One often thinks of near-Arctic waters as not a likely environment for corals and sponges - or for much else for that matter. And if it's deep, when we think of life, we think of thermal vents and the temperatures and nutrients that spawn unusual species.
And yet, scientists and researchers from the Canadian Fisheries Department, Canadian and Spanish universities have discovered new coral and sponge species off the coast of Newfoundland - species whose coloration and beauty would befit a tropical reef.
Using a robotic submersible (ROV), the researchers plumbed the depths as deep as 9,800 feet (3 km) in an area protected by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization. At these deep depths, species of coral, like gorgonian sea fans, grow extremely large (over 3 feet in height) and provide shelter for sealife and even protection from currents - much like trees.
As reported in the Montreal Gazette, according to Fisheries Department scientist Ellen Kenchington, “It’s a similar function a tree would serve in the forest, cutting down wind, providing branches for birds. We have the same type of communities that take shelter down there.”
As the researchers continue their work for the next few weeks, they will be assessing the condition of this protected area to determine whether additional sanctions are needed in other areas to better insure that populations of commercial fish remain at sustainable levels.
Click here to view a slide presentation of fascinating deep sea creatures.
Read article in Montreal Gazette. Photos by HANDOUT, Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
For all you iPhone users and ocean fanatics, there is a new app to add to your phone. The FishPhone app from Carl Safina's Blue Ocean Institute is a great extension to Blue Ocean's Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood.
The app lists a wide variety of seafood items using the guide's informative labeling system that covers ratings in population health, wild vs. farmed health, and pollutant levels. The app then takes another step by listing, for appropriate choices, some healthy recipes and wine selections. Most of the recipes come from chef Barton Seaver, noted for his work with sustainable seafood.
So, it's not only an informative app to have when you go to a restaurant or supermarket but, with the recipes and wine selections, it also makes it more palatable (excuse the pun) for those who are perhaps unenlightened about the issue of sustainable seafood - no shaking of the finger, saying "No, no, no!" which could be a turn-off to those who may be the most in need to understand the importance of making responsible choices when it comes to seafood.
While there are some who choose not to eat seafood altogether (and that may certainly be the ultimate solution), a larger portion of the populace has a place in their diet for seafood. And so anything that can help people transition from irresponsible choices to better choices to ultimately contemplating what is right for the ocean environment as a whole should be considered a useful step in the right direction.
And the app is FREE!
Congratulations to Carl and his team at the Blue Ocean Institute for putting together a terrific educational tool.
China's Yangtze River has been described as the "Asian Amazon" and, as seems to befall many large rivers in growing nations, it has seen its share of perils from urban development, commercial use, and industrial pollution. Unfortunately, many of the river's inhabitants pay the price - including the river's dwindling population of freshwater cetaceans.
The Baiji - a freshwater river dolphin with an unusual, elongated jaw/beak that roamed the Yangtze for tens of thousands of years - was declared extinct in 2007, eliminated from the planet in a matter of a few decades.
And now another rare dolphin species is facing a similar fate. As reported in the BBC Earth News, a new study published in the Marine Biology journal, says that the river's remaining population of finless porpoises are headed for extinction. The finless porpoise (so named because it lacks a dorsal fin) lives in the Yangtze, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea; and according to the study, there are genetic differences between the various populations. This would indicate that there is no co-mingling between the groups and this can add to their inability to withstand adverse changes to one group's environment.
This type of isolation and loss of mixing of the DNA gene pool is also what threatens land animal populations, like some of the wolf packs in the north central United States.
With everything from human waste and industrial chemical pollution, boat traffic, and commercial fishing taking place in the Yangtze River, the rapidly declining freshwater population of the finless porpoise - numbering less than 1,000 when last estimated in 2006 - will not survive without strong action on the part of the Chinese government.
The only hope is for a fundamental change in attitude in China regarding its aquatic natural resources. And there is some evidence of that which could produce results, hopefully before it is all too late.
While a major producer of CO2 emissions and the greatest exporter of seafood of any country, China is also realizing the environmental impact its economic growth is having on itself. The country is making sizable investments in alternative energy and, according to the Seafood Choices operational arm of SeaWeb, China's seafood distributors are beginning to show some interest in sustainability. Seafood Choices is holding seminars with seafood exporters in advance of a Sustainable Seafood Forum to be held in China this November.
Whether all of this will produce changes that will come in time to save the finless porpoise remains questionable at best. It is unfortunate that humans seem to be a reactionary species, responding to a tragedy that might spell a better future for some but leaving victims - like the Biaji and the finless porpoise - as reminders of what we could have done if only for a little foresight.
