Hammerhead shark by Suneko

Shark Advocates International is giving a warm welcome to progress towards helping conserve sharks. This progress was made at the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) this week.

There were a record number – six to be exact – proposals for shark measures, the parties of the ICCAT agreed to put a stop to the retention of oceanic whitetip sharks, prohibit exploiting of hammerheads, and set up a process for punishing countries who do not get with the program and accurately report catches and reduce fishing pressure on shortfin mako sharks. The proposals to stop the retention of abundant thresher and porbeagle sharks were thrown out as a measure to help ICCAT gain a stronger position to ban shark “finning” by prohibiting removing the fins of a shark at sea.

“ICCAT has taken significant steps toward safeguarding sharks this week, but much more must be done to effectively conserve this highly vulnerable species,” explained President of Shark Advocates International, Sonja Fordham, who serves on the US ICCAT Advisory Committee and has participated in ICCAT meetings since 2004. “We are particularly pleased with the agreements aimed at protecting oceanic whitetip sharks and reducing international trade in the fins of hammerhead sharks, as well as US efforts to conserve mako sharks.”

It’s good to see that progress is being made, and all parties involved are rather pleased that the meetings have gone so well so far. Hopefully, this means a better world for sharks.

Dwarf sea horse

There are tens of thousands of dwarf seahorses trying to survive in the oil infested Gulf of Mexico, and a researcher from the University of British Columbia is saying that their difficulties serves as a warning to not let BP to expand its operations to the West Coast.

Now the dwarf seahorse is at great risk of becoming extinct after the BP mess happened this past April, and it isn’t being helped any by the non-friendly methods for clearing up the mess, commented the director of the international project Seahorse conservation group, Amanda Vincent.

“We’re concerned that some lessons be learned for Canada from this fiasco,” Vincent commented during a press conference this past Tuesday.

“If we were to have an oil spill on this coast, either from tanker traffic or from drilling — if the moratorium were lifted — then we would also see them and everything else in their habitats severely affected.”

While a provincial, as well as federal, moratorium is in place against any kind of oil exploration on the north coast of British Columbia is in effect, the First Nations and other environmental organizations have cautioned of the dangers of putting in an oil pipeline.

And with what happened in the Gulf of Mexico who could blame them? We really need to step back, and force the big oil companies to take extra precautionary measures, before allowing to operate anywhere else in the world…

Elkhorn Coral

An accidental find just off of Key Largo has lead to farms being created for delicate, yet ever so important, species of coral.

Just over 30 feet below the calm waters above the colorful reef off of Key Largo, Ken Nedimyer proudly displays a small slate which reads “Let’s plant corals.”

Along with a team of volunteer divers, they quickly get to work and utilize epoxy putty to help tiny bits of staghorn coral gain a foothold in the great big ocean.

In the vast expanse of ocean just off of Key Largo, Fort Lauderdale, and a few other choice locations, Nedimyer, an accomplished collector of tropical fish from Tavernier, along with researchers and his hodgepodge group of volunteers, are getting to work and raising groups of rare coral species to help repopulate the rapidly depleting reefs of the southeastern United States.

“These are my little children,” 54 year old Nedimyer, commented later that same day, explaining that the endangered coral which he has been cultivating on slabs of concrete, grows much like delicate saplings in an aquatic underwater offshore nursery.

Elkhorn and staghorn corals are classified as undersea architects, they create structures in the reef which then in turn support a myriad of sea lifeforms such as sponges, fish, lobsters, and many others. These reefs have really taken a beating from things like global warming, disease, and many other stresses over the past three decades, and have declined to just a few sparse patches in the warm waters that run from southern Palm Beach County to the islands of the Caribbean.

However, in an exciting turn of events, staghorn coral was found growing in an undersea farm for commercial aquarium rock, and researchers have now begun to raise these diffent species of coral in nurseries located offshore with the ultimate goal of transplanting them back into the wild.

The Obama administration, through economic stimulus money, has been financing the expansion of the $3.4 million project. It is hoped that this will create 57 full time jobs, commented Tom Moore, who is a representative of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Habitat Restoration Center in St. Petersburg.

