tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17224282090080023182024-03-13T05:02:19.325-07:00Through the Aquarium GlassHistory, News, and Curiosities Regarding the AquasphereAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-24507123664917759722017-06-21T10:38:00.001-07:002017-06-21T10:38:14.710-07:00The Gordian Knot of Global Aquaculture III: The Globalization of Aquaculture<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the third and final entry in this late spring/early summer set of blogs about aquaculture. If you are just tuning in, the first post detailed the general history of fin fish aquaculture and the second looked at the development of feeding methods for that industry as it industrialized in the late 19th and early 20th century. Today, aquaculture is an <a href="https://data.oecd.org/fish/aquaculture-production.htm">international industry</a>, with epicenters in Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China) producing carp, catfish, tilapia, and shrimp, Norway producing salmon (39% of the world's salmon) and trout, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_in_Chile">Chile</a> producing trout, salmon (38% of the world's salmon), turbot, and an array of shellfish, India producing mostly carp, tilapia, and shrimp, and the US with catfish, trout, and tilapia. There are, of course, other countries that do a lot of aquaculture and it is a quickly growing industry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition to aquaculture to produce food stuffs, there is a growing ornamental fish industry. For instance, India's ornamental fish industry has taken off in the last few years; in Jalukbari, Assam, India, <a href="http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/detailsnew.asp?id=feb1617/city052">the local government and university biologists</a> are outfitting and training traditional aquaculturists in ornamental fish production. In Chennai, <span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2016/oct/17/chennai-to-get-indias-1st-ornamental-fish-tech-park-1528691.html">Tamil Nadu Fisheries University </a>(TNFU) is also dedicating a facility to training students in aquaculture of aquarium species. Of course, this industry is not cornered by India: Taiwan also has a burgeoning ornamental fish industry. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The growth of aquaculture internationally has strengthened global trade in fish and fish meal. For instance, the US is the<a href="https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/us-fish-and-seafood-exports-reach-record-levels"> sixth largest </a>exporter of fish globally, sending most of these exports to the Chinese markets. However, the US also imports <a href="https://www.fishwatch.gov/sustainable-seafood/the-global-picture">about 90% </a>of its fish from international sources, mostly from China. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This type of exchange is not uncommon, but it has several implications, especially where fishmeal is concerned. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Remember that fishmeal (and fish oil) is (currently) required to feed farm raised fishes. So as aquaculture grows, the requirement for fishmeal also grows. Most fishmeal is made from groundfish, by-catch, and smaller species such as herring, whitefish, and anchovies. As larger apex pelagic predatory species such as salmon and tuna disappear from overfishing, necessitating the rise in farming of these species, smaller pelagic and groundfish species make up most of the fisheries around the world (this is called "<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6790/full/4051017a0.html">fishing down, farming u</a>p"). But instead of feeding these <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/13/515057834/90-percent-of-fish-we-use-for-fishmeal-could-be-used-to-feed-humans-instead">edible and very nutritious fishes</a> to nearby populations, they are turned into fishmeal for export to the aquaculture industry. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For instance, to produce one pound of farmed salmon requires the fish oil of r<a href="http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/faqs/faq_feeds.html">oughly 5</a> smaller fishes and the fish meal of 1.3 other fishes. While the industry generally comes out even because most other fish don't require that much oil (so the additional 3.7 fish used for fish meal can be fed, without their oil, to shrimp or trout), the demand for salmon is on the rise globally. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition, salmon is a fish primarily destined for richer markets but feedfishes generally come from poorer countries. Take a look at this graph from Deutsch et al on the globalization of the aquaculture industry. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As you can see, salmon aquaculture has increased in Norway over the last 25 years, as has the importation of fishmeal. However, exports have actually fallen and the consumption of salmon in the country has risen rapidly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chile and Peru are the two largest countries specializing in fishmeal production. In fact, these fisheries provide most of the fishmeal to the world. This year has seen extremes in Peru's fishmeal production- El Nino impacts the fish runs off the coast and Peru saw <a href="https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2016/02/04/peruvian-fishmeal-fleet-catches-97-6-of-anchovy-quota/">record high catches</a> in the South and record<a href="http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/market-reports/resource-detail/en/c/469658/"> low catches</a> in the North. The overall export value of fish products from South America in <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/fact_sheet_fish_trade_en.pdf">2008</a> was valued at 10.8 billion but the imports were only valued at 2.0 billion (USD). Most of the imports were intraregional, meaning that Norway isn't sending salmon back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What this means is that South America, and specifically Peru and Chile, are exporting their natural resources to Europe and the US. While it is true that there is monetary recompense to these industries, it isn't clear how this trickles down to those individuals who would traditionally eat the fishes being turned into meal. This issue is one of the denuding of natural biodiversity and resources in developing nations to feed wealthy consumers Europe, North America, and Asia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For instance, within the next few years, it is estimated that India's aquaculture industry will consume almost 7 million pounds of fishmeal a year. While some fish, such as<a href="https://thefishsite.com/articles/tilapia-farming-in-india-a-billion-dollar-business"> tilapia,</a> are said to be able to survive and thrive on plant based diet, if producers want to trade globally then they require fishmeal to grow bigger, meatier fishes. In addition, the<a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-maharashtra-government-to-promote-aquaculture-with-aquarium-hub-at-kopholi-2253297"> ornamental fish </a>industry is also a consumer of fishmeal and that industry is already feeling pinched because of the price and availability of quality fish food. