After a 1,100-mile voyage and more than ten years of planning and acquiring funding resources, the ex-military ship Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg finally arrived in Key West this Wednesday.

The ship is scheduled to be sunk sometime between May 20 and June 1 and will eventually form the second largest artificial reef in the world. The ship will rest some six miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

“We’re all pretty excited here in Key West and particularly in view of the fact this is going to be the second largest artificial reef in the world,” said Key West City Commissioner Bill Verge, who is serving as a project liaison between the city and various state and federal agencies.

“One of the big products that we make here is happy vacations,” said Joe Weatherby who conceived the project some 13 years ago. “And we feel that this artificial reef is the world’s best product ever produced for scuba diving. People are going to come from all over the world to dive this, but this product also has been designed so we can offer it to glass bottom boat riders, snorkelers or new divers as well as advanced divers, it holds interest for all of them.”

The Vandenberg is now undergoing final preparations before the scuttling and is for instance fitted with several hundred big holes along its decks and sides to prevent it from falling over as it sinks. The ship has already been ridded from potentially dangerous materials by two Norfolk, Va., shipyards who removed 71 cubic yards of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of refuse, 300 pounds of mercury-containing materials and 185 55-gallon drums of paint chips. The cleaning required 75,000 man-hours and used up 70 percent of the projects $8.6 million US dollars.

The artificial reef is becoming a reality thanks to the cooperation of a lot of different people and entities. It is funded by Monroe County, the Florida Governor’s Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development; City of Key West, U.S. Maritime Administration, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Keys & Key West tourism council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as by industry and private donations. Banks that provided loans include First State Bank of the Florida Keys, BB&T and Orion.

As of now, you can find the Vandenberg docked behind the USS Mohawk at the East Quay Wall in Truman Annex Harbor. The USS Mohawk is a historic Coast Guard ship open as a floating museum.

History of the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg

This ship has not always been known under the name Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg; it used to be a U.S. Army troop transport named the General Harry Taylor. In 1963 it got its new name, the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, as it began tracking the U.S. space program’s launches off Cape Canaveral. Vandenberg has also been used for monitoring U.S. defense missile test launches in the Pacific as well as eaves dropping on Russian missile launches during the Cold War. Its last active duty homeport was Port Canaveral in Florida, from 1976 to the ships formal retirement in 1983.

In 1983, the Vandenberg was moved to the James River Naval Reserve Fleet. Even though it had been formally retired, it was still kept in a state of readiness in case it would be needed again. Every six months, technicians would power up all its electronics and make any necessary repairs. It was kept like this for 10 years until it was formally struck from the naval register in 1993 and transferred to the Maritime Administration.

After this, the ship began a new life and did for instance serve as a Russian science ship in the 1999 movie “Virus,” where it played its part alongside Hollywood stars like William Baldwin, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Donald Sutherland.

Since the first specimens were spotted in the year 2000, the number of lionfish living off the coast of North Carolina is now so high that scientists fear it is too late to eliminate them. Instead, marine researchers are joining forces with sport divers and cooks to keep the fish population in check the old fashion way – with rice, spicy sauce and a slice of lemon.

The lionfish has a sweet meat that tastes similar to that of the appreciated food fishes like the snapper and the grouper. If you want to help save the native North Carolinian fauna by putting lionfish on as many dinner plates as possible, there are several things you can do.

For all you scuba divers, Discovery Diving Co. in Beaufort and Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City are recruiting sport divers for a series of “lionfish rodeos” that will take place during the summer dive season. The first event is planned to May 18 and 19, and new events will then be held regularly throughout the summer.

During the first lionfish rodeo, participating divers will be thought how to collect lionfish in a safe way using protective gloves. In addition to getting some lionfish off the reefs and provide all participants with a tasty meal, the rodeo will also give marine researchers a chance to study how rapidly lionfish repopulate an area after being vanquished.

In addition to divers and marine researchers, representatives of the Carteret Community College culinary school will be involved in the rodeo project. One of their main goals is to persuade restaurants in the area to start serving lionfish, so those of you that don’t dive can still help out by asking for lionfish when dining out.

“They taste good, and if we can create a food market for them maybe that will not only help keep them in control but maybe take the pressure off some other species,” sais Debby Boyce, owner of Discovery Dive Shop.

