Casting a wide net for an ocean rescue

Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle

Originally published on page E-10, Sunday, March 28, 2010.

The rumor seemed to gain a life of its own in the blogosphere: President Obama was poised to ban sportfishing in America. The source of the misinformation was a column earlier this month on ESPNOutdoors.com, which quickly admitted to "several errors in the editing and presentation" of a commentary on President Obama's Ocean Policy Task Force. But the correction could not stop right-wing bloggers and even some members of Congress from seizing on what they viewed as a "gotcha" moment against the president.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, has been following the task force's work closely - and with great hope that it could help the nation's fisheries. He knew the rumor was nonsense, yet he was surprised to hear it parroted with concern last week by a friend who was also the longtime owner of a charter boat.

"The fishing industry is not immune from Tea Baggers," Grader observed.

In truth, the Obama administration's designs for a comprehensive ocean management plan could be just what the fishing industry needs to preserve its rightful place in waters where the activities of other interests are often in direct conflict with the health of the fisheries. Also, the 24 federal agencies and myriad state and local regulators that oversee ocean activities sometimes end up working at cross purposes.

Under the task force plan, the federal government would set up an "ecosystem based" approach to replace the piecemeal regulation of the ocean - including everything from shipping and oil and gas exploration to aquaculture and the development of renewable energy from waves or wind. The comprehensive management system would apply to oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes.

A 2003 Pew Oceans Commission report had found America's oceans to be "in crisis" as a result of escalating damage to fisheries, wetlands, coral, beaches and water quality. Since then, the threat to ocean health has only intensified with the pressures to develop oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, along with a growing push to tap wave power and site wind turbines off the East Coast.

In California, of course, the ocean is not only a defining element of the state's aesthetic appeal, it is a major component of its economy.

The proposed National Ocean Policy would elevate conservation as a priority - and science as a guiding principle - in trying to balance the conflicting pressures on the ocean. It would establish nine regional planning bodies to bring the various interests together.

Some recreational fishing advocates have pointed to the task force call for "ecosystem based management as a foundational principle" as a cause for concern.

But Grader, who has seen the fisheries crises created in California as a result of narrow and short-term thinking, argued that a more holistic approach is exactly what is needed.

"When you look at marine zoning and how to provide for various uses, yes, there is a chance it will get zoned out of certain areas," he said. But there is also a good chance that a comprehensive strategy will result in better protection of "areas we really care about," he added.

Hundreds of marine scientists recently wrote a letter to the president urging him to sign an executive order creating the nation's first National Ocean Policy.

"Unfortunately, federal agencies have long focused mainly on their individual mandates rather than the overall health of our oceans ... a National Ocean Policy needs to direct federal agencies unambiguously to work together effectively to protect, maintain and restore the diversity and productivity of America's marine ecosystems as economic activities in our oceans expand," the scientists told Obama.

As they noted, federal policy must reflect the "new scientific understanding of our oceans' values and vulnerabilities." The comprehensive approach makes sense, and should be a blessing, not a threat, to men and women who fish for joy, for a living - or both.

Seabed biodiversity in oxygen minimum zones

Abundant populations of the deep-sea spider crab Encephaloides armstrongi from c. 1,000 m (lower boundary OMZ) in the Gulf of Oman and the dead bodies of large upper-ocean jellyfish (Crambionella orsini) which can occur in plague proportions in the Gulf of Oman. (Credit: NOCS/NERC)

Oxygen minimum zones

Some regions of the deep ocean floor support abundant populations of organisms, despite being overlain by water that contains very little oxygen, according to an international study led by scientists at the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. But global warming is likely to exacerbate oxygen depletion and thereby reduce biodiversity in these regions, they warn.

The sunlit surface waters tend to be well oxygenated as a result of their connection with the atmosphere. Here, tiny marine algae called phytoplankton thrive. When they die and sink, they are degraded by bacteria, using oxygen from the water column.

In regions of high plant growth, this can result in the natural development of mid-water oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), especially where oxygen is not replenished by mixing of the water column. Where they touch the continental slope, OMZs create strong seafloor oxygen gradients at depths between 100 and 1000 m.

