Confused Turtles

Like a baby duck that will follow the first moving object it sees, baby turtles will head towards the first lights they see. This is most often the light reflecting from the ocean. This instinct is supposed to lead them to the ocean, and it is believed to set their magnetic compass to aid them in their return home. If the turtle’s first sight of light is of city lights, however, they will make their way towards those instead. Even when turned to face the ocean, supposedly the turtles will remain disoriented. This is yet another unfortunate reality of human activity disturbing nature.

Bluefin Tuna

Bluefin Tuna have the ability to live in extremely different climates; they are able to dot his thanks to their fatty bellies. Unfortunately for this species of tuna, however, their fatty bellies are the reason why they are now a threatened species. Sushi makers and eaters around the world love the buttery, bluefin tuna belly. In the Mediterranean alone it was estimated that 50 thousand tons of tuna – which is 50% of the global market - was caught in just one year! No wonder there people were shocked to hear that the Federal Government decided not to put Bluefin on the endangered species list. (More can be read about their reasoning here.) The tuna are being so over fished now that the prices have fallen, which will only lead to profit hungry fisherman violating quotas.

Prehistoric Shark Follow-Up

After only three weeks of discovering the deep water, prehistoric, frill shark in Japan; another creature from the deep, the goblin shark, turned up off the coast of Japan. The researchers needed to get their hands on this guy too, and wouldn’t you know he died in his new, unfamiliar home after only a few days! It is explained in the video that the goblin shark may have died due to such a drastic change in water pressure when it was “pulled up” from around 1200 meters to only 160 meters; and/ or due to the stress of an alien environment in the marine park. Perhaps if another shark or creature from the deep decides to show it’s self in shallower waters, researchers will not take it from its home but find some other way to gather information without aiding in its death.

Hagfish

I was intrigued to learn of the Hagfish’s defense mechanism in today’s class. I’ve heard of squid spraying ink, sea cucumbers releasing their insides, and deep sea creatures that live in what is called the “twilight zone” discharging bioluminescent chemicals to distract and confuse predators, all of which amazed me. It was something about the slime, however, that tempted me to check out some interesting videos of hagfish. This one was the slimiest!



I also found it quite interesting that hagfish, which are mainly scavengers, have the ability to latch onto slow moving fish with their round suction mouths that contain many pointed teeth, and eat their way into the victims’ body leaving only skin and skeleton.

Prehistoric Shark

I thought the bi-cuspid tooth we saw today in class was pretty amazing until I saw the tri-cuspid tooth of this prehistoric frilled shark! It's species name, anguineus, means "eel-like", referring to the long, slender, eel-like body which appears to be highly flexible in this video. The frilled shark was thought to be extinct until just this year when the shark in this video was discovered off the coast of Japan in January! Apparently the researchers were so excited they decided that even though the shark was in rough shape when they found it, it would be ok to put it through the stress of trying to move it to a research lab. Surprise, surprise it died hours after arriving. At what price is the research worth it? Kind of reminds me of the man who dedicated his life to giant squid and then killed the first baby he caught. What a sin.

Jellyfish Stings/ Remedies

I was interested in some jellyfish sting remedies after discussing Jellyfish in class the other day. We’ve all heard of urine being a cure for the pain (also, unfortunately, the most readily available) but according to all the websites I checked out, urine is not on the list for soothing the pain. In fact, many sources reported that urine can create more pain by causing tentacles or nematocysts that have not been activated, to release their stinging toxin. Rubbing the wound, pouring ammonia and/or freshwater on the wound can also cause the same reaction. Alcohol was on the fence, recommended by some and discouraged by others, which leads me to believe that it must work for some.
White vinegar and saltwater were the most commonly recommended treatment, along with removing the tentacles with tweezers or protective gloves, then shaving the wound using shaving cream, mud, or baking soda paste to stop the release of venom while shaving. Meat tenderizer was my favorite suggestion for a sting remedy… how do people come up with these things?!!? It was surprising how many websites actually recommended this treatment. One website did discuss the fact that a scientific study has never been done to disprove meat tenderizer as a cure for jellyfish stings but that it has in fact been tested in labs on rats stung by bees and bitten by ants. They found no difference in welt size.
I can’t remember the last time I was stung by a jellyfish but I think I’ll stick with vinegar from the fish and chips stand!

