SLIME from starfish found in Scottish waters could provide a cure to inflammatory conditions such as asthma, hayfever and arthritis.
A team based at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, Argyll, have been studying the substance produced by the creatures and say it has the potential to be a vital weapon in the fight against infections [more...]
Island Bay Marine Education Centre, Bait House Aquarium Open Days
Sunday 27th Feb and 6th March, 10am to 3pm
The IBMEC’s Bait House Aquarium will be open to the public on both Sundays of Seaweek 2011. We will also host school groups everyday during the week by booking. Contact info@octopus.org.nz
Come see and learn about the amazing variety of marine life that lives on our front doorstep!
The Bait House Aquarium is located in the historic Bait Shed built in 1949 for the local Island Bay fishing fleet. It has been an icon of the Island Bay community and the home of the IBMEC since 2005.
Directions: Right on the rocks on the east side of Island Bay. Centre has two large wooden sharks on the north and west walls. Across the road from 212 The Esplanade, Island Bay.
Guided individual and family snorkeling trips in the Taputeranga Marine Reserve will be offered by booking only. Jules Hodge, IBMEC Ocean Discovery Programme Manager: julianhodge@octopus.org.nz
The IBMEC’s “Tentacles Tea Rooms,” serving authentic Devonshire Tea, will also be open Sunday 6th March from 10 am to 3 pm.
The IBMEC will host two guest lecturers at "Octopus Headquarters" on Sunday 6th March who will give talks on "Spearfishing and Conservation" (12 noon) and "When seaweeds go wrong; seaweed blooms and their connection to pollution" (2pm).
For more information on other Seaweek events in Wellington click here [more...]
IBMEC Opens "Tentacles Tea Rooms" for Island Bay Festival 2011 (13/2/11)
octopus.org.nz
The Island Bay Marine Education will be holding an extra Open Day as part of the Island Bay Festival activities. On Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th February the Bait House Aquarium will be open from 10.00am – 3.00pm.
If you visit on Sunday the 20th you can also try out our very special “Tentacles Tea Rooms” in the old Surf Club Building on the beach in Island Bay. Enjoy homemade scones, jam and lashings of whipped cream! Why not bring family and friends and relax at a table overlooking Island Bay and the Taputeranga Marine Reserve.
All proceeds go to support our Marine Education Programmes.
Bait House Aquarium Opens Extra Days During Island Bay Festival 2011 (13/2/11)
octopus.org.nz
Open Days at the Island Bay Marine Education Centre during the Island Bay Festival, are a great opportunity to meet family and friends, see the new exhibits, and join in some of the Island Bay Festival activities. The Centre will next open from 10.00am – 3.00pm on Saturday 19th February and Sunday 20th February.
The Snorkelling for Families programme will be running throughout the week of the festival; February 14th-20th. Bookings are essential. Email: discovery@octopus.org.nz for more information.
After the festival, the Centre will be open every Sunday from 10am to 3:00pm until the 10th April. Check our website for updates and news www.octopus.org.nz
We hope to see as many of you as possible over the next few weeks.
There is a "troubling" amount of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, warns an Oregon State University scientist, but she is debunking claims that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas.
Angel White, an assistant professor of oceanography at Oregon State, says claims that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s and that the oceans are filled with more plastic than plankton are "grossly exaggerated." [more...]
Ten years ago, 95 per cent of Earth’s oceans remained unexplored. Now, experts are unveiling an unprecedented inventory of ocean life.
The most charming discovery may be the osedax, discovered by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.
This seabed creature looks like a wig with pink twigs sprouting out. But the osedax’s diet proves to be less enchanting: it feeds on whale bones. [more...]
Welcome to our 2011 Ocean News. We hope you find our news interesting and enjoyable. Looking forward to seeing you soon at the Island Bay Marine Education Centre. Very best wishes for the new year.
Further evidence has emerged to support the importance of Marine Protection Areas (MPAs). Recent research provides evidence, for the first time, that larval fish migrate from MPAs and re-seed fish stocks more than 100 miles away. {more...]
A ban on single-use plastic bags is now in effect in Italy.
The ban is designed to reduce carbon emissions and help the environment. Plastic bags biodegrade very slowly and could stay in the environment for decades.
They are also potentially harmful to marine life and other animals. The ban was supposed to go into effect last year, but Italian government postponed it amid pressure from plastic-bag manufacturers, who said they needed more time to reduce inventories. [more...]