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Many in the aquaculture industry have been working to develop reliable feeds that are primarily plant based, but the ultimate outcome is generally a smaller fish without the same nutritional content that has been touted in Cosmopolitan and health books for the last decades. Would farmed salmon be in demand without the high amount of Omega fatty acids currently present? Those acids come from their consumption of smaller fishes in the food chain. Can salmon survive on a plant based diet? certainly. Are they the salmon demanded by wealthy consumers? no. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Major fishfeed producers suggest that fishfeed prices and production will plateau soon and then start to fall. One reason is that stocks of feed fishes are being depleted as quickly as the feed they are going to feed. In fact, many stocks are already in decline although feed fish are usually smaller, meaning that they reach maturity more quickly than apex predators and reproduce more rapidly. But these evolutionary advantages don't mean that they cannot be overfished and with fewer and fewer apex predators in the sea, everyone is out for the little guy. The development of alternative food sources will also lead to a smaller fishmeal industry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Until this occurs, fishmeal will continue to be an extremely profitable industry. Somalia has <a href="https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2017/03/21/somalia-aims-to-tap-vast-offshore-fish-stocks-with-countrys-first-fishmeal-plant/">recently announced</a> the building of a fishmeal factory and fishing fleet to compete for fish in their international waters. Until very recently, most of the fishing in Somali waters has been done by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/asia/chinas-appetite-pushes-fisheries-to-the-brink.html">illegal Chinese fleets</a>. The concern is that it would be useful for Somalia to just build a fishing fleet to utilize those stocks to feed a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/africa/somalia-famine-united-nations/index.html">famine-wracked nation</a>; instead, European companies are only willing to sponsor these fleets to collect fish for meal to be exported for aquaculture that will eventually lead to a healthier European population and a still-starving, not necessarily wealthier Somali fishing fleet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />In addition to the concerns about the depletion of needed resources in developing nations to those more developed, another concern raised by Deutsch et al is the dependence of major aquaculture industries on fishmeal from only a few sources. For instance, the effects of El Nino on Peruvian fishmeal production directly impacted the price of Norwegian, Scottish, and Canadian salmon because of their dependence on that fishmeal. This depended can lead to international impacts from local weather conditions. </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One bright light regarding fishmeal production seems to be that many of the countries increasing their aquaculture of export species have also increased their aquaculture of fishmeal species. For instance, China's import of fishmeal is starting to level off a bit as the aquaculture industry matures in that nation. Trade between the industry, with fin fish eating the fishmeal produced from shrimp byproduct and vice versa, could decrease the reliance on fishmeal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So the gordian knot of global aquaculture looks something like this: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-Wealthy nations want a very specific type of fish</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-they overfished these highly desirable species</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-now they farm these fishes - to provide these fish and also to let wild stocks bounce back</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- to do this, they rely on fish stocks from developing countries</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- these developing nations are overfishing their natural resources to provide food for wealthier nations to farm fish</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6790/full/4051017a0.html">The verdict is still out</a> if aquaculture relieves pressure on wild stocks- in fact, there is some reason to think that aquaculture might be masking the problem of overfishing for most consumers by maintaining the low cost of highly valuable species. In another twist, aquaculture can impinge on the habitat of native stocks, effectively destroying that habitat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What we do know is that aquaculture will not solve the problem of fisheries depletion as long as it relies heavily on such large quantities of wild fish stocks for feed. And global aquaculture won't solve the world's hunger problems if it continually takes food from poor regions and funnels it into wealthier regions via the network of fishmeal production and consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Usually I would end the blog post with some kind of prescription- eat wild caught or eat farmed fish. And in true Gordian Knot fashion, I'll cut right through it: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Stop eating so much salmon (or any fish you recognize by name on a menu). It's not the only nutritious fish. Your baby's brain will be fine without so many fish oil supplements. If you have a generally healthy diet, stop placing so much pressure on the global environment by eating endangered fish. Eat local fish; in fact, find out what the <a href="http://www.seafoodwatch.org/">best</a> local fish is to eat and support local industry by purchasing fish from them (you can find out about local stocks by going to your fish and wildlife page). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your food choices have impacts. Think about them. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: source sans pro, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><br /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-35448723700460010052017-05-28T06:22:00.001-07:002017-05-28T06:22:33.435-07:00The Gordian Knot of Global Aquaculture Part II: Feeding Farmed Freshwater FishesIn my last post, I talked about the very general history of aquaculture and especially the farming of fin fishes. Of course, shell fish aquaculture is a bit different, and it diverges pretty rapidly based on this post. Because I'm going to be talking about feeding fin fishes and crustaceans (but mostly fin fishes)- the conversation is different with shell fish because they are filter feeders. So we're going to talk about farming fin fish and a pretty interesting food web that links massive centers of fish farming with far flung fishing fleets and your table.And we're going to start with an important question: what should farmed fish eat?<br />