The lionfish is not a welcomed guest in North Carolina since it competes with native species for space and food and puts even more stress on already threatened fish like snappers and groupers. The lionfish seem to lack natural predators in western Atlantic waters because the lionfish population has increased at a pace unlike anything scientists have ever seen from an invasive fish species in this part of the world.

“In places off North Carolina the population density appears to be several times the norm in their native waters”, said NOAA researcher James Morris.

North Carolina is not the only state with an exploding lionfish problem on their hands; the species can now be found in large quantities all the way down into the Caribbean.

“They’re eating everything,” said Lisa A. Mitchell, executive director of Reef Environmental Education Foundation, a Florida non-profit group that is helping several Caribbean governments deal with invasive lionfish. “They could wipe out entire reefs.

The lionfish is not only a problem for native flora and fauna; it is also disliked among snorkelers and scuba divers since it is equipped with long spines capable of delivering a painful venomous sting. The venom itself it usually not lethal, but it can cause paralysis and excruciating pain – two things you definitely don’t want to suffer from while trying to get up from the deep.

In North Carolina ordinary swimmers and snorkelers rarely have to worry about lionfish since this tropical species prefer to stay in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, i.e. miles offshore and mostly at depths of at least 100 feet. In the warmer places like the Caribbean you can on the other hand encounter lionfish in the shallows right next to the beach.

In North Carolina it is usually the scuba divers who see this fish and they are alarmed by the situation. Divers off the North Carolina coast now routinely find up to 100 lionfish during a single wreck dive.

“If you go deeper than 100 feet, they’re ubiquitous now,” said Paula Whitfield, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Beaufort. “They’re absolutely everywhere.”

Catching lionfish is labour intensive but not very difficult; all you need is a net or a spear and some protective clothing to keep yourself from being stung. The divers organized by Discovery Diving Co. in Beaufort and Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City will be fitted with the kind of puncture-proof gloves worn by workers who handle used hypodermic needles and other medical waste. Before the lionfish is cleaned and cooked it will be held down using pliers and have its venomous spines snipped off by a wire cutter.

Lionfish is not very hard to net or spear-fish since they are virtually fearless and will hold their ground even when approached by divers. Since they have so few enemies in the wild, they probably don’t see any point in fleeing. However, if we are to really eat our way out of the lionfish problem a less labour intensive method than sending down divers armed with spears and nets must naturally be developed and NOAA researchers are therefore currently working on a trap system that uses live bait.

Hopefully, we will soon see the invasive lionfish on dinner tables all the way along the western Atlantic.

A record number of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) calves have been found in winter nursery waters off the coast of Florida and Georgia this winter. No less then 39 calves have been confirmed by researchers, a number which breaks the old record from 2001 when 31 calves where spotted.

The North Atlantic Right Whale is one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena. Earlier, all three species were classified as a single species. Since 2001, only 20 calves have been born in these waters each year, on average, and 39 new calves in one season is therefore very good news for an endangered North Atlantic species that numbers only about 400 animals.

“Right whales, for the first time in a long time, are doing their part: They’re having the babies; they’re having record numbers of babies,” says Monica Zani, an assistant scientist at the New England Aquarium who works with North Atlantic Right Whales. “We need to be vigilant and still do our part to prevent the whales from being killed“, she adds.

“For me, personally, it is a source of optimism,” says Barb Zoodsma, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I just think we’re on the right track.“

It is however important not to put too much weight on one single year. “It’s definitely good news, and it’s the most that we’ve seen, but it’s only one year,” says Kate Longley, who works on a team with the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies to monitor right whales in Cape Cod Bay. “I think it would be premature to make any sort of prediction or any sort of statement about the state of the species based on one year of high calving. There hasn’t been much indication that the species is rebounding significantly.“

To get from their feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine to their winter nursery areas off the coast of Georgia and Florida, the North Atlantic Right Whales have to migrate through areas with heavy shipping traffic and deaths from collisions with shipping poses a serious risk for this already depleted population.*

During recent years, several attempts have been made to decrease the amounts of deaths and injury from collisions, but it is too early to tell if these changes have contributed to the record number of calves.

