Vaquitas Could Soon Be Extinct. Mexico Will Largely Determine Their Fate. – The New York Times

By Catrin Einhorn and Fred Ramos

Photographs by Fred Ramos

Ms. Einhorn is the Times’s biodiversity reporter. Mr. Ramos, a freelance photojournalist, reported from San Felipe, Mexico.

• Nov. 23, 2021Updated 8:16 a.m. ET

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“As scientists planned an expedition in Mexico this fall to count one of the world’s most endangered animals, a shy porpoise called a vaquita, they dreaded the possibility that there would be none left to find. The last survey, in 2019, estimated that only about 10 remained.

At the same time, fishermen in the area were preparing to set out with the illegal nets that scientists say are driving the porpoises to extinction: walls of mesh that hang upright below the surface, up to 20 feet deep and stretching the length of several football fields.

Called gill nets, they trap shrimp and fish. They also entangle vaquitas, drowning the mammals. Researchers say the nets are the only known cause for the species’ catastrophic decline, but getting rid of them has turned out to be a challenge.

Amid a global biodiversity crisis, with an estimated million species threatened with extinction, the story of the vaquita shows how even obvious solutions — in this case, putting a stop to illegal fishing — require political will, enforcement and deep engagement with local communities to meet the needs of both people and animals.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | NYT comment:

Thank you Catrin Einhorn and the NYT, even though you have disturbed my “wa,” or peacefully harmony. I was not aware of this tragedy, about losing the magnificent vaquitas, and I would like the United States to step up and do what ever it takes, to protect them. I’m not sure what is the best way to convince the Mexican government to protect this dying species, but a ban in the US of all Mexican sea food would probably get their immediate attention. I hope to read more, soon, about what pressures could realistically be brought to bear in this situation, which is so immediately dire.

Perhaps the Mexican and US government will have to start paying these same illegal fishermen, stipends or salaries, to protect the rare porpoises that they are driving quickly to extinction.

David blogs at InconvenientNews.Net.

This Fjord Shows Even Small Populations Create Giant Microfiber Pollution – The New York Times

By Jessica Leigh Hester

Sept. 28, 2021

“Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago chilling halfway between the Nordic country and the North Pole, is known as much for its rugged beauty as its remoteness. From the village of Longyearbyen, visitors and roughly 2,400 residents can appreciate the stark terrain around the fjord known as Adventfjorden.

But the beauty of this Arctic inlet conceals messier, microscopic secrets.

“People see this nice, clean, white landscape,” said Claudia Halsband, a marine ecologist in Tromso, Norway, “but that’s only part of the story.”

The fjord has a sizable problem with subtle trash — namely microfibers, a squiggly subset of microplastics that slough off synthetic fabrics. Microfibers are turning up everywhere, and among researchers, there’s growing recognition that sewage is helping to spread them, said Peter S. Ross, an ocean pollution scientist who has studied the plastic fouling the Arctic. While the precise impact of microfibers building up in ecosystems remains a topic of debate, tiny Longyearbyen expels an extraordinary amount of them in its sewage: A new study shows that the village of thousands emits roughly as many as all the microplastics emitted by a wastewater treatment plant near Vancouver that serves around 1.3 million people.”

Opinion | Our Oceans, Our Future – By Fabien Cousteau – The New York Times

By Fabien Cousteau

Mr. Cousteau is an ocean explorer.

• Dec. 9, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

• 58

Discarded face masks found on Lantau Island in Hong Kong in the spring of 2020.Credit…Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

This is an article from Turning Points, a special section that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.

Turning Point: The spread of Covid-19 in 2020 led to dramatic reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions, with one study finding that emissions fell by roughly 1.5 billion metric tons during the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2019 — the largest half-year decline in recorded history.

” “No ocean, no life.” Being a Cousteau, this message was practically written into my DNA. And it’s one I’ve tried to share with the world through my many years of work as an environmental advocate.

Unfortunately, given the dire state of our oceans today, it’s clear that the message hasn’t gotten through to most people.

As we reflect on 2020 — one of the most socially and scientifically difficult years in recent memory — and look for ways to move forward, it’s crucial that we understand this simple fact: Without a healthy ocean we will not have a healthy future.

Many of us have experienced the magic and beauty of the ocean. Yet its vital connection to our daily lives — the ways in which it supplies the oxygen we breathe and nourishes the crops we eat — remains far less understood.

I’ve had the challenge — and the privilege — of spending 31 continuous days living in an underwater habitat, which has given me a unique perspective on the intrinsic value of the ocean as our primary life support system. The truth, to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, is that our planet would more appropriately be called Ocean, not Earth. Without our water, Earth would be just one of billions of lifeless rocks floating in the inky-black void of space.

How can we change our perspective on the ocean as it relates to our planet? We can start by heeding the lessons of 2020. While the coronavirus has caused great suffering and tragedy, it has also shed light on some of the invisible structures that underpin our daily lives, from racial injustice to the extreme disparities in wealth that burden our communities. While these realities have always been plain to some, it took the seismic shifts created by the pandemic for many of us to wake up to them.

