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
July 16, 2007
Posted by Dr. David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
When I returned from Washington, DC last weekend, my son told me he will learn (8th grade social studies) how we make laws. I can imagine his textbook will have a neatly drawn two-page diagram of the process, with each step fitting precisely in…
July 15, 2007
Aloha from Hawaii's Kona coast where I spent the day yesterday learning about captive-bred seahorses from Craig Schmarr who, along with his wife, marine biologist Carol Cozzi-Schmarr, owns Ocean Riders Seahorse Farm . The couple breeds seahorses (all 35 species) to sell to private aquarists in the…
July 12, 2007
Consumption of seafood in the U.S. is on the rise--having grown about 11 percent since 2001. U.S. shrimp consumption rose to a record 4.4 lbs per capita in 2006 (up 0.3 lbs from 2005). Shrimp is now even born and raised in Ohio--450 miles from the nearest ocean. (And though Americans are loving…
July 12, 2007
The shifting baseline of northern fur seal ecology in the northeast Pacific Ocean was recently published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the authors discuss using baseline information as a way to understand fur seal distributions. Northern fur seals range from southern…
July 11, 2007
Marriage is nothing like it used to be. That's true. But lots of things we consider to be new and unprecedented are actually traditional (e.g., adultery, single parenting, politicians having affairs). And the things we consider to be old-fashioned are actually new (e.g., marrying for love, the…
July 10, 2007
The New York Times, ever one to embrace diversity, can run a flag-waving article about the plight of bluefin tuna and the future for sushi (deer meat) and then turn around, as it did today, to publish a glowing review of sushi restaurant on New York's 15th Street. The review's clever title Does…
July 10, 2007
Any takers? Winner gets hubris.
Yes, its name is Steve. Well, close. 'Pez espada' as it is known in Santa Rosa, Ecuador or the gallant swordfish. Fast work, Scott!
July 9, 2007
Posted by Dr. David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
I just arrived in Washington, DC. I'm back for another round of meetings with members of Congress (and to attend fundraisers for a couple Ocean Champions.) As the plane touched down, I found my thoughts drifting from Capitol Hill back to the…
July 9, 2007
One hundred years ago, this question was easier to answer because very often fish came from nearby. Dried and smoked fish was extensively traded, but not in a way that rivaled today's seafood mobility. The U.S. now imports 83 percent of its seafood. With the recent scare over contaminants in…
July 6, 2007
Wildcoast asks its readers to write letters of concern about beach closures to the new Imperial Beach mayor -- best letter wins a free Hepatitis A vaccination...
What do you do when your favorite beach (Imperial Beach, on the California border with Mexico) ends up being called a "Death Beach" by…
July 5, 2007
From the author of The HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy came a wonderful book: Last Chance to See. Published in 1990, Douglas Adams (in photo) and zoologist Mark Carwardine head off with the BBC to make radio programs about some of the world's rarest species. Adams poses as the science novice,…
July 3, 2007
Not to overdo the jellyfish theme but... Jellyfish may have gained their Independence this July 4 with a new discovery that can turn their gelatinous bodies into something for cosmetics, food, and drugs. Yes, Science magazine ran an article this week, Making the Best of a Slimy Catch (echos of…
July 2, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
This week, I'm going to start with another tidbit from last week's theme of how far we've come in a year, and then pivot to global warming as an "ocean issue," and posit the question of whether it is the ocean issue that eclipses all others.
Here's…
July 1, 2007
We keeping eating more and more as a nation and as a globe. Last year's per capita seafood consumption data for the U.S. was just released. Seafood consumption has increased: from 16.2 lbs per capita in 2005 to 16.5 lbs. per capita in 2006. Many conservationists had hoped the pace had slowed…
June 29, 2007
You might remember John Hocevar from Ocean Day. At the end of July, John and the Greenpeace crew will set out to explore the depths of the Bering Sea. They will use some pretty high-tech tools on the expedition, including these Deep Worker submarines, which they tested in a British Columbia inlet…
June 28, 2007
Due to some technical difficulties with comments, I have had to re-post this entry. Some comments may have been lost in so doing...
