic sack shaped screen that a man could enter to screen him from sharks thus the name shark screen. A serious storm came up, and we had to moor overnight to some buoys put in place for the Sea Lab Tests. During the night the two huge buoys drifted together because the large ship’s anchors that held them in place started to slide down an underwater sea cliff. In the middle of the night, surrounded by sharks, we had the task of cutting loose from the buoys. During the process I fell into the water, which was not a good thing to do with hungry sharks all around the boat. Thanks to the help of Bruce, an accomplished diver and swimmer, they got me back on board. During many of our cruises we worked from the Isthmus at Santa Catalina Island and stayed in dormitories used by the University of Southern California (USC) Marine Lab and Bechtel Corp. The dormitory had a population of feral pigs that lived under the building. At night they had the bad habit of coming through our sleeping quarters and foraging through the dormitory, adding to the excitement of our frequent visits. We also had to deal with resident goats and American bison. One day when we returned from a shakedown cruise there was a buffalo in one of the residences’ back yards. The lady of the house immediately came to our rescue with a broom and quickly dispatched the critter. We also had the experience of being charged by a big bull buffalo who made a nice ‘V’ dent in the radiator of our jeep. After that, we decided to leave the island for a few days. One afternoon Bruce, Larry and I flew out to the island to bring the RV Sea See back to Oxnard for an overhaul. We sailed in the early evening towards Oxnard. When we were about 20 miles out we tried to get a compass reading – oops! no compass! no radio! They had been stolen. So without any instruments we sailed on like ancient mariners relying on guessing, God and the stars. To our surprise we found ourselves in the middle of the shipping lane with the unfortunate experience Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

69

of close encounters with some very large ships. Unfortunately, the thieves had also stolen our running lights which resulted in some harrowing moments. (We did finally reach Oxnard.) The fortunate part of this experience was that we ran into an area of thick bioluminescence in the water. We also encountered a herd of Pacific stripped dolphins (Lagenorhyncus obliquidens), giving us a unique opportunity to see the flow patterns around their bodies (See sketch in F.G. Wood 1973). Larry McKinley was an excellent artist and made many sketches of the unique flow patterns. These really helped in our understanding of their hydrodynamics. The RV Sea See also turned out to be a good public relations tool. We had many visitors from places like Washington D.C, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Dr. Bill McLean, Director of the Naval Undersea Center and the man who hired me, was an avid supporter of the use of glass or acrylic hemispheres for use in underwater vehicles and made good use of the Sea See. During one of the visits by Soviet scientists one of them remarked as we sailed past the San Diego Submarine Base, “Why are your submarines so small?” I responded with, “They have to be small, because they are flying submarines.” He gasped and took notes. Later many of the those same Soviet scientists, especially Alexey Yablokov, became very close friends (Evans and Yablokov, 2005). We also had several foreign navy representatives who came to inspect this strange new boat. In the early days of RV Sea See testing, we were visited by the Japanese admiral in charge of their navy’s development programs. While we were in the underwater observation chamber, some kelp bass swam up to the bubble. The Admiral was very surprised. He exclaimed in Japanese what was interpreted as, “You have underwater aquarium – very clever idea.” He thought we had put an aquarium in front of the observation dome. We explained that he was looking at wild fish. His assistant quickly made notes and drawings of the vehicle’s construction. 70

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

During 1968 I was working on a chapter for Harald Andersen’s book Biology of Marine Mammals for Academic Press. Ken Norris was doing the chapter on echolocation, and I was asked to do the chapter on marine mammal communications. Since psychologists had done a great deal of work in this field, I asked Jarvis Bastian from the psychology department at the University of California at Davis to collaborate with me. The result was a chapter titled “Marine Mammal Communication: Social and Ecological Factors.” Our chapter contained much of the information on dolphin social behavior that came from our Sea Sick Machine and Sea See underwater observations. The title reflected my changed focus from captive observations to the natural world. Academic Press published the book in 1969. [A]Radio Tagging In order to be able to follow dolphins and whales and further study their behavior in the wild, we needed to develop radio tagging equipment. This became a necessity for field observations and recording of marine mammals off the coast of California and the off-shore Channel Islands. Use of radio telemetry made it possible to stay in touch with a herd for extended periods. We went to a small firm outside of San Diego that had designed and were manufacturing small transmitters for use on oceanographic buoys. I took a fiber glass model of a common dolphin to the company and explained what I wanted. They were skeptical but took the model and started to brainstorm about how to modify their product to fit on the back of a dolphin. Several weeks later we had a prototype which was tested at Marineland of the Pacific on a live dolphin. It was successful, so we were able to start sea trials (see Evans, 1970). One of the most disturbing things abut our radio transmitters was that our frequency was close to the ones used by some water companies to turn valves on and off, also a few garage doors. We had to sort that type of signal out from our dolphins, but finally had success. This resulted in the radio tracking of several dolphins, Chapter 5: Marine Mammals I have known

71

one pilot whale and a gray whale. Our longest track was almost a month during one of our cruises on a U.S. tuna boat into the Tropical Eastern Pacific. It is amazing how far this technology has advanced. At the 2005 Marine Mammal Conference, satellite transmitters with several channels of data were on display, small enough that you could put one in your pocket. This whole period of the late 60’s and the 70’s was a significant part of the history of marine mammal science as a separate area of study. As can be seen by the preceding stories, because of the nature of the research it became very multidisciplinary. Among those involved were engineers, physicists, biologists, psychologists, medical doctors, veterinarians, physiologists and ecologists, to name a few. Later we added a sociologist, artist and lawyers. This mix of sciences, engineering and other disciplines was later to become in part the motivation for forming the Society for Marine Mammalogy in the mid-70’s. It was exciting because I got a chance to work with engineers, physicist, experimental psychologists, and other professionals. This was not a new experience for me since I had worked with engineers, physicists at Lockheed and Douglas – what was new for me was to work with professionals from other disciplines in my chosen field of interest, marine mammals.

72

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 6 The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

I

n 1967 all the personnel manning the Navy Marine Mammal Facility, both from the Naval Ordinance Test Center (NOTS) and the Naval Missile Center, were placed under the newly formed Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC). It was later renamed the Naval Undersea Center (NUC), and now it’s referred to as Space and Warfare Systems (SpaWARS), still headquartered in San Diego. Indeed, every time I went on any kind of field excursion for the Navy, it seemed to change names during my absence!! The Center was formed from portions of other Navy laboratories and was a wide ranging organization with laboratories or facilities in Pasadena, Long Beach, San Clemente Island, Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. A laboratory was established in Hawaii in 1968, and part of the marine mammal work moved there together along with an ocean engineering group. It was this organization (NUWC) under whose auspices the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program was to develop and continues to grow today. The staff of the program grew over time and now includes several who are well known in the marine mammal sciences community. As recounted in the previous chapter, my family and I spent the summer of 1967 in Hawaii but decided to move to San Diego instead. After we looked for housing in the San Diego area, I moved my family south from Chatsworth. We found a ranch Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

73

of about seven acres on the side of a small mountain close to Escondido and about 25 miles from San Diego. It overlooked a lake, Lake Hodges. The move was something out of The Grapes of Wrath. In our small Datsun pick-up truck we had two young boys, two goats, chickens, two Irish Setters, two Chihuahuas, a mess of rabbits and other associated 4-H projects. After about a year on the mountain, we added many more goats and four horses. Believe it or not after that start, I can honestly say that our almost-twenty years on the mountain were among the happiest in our lives. To us and to our two sons, this will always be home. Both my sons ended up with graduate degrees in animalrelated careers, and I think it’s because of this exposure. Jon is an agriculture and biology teacher, and Tim is a veterinarian with specialties in toxicology and reproduction. So on I went to San Diego to join Dr. Sam Ridgway and other researchers at the Navy facility. Although we did not have animal-holding facilities until 1971, I visited Sea World San Diego, and cut a deal with their Director of Animal Care. Shortly after that an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin arrived, one with which I had worked at Pt. Mugu. Her name was Scylla. My first project was to train Scylla to echolocate while wearing an array of attached hydrophones. While this entire Navy activity was going on, there were significant changes in public attitudes towards wildlife and especially toward marine mammals. For a detailed review of the Navy’s marine mammal program from its beginnings through 1973 (see Marine Mammals and Man: The Navy’s Porpoises and Sea Lions, by Forrest G. Wood). Later in my memoir I will discuss the direction that program has taken from 1970’s into the twenty-first century. [A]The Environmental Decades of the 1970’s and 80’s In 1969 Congress passed significant environmental legislation, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). Among other impacts, the Act established the need for the government to conduct environmental assessments of any federal74

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

ly-sponsored program and produce an environmental impact statement if necessary. This included the U.S. Navy’s growing program with marine mammals. Although it didn’t immediately affect marine mammal research, NEPA set the stage for several significant pieces of environmental legislation which were to come. In 1970 the United States Secretary of the Interior, Walter Hickel, announced that an international meeting of leading marine mammal experts would be called on to consider the plight of the great whales and their biology as related to their conservation. Under the auspices of the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, he placed eight commercially sought-after whales on the Endangered Species List. This made it illegal to import any parts or products of these whales into the United States. The eight whales listed were the bowhead, right, blue, sperm, finback, sei, humpback and gray (see the appendix for more information about these whales). The resulting meeting, the International Conference on the Biology of Whales, was held on June 10–12, 1971, in the Shenandoah National Park on the Blue Ridge of Virginia. The conference was sponsored by the Department of Interior, The Smithsonian Institution, the New York Zoological Society, and the International Biological Program. Co-sponsors were the Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation. Significantly, several Non-Governmental Environmental Organizations (NGOs) were also co-sponsors, including the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Conservation Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, and the National Wildlife Federation. The conference was organized and managed by a committee of the Marine Mammal Council of the United States International Biological Program consisting of G. Carlton Ray, W.E. Schevill and Ken S. Norris. All three were recognized marine mammal specialists, at that time not connected with either whaling or sealing, or their regulation. Carlton Ray and Ken Norris were the first scientists, as far as I Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

75

know, to suggest an ecosystems management approach to the study of the marine environment. Thirty-four participants and twenty observers representing ten countries attended the conference. The Russians were invited but did not attend. Many of the United States participants were also key players in and provided advice for the drafting of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and provided testimony before congressional committees. This is a good example of the fact that the funding for research is greatly influenced by public concern. Because of pressure put on legislators by the public, we ended up with the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, a much more inclusive act than the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969. This legislation provided a new source of funding for major field studies of marine mammals. It is unfortunate that the Shenandoah conference and its results are not given the credit they deserve as precursors for the past and current international conservation of cetaceans. The proceedings were edited by William Schevill and published in 1974 by Harvard Press. The conference was also a precursor to the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) consultation on marine mammals in 1976 in Bergen, Norway. At the Shenandoah conference Bill Schevill, Bill Watkins, and I were invited by Dr. Masaharu Nishiwaki of the Japanese delegation to visit cetacean research facilities in Japan. I obtained some funding from the Navy, and the three of us spent almost forty days touring from Tokyo to the Goto Islands and several places in between. While in the Goto Islands, we visited a small village. We were the first Westerners that had ever visited. They sent to another island for a woman who had worked in a small inn and had had experience serving Westerners. We also visited a school so the students could see some real people from the western world. They were most interested in knowing what was wrong with our eyes since two of us had blue eyes. 76

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

It was an informative trip from many points of view. At each whaling village we visited, Bill Schevill was intent on finding the bone pile. Since some of them were a hundred years old or older, digging through the bone pile gave an interesting history of what species were involved in the fishery. Be ready to dig if you go in the field with a trained paleontologist like Bill Schevill! One of the more important old whaling villages we visited was Taiji. While we were there, they were celebrating their 500-year anniversary. As a part of the program they had used the original five-hundred-year-old woodblocks from the archives and reproduced a limited number of copies. I was given a very large wood block print, a copy of the original which is over five hundred years old. It shows a scene of whaling activities at Taiji in the 1500’s. My copy is one of my most cherished possessions. While in Taiji I had the opportunity, almost to my demise, to experience a Japanese mineral hot spring. Every day when we returned to the hotel I checked out the hot spring, thinking it would be good for aches and pains. It was always busy. Then one day the weather was bad, and we returned early. The hot spring was totally empty, so I got my robe and stripped down and entered the spring. It was indeed hot. I moved over closer to the source to see where the water was coming from. Then a bus arrived from Osaka with a senior citizen group, and the spring was full of nude Japanese people. As a bashful American I was not going to run the gauntlet of all those bodies, so I stayed and stayed until I had to move or faint. When I got to my room I looked in a mirror. I was really dehydrated and looked like a prune. My roommates got as much water in me as they could and put me to bed. The next day I looked almost normal but was still weak. Those experiences will last forever in my memory, especially since they were shared with two of the icons of marine mammal science, Bill Schevill and Bill Watkins. I think the main benefit I got from the trip was a better understanding of how deeply the whaling culture is ingrained into the older Japanese society. Every time Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

77

I look at the woodblock print from Taiji, I am reminded of the differences in our cultures even today. [A]Gigi When I returned to San Diego in February, 1972, I had a surprise awaiting me. Sea World of San Diego had captured a female California gray whale calf in March of 1971 and successfully held her in captivity for a year for research purposes. They called her Gigi. Anticipating the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Sea World had decided to return Gigi to the ocean. The cost of keeping her was increasing day by day, and in order for her to have the best chance in the wild, it was necessary to release her during the gray whales’ annual northward migration, which takes place in early spring. Since she was a member of an endangered species, both the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had jurisdiction over her. In March of 1972 the U.S. Navy was given the job of helping. Since NMFS and FWS did not have the facilities to handle an animal of that size (Gigi was over eight meters long, and weighed more than two tons), they contacted the Naval Undersea Center Marine Mammal Laboratory. To my astonishment I was put in charge of the release and the logistics. What was to unfold was a project of gigantic proportions. Gigi was scheduled to be released in late March or early April, about the time of the peak of the northward migration of gray whales. That gave us only one month! And there were so many challenges to be faced. First of all there was the design of the device to carry the two-ton-plus whale to the barge that would be used to carry her to sea. Next was the requirement to track her to assure the media that she was safe on her way north. So we pondered: What kind of truck was needed? What time of day should we schedule the release? We had started to have a radio transmitter designed by Ocean Applied Research that would measure location, depth of dive, and temperature as a function 78

