Listen to the seals: Marine biologist Igor Katin is sure that the animal rights support should be science-based
Six seals and four beluga whales live permanently in the pools of Primorsky Aquarium. They take part in the marine mammal sensory system research program and Igor Katin, Scientific Head of the Laboratory of Marine Mammals, National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, calls them ‘staff members’.
Meet the seal
“They look different, and everyone has a unique character,” tells Igor Katin, PhD, Principal Specialist of the Primorsky Aquarium Shared Equipment Facility. He introduces the seals: “This is Varvara. She is hawk-nosed like a Georgian princess. The most mischievous and curious of all, - that’s why she has such a name. As the Russian saying goes, ‘Curious Varvara in the bazaar had her nose torn off’. She cheated us several months ago, pretending that she was pregnant. We were moving from another place, could not run an ultrasound, and had to believe her.”
“We may have believed her because Varvara was the first female that could bear a spotted seal pup in captivity. Her son Jupiter is about two years old now. He was born smart and quickly mastered the training program performed by his older counterparts.”
When speaking about mammals in captivity, let’s take Dulcinea, for example, who got out from the pool and swam away last year in March. Igor Katin scoured the neighbouring bays and examined groups of seals in search for her. He was worrying for her, she could become entangled in a fishing net and die. In fact, at that time Dusia (a diminutive used for Dulcinea) must have been thousands of kilometers from there: in the north in the Amur River estuary or in the south, somewhere near Busan, South Korea, where the spotted, or larga, seals from Peter the Great Bay migrate to. She returned in November and joined the trainings like it was no big deal, refuting all the arguments of those who say that seals suffer in captivity.
Wordy beluga whales are much more similar in appearance than seals, but differ in their behaviour. These large white whales look as if they wouldn’t mind communicating – they rise out of the water and make sounds we can’t reproduce. We cannot even hear most of these sounds. Human auditory system is not sensitive to frequences higher than 20 kHz used by these marine mammals.
“One can understand them intuitively. They vocalize for communication and echolocation (to determine their position or to find the prey or their counterparts). They have sexual, territorial, recreational (playing with one another), investigative behaviour, - just to start from. Now, they introduce themselves: “That’s me,” it’s like a signature,” the researcher explains.
Path to science
To understand marine mammals is a super problem for scientists.
“We know very little about these animals so far,” says the biologist who is probably the best specialist in the Russian Far East spotted seals.
As a child, he liked to hang out with fish, rats, and hamsters. When the time came to choose his career, he thought: Why people become policemen? They want to protect others from gangsters and bandits. Why they become doctors? To save other people’s lives. Igor’s dearest wish was to be in the wild and observe nature.
He became a scientist not thanks to, but rather against his parents’ will.
“My father, may he rest in peace, was a wise and practical man. He insisted on my going to the Far Eastern Trading University: ”When you graduate, you’ll start your career as a young specialist with a university degree, and in three years you’ll become a head of an enterprise.” “Or go to prison,” I argued, still studying at the test preparation center of the Trading University, ‘cause I didn’t want to offend my dad. But when it came to exams, I applied to the biological faculty of the Far Eastern State University,” tells Katin.
Being at the university, he vaguely understood what he was up to in his work. He dreamt of field research, long-term observations – and he got this, but now he is confined to this laboratory. He is still more of a field researcher; he likes this more than the laboratory work.
On the other hand, the laboratory keeping seals and whales is not a classical one. The mammals live under natural weather conditions: it is hot here in summer and cold in winter. But only the human staff are those who suffer.
“When our girls, animal trainers, go out to work, they can’t even put on rubber gloves, because fish will sleep away from hands. Frost and wind make your skin peel off, but nobody quits the job. I use to joke about the trainers’ salary that they should be paid less because they receive the seal and beluga whale therapy for a bonus,” adds the scientist.
Igor Katin conducted investigations for his graduation thesis in the only marine reserve in Russia, the Far Eastern Marine Biosphere State Nature Reserve. His scientific coordinator was the legendary founder and first director of this protected area Yury Chugunov. He had been Associate Professor at the Moscow State University and came to the Russian Far East in the 1970s to develop science here.
Igor Katin liked to observe birds and rodents that live in isolated colonies on the islands of the reserve. But seals were of particular interest to him.
“Marine mammals were always near us, I observed them because it was part of my duties as a park ranger. It turned out to be very captivating,” says Katin.
Almost everything we know about the life of spotted seals in Peter the Great Bay is owing to this researcher. For example, he discovered that, unlike the other species of seals who give birth to their progeny on the ice, larga seals bear pups on the shore.
By the way, colleagues call Katin “father of all seals” and say that he isn’t against this nickname, but proud of it. A little bit.
President’s watch
The Marine Mammals Laboratory of the Primorsky Aquarium carries out research in biology and physiology, zoological psychology and acoustics. The animals that take part in the research have to be prepared, they get special training.
For example, the task is to investigate the seal’s vision. A specialist shows a red object to a seal and then a green one. The fact that the seal discerns colours may be proven if, say, it chooses a particular object by slapping it with the flipper. But before the experiment, the larga must know what it is supposed to do.