Passively surveying the depths of the sea from a shrouded perch, they lie in wait…anticipating the precise moment when they should tempt their intended prey with delectably deadly faux food. Even when fully consumed, these daredevil predators will never fully cease to exist. So gullible, so easy to dupe -- ravenous marine fauna are the ideal candidates to fall hook, line and sinker for ocean bound post consumer waste. Each pulsing underwater current and shimmering ray of light showcases the deceptively appetizing nature of society’s endlessly cast aside plastic and metallic objects to such a degree that they are gamely slurped up by whales, sea turtles, seals, and marine birds (**especially albatross**) not to mention countless other hungry ocean creatures.[more...]
Amid a dry spell for breakthrough cancer drugs, recent U.S. approval of Eisai Co.'s Halaven represents some vindication for a small group of researchers who believe, contrary to recent pharmaceutical fashion, that molecules from nature hold promise against hard-to-treat diseases.
The Food and Drug Administration's approval of Halaven in November for treating late-stage breast cancer was a triumph of chemistry and tenacious research. Its path, extending nearly three decades from the first studies, demonstrates not only potential benefits but also some of the hurdles in the hunt within nature's bounty for drugs of the future. [more...]
CUTTING-EDGE Queensland technology which prevents whales and other marine life from becoming trapped in shark nets is set to be taken to the world.
The $150 "marine pingers" were added to Queensland shark nets last year. They emit a low-frequency beeping sound which lets whales know they need to keep their distance – or risk an unhappy encounter with a shark net. [more...]
Media says the "Great Garbage Patch" is twice the size of Texas while an Oregon State researcher says it is less than one percent of the size of Texas
An Oregon State University researcher has found that the media has been exaggerating the size of the "Great Garbage Patch" found between California and Japan.
[more...]
Global dimming is a less well-known but real phenomenon resulting from atmospheric pollution. The burning of fossil fuels by industry and internal combustion engines, in addition to releasing the carbon dioxide that collects and traps the sun’s heat within our atmosphere, causes the emission of so-called particulate pollution—composed primarily of sulphur dioxide, soot and ash. When these particulates enter the atmosphere they absorb solar energy and reflect sunlight otherwise bound for the Earth’s surface back into space. The reduction in heat reaching the Earth’s surface as a result of both of these processes is what researchers have dubbed global dimming.
[more...]
Marine ecological restoration has been included for the first time in the country's highest-level planning.
The inclusion of a key anti-pollution task in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) is part of a concerted effort to deal with the problem of worsening marine pollution.
Wang Bin, deputy director of the department of marine environment protection at the State Oceanic Administration, said on Friday that China's marine and coastal areas are suffering from massive pollution. He said the prevention and control of pollution from industrialized coastal areas will be a major task during the coming five years. [more...]
Bruce, a great white shark, visits Vancouver dive operator/conservationist Mike Lever daily in the waters off Mexico's Guadalupe Island.
Mike Lever knew that great white sharks could be dangerous. He just didn't expect danger from his competition in Mexico's cage-diving business.
"I received quite a number of threats," the Vancouver resident reveals over coffee on Granville Street. "Telephone threats, that if I showed up there and spoiled a good thing, I'd end up in a dumpster ... with my knees broken. It was a guy who said he was doing me a favour by passing on the message."
After several years offering dive trips in B.C. waters, Lever decided to get into the business of cage diving with great white sharks off Guadalupe Island. [more...]
Underwater canyons, deep-sea coral reefs and sponge banks are part of a unique ecosystem that South Africa wants to save within its first deep-sea marine protected area.
After 10 years of consultations, South Africa has mapped the boundaries for the proposed reserve stretching 100 kilometres from the eastern KwaZulu-Natal coast.
The mapping required synthesising the many divergent interests in the Indian Ocean waters, with 40 industries from fishing to gas lines to jet skis operating in an area home to about 200 animal species and their ecosystems. [more...]
An underwater clean-up of Taranaki Wharf on Saturday 6 November yielded a large amount of rubbish including over 100 kgs of discarded cans, bottles, and food wrappers. Six road cones, 2 supermarket trolleys, a ladder, a bicycle, a cycle helmet and a pair of ear muffs were also part of the haul.
