Oceanic Defense: March 2010

3.30.2010

‘Darth Vader of dolphins’ to release 17 bottlenose dolphins

Chris Porter, known internationally as a dolphin slave-trader for his lucrative business capturing dolphins in the Solomon Islands and selling them to aquariums in such locations as Dubai and Mexico, says he has had a change of heart and is planning to release his last 17 bottlenose dolphins.

The controversial dolphin broker and marine mammal trainer, who trained Tillikum the killer whale when he was at Sealand in Victoria and then became Vancouver Aquarium’s head trainer, has sold 83 dolphins around the world over the last nine years and drawn the fury of animal- rights groups.

“To be sure, I have a bad name. I have been deemed the Darth Vader of dolphins,” said Porter in an interview.

“But I have decided to release the remaining animals back to the wild. It’s driven by the incident with Tillikum and I’m disillusioned with the industry,” said Porter, who splits his time between Victoria and the Solomon Islands.

News that Tillikum had killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando — the third death connected to the whale — was a shock, showing trainers have been unable to provide for the needs of such an intelligent animal, he said. Another catalyst was the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, which shows the bloody capture and slaughter of dolphins in Japan.

Porter, who previously believed some animals must be captive educational ambassadors for their species, is beginning to doubt the value of shows, where animals are forced to perform tricks.

“Are we really educating and providing the best representation of wild animals in an aquarium?” he asked.

The artificial, sterile environment in which most marine mammals are kept bears little resemblance to their habitat. Killer whales are likely to become frustrated, increasing the chance they will lash out, he said.

But, from the start of the Solomons project, Porter said he saw himself as saving dolphins, which were being slaughtered by the thousands by islanders there, who used their teeth as currency.

Hunters have now been educated to realize there can be a much larger value in dolphins, Porter said.

“When I got there a dolphin was worth $20, and last year dolphins were worth $140,000,” he said.

Porter’s Free-the-Pod venture is likely to have high profile support from some of his former fiercest opponents.

Activist Ric O’Barry, a marine mammal specialist for California-based Earth Island Institute, who, in the 1960s, trained dolphins for the Flipper television series before dedicating himself to freeing captive dolphins, headed to the Solomon Islands this week to assess the Free-The-Pod exercise.

O’Barry, who spearheaded the making of The Cove, said in an interview that given Porter’s reputation, he wants to look at what is planned before throwing his support behind the project.

“I will see. I have an open mind,” he said.

Mark Palmer, Earth Island associate director, said there are questions that must be answered before Earth Island works on the release plan and helps educate local residents about eco-tourism and other alternatives to dolphin slaughter or export.

“Is it real? Are we really talking about the release and permanent end of the capture of dolphins?” he asked.

Although others are capturing dolphins around the world, the closing of Porter’s operation would make a sizable dent in the supply, Palmer said.

Also, there will have to be a health assessment of the animals and an assessment of whether they can adjust to the wild, he said.

If Free-the-Pod looks like a go, Ric O’Barry’s son, Lincoln, will film it for Animal Planet, Palmer said.

The dolphins are being held in a cove and Porter envisages a phased release, starting next month.

“It’s a natural sea-pen and we will start introducing live fish to them and they will be released with tracking devices and a strict follow-up,” he said.

Food will continue to be provided for animals that return.

jlavoie@tc.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

Source: http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Darth%20Vader%20dolphins%20release%20bottlenose/2741326/story.html

About Oceanic Defense
We are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

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3.29.2010

Bleaching leaves Lord Howe reef 'on knife-edge'

Parts of the world's most southerly coral reef are under threat after it suffered its largest-recorded bleaching event.

Lord Howe Island is well known for its pristine environment and natural beauty.

The island's isolation has allowed it to develop unique and endemic marine life and the waters contain an unusual mix of tropical, sub-tropical and temperate corals.

But since January the waters around Lord Howe have experienced unusually warmer temperatures. The average rose by two degrees Celsius and the corals are showing the first signs of extensive bleaching.

And unlike the Great Barrier Reef, where corals have been known to recover, the genetically unique reef at Lord Howe could take decades to regenerate.

Peter Harrison from the Southern Cross University says it is the most significant bleaching event ever recorded at Lord Howe Island.

"The significance of this is that Lord Howe Island has the southern-most coral reef, so when that starts to see signs of extensive coral bleaching we know that the climate is definitely changing," he said.

Professor Harrison and a team of scientists have spent the past week diving off Lord Howe Island, assessing the extent of the stress.

In 1998, the reef survived relatively unscathed despite widespread coral bleaching around the world.

This year, not only have the ocean temperatures been higher, but conditions have been unusually calm.

And that has contributed to the significance of the bleaching.

The island's marine park manager, Ian Kerr, says the still conditions meant water was not flushed out of the lagoon.

"So the lagoon especially had higher temperatures than it normally does and higher UV light," he said.

It is not known how much of the reef will recover.

Professor Harrison says some mortality is expected but cooler temperatures over coming months may reduce the stress.

"At the moment we really can't determine whether or not there [will] be serious mortality of corals at some of these sites or not," he said.

"It was personally very upsetting to go back to this absolutely gorgeous reef environment.

"It should be noted that at the moment it is still a beautiful pristine reef environment, but to go back and see so many of these corals bleached was really upsetting to me personally.

"I am hoping that the cooler sea temperatures will allow a decrease in stress and most of these corals come back really quickly and recover fully.

"But at the moment it is on a knife edge."

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/24/2854437.htm?site=newengland

3.28.2010

Why BPA Leached from 'Safe' Plastics May Damage Health of Female Offspring

ScienceDaily — Here's more evidence that "safe" plastics are not as safe as once presumed: New research published online in The FASEB Journal suggests that exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy leads to epigenetic changes that may cause permanent reproduction problems for female offspring. BPA, a common component of plastics used to contain food, is a type of estrogen that is ubiquitous in the environment.