In 2003, discussions between Irving Oil Corp. officials and Moira Brown, a Canadian expert on right whales and a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston, caused the corporation to shift shipping lanes in the Bay of Fundy to protect the North Atlantic Right Whales. That same year, Canadian and international shipping officials agreed to shift shipping lanes in the bay between Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, about four nautical miles east in hope of decreasing the risk of whale collisions. Four years later, the US government changed shipping routes out of Boston in an attempt to make the U.S. coastal waters safer for whales, especially the North Atlantic Right Whale.

Another problem faced by the North Atlantic Right Whale is fishing ropes. Today’s modern fishing ropes are strong enough to entangle a whale and rub through its tough skin and thick flesh, all the way into the bone. This year, researchers had to rescue five entangled whales in the southeast Atlantic, using small boats, knives and grappling hooks.

The calving season is now over and the North Atlantic Right Whales are heading back to feed in the Gulf of Maine. Hopefully, a large portion of the newborn calves will stay clear of both ships and fishing gear. If they survive for an additional 5-7 years, they will be able to reproduce and aid this dwindling population on its way to recovery.

* Vanderlaan & Taggart (2007). “Vessel collisions with whales: the probability of lethal injury based on vessel speed” (PDF). Mar. Mam. Sci. http://www.phys.ocean.dal.ca/~taggart/Publications/Vanderlaan_Taggart_MarMamSci-23_2007.pdf.

The yearly manatee count revealed a record number of manatees this year. The survey counted 3807 manatees which is about 500 more than the previous record from 2001.

Manatee with calf

Experts do however say that it is too early to cheer and that one shouldn’t read too much into this as this year offered ideal conditions for spotting manatees. Cold temperatures made the manatees gather in warm clear waters around nuclear power plants and natural springs making them easy to spot. The previous record year 2001 – when about 1000 more manatees were counted than the year before and the year after – also offered similar conditions. It is important to remember that the count doesn’t reflect the actual number of manatees but rather a minimum number of manatees as not all of them can be found and counted.

Wildlife managers and manatee advocates do however call the number encouraging and say that it might indicate that the manatee population is slowly recovering as the number is higher then the numbers the previous record year. They say that the count supports population models suggesting manatees are increasing in Northwest Florida, along the Atlantic Coast and on the upper St. Johns River. Pat Rose, executive director of the “Save The Manatee Club” does however add that the numbers in Southwest Florida and the Everglades, home to about 40 percent of all manatees in Florida, are believed to be in continuing decline. Data on this region is however much more scare as it is hard to keep track on the animals in the dark waters found in this area.

Considering that scientists earlier estimated the manatee population in all of Florida to be below 1500 animals it can only be concluded that the conservation process have been a success and with 3807 animals it seems clear that the situation is much better than it once were, even if there still is much work to do to protect these gentle giants.

A research group[1] studying the hunting ability of the great white shark has found evidence indicating that this notorious predator actually has a fairly weak bite. In several movies – including the legendary Spielberg film “Jaws” – the great white shark has been portrayed as a hunter blessed with an exceptionally strong bite, but the allegedly fierce jaw power of Carcharodon carcharias is now being questioned.

According to research leader Dr Daniel Huber of the University of Tampa in Florida, sharks actually have very weak jaws for their size and can bite through their prey mainly thanks to their extremely sharp teeth – and because they can grow to be so large.

Photo by Terry Goss, copyright 2006

“Pound for pound, sharks don’t bite all that hard,” says Dr Huber. Compared to mammals, sharks have amazingly weak bites for their size. Lions and tigers are for instance equipped with much more jaw strength than sharks when you account for body size. According to Huber, mammals have evolved much more efficient jaw muscles.

During the study, Dr Huber and his team studied 10 different shark species. The bites of small sharks were fairly easy to measure, while large sharks had to be knocked out and subjected to mild electricity in order to stimulate their jaw muscles.

As mentioned above, sharks don’t really need strong jaws since they can grow so large and are fitted with extraordinarily sharp teeth. In addition to this, they also benefit from having very wide jaws. When they tear an animal apart, they frequently use a sawing motion.

Dr Huber hopes that their study will lead to the development of protective swim wear and other types of shark-proofing gear.