The 'Educate to Eliminate' event organised by Stephen Journee of The Dive Guys was run in conjunction with the Wellington City Council, the Island Bay Marine Education Centre, Forest and Bird, and supported by Wellington Waterfront Ltd, Island Bay Divers, the New Zealand Fire Service, and Mac's Brewbar. The event aimed to educate the public about the large volume of rubbish that makes it's way into our harbour through our stormwater system, and the careless disposal of rubbish. The Island Bay Marine Education Centre provided the public with an opportunity to get up close with the marine creatures through a series of touch tanks. These creatures will be on display at the Bait Shed Island Bay for a limited time.
A windy and rainy Wellington day did not stop Mayor Celia Wade-Brown from joining 14 other divers to retrieve rubbish from the harbour floor. Upon surfacing, divers passed their rubbish to a team who focussed on "de-crittering" the rubbish and recording information such as the types of creatures and the range of rubbish recovered. Divers were then treated to a freshwater shower by the NZ Fire Service who also lent a hand in hauling up rubbish. [more...]
Narwhals have been recruited to help collect climate data in Baffin Bay
The cold water beneath the winter pack ice in Baffin Bay is getting warmer, according to measurements taken by thermometer-wearing narwhals1. The data collected from the diving mammals fill in a geographical and seasonal gap in the region's climate records, as no winter temperatures were previously available from the area. The data also confirm that a warming trend measured during earlier summer-only studies of the West Greenland Current continued in the three years to 2007. [more...]
Divers equipped with digital scanners have created a set of groundbreaking, 3-D images of the legendary Klondike-era sternwheeler A.J. Goddard, which sank in a Yukon lake in 1901 and was only discovered two years ago by a team of Canadian archeologists.
The imaging system, similar to one used recently to document the wreck of the Titanic off Newfoundland's east coast, was employed during an expedition this summer to the sunken-but-perfectly-preserved Goddard — a dive that also produced a stunning new artifact: the vintage phonograph used to entertain fortune-seekers on their long, northward steamboat voyage to the Klondike gold fields.
[more...]
Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute introduced an underwater robot called Tethys, designed to stalk marine organisms. The fish-like robot’s first assignment was to observe algae blooms and map its existence below the ocean surface.Regular autonomous underwater vehicles can only last for a few days or last for longer periods (but are extremely slow). This long-range robot can travel over long distances in a hurry.
[more...]
Millions of giant squids have been devouring fish stock and attacking humans in the Pacific Ocean, causing potential threat to marine ecosystem.
Monster squid are the stuff of legend. But for fishermen and marine biologists along 10,000 miles of coast from Chile to Alaska, the myth has become reality. And their story is told this week in a Channel Five documentary.
Experts believe they may be taking advantage of warmer waters due to climate change, according to the Daily Express.
[more...]
The Independent reports: The number of “single-use” plastic bags given to customers by leading UK supermarkets has fallen for the fourth year in a row.
The total has dropped from 10.6 billion in 2006 to 6.1 billion in the year to May, a reduction of 43 per cent, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said. That compares with a reduction of 37 per cent in the year to May 2009. Over the same period the total weight of material used has more than halved. [more...]
Israeli and Jordanian vessels take part in the oil containment and storage exercise.
A joint Israeli-Jordanian oil pollution combat exercise was successfully completed in the Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba on October 20, 2010. The exercise was held by the Jordanian unit for combating marine pollution by oil in Jordan's Aqaba Port.The Jordanian and Israeli forces worked in full cooperation while using dedicated equipment for combating marine oil pollution from the two countries. [more...]
Seabass are promiscuous, but if the atmosphere’s not just right, they’re not in the mood. Dim the lights and chill the air, and suddenly they’re raring to go.
At the National Institute for Oceanography and Fisheries in Alexandria (NIOF), researchers have been experimenting with controlled environmental conditions in order to increase the sexual appetite of marine hatchery fish. Last August they successfully mated five broodstock pairs of seabass by tricking them into believing it was winter, their traditional mating season. [more...]
This summer, as the world cringed at live video feeds of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken BP wellhead, one message was all too clear: Technology had gone horribly wrong. What viewers might have missed, however, was that the images were brought to them by a technology that went remarkably right—deep-sea robotics.
That same technology allowed humans to drill in such deep and dangerous waters in the first place, then helped plug the leaking well, and is now contributing to groundbreaking research on the impacts of the BP spill. [more...]
