Take Action Against Plastic
Sep/100
I just heard on the radio today that California alone uses 19 BILLION plastic bags a year. If you are as tired as I am of seeing these bags on the beach, or surfing past one out in the ocean, please visit the site below and take action. Send a letter to your Senator and let him know how you feel about plastic. The bill to ban plastic bags in California was not passed today. However, we can all still do whatever we can on a daily basis to cut down on plastic use.
http://www.riseaboveplastics.org/
Write to your Senator. Click on the link that reads “Click here for more info” and it will take you to the page of your local senator. You just need to fill in your name and send it off. It takes two seconds…maybe three.
Latest news on the oil spill in the Gulf
May/100
Go to the ABC link to watch the underwater videos from Jaque Cousteau Jr. and
Carol Browner, White House Representative for Energy and Climate Change.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/bp-oil-spill-white-house-worst-american-history/story?id=10735137
The Environmental Protection Agency last week ordered BP to use a less toxic chemical dispersant but the company failed to comply. There are fewer dispersants being manufactured in the quantities needed, Browner said, and scientists are continuing to examine how the particular dispersant interacts with the environment.
“What the EPA did yesterday was direct BP to use less of this dispersant while they continue to study what other alternatives may be available,” Browner said.
In response to questions being raised about whether BP will follow orders given by the administration, Browner said that BP will “absolutely comply” and is already complying with Monday’s order.
Basically, it is a toxic soup of oil and chemical dispersant that formed large underwater plumes as deep as 25 feet. The worst chemical disaster in U.S. history.
From the Good Pirates Of the Sea
May/100
“My name is Brad Latimer, I crewed on the M/Y Steve Irwin last year. We got sent a few boxes of Surf-furs from somewhere, when we got the box it had no return address….Anyways, I would just like to thank you for the gift as they kept us warm all through winter and when we went to Antarctica they were super for going out on deck.
I left the Steve Irwin in Hobart last September and went to Mauritius and picked up the ship Bob Barker there. We took it down to Antarctica to stop the Japanese whaling fleet. We had the most successful campaign ever this year so I was stoked to be a part of that.
But, I also took my Surf-fur with me and all the Bob Barker crew were jealous. It takes at least 15 min to put a mustang suit on and the action could be over before then….”
Thanks again,
Brad Latimer
The first one is at Kerguelen Islands while we were hiding out from a storm.
The second is well down in the Southern Ocean right up the backside of the Nisshin Maru where we stopped them from whaling for weeks.
there are also a few extra in there.
All credits to Brad Latimer/Sea Shepherd
May/100
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is expected to strike the Louisiana coastline today, and officials are bracing for impacts to shorebirds, turtles, shellfish and other endangered wildlife. But many ocean scientists are now raising concerns that a powerful current could spread the still-bubbling slick from the Florida Keys all the way to Cape Hatteras off North Carolina.
These oceanographers are carefully watching the Gulf Loop Current, a clockwise swirl of warm water that sets up in the Gulf of Mexico each spring and summer. If the spill meets the loop — the disaster becomes a runaway.
“It could make it from Louisiana all the way to Miami in a week, maybe less.” said Eric Chassignet, director of the Center for Ocean Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University. “It is pretty fast.”
Right now, some computer models show the spill 30 to 50 miles north of the loop current. If the onshore winds turn around and push the oil further south: “That would be a nightmare,” said Yonggang Liu, research associate at the University of South Florida who models the current. “Hopefully we are lucky, but who knows. The winds are changing and difficult to predict.”
Imagine the loop current as an ocean-going highway, transporting tiny plankton, fish and other marine life along a watery conveyor belt. Sometimes it even picks up a slug of freshwater from the Mississippi River — sending it on a wandering journey up to North Carolina.
The Gulf Loop Current acts like jet of warm water that squirts in from the Caribbean basin and sloshes around the Gulf of Mexico before being squeezed out the Florida Strait, where it joins the larger and more powerful Gulf Stream current.
Fishermen follow the current as a harbinger of good catches. It has also transported algal blooms — toxic “red tides” — from the Gulf of Mexico to beaches and bays along the southeast Atlantic coast.
Oceanographer George Maul worries that the current could push the oil slick right through the Florida Keys and its 6,000 coral reefs.
“I looked at some recent satellite imagery and it looks like some of the oil may be shifted to the south,” said Maul, a professor at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla. “If it gets entrained in the loop, it could spread throughout much of the Atlantic.”
In fact, new animation from a consortium of Florida institutions and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, predicts a slight southward shift in the oil over the next few days.
Emergency responders are working to cap the oil spill at its undersea source, but admit it could be weeks before the well is shut down.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are expected to release their predictions of the spill and the loop current early this week. A spokeswoman for the agency did not respond to requests for comment by Discovery News.