Igor Katin considers that the intellectual level of his animals roughly corresponds to that of a 6-year-old child. This is sufficient for survival in nature. But what if they can evolve even further? Specialists ran an experiment with two objects that were demonstrated to the seals. If a seal chose the first one, it received 1 piece of fish, if the second one – it got 5 pieces. Very soon all the largas started to choose the second object.
“I don’t even know how to call this behaviour. Rational? But there’s nothing irrational in nature. Reasonable? Here, it’s the same. Maybe, practical?” speculates the scientist.
At the very beginning of the investigation, he formulated an ultimate goal, just for fun, – to teach animals how to bring back the president’s watch from the water. The story behind was that the head of the government visited the Aquarium and accidentally dropped his watch into the sea. Now all the five spotted pupils can easily bring back the objects that’s been dropped and even find them the next day or the day after. This skill may be applied for a variety of tasks, from searching watches to, for instance, sea mines.
The beluga whales have also made success in their learning. When a new pool was under construction, trainers decided to divide its area into two zones: one for work, another one for rest. They tried to explain the concept to the mammals: only those invited to the work zone should react to tasks. It took some time, but eventually the experiment turned out all right, which expanded our knowledge about the species’ abilities.
Igor Katin says it’s a great opportunity: to observe the seals both in the nature and in captivity and to compare their behaviour. He continues to spend much time in the marine reserve.
Moreover, since 2018 several video cameras have been installed at the rookeries to monitor the animals’ life. The cameras have already received unique footage of giving birth to and nursing pups, as well as have helped in understanding how a seal community is organized and in determining the size of the population.
These animals form kind of ‘families’ during the breeding season: a male, a female, and a pup. Whether the male is the father of the pup or not is yet unclear for researchers. It protects the female after the delivery, but probably because it simply doesn’t want any rivals and waits for mating, which occurs in a week.
A pup is nursed for about four weeks and then weaned. As the milk of spotted seals contains up to 50% of fat, the pup quickly grows from 10 kilos to 35-40 kilos in a month after birth and becomes big and clumsy. After weaning, it sheds the juvenile white hair; its new hair looks similar to that of adults. Then it starts to lose weight, actively swimming, diving and searching for food.
The right to be rescued
Research data show that about half of the youngsters live less than a year. The animals die both from natural and anthropogenic reasons.
“Natural selection is critical at the very initial stage of their life, it is associated with a genetic disorder. We don’t know why pups die. If a female does not feed her newborn, it might be sick, and her instincts tell her not to do it. But even if the pup looks healthy at first sight, and this mom is just a dummy, it is still a controversial situation. An animal rejected by its parents should not leave progeny, this is a prerequisite for the species’ survival. It means that, if we save this pup and then release it, we may enter ‘bad’ genotype into the gene pool, and thus interfere with the Lord’s work,” the scientist explains.
He is sure that a man has a moral right to rescue a pup if he is absolutely sure that it suffers due to human impact.
A collection of terrible photos that Igor Katin has gathered for years and years of work is really large. Whitecoats smeared in oil, doomed to death because their mothers neglect them due to pungent smell. Adult largas injured after vessel strikes, with scars from ship engines.
Invasion of North Korean fishermen the summer before last became anathema to seals. Kilometres and kilometres of squid nets were sunk in the sea by the poachers. Seals got entangled and died. Katin witnessed one of such cases, drawing a fishing net out of a seal who swallowed it. Who knows how many seals have suffered? In the summer of 2020 North Korean boats did not appear along our coasts. Maybe due to cooperative endeavours of scientists, diplomats and journalists. But fishing nets are still on the bottom…
There is one more cause for the deaths of seals, - microplastics that they intake from the food chain, which clog their intestines.
“These are the problems people may try to solve,” claims the biologist. “And every person can start from himself, at least stop leaving garbage on the shore, because everything left there goes directly to the sea.”
Not rivals
“Human-marine mammal conflicts must not be ignored. Fisherman beat to death the seals that approach their nets; they shoot orcas taking fish from their long lines. But marine mammals are not people, they eat only as much as they need. They won’t hunt the ocean in search for the last remaining fish. Wild predators have never exterminated an entire species. But we, with all our capabilities and fishing gear, we did this in the past and we are ready to do it again,” adds the biologist.
Katin believes that the losses of fishermen may be considered operating costs, and governments should think about subsidiaries and compensations to fisheries.
Marine mammal acoustic research, apart from other useful results, can implement an idea of a special device emitting sounds that frighten animals off from fishing vessels and gear. This work, of course, needs financial support. But it may never be realized, because there’s no investors interested in it.
“If we choose between fishing industry and nature, all risks and consequences should be fairly estimated. For example, how many people are feed by coastal fishing, on the one hand, and how it affects marine areas, on the other? Maybe it is more reasonable to stop this activity or to prohibit specific fishing gear in order to protect nature? Our philosophy is ‘We cannot wait for favours from nature, - we should take them’, and we forget that we took almost everything and very soon there’ll be nothing to take more,” summarizes the scientist.
Anna Bondarenko, Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian Gazette)