Humboldt Penguin

Exotic animals such as crocodiles, tigers and penguins may soon be disappearing from homes in Russia as parliament is considering a bill which would help cut down the number of animals which could be kept as pets.

Yevgeny Tugolukov, the chairman of the lower house’s natural resources committee, has commented that a pending bill on the care of animals may also include a list of animals which are “inadvisable to keep at home”.

That list of animals would include “exotic” animals such as crocodiles, snakes and monkeys which are rather popular amongst the people of Russia, but can also promote the spread of rather nasty diseases.

This bill was submitted to the State Duma this past Monday.

It will help to drive the responsibility of pet owners to take good care of their pets home, and is in response to a steep rise of cases of animal cruelty. However, there are very few cases of animal cruelty which actually make it to court.

The latest outrage, which helped to prompt the promotion of this new bill, was from a woman in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, who had kept a rare Amur tiger in a cage. However, the biggest outrage comes not from the crime, but from the punishment. She is expected to pay a “hefty” fine of 2,500 rubles or about 80 US dollars.

Russia is known as being a nation filled with pet lovers, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is no exception. His rather extensive group of pets was just recently made larger by a Karakachan puppy, which was a thoughtful gift from Boyko Borisov. While the gift may not have done anything to improve politics, it did bring a smile to his face.

Sturgeon - Aaron Gustafson

OK you fish egg fanatics, some good news – black caviar can once again be purchased for your upscale parties. It is available on the shelves in Russia for the first time since it was taken off the menu back in 2007.

It was taken off the market in Russia due to concern for the survival of the sturgeon, who were under constant attack from poachers for the delectable delicacy.

However, now it is back on the market, even though the sturgeon is not yet out from under the cloud of extinction, and officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the competition in the commercial market may just help put an end to the black market of black caviar.

The ban on the sale of black caviar was supposed to help encourage people to start caviar farms – what can we say, good old Russian logic – which were supposed to use breeding techniques approved during the reign of the Soviet Union.

That being the case, black caviar farms remained under developed in Russia, and only one out of every five of them actually produces the delectable black tidbits. The rest of the black caviar comes from smuggling and poaching operations, Itogi reported.

After three years going down this path proved to not be getting the desired effect as the demand for the black caviar simply made prices skyrocket, and cases of poaching and smuggling became more abundant.

While black caviar has been put back on the market, the red caviar is expected to be the choice this Christmas and New Years’, given that the price is much easier on the purse strings.

Scallop

A huge garden of sea scallops will be completed by the end of the month in the Far East Kozmino Bay in Russia. This will be the first time in the history of Russia, and possibly the world, where mollusks will be used as an instrument to monitor the water.

“Scallops are a very good measure of water pollution because they are very sensitive to contaminants. They absorb and retain impurities” explains the organic chemist at the helm of Kozmino’s ecological safety department, Natalia Vykhodtseva.

She continued by commenting that sea scallops are rather adept at filtering out different contaminants, especially oil and heavy metals, and this is the reason they are being used to monitor the health of the bay.
“If the monitoring is successful, we have an idea to create large permanent colonies for scallops, mussels and seaweed at the bottom of the bay and use them to filter the water and keep it clean,” added Vykhodtseva.

This “Sea Scallop Garden” is the brain child of the Russian oil company Transneft. It’s nice to sea that the oil companies are taking an interest, and becoming part of the solution rather than continuing to be part of the problem.

Of course, the reason for Transneft’s concern is the fact that it plans to heavily traffic the area, to the tune of 200 million barrels of oil, so of course people are concerned about pollution.

This is the first time an oil company has showed any concern, but then, they don’t really have a choice, ever since the BP oil fiasco, and the other spills over the past years…

Old illustration of a sea monster. In this case a squid, not Nesski

Nessie’s Russian cousin, “Nesski” seems to be misbehaving in a rather morbid way. It seems to have acquired the taste for fishermen!

Nesski has now been attributed with 19 deaths in the Chany lake over the years. According to Russian experts, that number may actually be higher, but no one has taken note of it yet.

On the books, these deaths have been reported as drowning. However, it is interesting to note that of the “drowning” victims only a few have actually been recovered. The bodies that have been recovered have been reported to be “half eaten”. Off the record, this has led to the speculation by many of the local community that “Nesski” has acquired a taste for human flesh.

