These fins used to be attached to a "top predator." Until another predator came along.
The top predator in the oceans is not one of the top predators that normally pop into your head–sharks, killer whales, swordfish, marlin. The top predator in the oceans is, well, us.
In half of the North Atlantic and North Pacific waters under national jurisdiction, fishing has led to a 90-per-cent decrease in top predators since the 1950s, and the impacts are now headed south of the Equator, according to a new study published online December 5 in the journalMarine Ecological progress Series…
[snip]..The scientists found that the exploitation of marine predators first occurred in coastal areas of northern countries, then expanded to the high seas and to the southern hemisphere. The decline of top-of-the-food-chain predators also means widespread and fundamental changes to both the structure and function of marine systems.
This is exactly the sort of finding that reinforces the analogy of humanity as locusts, systematically and relentlessly depleting resources and species around the planet. As Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at UBC, asks: “After running out of predator fish in the north Atlantic and Pacific, rather than implementing strict management and enforcement, the fishing industry pointed its bows south. The southern hemisphere predators are now on the same trajectory as the ones in the northern hemisphere. What happens next when we have nowhere left to turn?”
That’s an obvious question that has no good answer. And we got here because the price and consumption of fish in no way reflects the costs of this outcome.
This is footage of a fishing boat longlining for swordfish in the Med. Their hooks and technique are resulting in the slaughter of really small, immature swordfish.
It’s painful to watch, and worth remembering next time you are considering ordering or eating swordfish. The demand you create, even if your swordfish comes from a mature fish, is creating the demand that leads to this. So maybe it’s time to stop eating swordfish, or charging a price that reflects the destruction of the species that is ongoing.
No matter what sorts of regulations and sustainable principles are applied to fisheries, the Iron Law Of Fishing (and humanity) is: if it makes money it will be done.
Quite apart from whatever you might think about bankers and other 1-percenters throwing down a fee equal to a year’s salary for most people, the key point is that the steady accumulation of Titanic tours, from both above and under the sea, is taking a toll:
Scientists and scholars worry about new damage to the famous ship and new dishonor to a gravesite strewn with the shoes and other belongings of so many drowned people. However, they see the centennial as not only a potential threat but also an opportunity to lobby for a global accord that would establish rules for the Titanic’s protection.
“We need a basic agreement,” said James P. Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors the wreck.
Already, the site is quite littered. Passing cruise ships dump beer cans and garbage bags. On the seabed, the mini-submarines have set up memorial plaques with artificial flowers. At times, the subs have also accidentally bumped into the increasingly fragile wreck.
“It could get real crowded out there,” Dr. Delgado said of the centennial rush. Despite the legitimacy of wide public interest, he added, “there are some things that shouldn’t happen,” like dumping trash and leaving behind equipment.
Gawking at an underwater gravesite is creepy enough. Slowly destroying it as you do so is beyond the pale.
Plus, you can take the tour right here, for free (yes, this footage is shot by a submersible, but it has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people; in contrast to a submersible tour that shows the wreck to, um, exactly two wealthy tourists per voyage).
I guess today is natural history day. Because here is a very cool story on NPR about killer whale and pilot whale dialects (thanks to Michael for sharing). Check it:
And if you are interested, or think you have a good ear for “whale,” you can be help scientists sort out whale dialects at the Whale Song Project.
There’s nothing more mesmerizing or suspenseful than watching a killer whale display the full range of its cunning, intelligence, and power to make a hefty meal of a fatally lackadaisical elephant seal. From the BBC, the apex broadcaster when it comes to nature. (Thanks to Jeff for sharing)…
This is an extraordinary image (thanks to Trina for sharing): Polar bear confronts an icebreaker. And depending on your feelings about the collision between man and his technology and the natural world, it is profoundly sad.
Naturally, it cries out for a caption contest. Let me know what your caption would be. I’m going with:
I’m always impressed by the ingenuity and energy that some people apply to geting up close to the ocean’s greatest predators. And sometimes the results are pretty spectacular, conveying the grace and aura of some incredible animals in a way that an aquarium never could.
Take, for example, Lawrence Groth, a shark diver who has been experimenting with a self-propelled shark cage. Somehow, moving along with a massive Great White shark, as opposed to viewing it from a static cage, transforms the experience. Just check out this video, and you’ll see what I mean:
I caught up with Roz while she was traveling the East Coast, and managed to speak with her as she was making her way toward the Apple store in Manhattan for a technology fix:
What made you quit the real world and go to sea? It was the realization that they just weren’t paying me enough to be that miserable. I was doing a job I didn’t like to buy stuff I didn’t need. The insanity of it suddenly dawned on me. So I had to do some serious thinning about what would make me happy. I sat down and wrote the two versions of my own obituary, the one that I wanted, and the one that I was heading for, and realized that working in an office cubicle was definitely not the legacy I wanted to leave to the world.