"Exposure to BPA may be harmful during pregnancy; this exposure may permanently affect the fetus," said Hugh S. Taylor, Ph.D., co-author of the study from Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. "We need to better identify the effects of environmental contaminants on not just crude measures such as birth defects, but also their effect in causing more subtle developmental errors."

Taylor and colleagues made this discovery by exposing fetal mice to BPA during pregnancy and examining gene expression and DNA in the uteruses of female fetuses. Results showed that BPA exposure permanently affected the uterus by decreasing regulation of gene expression. These epigenetic changes caused the mice to over-respond to estrogen throughout adulthood, long after the BPA exposure. This suggests that early exposure to BPA genetically "programmed" the uterus to be hyper-responsive to estrogen. Extreme estrogen sensitivity can lead to fertility problems, advanced puberty, altered mammary development and reproductive function, as well as a variety of hormone-related cancers. BPA has been widely used in plastics and other materials. Examples include use in water bottles, baby bottles, epoxy resins used to coat food cans, and dental sealants.

"The BPA baby bottle scare may be only the tip of the iceberg." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Remember how diethylstilbestrol (DES) caused birth defects and cancers in young women whose mothers were given such hormones during pregnancy. We'd better watch out for BPA, which seems to carry similar epigenetic risks across the generations."

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100225101220.htm

3.22.2010

ROV Sub Implodes @10,000 feet off the coast of Chile

ABE, a nomadic adventurer that plumbed the world’s oceans on its own, forever changing the way scientists explored the seafloor, was lost at sea March 5 off southern Chile. The autonomous underwater vehicle was about 16 years old and in the off-seasons was stored in Woods Hole, Mass.

ABE had been enlisted after a period of semi-retirement to help researchers look for hydrothermal vents at the Chile Triple Junction, the meeting point of three tectonic plates. It was most likely destroyed by the implosion of a pressure housing or buoyancy sphere under enormous water pressure at a depth of about 10,000 feet, said Dana Yoerger, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and one of the engineers who built ABE in the early 1990s with a $1.1 million development grant.

Dr. Yoerger, speaking from the research vessel Melville, which was using ABE to survey the seafloor, said two acoustic transponders aboard the craft had failed simultaneously. “For both to die at exactly the same time means probably something very bad and very violent happened,” he said. The implosion of one pressure structure would have generated a shock wave that would have destroyed others, rendering the craft inoperable and consigning it to the seabed forever.

With its two bulbous pods attached to a cylindrical main body by V-shaped struts, ABE, short for Autonomous Benthic Explorer, resembled a pillowy Starship Enterprise and was a familiar sight on expeditions by Woods Hole scientists and others. It was one of the earliest autonomous underwater vehicles developed for civilian use, and one of the most successful. Its last dive was the 222nd of its career, which began in 1994.

Before ABE, underwater research craft were either small crewed submarines or unmanned vehicles tethered to a research ship by cables that provided power, communication and control. Being autonomous — it relied on batteries and programmed instructions, having only limited communications capabilities — ABE could work faster, cheaper and in more places, Dr. Yoerger said.

It was the first autonomous underwater vehicle to map a mid-ocean ridge and find hydrothermal vents, successes that had an enormous influence on researchers. “ABE’s early work won most scientists over,” Dr. Yoerger said. “This was a legitimate tool — it was worth the money, it was worth the risk.”

He added, “ABE was the vehicle that showed the scientific community that all that was possible.”

Chris German, a Woods Hole senior scientist who is on the Chile expedition, said there had been plenty of false alarms in the past when ABE had lost contact with its ship. “But this time,” he said, “it really was the bad news we’d always worried about.”

But the expedition, which began Feb. 24 and is to end March 17, continued, Dr. German said. “You’re stuck at sea and you can’t just cry and go home,” he said. “So you figure out what’s the best you can do with what’s available.” That has involved using more conventional equipment to sample the water for other evidence of hydrothermal events, compiling data that can be used when researchers come back.

ABE is survived by a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles with improved range, speed and sensing capabilities. Its most direct descendant is Sentry, developed at Woods Hole. It was Sentry’s unavailability for the Chile expedition that led the researchers to bring ABE out of storage.

Dr. Yoerger said he had tried not to become too emotional about the loss of ABE, particularly given the human suffering nearby in Chile from the recent earthquake. “This is aluminum, glass and silicon,” he said. “We can build a new one.”

Still, he said, there had been some trying moments. “The most difficult one was writing the e-mails to my children and grandchildren telling them that their robotic friend was gone.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/science/16sub.html

3.20.2010

How Can Accidental Captures of Loggerhead Turtles Be Reduced?

ScienceDaily — Spanish scientists have studied interactions between the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) and fishing gear such as longline hooks used at the water surface, mass beachings, and the effects of climate change on these animals. In order to reduce captures of this marine species without causing economic losses for fishermen, the scientists are proposing that fishing in the summer should only be carried out by night and in areas more than 35 nautical miles from land.

Populations of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) are in decline all over the world, and particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, where more than 20,000 animals are accidentally caught each year. Finding responsible and sustainable fisheries solutions was one of the prime objectives of this research study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Ichthyology.

Researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) in Malaga, the University of Malaga (UMA) and the Sea Classroom, also in Malaga, tested whether using different kinds of animal bait would reduce captures of loggerhead turtles, and how these changes could impact on fishing yields.

The scientists used real commercial fisheries data taken by scientific observers on board fishing boats. The results were clear. "Using fish as bait could greatly reduce incidental catches of loggerhead turtles, but could also severely affect catches of swordfish," José Carlos Báez, lead author and a researcher at the IEO, said.