In addition to low oxygen, sediments within OMZs often contain large amounts of organic matter. As a result, species of animals and protozoans (foraminifera) that can tolerate low oxygen may flourish, despite the stressful conditions. However, if oxygen depletion is very severe, many types of animals disappear. Where animals are present, OMZs provide a variety of habitats created by steep gradients in oxygen and sulphide concentrations, different seafloor types, and variations in acidity and nutrient availability.

In this new synthesis, based on a survey of published and unpublished data, the team of researchers analysed the habitats and biodiversity of well-developed OMZs in the Arabian Sea, eastern Pacific and Bay of Bengal.

"Oxygen seems to be the overriding factor controlling biological diversity and seabed community composition within OMZ core regions," said Professor Andrew Gooday of NOCS: "Where oxygen levels increase, the strong seafloor gradients create variety that exerts an increasingly important influence, with different habitat types supporting different kinds of organisms. In particular, the lower boundaries of OMZs, where oxygen levels begin to rise and food is plentiful, often teem with large organisms, among them brittle stars and spider crabs."

On some continental margins, exposed rocks support encrusting animals, while muddy regions with organic-rich sediments support tube-living organisms and bacterial mats. Movements of the upper boundaries of OMZs, caused by seasonal or longer-term climatic changes, may cause sudden shifts in community composition.

The activities and bodies of some organisms also create opportunities for others. Even the dead play their role.

"The skeletons and carcasses of marine animals provide discrete habitats where other creatures can thrive," said NOCS' Dr Brian Bett: "For example, scavengers such as shrimp-like crustaceans exploit accumulations of dead jellyfish, fish and crabs, while other species live off whale bones."

Although the upper boundaries of OMZs can move up and down in response to climatic changes, the core regions of OMZs are typically very stable, persisting over geological timescales.

"OMZs may be a cradle of biological diversity, promoting speciation by creating strong gradients in the environmental conditions that are important for species as well as barriers to population exchange," explained Gooday, while acknowledging that this needs to be fully investigated using molecular techniques.

Although diversity is strongly depressed locally, particularly in OMZ cores, the researchers conclude that, on balance, OMZs probably enhance regional diversity because they tend to increase environmental variety. In addition, low oxygen concentrations promote adaptations, such as small body size and enlarged body surfaces, which enhance oxygen uptake.

However, global climate change presents a major threat –

"Increased ocean temperature is expected to reduce vertical water mixing and decrease oxygen solubility in seawater," said Bett: "If this results in larger, more intense OMZs, the impact on biodiversity is likely to be negative."

[read more]

Scientists watch whale’s birth near Navy training range

Derecha, a right whale spotted off St. Johns County, gave birth Saturday. (Photo taken under NOAA Scientific Permit No.948-1962 to UNC-Wilmington. Provided by University of North Carolina-Wilmington)

It was only the second time a right whale's birth has been seen and studied.

Florida Times-Union
By Steve Patterson. Posted March 23, 2010

Scientists surveying the area near a planned Navy training range said Tuesday they witnessed an endangered right whale giving birth off the Northeast Florida coast.

It was only the second time a right whale's birth has been seen and studied, and it gave researchers new insights into the lives of some of the world's most endangered mammals. It also gave hope to environmental groups that sued to stop the Navy's plans.

Amazed researchers in a small plane lingered for nearly a half-hour Saturday as a whale that scientists knew as Derecha churned the ocean surface east of Vilano Beach and dove underwater, replaced at the surface minutes later by her newborn.

The discovery was made within several miles of the rectangular patch of sea the Navy selected last year for construction of an undersea warfare range. The exact distance wasn't clear, but appeared to be somewhere near 10 miles.

"It was near the box ... [but] drawing a line in the ocean is a difficult thing," said William McLellan, a University of North Carolina-Wilmington research associate overseeing Navy-financed survey work done with Duke University.

The Florida-Georgia coast is the only known calving ground for right whales, which gather each winter after traveling from New England and Canada.

From a total population of about 450, more than 100 whales migrated to the area this winter.

Environmental advocates, who have warned that ship traffic and sonar use at the training range could imperil the whales, said the discovery reinforces their concerns.

"The Navy needs to go back to square one and reconsider," said Sharon Young, marine issues field director for the Humane Society of the United States. The group is one of several that sued in January to challenge the training range plans.

