The jellyfish are here- a bad sign.

"...while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans.

The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.

...Within the past year, there have been beach closings because of jellyfish swarms on the Côte d’Azur in France, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and at Waikiki and Virginia Beach in the United States. " LINK

Blue crabs- I sure hope they're on their way here, because they're not in the Chesapeake Bay.

"It's an anxious summer for watermen harvesting the Chesapeake's best-loved seafood, the blue crab. The way some see it, the crabbing business here isn't just dying. It's already dead.
Crabs have thrived in the bottom muck of the Chesapeake and its tributaries even as centuries of overfishing harmed oysters, fish and other species in the nation's largest estuary. Now blue crabs are in trouble, too, and when they go, a way of life is sure to go with them." LINK

Seabirds not breeding.

"The poor breeding of Scotland's seabirds is giving cause for "serious concern", according to RSPB Scotland.
Early reports from coastal reserves indicate continuing problems for the internationally important populations of guillemots, kittiwakes and others.
Nests have been abandoned, with cliffs which "should be teeming" now empty.
..."At our Copinsay reserve on Orkney, the kittiwake population has plummeted drastically since the mid 1980s, when there were at least 10,000 birds on the cliffs, but today there are just under 2,000."
He added: "The declines are primarily being driven by changes in the availability of the fish that these birds depend on.
"Seabirds are indicators of the health of the marine environment and, like the canary in the coalmine, the decline in their fortunes should be a wake-up call to us all that we must pay attention to." LINK

French oysters, dying off? Oh noes!!!!

One of the most beautiful and delish looking things I've ever seen was some oysters my DH had in Brittany. They were served in their shells, atop little mounds of fleur de sel, baked in a champagne cream sauce. Glorious.
So this saddens me.

"FRANCE'S shellfish industry is facing its worst crisis in 40 years after stocks of young oysters have been decimated by a mystery ailment.
French oyster farmers have seen between 40 and 100 per cent of their oysters aged one to two years wiped out in recent weeks, far higher than the normal mortality rate in the summer months, a top industry expert said." LINK

Fish populations in Narragansett bay changing due to global warming... Maryland-style crabcakes, anyone?

"A recent study by scientists at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography reveals that warming water temperatures are causing major changes in species composition in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island sound.
The study, which will be published in the July issue of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, reports that the fish community is shifting from vertebrate species, such as finfish, to invertebrates like crabs, lobsters and squid. Populations of species that feed on the bottom are declining while species that feed higher in the water column, where water is warmer, are increasing.

“This is a pretty dramatic change and it’s a pattern that is being seen in other ecosystems,” said Jeremy Collie, a professor of oceanography at the URI Bay Campus in Narragansett.

As bottom-feeding species disappear, lobsters and crabs have taken advantage of the abandoned habitat, Collie said, which explains why there are more lobsters and crabs.Some species have seen dramatic population changes. Butterfish and bluefish have increased in abundance by a factor of 100, while cunner has decreased by almost 1,000 times.

The long-term result of the changes will cause Narragansett Bay to more closely resemble estuaries to the south, such as Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay.

“It will continue to get warmer and attract more southern species, such as blue crabs,” Collie said. “Species that couldn’t complete their life cycle here before may be able to do that now.” LINK

Jellyfish taking over the oceans.

"There are about six and a half billion of us on this planet, whereas a fluther of jellyfish (collective-noun aficionados also accept a "smack") measuring just 10 square miles to a depth of 11 metres that wiped out a Northern Ireland salmon farm last year was said by marine scientists to have contained "billions" of mauve stinger jellyfish.

...Traditionally, jellyfish plagues have only been a concern once every decade or so. Many are now blaming their increasing frequency on climate change.

...Back on shore, rats, slugs and snails, foxes, mosquitoes, wasps, cockroaches, rabbits and pigeons are already enjoying our warming climate. Shrewsbury and Atcham borough council said last year that complaints about rats had doubled in just 12 months and its chief rat catcher said climate change was partly to blame." LINK

Tuna fish, headed out?

Ack.
"Urgent measures to save falling stocks of tuna in the world's second-biggest tuna fishery, the eastern Pacific, must be launched at a key international meeting this week, conservationists are demanding.
Closures of the fishery, both by area and by time, must be brought in to protect tumbling Pacific populations of skipjack and bigeye tuna, leading environmental groups warn.
..."Bigeye and yellowfin tuna populations are falling and the average size of captured fish is shrinking, a clear sign that those tuna are in dire need of conservation measures," the environmental groups say.
How to eat sustainably
Opportunities for consuming tuna in an environmentally friendly way are steadily diminishing. In the past the concern was for the "bycatch" species – that is, where other marine creatures such as dolphins were being accidentally caught. Accordingly, tuna could be certified as "dolphin-friendly". But now concern has moved on to the tuna itself. There is only one tuna fishery – the American Albacore Fishing Association in San Diego, California – which is certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. Other fisheries are cause for concern, but the worst is thought to be the Mediterranean and Atlantic fishery for bluefin tuna, which conservationists consider to be close to collapse. Recently the World Wide Fund for Nature called for a boycott by retailers, restaurants and consumers of Mediterranean bluefin tuna so that the species might have a chance to recover before it is too late." LINK

Intense article about plastic marine debris.