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The process of farming fish, also known as aquaculture, is quite old. The earliest aquaculture (see the last post) utilized natural formations to trap fish in areas for easy access; this meant a relatively small and seasonal system that left the fish capable of finding their own food. Other traditional forms of aquaculture use symbiotic relationships to feed larger amounts of fish. As <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Frei/publication/227972187_Integrated_rice-fish_culture_Coupled_production_saves_resources/links/542569240cf238c6ea740972/Integrated-rice-fish-culture-Coupled-production-saves-resources.pdf">early as 220 AD</a>, rice farmers in China began to introduce fish into rice patties, either concurrently in rotation with the crop. The fish, usually tilapia or carp, feed off of pests or weeds but not the rice plants; in return, they fertilize the soil to increase the rice crop. In this way, large amount of fish can be farmed without worrying about what the fish eat.<br />
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However, industrial aquaculture in the 20th century presents a challenge: how do you effectively feed a large amount of fish in close quarters? To make fish farming possible, and eventually lucrative, aquaculturists needed to work out two things: what nutrients were vital for the production of healthy fish? and what is the cheapest and most consistent way to achieve that nutritional balance?<br />
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Researchers at the United States Bureau of Fisheries began working on industrial aquaculture in the late 19th century. They focused primarily on marine fish and crustaceans (particularly lobster) at their Woods Hole marine station, and worked on the culture of fresh water fish and shellfish (mussels to provide mother of pearl for the button industry). At the Davenport station, Myron Gordon and G.C. Embody became interested in how best to feed trout after a series of trout die-offs and diseases, in particular,<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2125328/pdf/452.pdf"> goiter in trout</a>. In 1924, they began compiling data on what trout ate in the wild and their general metabolism. Some of the earliest data came from field studies by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rT4QAAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=juday+and+birge&ots=kxn4e0LVhV&sig=agBh2JrPJY9Pimdr4Ags1RP_Miw#v=onepage&q=juday%20and%20birge&f=false">Juday and Birge</a> (the rock stars of the Wisconsin limnology community and possibly the two most important figures in American freshwater ecology in the first half of the 20th century) and metabolic studies by <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659%281918%2948%5B34%3ASOTNOF%5D2.0.CO%3B2?journalCode=utaf20">Morgulis</a> at the New York Aquarium. After crunching this data, they came up with a general breakdown of nutrients that sustained trout and analyzed the effectiveness of current trout feeds.<br />
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The accepted fish feed for captive trout during this period was cow, sheep, and pig organs. Previous researchers found that shifting the quantity of these feeds didn't seem to have any impact on the health of the trout-- it didn't matter how much they ate, they continued to get sick. Embody and Gordon's research found that these food sources didn't contain enough of the nutrients found in the natural diet of the trout and suggested aquaculturists should find other forms of fish feed. They didn't make suggestions about what that feed should be, but their charts show a clear leaning towards fish meal (ground up fish and crustaceans) and away from terrestrial animal protein. </div>
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Experiments were continued by the Bureau of Fisheries with a variety of species. Yearly pathology reports from Davenport, IA show continued research with carp, trout, and bass throughout the 1920s. Of particular interest was the impact of specific vitamins on the growth and behavior of young fish. Withholding water soluble B and C resulted in 45-67% mortality for all the fish. Withholding B resulted in fully grown fish who experienced trouble swimming due to convulsions. Withholding C resulted in white lesions on the fins and eventual death. </div>
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Generally, these experiments (detailed in the National Archives Record Group 22 Fish Pathology and Pollution of Fishery Habitat, 1903-32) showed that vitamin deficiency was a major cause of pathology in farmed fishes and that feed was probably the most important variable to calibrate for the effective farming of fish stocks. </div>
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Through the Davenport, Iowa experiments (and the subsequent work at Manchester, IA and other USBF stations in Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, and Colorado) fisheries biologists developed industrial fish pellets or biscuits that contained all of the vitamins and nutrients required for health fish that grew quickly and maintained health. </div>
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For freshwater fishes, the process of feeding, and developing feed, was one of trial and error because there was such a wide array of natural food consumed by the fishes. Trout consumed crustaceans, microscopic zooplankton, decomposing plant matter, and insects. This meant that their wild diet was relatively varied and didn't constrain their farmed diet as much. Fish biscuits and pellets contained primarily fish meal with added vitamins, and were generally held together with grains such as wheat or corn. As the market shifted over the 20th century, the more expensive components could be replaced by cheaper feed as long all the vitamin requirements were maintained. Today, because of the expense of fish meal, researchers have been working to develop entirely plant based fish pellets for farmed fishes with <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0044848694002116">mixed results. </a> While plant based pellets satisfy the nutritional requirements of the fish, it apparently results in a reduced appetite and feeding from the fishes and therefore a slower or plateaued growth rate. For now, fish meal is an integral portion of the diet of farmed freshwater fishes. But the amount consumed by freshwater fishes is minimal compared to that needed to farm saltwater species. </div>
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To feed these fish, much larger amounts of fish meal is required. I'll talk about saltwater species and the global impact of fishmeal trade my next post. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-20442495189913187142017-04-27T19:35:00.001-07:002017-04-27T19:35:53.242-07:00The Gordian knot of global aquaculture: Part I The HistoryAquaculture sits at the intersection of a great many areas of interaction with the sea: it involves food supply issues, environmental concerns, and the combination of craft knowledge and academic science. My next couple of posts will be about aquaculture and the difficulty of actually separating many of these concerns.<br />