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

of depth. Based on observations of the northward migration, the date of March 13th was selected as the release date. (I also think that subconsciously we wanted to avoid the Ides of March.) As the date of release approached, the tension rose. The Navy was wonderful in providing support way above and beyond the call of duty. It was decided to move the whale before dawn and have her at sea by sunrise to avoid any heat stress. Once she was on a Navy truck, she was the Navy’s responsibility and the Commander of the Naval Undersea Center, Capt. Charles Bishop, took over. So at 4:00 AM on March 13th, a strange military convoy left Sea World headed for the docks at the Naval Undersea Center on Point Loma. When the whale was safely on the barge the captain gave the command to cast off and there was a bit of a mass movement of bodies trying to leave. It seemed as though the idea that they were not in charge came as a surprise to the media on the barge. Everyone had to leave, including the camera crews, which resulted in some colorful language. The release was very successful. After her release, Gigi stayed in the area for several hours, and then slowly headed north along the coast, frequently visiting the kelp beds, which is normal behavior for yearling gray whales. We tracked the whale by air, by sea, and by land late into April. Our last contact with Gigi was off Monterey, California, heading north. On Gigi’s trip north we tracked her from the Navy’s RV Cape, with Bruce Parks, Steve Leatherwood, and me keeping the watch. We were collecting data on temperature versus depth. During several of her dives, it was evident that Gigi liked the area just off the warm water outfall from the San Onofre nuclear power plant. To our surprise, Gigi was diving to the exact depth where we detected a very warm water plume right off shore of the plant. As we got closer to the area during the tracking, we were visited by some heavily armed Security Forces, who did not believe our tale about tracking a radio-tagged gray whale. The authorities were not happy with us! (See Evans, 1974) Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

79

Part of the agreement among all three agencies involved with the responsibility for Gigi’s release was that all of the research accomplished with this animal would be published at a conference following her successful release. The conference was held in April of 1972, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, LaJolla California (see Marine Fisheries Review, The California Gray Whale: Special Issue, (ed.) W.E. Evans, Vol. 36 Number 4, April 1974). [A]Delphinus and My Dissertation With the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the task of managing marine mammals was split between two agencies, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Wildlife and Fisheries Service (WLFS). NMFS was tasked with implementing the requirements of the act for whales, dolphins and pinnipeds with the exception of walruses. WLFS was tasked with sea otters, sirenia (manatees and dugongs), walruses and polar bears. Both agencies had to develop several research programs to provide a better understanding of all marine mammals. Based on records kept by observers of the yellowfin tuna fishery in the tropical eastern Pacific, the by-catch of dolphins and other cetaceans in this fishery was in the tens of thousands, if not much more (Perrin and Oliver, 1982). Because of this, the concerns of the environmental community multiplied, and eventually those of Congress as well and special emphasis was put on preserving those species associated with that fishery. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had a limited staff in 1973, so they enlisted the assistance of some of the marine mammal researchers at the Navy Lab in San Diego. While testing some new gear modifications for tuna purse seine nets offshore at San Diego, Bill Perrin, Steve Leatherwood, Bill Cummings, and I observed a set on about a thousand common dolphins. Unfortunately, the gear modifications did not work because of ocean current problems, and we ended 80

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Evans 1936

Fin whale on special Railroad car 1936-37. Photo: Elkhart Truth archive

Plates_Evans.indd 1

10.7.2008 . 12:14:34

Dr. John C. Lilly and F.G. Wood at marine Studios 1957

Dr. John Lilly at the Controls of JANUS the Human Dolphin Translator

Bill Evans at Marineland of the Pacific 1958

Plates_Evans.indd 2

10.7.2008 . 12:14:35

Lockheed P3V ASW attack Bomber. Photo: U.S. Navy

Bill Evans at the Acoustic Analysis Consol Lockheed

Plates_Evans.indd 3

10.7.2008 . 12:14:35

RV Sea Quest. Photo: W. Evans

Gray Whale after diver. Photo: W. Evans

Bob Eberhardt and helper measuring Gray whale Calf. Photo: W. Evans

Plates_Evans.indd 4

10.7.2008 . 12:14:35

U.S. Navy Pt. Mugu Marine Mammal Facility. Photo: U.S. Navy

Roxie on Open Ocean deep water retrieve. Photo: U.S. Navy

Roxie in Training. Photo: U.S. Navy

Plates_Evans.indd 5

10.7.2008 . 12:14:35

Tuf Guy and Sea Lab II. Photo: U.S. Navy

Baja Fisherman Looking for Phoca vitulina. Photo: W. Evans

Mine Recovery project. Photo: U.S. Navy

Plates_Evans.indd 6

10.7.2008 . 12:14:36

Navy Sea Lions in Training for harbor patrol

Chinese Giant Salamander same as found in Hong Kong

Plates_Evans.indd 7

10.7.2008 . 12:14:36

Common Dolphins

Evans, Martin, McLean, Jacques Cousteau, Philippe Cousteau, Jacques Renoir with camera describing dolphin radio pack

Plates_Evans.indd 8

10.7.2008 . 12:14:36

Delphinus test of radio pack

Hawaii Norris Sea Sick Machine

Plates_Evans.indd 9

10.7.2008 . 12:14:36

Model of Sea See

Sea See at Catalina Island

Plates_Evans.indd 10

10.7.2008 . 12:14:37

Sea See Under water Observation Chamber

Herd of bottle nose dolphins as seen from Sea See

Plates_Evans.indd 11

10.7.2008 . 12:14:37

Sea See and sharks. Photo: Bruce Parks

Pt. Loma Marine Mammal Facility. Photo: U.S. Navy

Plates_Evans.indd 12

10.7.2008 . 12:14:38

Participants in Whale Conference Shenandoah: (30, 31, 32)

Bill Schevill and Dr. Robert Backus at sea. Photo: F.G. Wood

Bill Evans Carlton Ray and Bill Watkins. Photo: F.G. Wood

Dr. and Mrs. Nishiwaki. Photo: F.G. Wood

Plates_Evans.indd 13

10.7.2008 . 12:14:38

Taiji Fish Market Dolphin Drive Catch - Japan tour. Photo: W. Evans

Dr. Evans and Doris in training. Photo: U.S. Navy

GiGi on Barge headed for release area. Photo: U.S. Navy

Plates_Evans.indd 14

10.7.2008 . 12:14:38

GiGi in the Kelp Beds. Photo: U.S. Navy

Dolphin By-catch. Photo: S. Leatherwood

Plates_Evans.indd 15

10.7.2008 . 12:14:38

Evans and Perrin recording data. Photo: Life Magazine

Dolphins in bioluminesence. Sketch: Larry McKinley

Plates_Evans.indd 16

10.7.2008 . 12:14:39

H-3 ASW Helicopter. Photo: U.S. Navy

The Navy’s Marine mammal Program. Photo: U.S. Navy

Plates_Evans.indd 17

10.7.2008 . 12:14:39

Senator Hyakawa, L. Cornell and W. Evans

Model of Frontier Challenger. Photo: W. Evans

Evans and Walter Cronkite in San Ignacio Lagoon. Photo: F. Todd

Plates_Evans.indd 18

Evans, Burgess Meredith, Milt Shedd Photo: Sea World

10.7.2008 . 12:14:39

W. Evans in the Antarctic

Plates_Evans.indd 19

10.7.2008 . 12:14:40

Exxon Valdez aground on Bligh Reef with Oil Boom. Photo: Silvia Earle

Evans at Texas A&M and at Sea on Texas Clipper. Photo: Texas A & M

Evans and Mentors Schevill and Woods

Plates_Evans.indd 20

10.7.2008 . 12:14:40

up with about 150 dead dolphins ranging from newborn to older adults. The dead dolphins numbered about ten percent of the herd. This presented us with a dilemma. We could not possibly process all of these individuals in the time available, and it was too valuable a source of information to waste by just tossing them over the side. What to do? I put in a call to the commandant of the 11th Naval District, Admiral Jack Languille, and inquired about freezer space. He said he would radio back. In the meantime, we began necropsy on as many dolphins as possible. In addition we had some guests on board from Life magazine taking pictures. We had not invited them and didn’t approve of their presence. My main concern was that they would completely misinterpret the project, and neither the U.S. Navy nor the National Marine Fisheries needed the negative public misinformation. While Bill Perrin and I were working up several of the specimens, a photographer from Life was photographing what he referred to as “the carnage.” Yes, it was carnage, but nothing that we intended, and not one of us were happy with the result either. Bill and I heard his camera clicking and looked up, yelling and waving at him to get off the boat. Unfortunately, since we were doing a necropsy, we had knives in our hands! We finally got copies of the pictures, which my son “borrowed” and kept by his bedside when he was at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine. I have tried to get copies, but they are buried somewhere in the Evans archives. I later found out that the pictures never appeared in Life, primarily because Soviet Premier Kruschev died and took over the space. That was a blessing. Regardless, I hope the media are better informed these days. About an hour later, after we had collected samples from about twenty-five animals, the Admiral called back. Since we were removing troops from Vietnam and thus not sending more perishable items to that sector, they had freezer space that Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

81

was open. When the boat docked, the Navy was standing by with a truck. We loaded all 150 specimens and went off to the freezer. I now had a significant sample size from one herd of dolphins (Delphinus delphis). I had my work cut out for me, with that many samples of Delphinus from throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean and data from several cruises and radio trackings. As it turned out, my experience with the U.S. tuna fleet and NMFS was the salvation of my Ph.D. project. It was to be a significant turn in my career, and opened the door for me to seek a Navy fellowship to continue my doctoral studies. Shortly after this trip, I had a meeting with Professors Bartholomew and Norris about my dissertation project. After much discussion (over Betty Bartholomew’s tuna, cheese and pasta shell casserole and a few glasses of wine), we decided I would work on expanding my radio telemetric studies with the common dolphin (Delphinus). Drs. Bartholomew and Norris had no clue as to the other research riches on which I was sitting. When I asked them, “Is there enough there to qualify for a dissertation?” they looked at each other and, after a little silence, broke into gales of laughter. It took me a while to interpret that. I didn’t know if it was the wine or that my explanation of what I was trying to accomplish was humorous. My efforts over the next three years were the analysis and writing of “The Natural History and Other Considerations of the Biology of the Common Dolphin, Delphinus delphis, in the Northeastern Pacific.” This was a long way from radio-telemetry and bioacoustics except some of that information made the project possible. I was fortunate that the Navy allowed me to hire a graduate research assistant from San Diego State in the person of Clifford Hui. Cliff was working on his Master’s degree with my colleague Dr. Frank Awbry, and had worked in his family’s butcher shop. What a find! He even came with his own knives. During the course of this project, we processed over five hun82

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

dred specimens, determining age, stomach contents, variation in color pattern, differences in skull morphology and so on. I was actually working on taxonomy. Good Lord! I was changing my whole career direction from a bioacoustician into a mammalogist. Now that is really a fork in my career road! There was a potentially serious down side to this kind of research. For example, one day I was called by John Prescott of Marineland, who told me that he had three common dolphins from the eastern tropical Pacific caught off Costa Rica and brought in by a tuna clipper. They were in his freezer and were mine if I would come and get them. I drove up to Palos Verdes, picked up the specimens, wrapped them in burlap, put them in the trunk of the car and headed back to San Diego. Unfortunately, then I forgot about them. About a week later, I was driving into San Diego on the Pacific Highway from my home near Rancho Santa Fe when I heard a siren and saw the flashing lights of a state highway police car in my rear view mirror. I slowed down and finally pulled over wondering what I had done. I was five miles per hour under the speed limit and as far as I knew my brake lights were fine. The officer approached the driver’s side of the car, stopped near the rear, and pulled his gun. He asked me to put my hands on my head and exit the car. In this position, I was escorted to the trunk of my car and asked to open it. When I did, the smell just about knocked both of us down. I immediately knew what the problem was – three dead dolphins, thawed and rapidly decomposing. I uncovered them as the officer was backing away. I told him the story about the dolphins. He quickly glanced at the bodies and, satisfied that I was only guilty of stupidity, shut the trunk and left quickly with a scarf over his nose and mouth. As he made his exit, he shouted, “Your tail light on the right is out.” I quickly took my specimens to the lab where they were to further decompose. They fed a lot of beetles and provided skeletal material that would provide a Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

83

great deal of information on individual differences in a different population. [A]Back at the Navy Lab In San Diego we were still having adventures with the RV Sea See. Larry McKinley, Bruce Parks and I wanted to have photos of the RV Sea See working with dolphins. On February 26, 1970, we made arrangements with Helicopter ASW Squadron 8 to fly out to the operational area on a SH 3D ASW twin jet helicopter and photograph the Sea See from the air. While on hover about 50 feet above the ocean surface, we lost an engine and landed on the water. I said to the crew chief,” I didn’t know these could land on water.” He answered, “They can’t.” In the meantime Bruce Parks was photographing the entire incident from the See Sea. We finally got both engines going, and the helicopter lifted from the water with a waterfall coming from the side hatch. According to Bruce on the See Sea, it was quite a breath-taking event. From the point of view of Larry McKinley and Bill Evans inside the helicopter, it was more of a breath-holding event. Unfortunately this was not the end of the adventure. As we approached the landing field at an altitude of 2500 feet, we lost both engines and fell at about eighty-five miles an hour, crashing and splitting the hull wide open. The pilot and co-pilot were injured, and Larry and I were seriously shaken up. The crew chief opened the side hatch and we started to run, only to be greeted by firemen spraying foam all over us and the helicopter. We were checked out in the base hospital but were “numb” from all the alcohol provided to prevent shock. We were finally released; however, we should have been rechecked later because the effects of that crash are still evident in all of my back x-rays. I think of that crash every morning when I try to get out of bed. The question from doctors always is, “Were you ever in a serious accident that would affect your lower back?” Try crash84

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

ing in a helicopter!! Unfortunately, at my age surgery is not an option – so it is the “grin and bear it” approach. In the meantime, I had just about finished all my course work and exams at UCLA and returned to my job with the Navy. I was tasked by the Navy to work on writing its first permit request under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. I was given space at the National Marine Fisheries Service La Jolla Laboratory where I continued to write my dissertation, and work on the Navy’s Marine Mammal permit. The large marine aquaria such as Sea World and Marineland of the Pacific and many others were also affected by the Act. During this period, I had the opportunity to work with many fine scientists whose view of the world was quite different from mine. To mention a few, Reuben Lasker, Gary Sharp, Bill Perrin, Jim Mead and others all had a significant influence on where my career went from here. Both Dr. Bill Perrin and Dr. Gary Sharp were important advisors in the process of finishing my dissertation, which ended up in a very different field of research from the research I had done previously, and from what I had expected. [A]The Russians are coming In 1974 U.S. President Richard Nixon and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Nikolai Podgorny, signed an environmental agreement. This ended the long absence of our Russian colleagues from discussions of marine mammal protection and conservation. The agreement established the USSR-US Cooperative Environmental Research Program. This opened the door for U.S. scientists to communicate and cooperate openly with Soviet scientists working on marine mammals, primarily because of their shared waters between Vladivostok and the shores of Alaska. Dr. Robert Miller of the National Marine Fisheries Service became the coordinator of this program. The participation in this program was of great interest to me since I had been reviewing the Russian Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

