Ocean Blog

I'm intrigued by an article yesterday in National Geographic News about the ways scientists are intervening to protect Pacific leatherback sea turtles in the face of global warming.

Well if this doesn't make you say, "aww," I dont know what will...

According to a new study, female bottlenose dolphins whistle 10 times more often after they give birth so their little ones can recognize them in the crowd of adults, since dolphins are social creatures.

More than 400 penguins from Antarctica and Patagonia, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro over the past two months.

Boingboing noted a Japanese sea oddity today: an octopus with 88 extra tentacles as a result of abnormal regeneration.

That can't be comfortable.

Here at Oceana HQ, everyone has been buzzing about the new Batman flick. The consensus is that the movie is genius. Well, I hate to be the one to burst everyone's bubble, but it looks like Batman was no hero - to sharks, that is. Forget Jaws: the Caped Crusader was the original pop culture anti-shark rumormonger.

Okay, this isn't exactly conservation related. But I can't resist relaying the latest in pampering technology: tiny carp called garra rufa, or "doctor fish," that nibble the dead skin on your feet.

Just in from the shameless self-promotion department -- MeeMix, a new free internet radio site, has taken an interest in Oceana.

A friend of mine just wrote me an e-mail saying she had checked out this blog. "I like the blog," she wrote, "but it made me a little depressed (sorry! All talk of pollution/global warming/dead animals does)."

I feel your pain, sister. There are a lot of things to be pessimistic about right now, but I think even those of us who feel passionately about the issues grow weary of the environmental gloom and doom. One blogger, Justin Van Kleeck, wrote a thoughtful essay yesterday detailing some of the ways he assuages his fears and anxieties about the endless stream of bad news.

Callum Roberts, author of the excellent tome "The Unnatural History of the Sea," has tackled the nexus of ecology and economy in his blog on the Island Press website. Rising fuel costs, it seems, may be a blessing for stressed fish stocks now that many fishing ships can no longer afford to travel long distances for their catch.

I was inspired to write about this issue after reading an essay in Harper's about the fallibility of Gross Domestic Product. But Roberts introduces some concrete facts to put this all in perspective.

"If cod, haddock or flounder find their way onto your plate, the fuel cost of catching them was a third to a half of the weight of your fillet," he writes. "If line caught swordfish or tuna are your favourites, the fuel burnt to catch them was roughly equal to the weight of your fish portion."

Yikes. Fishermen are already protesting high fuel costs, and demand additional government subsidies to cover the difference.

Here at Oceana, we already know fuel subsidies are a bad idea. The fishing industry has depended on $20 billion in government handouts long before fuel costs skyrocketed. Thankfully our Cut the Bait team is already on the case, working hard at the World Trade Organization to ensure that subsidies don't increase - and that fish populations around the world get a much-needed rest.

Last week I attended the International Coral Reef Symposium – a massive gathering of coral reef enthusiasts from all over the world, with more than 2,500 scientists, managers, organizers, and journalists present.