Tag: life onboard

Operation Right Speed Larger vessels sailing along the Atlantic Seaboard are being reminded to slow down for right whales.The Coast Guard has implemented "Operation Right Speed" through April 2012 to ensure the migratory mammals have a safe passage along the Atlantic seaboard.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has implemented regulations that require vessels 65 feet or greater to operate at 10 knots or less in areas where the right whales are known to migrate.The first female right whale of the season was seen this month off Georgia.Right whales are among the most threatened of all the whales worldwide. The global population is estimated in the hundreds.Source: Huffington Post

It caused damage to the region's once-plentiful schools of Pacific herring The cargo ship accident that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of thick, tarry ship fuel into San Francisco Bay caused lasting damage to the region's once-plentiful schools of Pacific herring, the bay's only commercially fished species, according to a study released Monday.Herring embryos collected from shorelines left coated in oil starting about 3 months after the November 2007 Cosco Busan spill suffered from unusually high death rates and a range of ailments and deformities associated with exposure to the chemicals in crude oil, the study found."The majority of embryos in samples from oiled sites were dead on examination in the laboratory," wrote the study's authors, who were led by John Incardona, a toxicologist with the fisheries division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.By 2010, death rates had returned to normal, but the embryos continued to show heart defects that are a common symptom in herring of oil exposure.The bay's Pacific herring are the largest coastal population in the continental U.S. and a key element of the bay's complex food web, according to the study, which was published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The ...

More little penguins tasted freedom after they were cleaned of oil More little penguins tasted freedom last week after they were cleaned of oil from this year's spill in New Zealand.The October spill, which was caused by a grounded cargo ship, left over two thousand oil-covered birds dead and hundreds in rescuers' hands. In late November, 49 penguins rescued from the spill were returned to the wild.In the video, one rescuer told the BBC that although some birds are still undergoing rehabilitation, these are the last of the birds from the Mount Maunganui area to be released. He said, "This is a huge relief to our whole team, to get these birds back out again."The BBC explains that each bird had to pass a blood test and a swimming test before it could be returned the wild.The oil spill, which released about 400 tons of oil near Northern New Zealand, has been called New Zealand's worst maritime environmental disaster.Brazil is also dealing with the aftermath of a serious environmental disaster. The Brazilian government recently announced that it is seeking $10.6 billion in damages from Chevron for an offshore oil spill in November.Source: Huffington Post

GQ is a spectacular reef off of Cuba's south coast 60 Minutesran a really great piece onJardines de la Reina orGardens of the Queen (GQ), last night. GQ is a spectacular reef off of Cuba's south coast with abundant predators including goliath and black grouper and Caribbean reef sharks.The very few remaining Caribbean reefs like GQ with fish communities that are more or less intact are invaluable. They show reef managers, policy makers and the public how spectacular reef fish can be (when we don't eat them) and are essential for science. Despite some inaccuracies about the state of the benthos that I'll outline below, I thought the60 Minutespiece was great for reef conservation in general. Anderson Cooper did a nice (if imperfect) job explaining how reefs are threatened and why that should matter to us. The storytelling, imagery and editing were superb.Now, on to the fact checking.There are a lot of predators at GQ True We have been surveying reefs throughout the Caribbean over the last several years, purposefully looking for reefs with lots of sharks and grouper, and GQ has more than anywhere else we have been. The total fish biomass at GQ is ~600g per square meter, ...

Seafood can now be taken from areas surrounding the stricken cargo ship Rena Seafood can now be taken from areas surrounding the stricken cargo ship Rena.Tauranga Moana Iwi Customary Fisheries Trust has lifted the rahui or traditional ban on taking seafood in areas that may have been contaminated by oil from the vessel.Cargo vessel Rena ran aground the Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Mt Maunganui on October 5, sparking major clean-up efforts after spilling containers and tonnes of oil into the ocean.Trust chairman Penetaka Dickson said the clean-up efforts and the water quality had made it safe to take seafood again."The community clean-up has been magnificent on a number of levels and iwi would like to express admiration for the hard work and dedication by so many people. It would have been a lot worse without that collective community effort," he said.Mr Dickson said while the rahui is no longer in place, people should exercise good judgement if they are catching fish or collecting shellfish."The advice we have been given is people should engage their senses and smell any seafood they collect and taste a little before deciding whether the kaimoana is safe to eat."If there is any hint ...