"This birth, which is just the most amazing thing, ought to give us pause," said Young, a former marine scientist.

Although whales are usually reported in shallow waters closer to shore, the Navy's range project manager said some were expected to be in and around the training area.

"The fact that there's a birth was something a little unexpected. We all agree it's a good thing," said Jene Nissen, the project manager.

He said the discovery would become part of a body of research that will factor into decisions about use of the range that is planned about 50 nautical miles -- 58 miles -- east of Jacksonville.

[read more]

An ocean policy for the future

An op-ed by MCBI President Elliott A. Norse:

The 2010 Winter Olympics gave "The Great One," hockey player Wayne Gretzky, the honor of lighting the Olympic Cauldron. Seeing him reminded me of his famous quote: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."

As in hockey, success in ocean policy comes from foresight, communication and willingness to take a hit for the good of the team. President Obama should heed Gretzky's advice as he leads our nation toward an ocean policy to recover the health of America's oceans and generate needed American jobs. Our oceans and coasts are still governed by a hodgepodge of 140 different federal laws and 20 different federal agencies, each with different goals and often conflicting mandates.

Recently the Obama administration proposed our country's first National Ocean Policy to improve coordination among federal, state, tribal and local authorities for managing activities in our coastal, Great Lakes and ocean waters.

This is crucial because the way America has governed our oceans reflects the outmoded perspective that scientists, legislators and the public held from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Back then, almost everyone believed that oceans were invulnerable, that the biggest challenges were how best to use their "assimilative capacity" for pollutants, while encouraging "full utilization" of their seemingly limitless resources.

Federal policies rested on the belief that humankind could not hurt the oceans. This led each agency to champion special interests, rather than protecting the public's interest in healthy oceans. Individual agencies aided shipping or oil drilling or fisheries or pollution prevention. But nobody was in charge of protecting our oceans. Maybe that made sense when people thought they didn't need protecting.

Now we know better. In my 1993 book "Global Marine Biological Diversity," 106 scientists and policy experts detailed how our oceans are in trouble. Five years later, 1,605 scientists released "Troubled Waters: A Call for Action" on Capitol Hill, proclaiming publicly that our oceans are imperiled. Since then, almost everywhere my fellow scientists have looked, the bottom line is the same: Our oceans' health is declining.

Pollution that once didn't seem problematic (nutrients, noise, plastics, endocrine disruptors and carbon dioxide-caused acidification) is now harming marine species and ecosystems. The abalone I fished for 40 years ago are now endangered species. Marine life including corals, sharks and Hawaiian monk seals now face increasing risk due to our management failures. And looming over all are the profound impacts of human-caused climate change.

If current trends continue, the time will soon come when bluefin tunas are as rare as California condors. Recreational and commercial fishermen, conservationists and shippers, scientists and energy producers want to avoid that. As a sportfisherman since age 5, who began snorkeling at age 8, got a doctorate in marine biology at 28 and who wants to eat wild salmon at 62, I have a big stake in diverse, productive oceans.

And this isn't just about you and me: My three grandchildren and all children deserve oceans filled with life in which to swim, fish, whale-watch or scuba dive. Expanded, more intense uses of our oceans require new, more effective ways of thinking and acting. We must make room for all legitimate ocean interests that can win public support in their regions. And we must do ecosystem-based planning to recover marine ecosystems and generate new jobs. It's not either/or; it's got to be both.

To do this, however, we need our government to listen, really listen, to the concerns of public interests and ocean users, from Hawaii to Iowa. The old siloed approach to marine issues - with every government agency pushing its pet interests while ignoring others' issues and the bigger picture - must end now. Our National Ocean Policy needs to be a unifying framework to strengthen our country's ability to recover the health of coastal and ocean ecosystems, and ensure sustainable development of our marine resources.

Because policymaking, like hockey, is a team sport, we need our federal agencies to work together to benefit all Americans. We will all be winners when manage our oceans for where they should be, rather than where they've been headed until now.

Read the full op-ed...

Bottomfish and Lobster Fisheries Permanently Closed at Papahanaumokuakea Monument

Reported by: Ron Mizutani, KOHN2

Bottomfish and lobster fisheries scheduled to close in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument next June have permanently shut down more than a year in advance. But it came with a price tag, essentially a buyout of 22 permits to the tune of $6 million.