The Coastal Coalition is so concerned at the National government's glib assurances over the controversial bill to repeal Crown ownership of the foreshore and seabed, that they have placed half page advertisements in the Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin dailies today to raise public awareness.
Dr Hugh Barr, Spokesman for the Coastal Coalition said that ads are designed to counter the propaganda and put-downs the government is using to hide the fact that John Key is about to trade 2000km of New Zealand's coastline - held by the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders - for something he values more: Maori Party votes. [more...]
One year after my birth in 1955, Vancouver Sun news reporter Jim Hazelwood headed to the west coast of Vancouver Island to witness the federal slaughter of the world's second largest fish.
The crime of the basking shark -- a gentle beast that strains small marine life from the ocean and poses no threat to humans -- was becoming entangled in commercial fishing nets.
Pressured by fishermen, Ottawa installed a special knife that could be lowered down the bow of the federal fisheries vessel, Comox Post, to slice open the sharks. The contraption even made the pages of Popular Mechanics. [more...]
The Census of Marine Life, a 10-year study of what lives in the oceans of our world, has just been completed and, predictably, offers many innovation insights for those willing to examine the results. The accumulated data are impressive, as was the work that brought it to our bank of knowledge. Authors estimate nearly 5,000 new species have been identified as a result of direct observations of about 120,000 organisms. About 2,700 scientists took part in the collecting during 9,000 hours of sea voyage.
This is an impressive achievement, but one can be overwhelmed by the immensity of life in the planet's oceans: The 250,000 or so known species are dwarfed by the billion or so unknown if you were to count bacteria and other microbes. An equally important goal of the census was to frame what we don't know. Sobering, too, is the fact that we have killed 90 percent of the populations of large marine species like tuna. One of the most pressing objectives of this census, therefore, was to establish a baseline of data to inform future conservation efforts. [more...]
It's a ghostly scene - a crowd of life-sized statues standing on the sea-floor off Cancun, Mexico.
The purpose of this stony congregation says its creator, Jason de Caires-Taylor, is twofold.
[Jason de Caires-Taylor, British Artist]:
"I think over a 750,000 people come to the marine park every year and that puts a lot of pressure on the natural reefs so, the idea is to draw those visitors away, which gives the other reefs a bit of respite but it's also to create a habitat space and to increase the overall biodiversity of the reefs here in Cancun."
By the time it's completed, the installation will comprise more than 400 statues, all modeled from photographs of real people.
Scientists say nearly 30 percent of the world's coral reefs have already been lost and another two-thirds are under serious threat because of pollution and global warming.
Some environmentalists see artificial reefs as a small way to protect the remaining patches of coral, and create new ones.
And De Caires-Taylor hopes that his low-acidity, rock-mimicking cement figures will transform over time into one of these ever-changing artificial reefs.
[more...]
This weekend, when US Coast Guard noticed the discolored water at the south of New Orleans, they said it could be the oil spill from the BP. Jeff Hall, who is the spokesman for the United Area Command said, that they will be conducting some tests to determine whether the supposed oil is from the BP oil spill.
There is some speculation that it may be some algae growth. On Saturday, the Coast Guard took a survey of the West Bay area near Venice, Louisiana by sending two flights. [more...]
Environmental lobbyists such as Greenpeace have battled against bottom trawling for years.
You know what they say about good reputations - hard to earn, easy to lose. If you wanted a case study on that particular piece of wisdom, you'd do well to look at bottom trawling.
Mention those two words to the average New Zealander and the image they'll call up will probably consist of huge nets rolling along the ocean floor laying waste to everything in their path.
Stands to reason people should think that, it's a doctrine that has been preached by environmental lobbyists for a long time.
There's no denying that bottom trawling has some effect on the environment but the scientific jury is well and truly out when it comes to gauging the scale of that effect. [more...]
It is with great sadness that we report the death of the world’s foremost psychic cephalopod.
Paul the Octopus, the mystic mollusc himself, became a more significant World Cup figure than Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo or Franck Ribery with his extraordinarily accurate predictions from his tank at Sea Life in Germany. [more...]
WHENEVER tourists asked me where they should go for true gems of Nature, I always advocated Kota Kinabalu. The waters are blue, the sand is white, their coral reef is to die for and all the rigmarole. It wasn’t until I got a trip to go to Pulau Talang-Satang that I realised that such breath-taking beauty could also be found in Sarawak.