What do you love most about being at sea? I actually find it very tough out there. It’s definitely not my natural habitat, and I’m always relieved to get back to dry land. At the same time, I do enjoy the solitude and perspective it gives me on what’s important in life. You realize how little stuff you actually need. And you also realize how amazing and how powerful nature is. She has a way of really letting you know who is boss when you’re facing 20-foot waves and adverse winds.
Do you have any favorite moments? There have been some pretty amazing things that I’ve seen, especially at the nighttime. I saw a moonbow, something I didn’t even know existed. It’s what you get when there is a really, really bright moon and a rain shower, and it’s like a rainbow but it’s sort of monochrome. That was very cool. Of course there is the wildlife as well. Probably the coolest creature I’ve ever seen was the baby whaleshark that spent about 20 minutes swimming around my boat.
What have been the most difficult moments? Well, capsizing is never fun. I did that a couple of times this year and three times back in 2007. That’s just miserable really. But apart from the capsizing, in between the capsizes you are wondering when the next big wave is going to hit. I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s not a fun way to spend the night.
What do you think about Olly Hicks’ plan to try and row the Southern Ocean?
I’m a bit worried about Olly. I absolutely wish him all the best, but the Southern Ocean is just brutal. I wish he wouldn’t do it, but I know what it’s like when you get a bee in your bonnet, and you just really have to do something. So I completely understand why he is doing it, but I’ll be very relieved when he makes it back to dry land.
Why row? Sailing is so much nicer. [Laughs] You’re right. I think sailors do have the right idea. I can’t tell you how many times that occurred to me this year. They get to go a lot faster for a lot less effort. But I am not very good at sailing, and I seem to have a bit of a mental block about it. So for me rowing was something that I had done before and it seemed that much more doable. And I suppose another attraction was that—probably for very good reason—there are very few people who have rowed across oceans. So if you’re trying to get sponsorship and bag a few world records, then there are more records to be had by rowing. The records aren’t really that important to me, but I have ended up with four of them.
What have you seen at sea in terms of plastic and garbage? Most of the plastic is not very visible. I wish I had seen more conspicuous signs of it because if I could have brought back some really shocking photos that would have been really helpful. But most of it is isolated items or a thin soup of very tiny pieces. Still, when you read the estimates of how much plastic is really out there—like they guess three and a half million tons of trash in the North Pacific Garbage Patch alone, and that is just one of five gyres around the world—it really is quite staggering. Sometimes it surprises me that it’s not even worse than that when you look at just how much plastic we are generating every single day. The main thing is to just try and stop generating so much plastic in the first place. Once it gets into the ocean, it’s really challenging to try and get it back out.
When you speak about the oceans and your voyages, what are your primary messages? The main message is more on the inspirational level. I think a lot of people are concerned about what’s happening in the environment. We sort of know intuitively that it’s just not sustainable to carry on the way that we are. But a lot of people feel like they really can’t make a difference. So my key message really is that every single action we take is helping to create our future. It took me five million oar strokes to row across three oceans. One oar stroke doesn’t get you very far. But if you take five million tiny actions, it really adds up. So I’d like to get everybody realizing that they’re having an impact on the future, and they have that power. But with that power comes responsibility, and we all just need to be a lot more mindful of how much we are using in the way of resources and stuff that we throw away, and where that’s going to. On a finite earth, what goes around comes around.
So having rowed all those oceans, what’s next? Roz plans to make a film with her “message of inspiration.” Beyond rowing, she’s also looking to do a lot more speaking, travel, and land-based adventure, “because the opportunity cost of spending five months in the middle of an ocean is just too high.” Oh, yes, she has also agreed to sail around Borneo.
But not really. At least that’s what we might conclude from what’s been going on at Colombia’s Malpelo wildlife sanctuary. According to this report:
Colombian environmental authorities have reported a huge shark massacre in the Malpelo wildlife sanctuary in Colombia‘s Pacific waters, where as many as 2,000 hammerhead, Galápagos and silky sharks may have been slaughtered for their fins.
Sandra Bessudo, the Colombian president’s top adviser on environmental issues, said a team of divers who were studying sharks in the region reported the mass killing in the waters surrounding the rock-island known as Malpelo, some 500 kilometres from the mainland.
“I received a report, which is really unbelievable, from one of the divers who came from Russia to observe the large concentrations of sharks in Malpelo. They saw a large number of fishing trawlers entering the zone illegally,” Bessudo said. The divers counted a total of 10 fishing boats, which all were flying the Costa Rican flag.
“When the divers dove, they started finding a large number of animals without their fins. They didn’t see any alive,” she said. One of the divers provided a video that shows the finless bodies of dead sharks on the ocean floor.
Calculating an average of 200 sharks per boat, “our estimates are that as many as 2,000 sharks may have been killed,” Bessudo said.
Seeing dead, finless sharks littering the ocean floor has got to be a sight that no diver will ever forget. Not very encouraging. But when shark fins go for an estimated $125 to $415 per kilogram, it is pretty inevitable.
I guess today is natural history day. Because here is a very 
The Earthist Chronicles 