oceans
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Not anytime soon, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals
The brutal practice of shark finning got a boost this week as the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have lost the proceeds from 64,695 pounds of shark fins seized by the Coast Guard in 2002.
Let me repeat that figure: 64,695 pounds of shark fins alone were on that boat. That's the weight of more than eleven Cadillac Escalades. Or eight female African elephants. Or 470 Oxford dictionaries.
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Friendly cetaceans and smelly algae
A federal advisory panel weighed a ban on salmon fishing in California after a dramatic decline in the fishery. "The situation now is unprecedented and off the charts," said the executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council ...
... a University of Tasmania scientist discovered two new types of toxic algae in the Southern Ocean, which he believes must be calculated into fishing quotas to prevent further overfishing ...
... ocean acidification caused the ears of baby damselfish to develop incorrectly ...
... it was discovered that fish that feed on plankton can smell an odor released by algae, and congregate near the source of the scent, since plankton feed on algae ...
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Notable quotable
“Is it all right to hurt humans in order to protect whales? I think whales are cute and important creatures, but even so, hurting humans is unforgivable.” — Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, criticizing anti-whaling activists
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Activist says he was shot in confrontation with whalers
The captain of the radical anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says he was shot in a clash with Japanese whalers on Friday. Paul Watson says he found a bullet in his Kevlar vest; Japan’s fisheries agency disputed the accusation, saying those onboard the whaling ship retaliated with non-lethal flash grenades after activists threw stink bombs […]
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Navy responds
In case you missed it, a Navy Public Affairs Officer has responded to the recent post on Navy sonar and its effects on marine mammals. FYI: “the Navy does not engage in propaganda.”
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Norway says whale consumption is good for the planet
Eating whale meat is better for the planet than eating beef, pork, or chicken, according to a comparative carbon-emissions calculation by Norwegian lobbying group the High North Alliance. Says the alliance’s Rune Froevik, in what may be a bit of an exaggeration, “Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the […]
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Propaganda soft-pedals sonar impacts on marine mammals
The following is a guest post from a friend of mine, Michael Stocker, director of Ocean Conservation Research. —– When it comes to national security interests, I can accept a little obfuscation by our military. But with the recent U.S. Navy press activities on the effects of active sonar on marine life, they are puttin’ […]
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Even more numbers to illuminate the vast ocean
Perhaps because it was released the same week as Ben Halpern and colleagues' excellent human impacts map, the new U.N. report "In Dead Water" has been met with little fanfare. It's too bad, because the report is a natural complement to the scientists' graphic illustration of the intersection between humans and the seas.
"In Dead Water" takes a big-picture look at the five primary threats facing the oceans: pollution, climate change, overfishing, invasive species, and habitat loss. You can download the report here (PDF); I plucked out some of its major findings in an oceanic ode to the Harper's Index. With apologies to Lewis Lapham:
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Tracking whaling ships and whale sharks
Anti-whaling activists planted tracking devices on Japanese whaling ships as part of a campaign to disrupt the annual hunt, and the Australian customs ship that had been monitoring the hunt returned to port with photographs and video to use for future legal action ...
... a study showed that commercial fishing forced fish to evolve into meeker, less active creatures that carry fewer eggs. Bolder and more adventuresome fish were more likely to be caught by gillnets ...
... the butterflyfish, a common resident of coral reefs, was in danger of extinction because it could only eat one species of coral, Acropora hyacinthus, which is highly vulnerable ...