"We still have limited tax dollars to spend and scarier nightmares to fear. No one — not Pallister, not Moore — will tell you that plastic pollution is the greatest man-made threat our oceans face. Depending whom you ask, that honor goes to global warming, agricultural runoff or overfishing. But unlike many pollutants, plastic has no natural source and therefore there is no doubt that we are to blame. Because we can see it, plastic is a powerful bellwether of our impact upon the earth. Where plastics travel, invisible pollutants — pesticides and fertilizers from lawns and farms, petrochemicals from roads, sewage tainted with pharmaceuticals — often follow. Last June, shortly before my voyage in the Opus began, Sylvia Earle, formerly N.O.A.A.’s chief scientist, delivered an impassioned speech on marine debris at the World Bank in Washington. “Trash is clogging the arteries of the planet,” Earle said. “We’re beginning to wake up to the fact that the planet is not infinitely resilient.” For ages humanity saw in the ocean a sublime grandeur suggestive of eternity. No longer. Surveying the debris on remote beaches like Gore Point, we see that the ocean is more finite than we’d thought. " LINK

Hm... West Nile mosquito spray killing lobsters?

Oh, man. This end of the world stuff can be really depressing sometimes.
Climate change is bringing tropical diseases (such as West Nile Disease) to non-tropical places (like Rhode Island) where these diseases kill people. So local governments have been laying down mosquito killing poisons to try to save people's lives, but...
"lobstermen believe the methoprene is stunting the growth of young lobsters, much as it does to mosquito larva.
Emotions are rising on both sides. Lobstermen have seen their catches fall by more than half in the last several years, causing nearly every one of them to lose money and some to quit and sell their boats. On the state’s side, no one wants to have to say they didn’t do everything they could to protect Rhode Islanders from disease.
“We figure there won’t be a lobster industry in a short time if this keeps up,” said Dellinger. “All the state wants to do is control us, but you can’t keep polluting the environment and still get fish.”
Local lobster catches topped off in 1999 with about 3,500 tons. Each of the following years got progressively worse. In 2005, the last year with complete figures, the take was less than 1,500 tons.
In response, the lobstermen have greatly reduced the number of traps they set and accepted one new size restriction after another designed to leave lobsters in the water longer so they can successfully reproduce.
Still, the catch remains low. And many lobsters, particularly those caught close to shore, are coming up with a disfiguring, and still unexplained, shell disease.
What they are not seeing is even more disturbing — young lobsters. " LINK

Sharks, headed out?

"Some shark populations in the Mediterranean Sea have completely collapsed, according to a new study, with numbers of five species declining by more than 96 percent over the past two centuries.
...Particularly troubling, the researchers said, were patterns indicating a lack of females of breeding age, which are essential if populations are to recover even with new conservation measures.
Sharks take years to reach sexual maturity and, unlike most other fishes, produce small numbers of young, making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Populations have declined worldwide, but experts say the Mediterranean — bordered by many countries with diverse rules and fished intensively for centuries — has had bigger losses of sharks and other large predatory fish, including tuna." LINK

Surfing in Cornwall, headed out?

"It is Britain's answer to the Hawaiian North Shore: an expansive golden beach with strong hollow waves that has been the British surfer's paradise since the 1970s. But now Newquay's famous Fistral Beach faces a crisis: it is losing its sand.
A season of vicious storms has left the usually well-covered seabed sparse and dotted with dangerously exposed rocks.
The main theory as to why so much of the sand has been swept off the beach is a change in the winter wind. "The prevailing wind in Cornwall is normally a south-westerly", said Mr Benney, "but this winter we've had a lot of north-westerlies, and environmentalists think that is having an effect on the sand."" LINK

Time for another look at disaster central, Indonesia.

Been a week or so since I've posted anything from there, but not because nothing happened- just because the sheer amount of Indonesian news about various disasters, natural and man made is overwhelming, and I didn't set out to make a blog called Lexacat's Guide To The Doom In Indonesia, did I.
Right.

In one of the most mind-bending stories, the mud continues to flow (it's been about a year now) at a site where a mining company drilled right down into what is called a 'mud volcano', setting off epic landslides and mudflows that have killed people and swallowed towns whole. The toxic stew (now mixed right up with mining byproducts- notoriously toxic slagheaps, etc) was headed for the ocean, last time I wrote about it. Biologists, understandably, are worried about what will happen to the ocean's ecosystem when tons of hot, toxic mud pour in, but people really want the mud to stop drowning their villages, and I guess I can see their point to. "Geologists fear the technology may not exist to stop the eruption, saying mud could flow for years or even centuries _ or stop on its own at any time." LINK
Well, anyway, in an update on that nightmare, the nations Welfare minister, a fellow with family ties to the mining company, claims that it was all natural, and that the $425 million in compensation the company has been ordered to pay is wrong, as it wasn't their fault. Right. Fox guarding the freaking henhouse, as usual. LINK

Also, some entrepenerial Indonesians are growing coffee beans in the protected habitats of 3 of the most endangered species in Asia. "Coffee beans exported to the West are being illegally grown inside an Indonesian national park, threatening the habitat of endangered tigers, elephants and rhinos, the WWF said Wednesday.