85

marine mammal literature (both classified and unclassified) as a part of an assignment from the U.S. Navy and other government agencies. My major task was to evaluate the quality of the research and the main areas of focus. The opportunity to be able to meet and work with many of the scientists I had been studying provided an entrance for my many adventures with Russian friends and colleagues for more than thirty years. My first trip to the Soviet Union was in October of 1974, to attend the International Theriological Congress in Moscow. Dr. Sam Ridgway, who was associated with the U.S. Navy research programs, accompanied me. During the visit we were ushered around to meet with several Soviet marine mammal researchers including Alexey Yablokov, Valdimir Sokalov and Professor A.G. Tomilin. When I was introduced to Professor Tomilin by Alexey Yablokov, after much quizzing to make sure I was who I said I was and not some CIA operative, Professor Tomilin commented that I was much younger than he thought and said, “I am very pleased to meet a living classic.” Sam Ridgway will never let me live that down and for several years he introduced me as a “living classic!” Now that I’m much older, my initial dismay has turned into appreciation of age and the term “classic.” One of the main accomplishments of this first trip was establishing contacts with Soviet scientists working on related marine mammal problems. Several other trips followed through 1986. This cooperative marine mammal program is still alive and well. One of the most exciting trips was with Dr. Scott Johnson in 1976. After our stay in Moscow, at the lovely Budapest Hotel right out of the Stalin era, Scott and I were given the opportunity to travel to Batumi in Soviet Georgia, which at that time was the location of the only public aquarium in the USSR with trained bottlenose dolphins. On the way to Batumi, we stopped in Kiev to visit scientists at the Neurophysiologic Institute. In the evening we stayed in one of the major hotels and 86

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

went to the ‘Dollar Bar’ which catered to western tourists, as few as there were in those days. Sitting at a table across from us were three older women. They overheard us talking and came over to ask if we were Americans. We replied, “Yes.” They told us they had just returned from a trip on the Trans-Siberian railroad which had taken them a month. They were excited to hear someone else speaking English. We learned more about the Trans-Siberian railroad than we ever wanted to know – certainly enough to decide that we never wanted to go there!! We then went on to Batumi where we were treated very royally. In fact we were guests of honor at the annual May Day Parade, and seated in a box to view the parade. It was advertised that we were an official U.S. delegation. We even got bouquets of flowers from pretty little Russian girls with big bows in their hair. It was quite an impressive parade. I still cherish the dried flowers from that May Day parade. In Batumi we not only visited the aquarium and talked to the dolphin trainers, but we also visited a tea plantation and a facility that made Georgian cognac. I think we enjoyed the cognac more than the tea. We also participated in a Georgian barbeque. While visiting the tea fields I reverted back to my childhood and collected a nice green frog which I kept in a glass jar during the entire trip and the return to the U.S. When we were going through U.S. customs on our return, the customs officer looked in the glass jar at the frog and asked, “Where did the frog come from?” I answered truthfully, “Georgia.” He said, “Georgia – okay, you can go.” I’ll never figure out how he thought I got a frog from Georgia while returning from the Soviet Union. One of the more exciting parts of that program was the opportunity I was given in 1976 to participate as one of the scientists on board the Soviet Research Vessel Vnuchetelnie. Dale Rice of the National Marine Fisheries Service Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, was the other visiting U.S. scientist. The Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

87

ship was actually a converted whale catcher from the Vladivostok whaling fleet. The cruise was to study the oceanographic conditions and distribution of cetaceans in the eastern tropical Pacific. This included going into several oceanographic stations as well as tagging cetaceans. The Soviet cetacean expert on board was Alfred Berzin, who was in charge of tagging whales. Berzin, while still active, died a tragic, mysterious death years later after the Soviet Union began to collapse. After forty-one days at sea and the end of my part of the cruise, we headed for Balboa, Panama, for re-supplying and putting me ashore to fly back to California. When we sailed into the port at Balboa, we were radioed by the Port Authority and told to stand off and prepare for Panamanian officials to inspect the vessel. The officials from Panama went through all the passports and found it unusual that two of the crew (Dale Rice and I) carried passports from the U.S. government. The ship was escorted into the dock area and surrounded by Panamanian soldiers carrying automatic weapons. We were informed that we were impounded for illegally entering Panamanian waters and could not leave the ship. Only the captain, his first officer and the two suspected spies with forged official U.S. passports were allowed to leave with the Panamanian officials. I requested to speak with the U.S. authorities in Panama and was told they were all on vacation. Then I asked for permission to call my Navy sponsor at the Pentagon to clarify that this was a legitimate U.S.-USSR research project. I gave the ranking Panamanian officer in charge the phone number in Washington. He put the call on a speakerphone. The switchboard of Bob Stone in the Navy Research and Development office answered, and the Panamanian official requested to speak with Mr. Stone. The operator said, “Just a minute, I’ll connect you.” Unfortunately I did not know that Bob Stone was attending a meeting in McLean, Virginia, at the headquarters of the 88

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CIA. The operator to whom we were transferred answered the phone, “Central Intelligence Agency.” What a help! We finally got Bob Stone on the phone, and he assured all officials that this was truly a U.S.-sanctioned research cruise. The problem with the ship was that of registry. When the Soviets turned the ship into a research vessel, they did not remove her from the international registry as a fishing vessel. Research vessels frequently are given courtesy of the port; foreign fishing vessels are not. This was not the end to one of most exciting research cruises in which I have participated. Once this port problem was solved, I prepared to return home. My Russian shipmates had a little going-away party, and then I packed my sea bag and departed for the airport. After all the passengers checked in for the flight, the U.S. customs inspectors had all the checked baggage lined up on the tarmac for identification before loading on the plane. Because of concerns about drug smuggling, out came the dogs. One big German shepherd worked his way down the line of bags and stopped at my sea bag and sniffed, again and again. The customs inspectors pulled my bag out of the line and requested I unpack it. I responded, “It’s mostly dirty clothes.” As I unpacked my bag I unrolled some of my dirty underwear and out came an interesting assortment of cheeses, salami and dried fish and a jar of Beluga caviar. It seems my Russian shipmates had given me several presents to take home. Although it was not drugs, the inspectors immediately confiscated my contraband and sent me on my way. I think I either made one German shepherd or a bunch of customs inspectors very happy. This was the prelude to more adventures with the crew of the Vnuchetelnie. When the ship returned to Long Beach, California, I took several of the officers and scientists to my home in Escondido, California – much to the surprise and questionable delight of my wife. She had prepared a dinner, complete Chapter 6: The Growth of the Navy Program in the 1970’s

89

with an expensive prime rib beef roast. Little did we know that the beef was not of interest, just how hot the seasoning could be. These sailors were from a cold country; they liked things really spicy. Out came Tabasco and the red pepper sauce and anything else that Mexico could provide to clear the sinuses. Wow!! By the time the food was seasoned to their liking, the beef had disappeared into a red sauce of unknown heating quality, followed by a drowning in huge quantities of beer. My sons were fascinated, or overwhelmed, one or the other. The most amusing part was when my wife took a couple of our Russian friends on a shopping tour for women’s clothing. She never gave me all the details, but she smiled for a week. Thus the end came to that Russian adventure.

90

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 7 From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

I

n June 1972, I finished all my course work and exams at UCLA and, only to check in for Dr. Bartholomew and my committee to discuss my dissertation drafts. I started back working for the Navy, so I could meet my obligation of working for the Navy for a year-and-a-half for every year I had the fellowship, which was about two years total. In 1975 I received my Ph.D. In the following year, I continued to get more involved with the Navy’s operational programs. This was not the direction I wanted to go in my career. My main interest was in basic research, not in developing operational systems for the U.S. Fleet. At that time Sea World in San Diego was advertising for a director of their new research institute, which was to be named in honor of Carl and Laura Hubbs, well-known marine biologists. The Marine Mammal Protection Act required organizations which kept and maintained marine mammals to develop research and educational programs. Sea World had been associated with the Mission Bay Research Foundation developed by Milton Shedd, one of the founding fathers of Sea World. The Boards of Trustees of both the Foundation and Sea World decided to expand the efforts of the Foundation and rename the organization the Hubbs Research Institute, later the Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute. I had finished my obligation of working for the Navy in 1976, and was ready for a new direction in my career. In December of 1976, I left the Naval Undersea Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

91

Center and started as the first director of the new Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute. Most of my research effort at Hubbs paralleled marine mammal interests stimulated by the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act – a better understanding of the movements and life history components of marine mammals. The Hubbs Research Institute started with two people, me as director and Karie Wright as secretary, who occupied a small trailer in the animal holding area. Today Hubbs-Sea World is housed in a large facility next to Sea World, has offices at Sea World in Florida and is celebrating its 40th year, including those years as the Mission Bay Research Foundation. Several of the people I hired in the early days are now in leadership roles at the Institute. I cherish mydays at Hubbs for the wonderful, talented people involved, for my learning experience both personal and professional, and, of course, for the adventures. During my career at Hubbs, we were occasionally hosts for prestigious visitors. Among that list of notables was Bernd Wursig, now one of the world’s preeminent dolphin researchers. He was a student at the time, but is now one of the outstanding researchers in the field and has made great advances in our understanding of dolphins in the wild. Bernd later became a part of my academic phase. Another famous “walk-in” was Dr. Francis Crick of DNA structure fame. He came to study sleep in whales. About a year into my career at Hubbs I received a telephone call from some of the people at the CIA with whom I had worked while at the Navy. I was asked, “Do you remember a Vladimir Gueravich?” I answered yes – Gueravich had published a couple of papers in the Russian literature on Delphinus and while in Moscow I had asked Yablokov if I could meet him. I got a strange answer: “You will probably see him before I do.” It turned out that Mr. Vladimir Gueravich had left the Soviet Union for Israel, and ended up in the U.S. Embassy in 92

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Rome seeking political asylum. He claimed to have very valuable information for the U.S. Navy on the Soviet dolphin project. He wanted to go to the U.S. and work with Dr. Evans in San Diego. Next came the offer from the CIA: “If you can find a place for him, it will cost the Institute nothing. His salary will be taken care of and he will have some modest research support. All we want is access to him from time to time.” After some thought and discussion with my board, I said we could find something for him. Next I was asked to come to New York City and escort him and his wife and daughter to San Diego. It turned out he was a real wheeler-dealer and into all sorts of deals. He did do some science and actually contribute in some small way to our research program. He left after a year, and the last I heard he was a commercial real estate broker and re-married to a lady from Indonesia who was in the import export business and very wealthy. My wife’s favorite Vladimir story involves the phone call when he asked if he could bring his friend, a famous Russian ‘belly dancer,’ to our Christmas dinner. It turned out to be Galena Panova and her husband Valerie Panov, Russian ballet dancers in town for the Nutcracker performance, in which they were the star performers. [A]Walter Cronkite at San Ignacio Lagoon During my time at Hubbs-Sea World, I had a chance to meet many very interesting, exciting, and sometimes strange personalities. Of those encounters, two stand out as interactions I will never forget – my chance to go to the fanciest wine tasting at the Commanderie de Bordeaux with Burgess Meredith and my surprise trip to San Ignacio Lagoon with Walter Cronkite. Shortly after he retired as the evening anchor for CBS News, Cronkite was invited to be the keynote speaker for the National Chamber of Commerce. The evening before his preChapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

93

sentation, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich had an elegant reception for him at Sea World. It was amazing to watch him work a room. I think he talked to everyone in attendance at least three times. “Cronkiting” is now a word in my vocabulary that means “circulate the room.” Two days later Milt Shedd contacted Frank Todd and me and asked us to escort a VIP and his family to San Ignacio Lagoon for some whale watching. Frank and I reported to the executive jet terminal in San Diego and awaited our guest. Half an hour later a limo pulled up and here came Walter Cronkite, his wife Betsy, and his daughter. We flew to a small fishing village near the lagoon and were picked up by the Captain of the RV Sea World, Milt Shedd’s private fishing “research” cruiser. Milt was waiting for us onboard and the adventure was on. Whales, whales were everywhere. In fact, the first day a large female calved right off the bow of the Sea World. We followed the mother and calf until the light got low and Walter said, “The sun is over the yardarm and it it’s time for the Admiral to have a Scotch.” Everyone got some fabulous pictures. The next day Walter wanted to go bird-watching. Frank and Walter took off in a skiff to watch birds, and I took Mrs. Cronkite and daughter in a skiff to get closer to the whales. The breeding lagoons in Baja California are well known for their friendly whales. We finally found one, and she pushed our skiff and even touched Mrs. Cronkite, scaring the daylights out of her. All of a sudden we heard this primal yell come from the mangroves followed by some x-rated language. Knowing her husband’s voice very well, Mrs. Cronkite said, “Would you believe that that was America’s most trusted news commentator?” It turned out Walter had taken pictures of a pelican trying to swallow a large fish and found out he that had forgotten to put film in his camera. Fortunately Frank got some amazing pictures which he shared with the famous newsman, The next day a light airplane flew over and dropped a message. They asked Walter to do a short piece on the endangered 94

