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
June 11, 2007
Posted by Dr. David Wilmot, dave@oceanchampions.org
I'm back home in California after a week in Washington, DC for Capitol Hill Ocean Week. It was an exciting week and, considering it was the first week in June, I can't even complain about the weather. Oceans obviously received a lot of attention…
June 11, 2007
This weekend, the New York Times Magazine focused on the income gap, which included Lauren Greenfield's latest documentary pieces on Kids and Money. They're nothing magical--just a straightforward look at L.A.'s teenagers, who represent the demographic with the largest spending power in the U.S…
June 8, 2007
I am looking forward to a World Oceans Day where I can kick back with a beer and relax, knowing that the oceans are in great shape. I sincerely hope this won't involve time travel or an inter-galactic voyage.
Anyone paying attention knows that the oceans are in serious trouble, and that…
June 7, 2007
Happy World Ocean Day! (Soon there will be a Happy Anti-Celebration Day in the same way we have Buy Nothing Day; each and every day will be filled with some Hallmark turf--the branding of our calendar year). Don't forget this Ocean Day to 1) check out the newly added book lists and 2) visit the…
June 7, 2007
On May 27th, Rachel Carson would have turned 100 years of age. Instead, the world lost this gifted woman and writer at just 56--but not before she kickstarted the environmental movement with Silent Spring (see newly posted booklists) and wrote her ode to the oceans, The Sea Around Us (for which…
June 6, 2007
In his 2002 Op-Ed in the LA Times, Randy Olson wrote about the concept of shifting baselines and uses this analogy: "If your ideal weight used to be 150 pounds and now it's 160, your baseline--as well as your waistline--has shifted." But get this:
Due to global climate change (which has cascaded…
June 5, 2007
One hundred years ago, who would have imagined that a paper would be written with this title and its findings would include that sandy beaches--as an ecosystem-- are a) better than concrete and b) in peril...? Welcome to the new millenium. Sandy Beaches at the Brink was just published and then…
June 5, 2007
WHO: Dave Wilmot and Jack Sterne, co-founders of Ocean Champions
WHAT: A blog about ocean politics
WHEN: Every Tuesday
WHERE: Here
HOW: Using the magic of cyberspace
WHY: Because scientists do a lot of talking about policy (not as much listening), but often understand very little about politics.…
June 4, 2007
For the past year, since the completion of Flock of Dodos the standard question has been, "What's next?" I'm finally digging into the next project, which is a small (though possibly eventually large) piece of media about the sad state of affairs in the coastal waters along the border with Mexico…
June 4, 2007
It seems like most of us agree: Wikipedia is blessed though, like pop music (or an ugly partner), it is easy to love it and then deny one's affection for it publicly, especially in the science world. Now, with the introduction of Wikispecies, started in August 2004 by Wikimedia, several other…
June 3, 2007
This weekend I heard from my sister--a biomedical engineer who did her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. At 33, she has decided to become a physical therapist and must now take introductory biology courses to qualify for the program. Her…
June 1, 2007
Yesterday, I was part of a panel on sustainable seafood at the International Food Conference. The future for seafood security, especially in the developing world, was discussed as was the proliferation of salmon farming. Chile just oupaced Norway in terms of farmed salmon production and looks to…
May 31, 2007
Ever since Canada backed out of Kyoto, under the leadership of Stephen Harper, climate change policy has been in a fog (or was it smog?). Yesterday, the Ottawa Citizen published an article on the Canadian climate change charade. The author opens,
It is easy to get lost in the complexities of…
May 30, 2007
Hagfish are gaining popularity in Korea by the minute! Caravalho Fisheries is now trying to develop a live market for the "primitive and somewhat disgusting eel-like creatures". About 5,000 pounds of hagfish, peacefully coiled at the bottom of their tank, were shipped to Seoul, where they should…
May 29, 2007
We have a social trend in this country that is sloshing back in forth in the past few months. It is the question of whether you are allowed to criticize the movement you are part of (or at least share the same goals with).