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Aquaculture is the process of farming aquatic species for human use. These uses take the form of food for human consumption, food for agricultural consumption (for crops and animals), and ornamental purposes. At the risk of sounding like an undergraduate research paper (written hastily between 10pm and 1am), the history of the practice of aquaculture is almost as old as time. Archaeologists have shown that early human civilizations had both the ability to catch aquatic species, but also worked to increase their production through human built systems. Ancient Asian, Roman and Greek, and island (what is now Hawaii) communities are known to have built both freshwater and saltwater ponds to hold and breed fish. Early humans in what is now the Pacific Northwest built "<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091235">clam gardens</a>" on the coast to increase clam production and maintain a constant supply of the shellfish for consumption. Later, specific tools and techniques, including the use of cage culturing in China during the Sung Dynasty (AD 960-1280) expanded aquaculture production.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A) Ancient clam gardens on Quadra Island, BC, Canada, are intertidal beach terraces built by humans by constructing B) a rock wall at low tide typically between 0.7–1.3 m above chart datum. C, D) Quadra Island clam gardens range in size and shape but generally create shallow sloping intertidal terraces encompassing tidal heights of 0.9–1.5 m above chart datum. (Groesbeck et al. 2014)</td></tr>
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The middle of the 19th century saw an increase in aquacultural research throughout the world and the craft knowledge developed over centuries was combined with the systematic biological experimentation growing at Universities. Combining these forms of knowledge pushed aquaculture forward rapidly. Traditional aquaculturists had great success in production on a small, local scale. By incorporating biological research on metabolism, virology, bacteriology, morphology, physiology, and behavior, aquaculturists could streamline the process of production. Understanding physiology and behavior could streamline reproductive cycles, helping culturists produce more generations more quickly. Virology and Bacteriology identified diseases of farmed species and worked to protect them from outbreaks. Production of previously farmed species exploded, as did the number of species able to be cultured.<br />
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Today, aquaculture is a growing industry. It is difficult to find specific numbers before 1950, but but the chart below shows the increase in aquaculture by volume from 1985 to 1998.<br />
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Since 1992, the United States has actually decreased their aquaculture. However, Korea, Norway, and Chile have increased exponentially. The <a href="https://data.oecd.org/fish/aquaculture-production.htm">interactive map and graph</a> here are pretty awesome. That data is interesting to look at, but it doesn't include any information about China- the largest producer of aquacultural products in the world. There are several species that dominate international aquaculture: trout, salmon, tilapia, catfish, and shrimp. We can farm other species, including a variety of shell and fin fish and mollusks, as well as ornamental species, but for human consumption, those are the big 5 and account for the majority of resources spent on aquaculture. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A modern salmon farm. </td></tr>
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Each of these species has a different issue that has been associated with problems in the industry.</div>
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- Farmed salmon has proved to be a breeding ground for <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/03/salmon-eating-sea-lice-effect-scotlands-fish-exports-170304122033387.html">sea lice</a> and might spread the vermin to wild populations. In addition, a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/salmon-sea-louse-price-hike-farm-fish-supermarkets-a7527536.html">recent outbreak </a>of sea lice in Scottish and Norwegian salmon has caused a surge in international prices. </div>
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- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Oly-d5H9GKkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&ots=9n3LZ0rXYH&sig=_roZo_lYM61MUTWfpau9G_f9fpk#v=onepage&q&f=false">trout, tilapia, and catfish</a> are generally farmed in poor conditions; overcrowding and antibiotics needed for that overcrowding leach pollution into soil and generally <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=loxBhy1MQUMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA20&dq=environment&ots=kjxxYkVzHO&sig=bKSflp1C6hllIE0wqMwyd_DlL74#v=onepage&q=environment&f=false">damage</a> the sensitive coastal <a href="http://fse.fsi.stanford.edu/research/search_for_sustainable_solutions_in_salmon_aquaculture">ecosystems</a> where they have traditionally been farmed. In addition, the clearing of mangrove swamps and other coastal systems to build these farms has been noted. </div>
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- shrimp has similar issues to the finfish above, but the largest problem noted with the shrimp industry is the issue of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/dec/14/shrimp-sold-by-global-supermarkets-is-peeled-by-slave-labourers-in-thailand">modern day slavery. </a></div>
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One of the most important additions to the traditional knowledge of culturists was the study of metabolism and nutrient research. In my archival research at the National Archives, I looked through the fisheries records for the Davenport, Iowa USBF station and found a lot of conversation about what to feed fish. Fish (I'll be talking primarily about fish culturing for the rest of this entry but I'm happy to answer questions or write about shellfish aquaculture in the future), especially the species humans like to eat, mostly eat other fish. For instance, trout- a commonly farmed fish- eats crayfish, smaller trout, and insects. The question: how do you mirror the diet of a wild fish in captivity? For ornamental fish, you can find a mixture of things for them to eat- as long as they are fed and thriving, no worries. But there's a problem with feeding farmed fish for food- you want them to taste "good" (not too fishy I'm told) and to have the texture and color of their natural brethren. Much of that texture, taste, and color come from diet. The most prized fish and crustaceans get their firm flesh, color, and taste from consuming other fish and crustaceans- all the Omega 3's we've been told so much about comes from fish oil and flesh. So major farmed species like trout, salmon, and shrimp eat other fish- and a lot of it. The question throughout the 20th century has been- given the metabolism and dietary needs of these highly prized species- how can we feed them efficiently? At Davenport- they worked to develop what we now use to feed farmed fishes- a dehydrated, compressed biscuit made up of fish meal, fish oil, and supplemented with corn, soy, or other fillers (sometimes saw dust is even included). The requirement of fish oil and fish meal is where the knot, the intricacy of aquaculture, tightens and tangles. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">September 1923. This report, which looks at vitamin deficiency studies at Davenport, Iowa and nutrition studies at nearby Manchester, Iowa. National Archives RG 22<br /></td></tr>