The research team also showed that stopping using small molluscs such as squid as bait could not ensure that incidental catches of loggerhead turtles would be prevented, since "as an opportunistic predator it also preys on hooks baited with fish, and can find these more easily when molluscs are used," explains the expert.

The study proposes other measures that, the researchers say, would not involve modifying the equipment used in any way that "could result in low economic yields because of a decline in fish catches," says Báez. These techniques would reduce the number of turtles caught while maintaining fishermen's profits.

"Most accidental catches happen during the day, more than 35 nautical miles from the coast, and in the summer, meaning that it would be enough to limit longline fishing at these times and places in order to drastically reduce captures of this species," says Báez, who adds that these measures should be tested before being adopted.

Longline fishing is practised by 356 vessels in Spanish waters, and provides employment for many coastal towns. However, accidental captures of species such as the loggerhead turtle are also damaging to fishermen's interests, because of the economic losses caused and the time spent in freeing the turtles.

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100226093221.htm

Beluga Sturgeon in Caspian Sea Reclassified as 'Critically Endangered'

ScienceDaily— The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) formally announced the reclassification of beluga sturgeon in the Caspian Sea as "critically endangered" on its Red List on March 18, providing strong evidence that fishing and international trade should be halted and a stock-rebuilding plan should be initiated immediately. Beluga sturgeon populations have been decimated in part due to unrelenting exploitation for black caviar -- the sturgeon's unfertilized eggs -- considered the finest in the world.

"For those of us who have been involved in studying the rapid decline of this species over the past several decades, this reclassification of beluga sturgeon is of great significance and relief," said Dr. Ellen Pikitch, Professor and Executive Director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University. "However, of even greater significance is the IUCN reclassification of many sturgeons, which shows them to be among the most imperiled animals on earth. A higher percentage of sturgeon species were designated as critically endangered than any other group of species assessed, including other fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and plants."

Dr. Pikitch has led scientific efforts to highlight the seriously depleted status of the beluga sturgeon and to secure protection for the species for more than a decade. Dr. Pikitch was one of the petitioners of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) seeking listing of the species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). Beluga sturgeon were listed under the U.S. ESA in 2004, and imports of its products into the United States have been banned since 2005.

The Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University contributed significant new scientific information on several species of sturgeon to the newly released IUCN Red List sturgeon assessment. Dr. Ellen Pikitch, Executive Director, and Dr. Phaedra Doukakis, Senior Research Scientist with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science are members of IUCN's Sturgeon Specialist Group (SSG).

They recently co-authored, along with other U.S. and Kazakhstani scientists, the results of a study of Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon of the Ural River. The results, which were published online this month in the journal Conservation Biology, suggest that conservation strategies for beluga sturgeon should focus on reducing the overfishing of adults rather than heavily relying upon hatchery supplementation and also demonstrate that current harvest rates in the fishery are four to five times higher than those that would sustain population abundance.

"This study only adds more credence to the reclassification of beluga sturgeon as 'critically endangered,' and underscores the need for swift, international protection to help them stave off extinction," said Dr. Pikitch. "And, the new IUCN assessment demonstrates that almost all of the 27 sturgeon species need enhanced protection since conservation measures to date have not been sufficient to ensure the recovery and long-term persistence of these valuable and ancient fish."

Drs. Pikitch and Doukakis presented their latest findings, as well as an overview of status and trends of global sturgeon fisheries, at a meeting during the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties to CITES in Doha, Qatar. Also presenting were Dr. Kent E. Carpenter, IUCN Global Marine Species Assessment Director, on the reclassification of the sturgeon species, and Dr. Volker Homes, Species Conservation Section Director, WWF Germany and TRAFFIC, on caviar trade and labeling.

The study is entitled, "Management and Recovery Options for Ural River Beluga Sturgeon."

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100318113241.htm

3.19.2010

U.N. Rejects Export Ban on Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

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.”

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.

But Iccat’s own record on managing the fish is widely seen as unsuccessful: the bluefin population has declined by roughly 80 percent since 1970. And while the organization, which has no effective enforcement mechanism, can set quotas, it has set the catch above the level that its own scientists say is safe to ensure the health of the species.

A senior Japanese official said that his country shared the international concern about bluefin stocks, but that the Atlantic fisheries agency was the proper body to regulate its trade, not the United Nations convention.

Masanori Miyahara, chief counselor of the Fisheries Agency of Japan, said after the vote that Japan would now be under pressure to abide by Iccat’s new, lower quotas for bluefin harvesting, according to The Associated Press. Iccat moved in November to reduce the bluefin quota to 13,500 tons from 22,000 tons for this year, and said that if stocks were not rebuilt by 2022 it would consider closing some areas.

“I feel more responsibility to work for the recovery of the species,” Mr. Miyahara said, The A.P. reported. “So it’s kind of a heavy decision for Japan, too.”

Thursday’s vote was the second time Japan had defeated a proposal to protect bluefin. A similar proposal by Sweden failed at the 1992 Cites meeting in Kyoto, Japan.

Mr. Vásquez said it was technically possible for member nations to revisit the votes before the conference ended next Thursday, but that there was little likelihood that either measure would be resurrected.

Attention at the Doha conference will now turn to proposals to protect sharks and elephants.
The United States, the Micronesian state of Palau and the European Union are among nations proposing that several species of sharks be listed under Appendix 2 of the convention, which would require that governments monitor trade in the species but would not entail an outright ban. But with Japan leading the opposition to any United Nations involvement in the regulation of marine species, and China, the largest consumer of shark fins, strongly opposed, the prospects of a deal appear remote.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/science/earth/19species.html

Dubai hotel quietly releases whale shark back into Gulf

DUBAI -- A rare whale shark has been released after 19 months in an aquarium at Atlantis, the luxury resort on The Palm, the hotel said yesterday.