If you wish to read more, you can find the study “Is Extreme Bite Performance Associated with Extreme Morphologies in Sharks?” in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/588177?prevSearch=(shark)+AND+[journal%3A+pbz]

A six-month long investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) has led to the arrest of seven adults and one juvenile in Tampa. The arrested persons are believed to have been involved in various illegal activates concerning marine life, including catching protected sharks, sea horses, peppermint shrimp and bay scallops in Floridian waters, and exporting illegally obtained marine life to Europe. They are also suspected of having sold bait fish and bait shrimp as food for human consumption.

According to the FWC, the ring is believed to have operated for at least five years before attracting the attention of FWC. The ring lost a lot of animals due to poor maintenance, but the FWC still believes the group managed to sell $600,000 worth of peppermint shrimp alone.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission came into existence on July 1, 1999. The Investigations Section of the commission conducts both overt (uniform) and covert (plainclothes) investigations, and one of their tasks is to target hard-core commercial violators by conducting long-term undercover investigations. In 2003, the Investigations Section made 554 arrests/warnings and seized 130 illegally possessed specimens of fish and wildlife including a cougar, tigers, leopards, primates, exotic deer, venomous reptiles, protected birds and exotic aquatic species.

Last week, a leaping 9-foot dolphin accidently ended up in an 18-foot boat in the Intracoastal Waterway near New Smyrna Beach, Florida. As the panicked animal tried to escape from the vessel, it repeatedly hit the two boaters, 64-year-old Norman Howard and his wife Barbara, with its powerful tailfin.

“It was slapping me pretty hard,” Howard said. “Yeah, it was throwing some good punches. Mike Tyson couldn’t hit harder than that.“

The U.S. Coast Guard arrived to the scene after receiving calls from witnesses of the weird accident, and promptly rushed the couple to Bert Fish Medical Center. Howard says he was smacked in the face and ribs, while his wife received lacerations to her face.

The dolphin could be rolled back into the Intracoastal Waterway after the accident.

Many dolphin species are agile jumpers and the Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is for instance known to leap up to 10 feet (3 metres) or more. The maximal height of a leap depends on the individual animal and the surrounding water, since the dolphin uses its flukes to projectile itself into the air. In shallow waters, dolphins cannot jump very high.

Last Friday, 53 year old Florida Keys resident Greg LeNoir saved his dog Jake from being devoured by a shark by jumping into the water and punching the predator.

The incident happened when LeNoir and Jake visited the Worldwide Sportsman’s Bayside Marina pier in Islamorada and Jake jumped into the water for his daily swim. According to LeNoir, Jake is a fast and fearless swimmer who loves to retrieve soaked coconuts and jellyfish. But this day, the playful swimming session took a turn for the worse when a five-foot (1.5 m) long shark showed up and chomped its teeth into the 14-pound (6.3 kg) rat terrier.

As LeNoir watched his dog suddenly disappear under the surface, he didn’t hesitate to come to his rescue. ”I clenched my fists and dove straight in with all my strength, like a battering ram,” says LeNoir. ”I hit the back of the shark’s neck. It was like hitting concrete.”

While being pounded by LeNoir, the shark decided to let go of Jake, who frantically swam back to the shore, leaving a red trail of blood behind him in the water. Jake was rushed to the VCA Upper Keys Animal Hospital in Islamorada, where his wounds were attended by veterinarian Suzanne Sigel and emergency on-call assistant Callie Cottrell. The sharp teeth of the shark had punctured Jake’s skin and some muscle, and skin was hanging like ribbons from his right side and front left leg, but he wasn’t in critical condition.

”He looks great and is recuperating well,” Sigel said on Monday. ”I was worried he may have inhaled salt water when he was pulled under, but there’s no evidence of infection or pneumonia.”

The hungry shark has not been identified, but LeNoir believes it to be a bull shark or lemon shark. Sharks are not uncommon in these waters, partly because the Islamorada Fish Company has an open saltwater pool which attracts large tarpon – a yummy treat for many species of shark.