Healthy reefs lead to more jobs in the tourism industry, increase the habitat for fisheries, and even provide much needed protection from weather patterns such as hurricanes, Moore continued.

Today there are now a row of 10 such coral nurseries which stretch from Fort Lauderdale to the U.S. Virgin islands, which are cultivating new stands of both the elkhorn and staghorn coral.

“These are two of the most important species of coral,” explained the marine science program manager for The Nature Conservancy, James Byrne. The Nature Conservancy is an ecologically minded group of individuals corporations that have applied for the federal money and is coordinating the work. “The staghorn coral provides very important habitat for juvenile fish, and elkhorn coral is one of the most important reef builders.”

It is nice to see that a group has taken an interest in the “reforestation” of the seas, as well as on land. The ocean is crucial to our world’s survival.. Nice to know someone has remembered that.

Researchers have described a brand new kind of clownfish, which belongs in the skunk clown group.

Douglas Fenner, Joshua Drew, and Gerald Allen, described this new clownfish as Amphiprion pacificus in their report which was recently published in Aqua, the International Journal of Ichthyology.

Amphiprion pacificus is now being described by scientists who took a look at four specimens which were roughly 4 to 5 centimeters long, and were caught in the western Pacific Ocean, between Tonga and Wallis Island.

However, it should be noted that this “new” fish was also photographed by divers on the coral reefs in Samao and Fiji.

This new species which has been described is almost identical to Amphiprion akallopisos, which makes its home in the Indian Ocean.

Both species of fish have a slightly pinkish brown body and a white stripe along their backs.

Despite the fact that they are almost identical in appearance, genetic testing has suggeste that Amphiprion pacificus is more closely related to Amphiprion sandaracinos, an anemonefish which lives in the Western Australia and indo-Malayan region of the world.

The authors were quoted as saying: “Aside from genetic differences A. sandaracinos differs from A. pacificus in having a uniform orange colouration and the white forehead stripe extends onto the upper lip.

“There also appears to be modal differences in the number of soft dorsal and anal rays (usually 19 versus 18 and 13 versus 12 respectively for A. pacificus and A. sandaracinos).”

If you are interested in learning more about this new discovery, feel free to check out: Allen GR, Drew J and D Fenner (2010) – Amphiprion pacificus, a new species of anemonefish (Pomacentridae) from Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Wallis Island, pp. 129-138. Aqua, International Journal of Ichthyology, Volume 16, Issue 3 – 15 July 2010.

Faroe Islands

On the 19th of July, some 236 pilot whales met a rather ruthless demise in the town of Klaksvik, located in the Danish Faeroe Islands. Thanks to the excellent work of an undercover operative of Sea Shepherd, who was amongst the locals to document “the grind”, the whole thing was caught on tape! The grind is a very inhumane practice of whaling which involves herding the pods of cetaceans in coves, before stabbing them in the back with a knife!

Peter Hammarstedt, a Sea Shepherd undercover operative who also happens to be the First Mate of Sea Shepherd’s vessel the Bob Barker, had been deeply undercover with these barbaric islanders for seven days when he heard the news of a grind taking place in Klaksvik over the radio. He jumped into his car and raced off to the scene. Unfortunately, he was badly outnumbered, and wasn’t in any way able to stop the massacre, so he caught the whole thing on video instead.

“Pilot whales are known to travel in pods of 200-300 members. Two hundred and thirty-six pilot whales were slaughtered last night in Klaksvik: bulls, pregnant and lactating females, juveniles, and unborn babies still attached to their mothers by the umbilical chord. An entire pod that once swam freely through the North Atlantic has been exterminated in a single blood bath,” explained Hammarstedt.

Pilot whales - Picture by: Clark Anderson

The local government is claiming that the deaths of these whales are over quickly and painless, however the footage Hammarstedt captured begs to differ.

