Jennifer Jacquet
I am an American post-doc based at the University of British Columbia, where I also completed my Ph.D.
jjacquet
Posts by this author
September 18, 2007
Posted by Traci Reid, traci@oceanchampions.org
Wouldn't it be great if we could just get together people who know and care about the oceans with the people who make the political decisions concerning ocean protection? Not in any sort of pretentious or overly formal way, - no committees, hearings…
September 17, 2007
Remember the good old days when salmon would court one another in the eddies of rivers? After a long song and dance, the females would flap their tales and dig their nests by moving the gravel (some as big as oranges) before releasing thousands of pea-sized orange eggs for the chosen male to…
September 17, 2007
I suppose one could look at it in two ways: 1) Tilapia is quickly becoming one of the most successful fish species in terms of offspring. One day, tilapia might be the first fish from Earth to colonize a new planet. 2) Tilapia is crammed into what can only be called an industrial feedlot of fishes…
September 15, 2007
I don't eat fish (as has been established) or any meat so I find I get served a lot of mushrooms, which I don't mind. I recently enjoyed some hand-foraged chanterelles from the B.C. forest at Vancouver's Pair Bistro so much that I asked myself: Why? I think this is the reason: mushroom and fish…
September 14, 2007
It takes about 15 bodies of tilapia dried and dyed to make this bikini (the size for a supermodel). The flesh of the fish is eaten and the skin is turned into leather, adding significant value to the farmed fish and in the end, setting a fishkini consumer back about $75. The appetite is now…
September 14, 2007
A Lebonese restaurant in Dubai launched these ads earlier this year as a way to get fashion conscious consumers (who in Dubai isn't?) to eat their new Friday seafood lunch. Any coincidence the lunch is on Friday (think Friday Fish Fry)? In the midst of the marine fisheries crisis, demand for fish…
September 13, 2007
Check out this comparison of Seattle to Vancouver from one Good Magazine. Vancouver trumps Seattle for its "functioning environment for its inhabitants." p.s. I knew immediately this was written by a person living in Seattle. Canadians are far less competitive...
September 13, 2007
The latest release by the funky electronic group the Chemical Brothers is a song and video titled "The Salmon Dance". Just one (minor) glitch--the fish in the tank is not a salmon (thanks for the tip, CW). Have a look.
I don't mean to be fussy. The song is catchy and the video enjoyable. The…
September 12, 2007
For unknown reasons, I found myself reading a USA Today from last Wednesday (Sept. 5). In it, there is a nice little article that reports on the decline in milk deliveries. The reporter 'frames' the story in a positive light: milk deliveries have not declined any further since 2001--they've…
September 11, 2007
The New York Times reports today that Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist asked to delay the vote today to reclassify the gentle, gigantic manatee as threatened (rather than endangered). The Governor hopes the delay will give the panel more time to review the issues, including the fact that…
September 10, 2007
"There are times when life imitates art. Then there are times when life imitates science fiction," the Loom's Carl Zimmer writes in todays' The New York Times article on the jaws of moray eels. And there are times when the jaws that belong to that life latch down on your left ring finger and you…
September 10, 2007
The grey whale is always held up as an icon of success of the Endangered Species Act. While it's true that gray whale numbers have rebounded from near extinction to 22,000 whales today, a new study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the grey whale…
September 9, 2007
It's been a long road since our premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April of last year, but the movie is FINALLY being released today nationally on home video by New Video ($26.95) as part of their acclaimed Docurama showcase and is currently featured on their home page. It also will continue…
September 9, 2007
The New York Times has an article today on the 4000 artificial reefs sunk off the coast of New York and New Jersey. Barges, cranes, subway cars, army tanks, ice cream trucks, human ashes lovingly encased in concrete: they're all down there, providing footholds for coral and tiny shellfish and…
September 5, 2007
Daniel Pauly gave me a copy of the February issue of Eurofish magazine, which at first had me raise my eyebrows in skepticism. But the magazine was filled with delights, particularly an article about the Estonian seafood manufacturer Kriskal.
From the Kriskal website: Due to growing popularity of…
September 4, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
O.K., I know that "Politics Tuesday" is supposed to be about D.C. politics, not mass mobilization, but what's a political junkie to do when Congress is on vacation but think about how to move the masses who don't seem to care about your issue?…
September 3, 2007
Then this book might sit well on your coffee table. Ocean Treasure: Commercial Fishing in Alaska is a nice overview of Alaska's fisheries. My favorite parts of the book are the drawings of different fishing gears (ever wondered how a gillnetter worked?) and the chapter on subsistence fishing,…
August 31, 2007
And speaking of shrimp, Steven Levitt over at the New York Times blog Freakonomics has a great post analyzing different responses to his question: Why are we eating so much shrimp? He found, in conjunction with another hypothesis, that non-economists (i.e., anyone who didn't major in economics)…
August 31, 2007
The Houston Chronicle ran a nice story about a shrimp boat captain who had to deliver a baby onboard while 30 miles offshore. Though she wasn't due until September, Cindy Preisel's water broke Wednesday. What was a shimp boat captain to do? Some highlights from the article:
[The mother] showed…
August 30, 2007
The good news: The white-beaked, nearly blind bajii dolphin was spotted in the Yangtze river relieving fears that it had gone extinct. The New York Times has more on the sighting but the elements of shifting baselines are here: In the late 1970s, scientists believed several hundred baiji were…
August 28, 2007
Some stories are worth repeating. Seven years ago (to the day), the BBC ran the story Giant cod conceals ghastly secret. After centuries of humans eating cod, the predator-prey relationship was reversed...
And speaking of predator-prey reversal, last week a new fish fashion was advertised.…
August 28, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
I'd like to go a little farther with points that both Dave and Randy have made in the last week, and that's the relationship between a mobilized constituency and our ability to achieve real political change for the oceans. I'm fond of saying that…
August 27, 2007
In November, 2002 I gave a talk at a biodiversity workshop at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In the audience was at least one ocean conservation patron worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I said in my talk, "invigorating a mass movement to save the oceans is simple--just give me $5…
August 26, 2007
Wyland has been described as the "Marine Michelangelo". He has painted nearly 100 murals of whales around the world. We even have one here in Vancouver (see photo). I am crazy about Wyland murals. My loved ones know this and they have found a number of Wyland products to substitute for the…
August 24, 2007
Remember Greenpeace's John Hocevar? He made an appearance here on Ocean Day and then in post about his upcoming Bering Sea research. He reported in from the field a couple weeks ago but his message and photo was temporarily lost in my email box to be recovered now.
John wrote: As I type, I'm…
August 23, 2007
I recently came across the 2005 Greenpeace report A Recipe for Disaster, which aims to improve seafood buying behavior by supermarkets in the UK. The report makes a few points worth noting here. First off, in regards to shifting baselines: nearly 90% of seafood sold in the UK is done so through…
August 22, 2007
Check out this website (in English as well as Spanish) on shifting baselines in the Gulf of California, Mexico. There are three recently published papers featured, too, each documenting some consquence of the shifting baseline syndrome (and each led by scientist Andrea Saenz-Arroyo).
The first…
August 21, 2007
Posted by David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
In honor of the Congressional recess, Ocean Champions is taking a blog vacation this week. However, I can't resist following Jennifer's lead on Joan Walsh's review at Salon.com of Bai's book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to…
August 21, 2007
This is Politics Tuesday and the Ocean Champions should be by any moment. In the meanwhile, I found something politically charged and provocative over at Salon.com. Joan Walsh reviews Matt Bai's book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, which she…