Sealion

It appears that Washington and Oregon should slaughter more California sea lions over at the Bonnerville Dam this coming new year to help put the states’ controversial “lethal take” program – which is three years old – to the test, and see if it can meet its main goal of dropping the number of salmon feasted upon by sea lions, a joint task force decided this past Wednesday.

The task force apparently believes that the proper way to handle the sea lions is to shoot them from land, or from boat, rather than trapping them and then subjecting them to a lethal injection. Fifteen of the sixteen members of the Pinniped Fishery Interaction Task Force agree on this course of action.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is helping to keeps tabs on the lethal- take program, should make the actual identifying of the sea lions which need to be taken care of, much much easier, the task force added.

The two states have a combined score of 40 slaughtered sea lions since they began the dark project back in 2008, which includes four which seem to have perished accidentally in the traps that year. However, the actual number of salmon the seal lions are consuming is growing, from a reported 3,846 in the spring of 2007, to a whopping 5,095 in the Spring of 2010, as reported by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

So their plan of “Kill one to save another” doesn’t seem to be working to well, however, the plan seems to be keep trying until they get it right…

Sealion

A fisherman from Northern California who took out his frustrations on a sea lion last year, has just been sentenced this past Friday to one month in jail and to pay $51,000 in restitution.

Larry Allen Legans, the fisherman who decided to shoot the poor defenseless animal, was found guilty in a court of law os “intentionally maiming or wounding an animal”. Sgt. Nevis, the name given to the sea lion, was discovered back in November of 2009 with a life-threatening hole in his snout. It was such a bad wound that the sea lion couldn’t even put his head under the water. Luckily for Sgt. Nevis, there were marine veterinarians volunteers available to help take care of him.

Not only does Legans have to spend time in lock-up, he also has to pay restitution to the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. This is to cover the costs of the medical bills, and also to help repay damages done to the animal.

The sea lion, which was named after the person who rescued him, recently underwent a successful reconstructive surgery this past week to help repair the huge hole in his snout. Once he has fully recovered he will become a permanent resident at Seal Cove in Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo.

It is still unknown at this time just why the poor guy was shot in the first place, and Legans hasn’t shed any light on the subject, and is not likely to anytime in the foreseeable future.

Sea otter. Credit: Mike Baird

After 10 years of a steady recovery, the southern sea otter – a species on the federal list as being threatened – populations are declining for the second year running, so says a population survey conducted by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey.

“We have seen a decrease in sea otter numbers throughout most of their range, particularly in those areas where most of their reproduction occurs, while pup counts have dropped to 2003 levels,” explains the head researcher for the yearly survey, Tim Tinker of the USGS Western Ecological Research Center. “A number of human and natural factors may be influencing this trend, and we are working to better understand what those are.”

The estimates of the population are calculated as three year averages of the yearly results of the surveys, which make allowances for variables which arise during different times of observation and give researchers a better picture of the trends in abundance. The estimate this year – averaging out the results from surveys from 2008, 2009 and 2010 – is a mere 2,711 otters. This signifies a 3.6 percent drop in the population overall, and an 11 percent drop in the number of otter offspring, compared to the estimates of 2009.

“Remember, sea otter health can tell us a lot about the health of the coastal waters that humans also enjoy,” Tinker reiterates. “So, we’re eager to learn more.”

Well, if that’s an indication.. Our world might just be in a heap of trouble.. Let’s hope they get to the bottom of it quickly.

Green sea turtle - Picture by: Mila Zinkova

– BP is in some very hot water over their practice of burning sea turtles, while trying to clean up their mess in the Gulf of Mexico. The initiative is being headed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network.

They officially notified the U.S. Coast Guard and BP of their intent to launch a lawsuit for them to stop burning endangered sea turtles alive, and have given an ultimatum of 60 days in order to do so. If the action is not stopped a lawsuit will be filed under the Endangered Species Act.

Todd Steiner, biologist and executive director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network has this to say on the subject “BP is burning turtles alive and it is cruel, heartless and a crime we can’t and won’t allow to continue, sea turtles were critically endangered before BP created America’s worst environmental catastrophe, and every effort possible must be taken to rescue endangered turtles from this oil spill. BP needs to reverse course and help double our efforts to rescue sea turtles, not prevent their recovery.”