On a sunny day, you can float on the water with a lifejacket and a snorkel to see the marine life flitting between the flower-like corals, and the sunlight catching on minute algae as schools of yellowfin fish nibble at them energetically. All I needed to see was a sea turtle coming in to nest — which wouldn’t happen until night time. [more...]
A report released Tuesday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), predicts that by 2050 fish catches will have decreased in nearly all areas.
The report – environmental and economic health of the North West Pacific—present and future, underlines growing concern from pressures such as pollution, over-fishing and climate change.
It says by 2050 most of the top predators will have all but disappeared and the region’s fisheries will be heavily dominated by smaller species lower down the food chain such as Japanese scad—a fish that is on average only 25cm in length. [more...]
The 'Ross benchmark' used for sea level measurements at Port Louis.
“We have been fortunate in being able to compare modern sea-level measurements obtained from tide gauges and from satellite radar altimeters with historical measurements made at Port Louis in the Falkland Islands in 1842,” explained researcher Prof. Philip Woodworth of the National Oceanography Centre.
In 1839, distinguished naval officer and polar explorer James Clark Ross (1800–1862) set off on an expedition to the Southern Ocean with two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. In April 1842, he stopped at Port Louis, primarily to make magnetic field and other measurements, but also to make repairs to his ships which had been badly damaged in the Drake Passage. Having set up a winter base, he took the opportunity to make careful measurements of sea level relative to two benchmarks cut into the cliffs and marked with brass plaques. [more...]
A study led by Dr Stuart Painter of the National Oceanography Centre helps explain the formation of huge phytoplankton blooms off the southeast coast of South America during the austral summer (December-January). The region supports the highly productive Patagonian Shelf marine ecosystem, which includes a globally important fishery.
Coccolithophores are key members of the marine phytoplankton community. They are abundant in the sunlit upper layer of the world's oceans, often forming vast blooms that can be seen from space. [more...]
The Everything PR Spook Twenty Ten continues today with more Halloween costume ideas. From the thousand Halloween costumes ideas this year, the most original, and somehow the scariest, appears to be the BP costume. After the tragic accident devastating marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, BP’s brand became quickly associated with death. The April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. The oil spill caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. [more...]
Plans for a new mine for ore that contains copper, zinc and gold have caused alarm among scientists and indigenous people
The green-lighting of the world's first deep-sea mineral mine in Papua New Guinea waters has caused alarm among scientists and indigenous people who fear it will damage local marine life.
Papua New Guinea's prime minister, Michael Somare, today licensed the new mine for ore that contains copper, zinc and gold, to be run by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals. Sited in the Manus Basin within Papua New Guinea's territorial waters, it will be near hydrothermal vents 1,600 metres below the surface. [more...]
Co-owner of Harbourside restaurant Jimmy Gerard selects and purchases fresh fish for sale at Auckland's Fish Martket.
If there's one thing Kiwis consider a birthright, it's fresh seafood. Plenty of us see the sea on a daily basis, and this small country lays claim to the sixth largest fishing zone in the world, 14 times our land area.
Fish and chips is a national dish, our greenshell mussels are legendary, and our childhood memories revolve around diving for cray and making pipi fritters back at the bach. So it's hard to swallow the idea that the seafood platter could be an endangered species. However, last year saw a powerful documentary - Rupert Murray and Charles Clover's The End Of The Line - question the sustainability of the global fishing industry. [more...]
SANTA CRUZ, California -- Oceanographers are using data collected by elephant seals to improve their map of the seafloor on Antarctica's continental shelf. The new map results from a collaboration between Daniel Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, who has been studying southern elephant seals in the region, and oceanographer Laurie Padman of Earth & Space Research in Corvallis, Oregon.
[more...]
When it comes to enjoying the ocean, many of us worry about encountering a shark or a barracuda. But it seems that the long, sleek fish that punctured the lung of a Florida kayaker last Sunday was a fish of a different kind.
Karri Larson, 46, was paddling in shallow waters among the mangrove islands off Big Pine Key when a four-foot fish that experts say was most likely a houndfish jumped from the water and punctured her back with its sharp snout, according to the Miami Herald.
She was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where she was in serious but stable condition in the intensive care unit yesterday.
Why would something like this happen? Experts say houndfish are easily spooked and leap from the water if threatened. And they have reason to be hypervigilant - sharks, mackerel and barracuda consider them delicious.