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Fish meal is the name given to processed fish that has been ground finely and dehydrated. If you garden, you might have run into fish meal as a fertilizer high in phosphorous, nitrogen, and potassium. If your mind is immediately flashing to the picture of Native Americans putting fish under their bean and corn plants, that's common. The story of Squanto teaching the English this traditional practice isn't completely wrong--he did teach them--but apparently he learned from other European settlers. But I digress. Fish meal is useful for gardening, but it is also an important component of aquaculture because it mimics the natural diet of apex predators. Fish like salmon eat smaller fish and their taste, texture, even their smell is dependent on a diet that is as close to that natural diet as possible. </div>
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Fish oil is the other important component of a farmed fish's diet. Fish meal provides the bulk of the nutrients (and just the bulk of food in general) required for a fish to thrive in captivity, but fish oil is what really makes apex predators taste good (and gives them the Omega 3s you've heard so much about). Obviously, a lot of fish oil goes into the market to be consumed by humans, but a good amount of fish oil goes to fish farming. Without the oil, farmed fish would not thrive. </div>
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By the middle of the 20th century, researchers had generally worked out what to feed farmed fish to keep them alive without overfeeding them. But the issues involved in fish feeding have been multiplying in the last 10 years as aquaculture requires more and more fishmeal and oil from an ocean with depleted fishstocks. The next blog entry will talk about the current science and debates about feeding farmed fishes. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-4070247588288701152017-03-14T11:37:00.001-07:002017-03-14T11:37:19.645-07:00The Galapagos Tortoise: A conservation success story<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would seem that the Galapagos tortoise has been
officially declared a conservation success. This is lovely news- in the first
decade of the 20th century, there were few tortoises left on the islands and
researchers could find no active nests. In effect, the tortoises that existed
on the islands when Darwin visited on his Beagle voyage had stopped breeding or being able to bring clutches to
fruition. This population decimation came from two major pressures- the Pacific
whaling community had been using the Galapagos as a convenient stop for fresh
water as they roamed further and further from shore for longer voyages. When
they were stopped for water, the sailors supplemented their diet of hard tack
and dried beef with fresh turtle soup. This effectively lowered the number of
breeding tortoises, but it wasn’t the only cause of their demise. In addition
to eating the tortoises, the whalers introduced pests, such as goats. They were
introduced to the islands to serve as supplemental meat for future voyages and
they overgrazed the islands, leaving no food for the tortoises. These pressures effectively destroyed the
population and habitat of the species, pushing them to the brink of extinction.
But, now these tortoises on making a comeback!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In recent years, Galapagos tortoises have returned to the
islands through a combined effort. The largest effort, and the one written
about in the most recent news releases about this success, involves the
eradication of goats and the restoration of vegetation on the affected islands. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591">an article</a> on The Conversation, James Gibbs states that "<span style="background-color: white; color: #383838;">the tortoise dynasty is on the road to recovery, thanks to work by the </span><a href="http://www.galapagos.gob.ec/" style="background-color: white; color: #557585; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Galapagos National Park Directorate</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #383838;">, with critical support from nonprofits like the </span><a href="http://www.galapagos.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #557585; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Galapagos Conservancy</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #383838;"> and advice from an international team of conservation scientists." </span> Gibbs highlights the work done to restore the ecosystem and to breed the species in captivity on the islands. Other news outlets have trumpeted the breeding capacity of individual (male) tortoises. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Diego, a Hood Island tortoise, is being hailed
as a lascivious sex-machine who has bred his species back from near extinction.
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/americas/galapagos-islands-tortoises.html?_r=0">NYTimes</a> says that he’s "an ancient male" tortoise returned to the Galapagos from
the San Diego Zoo in 1977. What is most interesting to me about these articles is not that they aren't fascinating and completely correct, but that they are so short-sighted in their conception of the conservation effort to save these tortoises. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, someone please tell me why everyone is so freaking interested in male tortoises and how they have sex. The continued obsession with<a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0218/853606-lonesome-george-galapagos-islands/"> Lonesome George</a> is confusing to me. I can name at least 6 male Galapagos tortoises but there aren't any famous females. Why? Why are science journalist obsessed with the virility of male tortoises?! (go ahead and google diego the tortoise and you'll find these headlines: "</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/how-one-highly-fuckable-tortoise-saved-the-entire-species-from-extinction-vgtrn">How one highly fuckable tortoise saved his whole species from extinction</a></span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">" and "<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjQlvyH0NbSAhVI44MKHUE8DBAQFggsMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Funclick%2Fdiego-galapagos-tortoise-sex-offspring%2F&usg=AFQjCNHAtgkgpVtjRwAK-whSf3RA46gXjw&sig2=LWKVd3yxKPP3jyNeAjuScA">Fuck Tortoise saves his entire species from extinction by having sex all the time</a>" and my personal favorite "<a href="http://brobible.com/life/article/galapagos-tortoise-sex-skills-prevent-extinction/">A bro tortoise had so much damn sex on the Galapagos that he's been credited with single handedly saving his species.</a>" The NYTimes article is only one step away from these bro tortoise articles and seriously, all of these sound really like this <a href="http://www.theonion.com/article/animal-facing-extinction-in-2003-fucks-its-way-bac-32417">Onion article</a>. Apparently no one cares that male tortoises gotta have some receptive ladies. But I think you should know about these amazing ladies. So here's a famous lady- Nigrita is a tortoise at the Zurich Zoo doing some great work laying clutches and bringing baby tortoises into the world with her mate Jumbo. </span><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/giant-galapagos-tortoise-has-9-hatchlings-aged-80-n572626" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check her out!