“One whale had five to six brutal chops to her head,” Hammarstedt began, “The islanders basically used her as a chopping board. Her death would have been slow and extremely painful. Some whales are hacked repeatedly for up to four minutes before they finally die.”

It was also painfully apparent that “the grind” is indiscriminate as well as gruesome.

“Babies had been cut out of their mother’s dead bodies and left to rot on the docks,” reported Hammarstedt, who got quite a few shots of dead babies and even fetuses. “Pilot whale groups are strongly matriarchal; I can’t imagine the fear and panic that these mothers must have felt as their families were wiped out in front of them.”

The Faroese pilot what grind is very similar to the yearly Taiji dolphin slaughter perpetrated in Japan. The slaughter of dolphins is very well documented in the bone chilling documentary, “The Cove”. The thing that sets apart the two activities is that there are more than 18 different coves in the Faeroes where the grind can happen, as opposed to the single cove in Taiji. This makes it almost impossible to find out where the killings will take place, or to get there in time to help prevent this heinous act.

Now that this barbaric act has been brought to light, and into the public eye, one can only hope that there will be steps taken to help avoid this kind of thing in the future.

Anyone who wants to know more or see pictures from the slaughter can visit http://www.seashepherd.org/

Acropora palmata,

A scientist from Australia has stumbled across what might be the rarest coral in the world, in the vastness of the remote North Pacific.

The coral, identified as Pacific elkhorn, was discovered while performing underwater surveys at Arno atoll, situated in the Marshall Islands, by Dr. Zoe Richards, a coral researcher of the CoECRS (ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies).

This coral is strikingly similar to the endangered and rapidly disappearing elkhorn coral, known in scientific circles as Acropora palmata, native to the Atlantic Ocean.

However, upon close genetic comparison is has proven that this coral is actually a different species.

“When I first saw it, I was absolutely stunned. The huge colonies – five metres across and nearly two metres high with branches like an elk’s antlers – were like nothing I’d seen before in the Pacific Ocean,” Dr Richards commented during a conference.

So far I have only found this new population of coral to occur along a small stretch of reef at a single atoll in the Marshalls group.

“It grows in relatively shallow water along the exposed reef front and, so far, fewer than 200 colonies are known from that small area.”

Dr. Richards explained that the Pacific elkhorn colonies were the largest of their kind, and also largest in all of the colonies located at Arno Atoll. This means that they are incredibly old.

So, there you have it. A new coral, well OK, newly discovered coral, is making quite a splash in the scientific community, and has sparked debate as to whether it is indeed a new species or not. Only time will tell…

There is a certain kind of damsel fish, the Stegastes Nigrigans, which will actually selectively cultivate the algae they prefer to feed on. They have shown to actually encourage the growth of Polysiphonia, their preferred food, and limit the growth of other algae which they can’t digest as well. Researchers, which are writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, have been investigating the algae preferences of damselfish and explore their intricate cultivating practices all across the Indo-West Pacific region.

Hiroki Hata from Ehime University, Japan, worked with a team of researchers to explore this ‘gardening’ behavior. He said, “We surveyed 320 territories of 18 damselfish species and thoroughly examined algae from each fish territory from coral reefs in Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, the Maldives, Thailand, Borneo, the Okinawa Islands, and the Great Barrier Reef. We found that although the crop alga species shifted in the West Indian Ocean, the intensive farming by damselfish was seen throughout this geographic range”.

It has been found that damselfish do not posses any organs which would allow them to process cellulose fibers, and they aren’t able to digest many species of algae. The most common type of algae they feed on is the red algae known as Polysiphonia. Unfortunately, this kind of algae is not very competitive and the damselfish lend a helping hand by killing off competing algae.

Yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Hawaiian partners announced the first marine debris action plan to be implemented in the United States. The goal of the plan is to actively assess and remove man-made debris such as plastics and lost fishing gear from Hawaii’s coastal waters. Each year, thousands of pounds of marine debris wash ashore on this delicate island chain.

“We’ve all been working to address marine debris in Hawai‘i in our own way for years. It’s great to have a plan that we can all contribute to and work together on to tackle marine debris in Hawaii,” said Marvin Heskett, member of the Surfrider Foundation’s Oahu Chapter.