But just as the 4.6-metre shark’s capture raised concerns among environmentalists, so did its release – which was carried out quietly.

The world’s largest living fish, whale sharks are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the Red List of Threatened Species.

They are free-roaming ocean creatures, traveling vast distances each year, and can dive to depths of up to a 1,000 metres.

At the time of its capture in August 2008, Atlantis, The Palm said the shark was showing signs of distress and that was why they decided to remove it from the sea near Jebel Ali and place it in the Ambassador Lagoon, its 11-million-litre fish tank.

Conservationists said an aquarium could not possibly cater to its needs, and said the shark was being used to draw crowds.

Yesterday, the resort said its fish husbandry team had released the shark back into the Arabian Gulf, but did not invite any outside observers to view the event.

“We will continue to track her progress through a tagging programme co-developed with The Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida,” Steve Kaiser, the resort’s vice president, marine and science engineering, said in a statement.

“This will give us the opportunity to continue to learn from her and share that research within the whale shark community.”

Conservationists welcomed the whale shark’s release and the promise to share the data, but questioned the way it was freed.

“I am a bit disappointed that they are keeping this close to their chests.

“They really need to involve regional whale shark researchers into this,” said Jonathan Ali Khan, a Dubai-based filmmaker who has made a documentary about sharks in Arabia.

“The question really is under what circumstances she is being released. Is she in good health and how we can verify this?”

In an e-mail to the Associated Press, Mr Kaiser said the shark was in good health when it was released off the east side of The Palm. Outsiders were not invited for the safety of the shark, he said.

“The seasonal elements affecting water temperature, salinity and migratory patterns were perfect for enhancing her survival in the open ocean,” he said.

Dr Robert Hueter, the director of the Mote Center for Shark Research, confirmed the Florida-based aquarium helped the Atlantis staff create a tagging programme, but said no one from the institute was on hand to witness the shark’s release.

The tag will record the shark’s survival, movement and depth for the next three months, he said.

Called a Pop-Up Satellite Archival tag, the device should detach from the shark’s body and float to the ocean’s surface in three months.

It will then transmit the information via satellite to the research centre.

However, a percentage of such tags fail, which means the fate of the shark may remain a mystery.

Dr Hueter said the shark was released now because the hotel wanted to send it back into the wild before summer began to heat the water.

“I talked to Atlantis [Thursday] morning and they described the whole procedure,” he said.

He said the shark had grown by 60 centimetres while in captivity and had gained weight.

“They described her as very active as they released her,” he said.

“As soon as she was lowered into the open water, she just took off.”

The Emirates Wildlife Fund – World Wide Fund for Nature (EWS-WWF) said in a statement: “If indeed the whale shark finally has been released into the wild ... EWS-WWF is pleased.”

It added it was “happy to hear that the Atlantis has tagged the whale shark, and that the data will be shared with the scientific community... .

“We hope the Atlantis will share the information with local organizations working on marine environment in the region.

“There is very little data on whale sharks and this kind of information is valuable for future conservation efforts.”

Source: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100318/NATIONAL/100315902

3.17.2010

Mercurial Tuna: Study Explores Sources of Mercury in Ocean Fish

ScienceDaily— With concern over mercury contamination of tuna on the rise and growing information about the health effects of eating contaminated fish, scientists would like to know exactly where the pollutant is coming from and how it's getting into open-ocean fish species.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology uses chemical signatures of nitrogen, carbon and mercury to get at the question. The work also paves the way to new means of tracking sources of mercury poisoning in people.

The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, Harvard School of Public Health, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and the National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research in Norway, appears in the journal's March 1, 2010 issue.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but some 2,000 tons of it enter the global environment each year from human-generated sources such as coal-burning power plants, incinerators and chlorine-producing plants. Deposited onto land or into water, mercury is picked up by microorganisms, which convert some of it to methylmercury, a highly toxic form that builds up in fish and the animals -- and people -- that eat them.

The primary way people in the United States are exposed to methylmercury is by eating fish and shellfish. Health effects include damage to the central nervous system, heart and immune system, and the developing brains of young and unborn children are especially vulnerable.

In the current study, the researchers wanted to know if tuna and other open-ocean fish pick up methylmercury by eating contaminated fish that live closer to shore or by some other means. They studied 11 species of fish, including red snapper, speckled trout, Spanish mackerel and two species of tuna. Seven of the species studied live in the shallow, coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico; the two tuna species live far out in the ocean and are highly migratory; the remaining two species spend parts of their lives in both habitats.

It's no mystery how the coastal fish acquire methylmercury, said Joel Blum, who is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geological Sciences at U-M. "We know that there's a lot of mercury pollution in the coastal zone. A large amount of mercury comes down the Mississippi River, and there's also air pollution and deposition of mercury from the highly industrialized coastal Gulf region." In this environment, methylation occurs in the low-oxygen conditions of the lower water column and sediments, and the methylmercury wends its way up the food web, becoming more concentrated at each step along the way.

"It's much less clear how methylmercury gets into open-ocean fish species, some of which don't come anywhere close to shore but can still have very high levels," said the study's lead author, David Senn, formerly of the Harvard School of Public Health, and now a senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. Scientists have proposed three possibilities.

One is that open-ocean fish visit coastal areas to feed, picking up methylmercury from the coastal food web. Another possibility is that small organisms that acquire methylmercury in coastal regions are washed out to sea, where they enter the open-ocean food web. In the third scenario, mercury is directly deposited into the open ocean, where it undergoes methylation.

By looking at three chemical signatures in the fish -- nitrogen isotopes, carbon isotopes and mercury isotopes -- Senn, Blum and colleagues learned that coastal fish and open-ocean fish are feeding from two separate food webs.

"That rules out the first explanation, that these tuna were getting their methylmercury by feeding off coastal fish," Senn said.