</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, Diego is part of a group of tortoises taken from the Galapagos in 1927 as a last ditch effort to save the species and learn to breed them in captivity. These tortoises ended up at zoos and aquariums throughout the southern hemisphere in the hopes that breeding pairs would produce offspring in captivity. And they did. The first Galapagos tortoise was born in captivity in 1945 and today, many of those pairs have been returned to the Galapagos to continue breeding. This historical narrative is extremely important because it is a (tentative) success- we have so few of these that watching something work should be cause for analyzing why and how it has worked. Of particular interest in this story is the combination of ark breeding--that is breeding a population of endangered or extant in the wild organisms in captivity to create a reserve population meant to eventually be released-- with ecosystem restoration. This is, for all intents and purposes, the gold standard in conservation- the meeting point of two types of conservation to produce a revived population. It is important that we tell the century-long conservation story of these tortoises (not only the recent narrative) to fully understand the time required to actually produce results with ark breeding and ecosystem recovery. Townsend removed these tortoises from a dying ecosystem in 1927 and it is only 90 years later that we are seeing a recovery and tentative success story emerge. Much of this comes from the nature of Galapagos turtle breeding but we can think about the long road of conservation with this particular story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, Charles Haskin
Townsend worked for the US Bureau of Fisheries. Townsend, along with David
Starr Jordan, were asked to look into the conservation of the United States’
fur seal herd in the Bering Strait. Jordan, Townsend’s superior, suggested that
Townsend speak with Japanese and Russian officials to get their whaling and
sealing records to see how many seals these men were taking each year. While
Townsend was pouring over the whaling and sealing records, he noticed something
else startling: whalers were reporting fewer and fewer tortoises on the
Galapagos every time they stopped. By looking through the logs, Townsend could
tell that the population was completely decimated. Townsend visited the islands
himself and confirmed this suspicion. And for his own reasons (he was not
particularly moved by all species so it is unclear why he was so moved by the
tortoises), Townsend set out to save this species. He did this is two ways: he
urged the New York Zoological Society (who ran the Bronx Zoo and NY Aquarium)
to lobby to Ecuadorian government to protect the islands and label them a
national park. In addition, he sought permission to bring as many Galapagos
tortoises as could be found on the islands to the United States to figure out how to breed them in captivity. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnP_-5M6RmNG7c46lbecONG16dOgEibbTZ9HrI6jDHb0RosiqgnozYVF0C22Xx2qMiEIpW92W5KcSIRdMyJ6XStROSj4YIioaqAwVDpqx8quSff80wHOAcIUKuVoGoZvV7KCyMOpMiRJU/s1600/collecting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnP_-5M6RmNG7c46lbecONG16dOgEibbTZ9HrI6jDHb0RosiqgnozYVF0C22Xx2qMiEIpW92W5KcSIRdMyJ6XStROSj4YIioaqAwVDpqx8quSff80wHOAcIUKuVoGoZvV7KCyMOpMiRJU/s320/collecting.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is an image of Townsend and his men collecting tortoises for export off of the island chain. Wildlife Conservation Society Archives, Bronx Zoo (Townsend Collection) </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1927, Charles H. Townsend, then the director of the New York Aquarium, transported as many Galapagos tortoises as could be found from the islands to a group of botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums throughout the US, the Caribbean and Australia. Townsend didn’t just give the tortoises to these places and walk away- he wanted to actively breed these animals. He asked the zoos to keep track of each animal, keep records of weight, age, and any ailments and to send those reports to Townsend. He used these reports to track the health of the animals and to gain knowledge of what they ate, common ailments, and the possibility of breeding behavior.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hawaii zoo sent this diagram of a tortoise's shell after a necropsy. Townsend hoped a better understanding of the morphology and behavior of the animals would help in breeding efforts. Townsend papers, Wildlife Conservation Society Archives, Bronx Zoo, New York</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A list of the many places Townsend sent tortoises. This note in 1930 shows all the deaths of individuals based on location and, if a large amount, what had caused those deaths. By 1935, Townsend shifted most of the tortoises to warmer climates where it was believed they would be healthier and more likely to breed. Townsend papers, Wildlife Conservation Society Archives. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An image of Townsend measuring a juvenile tortoise taken from the Galapagos. This might possibly be the infamous #120, a very small tortoise stolen from the exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in 1930. I like to think that some family in the Bronx still has #120 hiding somewhere (they'd be almost 500 pounds now) and is just co existing with him or her. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the earliest years, he found that the tortoises did not
do well in colder climates. To decrease mortalities and save the animals, he
sent them from New York to Arizona. He also suspected that the tortoises
preferred certain rocky enclosures without deep sand and urged a similar
habitat for all the tortoises across institutions. While many tortoises were lost (including the
youngest and smallest- #120- stolen from the Bronx zoo exhibit) the tortoises
did eventually breed. The year after Townsend died (1944), the first Galapagos
tortoise born in captivity hatched at the Bermuda zoo and aquarium, run by a
former co-director of the New York Aquarium under Townsend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Diego is a Townsend tortoise and to date, he has fathered
over 350 tortoises. Other Townsend tortoises have been shipped to the
Galapagos, as well as <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/giant-galapagos-tortoise-has-9-hatchlings-aged-80-n572626">throughout the world</a> to breed in zoo programs. Read <a href="http://www.elpasoproud.com/news/local/el-paso-news/zoo-says-goodbye-to-elvis-the-galapagos-tortoise/597946027">this story about Ralph</a>, a
100 year old tortoise just shipped to Texas to be a companion to Mr. Potato
Head (another old tortoise). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are two really important sides to the Galapagos
tortoise success story. The first is the repair of an imbalanced ecosystem no
longer able to support the tortoises. The removal of goats and the regrowth of
native flora were both extremely important. But the other half was the removal
of organisms to be bred in zoos. This type of breeding is known as ark
breeding- named after the Judeo-Christian tale of Noah who saved animals on the
ark until they could be returned to dry land. Ark breeding creates captive
stocks (reserve stocks) that can, hopefully, be returned to their habitat once