Anisakiasis

In Japan anisakiasis is a recognized public health problem due to the substantial amount of raw and under cooked fish eaten in the Japanese culture. A lot of the time anisakiasis is misdiagnosed as appendicitis, peptic ulcer, or stomach cancer. It can be avoided by freezing the fish before letting it thaw and eating it raw or by simply cooking it. Many sushi restaurants perform a “safety” act called “candling” to eliminate any herring worms/ larvae before serving up the raw fish, but according to the Centre for Disease Control this is totally useless (“the efficacy of this method is on par with rain dancing”).
The whole cycle of an anisakias’s life is quite disturbing, especially when it is ingested by humans and makes its way to the intestine where it can take up permanent residence. This video clip shows the only way to get rid of the worm once it has made its way to the intestine. Amazing that we have the technology to find and extract this little guy and thank goodness, how terrible would it be to have a WORM living in you! Gross!

Antifouling Paints

After a bit of research I discovered that antifouling paints aren’t necessarily all that bad, as long as they do not contain the chemical TBT.
The International Marine Organization (IMO) has banned the use of antifouling paints that contain TBT. This is a step forward but enforcing this law is what really matters.
One company, said to be the largest paint company in the world, Interlux, has created a TBT free paint product that offers the same level of protection as TBT based products. This offers boat owners a legal, environmentally friendlier way to protect their boats from fouling. The new and improved “Biolux SPC” paint, however, continues to release biocide into the water as it protects the boat. I found mixed reviews on the impacts of TBT free biocide to the environment, some reports say its fine and others, damaging. Not to disregard biocide as an issue, but to point out something that may outweigh its impacts is the fact that, without antifouling paints (TBT or not) the amounts of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emitted into the atmosphere due to drag created by fouling, is enormous. So perhaps with this in mind, released biocides from TBT free antifouling paints are bearable considering the alternative? Yes in a perfect world neither would be acceptable, but unfortunately and fortunately we are still trying to live in a world of compromise.

check out sources here and here

The beach clean up this weekend was a total success! Even though we were hoping for more people to show up, with the amount of garbage collected… we all felt better about what we had done for our ocean.The items we collected surprised us all. On Saturday, at Point Pleasant Park, there was a ridiculous amount of tampon applicators! We were so disgusted that some of us are now working on a poster to put up in women’s public washrooms around the city, showing women exactly where their applicators end up. On Sunday we found a lot of garbage along the trails at Crystal Crescent as well as on the beach. Everything from smashed lobster traps and tires to rusted propane tanks and a dirt bike helmet! It is saddening to think that we collected this much trash in March. With the “off season” for beaching just ending who knows what the summer crowd will bring. Scary thought. Hopefully this won’t be the last beach clean up for this group of students!

Al Gore a hypocrite?

According to CNN’s “crazy” Glenn Beck, Al Gore’s CO2 emissions are almost twice as much as the average American. I didn’t get a chance to write down the numbers Beck provided, but it was extremely disheartening to hear that someone who puts so much effort into informing the world that we all need to change our lifestyles has possibly not changed his own. I was unable to find further information to back up Beck’s accusations, but CNN seems like it would be reliable resource. I would be very interested in know exactly what Gore’s “carbon footprint” is… I really hope Beck is as crazy as he seems and Gore is practicing what he’s preaching.

Canada vs USA

How typical! hahaha

"This is based on an actual radio conversation between a U.S. Navyaircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authoritiesoff the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. (The radioconversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on10/10/95 authorized by the Freedom of Information Act.)"

"Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.

Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to theNorth to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call."