The creation of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in 2006 had a ripple affect on fisheries across the globe. The proclamation called for commercial bottomfishing to phase out by 2011.

"The proclamation when the monument was established allowed bottomfishing to continue to occur until June 15th 2011," said Michael Tosatto, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Deputy Regional Administrator.

Eight active vessels were allowed to fish until then, while the lobster fishery was closed immediately. But in 2008, congress introduced a program to speed up the process, saving thousands of pounds of fish from being caught.

"I think the resource agencies looked at that continued extraction as if it could end sooner it would be beneficial to that ecosystem," said Tosatto.

Read more...

U.N. Rejects Export Ban on Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Fish dealers with bluefin tuna at a market in Tokyo on Thursday. (Photo: Koji Sasahara/Associated Press)

The New York Times - By DAVID JOLLY and JOHN M. BRODER.

Published: March 18, 2010

Delegates at a United Nations conference on endangered species in Doha, Qatar, soundly defeated American-supported proposals on Thursday to ban international trade in bluefin tuna and to protect polar bears.

Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin, a fish prized especially by Japanese sushi lovers for its fatty belly flesh, have been severely depleted by years of heavy commercial fishing, while polar bears are considered threatened by hunting and the loss of sea ice because of global warming. The United States tried unsuccessfully to persuade delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or Cites, to provide strong international protection for the two species.

“It wasn’t a very good day for conservation,” said Juan Carlos Vásquez, a spokesman for the United Nations organization. “It shows the governments are not ready to adopt trade bans as a way to protect species.”

Delegates voted down the proposal to protect bluefin by 68 to 20, with 30 abstentions. The polar bear measure failed by 62 to 48, with 11 abstentions.

The rejection of the bluefin proposal was a clear victory for the Japanese government, which had vowed to go all out to stop the measure or else exempt itself from complying with it. Japan, which consumes nearly 80 percent of the bluefin catch, argued that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat, should be responsible for regulating the fishery, not the United Nations. European Union nations, whose fleets are most responsible for the overfishing of bluefin, abstained from voting in the second round after their own watered-down proposal was rejected.

American officials expressed disappointment in the vote, but said they would keep trying in various international forums to protect the tuna and the bears.

“The bluefin tuna is an iconic fish species,” said Tom Strickland, assistant secretary of the interior for fish and wildlife and parks. “The science is compelling, the statistics are dramatic. That species is in spectacular decline.”

He said that the United States had recently declared the polar bear population to be threatened by loss of its sea ice habitat to melting. The Interior Department, he said, had designated 200,000 acres of Arctic ice as critical habitat in need of protection.

“We believe the bear is under great pressure,” he said from Washington. “It should not be traded internationally.”

Canada, Greenland and several indigenous communities, which led the effort to defeat the proposal to protect the polar bear, contended that the bear population was healthy and that it could sustain limited hunting and trade in pelts and body parts.

While there is near-universal agreement that the bluefin stocks are in danger, Japan’s argument resonated with other fishing nations, which were uneasy about what would have been the first intrusion of the endangered species convention into a major commercial fishery.

[read more]

Iron fertilization in ocean nourishes toxic algae

Micro mug shot: The exoskeleton of a toxin-producing diatom Pseudonitzschia turgidula. The phytoplankton species proliferates when fed dissolved iron, a finding that reveals a potential downside of attempts to sequester carbon by fertilizing the ocean. (Credit: Brian Bill, NOAA/SFSU)

Carbon sequestration efforts could trigger harmful algal blooms

Sid Perkins,

Science News Web edition : Monday, March 15th, 2010

A plan to combat global warming by fertilizing the ocean may backfire by triggering toxic algal blooms, a new study suggests.

Scientists have known for decades that dumping iron in the ocean, especially in areas where that nutrient is in short supply, stimulates the growth of algae and other phytoplankton. These tiny organisms pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, prompting research on the potential of iron fertilization to pull the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and scuttle it in the deep sea as sunken algae.