Nesski claimed its latest victim, a 59 year old man, when the hapless fisherman tried to reel it in last week. Vladimir Golishev, the man’s close friend, explains what happened. “I was with my friend… some 300 yards from the shore. He hooked something huge on his bait, and he stood up in the boat to reel it in. But it pulled with such force that he overturned the boat. I was in shock – I had never seen anything like it in my life. I pulled off my clothes and swam for the shore, not daring hope I would make it.”

Golishev did in fact make it back to the shore, however his long time fishing partner, vanished beneath the waves, never to be seen or heard from again.

This sad incident is a painful reminder of what happened only three short years ago, when Vladimir lost his 32 year old grandson to the Beast. Mikhail, a Russian soldier, was dragged beneath the lakes’ placid waters, after something large capsized his boat. “The lake was calm, but suddenly the boat was rocking, and it capsized.” recalled Mikhail’s grandmother, Nina Doronin.

The couple has lived on the shores of Chany their entire lives. They firmly believe that Nesski is real, and is responsible for the death of their grandson, as well as the other missing fishermen. The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing, is that they have never personally seen the monster responsible for the crime.

Nesski is thought to be a pleiosaur, much like its counterpart in the Loch Ness. A pleiosaur is an aquatic dinosaur with a rather long neck, small head, large body, and an almost comicly short tail and fins. According to experts on the subject however, these beats went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

The reports of Nesski sightings have been coming in a steady flow for decades, though actually locating such a beast really shouldn’t be too difficult, given its habitat. The lake is only 57 x 55 miles across, and only 23 feet deep at its deepest.. Which begs the question.. Why has no one proven the existence of the monster? But more importantly… Why can’t you find the missing fisherman in water so shallow?

As reported earlier , the European Union has decided to ban the import of seal skin and other seal products hailing from commercial seal hunting.

This has upset Canadian seal hunters since Italy and Denmark, both members of the European Union, are two major importers of seal products. Italy imports most of their seal skins from Russia, but Denmark has always been an important trade partner for North American seal hunters, partly due to Denmark’s traditional connection to Greenland.

According to a statement from Canadian Trade Minister Stockwell Day, the federal government is now getting ready to move in with an appeal against the ban, which they see as a clear breach of WTO regulation.

“We’ll go to the WTO because it’s clear in WTO regulations that if one country wants to ban the products of another, it has to have clear scientific, medically acceptable reasons for doing so, and this EU ban is not based on hard science,” Day said.

The Canadin government believes that Canada deserves an exemption from the import ban since it follows internationally accepted guidelines regarding seal hunting, e.g. by prohibiting the clubbing of baby seals while they still have their white coats.

Day claims that the European ban is based on “people’s feelings” rather than hard facts, and says that the trade action will proceed unless the European Union Parliament exempts Canada and other countries that he said practise humane and sustainable seal hunting. According to Day, seal hunt proponents erroneously portray seal hunting as it was 40 years ago.

The suggested seal import ban must still be approved by individual European governments before becoming law but can, if passed, come into effect as early as next year. If the is approved, it will cause an annual 2 million USD loss for the Canadian industry.

Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea agrees supports the government’s planned trade action.

“When you live in small coastal communities, sometimes there’s not many opportunities to make some additional money,” she said. “We have a number of families who make up to 35% of their annual income from the seal hunt. So yes, I do think it’s very important.”

As reported earlier, the proposed European seal import ban will contain some exemptions and seal products resulting from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and other indigenous communities can still be imported to and marketed in European Union countries even if the ban is approved. Products that result from hunting conducted for the purpose of sustainable management of marine resources on a non-profit basis will also be allowed, and individual travellers will be permitted to bring seal products to the European Union as long as the import is of an occasional nature and consists exclusively of goods for the personal use of the traveller.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to ban most seal products from the European market. The legislative resolution was adopted with 550 votes in favour, 49 against and 41 abstentions.

Suggestions from the European Parliament’s will only become law if adopted by the European Council of Ministers, which represents the member states. The legislative report on the seal products ban was agreed with the European Council of Ministers in first-reading.

An exemption is allowed for indigenous communities so seal products resulting from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and other indigenous communities can still be imported to and marketed in European Union countries.

“This deal will protect seals from cruelty and protect the Inuit people’s traditional way of life,” said Christel Schaldemose, a Danish Socialist MEP.