Communities, Coasts, and Crises

Managing Together on a Blue Planet

Tony Charles covered a number of topics during his “integrated management” lecture last Thursday night. “Natural Disasters”, the “Oceans State”, “Top 20 Concerns”, and “How to Help” were among some of the subjects discussed. One point Charles made, when discussing, “How to Help”, was that building local management in small fishing communities, like the Yucatan in Mexico, could be a successful technique to help stop over-fishing on a local scale. It was my understanding that he believes starting locally, going from the “bottom up”, is one way to effectively influence a “top down” initiative and eventually have local people sharing resource management responsibilities with the government; something he referred to as “co-management”. This idea sounds very similar to some of the reasons for needing Canada’s Ocean Strategy; “giving Canadians an opportunity to become engaged in decisions affecting Canada’s three oceans”, and also similar to the Little Albrow Lake example we learned about back in January. I believe that the more people involved, the better. Starting from the bottom up is definitely a method worth practicing and publicizing.
Although Tony Charles’ presentation was not one of my favorites to-date, I appreciated the ideas and facts presented.

Salt Water Marshes

A Place Between the Tides

Harry Thurston was very well spoken and is a beautiful writer; no wonder so many people turned up to hear him read tonight. I have to say, however, that I was not expecting to learn much about salt water marshes at the beginning of the lecture while Thurston read of his childhood memories of growing up on a marsh. By the end of his speech, however, I better understood the importance of these marshes, and not just for their beauty, but for the impact they had on his academic life.
Thurston painted a vivid picture of the marsh he grew up around in Yarmouth, NS (the largest intact salt water marsh in Atlantic Canada). Picture this: sixty thousand birds take flight and move as one; the reflection of a “silver moon” off the marsh water while black ducks swam round; two otters playing on an icy bank; the sound of the willet that made him feel like he was home; how rare it was to see a human amongst this serenity and wildlife
All of the plant and animal life that exists in such habitats is threatened, like the rest of us, by rising sea levels. The marsh itself acts as a “buffer to a battering sea”; it collects runoff, and filters pollution. Thurston portrayed the marsh as “so little but so vital”, explaining that it contributes so much to the world.
There was discussion of the mud flat in Windsor, NS. A man from the Windsor area spoke of a marsh turning to a mud flat after a causeway was built. Now, 15 or 20 years later, a salt marsh has returned. Nature has re-grown itself! On the other hand, Thurston also spoke of an artificial basin created years ago to hull boats between the Bay of Fundy and the Northumberland Straight. Although boats kept getting bigger, the basin was never actually used. Now this basin is a playground to seals and other creatures. How ironic; humans destroy a piece of nature that adapts and finds a way to survive, and we generate something that we are not able to make adapt and it becomes a part of nature.

Show What You Know By What You Do

While I was looking for a way to get involved with Halifax Harbour Clean Up I came across this article... I found the "Clean up misses many spots" section particularly interesting.
This is a really complicated procedure. Not that it won’t be worth it but wow, there are so many aspects that need to be taken into consideration, what a huge project!

More On Bushmeat and Fish

check this article out here

More On Bushmeat and Fish

In Rift Valley lakes of Eastern Africa algae rely on surface water and deep water mixing to provide the perfect environment. Quoted in the article: “there is less of this mixing, because the [temperature-mediated] density difference between the surface waters and the deep waters has gotten greater, and so it takes more energy to mix deep water up to the surface.” (O'Rielly). In turn, the fish stock has plummeted as they have nothing to feed on. This has forced the local people to turn to bushmeat as a source of protein. Many of these animals are endangered and even more carry disease.
This “thread” can be pulled back to global warming. It is so sad that the people of Africa, who are most likely contributing the least to global warming, are the ones that are suffering the most due to the higher temperatures. (S. Fields, 2005)

can't comment on your bolg

i don't know what i'm doing wrong but it's not recognizing my user name on your gpy 2305 blog. i can't comment. i thought my email address was my user name, but i tried everything else too... i don't know what else to do. anyways i found an interesting atricle to follow up on your El Nino posting... it has to do with El Nino and global warming. check it out here

New Fish

Article can be found here

New Fish

In reading this article, I was astonished to think that almost 95% of the biological ocean has yet to be discovered! At the beginning of the article I couldn’t figure out if the news that 2000-3000 new species of fish will be found in 3 years was to be expected in the research field, or was simply unbelievable! By the end of the article, however, when our general knowledge of the ocean was compared to what we knew about the moon’s surface when man landed there, I was not as surprised that we have so much more to discover. It would be surprising to most people to learn, however, that we know more about the moon’s surface than our own planets’ oceans.

