By MORT ROSENBLUM and MAR CABRA25 January 2012 TALCAHUANO, Chile – Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar’s hold at a measly 10 tons of jack mackerel — the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-meter fishing boat in […]
[Desdemona suspects this: Sequential Collapse of Marine Mammals in the North Pacific Ocean and southern Bering Sea.] By Remy Melina, LiveScience.com 19 January 2012 Killer whales and other ocean predators are targeting and killing the pups of a threatened northern sea lion species at an increasingly high rate, scientists warned this week. Without a reduction […]
Washington DC, December 20 (SPX) – The science behind counting fish in the ocean to measure their abundance has never been simple. A new scientific paper authored by NOAA Fisheries biologist Eric Prince, Ph.D., and eight other scientists shows that expanding ocean dead zones – driven by climate change – have added a new wrinkle […]
By Brian Williams, The Courier-Mail12 December 2011 ONE in every six species related to characters in the smash hit kids’ movie Finding Nemo is threatened with extinction. Scientists analysed risks faced by Nemo, the charismatic clownfish, and more than 1500 other species related to characters in the 2003 animation. International Union for Conservation of Nature […]
By Captain Locky MacLean10 December 2011 When one thinks of world-class diving, the tiny Republic of the Maldives immediately comes to mind. Keen divers travel from all corners of the globe to this Indian Ocean island nation. They come to marvel at the biodiversity its atolls and islands shelter under their shores. The Maldivian islands, […]
It’s time for the yearly retrospectives on 2011, and we’re kicking them off with 2011’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. It won’t surprise anyone to see that the triple meltdown at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant was the most popular event, with 9 of the top 20 stories. Most surprising is the continued popularity of a 2009 […]
By Lewis Smith15 November 2011 The government has been accused of failing the environment after announcing delays to the creation of marine reserves. Conservation groups responded angrily to the announcement by environment minister Richard Benyon that the internationally agreed deadline for creating marine protected areas will be missed. They accused the government of changing the […]
A helicopter pilot speaks out about his experiences onboard a number of purse seine tuna fishing vessels operating in the Pacific. His gruesome footage shows how the use of Fish Aggregation Devices is resulting in the bycatch of all sorts of marine life and contributes to the depletion of tuna stocks. Greenpeace is campaigning for […]
20 November 2011 (Desdemona Despair) – Here’s Desdemona giving a presentation on the accelerating destruction of the oceans by various human activities. It’s basically Graph of the Day with narration. Download the slide deck: http://www.leftopia.com/presentations/State_Of_The_Oceans_2011.pdf http://www.leftopia.com/presentations/State_Of_The_Oceans_2011.pptx State of the Oceans 2011 Technorati Tags: ocean acidification,global warming,climate change,phenology,overfishing,ocean overexploitation,fish decline,mass extinction,extinction,coral,habitat loss,ecosystem disruption,dead zone,ocean anoxia,phosphorus,nitrogen,carbon,carbon dioxide,overpopulation,doom
November 23 (Science Daily) – An analysis in the SEI journal Climate and Development predicts severe negative impacts, including loss and alteration of habitats, smaller and less-diverse fish stocks, and coral bleaching, and urges prompt action to help the Caribbean fisheries prepare. The review, “The implications of global climate change for fisheries management in the […]