Import of seal products will also be permitted where it is of an occasional nature and consists exclusively of goods for the personal use of the traveller or products that result from by-products of hunting conducted for the purpose of sustainable management of marine resources on a non-profit basis.

The legislative report was drafted by UK MEP Diana Wallis of the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE). ALDE is the third largest political group in the European Parliament.

No ban on hunting

“Seals are very beautiful marine animals, in fact, I have realized during this process that they have great PR, but to some they are the rats of the sea”, Wallis said in the debate yesterday.

“That is how they are perceived by many fishermen – an adult seal gets through an enormous amount of fish on a daily basis. Therefore, there will remain the need for seals to be hunted to ensure the sustainability of fisheries in some area.“

“But what we have not done here is to regulate hunting,” said Wallis. “If people in any of our

member states wish to hunt, they can still continue to hunt. What they cannot do is take commercial gain from the results of that hunt. But it should be the case that the results of the hunt can be used, and I hope particularly that those parts of seals that can be used by the medical community will be able to be used.”

Today, human heart valves can be replaced with bioprosthetic valves from seals and other marine mammals.

“Great progress has been made in the survival and quality of life of cardiac patients by using the aortic, pulmonary and pericardial tissue of harp seals, the assumption being that they are sustainably hunted or killed and not in a cruel way,” said Irish MEP Avril Doyle of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, EPP-ED. “I would like assurances on ongoing medical research and bioprosthetic use of products from seals in the context of the compromise,” she added.

The patent holder for the valve replacement process, Efstathios Andreas Agathos of Massachusetts, says the needed seal valves can be supplied by “the annual seal harvesting supported by Canadian government for population control.”

Canada will challenge ban at WTO

Canada‘s Trade Minister Stockwell Day said that Canada will challenge the trade ban at the World Trade Organization, unless an exemption is added for any country that has strict guidelines in place for humane and sustainable sealing practices.

“The decision by the European Parliament lacks any basis in facts,” said Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea. “The Canadian seal hunt is guided by rigorous animal welfare principles which are internationally recognized by independent observers. I once again caution my European counterparts about the dangers of pursuing politically motivated bans on other countries’ traditional industries. Our government will stand up for the jobs and communities that depend on the seal hunt.”

The world’s largest seal hunt is conducted every spring off Canada’s Atlantic coast and Denmark, one of the main importers of raw fur sealskins to the European Union, imports seal skins directly from Canada and Greenland. Denmark and Italy are by far the two largest importers of raw fur sealskins for the EU market. Unlike Denmark, Italy imports most skins from Russia, and from the two EU members Finland and Scotland (UK). Greece will also be affected by the trade ban, but not to the same extent as Denmark and Italy since the Greece trade in raw seal skins – predominately from Finland and Scotland – is much smaller.

Russia is planning to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves with the aid of a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations. A prototype is currently being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk and is scheduled to be ready for use in 2010. Four similar ones are also planned to be built in the near future, according to an agreement between the northern Siberian republic Yakutiya and Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation.

Each 70-megawatt plant will consist of two reactors placed on giant steel platforms. The floating power stations will be self-propelled and store both fuel and waste. The generated power will be used by Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The oil- and natural gas company Gazprom is currently Russia’s largest company and it employs a large number of Russians.

In addition to the power stations, engineers have also developed submarine nuclear-powered drilling rigs powerful enough to drill eight wells at a time.

The new about Russia’s intentions have alarmed environmental watchdog groups around the world who fear the Arctic will become even more polluted if firms try to exploit these oil and gas reserves.

According to Bellona, a leading Scandinavian environmental watchdog group, the risk of nuclear accidents in the Arctic is also high.

“It is highly risky. The risk of a nuclear accident on a floating power plant is increased. The plants’ potential impact on the fragile Arctic environment through emissions of radioactivity and heat remains a major concern. If there is an accident, it would be impossible to handle,” said Bellona spokesman Igor Kudrik.

Russia claims that all radioactive waste will be stored on the platforms, but this country has a long record of polluting the Arctic with radioactive waste and environmentalists fear that Russia will continue this practise. Countries such as Britain have had to pay Russia billions of dollars to decommission around 160 Russian nuclear submarines, and at least 12 nuclear reactors have been dumped despite this. Russia has also dumped 5,000 containers of solid and liquid nuclear waste on the northern coast and on the island of Novaya Zemlya.