"We think it's unlikely that the mercury is being methylated in coastal sediments and then washed out to the open ocean, so the most likely alternative is that there is deposition and methylation of mercury in the open ocean," Blum said. The finding runs counter to the long-held view that the open ocean is too oxygen-rich to support methylation, but it is consistent with recent studies suggesting more methylation may be occurring in that environment than was previously thought.

"It turns out there are probably low-oxygen microenvironments on tiny particles of organic matter, where methylation may be able to occur," Blum said.

One of the biggest differences the researchers found between coastal and open-ocean fish was in their mercury "fingerprint." The fingerprint is the result of a natural phenomenon called isotopic fractionation, in which different isotopes of mercury react to form new compounds at slightly different rates. In one type of isotopic fractionation, mass-dependent fractionation (MDF), the differing rates depend on the masses of the isotopes. In mass-independent fractionation (MIF), the behavior of the isotopes depends not on their absolute masses but on whether their masses are odd or even.

The researchers found that open-ocean fish have a much stronger MIF fingerprint than do coastal fish, a discovery that opens the door to new ways of analyzing human exposure to mercury.

"We can do an isotopic analysis of the mercury in your hair, and by looking at this mass-independent signal, tell you how much of the mercury is coming from inorganic sources, such as exposure to mercury gas or amalgams in your dental fillings, versus how much is coming from the fish that you eat," Blum said. "We think this could become a widespread technique for identifying sources of mercury contamination."

Senn and Blum's coauthors are Edward Chesney of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium; Michael Bank and James Shine of Harvard School of Public Health; and Amund Maage of Norway's National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research.

The research was funded by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant to Harvard School of Public Health and by the University of Michigan.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100302111918.htm

About Oceanic Defense
We are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

Join us on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/OceanicDefense
Visit our official website:
www.oceanicdefense.org
Follow us on Twitter:
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3.15.2010

Underwater Skyscraper is a Self-Sufficient City at Sea

Ocean levels are rising around the globe, so rather than tethering our buildings to the sinking shoreline why not suit them for a life at sea? That’s the approach behind the Water-Scraper, a futuristic self-sufficient floating city. A special mention in this year’s eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the design expands the concept of a floating island into a full-fledged underwater skyscraper that harvests renewable energy and grows its own food.

Touted as a self-sufficent floating city, Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum’s Water-Scraper utilizes a variety of green technologies. It generates its own electricity using wave, wind, and solar power and it produces its own food through farming, aquaculture, and hydroponic techniques. The surface of the submerged skyscraper sustains a small forest, while the lower levels contain spaces for its inhabitants to live and work. The building is kept upright using a system of ballasts aided by a set of squid-like tentacles that generate kinetic energy.

The architects “envision a future where land as a resource will be scarce; it is only natural progression that we create our own. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, even more if climate change has its way, hence it is only natural progression that we will populate the seas someday.” As anyone who has seen Waterworld will attest, it’s a grim future indeed — which is why it’s essential that we do what we can to stem the course of the world’s rising tides.

Source: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/09/underwater-skyscraper-is-a-self-sufficient-city-at-sea/

3.14.2010

Aquatic 'Dead Zones' Contributing to Climate Change

ScienceDaily — The increased frequency and intensity of oxygen-deprived "dead zones" along the world's coasts can negatively impact environmental conditions in far more than just local waters. In the March 12 edition of the journal Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer Dr. Lou Codispoti explains that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters can elevate concentrations in the atmosphere, further exacerbating the impacts of global warming and contributing to ozone "holes" that cause an increase in our exposure to harmful UV radiation.

"As the volume of hypoxic waters move towards the sea surface and expands along our coasts, their ability to produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases," explains Dr. Codispoti of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. "With low-oxygen waters currently producing about half of the ocean's net nitrous oxide, we could see an additional significant atmospheric increase if these 'dead zones' continue to expand."

Although present in minute concentrations in Earth's atmosphere, nitrous oxide is a highly potent greenhouse gas and is becoming a key factor in stratospheric ozone destruction. For the past 400,000 years, changes in atmospheric N2O appear to have roughly paralleled changes in carbon dioxide CO2 and have had modest impacts on climate, but this may change. Just as human activities may be causing an unprecedented rise in the terrestrial N2O sources, marine N2O production may also rise substantially as a result of nutrient pollution, warming waters and ocean acidification. Because the marine environment is a net producer of N2O, much of this production will be lost to the atmosphere, thus further intensifying its climatic impact.

Increased N2O production occurs as dissolved oxygen levels decline. Under well-oxygenated conditions, microbes produce N2O at low rates. But at oxygen concentrations decrease to hypoxic levels, these waters can increase their production of N2O.

N2O production rates are particularly high in shallow suboxic and hypoxic waters because respiration and biological turnover rates are higher near the sunlit waters where phytoplankton produce the fuel for respiration.

When suboxic waters (oxygen essentially absent) occur at depths of less than 300 feet, the combination of high respiration rates, and the peculiarities of a process called denitrification can cause N2O production rates to be 10,000 times higher than the average for the open ocean. The future of marine N2O production depends critically on what will happen to the roughly ten percent of the ocean volume that is hypoxic and suboxic.

"Nitrous oxide data from many coastal zones that contain low oxygen waters are sparse, including Chesapeake Bay," said Dr. Codispoti. "We should intensify our observations of the relationship between low oxygen concentrations and nitrous oxide in coastal waters."

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311141213.htm

Proposed Indian Ocean Chagos marine reserve sparks controversy

The United Kingdom has just finished one stage of a longer process that could create what would be the world's largest marine protected area -- in the middle of the Indian ocean. This area, known as the Chagos Archipelago, would cover a group of 55 islands and 210,000 miles of surrounding waters, an area larger than France.

Last Friday, the three-month public consultation process ended, putting the reserve one step closer to happening.

