Ocean Blog

It’s been said over and over again: Eastern bluefin tuna cannot handle the pressure they face from overfishing. These sleek and powerful fish are unlucky enough to be among the world’s most coveted seafood species, and for years scientists have called for a moratorium as a last-ditch effort to save these genetically pure, irreplaceable creatures. While strict quotas have been in place for years, poor quota enforcement and illegal fishing have driven the bluefin to the brink of extinction.

On Monday, the European Union ended the fishing season for most of the Mediterranean’s purse seine fleet, the ships that are responsible for 70 percent of the Med’s caught tuna. This move could save up to 100,000 bluefin this year alone.

Oceana has been carefully monitoring the purse seine fleet with our new boat, the MarViva Med. We have recorded rarely-seen images of bluefin fattening pens and documented purse seiners illegally using spotter planes in their pursuit of the fish.

I didn’t anticipate that the E.U. would react so quickly and shut down the season well before its original July 1 end date. But our work is far from over. The next step is to make sure that the closure is enforced, and that non-E.U. fishing outfits don’t start targeting tuna as well. We will be watching.

This week in ocean news,

...fishery managers voted to cancel the chinook salmon fishing season off the coast of California and most of Oregon in light of the fish population's rapid collapse. The commercial fishery is worth an estimated $30 million....

...many fishermen considered supporting the ban on West Coast salmon fishing in light of this year's record low catch. "There's likely no fish, so what are you going to be fishing for?" said one....

...while some other fishermen went ahead with a pre-season barbeque, although it was less well attended than in past years...

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision to throw out penalties against a fishing vessel carrying 64,695 pounds of shark fins in U.S. waters. Shipping a cargo full of shark fins without sharks is illegal in the United States, but the King Diamond II sailed through a loophole that allowed it to carry fins it had gathered from other ships.

Something good has come out of this: The decision has galvanized pressure to end the brutal practice of shark finning, which kills tens of millions of sharks annually, including many species already threatened by extinction.

Late on Wednesday, Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) introduced the Shark Conservation Act of 2008, which will not only require all sharks to be landed with their fins, but allow the U.S. to require any other countries importing sharks to do the same. It’s an intermediate step in ensuring protection for sharks worldwide, but a vital step all the same.

This week in ocean news,

...two new studies may upend previously accepted understanding of photosynthesis. A widespread type of cyanobacteria may not use as much carbon dioxide in photosynthesis as presumed, meaning the oceans are capable of less carbon dioxide absorption than scientists had thought...

...in other cyanobacteria news, scientists discovered that viruses may play a key role in prompting the phytoplankton to consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen...

...the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dropped buoys into the water off the coast of Massachusettes that will record sound for the next 30 months in an attempt to understand the effect of ocean noise on marine wildlife...

This week in ocean news,
...a federal appeals court ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have been forced to give up the proceeds from 32 tons of shark fins seized by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002 from the vessel King Diamond II. The 64,695 pounds of shark fins were valued at $618,956...

The brutal practice of shark finning got a boost this week as the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a Hong Kong company should not have lost the proceeds from 64,695 pounds of shark fins seized by the Coast Guard in 2002.

Let me repeat that figure: 64,695 pounds of shark fins alone were on that boat. That's the weight of more than eleven Cadillac Escalades. Or eight female African elephants. Or 470 Oxford dictionaries.

Without knowing what species of sharks were on the boat, the King Diamond II, or the size of the sharks, it's hard to know how many sharks were killed. Consider this, however: A shark fin comprises just one to five percent of the animal's body weight. After the fins are sliced off, the sharks are thrown overboard to die.

Shark finning is illegal in the United States, but a loophole allowed the King Diamond II to carry shark fins it had collected from other fishing ships. A loophole big enough to drive a bevy of Escalades through? Time to close that one up.

[Image courtesy Sharkwater]

This week in ocean news,

Perhaps because it was released the same week as Ben Halpern and colleagues' excellent human impacts map, the new U.N.

This week in ocean news,

This week in ocean news,

...scientists studying the sea floor near Antarctica discovered new species of fish, plankton and jellyfish. "We had some of the world's experts on Antarctic fish and they were completely, completely flabbergasted," said the leader of the expedition...

...a researcher studying a dead zone off the U.S. Northwest coast saw nothing on the ocean floor. "It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died," she said...

...the government of Taiwan allocated $1 million in Taiwanese new dollars to clear the shore of dead fish, both wild and farmed, that had died during a recent cold snap...

...developers planned a world-class aquarium in Moscow to open by 2012. "The aquarium will feature seven different species of shark, which will cost more than $10,000 apiece," said the project's public relations manager...

...shark migration routes were under scrutiny, with the hope that mapping shark "superhighways" could help lead to more protections for threatened species...

...NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Service was able to estimate the age of fish based on trace radiocarbon from Cold War-era nuclear testing found in the fish's ear bones...

...the one billion gallons of partially treated sewage that flows into the ocean every day could be responsible for the feminizing of male fish...

..the University of California at Santa Barbara created the first world map to display the level of total human effects on the ocean, demonstrating that essentially no waters were still pristine...

...and the Florida shore was set to become a test site for underwater turbines that would convert the Gulf Stream current into energy.