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

gray whales. There was a CBS camera crew on the shore of the lagoon ready to film. Needless to say he was not very happy. “I am retired,” he said. “What don’t they understand about retired?” So we went shore-side for the filming. During the filming, Walter stood on a small point of land with the lagoon and whales as a back drop. Just as he started his comments, a large Gray whale breeched from the water high in the air – just spectacular. One of the cameramen commented, “I don’t know how he does that.” So my adventure with “America’s most trusted newsman” came to a spectacular end. We all headed back to San Diego. That was a trip neither Frank nor I will ever forget!! The Hollywood crowd of visitors to Sea World included Burgess Meredith, who needed to get close to penguins for his role in Bat Man, Jacques Cousteau and his son Philippe, as well as Lloyd Bridges of the television show Sea Hunt, together with his sons Jeff and Beau. Politicians were not to be left out – these visitors included Senator S. I. Hiayakawa and Governors Reagan and Wilson. Shirley Temple Black and Dr. Seuss wandered in, too, just to name a few. Steve Leatherwood and I got to know Burgess Meredith better when we went with Burgess, John Huston, and his daughter Angelica for a cruise in the Sea of Cortez. We were considering redoing John Steinbeck’s The Sea of Cortez. Both Burgess and John were close friends of Steinbeck and want to do something to honor him. Steve left with the RV Sea World with Milt Shedd and the captain. They were joined in Mexico by Burgess Meredith, John Huston and his daughter, and I joined the boat in Cabo San Lucas. The most interesting part of the cruise was watching the exchange between the liberals, Burgess Meredith and John Huston, and the ultra conservative Milt Shedd over a game of cribbage, with a few scotch and sodas along the way. It was very interesting to watch the rather strong differences between the players. I will leave it up to cribbage players to sort out the differences in the style of play. Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

95

This also brings to mind another trip on Milt’s boat. We were on our way to San Clemente Island with two visitors from the former Soviet Union. There was a mild argument when Alexey Yablokov was quizzing Mr. Shedd about why the U.S. was so war-like, forcing the Soviet Union to spend large funds on arms to protect themselves. Milt was debating the issue when, as we approached the island which was a practice firing range for the Navy ships, we ran across hundreds of floating shell casings. When Alexey pointed these out, Milt quickly changed the topic to a finning sword fish he had just spotted. Since all could agree on the importance of a swordfish, the discussion focus rapidly changed away from international politics to fishing. [A]New Research in the Late 70s and 80s There is a tendency for research, especially in marine mammals, to follow potential funding. Field work expanded from the Pacific coasts of North and South America to Alaska and the Antarctic. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s there was an increased emphasis on more accurately determining the distribution and abundance of delphinid species in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. One of the more important developments was the use of the U.S. Navy’s Passive Sonar. Because of my years of involvement with the U.S. Navy, I was aware of the value of towed linear arrays of hydrophones to not only detect submarines, but also to locate dolphins and whales. We convinced the U.S. Tuna Foundation that evaluation of this technology was a good idea and it would aid in getting better numbers on the dolphin population in the Eastern Tropic Pacific tuna grounds. With support from the Foundation and Sea World and one of our advisors, George Anderson, we designed and tested a towed linear array of hydrophones designed specifically to detect cetaceans. It worked extremely well in tests, both from U.S tuna purse seine vessels and a NOAA Research Vessel, the David Starr Jordon. My administrative duties seriously limited my trips at sea. 96

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Fortunately I had as my first post-doc researcher, Dr. Jeanette Thomas, who was and is a very accomplished biologist and acoustician. Jeanette became the lead investigator on these projects. These accomplishments lay dormant for several years and were then re-invented in the 1990’s by both NOAA and various university marine mammal laboratories. [A]The Frontier Challenger Project In 1981 I was given the opportunity to work on what I think to be one of the most exciting and most important projects of my career. Here was an opportunity to work on a project with international impact, one where we could demonstrate the importance of history as well as increasing our knowledge of the world oceans. The Frontier Challenger project was a proposal to retrace the track of the HMS Challenger on its world wide expedition from 1872–1876 to explore the deep oceans of the world. The Frontier Challenger project used 20th century technology, including a modern energy efficient sailing research vessel. I was sent to England to visit the British Museum of Natural History to gain more knowledge about the HMS Challenger cruise. The captain’s logs for the cruise were archived at the museum. On the day I was to leave for home I received an urgent telephone call from the Frontier Challenger Office to go to Bergen, Norway, and catch a shuttle to a small village north of Bergen where there was a steel hull sailing ship which might make a good research vessel. Well, it was late November. Although the temperature in California was in the 70 degrees F, it was below freezing in Norway. I caught the jet foil from Bergen heading to several small villages. The village I was to go to was a two-day trip, a tiny fact about which the agent in Bergen forgot to inform me. I was the only person on board the ferry who did not speak Norwegian. I found out sign language has its value. I did not bring any food with me, so when the food vendor came around I tried English, French and Spanish to no avail. Finally pointing to my mouth and rubbing my stomach helped. Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

97

Two days later the steward on board told me that we were at my destination by waving my ticket and pointing to the dock. I left the ferry. Not a soul was in sight, just a small shed with a light and a sign with a name that was unpronounceable, something “Fjorda” with an arrow pointing at the path between two six food high snow drifts. Following the path for about a half mile, I came to a sign almost covered with snow with the picture of a bus on it. I stood next to the sign for I guess about a half to three quarters of an hour (my watch was frozen). Finally a bus came along and stopped. I showed him the written name of the place and he nodded and motioned me aboard. About an hour later the bus stopped and he motioned for me to get out. I was in the middle of the street of what appeared to be a small village with several children playing in the street. Fortunately some of them spoke English. I asked for the hotel and they guided the way. When I entered the hotel, to my surprise the walls were covered with Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers banners. The owner of the inn greeted me with perfect English. She told me she was from Wisconsin and had taken over the inn from her mother who had passed away recently. Small world isn’t it! I told her there was a ship I was supposed to see. It belonged to Barbara Hutton of the wealthy Hutton clan in the United States. She knew all about it since she had received a fax from Bergen. So I found my ship, and was invited to stay on board. I wrote down my very “cold” notes about the vessel and headed home the way I had come. After all of that venturing into Norway, the expedition never took place because the major funding agent, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Atlantic Richfield, backed out of its commitment. So I was back to the Institute business of getting funding. We had many interesting characters at Hubbs and some of them followed me during the rest of my adventures. Jeff Norris, a student who left to work on his Ph.D. later became a part of 98

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

our team at Texas A & M. Randy Davis later became a professor and department head at Texas A & M, and Steve Leatherwood finished his Ph.D. at Texas A & M. [A]A Society is Born One of the most significant events in the 1970’s into the 1980’s was the formation of the Society for Marine Mammalogy. Research on marine mammals had matured to the point where interest was expressed by some researchers in formalizing the conferences on the biology of marine mammals pioneered by Tom Poulter and the Stanford Research Institute. The Poulter Conferences at Stanford were a major catalyst, together with the National Marine Fisheries Service, for the future formation of the Society for Marine Mammalogy. The Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972, giving the National Marine Fisheries Service of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service jurisdiction over regulating and implementing the provisions of the Act. The National Marine Fisheries Service (formerly Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, BCF) had an established program based on Dr. Victor Scheffer’s work on marine mammals dating back to 1944. Dr. Bob Miller in Washington DC was given the responsibility for establishing a NMFS Marine Mammal Program which eventually resulted in the formation of the Marine Mammal Lab at the NMFS facility in Seattle Washington. By 1977 several programs had been established, and the number of personnel from NMFS working on marine mammals was increasing. The NMFS program eventually eclipsed the Navy program in numbers. In June, 1977, Dr. George Harry of the Seattle lab became interested in the possibilities of the formation of a society dedicated to marine mammal science. In that role he sent several of us letters requesting our input as to the idea and interest. The first set of inquiry letters were sent to William Perrin, Forrest Wood, Robert Elsner, Kenneth Norris, Ronald Schusterman Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

99

and me, all established marine mammal researchers. The responses he received were generally positive. However, some of us were concerned as to how this would fit with already established scientific societies with some interest in marine mammals, e.g. the American Society of Mammalogists and the American Society of Zoologists among others. In December, 1977, the second Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals was held in San Diego. During the conference Ken Norris invited a group of us including George Harry, Lou Herman, William Perrin, Stewart McKay, John Lilly, Ron Schusterman and Forrest Wood and me up to his room for a discussion on how to start the process of establishing a formal Society for Marine Mammalogy. George Harry kept notes and later, in February, 1978, sent letters summarizing this discussion to the attendees plus Robert Elsner. George Harry has copies of all of this early correspondence which he sent to the president of the Society of Marine Mammalogy, Doug DeMasters, in 1999. Although they are not listed in any of the correspondence given by George Harry, my records indicate that both Carlton Ray and Bill Schevill were active in helping Ken formulate the basic organizational structure of the future Society. They had both been very active with Ken in working for the passage of the Mammal Protection Act as well as the International Biological Year and the marine ecosystem management approaches to managing these resources. In this sense they were pioneers in creating the new marine biology of today. Ken Norris took a major step toward the formation of a society by preparing a preliminary design for a Society of Marine Mammalogy on June 7, 1978. This resulted in the organizational committee just mentioned. The next step was to have the next marine mammal meeting in Seattle sponsored by the new Society of Marine Mammalogy. However, several of the key players could not attend this meeting; therefore, the Society was not formalized and the sponsorship did not take place. 100

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Because of the nature of the science, most of the members of the Society’s organizing committee practiced. Scheduling meetings was difficult. Also we were trying to arrange discussions with the American Society of Mammalogy (ASM). As a part of on-going discussions with the ASM, a meeting was held in March, 1981, on the campus of the University of California Santa Cruz, to discuss the possible role of their society in any new marine mammal society. It is my impression that many of the representatives of ASM were less than enthusiastic about a relationship, due primarily to the diversity of potential members of the new Society especially those representing non- or para-scientific disciplines. On November 17, 1981, Ken Norris wrote to potential members of the proposed Society of Marine Mammalogists with some background information about the society. He stated that the need for a society would be placed before those present at the San Francisco meeting of marine mammal biologists. He wrote that if the decision was made to proceed, the organizational committee of which I was a member would take the necessary steps to form the society and then the committee would be dissolved. This was done, and thus, today’s Society of Marine Mammalogy was born. Recently, I attended the meetings of the Society of Marine Mammalogy in Maui in 1999, Greensboro, N.C., in 2003 and in San Diego in 2005 (where the theme was “Back to the Beginning”, because San Diego was the site of the first meeting of several of us – now referred to as founders – about a possible society!). I am certain that the few other founders still around were as amazed as I was at the expansion of the science from the 1981 San Francisco meeting. The Society today has over 2000 members from over 40 countries and is growing. Many of my colleagues who were involved in the founding of the society are either now the president or past presidents of the Society and have been in other leadership roles in directing the enthusiasm of hundreds of graduate and under-graduate students. Chapter 7: From the Navy to Hubbs-Sea World

101

It is their continued vision that makes the organization viable. Now that I am in what Ken Norris called his “Philosapause” (philosophical years), I can sit back and marvel at the progress in our science. [A]Bio-Sonar At approximately the same time as the founding of the Society, research on biosonar made rapid increases in our understanding of this unique capability. The second NATO BioSonar Conference was held in April of 1979 on the Island of Jersey in the United Kingdom. The period of the 1970’s brought several advances in electronics, allowing much more sophisticated studies and experiments. Also, it was evident by the increased number of studies concentrating on habitat and the use of biosonar by dolphins, that Don Griffin’s question, about how dolphins use sonar in the wild, had indeed had an impact on the field. The conference was dedicated to the work of Donald Griffin, accepted by most as the “inventor of echolocation” through his pioneering work on echolocation in bats. As was the case at the Frascati conference, researchers from several countries presented the results of their most recent research at the Jersey conference. Unfortunately our colleagues from the Soviet Union, who had been extremely active in research on echolocation in both bats and marine mammals again, were not able to attend. Since that time there have been two more biosonar conferences, about ten years apart. The last one was in Portugal in 1999 (Busnel, 1968; Busnel and Fish, 1976; Nachtgall and Moore, 1988; and the most recent J. Thomas et al., 2004).

102

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

CHAPTER 8 The 1980’s And Biopolitics

T

he 1980’s were very busy times at Hubbs. The fifty percent research time and fifty percent administrative time promised by the Board of Directors turned out to be more like 10% research – if you could fit it in – and 90% administrative and fund raising responsibilities. Also, at Hubbs I had my first opportunities to work with many talented graduate students who were to become pre-eminent scientists, especially in the fields of marine biology and bioacoustics. In addition to Dr. Thomas, a host of notables paraded through the halls of Hubbs – Dr. Ann Bowles, Dr. Steve Leatherwood, Dr. Randy Davis, Dr. Giuseppe Notarbartolo-Di-Sciara, Dr. Ron Kastlien, Dr. Pam Yokem, and Dr. Brent Stewart, Dr. Jeff Norris and several students, just to mention a few. Work on promoting and expanding the use of passive acoustics for marine mammal population studies continued throughout this time. With support from the American Tuna Foundation we designed and built a towed array designed especially to detect dolphins and whales and other biological sound sources. One of the big advantages of passive acoustics over visual sighting methods was the ability to detect animals at night, which increased sighting effort. This also increased the accuracy of our estimate of dolphin populations. Use of towed acoustic arrays is now standard practice in dolphin and whale population studies. In 1982 as part of a National Science Polar Programs grant we were allowed to put our acoustic array on board the U.S. Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

103

Coast Guard Icebreaker, Polar Star. She was used to carry an international inspection team to most of the Antarctic International Research stations for inspections called for by the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty was designed to monitor living resources in the Antarctic and was supported by many South American and European countries, many of which have stations in Antarctica. The tests were successful and in addition to excellent recordings of noise from an icebreaker and sea ice, our team recorded the southern pilot whale. In the late spring of 1983, on the trip home to Washington State, the vessel was scheduled to stop over in Rio de Janeiro. My colleague Dr. Joseph Jehl, a field ornithologist, thought this an excellent opportunity to test the array in warmer waters. Also, it provided an opportunity for whale watching for me and bird watching for him in parts of the world’s oceans that were new to us both, in addition to the opportunity to get back to sea. I made contact with several members of the Brazilian Navy who were also interested in array technology. We made arrangements to tow the array through the Brazilian Navy’s sonar test range for calibration. Dr. Jehl and I flew to Rio and spent a few days making arrangements with the Brazilian Navy before boarding the USCG Icebreaker Polar Star. As we boarded the vessel and gave the officer of the watch our names, he informed me that I was to go immediately to the Captain’s office. Based on my extensive military experience I did this immediately. I introduced myself to the captain, and he informed me that I had received a call from the White House and was to call them as soon as I arrived on board. He requested that I make a collect call. His reasoning was excellent. If it was an important call, it would be accepted; however, if it was some White House staffers interested in getting some information on whales for their fifth grade child, it would not. They accepted the call, and I was requested to return home via Washington D.C. for an important appointment with the 104