In this case, the prey seems to have become an accidental predator. [more...]
A U.N. biodiversity conference aims to address a simple problem: "We are destroying life on Earth," said the head of the U.N. Environment Program.
The world cannot afford to allow nature's riches to disappear, the United Nations said on Monday at the start of a major meeting to combat losses in animal and plant species that underpin livelihoods and economies.
The U.N. cited the worst extinction rate since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, saying it's a crisis that needs to be addressed by governments, businesses and communities.
A U.N.-backed study this month said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion, equivalent to 11 percent of global gross domestic product more...]
FUTURE OF ECO-TOURISM? Lady Elliot Island off the Queensland coast.
'Scissor-kick off the boat, grab the mooring line and swim towards the bottom. The manta rays should be around the first bommie on the left.'' The instructions I'm given for diving in Lady Elliot Island's waters are self-evident. I can see 30 metres under water, where the shape of a large ray is outlined against white sand.
Lady Elliot Island's location 80 kilometres off shore from Bundaberg and five kilometres from Australia's continental shelf ensures the island's waters are perennially clear and full of life. Large fish forage here as if on holiday, carefree and safe. As part of a designated green zone in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the island is in the middle of a no-fishing area. [more...]
The ordinary squid, Loligo pealii—best known until now as a kind of floating buffet for just about any fish in the sea—may be on the verge of becoming a scientific superstar, providing clues about the origin and evolution of the sense of hearing.
In a hangar-like research building at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), biologist T. Aran Mooney is exploring virtually uncharted waters: Can squid hear? Is their hearing sensitive enough to hear approaching predators? How do squid and other marine species rely on sound to interact, migrate, and communicate? Will the burgeoning cacophony of sound in the ocean disrupt marine life's behavior and threaten their survival? [more...]
Whole Foods Market in Portland has launched a seafood program with color-coded signs indicating a fish’s level of sustainability.
Imagine picking up a can of fish chowder at your local grocery store and tracing the fish that's in it back to where it was caught – and not only to where it was caught, but how it was caught.
Now multiply that by a few thousand products, and you have some idea of the monumental task facing George Parmenter, corporate responsibility manager for Hannaford.
Hannaford is reviewing all of the fresh, frozen and canned seafood it buys to ensure it comes from well-managed fisheries that will not deplete fish stocks over time. Its Sustainable Seafood Sourcing Policy, developed with the help of scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, sets a March 2011 deadline for Hannaford's suppliers to switch to only sustainable seafood sources.[more...]
A day at the beach was no day at the beach Thursday for a group of middle school students and their teachers.
That is, while the young adults from schools throughout southern New Jersey were at Island Beach State Park, they were there for education rather than recreation.
Sweat shirts replaced swimsuits, and long pants took the place of longboards at Clean Ocean Action's 22nd annual Student Summit. [more...]
Deepest living fishes caught on camera for the first time
A feeding frenzy of cusk-eels where nothing was previously thought to live, an entirely new species of deep-sea fish, and large crustacean scavengers, are among the highlights of a recent research expedition that is shedding new light on the ecology of deepest places on Earth.
A team of marine biologists from the UK, Japan and New Zealand working within the HADEEP project have recently returned from an expedition to the Peru-Chile Trench in the Southeast Pacific Ocean on the German research vessel Sonne. There they used state-of-the-art deep-sea imaging technology to investigate life in the deepest parts of the oceans; the Hadal Trenches. The team used an ultra-deep free-falling baited camera system to take a total of 6000 images between 4500 and 8000 metres (three to five miles deep) within the trench. [more...]
Normally we think of metals in our water supply as a bad thing, but when it comes to trace amounts of metals welling-up from the ocean’s depths we should count ourselves lucky that they appear.
That's because metals such as iron and zinc are essential to all kinds of marine life – they act rather like a 'fuel' that powers ocean ecosystems. On 17 October an Oxford University-led expedition will set sail for the South Atlantic to study these ‘micronutrient’ metals. [more...]
Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) and National Institute of Water & Atmosphere (NIWA) today launched a new web portal providing free public access to data gathered by the Bay of Islands Ocean Survey 20/20 project.
The portal – found at www.os2020.org.nz – contains a vast storehouse of information about the area’s marine life and supporting ecosystems, including high-resolution seabed maps and 20000 images.
