50 



Dr. Grandy. Senator, since I thought this discussion might delve 

 into killer whales in the wild, I have asked Dr. Rose to join me as 

 well. 



Mr. Prescott. As I indicated, I thought I would preface the com- 

 ments a little bit, because I think sometimes the issue of longevity 

 has been misconstrued. We hear terms like lifespans, we compare 

 average lifespans in zoological environments and the wild, and I 

 hopefiilly can set a stage for people to think about the terms. 



It was only a week or two ago that we heard a report that a man 

 lived to be 130 years old. However, if we examine the actuarial ta- 

 bles of the life insurance industry, humans are expected to live to 

 be around 70, and that is an average. That means those people who 

 reach that actuarial, one-half of the population has died. In those 

 actuarial tables we will recognize that there is higher infant mor- 

 tality. I think you will hear from our comments that populations 

 of some marine mammals in zoological environments follow those 

 same patterns. 



Dr. McBain. My name is Dr. Jim McBain. Currently the best 

 available information — and I will have to state right up front that 

 this information is limited, but the best available information sug- 

 gests that marine mammals in general living in oceanariums and 

 marine parks have life expectancies very similar to and oftentimes 

 exceeding those in the wild. 



I would support this statement in the case of killer whales, bot- 

 tle-nose dolphins, and beluga whales by mentioning three papers, 

 three peer-reviewed papers on annual survival rate as well as pop- 

 ulation age distribution. These papers are by Wells and Duffield, 

 DeMasters and Drevenek, and Christiansen. All three of these, the 

 end analyses is that there is no significant difference in the annual 

 survival rates or population age distributions of those species. 



I might also mention that, in thinking of the wild, we cannot 

 really think of it as a paradise. It is a place that has many rigors 

 that animals must endure. As a result of this, killer whales actu- 

 ally experience a 43-percent mortality in the first year of life. 



There is a Canadian advisory committee on marine mammals 

 that was formed to report to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. 

 They concluded that for killer whales and belugas the survival rate 

 in oceanariums appeared to be very close to that in the wild. 



Actually, I might even make one more comment. There was a 

 mention of maximum longevity, and we always need to keep in 

 mind what Mr. Prescott just mentioned, that maximum longevity 

 should never be compared with average longevity, and in the case 

 of the 80-year life expectancy that was mentioned, this comes from 

 a statistical model based upon a 13-year study that as yet has not 

 been peer-reviewed as far as I know. 



Senator Kerry. So, when Dr. Grandy talks about 7 years versus 

 a 30- to 80-year life expectancy, he is well below the average. 



Dr. McBaesi. I have no idea how the 7-year number was cal- 

 culated, but just for the sake of understanding how some of these 

 things can be calculated, as I mentioned, the mortality in the first 

 year of life in the wild for killer whales is 43 percent. Bottle-nose 

 dolphins in the Indian River area of Florida, 64 percent die before 

 they are 10 years old. 