-Eric Niiler is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
Oil in The United States
Jan/100
It looks like this is true, but I am open to any comments. This was sent to us by the Surf boob camera guy.
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Broad Ocean Conservation Goals Pose Significant New Challenges
Sep/090
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Ironically, areas that have the least amount of human impact are now becoming more accessible to humans due to climate change. A new management plan proposed by the Obama administration is aiming to make some big changes in federal ocean management. The plan sets a national goal of ocean resource protection and creates an ocean council to guide a new ecosystem- based approach. It addresses many areas of ocean policy including offshore energy exploration, agricultural runoff, general conservation, fisheries management and recreation of beachgoers like you! At its core, the new plan aims to set up a new National Ocean Council of top-level officials, who will then guide the new “ecosystem based” approach to ocean management. for the full story in the NY times, visit |
Don’t Eat Sharks And They Won’t Eat You
Sep/090
That is our motto over here at the lab. Since we spend so much time in the water, we want to make sure that Karma is on our side. We don’t eat sharks, period. We started to surf the web to see what is new and interesting in the area of saving sharks. Here is some awesome information that is just the tip of the shark fin… 
Despite the common myth that sharks are mindless “eating machines”, only a few shark species are dangerous to humans. Out of the hundreds of species, only 3 have been involved in a significant number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger and bull sharks. In 2006, according to the International Shark Attack File, there were a total of 62 unprovoked attacks recorded worldwide, of which four were fatal. Considering the millions of beach-goers and recreational ocean users, this is an incredibly small number. In fact, you are more likely to be killed by a vending machine than by a shark.Sharks play a vital role in maintaining the health of marine ecosystems but their stocks are in serious trouble. More than one hundred million sharks are killed by fisheries every year. They are intentionally harvested for their fins, meat or liver oil, and they are incidentally caught as bycatch in fisheries targeting other species.
Sharks are highly migratory and regularly cross national boundaries. However, outside of Antarctica, there are no international limits on shark harvest. With increasing demand for shark fin soup, and little protection, sharks worldwide are at great risk.
Sharks generally rely on their superior sense of smell to find prey, but they also have the ability to sense movement and electrical fields created by prey. Their place in the marine food web is essential for a healthy ocean ecosystem.
The view of the shark as a solitary hunter, roaming the oceans in search of food is only true for a few species with most living far more sedentary lives on the ocean floor. Some sharks are highly social, remaining in large schools. Even solitary sharks meet to breed or on rich hunting grounds, which may lead them to cover thousands of miles in a year. Migration patterns in sharks may be even more complex than in birds, with many sharks covering entire ocean basins.
Several organizations are working in waters all over the world to protect and restore shark populations. Through their policy, science, legal and communications work, they are pushing for true international finning bans, species specific shark management and reduced shark bycatch, as well as decreasing the demand for shark products such as shark fin soup and cosmetic products containing squalene. The loss of sharks, many of which are top predators, will have devastating and unpredictable consequences for ocean ecosystems. Immediate action is needed to protect sharks.
“If the currect trajectory of destruction to the world’s oceans continues unabated, by the year 2048, we can all look forward to a lifeless, putrid body of water lapping at what will be our scum-ridden, trash-covered seashores,”according to Keith Addis, Oceana board member who has been working to save our oceans for 20 years. However, he is optimistic about reversing the damage that has been done. “The most important issues to monitor are over-fishing, bottom trawling and climate change.Currently, we are removing half a billion pounds of protein a day form the oceans, two and a half times more than scientists say the oceans can sustain. To reverse the damage from what is essentially the industrial strip mining of the bottom of the ocean, essentially for a few shrimp, would take 125,000 years. And climate change, among other things, is increasingly acidifying the oceans to levels that are severly disrupting the aquatic food chain.”
What can you do? Eat only sustainably caught fish, check out some of the organizations below and donate to one or two in your name or give as Christmas presents, and or get involved.
Here are some great links;
*Flordia Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department: shark attack files by region, ways to avoid a shark attack, stats, trends and analysis of shark attacks.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm
*Predators As Prey: Why Healthy Oceans Need Sharks. A current report from Oceana on the health of shark populations and why we need them in our oceans.
http://oceana.org/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/Sharks/Predators_as_Prey_FINAL_FINAL.pdf
* Top 10 most shark infested beaches in the world…according to Forbes.
www.forbestraveler.com/islands-beaches/shark-infested-beaches-story.html and click on the “slideshow” to view the
The best Shark movie ever written and directed by Rob Stewart, Biologist.
www.sharkwater.com to download movie.
www.SeaShepherd.org- one of our favorite organizations.
Reef Quest Center for Shark Research www.elasmo-research.org