The Chagos Islands and the waters around them hold some of the ecologically healthiest coral reef systems on Earth, says the Chagos Network, a group of conservation organizations. In the face of extensive coral die-offs due to warming ocean temperatures, it could become an important benchmark for coral worldwide. It is home to 220 species of coral, 1,000 species of fish and a breeding ground for sharks, dolphins, and green and hawkbill sea turtles. It's also home to the largest arthropod in the world, the coconut crab.

But while no one lives there permanently now, people once did -- and that could be problematic for the environmental groups pushing to create the area.

The Chagos Islands were originally uninhabited when discovered by Vasco da Gama in the 1500. In the 1700 France claimed them and set up some coconut plantations. The British won them when Napoleon fell in 1814. The French left, but some workers remained.

Then in the 1970s the United Kingdom moved out all the people living on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, so the United States could build a military base there. Since then the 2,000 or so residents have been fighting legal battles to go back, according to the BBC.

The reason the area is so pristine, it turns out, is because no one's been allowed to live or fish there in the last 40 years.

So the big question for the Chagossians, whose current legal battle is in the European court, is whether creating a marine sanctuary there would make it harder for them to eventually go home. The BBC says the United Kingdom doesn't particularly want them to do so because it don't think they could survive without financial assistance.

And someday, when the U.S. gives up the military base, the island reverts to the island Republic of Mauritius. And it's unclear whether that tiny nation wants to take on the work and expense of protecting the area.

Stay tuned. A decision is expected in the spring.

Source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/03/proposed-chagos-reserve-in-the-indian-ocean-controversial-in-united-kingdom/1

3.12.2010

Maldives Declares All Its Territorial Waters a Shark Sanctuary

The Maldives definitely knows who's paying the bills these days... The low-lying Indian Ocean nation has declared the entirety of its 90,000 square mile Exclusive Economic Zone a shark sanctuary, banning all fishing as well as imports and exports of shark fins.

Tourism now forms the majority of the Maldives' economy, but fishing is growing in importance and competing with tourism in terms of preserving the very natural resources people come to see. In the case of sharks, the more than 30 species found in the waters around the Maldives.

Praising the move, Matt Rand, director of Global Shark Conservation for the Pew Environment Group said:

Countries are beginning to recognize just how important vibrant shark populations are to healthy ecosystems, and to their ecotourism industries. Today's announcement protects the Maldives' tourism industry from the the ravages of the shark fin trade. It is a bold and farsighted move on the part of the government of the Maldives.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/maldives-declares-all-its-waters-shark-sanctuary.php

3.11.2010

Unmanned remote sub successfully crosses the Atlantic Ocean

NEW BRUNSWICK — After the nearly 8-foot, 134-pound, missile-shaped, yellow glider known as RU27 became the first unmanned underwater robot to cross the Atlantic Ocean this winter, university officials compared the feat to other cross-Atlantic pioneers like Charles Lindbergh and Christopher Columbus.

Now they're hoping a successor “Scarlet Knight'' can join the ranks of those who've circumnavigated the globe.

The around-the-world mission for the data-collecting device was announced by the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Science after a homecoming celebration Thursday on the College Avenue Campus. The event was attended by children from Pine Brook Elementary School in Manalapan and Village Elementary School in Montgomery.
Related

The glider was launched from Tuckerton in Ocean County April 27, 2009, and traveled 4,594 miles and 221 days, landing in Baiona, Spain, on Dec. 7, 2009.

Its progress was tracked by schoolchildren and researchers keen on further understanding the Earth's oceans.

“Climate change, the great challenge of our age, is linked to and influenced by this great heat engine,'' said Cook Campus dean Richard Ludescher. “Understanding and predicting our planet's future requires that we finally and thoroughly map the ocean and its currents.''

The glider, made by Teledyne Webb Research, “flies'' through water by riding currents and shooting water.

President Richard L. McCormick hailed the project as an example of interdisciplinary, experiential learning, which included writers and documentary filmmakers at Rutgers Writers House.

Their 80-minute thriller, “Atlantic Crossing,'' follows the glider as it dodges currents, storms, ships, fishing nets and sea creatures. At one point in the journey, cameras capture the research crew "rescuing" and cleaning the glider in shark-filled water.

The glider team working on the new world-wide Challenger Mission – named after the 19th century British ocean expedition that led to the birth of modern oceanography – includes professors and graduate and undergraduate students from the schools of Engineering and of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The mission's goal is to collect data on ocean changes.

“It is clear that the water cycle will be changed by 2030,'' Scott Glenn, professor of physical oceanography said. “So the point of this data collecting and the methods we're using to achieve it will be to create strategies and tactics to address these changes."

Source: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20100304/NEWS/100304054/1004/NEWS0102

3.10.2010

Methane Releases from Arctic Shelf May Be Much Larger and Faster Than Anticipated

ScienceDaily— A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

"The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans," said Shakhova, a researcher at UAF's International Arctic Research Center. "Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap."

Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is released from previously frozen soils in two ways. When the organic material -- which contains carbon -- stored in permafrost thaws, it begins to decompose and, under oxygen-free conditions, gradually release methane. Methane can also be stored in the seabed as methane gas or methane hydrates and then released as subsea permafrost thaws. These releases can be larger and more abrupt than those that result from decomposition.

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area that encompasses more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. It is more than three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetlands, which have been considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane. Shakhova's research results show that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is already a significant methane source: 7 teragrams yearly, which is equal to the amount of methane emitted from the rest of the ocean. A teragram is equal to about 1.1 million tons.

"Our concern is that the subsea permafrost has been showing signs of destabilization already," she said. "If it further destabilizes, the methane emissions may not be teragrams, it would be significantly larger."