One in every six species related to characters in the movie Finding Nemo is threatened by extinction One in every six species related to characters in the movie Finding Nemo is threatened by extinction, according to a new study out today. The authors examined the extinction risk of 1,568 species within 16 families of well-known marine animals represented in the 2003 Academy Award-winning animated film.All species of marine turtles ("Squirt" and "Crush") and more than half of all hammerhead sharks ("Anchor"), mackerel sharks ("Bruce" and "Chum"), and eagle rays ("Mr. Ray") are threatened.Seahorses ("Sheldon") are the most threatened group of bony fish in Finding Nemo, with two in five species at risk of extinction. Clownfish aren't safe now, either, and they certainly weren't in 2003 after the film's release when local RotoRooter dispatch centers received calls from families whose kids flushed the fish after watching the movie.Charisma, in other words, is not enough. Despite a demonstrated need for conservation action, regulation of trade in endangered marine species is severely deficient for those with high economic value, like sharks.Source: Huffington Post

Increasing temperatures will affect the habitats of animals and plants, New international research suggests that increasing temperatures will affect the habitats of animals and plants, as several will be forced to leave their surroundings and find new environments; some marine species will have nowhere to go. The findings of the study, published in the journal Science, indicate how it will be difficult for marine species to keep up with the changes.Scientists led by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Scottish Marine Institute in the United Kingdom compared changing temperatures for both land and sea and from across regions in the period from 1960 to 2009. The data helped the researchers project the speed at which both terrestrial and marine species populations would be forced to move in order to deal with the changing temperatures. Their results show there is no significant difference between movement rates in the environments.'When temperatures rise, plants and animals that need a cooler environment move to new regions,' explains Dr Mike Burrows from the Scottish Association for Marine Science. 'The land is warming about three times faster than the ocean, so you might simply expect species to move three times faster on land, but that's not ...

NOAA video

Toxic substances in the spilled oil can continue to damage marine life for a long time After an oil spill at sea, toxic substances in the spilled oil can continue to damage marine life for a long time, even though the oil appears to be cleaned up, according to a new study by researchers from Norway, the UK, Spain and France.To help define a European strategy for risk assessment of accidental marine pollution, the two-year research project Toxprof examined the impacts of oil discharges along the coasts of Europe. The researchers studied the effects of several types of oil, including common Arabian light crude and oil from the Norwegian Ekofisk field, in addition to the diesel fuel commonly burned by ships."We found that the oil can become more toxic and harmful during the breakdown process," said Toxprof researcher Ketil Hylland, a professor of toxicology at the University of Oslo's Department of Biology.The experiments were carried out at the University of Oslo's marine biological station at Drobak, located on the Oslo Fjord. Seawater was pumped through coarse sand containing oil that was partially broken down by ultraviolet radiation. The oil then floated into aquariums containing cod, mussels or spotted goby.In this ...

The new standards require vessels to install technology The Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter requirements Wednesday for cleaning ballast water that keeps ships upright in rolling seas but enables invasive species to reach U.S. waters, where they have ravaged ecosystems and caused billions of dollars in economic losses.The new standards would require commercial vessels to install technology strong enough to kill at least some of the fish, mussels and even microorganisms such as viruses that lurk in ballast water before it's dumped into harbors after ships arrive in port. Environmentalists whose lawsuits forced the EPA to implement rules in the first place said the new proposal is largely inadequate.More than 180 exotic species have invaded the Great Lakes, about two-thirds of which are believed to have been carried in ballast water. Among them are zebra and quagga mussels, which have spread across most of the lakes and turned up as far away as California. Ballast water also has brought invaders to ocean coasts, including Asian clams in San Francisco Bay and Japanese shore crabs on the Atlantic seaboard.Ballast water regulation has been debated in Congress for years but no legislation has passed because of disagreements over how strict the cleanliness ...