it has been restored. The Galapagos tortoise success can be added to others,
including the black footed ferret, the California condor, the American bison (also a Bronx Zoo early 20th century story) and others that have
been deemed relatively successful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saving the Galapagos tortoise took over 90 years and the (initial and continued) collaboration of individuals, scientific institutions, and governments from all over the world. We should celebrate this tentative success, but also make sure we understand and properly tell the historical pieces of the puzzle. We cannot fully apply the lessons learned from this story unless we tell the whole thing- it is long and it involves a lot of trial and error. And oddly enough, a weird bro culture surrounding tortoises. Let's understand what we did to hopefully apply these lessons to other endangered ecosystems and species. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-47262568983909393812017-01-25T06:30:00.000-08:002017-01-25T07:24:23.371-08:00Climate Change is not (only) science**If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm a bit all-over-the-place about my interests, Marine research fosters this plurality because the marine world is huge and impactful- it touches everything. So I thought in this post I would talk about what I actually research.<br />
<br />
My research is concerned with the way that a huge swath of people from all walks of life contribute to knowledge about the ocean. At one end of the spectrum is a bunch of different people, including (but not limited to) fisheries biologists, professional aquarists, hobbyists, anglers, beach goers, sailors, and academic biologists and on the other end is a product: published scientific knowledge.<br />
<br />
In our world, we have a system of knowing- how do we know something? Society generally agrees that we "know" something because it was published and peer reviewed (i'll get to the quibbles later). So someone can feel some way about the weather, but a scientist can confirm that it is true. This is what we in the academy call epistemology- we know something for sure when people we trust go through a system we trust to prove it. Sometimes, this seems ridiculous. This is what makes morning talk show hosts and buzzfeed writers goggle at reports that say things like, "Scientists find that getting punched in the face hurts." Because,yeah, if you're a youngest child you didn't need a degree in physics to know the velocity of a fist to know that getting squarely punched in the face for stealing someone's favorite toy hurts like hell. You know it. But your childhood abuse at the hands of your older siblings doesn't count as universal "knowing"- there's too many questions. Maybe you have a sensitive face, or you're a crybaby, or your sister has a really supernaturally strong arm. So scientists study and they publish a report and that's when we <i>know </i>that it's okay that you told your mom. Because that really, according to scientists, hurt dude.<br />
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But here's what I study- I study the way that people who got punched in the face contribute to knowledge about face punching. Only in marine science.<br />
<br />
The ocean is huge. And the health of the ocean impacts everyone. The US Fish Commission (now Fish and Wildlife and NOAA) <a href="https://www.lib.noaa.gov/collections/imgdocmaps/fish_com_annualreport.html">was founded in 1871</a> because fishermen started noticing that their catch was decreasing dramatically and they asked the federal government to mediate an argument. The argument was between two states- one said that the problem was the use of a certain type of nets and the other said it wasn't. So the government formed a special commission to go check it out. And, after extensive interviews with fishermen and others who worked on or near the water, what they found was a bunch of fishermen who all said the same thing- there's way less fish. And they all had different ideas about the cause. They found that, based on study, that catches were much smaller and that it was most likely caused by the use of a certain type of net. Interestingly, when the findings were presented to both states, one banned the nets and the other didn't. We can see this small historical moment as indicative of most marine science (and environmental science in general).<br />
<br />
The first to notice changes in the land are those that<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170119143356.htm"> work with and on it and who thrive when that land thrives</a>. These laborers and residents are the first to see the change<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/06/16/silent-spring-part-1">s in the land and to sound the alarm. Rachel Carson knew this and used it as evidence in </a>Silent Spring. For her, the people that knew about the danger of pesticides were backyard bird watchers- she uses the voices of judges and doctors who see fewer and fewer birds in their backyards as evidence. And this is powerful- because she could throw so much scientific evidence at people, and she does in doses, but she is clear- these residents are the people to really trust. They are sounding the alarm. They have knowledge.<br />
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This is the same with climate change. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/us/shishmaref-alaska-elocate-vote-climate-change.html?_r=0">residents</a> of <a href="http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/01/18/impact_of_climate_change_on_pacific_is_real_-_meg_taylor/1286618">islands</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/20/climate-change-frontline-disappearing-fishing-villages-bangladesh">artic</a> regions are screaming. <a href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2016/dec/29/saarc-level-panel-to-mitigate-climate-change-fallout-on-fisheries-1554041.html">They are sounding the alarm. </a>Those societies that survive and thrive when the ocean does are struggling. In ecology, we call these indicator species- it means a species that shows the effects of a stressor first- one species that basically shows us which way the wind is blowing. These societies, that survive because they have marine proteins, ice shelves, or even just land, are indicators of what is to come- and they are telling us. These are not scientists- they are laborers, fishermen and women, people who are residents at the front lines of a changing planet. They are giving information to scientists and while that information is confirmed by climate scientists, they are getting it from real people- people who don't make money from a universal scientific conspiracy. Just people who labor and live by the sea and are rapidly watching their way of life get washed away.<br />