The plan establishes a cooperative framework for marine debris activities and aims to reduce

• the current backlog of marine debris
• fishing gear and solid waste disposal at sea
• land-based debris in waterways
• the number of abandoned and derelict vessels

“For too long marine debris has marred the natural beauty of our ocean and threatened our marine ecosystem,” said Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii. “I have long championed a coordinated effort to mitigate the many tons of debris that suffocate our coral, kill our fish and aquatic mammals and blanket our coastlines. This is a critical issue for our state and I am proud that Hawaii is taking the lead in finding a solution to this global problem.”

The Marine Debris Program has been developed by NOOA in cooperation with Hawaiian governmental agencies, NGO’s, academia, and private business partners. The plan builds on ongoing and past marine debris community efforts.

You can find the plan here. The site also has a video for download.

Female scissortail sergants allow potential mates to fertilize a small batch off eggs and then monitor their parenting skills to decide if they are good enough to deserve a full clutch.

When studying filial cannibalism* in scissortail sergeants, ecologist Andrea Manica** of the University of Cambridge noticed that some females approached a male’s nest, deposited a small amount of eggs, and then left.

This aroused his curiosity and he decided to provide the males with ceramic tiles to use as nest sites. Once a female has deposited a small clutch on a ceramic tile, Manica either left the eggs alone or rotated the tiles to move the eggs.

The tiles that were left alone turned out to be popular; two-thirds of the females returned to deposit a full clutch of eggs later. The tiles that had been rotated by Manica were much less desirable and only a quarter of the females returned to lay a new batch.

Overall, this method of testing potential fathers seems to be rather rare in the population researched by Manica. Out of 421 females, only 7.4 percent laid test eggs before depositing a full batch. Manica also noticed that the method was used mainly at the onset of the breeding cycle. Later in the cycle, the amount of eggs already inside a nest seemed to suffice as indicator.

“The female fish probably use these test eggs when they don’t have much to go by. As a strategy, to me it makes lots of sense. There are probably lots of other species that do that,” said Manica.

The Scissortail sergant (Abudefduf sexfasciatus) is a large damselfish native to coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific. Also known as the Striptailed damselfish, it can be recognized on its black striped tail and sides. In this species, the eggs are cared for by the male fish who must not only resist the urge to eat his own offspring but also be brave and skilled enough to protect them from being eaten by other predators.

The study has been published in Animal Behaviour.
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622782/description#description

* Filial cannibalism is when an adult eats the young of its own species. In many species of fish, adults won’t hesitate to eat even their own immediate offspring.

** http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/manica.html

The Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) has officially announced that they are deploying five warships and one reconnaissance plane to protect the Natuna waters from illegal fishing and poaching.

“The five warships and reconnaissance plane have conducted routine patrols in the Natuna waters as part of efforts to reduce the number of fish thefts,” S.M. Darojatim, Commander of the Main Naval Base IV Commodore, announced Tuesday.

He also stated that the Natuna waters and the South China Sea were vulnerable to a number of criminal offences, including fish and coral thefts.

“The Pontianak naval base has so far secured the West Kalimantan waters well so that it sets a good example to other naval bases to safeguard the Indonesian waters,” said the commander.

Natuna Sea Facts

The Natuna Sea is a part of the South China Sea and home to an archipelago of 272 islands, located between east and west Malaysia and the Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of the island Borneo). The islands form a part of the Indonesian Riau province and is the northernmost non-disputed island group in Indonesia.

The islands are populated with roughly 100,000 people, most of them farmers and fishermen. The beaches are important nesting sites for sea turtles and the surrounding waters are filled with biodiverse coral reefs. The archipelago is also famous for its rich avifauna with over 70 different described species of bird, including rare ones like the Natuna Serpent-eagle and the Lesser Fish-eagle. The islands are also home to primates, such as the Natuna Banded Leaf Monkey which is considered one of the 25 most endangered primates in the world.