According to a new report from the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum, and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, Russia is also considering building nuclear plants to power settlements in northern and eastern Russia. “The locations that have been discussed include 33 towns in the Russian far north and far east. Such plants could be also used to supply energy for oil and gas extraction,” says the report.

The Caspian Sea has traditionally been the world’s main source of caviar, but pollution and overfishing has caused serious problems for the fish in this enormous lake and yields are dwindling at a worrisome pace. The Caspian crisis is now prompting an increasing number of restaurants and importers to switch to Israeli caviar instead.

Sturgeon in pond – Not the facility talked about in the article

In Israel, Ossetra sturgeon (Acipenser persicus / Acipenser gueldenstaedtii) is commercially farmed at the Kibbutz Dan close to the Lebanese border, using eggs imported from the Caspian Sea. Compared to caviar from the Beluga sturgeon (Huso huso), Ossetra caviar – also known as Osetra or Asetra caviar – is firmer in texture and has the most variety in terms of size, color and flavor.

Kibbutz Dan began their Ossetra project in 2003, when caviar prices skyrocketed and made sturgeon roe even more expensive than before. The idea was not primarily to export caviar, but to satisfy the demands of the large Russian-Israeli population, according to Ben Tzvi at Kibbutz Dan. The location of the sturgeon fish farm is well chosen since it can use water from the snow-fed river Dan, a principal source of the river Jordan.

Under normal conditions, a female Ossetra sturgeon will not become sexually mature until she is around 15 years old, but Israeli biologist Avshalom Hurvitz has managed to make female sturgeons commence egg-laying at an age of just 8 or 9 years.

So, is sturgeon roe really kosher? Since the sturgeon is considered a scale-less fish, it is seen as forbidden food according to traditional Jewish dietary laws. However, according to Berta Levavi-Sivan, a scientist at the Hebrew University and a participant in the sturgeon-rearing project, the sturgeon fish is actually equipped with tiny scales – it is has only been considered a scale-less fish because the scales are too small to bee seen with the naked eye.

Credit: NMFS File Photo

Russia has proposed a five year long ban on fishing sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, News.com.au reports. According to non-governmental organisation Caviar Emptor, the Beluga Sturgeon population has declined by 90 percent during the last 20 years. Russia has suggested that all countries bordering the Caspian should impose a ban and that the ban should last for at least five years. According to Andrei Krainy, head of Russia’s state fisheries agency, Russia is ready to ban even scientists from fishing sturgeon in the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea is home to roughly 90 percent of the total sturgeon population. The sturgeon is primarily fished for its caviar eggs, a world-famous delicates.

You can read the full article here: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23444657-1702,00.html

The Caspian Sea is an enormous body of water without any outflows. Its coastline is shared by Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its salinity is about 1.2%, while the average salinity of the ocean is 3.5%. The Caspian Sea is fed by over 130 rivers, including the famous Russian river Volga which is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, watershed and discharge. The Caspian Sea is home to several endemic species of fish, such as the Caspian roach and the Caspian white fish (also known as Kktum). The Caspian Sea is also where you will find the Caspian seal, one of very few seal species that live in inland waters instead of living in the ocean.

In the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA) have decided to investigate if the ribbon seal should be protected by law, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. NOAA will also investigate the situation for three other species of ice seal: the bearded seal, the spotted seal and the ringed seal. The decision is a response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, a San Francisco based environmental group. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the sea ice in the Bering and Okhotsk Seas off Alaska and Russia where the ribbon seals spend the winter season is threatened by global warming.

You can read more about this in the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/27/BAC0VR2CK.DTL

The ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata) inhabits the Arctic parts of the Pacific Ocean and almost never come to land; it spends most of its life in the ocean and on sea ice. During winter and early spring, it lives on the pack ice of the Bering and Okhotsk Seas where it molts (sheds) and breed. When the summer comes, the ribbon seals head for the open water and stay there until next winter. Young ribbon seals are hunted for their fur, but efficient hunting is difficult since this species does not live in herds. For most hunters, the herd living Harp seal is a much more convenient target. In 1969, the Soviet Union limited the hunt on Ribbon seals and this has also had a significant positive impact on the populations.