Shakhova notes that Earth's geological record indicates that atmospheric methane concentrations have varied between about .3 to .4 parts per million during cold periods to .6 to .7 parts per million during warm periods. Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic average about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years, she said. Concentrations above the East Siberian Arctic Shelf are even higher.

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a relative frontier in methane studies. The shelf is shallow, 50 meters or less in depth, which means it has been alternately submerged or terrestrial, depending on sea levels throughout Earth's history. During Earth's coldest periods, it is a frozen arctic coastal plain, and does not release methane. As the planet warms and sea levels rise, it is inundated with seawater, which is 12-15 degrees warmer than the average air temperature.

"It was thought that seawater kept the East Siberian Arctic Shelf permafrost frozen," Shakhova said. "Nobody considered this huge area."

Earlier studies in Siberia focused on methane escaping from thawing terrestrial permafrost. Semiletov's work during the 1990s showed, among other things, that the amount of methane being emitted from terrestrial sources decreased at higher latitudes. But those studies stopped at the coast. Starting in the fall of 2003, Shakhova, Semiletov and the rest of their team took the studies offshore. From 2003 through 2008, they took annual research cruises throughout the shelf and sampled seawater at various depths and the air 10 meters above the ocean. In September 2006, they flew a helicopter over the same area, taking air samples at up to 2,000 meters in the atmosphere. In April 2007, they conducted a winter expedition on the sea ice.

They found that more than 80 percent of the deep water and greater than half of surface water had methane levels more than eight times that of normal seawater. In some areas, the saturation levels reached at least 250 times that of background levels in the summer and 1,400 times higher in the winter.

They found corresponding results in the air directly above the ocean surface. Methane levels were elevated overall and the seascape was dotted with more than 100 hotspots. This, combined with winter expedition results that found methane gas trapped under and in the sea ice, showed the team that the methane was not only being dissolved in the water, it was bubbling out into the atmosphere.

These findings were further confirmed when Shakhova and her colleagues sampled methane levels at higher elevations. Methane levels throughout the Arctic are usually 8 to 10 percent higher than the global baseline. When they flew over the shelf, they found methane at levels another 5 to 10 percent higher than the already elevated arctic levels.

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf, in addition to holding large stores of frozen methane, is more of a concern because it is so shallow. In deep water, methane gas oxidizes into carbon dioxide before it reaches the surface. In the shallows of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, methane simply doesn't have enough time to oxidize, which means more of it escapes into the atmosphere. That, combined with the sheer amount of methane in the region, could add a previously uncalculated variable to climate models.

"The release to the atmosphere of only one percent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to 3 to 4 times," Shakhova said. "The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict."

Shakhova, Semiletov and collaborators from 12 institutions in five countries plan to continue their studies in the region, tracking the source of the methane emissions and drilling into the seafloor in an effort to estimate how much methane is stored there.

Shakhova and Semiletov hold joint appointments with the Pacific Oceanological Institute, part of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Their collaborators on this paper include Anatoly Salyuk, Vladimir Joussupov and Denis Kosmach, all of the Pacific Oceanological Institute, and Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100304142240.htm

3.09.2010

Leviathans may battle in remote depths

New studies suggest that great white sharks may migrate so they can dine on giant squids.

In what could be the ultimate marine smack-down, great white sharks off the California coast may be migrating 1,600 miles west to do battle with creatures that rival their star power: giant squids.

A series of studies tracking this mysterious migration has scientists rethinking not just what the big shark does with its time but also what sort of creature it is.

Few sea denizens match great white sharks and giant squids in primitive mystique. Both are the subject of popular mania; both are inscrutable. That these two mythic sea monsters might convene for epic battles in the stark expanses of the Pacific is enough to make a documentarian salivate.

For more reserved scientists, the possible link between sharks and squid, suggested by marine ecologist Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute in Fallbrook, is just one part of emerging research that has altered their understanding of the great whites.

The shift began eight years ago with the surprising discovery that great white sharks migrate, somewhat as humpback whales do. That and subsequent studies have demolished the iconic image of great whites lurking in relative shallows, ready to snatch an errant swimmer, as popularized in the movie "Jaws."

Domeier said he believes the animals "are not a coastal shark that comes out to the middle of the ocean. They are an ocean shark that comes to the coast. It is a complete flip-flop."

Picture them not as a dorsal fin off the beach but rather as an unseen leviathan swimming through black depths where the oxygen thins and fish glow in the dark, and maybe pouncing on a 30-foot squid.

The squid part is controversial. But Domeier's work and that of other scientists increasingly suggests that great white sharks are not randomly roving eating machines.

Instead, they obey set migration patterns, have distinct populations and return to the same locales. They are not desperadoes but dutiful migrants: Nomads but not outlaws, they yearn for home.

But this new understanding raised a question: Why would an animal so large, that grows teeth as humans grow hair, bother to go so far when it can dine on just about anything in fin's reach? The migration is especially puzzling because it means sharks miss out on coastal food supplies, said the University of Hawaii's Kevin Weng, who also tracked sharks' migration.

Determined to find the reason, Domeier and his team spent three years catching 22 great whites off Mexico's Guadalupe Island, southwest of San Diego, and bolting high-tech tags to their fins. The area, like California's Farallon Islands, is a hot spot for shark visits.

The team used hooks that could cradle a volleyball. They wrestled the sharks onto platforms, lifted them aboard their vessel and put towels over their eyes. The 4,000-pound predator is only a minor threat out of water, Domeier said. But after being thwacked off his feet, he learned to tie up their tails.

Funded by Newport Beach's George T. Pfleger Foundation and others, Domeier arranged a voyage with a National Geographic Channel television crew to follow the sharks in a 126-foot boat. The crew used the tags to track the sharks to an area of the deep Pacific about 1,500 miles east of Kauai that scientists consider an ecological desert because it is so biologically unproductive.