But some researchers, besides wondering about the long-term effectiveness of such efforts, have questioned whether such schemes might have unintended side effects, says Charles Trick, a biological oceanographer at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Now, Trick and his colleagues report online the week of March 15 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that fertilizing the ocean with iron can stimulate algae that make a neurotoxin called domoic acid.

The amounts of domoic acid produced don’t rise to levels known to be toxic to krill and other species that feed on Pseudonitzschia, Trick notes. And the areas where iron fertilization would typically take place are relatively barren zones far from fisheries. Nevertheless, he notes, the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of the neurotoxin are unknown.

The new study is “less a prediction of ecological doom than it is a lesson about not knowing the consequences of our actions,” Trick adds.

In nearshore areas where nutrients are plentiful, algae of the genus Pseudonitzschia — diatoms that release domoic acid as they proliferate — sometimes undergo harmful blooms, Trick says. But open-ocean species of Pseudonitzschia have previously been considered nontoxic.

Sensitive chemical analyses in the new study reveal that open-ocean species of Pseudonitzschia may not be totally harmless. Two species of the diatom produced domoic acid in shipboard experiments.

[read more]

Installing Meters at the Beach

The best part about going to the beach is that it's usually free. But, should it be?

By: Danna Staaf | March 11, 2010 |Miller-McCune.com

Economic models can illuminate the monetary value of beaches and mangroves, but if local people aren’t engaged in conservation, market forces — and coastal ecosystems — may be dead in the water.

Pillows of warm sand, sparkling blue-green waves and the sun beaming over all — who doesn’t love a trip to the beach? Whether it’s California, Jamaica or Kenya, vacationers flock to these iconic interfaces between land and sea. Something about sun, sand and surf holds the human imagination captive.

Perhaps the best part: Beaches are usually free.

But should they be?

In addition to providing the obvious recreational opportunities to sunbathe, swim and fly kites, beaches buffer the coastline from erosion and provide habitat for marine creatures. These benefits are referred to as ecosystem services, and they have long been recognized in inland environments, not just theoretically but economically. Through payment for ecosystem services, also known as PES, forested land can bring its owners money for everything from timber to aesthetic value to the trees’ removal of atmospheric carbon.

Is it time to extend the same concept to coastal land, like beaches, and even to the open ocean, where microscopic algae soak up carbon and produce oxygen in impressive quantities?

This question was the focus of the most recent meeting of the Katoomba Group, an international network of people and organizations working on PES. Brainchild of the conservation nonprofit Forest Trends and named for the location of its first meeting in 1999 in New South Wales, Australia, the Katoomba Group promotes PES through conferences, like February’s meeting in Palo Alto, Calif., and through articles on its Web site, Ecosystem Marketplace.

Other Katoomba meetings have produced action plans and test projects, but for Katoomba’s first foray into the marine arena, the February meeting was mostly an educational and networking opportunity for participants. The smorgasbord of panels, meant to showcase all possible applications of PES at sea, covered topics from fishery management to alternative energy to coastal development. Panelists came from around the world and included scientists, government officials, activists and private investors.

Despite criticism on both ethical and practical grounds, payment for ecosystem services is finding support among academic, public and private sectors. On land or sea, PES always struggles with two big questions: Who pays? And who gets paid?

People benefiting from ecosystem services can’t give money directly to the ecosystem; a beach doesn’t know what to do with a handful of greenbacks. So Erin Hughes, senior program officer at the conservation organization Winrock International, answers this way: “Whoever has the control and is damaging the resource — you pay them to stop.”

[read more]

The new species of Grania discovered off the Gullmarsfjord. (Credit: Pierre De Wit)

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2010) — Between the grains of sand on the sea floor there is an unknown and unexplored world. Pierre De Wit at Gothenburg University knows this well, and has found new animal species on the Great Barrier Reef, in New Caledonia, and in the sea off the Gullmarsfjord in the Swedish county of Bohuslän.

The layer of sand on ocean floor is home to a large part of the vast diversity of marine species. Species representing almost all classes of marine animals live here. The genus Grania, which belongs to the class of annelid worms Clitellata, is one of them.

Grania the globetrotter

Grania is a worm around two centimetres in length and mostly white, which is encountered in marine sand throughout the world, from the tidal zone to deep down in the ocean. The researcher Pierre De Wit, at the Department of Zoology of the University of Gothenburg, is analysing exactly how many species of Grania there are and how they are related to other organisms.

