What the?

Hopefully you are wondering what the heck is going on. As I mentioned in my last post (days turned to weeks and it is just moments before a whole month has gone by), I am currently a visiting researcher in the Conservation Science Unit at Cambridge University's Department of Zoology. Here, I am expanding my repertoire, stocking my modest arsenal of ideas, and making decisions about my future. I am soon to submit my dissertation to the University of British Columbia. In that process, Randy Olson and I have decided to close down the Shifting Baselines blog in favor of a new solo endeavor: a…

My friend sent me a link to this t-shirt for sale at Forever 21 (the Wal-Mart of high fashion) and her email read simply: "uh oh". Yes, this is what PETA's Save the Sea Kitten campaign is up against...

Hm. I have mixed feelings about this ultimate example of renaming fish. PETA has a new campaign out to get people to relate to fish as animals rather than as commodities, which is a noble goal and one I very much support. There are a few snags with their Save the Sea Kittens campaign, though. First of all, fish are not domesticated like kittens (or like chickens! So I also have a hang up about tuna being dubbed "the chicken of the sea"). And I don't think renaming fish as kittens really enhances the mythology around fish (despite all the accessories). Rather, this new campaign might…

Andrew Revkin has the disheartening news from the ICCAT meetings this week with insights from Carl Safina. Surprise, surprise. Tuna are still in trouble as ICCAT continues to set a quota much higher than what scientists recommend. Here is Safina's take on it all: What's really needed is a moratorium for bluefin, and I first said that in 1991. That's the bluefin situation. I must say that based on their whole history I would have been astounded if I.C.C.A.T. had set an eastern quota that complied with the science. I'm ashamed of what they do, but no longer surprised.

I really like plaid. But I am not a hipster. I wish I were because then I would have more photographs of myself and would ride a nice bicycle. I think it is a partial combination of growing up in the Midwest and my love for higher education that has rendered me a mere observer of the hipster movement. People where I am from wear plaid to farm, not skateboard. It doesn't matter. The point is, until today, I watched the hipster movement from the sidelines. Collected a few hipster friends. Read about hipsters in hip magazines, including Douglas Haddow's recent piece in Adbusters. I noticed…

During Clinton's 11th hour, he initiated a number of policies that protected the environment; some of those regulations have remained in force, including the protection of almost 60 million acres of roadless areas. According to an article in Nature this week (and the OMB Watch, a Washington DC-based advocacy group), Bush is gearing up to do the exact opposite. On the list for potential midnight rollouts of new [anti] environmental regulations include the following: 1) New environmental regulations for factory farms. The EPA says that the regulations would curb the amount of nitrogen,…

In 1992, Consumer Reports published an article titled, "The label said Snapper, the lab said baloney". Fifteen years later, the mislabeling of red snapper is, if anything, more widespread. A 2004 study in Nature showed 75 percent of red snapper sold in the U.S. is some other fish. Menus offer up red snapper despite that it has been overfished for the last half-century. Red snapper mysteriously existing in restaurants but not in the sea is resolved by mislabeling, which prevents us from perceiving red snapper is actually in trouble. It's as if we are eating some ghost of bygone years, when…

For those of you who watched the first Presidential debate last night, you know that the state of the U.S. economy was the first and central topic discussed by Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. You also might have heard Senator John McCain, in his first few minutes of answering the question on what do to about the U.S. financial crisis, criticize the U.S. government for spending $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Later in the debate, McCain did go on to talk about defense spending. Still, it bothered me that the first attack and hard figure he put out there…

Jad Abumbrad and Robert Krulwich. These two guys are probably the world's best at bringing the wonder and fun out of science. If you have not listened to RadioLab, you should. Their show last week is a gem. Making the Hippo Dance is a behind-the-scenes look at just how these guys do it. You can listen to it here.

Say you're in Australia. You go to the store. You pick up some Kalamari crumbed seafood rings. The 'K' throws you but you suspect the product is still calamari, which is very popular in your country. Hopefully, you even know that means squid. You've been duped! Austrimi Seafoods must drop the name Kalamari crumbed seafood rings, to avoid giving buyers the impression that the product mainly contains calamari rings. Only 4 per cent of the product contained squid according to the ingredients list, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said. The real question: what was the other…

There is lots of science to show that average is beautiful. But I have never understood why averageness was a desirable trait in a political candidate. That Bush was "an average guy" was the political battle cry manufactured by Karl Rove. I didn't understand the desirability of that statement back in 2000 and I still don't understand it now. But at least it was manufactured. After all, how can you possibly be average if your father was President? But in the case of Sarah Palin, though, I do believe she is truly average. The average person, for instance, would not necessarily know what…

In 2004, I was in a small intimate workshop with the founder of the field of Conservation Biology Michael Soule. To this day, I remember something he calmly announced. It went something like this: Shit it is going to hit the fan due to global change. Not climate change explicitly but large-scale change that is also happening demographically, politically, and economically. Everything, everywhere on the planet is going to be intensively managed. This includes areas often thought as wild and frontier, like the boreal forests of the northern latitudes. The boreal forests are being rapidly…

No one wants to talk about it, but apparently some people might not vote for Obama because he is black (a phenomenon I could indeed feel when I recently visited my home state Ohio). At this point, addressing the topic of race is sort of like having to argue against the Earth being 10,000 years old: it's stupid and boring. But, if you can still stomach trying to understand U.S. dunderheads, this column in the Philadelphia Inquirer analyzes the role Obama's father's darker skin could play in November. The sad reality in the U.S. is that many citizens (and, in particular, union members) are…

A mother panda and her sneezing baby...

Yep. Read up on the latest research on how we're wasting fish on snobby, fat cats in Australia's Herald Sun.

Yep. Listen to the full story at NPR.

Many of you will recall my passion and compassion for the illustrious sea cow (and for those of you who haven't watched it, the exploding manatee heart is a must). A few weeks ago, after I attended the International Coral Reefs Symposium I went back to my old stomping ground (water?) of Crystal River, Florida, to visit these gentle giants. I have been traveling to Crystal River off and on for 10 years and, even over this brief time, I have witnessed a shifting baseline... Crystal River is a beautiful area, particularly in the early morning when the fog clings to the water and air is filled…

Here's one for you, just in case you weren't confused enough about which foods you should eat. The diary industry is known for its use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST), a protein hormone that boosts milk production. You may have noticed it on your pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia: "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from recombinant bovine growth hormone treated and non recombinant bovine growth hormone treated cows". Its use is controversial, as are its potential human impacts. The product has one seller: Monsanto. It is banned in Canada, and parts…

Believe it. Pigs and poultry gobble down 14 million tonnes of seafood (more than twice the amount the Japanese consume) every year because we feed it to them. Read my full post on the subject at The Gristmill.

I just returned from Asia. Nepal is a country the size of Arkansas with 30 million people; the GDP per capita is less than US$1000. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is also rich in culture and biodiversity, a place where Buddhism blends with Hinduism. A place with tigers and 8000m peaks. For me, Nepal removed all doubts that Conservation is by people, for people, and about people. And there is alot of work to do in Asia. After a month of walking the country, I spent Vaishakh Poornima, Buddha's birthday, in Kathmandu with tens of thousands Nepalis and Indians in the…