Throughout many fisheries worldwide, overfishing has greatly reduced fish stocks and the response of some governments has been the subsidization of fleet expansion - more vessels, more nets and related equipment - so as to maintain or increase catch levels of a dwindling resource. Unfortunately, while this logic may make some sort of economic sense, it also most certainly hastens the inevitable collapse of the species and the industry itself - a sort of Band-Aid solution for a festering, terminal wound.
In a recent report put out by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), a drastic reduction in commercial fishing subsidies is being proposed as a way to save both the fishing industry and fish populations. The report recognizes that approximately 20 percent of the world population depends on seafood as a primary food source and that there are over 170 million people involved in commercial fishing and processing. But the report also recognized that by 2003 , 27 percent of the world's marine fisheries had collapsed. And without a major restructuring of how this marine resource is utilized, that number was bound to increase.
According to UNEP, $27 billion (USD) is being spent each year as subsidies - $8 billion of which is earmarked for managing marine protected areas, but the rest is being spent on propping up fishing fleets to maintain or expand fishing capacity when that capacity already exceeds what is sustainable. UNEP proposes a systematic restructuring in subsidies, focusing more on buying up excess vessels and retraining fishermen, thereby reducing commercial fishing to a level that would be more in line with enabling fish populations to provide their "maximum sustainable yield."
Would this allow commercial fisheries to meet increasing demand from an ever-growing human population? Probably not, but it would forestall the total elimination of one fishery after another, while alternatives are developed such as aquaculture. Others have indicated that taking any food from the sea will lead to its eventual elimination, that "sustainable fishing" is a myth. Whether that is true or not, it must be recognized that a demand for seafood will always exists and so steps must be taken to best preserve what is most certainly not an endless resource.
Some have also suggested that the economic rationale that supports farm subsidies - where, instead of expansion, productive farmland sits idle for the purpose of maintaining stable prices - may need to be re-examined in the face of the moral dilemma of developing nations in need of food staples for an undernourished populace.
You can read more about UNEP's commercial fishing subsidy proposals - part of an overall strategy for a "Greener Economy" - by clicking here (PDF download) or reading UNEP's latest press release.
I have mentioned in several past posts, my enthusiasm for the development of responsible aquafarming, also called aquaculture. It comes from a simple realization that man has learned to raise cattle and poultry to feed its population through the understanding that the continued taking of wild animals would not suffice.
Unfortunately, centuries ago, man did not make that same intellectual leap when it came to seafood. And we have been, as Dr. Sylvia Earle describes it, eating ocean "bushmeat" ever since, all to the ultimate detriment of the ocean's ecology.
But there are some very serious challenges that aquafarming must overcome for it to be truly commercially successful without harming the environment. This requires the cautious and well-thought out use of science and technology to insure maximum yield will also protecting the environment within which the aquafarm exists. Once you determine just how it is to be done right, then there must be regulations and enforcement to insure it is done properly. This requires government oversight and this is where it can get a bit tricky.
The Ocean Conservancy has an excellent article explaining the problems in developing national standards for aquafarming. Currently, there are several issues of concern regarding aquafarming: ocean pollution due to feed waste, fish waste, and medications; keeping farmed fished contained and not entering a wild fish population accidentally; responsibility for the maintenance and/or dismantling of an aquafarm (dismantling due perhaps to severe ocean weather or storms); and impacts on other fish populations that are required to act as feed sources for the farms. Many of these issues could be regulated by several different agencies but, without a unifying national policy of standards, we're only setting ourselves up for a bureaucratic nightmare with overlapping agencies, jurisdictions, criteria, and responsibilities.
According to the Ocean Conservancy, one of the last acts of the Bush Administration was to put forward a U.S. plan to increase aquafarming from $900 million to $5 billion by 2025. This plan provided for the National Marine Fisheries Service to issue permits to meet the goal but did not specifically or clearly address how it was to be done responsibly, ie: regulation and enforcement. Pollution or water quality issues would be handled by one agency, often using terrestrial standards in place of a non-existent marine standard; environmental impacts would be handled by another, and so on. It was basically putting the cart before the horse, and many scientific, conservation, public advocacy and even commercial fishing groups objected. This stalled the roll out of the plan, halting it on several occasions, but it was eventually put into place in September of 2009 - flaws and all.
"Establish an overarching, federal regulatory system for offshore aquaculture that includes standardized, precautionary measures to protect the environment and coastal communities. The key provisions of the legislation include:
1. Establishing a clear, streamlined regulatory process for offshore aquaculture with specific provisions and permit terms to protect marine ecosystems and coastal communities;
2. Requiring coordinated, regional programmatic environmental impact statements to provide regulatory certainty, ensure environmental protection for sensitive marine areas, and reduce conflicts among competing uses of the marine environment; and
3. Authorizing new funds for research to provide the crucial feedback needed for adaptive, environmentally-sound management of this new use of offshore waters."
