Scroll down and then keep on scrolling to see how many sharks are killed each hour. Very very sad!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/sharks-killed-per-hour-infographic_n_2965775.html
How many sharks?
May 12th, 2013How Tourists Are Giving Stingrays Insomnia
May 12th, 2013“Imagine slipping off a boat into warm, aqua blue, waist-deep, Caribbean water. Suddenly, there are hundreds of stingrays swarming around you, sliding against your legs. For some people this is a nightmarishly, terrifying scenario. For others, it’s a tropical wildlife paradise. Either way, it’s what tourists to Stingray City in the Cayman Islands drop millions of dollars each year to experience.
Each stingray on this sandbar off Grand Cayman earns the islands about $500,000 every year in tourism revenue. Globally, this kind of interactive wildlife experience is big business, generating about $165 billion each year worldwide. Moreover, interacting with animals can make even the least outdoorsy among us passionate about protecting wildlife.
But what about the stingrays? How is this normally solitary creature handling life in the public spotlight? ”
Responsible eating
October 8th, 2012
Oxygen Depletion and Acidification Accelerate Coral Death
June 5th, 2012“To better understand how to protect coral reefs, a team of microbiologists are investigating how environmental changes, such as oxygen depletion and ocean acidification, create a chain reaction that leads to coral death.
Most people are fascinated by the colorful and exotic coral reefs, which form habitats with probably the largest biodiversity. But human civilization is the top danger to these fragile ecosystems through climate change, oxygen depletion and ocean acidification. Industrialization, deforestation and intensive farming in coastal areas are changing dramatically the conditions for life in the oceans. Now scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology from Bremen together with their colleagues from Australia, Sultanate of Oman and Italy have investigated how and why the corals die when exposed to sedimentation. According to their findings, oxygen depletion, together with an acidification of the environment, creates a chain reaction that leads to coral death.
Reef forming stone corals inhabit the light-flooded tropical shallow coastal regions 30 degree south and north of the equator. Coral polyps build the carbonate skeletons that..”
‘Jacuzzi vents’ model CO2 future
February 19th, 2012“A UK scientist studying volcanic vents in the ocean says they hold a grave warning for future marine ecosystems.
These vents have naturally acidified waters that hint at how our seas might change if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.
They are conditions that would make it harder for corals and similar organisms to make the hard parts in their bodies.
Dr Jason Hall-Spencer’s work suggests our oceans could lose perhaps 30% of their biodiversity this century.
The Plymouth University researcher has been presenting his latest findings to a major conference in Vancouver, Canada.
“I am investigating underwater volcanoes where carbon dioxide bubbles up like a Jacuzzi, acidifying large areas of the seabed, and we can see at these vents which types of organisms are able to thrive and which ones..”
Experience The Night Sky Like Never Before
February 15th, 2012Temporal Distortion from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.
Not much to do with our usual topics! I just thought this was so beautiful!
Garbage Islands
February 4th, 2012Belize Protected Area Boosting Predatory Fish Populations
January 2nd, 2012ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2011) —” A 14-year study by the Wildlife Conservation Society in an atoll reef lagoon in Glover’s Reef, Belize has found that fishing closures there produce encouraging increases in populations of predatory fish species. However, such closures have resulted in only minimal increases in herbivorous fish, which feed on the algae that smother corals and inhibit reef recovery. The findings will help WCS researchers in their search for new solutions to the problem of restoring Caribbean reefs damaged by fishing and climate change.
The study appears in an online version of Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. The authors include:..”
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