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Director of White House Personnel. I honestly did not have a clue as to what this was all about. It finally came out that I was being interviewed for a possible Presidential appointment to the Marine Mammal Commission. After much questioning, both written and oral, I was informed that I had been appointed by President Reagan to fill the position of Chairman of the Marine Mammal Commission. It was obvious to me that political people cared little about my science credentials and mostly about my almost non-existent politics. I think I was the only one neutral enough or at least non-committed enough to be acceptable by both the environmental community and the Reagan White House. It turned out that, during the recent reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1982, the wording in the section on appointment of the three Commissioners had been changed to require Senate confirmation. According to many in the environmental community, most of the candidates recommended by the White House before would not have made it through confirmation by the Senate based on their lack of scientific experience and, in some cases, their lack of a science education. Most, if not all, had little or no marine mammal experience, let alone scientific experience. Most had been picked based on political affiliation, including contributions, and not science credentials. I concluded that although I had no political connections, I was from California. That seemed to be the only reason I was acceptable to the Administration, even though I was also qualified. To me the Act was quite clear in its statement of qualification for commissioners. I spent several weeks preparing for my senate confirmation hearing, and in 1984 the U.S. Senate confirmed my appointment. It turned out that 1983 was an interesting year for me. In June I attended the meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Brighton, England, and in August I had my first heart attack and triple by-pass surgery. The following 30th Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

105

of March, 1984, I was sworn in as the Chairman of the Marine Mammal Commission, thus starting my bio-political career. This worked out well with my obligations at Hubbs, since I had to go to Washington D.C. only every two weeks or so for Commission business. [A]The Marine Mammal Commission For the next five years, most of my effort was in working on U.S. and International Environmental Policy and fighting with the Secretary of Interior, James Watts, who seemed intent on undoing everything that Secretary Walter Hickel had accomplished with marine mammals. As the Chairman of the Marine Mammal Commission, I had the opportunity to experience the inner workings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Previously I had attended several meetings of the Scientific Committee but, until 1983, I usually avoided the IWC meetings. I attended my first Commission meeting as a member of the U.S. delegation in the summer of 1983, one year after the passage of the controversial moratorium on whaling. I remained a delegation member until 1988, working as an advisor to the U.S. Commissioner to the IWC, Dr. John Byrne, who was also the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I now knew why I avoided the very political Commission meetings. In 1985 Dr. Byrne resigned as the Administrator of NOAA and was replaced by Dr. Tony Calio. At the 1985 Commission meeting in Malmo, Sweden, Dr. Calio got his initiation into international whale politics. It was shortly after that experience that he called Hubbs and asked that I come back to Washington D.C. as the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries. After much discussion with friends and family, I decided to give it a try. In our discussion Dr. Calio told me I could select someone I trusted to cover my back-side while I was in Washing106

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

ton. One evening my wife and I were having cocktails with F.G. Wood. I told him of my decision and that I was looking for someone to go back to D.C. with me as my Chief of Staff. He suggested Bill Powell, who apparently was looking for a career change. Bill was in the Senior Executive Service (SES) of Civil Service at the Naval Undersea Center and had years of high-level experience in Civil Service. He was perfect. So I called Bill to ask him if he was interested. He told me that he would think about it. Later that evening Bill called Woody and asked if I was there and sober. Woody said that I was quite sober. Bill accepted, and it started a great Washington D.C. adventure for both Bill and me. I still credit Bill with what I consider our success in at least bringing a new and different approach to NMFS and later NOAA. Together Bill and I worked to develop an ecosystems management approach to U.S. fisheries, instead of the single-species management that was in place at the time. I think that in many ways this has had an influence that is difficult to measure. Almost ten years later, in 1996, the Sustainable Fisheries Act, contained many of the features we outlined in 1986. It was very evident early on that the community of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had significant influence on the U.S. policy on whaling as well as on fisheries issues. It was interesting that before I was fully accepted as the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, I had to be ‘approved’ by the Director of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), the main lobbying organization for both commercial and recreational fisheries interests. The reason was that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hubbs Sea World Research Institute, Milt Shedd, was also very much involved with the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers Association (AFTMA) which was a member of the National Fisheries Institute. In addition I was receiving a scrutiny by members of the protectionist environmental community (Humane Society, Green Peace and other NGO’s) that made the FBI security check pale in comparison. I resigned as Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

107

the Chair of the Marine Mammal Commission in November of 1986 and took on my position with Fisheries. One of the first tasks I undertook at the National Marine Fisheries was to promote changing the way we manage marine resources. Instead of the single species management methods of the past hundred years, at the suggestion of Dr. Gary Sharp, I suggested that we develop an ecosystems management approach. This entails looking at all components at the system and not just a single species. We had a comprehensive plan prepared with the help of scientists from the eight National Marine Fisheries Regional Research Centers created in 1976 by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, fisheries scientists, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). We prepared a National Marine Fisheries Service Program Development Plan (PDP) for Ecosystems Monitoring and Fisheries Management. The plan was finished on September 14, 1987. We even had seven regions submit PDP’s. When I presented this plan to the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, chaired by Congressman Jerry Studds of Massachusetts, they thought I was just some crazy academic who was clueless about fisheries. Although there was support on the Senate side, the House was not convinced. In retrospect, based on input from committee staffers, it turns out that the Program Development Plan was seen as a Republican ploy to put more regulation on the New England and East Coast fisheries. Since we were dealing with a Democratically-controlled Congress, something perceived as a Republican plan would never see the light of day. I am now convinced that many very important and viable environmental policy proposals were and are casualties of partisan politics. I didn’t give up, but it took another ten years until the concept caught on (see appendix). We even made an educational video explaining the concept and the science behind the ecosystems approach. 108

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

[A]The Under-Secretary of Commerce In 1987 the Secretary of Commerce Malcom Baldridge was killed in a horse-related accident. In light of this event Dr. Tony Calio who was appointed by Secretary Baldridge and a close friend, resigned as the Under Secretary of Commerce for NOAA. President Ronald Reagan appointed William Verity from Ohio as the new Secretary of Commerce. In 1988, I was asked by Secretary of Commerce Bill Verity to replace Dr. Calio as the Under-Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. I accepted. Unfortunately Senator Trent Lott was supporting a candidate for the position of Director of the Gulf Fisheries Management Region, who was either related or lived next door. I did not think he had the best qualifications and appointed another candidate. The good Senator put my confirmation “on hold,” trying to force me to change my mind. This delayed my being confirmed by several months. Fortunately the equally influential Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, came to my rescue, and I was officially confirmed and sworn in on April 1, 1988. Maybe there is something to be noted about April Fool’s Day? As the fourth Administrator of NOAA and the second Under Secretary of Commerce, I was given an opportunity to see an entirely different and broader side of environmental management. Bill Powell followed me to NOAA headquarters in the Hoover Building as my chief-of-staff. We were extremely fortunate to have Secretary Bill Verity replacing Secretary Baldridge. Secretary Verity was very supportive of NOAA and placed my office very high in the hierarchy. At the end of President Reagan’s second term, George H.W. Bush was elected President and he appointed Robert Mosbacher of Houston, Texas, a former partner in the oil and gas business with Zapata of Houston, to replace Bill Verity as Secretary of Commerce. Bob Mosbacher asked me to stay on as the head of NOAA, and I did so until July 4, 1989. Unfortunately Bill Powell had decided to retire in 1988. I missed his guidance and ability Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

109

to cut through all the administrative fog that sometimes prevents decision makers in Washington from making a clear choice. [A]The Exxon Valdez Six months into the new administration what is still possibly the greatest U.S. environmental disaster in several decades occurred – the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound. At approximately 5:00 AM Washington D.C. time on March 26th, 1989, I received a telephone call from the NOAA representative in Valdez, Alaska, reporting that the Exxon supertanker Valdez had gone aground and was leaking tons of Alaskan crude oil into Prince William Sound. I immediately called the new Secretary of Commerce, Bob Mosbacher, who gave me even worse news than I had given him. Because of his association with the oil and gas industry he had recused himself of any policy decisions dealing with that industry. I was it! I immediately got in touch with the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Admiral Paul Yost. The briefing I attended with Admiral Yost in the port of Valdez a few days after the spill could have been scenes from a Three Stooges movie. The three main players – Exxon, the Aleyeska Pipeline company, and the state of Alaska – were spending more time arguing about who was in charge than attacking the problem. In the meantime, during all the finger pointing, the tanker continued to dump tons of crude into the pristine sound. Exxon was prepared to dump a dispersant (a chemical that breaks up the oil slick on the surface making it easier to recover the oil), but was stopped by the state of Alaska and local fishermen until the U.S. Coast Guard could convince an environmental group that it would not kill all the fish. Alaska had taken all of their oil spill response equipment off of their tugboats for repair, and all of Exxon’s equipment was a thousand miles away. The lack of a single source to coordinate all the players was a big part of the problem. A Canadian company 110

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

later produced an HBO movie based on the Exxon Valdez disaster, which portrayed a fairly accurate picture of the confusion. The opening scene is a big champagne celebration of their oilspill-free operation since the pipe line opened – on the night of the spill with most of the main players drunk. I am not too sure how accurate that was, but it certainly got your attention. At least in the movie, the captain of the Exxon Valdez was not the only one “under the influence”. It seems amazing to me that it took several days and major action by the U.S. Congress for the administration to decide whether or not they were going to intervene. The Senate hearing that responded to the disaster was the most vicious that I had ever attended. It included representatives of the major government agencies involved, including NOAA and me, some Non-Governmental Organizations, representatives from the Alaskan government and executives from Exxon. Because of the delays, the oil had spread over hundreds of miles. The Senators were extremely upset, especially the Senators from Alaska. To say the least, this resulted in a very tense hearing. I heard language coming from our normally controlled senators comparable to what you would hear in a barroom argument. It is also interesting to note that the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 which resulted from this disaster is the most comprehensive and fastest enacted piece of environmental legislation in the history of the U.S. It took a major environmental calamity to stimulate decisive action by both the Administration and the Congress. In Prince William Sound, the impact on marine mammals, especially sea otters and pinnipeds, is still evident almost two decades later. The impact of this disaster on marine mammals is covered in detail in the book Marine Mammals and Exxon Valdez by T. Loughlin (1994). Working on the case against Exxon, clean-up plans, and damage assessment took up most of the remainder of my term in office, which was only about four months because I retired from Federal serChapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

111

vice in July of 1989. It appeared to me that the lawyers had taken over, and science was in the background. It seemed like a good time to retire. I had enough years of Federal service to retire with a Federal pension. [A]Policy-making Frustrations Although my time in Washington was one of the more exciting twists in my winding career road, it was also one of the most frustrating, and eventually one of the most disappointing. The disappointments came mainly from the lethargy of the systems and the reluctance of the members of the three Washington D.C. cultures – elected officials, appointed officials, and career Civil Service officials – to make things happen. Each of these cultures seemed to have distinctively different agendas. Interestingly enough, these agendas were in a majority of cases set by special interest groups rather than science and technology. The best examples of this were the responses of Congress, the Executive branch, and appointed officials in the Administrative branch in trying to understand the serious nature of many of the environmental problems lying on the horizon: the collapse of the fisheries, global climate change, invasive species, oil, chemical and nuclear pollution, clean air and clean water issues. Unfortunately the increasing influence of special interest groups, that was so evident starting in 2000, had already begun in the 1980’s. The name of the game in U.S. politics is getting re-elected, and that takes money. If you track the increase in money from special interest groups, you can get some idea of the impact on legislation. Of course these are all personal opinions. It is interesting to note that my opinions have changed dramatically since my first entry into the political arena. My biggest challenges during my career in Washington were the U.S. policies on fisheries and whaling and the Exxon Valdez disaster. Unfortunately, none of the three can be counted as a success. 112

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Fisheries Policy In the case of the U.S. policy on fisheries, there was an enormous reluctance among officials in Washington to understand the necessity for an ecosystems approach to managing living marine resources. This included a complete lack of understanding of the concept of ecosystems management, itself, as well as reluctance to accept any new concepts. In my opinion this has led to the almost complete collapse of our major fisheries. In my opinion the passage of the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 was a huge mistake because it tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. Its main impact was to take the decision-making process out of the hands of the scientific and professional managers and turn it over to Regional Fisheries Management Councils made up of persons appointed by the governors of the various states within the region. Many of the members came from fisheries-related industries whose interests were their own bottom lines. The National Marine Fisheries Regions and Centers would recommend quotas, but the final decisions and final Fisheries Management Plans were controlled by the Councils. Fortunately the passage of the 1994 Sustainable Fisheries Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Reauthorization Act have addressed some of the issues, such as by-catch, overfishing and habitat destruction. Whaling Policy and the IWC In the issue of whaling as well as with other endangered species issues, the biggest problem was trying not to alienate our international friends who depended on whaling (Japan, Norway, Iceland) while appeasing the environmental community. Because of the image of charismatic mega-fauna such as whales, most of the developed world nations are anti-whaling. They think it is not needed and barbaric. However, some countries, such as Norway, Iceland, Japan, and Russia still have Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

113

long-standing whaling cultures and isolated fishing villages that depend on whaling and have for hundreds of years. They feel they have a right to whale on stocks that are robust enough to allow harvesting. In fact, that is the mandate of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling, signed in 1946, that authorized the International Whaling Commission (IWC) – the preservation of whale stocks so that sustainable whaling can be practiced. Anti-whaling countries and whaling countries are all members of the IWC, and they interpret the convention differently. In reality, the convention was developed to insure the sustainability of whaling, but it is not being used that way today. The 1982 moratorium on whaling was intended to halt whaling only until stock assessment could be completed. The actual cessation in whaling took place in 1986 when the quotas were set to zero. The debate goes on today. Currently in the IWC, each side is trying to gather enough pro- or anti-whaling members for votes to set aside (or maintain) the 1982 moratorium on whaling. Under the rules of the convention, members can object and continue to whale under objection. In 1982 Russia, Norway, Iceland, Chile, Peru and Japan all objected. With pressure from the United States, all of them withdrew their objections except Norway. At the 2006 meeting, it looked like the whaling nations – Japan, Norway, and Iceland – were close to a simple majority. With a full majority, they could start whaling on certain stocks. The United States is a leader of the conservationminded countries – the U.S. policy is and has been to keep the moratorium in place. Because I was the U.S. Commissioner, that was my goal. Unfortunately, the situation poses a conundrum for the State Department. All three major whaling nations were and are military allies. Both Iceland and Norway had NATO bases or stations in their countries, and the U.S. had many military personnel in Japan. This did and still does create some diplomatic challenges. 114