With the combined efforts of 300 scientists from 53 countries to create this oceans census, with a common goal of “pinpointing endangered animals and suggesting how to protect them”, this “adventure” becomes all the more exciting. Wouldn’t Maury want to be in on this! I’m sure his records are included in the 15,304 species of fish already documented, but I can imagine him being thrilled to have the collaboration of experts to log all the findings.

Aside from the discovery of new fish species, a new species of sponge, “Rasta sponge”, was discovered, which is believed to contain specific “chemical compounds that may treat cancerous tumors”. Not only are we documenting this information for our greater knowledge, but it is, more importantly, for the greater good of the oceans’ aquatic life in that it will protect endangered species; and in the interests of human life in that findings may be important in testing for treatments for diseases such as cancer.

Measured Contributions

Reference to article found here

Measured Contributions

Canada’s own Connie Lovejoy of Montreal may have helped to find the “essential basis for the existence of life in the Arctic”! How exciting! A new algae that has most likely been overlooked for who knows how long, has now been recognized as a new form of life, and an essential one at that.

Picobiliphytes, the name of the newly discovered “wandering” algae, is a phytoplankton; “Phyton” meaning plant and “planktos” meaning wander. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankton). The algae seems to be well-named as the picobiliphytes were first discovered in the cold waters of the Arctic and then found to exist as well in the coastal waters off Europe.

This minute organism is not one that could have been discovered by one of our early century surveyors, whether they believed equatorial waters to be at boiling temperatures (found that quite amusing), or they were the first to create a way of keeping track of time at sea for the purpose of measuring longitude (as Harrison did). Only with the “advances” in technology are we now able to make contributions this large about something so small. But who’s to say which contributions are more advanced?

I find myself comparing the old with the new as we learn about the contributions made in the past to what I am learning about today’s discoveries. A stopwatch seems like such a simple, non-complex item today, compared to technologies that allow us to find something not visible to the naked eye, and then identify it as a whole new life form.

I just continue to be amazed at how far “mankind” has come in the pursuit of knowledge.

Kelp Forest

Found this article here
Kelp Forest

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is responsible for creating a thinning kelp bed off the coast of San Diego, California. The corporation is, however, initiating the creation of a $20 million artificial reef, the largest in the US, in hopes of regenerating the kelp forest.

This article reminded me, on a much smaller scale, of the relay effect we spoke of in class. The percentage of aquatic life affected is significantly smaller - their home, the kelp forest, was not reproducing young kelp - because the “power plant's operations degraded the ocean”.

This “thread” does not have to be pulled very far to reveal what is happening, but it seems in a situation so closely related (a power plant by the sea) this situation could have been easily avoided. Let’s hope that the efforts to reproduce the kelp forest, a habitat for so many life forms, are successful and that in future, environmental impact assessment studies will play a major role in the planning of any such development.

Just A Thought

Just a Thought

Learning about a time when it was possible to find “new land”, to be the first to step foot on a beach where no one foot had ever stepped before is exciting. Imagine living at a time, when no one really knew what the world beyond looked like.

In your Ocean Use and Management class you spoke of our descendants either looking back at us in the year 2007 and thinking “what were they thinking… not doing anything about the problems that Canada and the world are facing with the melting ice in the Arctic?” or “Wow, what a difference they made… how exciting to live in 2007 and be able to achieve what our ancestors achieved”.
It seems more believable to think that we are capable of making advances, of doing something about our problems and not just talking about them. I think back to the explorers who took a leap out into the unknown in search of something they had no idea about; that at one point in our history we did not know that a whole other continent existed. With the technology and expertise we have today, one would think it to be a simple task to tackle the environmental problems we have caused; whether the problem is an oil spill from a ship transporting oil for the use of humans, or the ice melting in the Arctic due to global warming from greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of man on Earth has been devastating, but we have the knowledge to stop and reverse this trend. Do we have the will?