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Happy Friday!
This week in ocean news,
...Dot Earth reports that scientists have found yet more evidence of climate change -- an increase in record high temperatures and a reduction in record low nighttime temperatures across the United States.
...As Sea Notes celebrated, the brown pelican, now ubiquitous along the East and West coasts, has been been officially declared recovered and removed from the Endangered Species list decades after its populations were decimated by DDT.
...Wrap your brain around this: scientists have discovered that a species of deep-sea crab, the squat crab, survives on a diet of trees that have sunk to the ocean floor, supporting the theory that when a tree falls in the ocean... there is somebody there to snack on it.
...The fate of bluefin tuna again rested in the hands of The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which met this week in Brazil. Oceana continues to call for a complete moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing.
...A Japanese trawler tipped over when it tried to haul in a catch of several dozen giant Nomura's jellyfish. Yikes.
Baby Beluga Needs an Inuit Name
Since I missed Whale Wednesday yesterday, I'm making up for it today with an update on an adorable Canadian cetacean.
As you may or may not recall, a beluga whale was born at the Vancouver Aquarium this summer. Now she needs a name, and the aquarium is asking for submissions. Here's the rub: the name must be from the Inuit language, Inuktitut, reflecting the beluga's Arctic origins. So that means no "Britney" or "Bathsheba" submissions, people.
I just submitted "illaqtuq" which, I just learned, means "laugh." Belugas have that great high-pitched twitter, after all. And it could be shortened to "Illa." Pretty good, huh?
Grand prize is an encounter with a beluga, and you can submit until Nov. 22.
Sound, Brain and Ocean Waves
Last time we heard from Dr. Wallace "J." Nichols, he sent us wisdom from a coconut. Now he's back with several cool new projects. The first is called Ocean Voices, a website where you can record your own thoughts on the oceans and listen to others' voices, too.
The culmination of the project will be an Ocean Opera performed in June 2010 to kick off World Ocean Month and Jacques Cousteau's 100th Birthday celebration. With more than 300 voices so far, Nichols hopes to get 1000 by the end of this year. Check it out and speak up for the seas!
And then there's his forthcoming book, Oceanophilia, co-authored by Andy Myers. So what is Oceanophilia, you ask? Keep reading and find out, in this post by Nichols from yesterday's Huffington Post:
Oceanophilia: The Neuroscience of Emotion and the Ocean
“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came.” - President John F. KennedyOnce I met a man who hated the ocean. Intensely, he said. He described to me fear, negative associations and a general unease he couldn’t quite put his finger on. His aversion was so strong— especially when measured against my own great, unabashed love for the ocean—that I’ll never forget my bewilderment. Everyone I have ever known loves the ocean. I’m not talking about lower-case “l” kind of love either; the kind that we apply indiscriminately to pop stars, sports teams and chocolate bars. I mean the capital “L” kind of Love; the love that is unfathomable and ineffable, a fusion of respect, understanding, awe, sensuality and mystery.
Kate Walsh Joins Oceana to Save Sea Turtles
Actress Kate Walsh, star of ABC’s “Private Practice,” (and that fantastic Cadillac commercial) has joined Oceana in our campaign to protect sea turtles. Needless to say, we are tickled to have her on board.
Walsh travelled with Oceana scientists to the U.S. Virgin Islands this summer, where she encountered leatherback hatchlings and swam with green sea turtles. (Watch the video below -- she's impressively graceful in the water).
Check out Kate's new website with Oceana, http://oceana.org/turtlesoffthehook, where you can see her new PSA about turtles, photo slideshows and bonus footage, and sign up to join Kate in the fight to get turtles off the hook. Plus, don't forget to check out the interview with Kate in the latest Oceana newsletter.
Kate Walsh Swims With Sea Turtles from Oceana on Vimeo.
Rachel Maddow Loves Sea Turtles
Rachel Maddow, known for her incisive take on American politics, is also, it seems, a fan of sea turtles. In a "Moment of Geek" segment from her show last week, she showed a video of 82 green sea turtle hatchlings at Sea World in San Diego. "All of the world's species of sea turtle are on the endangered list, so there being 82 new little ones in the world is sort of a big turtle-y deal." We couldn't agree more, Rachel. If that makes us geeks, then so be it.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Arctic Protections Finalized
In a definitive victory for the Arctic, the government released final regulations protecting almost 200,000 square miles of U.S. Arctic waters from industrial fishing.
The new regulations, which close all U.S. waters north of Alaska’s Bering Strait to commercial fishing, will be effective starting December 3, 2009. The closure will allow for more time to assess the health of Arctic ocean ecosystems and the potential impacts of large-scale fishing given the impacts the Arctic is already facing from climate change and ocean acidification.