After the New York Times ran this week's article, Waiter, There's Deer in My Sushi, they followed it up with two more: U.S. Accuses Europe of Overfishing in the…
June 28, 2007
Stephen Colbert loves this: bald eagles were removed today from the U.S. Endangered Species List. What Stephen won't like is that the delisting serves as a testament to government regulations and the hard work of environmentalists (such as Rachel Carson and her denouncement of the egg-ruining…
June 26, 2007
Maybe it's because people became increasingly uncomfortable with marine mammals in captivity. Maybe it's because they are low maintenance. For whatever reason, it seems jellyfish exhibits at aquaria are on the rise. Monterey Bay's Jellies: Living Art pays homage to the medusas. Vancouver…
June 25, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
As I talked about earlier, last November millions of voters changed the face of Congress, and conservationists made headlines for playing significant roles in the elections.
We're now starting to see some of the fruits of those efforts in the ocean…
June 25, 2007
Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
A couple of weeks ago, the Senate "easily" beat back a proposal by Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) to open the coast of Virginia to drilling for natural gas.
My what a difference a year makes! It seems like just yesterday that we were battling one bad…
June 25, 2007
This could possibly be the shifting baselines story of the year. In today's Business Section of the New York Times is the article, Waiter, There's Deer in My Sushi. Japanese chefs are considering using smoked deer meat and raw horse as just a couple of odd alternatives to the ever-scarcer tuna…
June 24, 2007
Jeremy Jackson calls it "The Rise of Slime". Daniel Pauly sees a future in jellyfish burgers. And given that this week is the 2nd International Jellyfish Bloom Symposium--where D. Pauly will deliver the keynote address (having not been able to attend the 1st symposium in Alabama in 2002)--it…
June 22, 2007
Marine protected areas are meant to be one way to counteract our 'collective amnesia' of what marine ecosystems should look like. Last week, a judge annulled a marine park buffer zone area in Brazil, just one year after its creation. The zone was overturned in favor of economic opportunities,…
June 21, 2007
Sequestering carbon in the oceans using large amounts of iron has been proposed as one way to offset our fossil fueled lifestyles. A host of burgeoning companies (e.g., TerraPass) have responded to the public's request to sequest.
One of them, Planktos, would now like to dump iron filings in the…
June 20, 2007
This week, Japan announced the first-ever manta ray to be born in captivity (watch some of the pregnancy here). The baby female manta was gestated for over a year. Manta rays are often caught incidentally by longline and purse seine fisheries. Their global populations, like most elasmobranches (…
June 18, 2007
Posted by Dr. David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
Last week I made the case that if you care about good public policy, you should care about politics. I suspect my strong bias that the key to ultimate success in the public policy arena is political power/leverage with elected officials came…
June 18, 2007
After Oceans Week 2007 concluded, the National Fisheries Institute did what any group committed to fishing would do: ran a PR campaign. An article titled NFI Reaffirms Support for Sustainable Seafood was published that included the following:
In reality, the seafood industry is largely sustainable…
June 17, 2007
Today the Loom's Carl Zimmer wrote for the NYTimes: Take It Slow, Don't Have Many Kids and Enjoy Cold Water. Zimmer examines what influences the lifespans of animals. Lifespan is ultimately the largest influence on the phenomenon of shifting baselines: humans simply do not live long enough to…
June 15, 2007
If you were looking for Nemo, you would be much more likely to find him in sushi (the raw fish movement that has spread from Japan to the remote reaches of the world, including landlocked Ohio) than a dentist's aquarium. Last weekend, Jay McInerney's review in the NYTimes, Raw, covered two books…
June 13, 2007
The Galapagos National Park announced last week that the Ecuadorian government will open sea cucumber fishing in the Galapagos Islands beginning on June 25th for 50 days or two million sea cucumbers, whichever comes first. This news is a disappointment to many conservationists in the islands and…