jjacquet | July 25, 2007Last year, President Bush set aside a large tract of coast off the northern Hawaiian Islands as a marine protected area (MPA) and National Monument. Politically, islanders tell me, this was not too difficult because U.S. fishing interests in the northern Hawaiian islands are relatively small. In the main islands, it's a different story.
At present, only 0.3% of the the main Hawaiian islands' coast is protected. Scientists, such as NOAA's Alan Friedlander (lead author on a study published in April's Ecological Applications on main Hawaiian island MPA's) believe that 20% of the coast needs…
jjacquet | July 24, 2007Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org
So what are the lessons about fish politics (and politics generally) from last week's silly flap about the Patagonian toothfish that Al Gore ate at the rehearsal dinner at his daughter's wedding?
People expect a level of perfection out of politicians that they don't expect of themselves. Granted that Al Gore has become a potent (and at times hypocritical) symbol of the environmental movement, but do we really expect him to pay any attention to the menu at an event that the groom's family was paying for? Was he really supposed to make a scene…
jjacquet | July 22, 2007Today's New York Times ran an article about the increasing interest in marine biology in today's youth culture (some of you believe I should now go confirm this story--check their sources and double-check their stats; I will not). In the U.S., about 50 summer camps, most of them near the ocean, now specialize in marine biology studies, which is up from 40 camps in 1998. Perhaps we can expect a growth in the number of marine biology majors in another ten years time (and, better still, more ocean awareness at the polls).
jjacquet | July 19, 2007In 2003, after Randy Olson would give a lecture on ocean conservation, audiences would ask the inevitable: What is one thing I can do to help the oceans? Olson would respond: Boycott Chilean sea bass. Today, though the evidence for declines in Chilean sea bass is even clearer, the message is no longer so simple. For those of you still interested in Al Gore's eating or not eating of an overfished or, on second glance, sustainably caught fish, you can read this article I wrote on The Toothfish That Bit Al Gore and the confusion around sustainable seafood (indeed, the seafood market as a…
jjacquet | July 19, 2007Every day planes leave Kona, Hawaii with live yellow tangs loaded in the cargo hold, most of them destined for a U.S. aquarium. Craig Schmarr of Ocean Riders Seahorse Farm believes the "self-regulating fishery" is a threat to Hawaiian reefs.There is now a market for captive-bred, eco-friendly seahorses for private aquarists in the U.S., but this message has not been taken onboard by public aquaria. Nor has captive-bred production been considered for many other reef fish victims of live fish trade, such as the yellow tang.
The live fish trade--as 'bushmeat of the sea' and as ornamentals for…
jjacquet | July 18, 2007The whole Gore/Chilean sea bass debacle calls into question Hollywood's role in the environmental movement. Gore, having received an Academy Award, now definitely qualifies as 'Hollywood'. One the one hand, Hollywood should not represent environmental causes because it is a liability (as in the case of "fur traitor" Naomi Campbell and PETA). Instead, the science should speak for itself. Eventually, there will be a tipping of the scale (e.g., smoking and lung cancer). Hollywood is not to be trusted in fora of ethics or science. On the other hand, the public responds to Hollywood and that…
jjacquet | July 17, 2007Al Gore's daughter got married last week and apparently the event was so sacred it called for eating one of the world's most endangered fish: Chilean sea bass (which is not actually a 'bass'). Now Gore is justifiably under scrutiny by the media and charged with eco-hypocrisy.
The D.C.-based National Environmental Trust launched the Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass campaign in 2002. Maybe Gore was still busy treating the wounds after the ill-fated 2000 campaign, but really: how can someone so in tune to the problem of global warming be so in the dark about Chilean sea bass?
Even Randy I'm-…
jjacquet | July 16, 2007Posted 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 a box.
As we all know, our process is neither neat nor precise. Democracy is messy. A bill may travel through the process but instead of fitting into boxes, it spills over the edges, through the halls, and out in the streets.
Enter the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the…
jjacquet | July 15, 2007Aloha 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 U.S., where there is high demand for captive bred seahorses (rather than wild seahorses, which are often caught using harmful reef-ruining means, such as cyanide). Seahorses are considered an endangered species due to habitat loss and overfishing to supply the growing demand for seahorses by…
jjacquet | July 12, 2007Consumption 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 shrimp more and more, there is a group dedicated to raising awareness (ad absurdum) that God hates shrimp.)
But shrimp are a mainstay on every seafood wallet card red list. At Hollywood Ocean Night in 2004, Daniel Pauly prescribed a solution to the shrimp addiction: "Just look at them: they look…
jjacquet | July 12, 2007The 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 California to the Aleutian Islands. Today they breed almost exclusively on offshore islands at high latitudes (two-thirds on the Pribilof Islands alone) but in the past there were large populations off of California. The California population appears to have collapsed between 800 and 1000 years ago…
jjacquet | July 11, 2007Marriage 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 expectation of fidelity). Historian Stephanie Coontz spoke about the warped view of marriage's past at Seattle's Town Hall last month: Courting Disaster: The Worldwide Revolution in Love, Sex, and Marriage, which NPR made available online. Listening to Coontz reminds us of the marital baselines…
jjacquet | July 10, 2007The 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 the Squid Get a Mani-Pedi? was a reference to the laborious massaging of the octopus (PZ's dream job) before its big brain was slow-cooked.
But the reviewer's behavior was even odder than the chef's. He orders essentially everything under the sea, including bluefin tuna, without so much a word on the…
jjacquet | 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!
jjacquet | July 9, 2007Posted 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 North Shore of O'ahu.
I recently returned from a trip to Hawaii (a little work and a lot of play), where some local activists inspired me. A small group of individuals have spent the past 22 years fighting to protect a swath of land that sits above Sunset Beach and Pipeline on O'ahu's famed North Shore…
jjacquet | July 9, 2007One 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 food imports from China, including the health of our fish and fisheries products, the media has been probing into our food's origin (see, for instance, this editorial in the New York Times).
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) requires the country of origin of all food…
jjacquet | July 6, 2007Wildcoast 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 Forbes magazine? As Wildcoast's Benjamin Winkler-McCue writes, "To regular ocean users in Imperial Beach this came as no surprise. To put it bluntly, they are used to surfing, swimming, and fishing in sh*t."
And what he's talking about with this is exactly "shifting baselines"-- the idea that the…
jjacquet | 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, commentator, and weary traveler: I didn't notice that I was being set upon by a pickpocket, which I am glad of, because I like to work only with professionals.
I realize I am about 17 years late in this discovery, but better late than never (thank you KAB). Many of the animals Adams and Carwardine…
jjacquet | July 3, 2007Not 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 Jeremy Jackson's "Rise of Slime"), detailing potential new uses for jellyfish.
Efforts to find a use for them have so far resulted in a baking powder for cookies and crunchy snacks made of dried and salted pieces of jellyfish. But there may be another destination for their slimy bodies. Researchers…
jjacquet | July 2, 2007Posted 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 the clip from Reuters:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, aiming to put an end to the debate over whether global warming is actually occurring, passed legislation recognizing the "reality" of climate change and providing money to work on the problem....
By inserting a declaration in the…