And don't forget the looming threat of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic. Last month the government approved a plan for drilling in the Beaufort Sea next summer, and a similar plan for the Chukchi Sea is currently under review with a decision expected this month.
Conservationists, scientists, and local communities agree that the science-based precautionary approach we have achieved with industiral fishing should be replicated with oil, especially given the higher risks of oil spills in the Arctic and the inability to contain, control or clean up an accident in the icy waters of the Arctic.
Congratulations to everyone who helped make this happen!
Whale Wednesday: Beaked Breakthrough
It's been a while since we started the Whale Wednesday weekly feature, and I don't think beaked whales have ever gotten their day in the spotlight. Today's the day, then, for this mysterious group of cetaceans.
The BBC reports that researchers from Duke University observed the largest group of Arnoux's beaked whales -- around 60 -- ever recorded, off the coast of Antarctica.
Male beaked whales have tusks that emerge from their lower jaws, and in general beaked whales are deep divers. Of the 21 known species of beaked whales, only a few are well-known, including the Cuvier's beaked whale and the Baird's beaked whale.
But their obscurity hasn't made the members of the Ziphiidae family safe from threats. As trawl nets have gone into deeper waters, the enigmatic creatures have become more frequent bycatch victims.
As one of the Duke scientists, Dr. Ari Friedlander, told BBC, "The Arnoux's were a unique and amazing experience. Hopefully this brief glimpse will spawn further work to better understand the species, their distribution and behaviour, and how these animals fit into the larger ecology of the southern ocean."
Sam Waterston on Acidification
Oceana board member Sam Waterston penned an op-ed on the crisis of ocean acidification for CNN.com today. Here's an excerpt:
The current acidification level hasn't been seen for at least 800,000 years, and acidification is coming on 100 times faster than at any point for hundreds of thousands for years. The levels are alarming. The rate of change makes them even scarier, because it so restricts the ability of sea creatures to adapt.
In contrast to the debate that continues about the causal relationship between this or that weather event and human activity, there is no debate about the source of ocean acidification. The change in the chemistry of the ocean is a man-made event, plain and simple, and the consequences of its continuing rise in acidity will belong squarely to us.
It will make for some uncomfortable moments around the dinner table when our children and grandchildren ask, "What did you do in the [climate] war, Daddy?" If we don't recognize the ocean's warning, the first cataclysm from man-made carbon dioxide emissions that will get our attention will be the collapse of the oceans.
If we do recognize the warning, the oceans are ready to be a solution. Power in the tides and waves is there to tap. Offshore wind power is a technology that's ready to go right now, near the great population centers on our coasts, where it's most needed.
EU Court Rules Against Italy for Use of Driftnets
In a big victory for our colleagues in Europe, yesterday the EU Court of Justice found Italy in violation of EU law for the country's continued use of driftnets, a fishing gear banned since 2002.
Driftnets, which float freely, sometimes for miles, are a serious threat to cetaceans, sea turtles, sharks and fish in the Mediterranean. Hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins are killed each year by driftnets.
The day before the decision, Oceana presented its latest report on the use of driftnets in the Mediterranean and stressed that the Court's judgment was an essential step in eradicating the use of the fishing gear.
The Oceana report contains photographs from 2008 of 92 vessels with driftnets on board, 80 percent had already been identified during campaigns in previous years.
Xavier Pastor, Executive Director of Oceana Europe, said, “The judgment is an important milestone in the elimination of driftnets from the Mediterranean. At last we may be moving towards the end of this illegal fishing gear, seven years after the EU banned their use."
Over several years of campaigning in the Mediterranean, Oceana has documented and reported how driftnets, despite the ban, continue to be used, not only in Italy, but also in other areas of the Mediterranean such as Morocco, Turkey, and until recently, France.
Congratulations, Xavier and team!
Whale Wednesday: Talkin' to You
Don't you hate when you're at a party or restaurant, and even without music on, the room grows louder and louder and louder? Until you can barely hear the person standing right next to you? New research shows that sperm whales have evolved to circumvent this cocktail party conundrum.
According to the scientists, whose work will be presented at the Acoustical Society of America next week, the whales are polite conversationalists -- they make a specific effort to keep their calls from overlapping by changing the intervals between their echolocating clicks.
Perhaps humans can try this. It might go something like this:
"Would you - click - like an hors d'oeuvre - click?"
"Yes, one - click - mushroom puff - click - please."
And in other acoustic findings, researchers have discovered the first known instances of male humpback whales singing to one another, similar to songbirds. Whether the whale songs are macho seduction tunes -- like male birdsongs -- is still unclear.
What is clear is that there's a lot we don't know about what's being said and sung under the sea.
