biodiversity

Overfishing, pollution contribute to exponential rise

Oceana divers documenting the state of ecological communities in Cabrera Marine Park along the Mediterranean Coast encountered swarms of jellyfish, with numbers in the thousands, 30 miles south of the area.

On a seamount some 130 meters from the surface, Oceana's unmanned submarine robot revealed especially high concentrations of these jellies that have wreaked havoc along the Mediterranean in years past. Oceana is working to have the area added to the national park.

High concentrations of jellyfish are not a local problem. The same factors that allow jellyfish to "overflourish" in many parts of the world are at play here: Essentially humans are creating a jellyfish wonderland by overfishing and polluting our oceans.

A young biodiversivist

Well, I've returned from my camping trip. This was an annual gathering of about half a dozen families. I met an interesting guy named Remy. We had much in common, including our wry sense of humor and an enthusiasm for investigating biodiversity. Upon arrival at the campsite he immediately and correctly identified a snake I had caught.

My reputation had proceeded me. Remy was looking forward to the two of us hunting snakes together. He managed to catch two. One was a 3-foot long specimen he spotted crossing the road. He grabbed it by the tail just like his hero the late Steve Irwin used to do and wrangled it into a net. I don't know who was more excited, him or me as I watched him catch it. He missed catching a racer on a night foray because it was just too fast (that's why they call them racers) but on another night he caught a shiny (it had just shed its skin) gopher snake that he pulled from a hole in the ground.

Not bad for a 6-year-old boy who probably weighs every bit of 50 pounds. The one and only thing he wanted from Santa last year was a snake stick, which he had brought along on this trip.

The LA Times reports on global warming and skinny whales

Kenneth Weiss, a surfer/reporter who last year headed the team that won a Pulitzer for the Los Angeles Times for a series on our trashed oceans, returns to the front page today with a story about how global warming appears to be damaging the arctic feeding grounds of the gray whale, leading to "skinny whales" and unusual behaviors.

The whales are journeying far to the north of their usual territory looking for the sea-bed crustaceans that make up the bulk of their diet -- and foraging off California and along the western coast as well.

The story tops the front page of the print edition, but for some reason is buried in the California/local edition online. Nonetheless, it's worth a look, for the graphs, maps, and photographs, as well as the text. Here's the bottom line:

Check it out

On Friday, Bill Moyers profiles E.O. Wilson on the latest edition of “Bill Moyers Journal.” (The show is his new spot on PBS that started airing in late April, and happens to have the same name as his old show that stopped running in 1981.) Moyers talks to Wilson about subjects ranging from his work […]

Natalie names a baby gorilla

Adorable actress and Grist–darling Natalie Portman visited a Rwandan wildlife park Saturday to name one of 23 baby mountain gorillas. Naming her gorilla “Ahazaza,” meaning “future,” Portman and others hoped to draw attention to conservation efforts for the highly endangered primates. I’ve yet to find any images from the event, but I’m sure Cute Overload […]

Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sink

Wilderness is pretty much a thing of the past, says report Regardless of whether humankind was given dominion over the earth, we’ve most certainly taken it. A new report in Science calculates that only 17 percent of global land mass has been untainted by human dwellings, agriculture, or roads. And that was as of 1995; […]

Some good news and some bad news

First up is an interview with Jack Ewing, owner of an eco-lodge in Costa Rica. I must admit that writing checks to conservation organizations is about as pleasurable as a trip to the dentist. Spending a week in a place like Hacienda Barú also supports conservation and is a hell of a lot more fun. I managed to photograph about half of the wildlife I saw while staying less than a week in Costa Rica. Best vacation I've ever had. I might put the video (much more interesting than photos) on YouTube one of these days.

After reading that upbeat article, grit your teeth and click on the one about the eminent extinction of the orangutan and understand that palm biodiesel will play a large role in it.

North Pacific Fishery Management Council protects seafloor habitat areas in Bering Sea

It's official -- and unanimous. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to ban bottom trawling of some 180,000 square miles of previously unexploited ocean floor in the Bering Sea, particularly in the North.

The area is home to 26 species of marine mammals, including whales and walruses, as well as 450 species of fish and million of seabirds that flock to the region from all seven continents.

Washington watersheds deserve better data

Water-typing is the name for a process of identifying and cateorizing streams, lakes, and wetlands in terms of their importance for biodiversity and human use. It's a pretty basic inventory developed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources in the 1970s, and it works, but only when it's done right.

The accompanying image shows what happens when it's done wrong. In January, this important habitat for fish was logged without any protection simply because the map was in error: it failed to show that this stream supported fish. Normally, this sort of waterway would have at least received a 58 foot buffer. An important regional group, the Wild Fish Conservancy (the author of the photo), has demonstrated that the original maps underestimate the actual miles of fish-bearing streams statewide by up to 50 percent!