The onset of summer brings sunshine, sunscreen lotion, and often sun burn. New Zealand lies close enough to the ozone hole that our burn times are low, and our skin cancer rates are high. This year brings some small relief: NIWA have predicted the hole in the ozone layer, our UV shield, to be smaller this year than in previous years.
The hole in the ozone layer was created mainly by refrigerant chemicals (CFCs) released into the atmosphere until the late 1980s. The size of this hole varies every summer, due to a combination of complicated climatic factors and the slow recovery of the ozone layer. [more...]
An unprecedented agreement toward the cooperative stewardship of a vast swath of Pacific Ocean has been reached, and conservationists are heralding it as among the most ambitious, innovative, and collaborative marine initiatives on Earth.Meeting in Port Villa, Vanuatu at the annual Pacific Islands Leadership Forum, Heads of State and Governments from 15 nations endorsed a draft framework for the long-term, sustainable, and cooperative management of 38.5 million km2 (nearly 24 million square miles) surrounding their collective islands, or comparatively larger than the land size of Canada, the United States and Mexico – combined.[more...]
The world's oceans may be vast and deep, but a decade-long count of marine animals finds sea life so interconnected that it seems to shrink the watery world. An international effort to create a Census of Marine Life was completed Monday with maps and three books, increasing the number of counted and validated species to 201,206. [more...]
After a week of rain and flooding, the bright sun made for the perfect late September day to boat along the Saugatuck Harbor. With a net cast behind it, the S.S. Annie rode down the river flanked by waterfront mansions.
As the net trawled for wildlife at the mouth of the Saugatuck River, Dick Harris, the captain of the 27-foot boat, had his suspicions about what he'd find. Blue crabs seemed to be the most likely catch, since he found an abundance of them in the Norwalk Harbor not long ago. It was a troubling sign of a change in the ecosystem, since few other species were caught. After three minutes, the net was pulled back onto the boat and opened. Some seaweed and a couple twigs were inside.[more...]
New Zealand marine scientists have been significant contributors to the 10-year Census of Marine Life through specific research projects and missions such as the 2009 survey of biodiversity in the Ross Sea, which was linked to the International Polar Year, focusing on climate change.
Associate professor Mark Costello of Auckland University's department of marine sciences co-authored an overview paper based on the 25 regional reports released this week, which warns of the threats to marine biodiversity. [more...]
Two years after their arrests, 13 Vietnamese poachers caught with the corpses of 101 endangered hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) near El Nido, northern Palawan, in the Philippines, have been sentenced to jail time and fines.
On June 22, Puerto Princesa’s Regional Trial Court, Branch 50, ruled that the poachers should face jail time ranging from six to 18 months, and fines in connection with the incident. Since the poachers have been in jail since Sept. 2 2008, the court also ruled that they now will only pay the fines. [more...]
An undersea volcano, aptly named Rumble lll, has partly collapsed, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) says.
The west side of the volcano, on the Kermadec Ridge, 200km northeast of Auckland, collapsed over the past several years, reducing its height by 120 metres, Niwa marine geologist Richard Wysoczanski said.
The collapse was confirmed during an oceanographic voyage during May and June this year. "Our seabed is a lot more active than we thought," Dr Wysoczanski said. [more...]
Highly detailed maps of New Zealand's seabed are now freely available on NIWA's website.
The high-resolution maps show the hidden seabed of the deep sea around the country in incredible digital detail, making them a treasure for all New Zealanders.
They give an unprecedented insight into the shape of the ocean floor - ridges, volcanoes, plateaus, canyons and seamounts. The data presents digital terrain models generated from multibeam data, combined with traditional bathymetric data. [more...]
The meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES (pronounced "sight-eez") this past March was a decided defeat for the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Delegates voted 72 to 43 not to restrict fishing and international trade of the tuna so prized for its sushi that stocks are estimated to be at 15 percent of their historic levels. Although dismayed, conservationists remain upbeat, because they have at their disposal other management tools that could save the species.
Those strategies belong to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which actually has the job to manage tuna and tunalike species (a point argued by Japan and other opponents of a CITES trade ban).[more...]
Valdivia, Chile: In what could be a key step to the formation of the second largest protected area in the open oceans, a Chilean Senate committee has urged declaration of a large scale marine park around remote Salas y Gomez Island.
The recommendation to create the marine park stretching 200 nautical miles around the island - about 380 km east of Easter Island in the South Pacific – was a unanimous decision of the Senate’s Committee on Maritime Interests, Fisheries, and Aquaculture. [more...]