The spill really did happen at an inopportune time, as the rare Kemp’s ridley sea turtles started to nest in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP wound up in this mess, as they started a burning process, as they didn’t allow enough time for rescue boats to make a search, and get the sea turtles out of harms way.

Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the bludgeoning of dozens of Koi fish at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California.

Surveillance cameras captured two men beating the fish, who was living in a pond on campus, with baseball bats.
13 Koi fish have died so far and several others are injured after the attack.

Throughout December, hundreds of sea lions vanished from the San Francisco bay area only to show up later in the Oregon Sea Lion Caves. The Oregon Sea Lion Caves are a connected system of sea caves and caverns located along the Pacific coast of Oregon and a popular hangout for sea birds such as the tufted puffin, pigeon guillemot, Brandt’s cormorant, and various types of gulls. The caves are also an important wintering home for the Stellar Sea Lion and – to a lesser extent –the California Sea Lion.

“We’re seeing the sea lions coming up this way from California because of the feeding. If the cold water fish move north to find colder waters, the sea lions have to eat and they follow the fish wherever they go,” says Sea Lion Caves General Manager Dan Harkins.

So, how can the cave staff know for sure who’s a visitor from California and who isn’t? Apparently, sea lions have dialects; just like us humans.

“We can identify them by the sound of their voice. They have a barking noise rather than a grumbling or a growling that Stellers do,” says Harkins.

The Sea Lion Caves were first explored in 1880 by local resident Captain William Cox. On a calm day, the captain entered the grotto through the western channel in his small boat. During a later expedition he was reportedly marooned due to stormy weather and had to survive by shooting a sea lion and eating its flippers. In 1887 Captain Cox purchased the land from the State of Oregon and the cave system has been privately owned and managed ever since.

After being exhibited for two months at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a young female white shark was released back into the ocean Wednesday this week.

“I’ve always said that these animals will tell us when it’s time to put them back to the ocean. Now was clearly the time,” said Randy Hamilton, vice president of husbandry for the aquarium.

The release was prompted by a change in behaviour; she started acting aggressive towards other sharks in the million-gallon aquarium and during the Halloween weekend she received a superficial bite wound. She also injured a galapagos shark by biting it and was observed chasing the scalloped hammerhead sharks.

“We monitor the behavior of great white sharks very closely while they’re on exhibit,” Hamilton explained. “When we saw a new pattern of aggressive behavior, we decided it was best to release her.”

The young female was the fifth great white shark exhibited and successfully released back into the wild by the aquarium. Monterey Bay Aquarium is the only institution to keep a great white shark on exhibit for more than 16 days, get the shark to consistently take food from the staff, and document the animal’s successful return to the sea.

Just like this young female, the four previously released great white sharks were fitted with electronic tracking tags which make it possible to confirm the shark’s successful adaptation back into the wild. Two of the sharks travelled to the southern tip of Baja California and beyond after being released, while the third one opted for Santa Barbara waters. The fourth shark also stayed near Santa Barbara where it was caught and released by a commercial fisherman just a few days after being released from the aquarium and it was then reportedly in good health.

The female shark released this week has been fitted with two tracking devices; one that will deliver real-time data on her location and one that will collect and store information about her travels, the depths she dives to and the water temperatures she favours for about six months, before it pops free and delivers those data to scientists via satellite.

You can find the real-time data emitted by the first device on the TOPP website (Tagging of Pacific Predators): http://www.topp.org .

The shark was released in offshore waters near the southern tip of Monterey Bay shortly after sunrise.

“Her health is excellent, and we learned a lot while she was with us. Based on past experience, we have every expectation that she’ll do well after release,” said Hamilton.

During her two month long stay (69 days to be exact) in the aquarium, she grew from 5-foot 3-inches to 5-foot 5-inches and put on an extra 20 pounds. She ate mackerel only and would happily gulp down up to three percent of her body weight in a day.

The exhibit of young great white sharks is part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s effort to change public attitudes towards the feared white sharks and raise awareness about the threats facing them in the wild. The first white shark was exhibited in 2004/2005 and was seen by over a million visitors before being released after six months in captivity. Collectively, the four sharks exhibited before the newest addition has been seen by almost 2.5 million visitors.