The pandemic has also served to remind us of the beauty of nature. As Covid-19 spread across the globe in the spring, prompting nation upon nation to impose strict lockdown measures, the natural world briefly reasserted itself: Cloudy Venetian canals grew clearer. The smog dissipated over the Hollywood Hills. Cars vanished from the roads, leading to a significant, though temporary, drop in carbon dioxide emissions. These developments were encouraging, suggesting that dramatic change was possible, and that there was hope for a greener future after all.

Yet, as the pandemic has continued, it has also caused the use of disposable plastics to skyrocket. Grocery bags and latex gloves fill our trash bins. Discarded face masks flow down the drains of our city streets and into our waterways, potentially harming sea life. Whether we realize it or not, discarded plastics are choking the life out of our ecosystem.”

Excellent, sad, and disturbing. Thank you, Fabien Cousteau.   Excellent comments also.  Here is one I especially liked:

David Roy,  Fort Collins, Colorado   4h ago

The conceit of humanity is two-fold: We have created a global system of commerce and economics that we believe we have to depend on for our survival, and we enforce that global system of commerce with the institutions of politics, grounded in law. At our essence, humans are neither economic or political beings. Like every species we share this planet with, we are biological beings first. Our wealth is accumulated from what we take from the earth. The extraction of that bounty is the bio-diversity of life. We are destroying what humanity itself needs just to simply survive. The politics that are in play, the rules and the laws governing commerce, puts wealth ahead of bio-diversity in the courts of law across the planet. Simply saying that humans are more valuable than the values of the state puts individuals in harms way, and in jail. As soon as humanity adjusts to reality, and accepts that we are no more and no less than all of the other forms of life we share this planet with, than we will begin to find and create solutions to the problems that are vexing us. Climate change will obliterate our civilization, and we take only intellectual baby steps at doing our best to mitigate it. Over-population devours what is left of once was our bounty, too many mouths feeding at too little of a degraded planet. This condition makes the unthinkable more real, the use of nuclear weapons to protect a nation(s) from the scarcity we are all inflicting on our planet. Live simply.

Reply10 Recommended

The World Is Losing Fish to Eat as Oceans Warm- Study Finds – By Kendra Pierre-Louis – The New York Times

David Lindsay

Almost every day, I go fishing in the NYT.com for stories that seem important or useful. It is still early, but this might be the catch of the day.

By Kendra Pierre-Louis
“Fish populations are declining as oceans warm, putting a key source of food and income at risk for millions of people around the world, according to new research published Thursday.” (in the Journal Science) One scientist is calling this work a break through piece of research.

By Kendra Pierre-Louis
Feb. 28, 2019′   150 c

“Fish populations are declining as oceans warm, putting a key source of food and income at risk for millions of people around the world, according to new research published Thursday.

The study found that the amount of seafood that humans could sustainably harvest from a wide range of species shrank by 4.1 percent from 1930 to 2010, a casualty of human-caused climate change.

“That 4 percent decline sounds small, but it’s 1.4 million metric tons of fish from 1930 to 2010,” said Chris Free, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Science.

Scientists have warned that global warming will put pressure on the world’s food supplies in coming decades. But the new findings — which separate the effects of warming waters from other factors, like overfishing — suggest that climate change is already having a serious impact on seafood.

Fish make up 17 percent of the global population’s intake of animal protein, and as much as 70 percent for people living in some coastal and island countries, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“Fish provide a vital source of protein for over half of the global population, and some 56 million people worldwide are supported in some way by marine fisheries,” Dr. Free said.

As the oceans have warmed, some regions have been particularly hard-hit. In the northeast Atlantic Ocean and the Sea of Japan, fish populations declined by as much as 35 percent over the period of the study.

“The ecosystems in East Asia have seen some of the largest decline in fisheries productivity,” Dr. Free said. “And that region is home to some of the largest growing human populations and populations that are highly dependent on seafood.” “

via The World Is Losing Fish to Eat as Oceans Warm, Study Finds – The New York Times

Oceans Are Getting Louder- Posing Potential Threats to Marine Life – By Jim Robbins – The New York Times

By Jim Robbins
Jan. 22, 2019,   24 c
Slow-moving, hulking ships crisscross miles of ocean in a lawn mower pattern, wielding an array of 12 to 48 air guns blasting pressurized air repeatedly into the depths of the ocean.

The sound waves hit the sea floor, penetrating miles into it, and bounce back to the surface, where they are picked up by hydrophones. The acoustic patterns form a three-dimensional map of where oil and gas most likely lie.

The seismic air guns probably produce the loudest noise that humans use regularly underwater, and it is about to become far louder in the Atlantic. As part of the Trump administration’s plans to allow offshore drilling for gas and oil exploration, five companies are in the process of seeking permits to carry out seismic mapping with the air guns all along the Eastern Seaboard, from Central Florida to the Northeast, for the first time in three decades. The surveys haven’t started yet in the Atlantic, but now that the ban on offshore drilling has been lifted, companies can be granted access to explore regions along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.