Four new species

De Wit has conducted studies at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where he and his colleagues have found four entirely new species of the Grania worm. One of them is the beautifully green-coloured Grania colorata. "These worms are usually colourless or white, and we have not been able to work out why this particular species is green," says De Wit.

Separate history

De Wit has also found a previously unknown worm in Scandinavia, dubbed Grania occulta, which can only be distinguished from a previously known species by DNA. The worms' genetics show that the evolutionary history of the two species is in fact entirely separate, and that one of them is actually more closely related to a species that looks completely different.

Important knowledge

"Species that were previously regarded as the same may prove to have a completely different function in the ecosystem, and have different tolerance of environmental toxins, for example. It is obviously important to know this in order to be able to take the right action to protect our fauna," says de Wit.

The doctoral thesis Systematics of Grania (Clitellata: Enchytraeidae), an interstitial annelid taxon was publicly defended on 5 March 2010.

Sharks queue at underwater beauty salon

Photo / Richard Robinson

By Kathy Marks
New Zealand Herald
March 10, 2010

SYDNEY - Everyone likes a bit of pampering now and again - and sharks and manta rays are no exception.

The feared ocean fish congregate in reef "salons" to be groomed by smaller fish, researchers have discovered.

And instead of being eaten during the cleaning sessions, the smaller fish derive nutrition as they remove dead and diseased tissue, mucus, scales and parasites from their "clients".

Marine scientists at James Cook University in Townsville set up cameras on the Great Barrier Reef and the Osprey Reef, off Cairns.

Over five months they observed sharks and rays gathering frequently for a "clean, wax and polish".

Sometimes the sessions would last several hours as the smaller fish swarmed continuously over the predators.

Professor Michael Kingsford, a member of the research team, said: "The manta rays would cease all movement of their fins while in the cleaning stations.

"Several cleaner fish would then migrate upwards towards the animal and begin cleaning."

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Sharks would hold themselves in a vertical position while the smaller fish went to work, or would "casually swim over the site" to receive attention.

"The shark clients - in most cases - would swim back around into the current and repeat the process until cleaning had ceased," Professor Kingsford said.

Scientists learn red grouper operate as underwater architects

(Video still Courtesy Florida State University)

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 8, 2010

Red grouper are known for a few key characteristics -- their hue, which can range from pink to bright orange; their tastiness, whether they're grilled or sautéed; and their predation method, in which they ambush fellow sea creatures and swallow them whole.

But their least-known attribute might be the most valuable of all: They operate as underwater architects, transforming the seascape for myriad other forms of underwater life, rather than just residing there. That surprising discovery is forcing scientists and policymakers to recalibrate their approach to preserving the ocean's natural order -- and heightening tensions with those who fish for a living or as a hobby.

A team of scientists, led by Florida State University's Felicia Coleman, recently found that the red grouper off Florida's east and west coasts and throughout the Gulf of Mexico have created entire ocean communities by digging large holes in the sea's sandy bottom. In the same way beavers construct dams, red grouper excavate and maintain distinct holes whose rocky surfaces provide a place for coral, sponges and other marine life to congregate.

The discovery, published in January in the Open Fish Science Journal, highlights the extent to which researchers are just beginning to grasp the complexity of marine creatures' behavior.

"Our view of fish is changing," said Marine Conservation Biology Institute president Elliott Norse, whose group helped fund Coleman's research. "We now see fish as living, breathing entities, not only as meat."

This new understanding is changing the way federal and state authorities manage ocean habitats and is creating a stark new rift with fishermen. "The people who are in control want to prohibit fishing as much as possible," said Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. He added that the recent revelations about red grouper amount to an "excuse they can use to restrict fishing, commercial or recreational."

But to many researchers, fishery officials and even some fishermen, the fact that fish act as environmental engineers provides a compelling reason to protect them from exploitation.

[read more / view video]

Cancer Kills Many Sea Lions, and Its Cause Remains a Mystery

Dr. Frances Gulland and Dr. Bill Van Bonn performing an autopsy on a young sea lion on Feb. 23 at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, Calif. (Photo: Heidi Schumann for The New York Times)

The New York Times
By: Ingfei Chen
Published: March 4, 2010

For 14 years, since they first reported that a disturbing proportion of deaths among rescued California sea lions were caused by metastatic cancer, researchers have been trying to pinpoint the source of the illness.