“I can’t overstate the impact of this single animal on advancing our mission to inspire conservation of the oceans,” aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard said of the first white shark the aquarium had on exhibit.

The million-gallon Outer Bay exhibit will undergo renovations starting late August 2010 and it will therefore not be possible to see any great white shark at the aquarium until summer 2011 at the earliest.

For the first time since 1947, a new species of cartilaginous fish has been described from Californian waters. The new species – Hydrolagus melanophasma – belongs to a group of sharks known as Chimaeras or ghostsharks.

Chimaeras are fairly closely related to the true sharks, but their evolutionary lineage branched off from the true sharks nearly 400 million years ago. Just like sharks, ghostsharks have cartilage skeletons instead of bony skeletons and they carry out internal fertilization using claspers. Unlike the true sharks however, males of the Chimaera group are fitted with retractable sexual appendages on the forehead and in front of the pelvic fins. Most known species also have a venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin.

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, was caught and preserved as early as the 1960s but hasn’t been formally named and described until know since its taxonomic relationships with other Chimaeras remained unclear. It is now placed in the genus Hydrolagus – the water rabbits – a genus named after the grinding tooth plates used by its members; plates somewhat similar to the teeth of a rabbit.

You can find out more about Hydrolagus melanophasma in the September issue of the journal Zootaxa. The article in which the new species was described is the result of the combined efforts of a team of scientists, including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long, graduate student Kelsey James from the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

As of August 12, 2009 the harvesting of krill in the in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington will be prohibited by federal law.

Yesterday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a final rule in the Federal Register prohibiting the harvesting of krill in these three regions. All types of krill harvesting will be illegal, regardless of fishery and gear type.

“Krill are the foundation for a healthy marine ecosystem,” said Mark Helvey, NOAA’s Fisheries Service Southwest Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries. “Protecting this vital food resource will help protect and maintain marine resources and put federal regulations in line with West-Coast states.”

Harvesting krill within three miles of the coastline of California, Oregon, and Washington has already been prohibited by state law, but the zone situated between three and 200 miles off the coast have lacked krill protection until now.

“This is a great success for protecting the entire California Current ecosystem“, said William Douros, West Coast Regional Director for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. “This decision reflects strong teamwork within NOAA and a commitment to addressing the issues raised by the Pacific Fishery Management Council and Sanctuary Advisory Councils.”

The krill protection rule was adopted as Amendment 12 to the Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan (FMP), which was developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Amendment 12 adds all species of krill under a new category: ‘prohibited harvest species’.

A 22-pound, 5-ounce largemouth bass (picture) has been caught by Manabu Kurita, a pro staffer representing Deps Tackle Co. in Japan. This breaks George Perry’s old record from June 2, 1932. The bass caught by Perry in Montgomery Lake, Georgia 77 years ago weighed 22-pound, 4-ounce – just a tad less than the new Japanese record bass. Kurita’s bass was 29.4 inches long (no girth measurements have been released). It was reportedly weighed on a certified scale.

Kurita caught his 22-pound, 5-ounce bass in Lake Biwa (琵琶湖, Biwa-ko), in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture. Formed by tectonic shifts almost 4 million years ago, Lake Biwa is one of the world’s twenty oldest lakes and home to a very rich ecosystem that includes 58 described endemic species. It is the largest freshwater lake in the country and covers nearly 259 square miles.

After holding the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) all-tackle world record for 77 year, it seems as if Perry might have to if not step down then at least share the first place with his fellow Japanese angler. IGFA rules stipulate that a bass must weigh two ounces more than the current record holder to break the record, so Kurita’s fish will only tie it.

“It will tie [Perry’s record] if that’s the weight,” says Jason Schratwieser, record andconservation director for the game fish association. “For record fish weighing less than 25 pounds, the replacement record must weigh at least 2 ounces more than the existing record.”

In 2006, Mac Weakley caught a 25-pound, 1-ounce bass in Lake

Dixon, California, but he didn’t pursue the record since he accidently foul-hooked the fish, i.e. he didn’t hook the fish in the mouth.