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

In 1988 when I became the Administrator of NOAA, I also took on the additional job of the U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). During my tenure as the U.S. Commissioner, three episodes stand out. As the U.S. IWC Commissioner, I was responsible for maintaining the quota of bowhead whales for our Inupiat whalers. This meant trying to reach compromises between what the Alaskan Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) determined their subsistence needs to be and the desires of a coalition of NGO groups who wanted a zero take. In the process of these negotiations with other IWC members, NGO’s and the Alaskan Eskimo Whaling commission, I did a lot of traveling. This included many trips to Alaska. My wife Phyllis wanted to go to Alaska, so she asked if she could go on the next trip. That happened to be the AEWC annual February meeting in Point Barrow, in 1988, at 45 degrees below zero. I had purchased an authentic Eskimo parka for Phyllis, as a present for her finishing her book on seals and sea lions. This was her chance to really see its warming purpose. The second episode also involved Point Barrow and whales. As a part of the AEWC program to develop a positive image of their subsistence whaling and sealing they invited CNN up to Point Barrow in 1989 to observe their fall bowhead whale hunt. While searching for a place to set up their whaling camp with the CNN film crew, they came across three gray whales trapped in the fast ice. This was an obvious photo opportunity for CNN and made the evening news. The spin that was put on the episode would bring tears to your eyes. The Eskimo whalers saw this as an opportunity to show the world that they cared for whales, so they started to try to free the whales. While all this was going on, I was in Moscow attending an International Fisheries and Oceanography meeting hosted by the Soviet Hydromet. It was my Russian host who informed me of the Pt. Barrow project to save the whales. My host offered to help. The Russians had a nuclear icebreaker Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

115

within hours of the site of the trapped whales. I was informed by the State Department representative with our party that I couldn’t accept the offer without State Department and, maybe, White House approval. Into the scene came several environmental groups who were concerned about a nuclear icebreaker contaminating pristine Arctic waters. What could have taken a few days, at little or no cost to the U.S., turned into a major week-long-plus project which sapped most of the NOAA discretionary funds. In the end the Russians did get permission to use a non-nuclear icebreaker, and the whales disappeared, hopefully to head south. The third episode took place at the 1990 Annual IWC meeting in Noordwike, Netherlands. Although I had retired in 1989, I had been asked by John Knauss to stay on as the U.S. Commissioner while he was getting used to the idea of being the new Under Secretary of Commerce for NOAA. This was a crucial meeting of the Commission since it was the meeting that was to evaluate the status of the Comprehensive Assessment of Whale Stocks as spelled out in the language of the 1982 Cessation of Whaling Agreement. There was a major disagreement about how the language of the agreement should be interpreted between the conservation-minded members, which included the U.S., the UK, most of the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and the Seychelles, and the pro-whaling members, which included Japan, Norway and Iceland. The conservation group said that because of the need to gear the science up to do a comprehensive assessment, the assessment was to start in 1990. The whalers were of the opinion that the assessment was to be finished in 1990, and the start of limited whaling was to be considered at that point, including quotas on several stocks. The IWC Science Committee agreed that they were not ready to have a finished comprehensive assessment of whale stocks. A resolution was passed by a majority not to address the issue of quotas until the Scientific Committee had a complete 116

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

report. (In order to establish quotas it takes a two-thirds vote of the members.) During the course of the meeting Iceland (out of order) offered a resolution to consider some emergency quotas for minke whales since population data on hand indicated that several of the stocks were robust enough for limited harvesting. The Chair made the decision to allow the resolution on the floor. In consultation with my lawyers and advisers, I believed that the Chair was out of order, so I called a Point of Order and challenged the Chair under Roberts’ Rules of Order. Our challenge was upheld by one vote and the Iceland resolution was dead. Iceland, Norway and Japan were very unhappy and protested my behavior both on the floor of the commission meeting and to the State Department, mentioning something about NATO bases in Iceland and Norway. I was informed shortly after the meeting by the Secretary of State that my services with the IWC were no longer needed. I was also informed by my former friends in Iceland that I was persona non grata in Iceland, and they could not guarantee my safety if I visited. I guess my interpretation of the intent of the Congressional Resolution to keep the moratorium in place and that of the State Department differed. The Exxon Valdez The grounding of the Exxon oil tanker Valdez in Prince William Sound was certainly the U.S. environmental disaster of the decade. The effects are still apparent in Alaska. In the resulting in-fighting between the various agencies, confusion, finger pointing and lack of cooperation reigned supreme. This tragic environmental disaster resulted in a major change in my focus. As the Under-Secretary of Commerce from April 1988 until July 1989, my opinions of the Federal policymaking process went through a major change. As a result of the Exxon Valdez disaster, which happened on my watch, it became obvious that my view of the environmental policy-making process was naïve at best. I originally thought that environmenChapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

117

tal policy-making was driven by science. Unfortunately, in my opinion, partisan politics was the driving force (or farce) for the decisions and actions that resulted from the Valdez disaster and other environmental issues. The result was a lethargic system due to a lack of cooperation between elected officials, appointed personnel and career civil service leadership. In John H. Trattner’s The Prune Book 1991 (The 60 Toughest Science and Technology Jobs in Washington), he quotes me from an interview: “In the beginning, says former under secretary/administrator William Evans (1988-1989), young federal entities like the Environmental Protection Agency were created from whole earth: “The administration grabbed the clay, formed it together and said, this is an agency. ‘Go forth and do this.’” NOAA, by contrast, was formed in 1970 as the sum of bits and pieces and parts. Some of the parts were agencies with ancestral roots in the late 1700s “they pulled down from wherever they were, called them an agency, and jammed it into the department of commerce. They said, ‘This is what you are, guys.’ And they called it NOAA.” ....................... Among Evans’s working relationships outside Commerce, he attached great importance to that with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). “It’s absolutely necessary to be able to sit down on a first-name basis with (the associate OMB director for economics and government) and discuss what the real issues are, the political implications, why you really need to do this or that, what’s important to the White House, what brownie points you get from it. At the same time, says Evans, others at OMB can present problems. “Not necessarily the political appointees,” but veteran staff further down the line who, in his view, had their own restrictive, unchanging ideas about the use of budget resources on which they constantly sought to persuade their superiors on the political level. When these notions prevail, Evans feels, the result for agencies like NOAA “is not good science.” He also found some entrenchment 118

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

within his own agency. It took the form of “little empires established out in the field” which did their own lobbying in the Congress and “tried to lace the budget with their own agendas.” My feelings on these political matters have not changed. In my opinion there never has been a sense of urgency to deal with environmental issues such as clean air, clean water, global climate change, and the collapse of our natural resources such as fisheries and a host of others. The voices of special interest groups are more frequently listened to than those of scientists. Although I was discouraged and disheartened by my experience with policy-making, my desire to do research and teaching was still active. On July 4, 1989 (Independence Day) I retired from Federal Service and accepted a position at Texas A & M at the Galveston campus as Professor of Marine Biology and Dean of the Texas Maritime College.

Chapter 8: The 1980’s And Biopolitic

119

CHAPTER 9 The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

T

he appointment at Texas A & M in Galveston was the start of an amazing new adventure and a return to academia. When I was thinking about retiring from civil service and finding an academic position, I started shopping around Washington D.C. One of my first stops was the National Association for Sea and Land Grant Colleges. I asked the director to keep an eye out for academic positions at small colleges or universities. I officially retired on July 4, 1989. Shortly after that I received a phone call from Dr. Bill Merrill, whom I had met while he was with the National Science Foundation. Now he was the President of Texas A & M Galveston. I mentioned to Bill that Texas A & M was not my idea of a small university. He explained that the Galveston campus was small, and invited me to be the commencement speaker at the spring graduation. He also offered me a job as the Dean of the Maritime College and Professor of Marine Biology. My first academic experiences had been as an adjunct or visiting instructor or senior lecturer at Scripps and San Diego State University. This was going to be my first look at academic administration. My wife and I packed up and moved on to the Lone Star State, a start of many new things for both of us. I was going to be a dean and professor, and she was going to be a real estate agent. I was anxious to get back to my research and also to work with graduate students. I give many thanks to David Schmidly (formerly of Texas A & 120

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

M and now president of the University of New Mexico) who had the foresight to know the value of a marine mammal research program. On August 1 of 1989, I became a member of the Wildlife and Fisheries Graduate Faculty and the Galveston Marine Mammal Group. [A]The Texas Clipper II My first big surprise as a university administrator came at my first executive committee meeting. While he was introducing me, the president, Dr. Bill Merrell, stated that Dr. Evans was going to procure a new training ship for the Texas State Maritime Academy which was part of the Maritime College. (There are five State Maritime Academies and the U.S Maritime Academy at King’s Point New York.) This was really a big surprise! The current TS Texas Clipper was a circa World War II troop ship, USNS Queens, with an outstanding war record in the Pacific at Iwo Jima and post-war in Japan. Later, she became the Excambrion, one of the first air-conditioned luxury liners. As a forty-plus year old ship she was beginning to show her age, and costs to get her ready for the summer cruises were escalating. So the search was on. I was working in coordination with the Maritime Administration, looking for just the right platform. Most State Maritime Academy training ships come from the Reserve Fleet and most were also old. The Marine Science and Marine Engineering faculty had many of their own ideas. The engineers wanted a modern power plant and the Maritime Academy deck faculty wanted up-to-date communications and navigation equipment. During a trip to Washington D.C. to discuss the acquisition of a new training ship, I stopped by the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy as a courtesy visit. During our conversation I mentioned our search for a new training ship. He told me that the Navy was decommissioning two oceanographic research ships (AGORS) after they finished their tour in Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991. He also told me that the two ships available Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

121

were the Harkness and the Chauvenais. He also said he thought the Chauvenais was in the best shape. After discussion with the Maritime Administration (MARAD) staff, we decided to go after the Chauvenais. The next shock came when I was told we would have to come up with ten to twelve million dollars for the retro-fit. Fortunately my experience as a Washington D.C. bureaucrat paid off. The support we received from the Texas Congressional delegation was outstanding. Our local Congressman, Jack Brooks, spearheaded our search for the appropriate funding. In the end, the money was appropriated, but not authorized. The U.S. Navy lawyers refused to release the funds. In consultation with the good Congressman, we decided to attach wording to a current fast-track Authorization Bill. I selected the Marine Mammal Protection Act Reauthorization. The Bill passed – and we had a new ship. Although we were hoping the conversion work would take place in a Gulf of Mexico shipyard, a company claiming to be a minority-owned company in New York got the contract. Due to the heavy lobbying by the good Senators from New York the ship ended up in the Brooklyn Ship Yard. Although they were the low bid, by the time all the cost overruns were counted, it cost more than if they had done the work in Mississippi or Louisiana. That ship, the Texas Clipper II was finally christened in 1998 and served the Academy until 2005. [A]The Maritime Academy My second big surprise came when Texas A & M University Galveston became part of the College of Maritime Studies and Oceanography in 1992. As a part of that change, my old friend Dr. Dave Schmidly became the campus CEO and the Dean of Texas A & M Galveston, appointed by Dr. Bob Duce, the Dean of the College of Oceanography, Geosciences and Maritime Studies. Texas A & M Galveston, instead of being a separate university within the A & M system as it had been, 122

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

became part of the new College of Oceanography, Geosciences and Maritime Studies. Bill Merrell, who had been the president of Texas A & M Galveston, resigned, leaving the Dean of the new college (Bob Duce) to select someone to run the Galveston Campus. He had two final candidates, Dave Schmidly and Bill Evans. He selected Schmidly as CEO of the Galveston Campus. Schmidly accepted, with the promise that he would not have to deal with the Texas State Maritime Academy. By the Jones Merchant Marine Act, however, the Maritime Academy needed a superintendent, so Dr. Duce appointed me to that position. During my next trip to Washington D.C., I went from Dean to Rear Admiral in the U.S. Merchant Service. (According to the specifications for State Maritime Academies in the Jones Merchant Marine Act, the superintendent would be a Rear Admiral in the Merchant Service. This made sense since the superintendent would have several licensed maritime officers from captain on down.) Maritime academies are military academies – all graduates who are licensed Third Mates are subject to military duty in time of war. There was one big perk, however – as the superintendent, I had my own suite on board the Texas Clipper and would sail with her during her summer training cruises. Join the Merchant Service and see the world! During that phase of my career I visited Poland, Greece, the Azores, Newfoundland, and Belize. My wife became a ship follower, loading me on and off the ship in exotic foreign ports. Wearing my academic hat and because of my recent experience with the Exxon Valdez, it was very clear to me that the direction of the curriculum of the Texas A & M Maritime College needed to be updated. I felt we needed to place more emphasis on marine environmental issues. Fortunately, I was able to hire one of the lawyers who had worked on the Exxon disaster, Dr. Wyndylyn von Zharen. This was one of the best administrative decisions of my career in academia. I not only got a world-class Admiralty lawyer for our maritime administration but also a Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

123

first-class environmental lawyer, so we could start an environmental policy program which was one of my goals. The GulfCet I Program During the 1990’s emphasis was being placed on conducting interdisciplinary research on large marine ecosystems like the Gulf of Mexico. By the time the 1990’s rolled around, it had become obvious that to understand the distribution and abundance of marine mammals we had to understand their habitat and its dynamics. Again environmental legislation was driving the funding and thus the research. To continue to lease the deeper water offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and later Mineral Management Service (MMS) had to better understand what endangered and/or threatened species might be affected. There were several sources of information on the distribution, abundance, and diversity of cetaceans in the Gulf of Mexico, including the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding network founded by Dave Schmidly. Cetacean stranding information has been systematically collected since the late l970’s. Other directed studies, historic whaling records, animal stranding, and opportunistic sightings have expanded the list of cetacean species known to occur in the Gulf (Jefferson and Shiro, 1997). Until recently, however, relatively little had been known about cetaceans inhabiting the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supported aerial surveys of birds, marine turtles, and cetaceans in the Gulf in 1981 and 1982 (Fritts et al., 1983). The plan was that the Mineral Management Service would fund the project within the government and not put the contract up for competitive bid. We did not think this fair, so I contacted our Washington D.C contacts, stating our concerns and asking for a level playing field. The result of the pressure was that the contract was put out for bid. Our group, which included the 124