Last year I made a film, Flock of Dodos (still airing this week on Showtime…
May 28, 2007
This week I am part of a sustainable seafood panel at Cultivating Appetites for Knowledge, the International Food Conference at the University of Victoria. Mark Powell wrote about the very topic of sustainable seafood last week over at blogfish. Daniel Pauly, a genius (as in: any fool can make…
May 24, 2007
New regulations were put into place yesterday that require stricter record keeping and observer programs onboard hagfishing boats. Hagfish have been dubbed as the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures and they seem to even be disgusted with themselves--knotting their bodies to rid themselves of…
May 24, 2007
In The Rise of Seafood Awareness Campaigns in an Era of Collapsing Fisheries Daniel Pauly and I write about the barriers that exist to eco-labeling seafood in the Asian market. BUT! It appears the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has since made some major headway and at least one chain of Tokyo…
May 22, 2007
Salmon farmers have to convert their open salmon pens to closed-containment systems in five years--at least that's the recommendation approved by the aquaculture committee of the British Columbia government last week. Not suprisingly, salmon farmers are outraged at the proposition.
The B.C.…
May 21, 2007
Blogging lacks a lot of things (fact checkers, to name one). But, after spending three weeks in Galapagos as a new blogger I came away with the impression that blogging most of all lacks a developing world perspective. Blogging is so First World. Most of the people I spoke with in Galapagos--…
May 19, 2007
The Voyage of the Beagle by The Man Himself. I look forward to the Galapagos with more interest than any other part of the voyage, wrote Darwin. And he was not disappointed. Darwin gives lots of anecdotes from the Beagle about the abundant life in the Galapagos: The Bay swarmed with animals;…
May 18, 2007
Tourism is experiencing rampant growth in the Galapagos. Tourism is also the reason for human population explosion in the islands (due to immigration from the mainland). Before Ecuador erodes the very resource on which it relies--the Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserve--it should do what…
May 17, 2007
Let's call him Marco. Marco came from outside the moutainous city of Quito to work on a boat as a 'pepinero' (a sea cucumber fisherman) back in 2003 (though it is illegal to hire outsiders as fishermen). He had never been diving before, but the other fishermen gave him a crash course. He stuck…
May 17, 2007
Grab your seats and popcorn for the Evolution-Intelligent Design circus! Randy Olson's acclaimed film Flock of Dodos airs tonight at 5:30pm and again at 8:30 pm EST on Showtime. The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006 and has raised the heckles from many anti-…
May 16, 2007
In the 1960s, Godfrey Merlen, a longtime resident of Galapagos, remembers hoards of spiny lobster antennae that resembled "bouquets of underwater flowers". Today, lobsters are a rare sight to divers. There are still a few refuges because the conditions are so rough that fishermen cannot frequent…
May 15, 2007
It is difficult to nail down the exact number of sharks killed every year for their fins and accidentally as 'bycatch', but studies estimate somewhere between 30 and 100 million--70 million being a reasonably firm estimate. Much of the killing is done illegally or never comes aboard the fishing…
May 15, 2007
Many foreign vessels are driven to fish the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) by the demand for shark fin soup in East Asian markets and the high numbers of sharks that gather in the warmer northern waters of the archipelago. Such was the case for the Nino Dios. In1998, the Nino Dios was captured…
May 13, 2007
The blog Eye on Miami posted yesterday an excellent post on shfiting baselines. They show a series of photos of Weeki Wachi Springs, Florida: alive in 1950 and more or less dead in 2006. Check out their blog post and a couple of the photos that were posted.
May 10, 2007
If there was any doubt that we are farming the seas...these unbelievable photographs are of a throng of Chinese shrimp trawlers near the mouth of the Yangtse River--FROM SPACE. They were published today in Nature and hit the press.
Kyle Van Houtan, a conservation biologist with Duke University,…