And air guns are now the most common method companies use to map the ocean floor.

“They fire approximately every 10 seconds around the clock for months at a time,” said Douglas Nowacek, a professor of marine conservation technology at Duke University. “They have been detected 4,000 kilometers away. These are huge, huge impacts.”

The prospect of incessant underwater sonic tests is the latest example cited by environmentalists and others of the growing problem of ocean noise, spawning lawsuits against some industries and governments as well as spurring more research into the potential dangers for marine life.

Some scientists say the noises from air guns, ship sonar and general tanker traffic can cause the gradual or even outright death of sea creatures, from the giants to the tiniest — whales, dolphins, fish, squid, octopuses and even plankton. Other effects include impairing animals’ hearing, brain hemorrhaging and the drowning out of communication sounds important for survival, experts say.

via Oceans Are Getting Louder, Posing Potential Threats to Marine Life – The New York Times

Alumni startup counters coral loss with world’s first commercial land-based coral farm – Yale News

By Brita Belli

january 4, 2019

    

Coral Vita founders Gator Halpern ’15 M.E.M. and Sam Teicher ’12 B.A., ’15 M.E.M down on the reefs. (Photo credit: Coral Vita)

The vision that two alumni shared as graduate students for a startup to meaningfully address declining global coral reef health is taking shape on the island of Grand Bahama. The cofounders of Coral Vita, Sam Teicher ’12 B.A., ’15 M.E.M, and Gator Halpern ’15 M.E.M., are opening the world’s first commercial land-based coral farm in the Bahamas. There, they will grow coral up to 50 times faster than in nature by utilizing research from leading coral scientists working with their mission-driven for-profit. Through what is known as “assisted evolution,” they will also enhance the resiliency of corals to help them adapt more quickly to warming and acidifying oceans that threaten coral health.

To launch their pilot farm, Coral Vita has partnered with the Grand Bahama Development Corporation and Grand Bahama Port Authority. They also are receiving significant support from local tourism operators, real estate developers, and the Bahamas’ government, which is eager to find solutions to the widespread loss of the island’s reefs. More than 80% of local reefs have died. These thriving underwater worlds rich in biodiversity are vital to the country’s economy and ecosystem, powering eco-tourism, sustaining critical fisheries, and sheltering coastlines from storm surge. If they are successful in the Bahamas, the cofounders hope to replicate these farms in other coral hotspots around the world.

The timing could not be more urgent. Half of the world’s coral reefs have already been lost to pollution, overfishing, and a phenomenon driven by global warming known as coral bleaching. Arecent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) points to an even more dire future should warming trends continue. The IPCC found that if global warming rises 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, coral reefs will likely decline up to 90% by 2050; if by 2C, 99% of the world’s corals will likely be lost.

How travellers can help to conserve the world’s coral reefs – Lonely Planet

“It’s no secret that the world’s coral reefs are in serious trouble, their prospects threatened by everything from climate change to overfishing; in fact, scientists predict that without drastic action nearly all of these dazzling ecosystems could be gone by 2050.But while the prognosis is grim, travellers can play a role in the campaign to save the reefs by changing their behaviour and making informed choices. Here are our tips on how you can help to ensure that these rainforests of the sea – from the Coral Triangle to the Caribbean – can be enjoyed for generations to come.”

Source: How travellers can help to conserve the world’s coral reefs – Lonely Planet

Can Whale Snot and Artificial Intelligence Save Our Oceans? (Paid Post by Intel From The New York Times)

Whales are awesome. We have to do what ever it takes to prevent their dying out. There are great pictures and videos and an interesting story in this Intel post.

“The crew members of the Glacier Seal squint lightly as they scan the surface of Alaska’s Frederick Sound. Just a few hundred yards from their ship, the huge gray mass of a humpback whale is breaking the surface with a percussive burst, sending a fine mist into the air as it breathes for the first time in 20 minutes. This is the moment they have been waiting for.
The group is a union of engineers, scientists and conservation experts who are developing new methods for studying these giant animals. They’re part of a collaboration between Intel and Parley for the Oceans, an environmental organization where creators, thinkers and leaders join to raise awareness of the beauty and fragility of the world’s oceans — and work on strategies to end their destruction. Together, they’re starting in this remote coastal region of Southeast Alaska where they’ll test novel tools for fieldwork: a system of high-tech aerial drones and artificial intelligence software from Intel, all of which is affectionately called SnotBot. The team will use these tools to both track the whales remotely and take samples of the snot they blow out when taking a breath (hence its name). In the process, they hope to gauge the health of the cetaceans and the oceans they live in.”

via Can Whale Snot and Artificial Intelligence Save Our Oceans? (Paid Post by Intel From The New York Times)