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

National Marine Fisheries, and the University of Wisconsin placed a bid, and ours was accepted. The most extensive survey of cetaceans in the offshore waters (100 to 2,000 meters deep) of the north-central and western Gulf of Mexico was conducted jointly by Texas A & M University and the NMFS, Southeast Fisheries Science Center beginning in 1992. The study was called the GulfCet I (Gulf Cetacean Study) Program (Davis and Fargion, 1996). I was lucky enough to have a past student, Dr. Jeffrey Norris, available to help with this very large project This study provided synoptic information on the distribution and abundance of cetaceans (all whales and dolphins) using both visual and acoustic survey techniques. Dr. J. Norris participated in several of the cruises which provide invaluable acoustic data on cetaceans as well as data on sea bird and turtle distributions. One of the major assets of this program, which I think set it aside from other programs, was the collection of basic oceanographic data in conjunction with the cetaceans, bird and turtle ship surveys. A total of 21,350 km of transects were visually surveyed during the GulfCet I shipboard surveys. The number of oneffort sightings each season ranged from 14 during fall to 509 during spring. Nineteen cetacean species were identified during 683 sightings made on-effort. Most of the survey effort occurred during the spring, with the least effort during the fall. The acoustic surveys were conducted concurrently with the visual surveys. A total of 12,219 km and 1,055 hours of acoustic effort were completed. On-effort acoustic sampling occurred 95% of the time. A total of 487 acoustic contacts were recorded. Of that number, 124 contacts were from 12 identified species. Sperm whales were the most commonly recorded species, accounting for 56% of identified contacts. The most commonly recorded small cetacean was the pantropical spotted dolphin, with 22 contacts. A single recording of an unidentified baleen whale was made, probably a sei or Bryde’s whale, based on its spectral characteristics. At the time this was the Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

125

first large-scale survey done using the towed passive acoustic array technology. (Diagram of array)The study allowed estimate of the numbers of cetaceans, sea birds and turtles, by species. It also defined their oceanographic habitat (what kinds of conditions are they found in, e.g. sea surface temperature, depth, salinity, food availability). This program continues now, concentrating on target species such as sperm whales. In 1994, both the Texas Clipper and Dr. Bill Evans retired. I left my position as the Superintendent of the Texas State Maritime Academy. The Texas Clipper was replaced by the new ship, and she returned to the Reserve Fleet and was mothballed. In 2006, she was selected as a part of the Texas artificial reef system and is now in the Gulf off Texas where she will continue to serve by providing recreational diving and fishing. I stayed on in a teaching capacity and as head of the Texas Institute of Oceanography until 1999. During my retirement ceremony I was presented with a framed signed copy of the reauthorization bill that made the Texas Clipper II possible. [A]Into The Twenty-First Century In 1999 I retired from Texas A & M as an Emeritus Professor of Marine Biology, and Phyllis and I decided to move north to Indiana where I still had family. In order to continue my writing, I needed access to a university library. I was given an opportunity to become a guest professor at the University of Notre Dame. Little did I know this was, in a sense, the start of a new career, as an editor. My main experience in editing was being edited, so at least I understood the disappointment a young scientist feels when she or he has a paper rejected. This was an interesting turn of events, since as a teenager I had a desire to attend Notre Dame University when I grew up. Well, that did not happen until I was 70! I am now teaching a graduate class in Environmental Policy and Politics as well as launching a new career as the editor of the American Midland Naturalist, a quarterly journal which was founded in 126

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

1909. As I reflect back on all that has transpired, I feel fortunate to have interacted with many incredible people who have had a profound effect on my life and my career. I rejoice in the opportunity to re-visit those adventures and try to convince my many new students that the past can be a valuable resource for the future. Marine mammals are among the most difficult groups of mammals to study in their natural habitat. As we discovered in the RV Sea See studies, less than two percent of their time is on the surface. Most of what is known about their behavior comes from studies of animals in captivity and well-controlled environments. Fortunately, technology has advanced since the studies of the 1960s, especially in the late 1990’s and early twenty-first century, to provide some partial solutions to these problems. Advancements in computer hardware/software and miniaturization of video and acoustic recording systems allow not only recordings of sounds, but also of associated behaviors (Burgess et al., 1998; Dudzinski, 1993; Davis et al., 1999, Evans et. al., 2001). As satellite technology advances, our ability to not only track individuals, but also to monitor their habitats is becoming more sophisticated. These technologies will be the key for advancement in the 21st century. But, students of mammals and marine mammals, in particular, should not underestimate the value of good hard field-work and visual observation. Also, in the study of marine mammals, the importance of museum collections should not be dismissed. In the heyday of the tuna purse seine fishery, unidentified delphinids were being found on a regular basis. Without the skeletal material available in some of the world’s larger collections we would have a host of new species that are not really new species. This is especially true in the case of several genera – for example, Peponacephala (Melon headed dolphin), Stenella, Delphinus (common dolphin, white sided), and Feresia. Several genera once known only from skull fragments are now known to be fairly common in the oceanic Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

127

waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. The specimens of Delphinus that I collected have been used to determine that in the waters of the Eastern Pacific there are really two species of Delphinus, D. delphis and D. capensis. I hope in the future that we can convince new graduate students of mammalogy that there are many opportunities in the study of marine mammals almost as exciting as bats, voles, moles, rats and mice. [A]Current And Future Concerns As a boy growing up in Indiana, I fantasized about sailing the world’s oceans and learning about whales and things that lived in the sea. It turns out that those fantasies have become reality. As I reflect back on what I consider problem areas, it is interesting to note that in the 1950’s the main focus of my research interest was on the impact of new sources of noise – jet aircraft, for example – on the environment, as well as on a variety of animals including man. In 1950 the discovery of the structure of DNA led to a revolution in genetics, and molecular biology. Now in the 21st Century the effect of noise is still a concern, but this time it is in the marine environment, resulting in research and law suits. Now the focus of science has changed. In the past several centuries we have had non-native species influencing native species. This has now become an increasing and more evident problem. Of course there is also increasing concern about diseases that that can become epidemic. I am sure other areas will come to the front in the future, and some of those of the past will remain. Now in the beginning of the 21st century, invasive species, global climate change, diminishing fresh water supply in many countries and the concern about global warming have become key issues, and again the science leans towards where the funding is. In the 1980’s, when my oldest son Jon was preparing his senior thesis, there was an increasing concern about global cooling. Since he was in agriculture, he decided to look at those animal and crops that did well in a cold climate. He made arrange128

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

ments to study for the summer in Iceland with the Agricultural Institute. It worked out that I had an invitation to collect some data and material at the Whaling Station at the same time. So father and son were off to Iceland for the summer. It was a great opportunity for some father-son bonding. Since I had been away from home so much when my sons were younger, I looked forward to spending some quality time with one of my sons. In the morning Jon would be picked up by the Agricultural Institute, and I would drive to the Whaling Station. On one particular day, one of the catcher boats had taken a sperm whale a little farther from the station than usual. If the whale had been towed for so many hours after capture it had to be inspected by the Agriculture Department. So all work ceased until the inspectors arrived. I was still trying to collect specimens when this ‘inspector’ told me to step back behind the line. I thought he was a bit rude. It was my son! That day he was with the meat inspectors and was making the rounds of the processing plants. That was when I learned that, in Iceland, meat was meat whether it swam or grazed. It was an interesting summer and a learning experience for both of us. Now the concerns have come full cycle to global warming. That is why I like the term “climate change” rather than global warming. My thinking on this issue has been influenced by oceanographers, and some of the NOAA climatologists at the Boulder Laboratory. Many of the ecosystem concepts were presented in the 1994 re-authorization of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. In my opinion this happened because everything else did not work. Sixteen years later, I think even with the major changes in the Magnuson (now Magnuson-Stevens) Fishery Conservation and Management Act, ecosystem management is just getting lip service. Things are still the status quo, and politics still is driving decision making. Unfortunately many of the movers and policy makers in NOAA are still tied to the old concepts when it comes to issues of fisheries management and global climate change. And they are still Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

129

overly pressured by special interest groups. Unfortunately in recent years, the White House has been a filter, making sure the science agrees with the administration’s policy. This is occurring even in the face of a mounting supply of data that indicates that they are looking the wrong way. It is interesting to note that the precursor to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish Commission, was founded by an Act of Congress in 1876, motivated by the imminent collapse of the New England cod stocks. So what has changed? After many years of reviewing the events during my career as an environmental policy maker, my major concerns are for all the international social and economic problems in the 21st century. Unfortunately these are not only having an impact on human life and societies, but also taking the focus away from major environmental disasters yet to come. If the resources and efforts to address these problems are not forthcoming, the world as we know it will be greatly changed. I think one of the saddest parts of this whole story that gets little or no attention is the slow death of an important segment of our society – the fishing and farming communities. I am encouraged of late seeing a trend back to the basics in what we eat and how it is produced or harvested, including fisheries. When I visit San Diego, Monterey, and even my old home town on the shores of Lake Erie, I am saddened by the loss of the rich heritage that the smaller and family-oriented businesses brought to those areas. The once famous fishing ports and farming communities are now tourist sites with restaurants, boutiques and so on. These concerns, as far as I can determine, are still only given again lip service by Congress and the Administration. Now that I live in the middle of Midwest farm country and central Texas, I can see the parallels between the disappearance of the fishing culture in this country and the family farms which are being swept away by large corporate entities. Fortunately a new wave of science which looks at the interaction of economics and ecology is beginning to 130

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

emerge. Also there is a developing trend that I sincerely hope will gain strength. With a better awareness of our environment, the value of small farm raised produce and other food products that is close to home is gaining popularity. In just the past few years, the number and popularity of farmers’ markets has gained in popularity. In my opinion we need some major educational initiatives and actions to change the balance of forces driving current policy with economics to the bottom line being the wise use of the best science available. Unfortunately environmental politics is too closely connected to economic development and worldwide income distribution. We need to understand this in reference to our use of the biosphere in order to ensure that in our use and planning we do not degrade or destroy it. Today policy makers move away from the problems rather than towards the solutions (Cohen, 2006). Two forces are influencing environmental change on this planet – those that are man made and in our control, and those acts of nature that we can only try to understand. Today we read in magazines and newspapers about the collapse of the world’s fisheries. Could it be a lack of coordination between all the players including the fishing industry and consumers, as well as the policy makers, both regional and federal? Our challenge is to be able to recognize the difference between these two environmental change factors, and promote the will to fix those things that we can fix. Meanwhile we must also continue to learn more about those we cannot – so that we might learn to better cope with them. That is the challenge of the new scientists and willing politicians. I suggest that the new generation of scientists do not ignore the past, but learn from it. I also suggest that as young people enter into a new career they find and listen to a mentor. I did – and they advised me on which forks in the road were the right ones. When I look at today’s students, I get a true sense of their curiosity and their desire to care for the planet. They, too, Chapter 9: The Hallowed Halls Of Academia: (1990’s and beyond)

131

have many forks in the road with many choices to make. I wish them the very best decisions for themselves and for our world. Many are working in the area of conservation biology. This is a reflection of the major changes in my thinking I will miss working with students but will still associate myself with the academic life. That is why we now move between the University of Notre Dame and Texas A & M University in College Station, Texas. So my quest continues, and I hope that I am able to accomplish in the time left tasks of the same quality that I have been privileged to experience in the past 50 years. I still plan to advise graduate students and look forward to celebrating the 100th year of the publishing of the University of the Notre Dame journal, the American Midland Naturalist.

132

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

BIBLIOGRAPHY Steinbeck, J. and E.F. Ricketts, 1941. The Log from the Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, Viking Press, New York. Gardner, E.S. 1960. Hunting the Desert Whale: Personal Adventures in Baja California. William Morrow & Company, New York. Lilly, J.C. 1958, Some consideration regarding the basic mechanisms of positive and negative motivation, J. Pschrty, 115; 498504, Dec. 1958 Lilly, J.C. 1961. Man and Dolphin. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. Eberhardt, R.L. and W.E. Evans. 1962. Sound activity of the California gray whale, Eschrichtius glaucus. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 10(4):324-328. Evans, W.E. and J.J. Dreher. 1962. Observations on scouting behavior and associated sound production by the Pacific bottlenosed porpoise (Tursiops gilli Dall). Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 61(4):217-226. Evans, W.E. and R.M. Haugen. 1963. An experimental study of the echolocation ability of a California sea lion, Zalophus californianus (Lesson). Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 62(4):165-175. Montagu, A. and Lilly, J.C. 1963. The Dolphin in History. Papers delivered at a symposium aat the Clark Library, 13 October 1962. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles. Bibliography

133

Dreher, J.J. and W.E. Evans. 1964. Cetacean communication. Pages 373-393 in W.N. Tavolga (ed). Marine Bio-Acoustics. Pergamon Press, Oxford. Evans, W.E., W.W. Sutherland, and R.G. Beil. 1964. The directional characteristics of delphinid sounds. Pages 53-372 in W.N. Tavolga (ed.). Marine Bio-Acoustics. Pergamon Press, Oxford. Evans, W.E. 1967. Preliminary observations of underwater sounds and associated behavior of the Chinese giant salamander. 1997, AAAS Conference abstract.American Association for the Advance of Science. Evans, W.E. 1967. Discussion of Mechanisms of Overcoming Interference in Echolocating Animals, by A. D. Grinnell. Pages 495-503 in R.G. Busnel (ed.). Animal Sonar Systems - Biology and Bionics, Volume 1. Laboratoire de Physiologie Acoustique, Jouy-en-Josas 78, France. Evans, W.E. and B.A. Powell. 1967. Discrimination of Different Metallic Plates by an Echolocating Delphinid. Pages 363-383 in R. G. Busnel (ed.). Animal Sonar Systems - Biology and Bionics, Volume 1. Laboratoire de Physiologie Acoustique, Jouy-enJosas 78, France. Norris, K.S. and W.E. Evans. 1967. Directionality of echolocation clicks in the rough-toothed porpoise, Steno bredanensis (Lesson). Pages 305-316 in W.N. Tavolga (ed.). Marine Bio-Acoustics, Volume 2. Pergamon Press, New York. Lilly, J.C. 1967. The Mind of the Dolphin: Nonhuman Intelligence, Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York. Evans, W.E. and S.R. Harmon. 1968. Experimenting with trained pinnipeds in the open sea. Pages 196-208 in C.E. Rice and R.J. Schusterman (eds.). The Behavior and Physiology of Pinnipeds. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. Herald, E.S., R.L. Brownell, Jr., F.L. Frye, E.J. Morris, W.E. Evans, and A.B. Scott. 1969. Blind river dolphin: First sideswimming cetacean. Science 166:1408–1410. Perrin, W.F. 1969. Using porpoise to catch tuna. World Fishing 18(6):42–45. 134

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Evans, W.E. 1971. Orientation behavior of delphinids: Radio telemetric studies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 188(1):142–160. Campbell, H.W. and W.E. Evans. 1972, Observations on the vocal behavior of chelonians. Herpetologica, 28:277-280 Pickwell, G.V. and W.E. Evans (ed.). 1972. Handbook of dangerous animals for field personnel AD 754-069, Naval Undersea Center, San Diego. Wood, F.G. 1973. Marine Mammals and Man: The Navy’s Porpoises and Sea Lions, Robert B. Luce, Inc., New York. Norris, K.S. 1974. The Porpoise Watcher. W. W. Norton and Company, New York. Norris, K.S., W.E. Evans, and C. Ray. 1974. New tagging and tracking methods for the study of marine mammal biology and migration. Pages 395-408 in W.E. Schevill (ed.). The Whale Problem. A Status Report. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lilly, J.C. 1975. Lilly on Dolphins: Humans of the Seas. Anchor Books, New York. Lilly, J.C. 1978. Communication between Man and Dolphin: The Possibilities of Talking with Other Species. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York. Coeurr, E. and W.E. Evans. 1978. GiGi: A Baby Whale Borrowed for Science and Returned to the Sea. Putnam, New York. Evans, W.E., J.R. Jehl, Jr., and F. Wolfson, 1979. Current Studioes on Distribution and Abundance of Cetaceansin Venezuela, IWC Working Paper 13, Cambridge England Jjune 22-29, Norris, K.S. and T.P. Dohl. 1980. The structure and function of cetacean schools. Pages 2ll–261 in L.M. Herman (ed.). Cetacean Behavior: Mechanisms and Functions. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. Herman L.M. (ed.). 1980. Cetacean Behavior: Mechanisms and Functions. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York.