There, the sharks abruptly ended their migration, and satellite tags showed them milling around and diving.

Despite hours of surveys and trolling during last spring's monthlong voyage, members found barely any fish or other prey that the sharks might be eating.

But there was an exception: squids. Purple and neon flying squids were easy to find. There also were leaping sperm whales, a marine mammal known to feed in spawning areas for large squids. To Domeier, it was clear: The sharks had found a squid-based ecosystem with big enough prey to attract sperm whales.

Finally, the crew found a whitish carcass of a giant squid that had been chewed on, perhaps by various predators. Because of the lack of alternative food sources, and the pinging tags that traced deep and frequent dives, Domeier said, he formed a speculative conclusion: The sharks go to the area for the same reason as sperm whales: to feed on large squids, including the giant ones in the area, and on various predators the squids attract.

The weather turned bad, and the investigation ended early. The trip back was boring enough for the crew to form a band, then break up.

Domeier said he believes the sharks return to the coast to breed. His tags showed that some females stayed out at sea full-time.

The idea has set off robust debate. Some scientists argue it remains possible that the sharks mate offshore, and all agree that more research is needed to determine exactly what, and when, they eat. And it's highly unlikely anyone will ever see a shark making an easy kill of giant squid.

But Oscar Sosa-Nishizaki, a fisheries biologist in Ensenada, said the tagging effort helps researchers count sharks and plan conservation efforts.

Shark scientists face a dilemma: There is intense popular interest in their work, but some fret that it may hinder conservation. Media interest in sharks tends to be "sparse on detail, high on testosterone," said marine biologist Weng. "It's as if aliens were to visit planet Earth, and the only thing they saw of human beings was ultimate fighting on TV."

Though wary of pop biology, Domeier made the most of it. He used his time on camera to lobby against eating bluefin tuna and Chilean sea bass.

If mythic predator-mania gave him the chance, so be it, he said. "We are at a state of real disaster of our oceans," he said. "Perhaps the scientific routine . . . doesn't work."

jill.leovy@latimes.com

Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/07/local/la-me-shark7-2010mar07

'Globetrotting' New Worms Discovered on Great Barrier Reef and Swedish Coast

ScienceDaily — 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.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100308095836.htm

Thai Customs seize US$60,000 in contraband Indonesian coral

BANGKOK, (TNA) – Thai Customs Department officials seized more than 800 pieces of rare and protected corals and sea anemones smuggled from Indonesia, worth about Bt2 million (US$60,000 ), a senior official of the Customs Department said on Tuesday.

Customs Department deputy director-general Kornsiri Pinnarut told a news conference that it confiscated 858 corals, sea anemones, giant clams, cowries and sea fans weighing some 300kg altogether.

Customs officials found the items during a search at a Thai Airways International warehouse, she said.

According to the customs official, Siriporn Umphu from Kalasin province in the northeast imported the items from Indonesia on March 1, giving false information that they were ornamental fish.

Officials initially believed that corals were destined to be sold at Bangkok’s biggest Chatuchak weekend market and Siriporn will be summoned to report to the police on charges of providing false information to import forbidden items into the kingdom without permission and violating the 1992 Wildlife Preservation
and Protection Act.

The Customs Department has made arrests in three cases and seized exhibits worth more than Bt142 million (over $4 million) since October 2009. (TNA)

Source: http://www.mcot.net/content/27380

3.08.2010

Tides, Earth's Rotation Among Sources of Giant Underwater Waves

ScienceDaily — Scientists at the University of Rhode Island are gaining new insight into the mechanisms that generate huge, steep underwater waves that occur between layers of warm and cold water in coastal regions of the world's oceans.

David Farmer, a physical oceanographer and dean of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography, together with student Qiang Li, said that large amplitude, nonlinear internal waves can reach heights of 150 meters or more in the South China Sea, and the effects they have on surface wave fields ensure that they are readily observable from space.

Farmer and Li are reporting results of their research at the Ocean Sciences Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Portland, Ore.

"The large waves in the South China Sea have attracted a fair bit of attention in recent years," Farmer said, "but much of this has been directed at the interaction of the waves with the sloping continental shelf of mainland China where they break, overturn and produce intense mixing. Our focus is on the way in which they are generated in Luzon Strait, between Taiwan and the Philippines, and the way they evolve as they propagate westwards across the deep ocean basin of the South China Sea."

Farmer and Li studied the evolution of large internal waves occurring at tidal periods generated by currents traversing submarine ridges in Luzon Strait. As these waves travel west through the South China Sea, they steepen and evolve into packets of steep, energetic waves occurring at periods of 20-30 minutes. It is these energetic short period waves that modulate the ocean surface roughness, making their presence observable from satellites in space.

The URI scientists' observations showed that the Earth's rotation modifies internal waves as they travel cross the deep basin. This effect mainly influences the internal waves that form on the 24-hour period of diurnal tides, dispersing the energy and inhibiting the steepening process. Internal waves that form on the semi-diurnal tides are not affected in this way, are more readily steepened and then break into the energetic, short period waves.

Farmer and Li studied internal waves in the South China Sea using pressure equipped inverted echo-sounders, instruments developed by scientists at the University of Rhode Island. From the seafloor, the device transmits an acoustic pulse and then listens for the echo from the sea surface. Sound travels faster through warm water than it does through cold water, so changes in the echo delay allow measurement of the thickness of the warm surface layer, enabling the shape and size of passing internal waves to be recorded.

According to Farmer, nonlinear internal waves impact the ocean in many ways: stirring up sediment on the sea floor, creating hazards to offshore engineering structures, interfering with submarine navigation, and greatly affecting propagation of underwater sound. Internal waves also appear to have significant, if not fully understood, biological impacts, and in shallow water environments they can mix water masses and modify coastal circulation.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224165231.htm

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