"If this trend of clearing park land for coffee isn't halted, the rhinos and tigers will be locally extinct in less than a decade," Nazir Foead, WWF-Indonesia's Director of Policy and Corporate Engagement, said in a statement.

"We think even the world's most committed coffee drinkers will find this an unacceptable price to pay for their daily caffeine buzz." LINK

Dolphins dying in the North Sea of malnutrition due to warming waters.

More dolphins. Will the NYT cover this in Travel?
"HARBOUR porpoises are starving to death in the North Sea as a result of rising water temperatures, scientists have revealed.
Climate change has resulted in a dramatic decline in the numbers of sandeels - a major part of the staple diet of the porpoises."
LINK

I hate The New York Times with the fire of a thousand suns exploding.

Seriously, right now I'm ready to go get me some heads on pikes. Entitled, selfish, greedy, evil fuckers.
You know how fish are heading out? The warming + acidic oceans > no fish and then > no life on earth? That thing, what with fish being, well, basically gone by 2050? And us too, as without life in the oceans, we all die? That thing? Well, the great Grey Lady, the US fucking paper of note, has deigned to address the issue.
In the Dining and Wine section. I swear to whatever there is to swear to, I think I might start screaming.
A choice quote:
"What chowder eater, nourished on soups rich with many kinds of fish, could listen to the scientists who began to worry in the 1970s about the effects of river damming, pollution and overfishing?"

Red tide off China coast

"XIAMEN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A red tide has hit the coast of Xiamen, a major city in southeast China's Fujian province, leaving masses of oysters and fish dead and the seas brown and smelly.

The red tide was caused by increasing temperature and recent projects to clear seabed sludge, which may have stirred up fertilizer residues in the seabed and given rise to algal blooms, the newspaper quoted marine experts as saying.

Red tides occur when pollutants such as raw sewage and fertilizers cause algae to bloom, sapping the water of oxygen and endangering marine life. "
LINK

25 percent of China's coastal areas are moderately or heavily polluted, according to Xinhua.

The excellent Xinhua continues to surprise me. I really think there must be a new editorial policy going on there. Years I've been going to Xinhua and now- boom- a lot more discussion of the environment. I wonder if the coming Olympics have anything to do with it?

"The report revealed that 149,000 square kilometers of the total sea area in 2006 did not meet the national standard for "clean" water, 10,000 square kilometers more than the previous year.
Fifty-five percent of the water in China's 110,000 square kilometers of coastal areas also failed to be classified as "clean".
The eco-systems in most bays, river mouths and coastal wetlands were described as unhealthy due to 81 percent of drains that carry waste into the sea discharging pollutants that exceed the national standards. Of the 609 drains that were monitored, only 5.6 percent were established in areas specifically designated as pollutant discharge areas."
LINK

Confused dolphins hanging out up by Long Island- warm water blamed.

Wow- now this is messed up. It reminds me of that manatee who was up in Warwick this summer- you know things are off-kilter. Well, these dolphins are apparently enjoying the Hamptons- in January.
"Dolphins have been seen around Long Island before, said William Wise, associate director of Stony Brook University's Marine Sciences Research Center. But such sightings are far from the norm, he said, and more likely to take place in summer."To have this school frolicking in the Peconic Bays in January is most unusual," Wise said."
LINK

Rising sea temps in Mediterranean will kill fish off

Well, I was looking for news about the Embassy explosion, but I found this article about fish.

“The fish in the Mediterranean, especially the sea bream that we have studied – as they are the most popular type in fish farms – ideally live in temperatures of 18-22C,” said Michailidis.
“Above 26C, fish cannot breath well and do not take in enough oxygen,” he added. “When the temperature rises above 29C their cardiac system does not operate well and there is an increased rate of death.”
Scientists have also identified the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in seawater, which makes it more acidic, as a threat to fish."
LINK

Crikey! That UK storm is a doozie- and now a disabled container ship is lurching towards a gas platform. Not so good, that!

"A 4,500-tonne ship is adrift in the North Sea and heading for a collision with a gas platform.
The vessel, called Vindo, broke down in very poor weather nine miles from the Murdoch gas platform 75 miles off the Lincolnshire coast, near Theddlethorpe St Helen.
The Coastguard said the ship, with nine crew on board and laden with 4,200 tonnes of fertiliser, was drifting towards the rig in a force ten gale."
Yikes! I will update if if crashes into the platform. Scary stuff for the remaining crew.
LINK

UPDATE: "Two major collisions by a drifting 4,500-tonne cargo with engine failure and North Sea gas platforms have been narrowly averted.
The Vindo avoided the second rig by 700 yds (630m), the coastguard said. " Wow- sounds like a close call! LINK

Alaska, again.

Shrub is at it again.

"WASHINGTON - President Bush lifted the drilling ban Tuesday for Alaska's Bristol Bay, clearing the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development.
Environmentalists have warned against drilling in the bay, which is also a major fishing area for salmon, crab and cod."
LINK