Bibliography

135

Wood, F.G. and W.E. Evans. 1980. Adaptiveness and ecology of echolocation in toothed whale. Pages 381-425 in R.G. Busnel and J.F. Fish (eds.). Animal Sonar Systems. Plenum Press, New York. Evans, W.E., A.V. Yablokov, and A.E. Bowles. 1982. Geographic variation in the color pattern of killer whales (Orcinus orca). Reports of the International Whaling Commission 32: 687-694. Perrin, W.F. and C.W. Oliver. 1982. Time/area distribution and composition of the incidental kill of dolphins and small whales in the U.S. purse-seine fishery for tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific, 1979-1980. Reports of the International Whaling Commission 32:429–444. Evans, W.E. and A.V. Yablokov. 1983. Izmenchivost’ okraski kitoobrazynykh: Novyi podkhod k izucheniyu okraski mlekopitayushchikh (Variability of Cetacean Color Patterns: A New Approach to the Study of Mammalian Coloration). Nauka, Moscow. (in Russian) Buhr, R. and W.E. Evans. 1983. Report on Conference on Dolphin behavior and Cognition: Comparitive andj Ecological Aspects: Hubbs Sea World Research Institute, San Diego Calif., July 6-9, 1983. Evans, W.E. 1987. Management of Fisheries as Large Marine Ecosystems. AAAS Special Workshop on Large Marine Ecosystems, 1987. (in) Sherman K., 1991. The Large Marine Ecosystem Concept: Resources. Ecological Applications, 1 (4) pp 349-360. Ridgway, S. 1987. Dolphin Doctor. Yankee Books, Dublin, New Hampshire. Evans, W.E. and F. Awbrey. 1988. Natural history aspects of marine mammal echolocation: Feeding strategies and habitat. Pages 521-534 in P.E. Nachtigall and P.W.B. Moore (eds.). Animal Sonar: Processes and Performance. Plenum Press, New York. Evans, W.E., F.T. Awbrey, and H. Hackbarth. 1988. High frequency pulses produced by free-ranging Commerson’s dolphin (Cephalorynchus commersonii) compared to those of phocoenids. 136

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Reports of the International Whaling Commission (Special Issue 9): 173-181. Leatherwood, S., W.F. Perrin, and W.E. Evans. 1988. Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises of the Eastern North Pacific and Adjacent Arctic Waters: A Guide to their Identification. Dover Publications, Inc., New York. McIntosh, R.P. 1990. The American Midland Naturalist: The Life Historyj of a Journal, American Midland Naturalist, Vol. 123, Issue 1, 1-31. Norris, K.S. 1991. Dolphin Days: The Life and Times of the Spinner Dolphin. W.W. Norton and Company, New York. Heyning, J.E. and W. Perrin. (1994). Evidence for two species of common dolphins (genus Delphinus) from the eastern North Pacific. Nat’l History Museum of Los Angeles, contributions in Science, 442: 35pp. Evans, W.E. and J.C. Norris. 1993. The potential role of passive sonar in fisheries resource evaluation. Pages 423-4322 in N.K. Saxena (ed.). Recent Advances in Marine Science And Technology, 92. PACON International, Honolulu, Hawaii. Evans, W.E., 1987. On Managing a domestic fishery. National Fisheries Institute. (in) Alexander, L.M. 1993: a new focus for marine Resource Mangement . Marinene Policy, 17 (3) pp 186-198. Evans, W. E. and R. Benson. 1994. The role of passive sonar technology in marine mammal population assessment. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 96 (5, Part 2): 3315. Evans, W.E. 1994. Common dolphin, white-bellied porpoise Delphinus delphis Linnaeus, 1758. Pages 191-224 in S.H. Ridgway and R. Harrison (eds.). Handbook of marine mammals. Volume 5: The first book of dolphins. Academic Press, San Diego, California. Loughlin, T.R. (ed). 1994. Marine Mammals and the Exxon Valdez. Academic Press, San Diego. Crick, F. and G. Michison, 1995. REM sleep and neural nets, Behavioural Brain Research, 69 (1995) 147-155. Bibliography

137

Evans, W., J. Norris, T. Sparks, and R. Benson. 1995. The use of passive towed arrays for surveying marine mammals, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97, (5, Part 2): 3353. Norris, J.C., W.E. Evans, R. Benson, and T.D. Sparks. 1996. Acoustic surveys. Pages 133-187 in R.W. Davis and G.S. Fargion (eds.). Distribution and Abundance of Cetaceans in the North-central and Western Gulf of Mexico: Final Report. Technical Report, Volume II. OCS Study MMS 96-0027. Minerals Management Service, New Orleans, Louisiana. Evans, W.E., D. Wang, and B. Würsig. 1995, Comparison of the whistle structure of six species of dolphin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97(5, Part 2):3370. Wang, D., B. Würsig, and W.E Evans. 1995. Whistles of bottlenose dolphins: Comparisons among populations. Aquatic Mammals 21(1): 65–77. National Research Council. 1996. An assessment of techniques for removing offshore structures. Committee on Techniques for Removing Fixed Offshore Structures. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. Davis, R.W., W.E. Evans, and B. Würsig (eds.). 2000. Cetaceans, sea turtles and seabirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico: Distribution, abundance and habitat associations. Volume II: Technical report. OCS Study MMS 2000-002. Minerals Management Service, New Orleans, Louisiana. Evans, W.E., J. A. Thomas, and R.W. Davis. 2004. Vocalizations from Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) during diving and foraging. Pages 541-547 in J.A. Thomas, C.F. Moss, and M. Vater (eds.). Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. Evans, W.E. and A. Yablokov. 2004. Noninvasive Study of Mammalian Populations. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, Bulgaria. Evans, W.E. 2005. Migrations of one marine mammalogist: From bioacoustician to mammalogist. Pages 55-72 in C.J. Phillips and C. Jones (eds.) Going Afield: Lifetime Experiences in Exploration, Science and the Biology of Mammals. Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. 138

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

Reynolds III, J.E., W.F. Perrin, R.R. Reeves, S. Montgomery, and T.J. Ragen (eds) 2005. Marine Mammal Research: Conservation Beyond Crisis, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. Evans, W.E. and D. Wang. 2005. Underwater sounds and associated behavior of the giant Chinese salamander, Andrias davidianus. Acta Hydrobiologica Sinica 29(5): pp 544-549.

Bibliography

139

140

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

APPENDIX I This is a list of marine mammals I have studied and published about. If I listed all the species I have seen in the wild it would be a major list of the dolphins, whales and pinnipeds of the world since I have been from pole to pole and most major seas of the world. Those with an asterisk are species I have done work with in a laboratory or aquarium facility. Those I have observed and recorded also in the wild are also marked with an +. Most of my sonar research was done with four very fine Atlantic Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncates). I also did some sonar work with a White sided dolphin (Lagenorhyncus obliquidens), Rough toothed dolphin (Steno bredanensis), Beluga, (Dephinaterus leucas) and Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). My work with the Indus river dolphin (Plantanista indi), Commerson’s dolphin,(Cephalorynchus commersoni*+), Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) and Short fin pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) consisted of collecting acoustic recordings. Amazon river dolphin, Inia geoffrensis* Amazonian manatee, Trichechus inunguis* Beluga whale, Delphinapterus leucas*+ Bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncates*+ Common Dolphin, Delphinus delphis and Dephinus capensis*+

Appendix I

141

Commerson’s dolphin, Cephalorynchus commersoni*+ Califonia sea lion, Zalophus californiensis*+ Califonia gray whale, Eschrichtius galucas*+ Dalls Porpoise, Phocoenoides dalli+ Finless Porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides Harbor seal, Phoca vitulina*+ Indus River dolphin, Plantanista indi* Killer whale, Orcinus orca*+ Leopard seal, Hydruga leptonyx*+ Pilot whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus* Rough toothed dolphin, Steno bredanensis*+ Sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus (= catadon)+ Weddell seal, Leptonuchotes weddelli+ Pacific White sided dolphin, Lagenorynchus oblquidens*

142

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

APPENDIX II Development of U.S. Navy Marine Mammals Programe 1960’s

The begining Navy begins use of marine mammals

1965

Sea lab II In 1965, the Marine Mammal Program began its first military project: Sea Lab II. Working in the waters off La Jolla, California, a bottlenosed dolphin named Tuffy completed the first successful open ocean military exercise. He repeatedly dove 200 feet to the Sea Lab II installation, carrying mail and tools to navy personnel. He was also trained to guide lost divers to safety.

1965-75

Dolphins used in vietnam The Navy sent five dolphins to Cam Ranh Bay to perform underwater surveillance and guard military boats from enemy swimmers. Although during this era rumors circulated about a “swimmer nullification program” through which dolphins were trained to attack and kill enemy swimmer, the Navy denies such a program ever existed.

Appendix II

143

1975

Introduction of sea lions and beluga whales With the success of the dolphin program, the Navy began working with sea lions, training them to recover military hardware or weaponry fired and dropped in the ocean. The sea lions could dive and recover objects at depths of up to 650 feet. The Navy also began exploring the use of beluga whales, which, like dolphins, use sonar to navigate. Beluga whales could operate at much colder temperatures and deeper depths than either dolphins or sea lions.

1965-75

Navy builds up collection of dolphins The Marine Mammal Program reached its heyday in the 1980’s, with an expanded budget and increased number of dolphins. In 1986, Congress partially repealed the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act by letting the Navy collect wild dolphins from for “national defense purposes.” The Navy planned to use the dolphins to expand its mine disposal units and to stock a breeding program.

1986-88

Dolphins in the persian gulf The navy sent six dolphins to the Persian Gulf, where they patrolled the harbor in Bahrain to protect US flagships from enemy swimmers and mines, and escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers through potentially dangerous waters. One of the dolphins, “Skippy,” died of a bacterial infection.

144

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

1986-88

Missile guarding project in bangor abandoned In the late 1980’s the Navy began a project through which dolphins would act as guards at the Bangor Washington Trident Missile Base. Animal activists opposed the project, and filed suit against the Navy under the National Environmental Protection Act claiming that the Navy must do an environmental evaluation to determine whether deployment in the cold northern waters off Bangor would harm dolphins originally captured in the Gulf of Mexico. A judge ruled that such a study must be completed before the project could continue. The Navy abandoned the project. By 1994, the Navy policy on moving dolphins to environments with radically different water temperatures changed; a spokesperson said that in general, the Navy would only move dolphins between environments with a 20 degree difference in temperature, except in emergency situations.

1990s

Downsizing, declassification, retirement With the end of the Cold War, the Navy’s budget for the marine mammal program was drastically reduced, and all but one of its training centers were closed down. Of the 103 dolphins remaining in the program, the Navy decided it needed only 70 to maintain its downsized operations. Much of the project was declassified, although certain details remain protected. This raised the question of what to do with the remaining dolphins. In the 1992 Defense Appro-

Appendix II

145

priations Act, Congress alloted a half million dollars to the Navy to “to develop training procedures which will allow mammals which are no longer required for this project to be released into their natural habitat.” The Navy held two conferences of researchers and experts and determined that a reintroduction program would not be cost effective. In an attempt to downsize its dolphin troops, the Navy offered to give its surplus trained dolphins to marine parks. However, interest in the free dolphins was low because many marine parks by this time had developed successful in-house breeding programs. The Navy only got only four requests, but pledged to care for the unclaimed dolphins until their deaths. Later in 1994, the Navy agreed to send three dolphins to Sugarloaf sanctuary, near Key West in Florida, a rehabilitation facility run by Ric O’Barry. O’Barry planned to reeducate the dolphins so they could be safely released into the wild, once the necessary federal permits were granted. 1996

Illegal release of Luther and Buck Two of the dolphins being held at the Sugarloaf Sanctuary, Luther and Buck, were being prepared for life in the wild while awaiting federal permits for their release. In May, before the permits had been issued, O’Barry released the dolphins into the Gulf of Mexico. He believed that the dolphins were ready for release and that the bureaucratric requirements for a permit were designed to prevent the release of the Navy dolphins. He thought that to wait

146

William E. Evans. Fifty Years of Flukes and Flippers

any longer before letting them go would jeopardize their chances of successful adaptation to the wild. Read O’Barry’s defense of his actions, and criticism of the release from Naomi Rose. The dolphins were recaptured less than two weeks later and returned to the Navy. All three of these dolphins are now back with the Navy. One of them is still in Florida;the other two are back in San Diego in the Navy facility there. 1997

Dolphins used for therapy Ukrainian dolphins trained by the Soviet Navy for military operations are now being used for therapy with autistic and emotionally disturbed children.

Appendix II

147