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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Ms Atherton: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many dead harbour porpoises have been stranded on the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset in each of the past five years; and what the cause of these deaths was. [222863] Mr. Bradshaw: From 1 January 2000 until 17 March 2005 a total of 352 harbour porpoises were stranded on the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. Table 1 gives a breakdown for each county. The number of carcases reported is always higher than the number which are suitable for or actually go to post mortem. I have provided a breakdown for each county for each year, and the causes of death where post mortems were carried out can be found in tables 2 to 4. Strandings data is obtained under the Defra-funded Cetacean and Turtle Strandings Scheme, carried out by the Natural History Museum in partnership with the Institute of Zoology and Scottish Agricultural College. Table 1: Total number of stranded harbour porpoise for 2000-- up to 17 March 2005 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Cornwall 20 25 68 40 114 13 Devon 8 13 5 11 21 9 Dorset 2 2 1 1 0 0 Total 30 40 74 52 135 22 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Table 2: Results of post mortems for harbour porpoise stranded in Cornwall _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Cause of death 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Bycatch 3 3 12 3 26 1 Dystocia or stillborn 0 0 0 0 1 0 Gastropathy and/or 1 0 0 0 0 0 enteropathy Live stranding 0 1 0 0 0 0 Not established 0 2 4 3 2 1 Others 0 0 0 1 0 0 Physical trauma 0 2 0 2 0 1 Physical trauma 0 1 0 0 1 0 (Bottlenose dolphin kills) Pneumonia, parasitic 0 2 2 1 0 1 Pneumonia, parasitic and 0 1 0 0 0 0 bacterial Pneumonia, parasitic and 0 1 0 0 0 0 mycotic Starvation (neonate) 0 0 0 0 1 0 Total 4 13 18 10 31 4 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Table 3: results of post mortems for harbour porpoise stranded in Devon _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Cause of death 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Bycatch 1 3 3 1 0 1 Gastropathy and/or 0 0 0 0 1 0 enteropathy Live stranding 0 0 0 0 1 0 Not established 1 0 0 0 0 0 Physical trauma 0 2 0 0 0 0 Physical trauma 0 0 0 0 2 0 (Bottlenose dolphin kills) Pneumonia, parasitic 1 2 0 0 0 0 Pneumonia, parasitic and 1 0 0 0 0 0 bacterial Total 4 7 3 1 4 1 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Table 4: Results of post mortems for harbour porpoise stranded in Dorset _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Cause of death 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Bycatch 0 1 1 0 0 0 Physical trauma 1 0 0 0 0 0 Physical trauma 0 1 0 0 0 0 (Bottlenose dolphin kills) Total 1 2 1 0 0 0 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

432 c1358W;432 c1354W; 222863

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Devon Cornwall Porpoises South West Dorset

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk