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Marine Life Stirs
Ocean Enough to Affect Climate Oceanographers worldwide pay close attention to phytoplankton and with good reason. The microscopic plants that form the vast foundation of the marine food chain generate a staggering amount of power, and now a groundbreaking study led by Florida State University has calculated just how much –– about five times the annual total power consumption of the human world. Physical and biological oceanographers led by FSU Professor William Dewar put the yearly amount of chemical power stored by phytoplankton in the form of new organic matter at roughly 63 terawatts, and that’s a lot of juice: Just one terawatt equals a trillion watts. In 2001, humans collectively consumed a comparatively measly 13.5 terawatts. United
States: UPDATE
5-Strong quake hits Hawaii, no tsunami warning A powerful earthquake and
repeated aftershocks rattled Hawaii on Sunday, knocking out power and
unnerving residents and vacationers but causing no injuries or
extensive structural damage, agencies reported. Mexico:Gray
whales' spectacular comeback The story of the gray whale of Baja California is one of the great ecological comebacks of this century. Under governmental protection for just 60 years, the grays have rebounded from near-extinction to a group of 20,000, perhaps their original number. The grays that winter in Baja and summer in Alaska are most
properly called the California-Chukotka population of gray whales,
according to the Oceanic Society Field Guide to the Gray Whale. This is
the only group that survives in substantial numbers; the Atlantic gray
whale has long been hunted to extinction, and the Korean stock is at
near-extinction levels. Jamaica:
Foreigners
reeling in profits from Jamaica's fishing waters More than two decades after the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea gave Jamaica a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the waters south of the island, it is foreigners, rather than Jamaicans, who are reeling in the catch of nearly J$50 billion a year, by some estimates. And as these vessels, from neighbouring countries as far away as Japan and South Korea in Asia, reap this benefit, more and more Jamaican fishermen chase fewer and fewer fish, mostly in coastal waters, for a national industry worth about $6.6 billion a year, or merely a sixth of what the foreigners take away. Madagascar:
Survey:
Madagascar Coral Reefs Damaged A new survey of coral reefs along Madagascar's southwestern coast found massive damage from coral bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures, researchers said Thursday. However,
the survey team, funded by Conservation International and led by the
conservation groups Blue Ventures and the Wildlife Conservation Society, said
scientists also discovered several small reefs with corals that
appeared to be resilient to rising sea temperatures and that could be
used to reseed damaged reefs. Russia:
In
Russia's east, a bid to save the salmon UTKHOLOK RIVER BIOLOGICAL
STATION, Russia The
wild salmon still rush the dark Utkholok and other rivers on Kamchatka,
one of the last salmon strongholds on earth. They surge in spring and
pulse in for months, often side by side in run after run. All six native species of Pacific salmon remain abundant on this eastern Russian peninsula, scientists say, appearing by the tens of millions to spawn in its free-running watersheds. Even in the chill of October they come: coho and a trickle of sockeye, mixed with sea-run trout and char. Now, in a country with a dreary environmental record that is engaged in a rush to extract its resources, the peninsula's governments are at work on proposals that would designate seven sprawling tracts of wilderness as protected areas for salmon, a network of refuges for highly valuable fish that would be the first of its kind. Canada:
Atlantic
Ministers Agree to Shared Objectives for the Atlantic Fisheries Industry Yellowknife, NWT – Ministers from the Atlantic Provinces, Quebec and Nunavut gathered in Yellowknife this week at a meeting of the Atlantic Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers (ACFAM). The meeting, co-chaired by Loyola Hearn, federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Tom Rideout, Newfoundland and Labrador Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, followed a meeting of the Canadian Council, which also met in Yellowknife. "It is of great significance for representatives of all
Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Nunavut to come together to discuss our
fishing and aquaculture industries. We share a dependence on these
industries," said Minister Rideout. "We are all facing challenges
within those industries, some similar, yet some unique, and we all need
to discuss possible solutions and new opportunities for moving forward.
In that regard, our discussion was very productive." United
Kingdom: UK
aquarium in native stony coral study A leading UK public aquarium has obtained specimens of an unusual stony coral found in the deep, cold waters off the north west coast of Britain in an effort to learn more about the biology of the species. Hull aquarium, The Deep, worked with BP and the British Antarctic Survey Team to obtain specimens of Lophelia pertusa, a CITES Appendix II listed hard coral that forms large coral reefs not in the tropics but in deep, cold waters of the North Atlantic - including the coast of western Britain. Lophelia pertusa lives at depths of between
400-1000m/1312-3281 ft, far beyond the reach of sunlight, where it
feeds on particles in the water column. Russia:
Russian
shipbuilder to start making 4th-generation submarine Admiralty Shipyards, a St. Petersburg-based company, said
Thursday it would start the construction of a fourth-generation
diesel-electric submarine in November. United
States: Off
Alaska, marine life is under pressure ON THE BERING SEA -- Crab fisherman Wayne Baker was holed up
in the tiny Alaskan harbor of St. Paul Island, waiting for a break in
the weather. Canada:
Canada
Fights Ban
on "Bulldozers of the Sea" "Canada's attitude towards the oceans is
embarrassing and archaic," said Elliott Norse, president of the Marine
Conservation Biology Institute, a scientific environmental group in
Washington State. United States: Salmon
fishing returns to Maine EDDINGTON, Maine -- Just two decades ago, anglers from as far away as Japan and South Africa would wait their turns along the Penobscot River for a chance to cast a line at what many regard as the king of game fish. But on a recent day in the nation's first wild Atlantic salmon season in more than six years, on a bright, breezy morning with hints of colorful autumn foliage, Pete Brunner had the river pretty much to himself. "I was a little surprised that no one was here this morning,"
said Brunner, who frequented the salmon fishery during its heyday in
the 1980s. Dolphin-friendly
tuna? Don't believe it Where would we be without a tin of tuna? In many kitchen cupboards the ever-ready tuna chunks have become the 21st century's answer to baked beans: quick, tasty, brimming with fatty acids and other healthy things. Sainsbury's alone sells 665,000 tins a week. What is more, this bottomless thirst for tuna fish is shared by most of the world. Between us we ate roughly four million tons of tuna last year. On many cans you will spot a "dolphin friendly" logo. In the
1990s tuna fleets were forced to clean up their act by fitting all nets
with special hatches through which accidentally caught cetaceans could
escape. These measures were successful, as far as they went, and have
created the legend that tuna is a "green" food, healthy for us, healthy
for the environment. Hence that happy dolphin. United
States: SCIENTISTS
CREATE HIGH-RESOLUTION COASTAL RELIEF MODELS FOR IMPROVED TSUNAMI
FORECASTING A team of scientists is contributing a crucial step in NOAA's effort to prepare U.S. coastal communities for tsunami and storm-driven flooding. Scientists with the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences—both based in Boulder, Colo.—are creating high-resolution digital elevation models, or DEMs, designed to improve forecasting for early tsunami warning systems. The DEMs are constructed from near-shore seafloor depth and land elevation data to create detailed representations of coastal relief. They provide the underlying framework necessary to accurately forecast the magnitude and extent of coastal flooding during a tsunami event. Australia:
Protect
the Kakadu of the deep Ninety per cent of the world’s oceans are unexplored and only a tiny 0.0001 per cent of the biology of the deep sea floor has been investigated, but the limited studies to date of these cold, deep, dark places find many wonderful surprises. Amazing new species, colourful luminescent life, cold water coral reefs 8,500 years old - 35m high, 40kms long and 3kms wide. Fantastical and beautiful. Yet the mostly undiscovered worlds of the deep sea are already being destroyed by bottom trawling. The most destructive type of fishing in the world, bottom
trawling involves dragging huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy
rollers across the seabed. The nets crush everything in their path,
including ancient coral, and sweep up hundreds of bottom dwelling
creatures along with the target fish species like orange roughy. The
process is like clear-felling a forest. Federal fisheries managers are violating the Endangered Species Act by allowing fishermen to catch Puget Sound chinook salmon supposedly protected under the law, fishing and conservation groups claimed in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Depending on the run, up to 76 percent of the wild fish are caught, either in Puget Sound or in the Pacific, before they can return to spawn. And new information indicates they're getting hit much harder in Canada than previously thought, the plaintiffs said. Namibia:
Marine
conservation progress welcomed The South East Atlantic Fisheries
Organisation (SEAFO) has pledged to apply a number of new marine
conservation measures at its annual meeting this week, winning praise
from the European Union. The EU’s proposal to shut down certain
fisheries in areas with sensitive features such as seamounts between
2007 and 2010 was approved at the Namibia-hosted event, boosting
protection in the region. United
States: Deep
safeguards Cynics will say that President Bush's call for a halt to sea-floor dredge fishing is politically motivated. Perhaps. This is the same administration that has appealed to its base by downplaying the hazards of global warming and has responded to a worrisome mercury threat with a pollution-trading scheme. It was past time to tilt in the other direction. Yet any progress on the environmental front amounts to a win for the nation, and the policy shift on seabed dredging is encouraging on the international stage as well. The president last week signed a memorandum that says the
United States will work to eliminate or better regulate practices such
as bottom trawling that devastate fish populations and ruin the ocean
floor. The State and Commerce departments were directed to promote
"sustainable" fisheries, an environmental goal that rarely has crossed
conservatives' lips despite its obvious good sense. A biologically rich coral island chain in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii, which President Bush designated as a marine national monument, is under assault from floating garbage ranging from plastic bottlecaps to baby diapers. Hailed by environmentalists as
one of the president's most enduring contributions to the environment,
the Montana-sized monument includes uninhabited islands home to some
7,000 marine species, at least a quarter of which are found nowhere
else on earth. Canada: Foreign
fishing: Seeking the facts What can and should be done about foreign fishing
beyond the 200-mile limit? That question will be the subject of
hearings this month and next by the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans. India:US
military exercises aimed at improving counterterrorism skills About 300 soldiers from the two countries will participate in
the exercises beginning Oct. 25 in the southwestern Indian city of
Belgaum, Indian army spokesman Col. S.K. Sakhuja said. The 10-day exercises are to be conducted in an urban environment and focus on joint combat drills and procedures in counterterrorism operations, Col. Sakhuja said. Coral
Reef Conservation By Means Of The Global Network Of Marine Protected
Areas Worldwide, the biodiversity of coral reefs is threatened and
the existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are not sufficient to ensure
their conservation. Work published in Science magazine shows that only
a very small proportion of coral reefs, 2%, is located in places that
meet the requirements of the legislation (level of protection, possible
hazards, size and isolation of reefs). In fact, less than 0.1% of reefs
are really protected from all types of extraction, whether legal or
illicit. The research was conducted by researchers from the University
of Auckland (New Zealand), working with six institutions, including the
IRD in Noumea. The research teams recommend the setting-up of an ideal
network of MPAs built according to criteria of size and distance
between sites in order to conserve the biodiversity of coral reefs. For
reserves of 10 to 20 km2 diameter, 15 km apart, more than 2500 new MPAs
would have to be created if there is to be any hope of conserving even
5% of the Earth’s coral reefs. Hotter temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate
Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at
risk from infectious disease, according to a climate change report
released Monday. Pacific countries are being warned about a suspected pirate fishing boat that has fled Kiribati authorities and run to the high seas. Greenpeace is calling for all Pacific Island countries to keep an eye out for, and to investigate on sight, the Dongwon 117, which is Korean owned . The fishing boat has been at sea for over a year, and has
consistently failed to report to relevant authorities, which means
there is no way of knowing where the ship has been, nor how much it has
caught. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel nabbed a Costa Rican fishing boat carrying 3.5 tonnes of cocaine off the Pacific coast of Guatemala, a record haul in the region, police said on Monday. Four Costa Ricans were arrested last Thursday aboard the fishing vessel after it was stopped in international waters, said Gerardo Lazcares, Costa Rican vice minister of security. "We believe it is the largest shipment found in Central
America," he said, adding the Coast Guard vessel towed the fishing boat
into Costa Rica's Pacific Port of Puntarenas. The Pacific Island Governments have been encouraged by Greenpeace to develop a national plan of action that implements the latest international laws against pirate fishing to stop foreign vessels fishing illegally in their Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ). Greenpeace Australia Pacific Oceans Teams leader Nilesh
Goundar said pirate fishers were becoming courageous by the day as last
week saw a American pirate vessel fined by the Cook Islands High
Court(1) and a suspected pirate vessel fleeing from Kiribati officials
in a joint surveillance exercise with Greenpeace(2). Kenya:
US
donates boats to secure Kenya’s Coastline The Kenya Navy has stepped up patrols on the Kenyan coastline to stave off maritime threats including terrorism, arms and drugs trafficking. It is buoyed by a donation of six powerful armoured speedboats
worth Sh216 million from the United States to enhance its efforts to
police the country’s territorial waters. The vessels — five 25-foot (eight-metre) "Defender" class
boats and one 42-foot (13-metre) "Archangel" class boat — along with
equipment, supplies and training were turned over to the Kenya Navy on
Friday at their headquarters in Mombasa. Malta:
Malta
not the culprit in tuna over-fishing – Frans Agius Parliamentary Secretary Frans Agius has defended Malta’s
tarnished image in a WWF report on the exploitation of bluefin tuna
resources in the Mediterranean Sea, warning of the collapse of tuna
stocks. Canada:
Cracking
down on drift-net fishing
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - Oct. 6, 2006) - Canada's New
Government is seeking to keep the right balance between the needs of
coastal communities and the needs of our oceans to ensure both thrive.
We are working with other fishing nations to find solutions that
respect our environment and respect those who make their living on the
sea. Mediterranean: Mediterranean
bluefin tuna fishing spiralling out of control Rome, Italy – Evidence that Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishing
is spiralling out of control emerged today as scientists from around
the world met to discuss the status of the fishery. Canada:
Millions
of salmon vanish Only half of expected sockeye return It's a new case of missing salmon on the Fraser River. This time fisheries managers have lost track of close to five million sockeye that were expected to return but simply haven't shown up. It's now estimated that just 8.7 million sockeye returned to the Fraser this year. That's a drop of 4.6 million since early September, when
officials were projecting 13.3 million. And the previous number had
been stepped down throughout the summer from the pre-season estimate of
17.4 million sockeye for 2006. Asia:Russia
to Participate in Japan-led Fight Against Sea Piracy in Asia Russia is keen to cooperate with a Japan-initiated multilateral scheme for Asian countries to combat sea piracy in the region, Singapore’s Defense Ministry is quoted by Kyodo News Thursday. The scheme, called the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia, came into force earlier this month with 11 countries on board. Russia has expressed interest in cooperating with the group’s Singapore-based Information Sharing Center, which will be launched in November this year. |