In 1996, Dr. Frances Gulland, the director of veterinary science at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, found that a striking 18 percent of deaths in stranded adult sea lions were the result of tumors in the reproductive and urinary tracts.

“It’s such an aggressive cancer, and it’s so unusual to see such a high prevalence of cancer in a wild population,” Dr. Gulland said. “That suggests that there’s some carcinogen in the ocean that could be affecting these animals.”

The center has not observed the same syndrome in other seals.

Years of study have led researchers to think the answer lies not with any one culprit, but with several. Their research has added to a body of evidence concerning industrial contaminants in the ocean and their effects on the health of its inhabitants.

Sea lions have had to cope with a variety of challenges lately. There was the animals’ mass exit from Pier 39 in San Francisco late last year, which experts suspect was driven by a hunt for a better food supply. Also in 2009, the Sausalito mammal center had an unusually busy year. It took in a record 1,370 sick and injured California sea lions, and doctors found major problems in many, including malnutrition, parasitic diseases and bacterial kidney infections. Some had brain seizures from a toxic algae poisoning.

But the cancers are what Dr. Gulland found most worrisome.

[read more]

Ancient Corals Hold New Hope for Reefs

Huon Peninsula raised reef terraces. (Credit: Photo by John Pandolfi)

ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2010)

Fossil corals, up to half a million years old, are providing fresh hope that coral reefs may be able to withstand the huge stresses imposed on them by today's human activity.

Reef ecosystems were able to persist through massive environmental changes imposed by sharply falling sea levels during previous ice ages, an international scientific team has found. This provides new hope for their capacity to endure the increasing human impacts forecast for the 21st century.

In the world's first study of what happened to coral reefs when ocean levels sank to their lowest recorded level -- over 120 metres below today's levels -- a study carried out on eight fossil reefs in Papua New Guinea's Huon Gulf region has concluded that a rich diversity of corals managed to survive, although they were different in composition to the corals under more benign conditions.

"Of course, sea levels then were falling -- and today they are rising. But if we want to know how corals cope with hostile conditions, then we have to study what happens under all circumstances," explains Professor John Pandolfi of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland. "We've seen what happens to corals in the past when sea levels rose and conditions were favourable to coral growth: we wanted to see what happened when they fell and conditions were adverse."

"When sea levels drop you get a catastrophic reduction in coral habitat and a loss of connectivity between reefs. Well, those circumstances are in some respects similar to what corals are experiencing today due to human impacts -- so there are useful parallels."

"Although it is little asked, the question of where reef species go when faced with extreme environmental situations is highly relevant for understanding their prospects of survival in the future -- and what we need to do to give them the best chance," Prof. Pandolfi suggests.

In the Huon region, the team found, coral reefs survived the hard times low of sea levels with as much richness of species -- but with a different composition to what they had during the good times. "As a rule the coral colonies during the period of low sea levels were closer to the sea floor and slower-growing in comparison with times of high sea levels."

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We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change

The New York Times Op-Ed
By AL GORE

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

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Vast Iceberg Dislodged in Antarctic Collision

The new iceberg and the tongue of the Mertz Glacier (Photo © Australian Antarctic Division)

Environment News Service
HOBART, Tasmania, Australia, February 26, 2010

A massive iceberg has broken away from the Mertz Glacier in the Australian Antarctic Territory after another enormous iceberg, B9B, collided with the tongue of the glacier, a joint Australian- French study has discovered. The new iceberg and the one that rammed it loose could together affect world ocean circulation, scientists said today.

Satellite imagery from the European Space Agency's ENVISAT shows the iceberg separation occurred on February 12 and 13, but the discovery was just announced today by the researchers at a news conference in Hobart.

One of the largest icebergs ever to be monitored by scientists, the giant piece of floating ice measures 48 miles long and 22 miles wide. It has a surface area of 965 square miles and an average thickness of 1,300 feet.

In metric terms, the new iceberg is 78 kilometers long overall and 33 to 39 km wide with an average thickness of 400 meters.

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