Right now, this is just proposed legislation, newly introduced. Watch how it develops and stay on top of the efforts of groups, like the Ocean Conservancy, in retracting the current piecemeal plan. And you can expect to hear more in this blog as I continue to promote aquafarming as our best chance at attaining sustainable commercial seafood levels while protecting the ocean's wild populations from decline and possible extinction.
Hello, readers. Took a few days off to film along the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Beautiful time of year and I will have a few clips available shortly.
In the meantime, I received word that Carl Safina, note scientist, ocean conservationist, and author has been nominated for the prestigious Indianapolis Prize, a well-regarded reward for animal conservation. I met Carl in June at the BLUE Ocean Film Festival and found him to be both very dedicated and accessible. Carl, along with Mercedes Lee, founded the Blue Ocean Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to ocean awareness through not only the dissemination of science, but through art and literature - mediums that can connect with the imagination and creative energies of the general populace, from children to adults.
The Blue Ocean Institute has a very readable "sustainable seafood" chart that you can download and carry with you when you travel to the market or restaurant. What makes it noteworthy is that it provides information as to why a particular seafood item is a good or bad choice - not just a simply color threat-level indicator. You can download it at the web site or click here.
Besides being asked about mercury levels in seafood, which I touched on in a recent posting, I also get asked about which seafood to buy in restaurants or markets based on population of the species, healthy aquafarmed, etc. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has for many years provided terrific Seafood Watch pocket guides. These guides, which cover national and regional areas, can be printed and carried in your wallet or purse and are updated annually. It's a great way to have a quick reference to insure that your are making sensible choices in healthy seafood. I always carry a couple of guides in my wallet.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has also released a new Sushi Guide and you can view all of the guides on your mobile device browser. Add http://www.seafoodwatch.org to your mobile device's browser list and you'll have the guides right there at the touch of a button.
The concept of "sustainable seafood" works only when we choice seafood that is aquafarmed or whose reproductive capability has not been negatively impacted by overfishing. The Seafood Watch Guides are a great way for all of us to make sensible choices regarding seafood.
I was having a discussion with some people the other night about marine conservation issues and commercial overfishing. These folks were quite convinced that even sticking with "sustainable seafood species" was ultimately a lost cause - by removing fish without giving something back, you are upsetting the natural marine order and depletion of any species is inevitable.
That may or may not be true in every case, but it certainly is one reason why I support the aquaculture or aquafarming efforts taking place around the world. The logic behind these activities is pretty simple: we are giving something back.
We raise cattle to insure we have a supply of beef.
We raise chickens to insure we have a supply of poultry.
And we do the same for fruits and vegetables.
But when it comes to the sea, for centuries we have just taken. Aquaculture can reverse that approach. But it's not without its challenges. Whether on land or at sea, there are issues of potential pollution from feed or animal waste, introduction of diseases or parasites, logistical challenges because of the required size of the facilities, and so on.
These are challenges that must be conquered and there are some definite strides being made. I have mentioned some in past postings regarding the Indian Ocean's bluefin tuna, Chesapeake Bay's blue crab, and more. I would strongly recommend that you support the companies and organizations involved in aquaculture. As the demand for seafood increases, it's the only logical answer.
When it comes to marine conservation, we have many challenges facing us on a worldwide level. And I would wholeheartedly recommend you support those organizations that are taking the "big picture" approach - groups like Oceana, Seaweb, WildAid, and many, many others.
But , just like the oceans are made up of countless micro-systems - all interacting to produce small and large consequences, there are many organizations that focus on regional issues, perhaps more close to home. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Center for the Future of the Oceans is one example, focusing on issues that impact the California coastline from Marine Protected Areas to Sustainable Seafood initiatives.
Sometimes, when you wade into all of the issues facing our seas today, it can seem a bit intimidating. But by all means, wade in! Start small, start with what you can do - from cutting back on the air conditioning one day a week, using a car wash that recycles water rather than pouring soapy water into the storm drains (which go right out to the sea), or giving some extra thought when you are at the seafood market counter or restaurant. Every little bit helps.
Remember, move a grain of sand and you have changed the entire beach.
One often thinks of near-Arctic waters as not a likely environment for corals and sponges - or for much else for that matter. And if it's deep, when we think of life, we think of thermal vents and the temperatures and nutrients that spawn unusual species.
And yet, scientists and researchers from the Canadian Fisheries Department, Canadian and Spanish universities have discovered new coral and sponge species off the coast of Newfoundland - species whose coloration and beauty would befit a tropical reef.
As reported in the Montreal Gazette, according to Fisheries Department scientist Ellen Kenchington, “It’s a similar function a tree would serve in the forest, cutting down wind, providing branches for birds. We have the same type of communities that take shelter down there.”