If you trawl a net through the ocean's depths, chances are just about every living thing you haul to the surface will be able to glow. Marine biologists estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of deep-sea creatures are bioluminescent—they produce light through chemical processes.Like the deep sea itself, the reasons why many of these organisms flash, twinkle and gleam remain mysterious to science. But in the past decade marine biologist Edith "Edie" Widder has tackled more puzzles about undersea bioluminescence than any other researcher. Widder has pioneered new technologies designed specifically to study bioluminescence and, in the process, discovered new species and recorded footage of never-before observed animal behavior[.more...]
As BP finishes pumping cement into the damaged Deepwater Horizon wellhead Thursday, some scientists are taking issue with a new U.S. government report that says the "vast majority" of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been taken care of by nature and "robust" cleanup efforts.
In addition, experts warn, much of the toxic oil from the worst spill in U.S. history may be trapped under Gulf beaches—where it could linger for years—or still migrating into the ocean depths, where it's a "3-D catastrophe," one scientist said.
The U.S. government estimated Monday that the Deepwater Horizon spill had yielded about 4.9 million barrels' worth of crude. [more...]
The top story so far during the week-long Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament is the enormous marlin that got away, but not before a wild struggle that included an attack on the press boat, providing the event photographer with the photo opportunity of a lifetime.
Jon Schwartz was aboard the Chiripa off Kailua-Kona, waiting for one of the teams to hookup, when the marlin struck one of two lures his crew was trolling behind the boat.
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New Zealand waters have more than 4100 undescribed fish species, according to a major new study.
The Census of Marine Life estimates there are more than 230,000 species in our oceans, including more than 4100 undescribed species in New Zealand's specimen collections.
Scientists have combined information collected over centuries with data obtained during the decade-long census to create a roll call of species in 25 biologically representative regions, from the Antarctic through temperate and tropical seas to the Arctic. [more...]
Toxins produced by red tide events can alter shark brains, resulting in "hyperexcitability" and even death, according to a new study that will appear in the September issue of the journal Aquatic Toxicology.
The study is the first to document how brevetoxins, which are brain-changing compounds synthesized by some harmful algal blooms, affect a free-ranging marine species. In this case, researchers focused on lemon sharks, but they believe many other types of sharks could fall victim to the toxins. [more...]
The ownership of New Zealand's coastline and the issue of customary title are shaping up as major political issues as the Government prepares to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
This week, we investigate coastal ownership and examine the implications of scrapping this contentious law. Land Information New Zealand has exclusively released detailed maps and statistics to the Herald about coastal ownership. [more...]
The Census of Marine Life is a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world's first comprehensive Census of Marine Life - past, present, and future - will be released in 2010.
The stated purpose of the Census of Marine Life is to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life. Each plays an important role in what is known, unknown, and may never be known about what lives in the global ocean. [more...]
A ten-year inventory of the world's sea creatures has revealed an astonishing level of diversity and a growing number of species, with no end in sight.
The latest collection of papers relating to the Census of Marine Life (CoML), posted on PloS ONE, contains the most comprehensive record of marine biodiversity ever, says senior project scientist Ron O'Dor, based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. [more...]
The Fifth International Fishers Forum on Marine Spatial Planning and Bycatch Mitigation will bring 300 commercial fisheries experts to Taipei, Taiwan, from August 3 to 5, 2010, to improve the sustainability of fish stocks and the protected species with which fisheries interact. Participants include commercial fishers, management authorities, experts in marine spatial planning, fishing technology experts, seafood retailer representatives, marine ecologists and fisheries scientists. [more...]
Developers of an offshore Taranaki ironsands mining project say it could be greenlighted within the next three years, and require infrastructure costing between $500 million and $1 billion.
Such a large investment in what could prove to be New Zealand's largest single source of exports would lend itself to an initial public offering, Bill Bissett, the chairman of TransTasman Resources, the group investigating the ironsands opportunity, told BusinessDesk in an interview. [more...]
A sting on poachers at a Hawke's Bay marine reserve netted three men with nearly 100 paua between them.
The sting, at Te Angi Angi Marine Reserve at Blackhead Beach, 30km east of Waipukurau, was carried out by the Conservation Department, Fisheries Ministry and police.
It was triggered by information received about people taking seafood from the reserve at night. [more...]