In May this year, hundreds of Asian swamp eels were discovered in and around Silver Lake in historic Gibbsboro, New Jersey. This was the first finding in New Jersey, Asian swamp eelbut not the first finding in the United States. Unlike Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii – the three other U.S. states where this species have been discovered – New Jersey is however subjected to harsh winters and a breeding population of Asian swamp eels in New Jersey confirms the suspicion that this Asian invader has no problem adjusting to the
chilly climate of northern North America.

The Asian swamp eels were found by a local college student checking on frogs and turtles in the Silver Lake. As he spotted snake-like heads peeking from the water, he decided to photograph them and post the pictures online. This lead to the “snakes” being identified as Asian swamp eels, Monopterus albus, and prompted a call to the local authorities.

In its native environment in Asia and Australia, the swamp eel Monopterus albus inhabits gentle hill streams, estuaries and lowland wetlands, and it is a common species in rice paddies. It has developed a long row of traits that makes it an apt survivor in many different kinds of environments. Unfortunately, these traits also make it the “perfect” invasive species and biologists fear that the Asian swamp eel may wreck havoc with existing North American ecosystems, especially if the predatory species of these systems prefer to target familiar prey rather than catching the newcomers.

– The Asian swamp eel can survive long periods of drought by burrowing in moist earth, and can therefore take advantage of seasonally appearing, short-lived bodies of water.

– If its home becomes unsuitable, e.g. because of drought, this eel simply crawls ashore and make its way to a more suitable home by slithering over land, just like a snake. This makes it hard to eradicate from bodies of water using poison or similar; there is always the risk of at least two specimens getting away over land and forming a new breeding colony in nearby waters.

– The Asian swamp eel can tolerate a wide range of oxygen levels in the water since it is capable of absorbing oxygen from the air above the surface through its skin. This skill doesn’t only come in handy in oxygen depleted waters; it is also what makes it possible for the fish to travel impressive distances over land.

– This eel prefers freshwater habitats, but can tolerate brackish and saline conditions, which increases its chances of always finding a suitable home.

– It eats all sorts of prey, not only fish, crustaceans, amphibians, and other aquatic animals, but detritus (decaying organic matter) as well. Highly specialized feeders have a much harder time adjusting to new habitats and are therefore less likely to become problematic invasive species.

– This eel is a protandrous hermaphrodite, which means that it can change its sex. All specimens are born male, but can turn into females if necessary. This means that if an aquarist releases two male specimens into a lake, one of them can turn into a female to make reproduction possible.

In Georgia, the first specimens of Asian swamp eel was discovered in 1994, and three years later eels were found in Florida as well. The Hawaiian history of combating swamp eels is much longer as the first specimens are believed to have been released in Hawaiian waters about 100 years ago. In Georgia and New Jersey, biologists blame aquarists of having caused the situation by releasing their pets into the wild. In Florida and Hawaii however, Asian food markets and fish-farmers are considered more likely sources. Asian swamp eels are typically sold fresh in food markets and can be kept alive for long periods of time as long as their skin is kept moist.

New Jersey authorities are now focusing on containing the creatures while trying to figure out a way of annihilating them. “We’re not panicking yet,” says Lisa Barno, chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries. “It’s more that it’s just an invasive species we’d rather not have. We’re still documenting the true extent of the problem, but right now it seems to be fairly contained.” One of the immediate goals is to prevent an expansion downstream to the Cooper River and a watershed leading to the Delaware River. Since May, only one Asian swamp eel has been discovered outside the Silver Lake.

The sturgeon on the picture is not the sturgeon in the story
Photo by NOAA

A four year old boy got his arm broken by a jumping sturgeon on the Suwannee River on September 7. At the same time, the boy’s father was cut by the fish. According to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, witnesses observed the family’s boat moving through the water at about 30 miles per hour when a three to four foot long sturgeon jumped up from the water in front of the craft. The sturgeon shattered the boat’s windshield and cut 32-year old Christopher Howard before smashing into his four year old son Chandler Howard. The impact was severe enough to break the arm of the young boy.

The Suwannee River is home to a major sturgeon population. According to state biologists, about 6,500-7,000 specimens spend up to 9 months per year in the river. Since their average weight is 40 lbs (18 kg) and the largest specimens caught in the Suwannee weigh about 200 lbs (90 kg), these sturgeons can cause serious injury to humans when jumping up from the water at high speed.