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The ruling classes everywhere have always been particularly bad at understanding warnings about the ocean. Wealth and privilege allow distance, not just from a subsistence lifestyle, but from the actual labor that attaches people to the land. They cannot "know" the land because they are separated from it. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/02/the-scales-fall">For instance, at the turn of the twentieth century, a very well-known British Scientist (T.H. Huxley), going against the knowledge of American and English fishermen of that era and quite a few fisheries biologists, declared the ocean to be endlessly abundant. </a>He said that there was absolutely no way we could ever overfish- none. And people really believed him. Especially people in power. Because he was a scientist and a really really famous dude to boot. But here's the thing, we already knew that stocks were disappearing when he said it because laborers and residents knew it and they had told people. And papers had been written. But those at the top- those that eat but don't gather- they see little.<br />
<br />
Right now, Americans are <a href="http://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/american-seafood-consumption-up-in-2015-landing-volumes-even">terribly spoiled and wealthy.</a> Especially when it comes to the ocean and its resources. If you want fish for dinner, or scallops, or clams, or oysters, or shrimp- you go to the store and you get it. And most people don't look on the package to see where it came from or how it got there. If there isn't one type of fish, you get another. But most of the time, you buy frozen and the amount and price seems consistent. So when you hear scientists and residents yell about declining stocks or ocean acidification or mass migration, you don't listen. Because of course it seems preposterous. Possibly another <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-01/why-paul-ehrlich-s-population-bomb-finally-bombed">Population Bomb</a> scare if you're old enough to remember it.<br />
<br />
But it's not. <a href="http://dailycampus.com/stories/2017/1/24/why-you-should-care-about-the-larsen-c-ice-shelf">Climate Change</a> is not (just) an academic science- it's the knowledge produced by confirmation of the alarms raised by people who know the most- those that are living on the front lines. <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sea-level-rise-will-hit-the-us-this-century-noaa-warns/">And eventually, whether we want to talk about it (or can talk about it), that person on the front lines will be you</a>. At first, you'll just be inconvenienced because you can't get the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-01-tiny-phytoplankton-massive-tuna.html">fish</a> you like, then your usual spot for your beach vacation will be <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-01-holistic-coastal-ecosystem-reveals-rapid.html">ugly</a> or<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisiana-coastline-disappearing-50-billion-dollars-to-save-climate-change-erosion/"> unavailable</a> because of erosion. But eventually, the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/01/22/increasing-salinity-in-a-changing-climate-likely-to-alter-sundarbans-ecosystem">salinization</a> of <a href="http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/39220/drought-salinity-take-heavy-toll-on-farmers-in-vietnams-mekong-delta">drinking water</a> on the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170118082423.htm">coasts</a> coupled with extreme droughts will make you a front line resident and you will sound the alarm and wonder why no one is listening.<br />
<br />
Anti-intellectualism shouldn't stop you from believing in climate change. Because the people it affects, the people who are sounding the alarm, are not scientists. They just live in the most sensitive places right now. Climate science isn't academic- it is the most down-to-earth knowledge available. Don't let conversations about lazy, rich, privileged scientists stop you from listening to the people you trust. Laborers, mothers, fathers, anglers, and yes, business people, see the change.<br />
<br />
The argument that climate change is a scientific conspiracy is wrong. Because it is knowledge of the earth by people who live on it. If you are a fan of laborers, blue collar workers, people just trying to survive and raise their babies, you have to be concerned about climate change. They are the telling you the truth.<br />
<br />
Climate Change isn't Science: it's common sense.<br />
<br />
**if you're concerned about this title, know I've thought about it- and I used it because I want it to come up in google searches in a specific way.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-30195355301745450032016-12-12T10:03:00.000-08:002016-12-12T10:03:09.740-08:00Maritime Music Traditions: Longing and Belonging near and on the ocean<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I write, I often listen to one genre on heavy rotation.
While I’m a pretty eclectic music lover overall, when writing in long
stretches, I most commonly turn to country. I grew up listening to country and
I find it calming. However, I’m not such a huge fan of newer country music.
There are exceptions, and finding an exception led me to this blog post. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few months ago, I started working on my book heavily and I
wanted to find an album that would get me into the writing spirit. I usually
listen to older country music- Dolly Parton and Conway Twitty types of things-
but I wanted something new. So I googled “best country albums of 2016” and got
a nice list of country albums. I immediately nixed a few- but I came across one-
Sturgill Simpson’s <i>Sea Stories</i>- that
interested me. Obviously the title intrigued me, but the album also contained a
cover of Nirvana’s <i>In Bloom</i> which is terribly
satisfying. After listening to the album, I basically fell in love with two
things- Simpson’s voice (which is somewhere between George Jones and Merle
Haggard- this is high praise indeed)- and his subject material. Simpson’s album
is an extremely lovely collection of sailor’s songs. Simpson was in the US Navy
and his material for this album draws a lot from his time as a sailor. One of
the most interesting songs is “Sea Stories”- an intense, fast paced narrative
of a stint in the US Navy from enlistment to discharge (and seem reminiscent of
John Prine at times): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: rgb(204, 204, 221); font-size: 10pt;">Basically
it's just like papaw says:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">"Keep your mouth shut and you'll be fine"</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Just another enlisted egg</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">In the bowl for Uncle Sam's beater</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">When you get to Dam Neck</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Hear a voice in your head</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Saying, "my life's no longer mine"</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Have you running with some SAG SOG</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">BMF sandeater</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Sailing out on them high seas</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Feels just like being born</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">That first port call in Thailand</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Feels like a pollywog turning nineteen</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">They've got king cobras fighting in boxing rings</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">And all the angels play Connect Four</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Seems like a sailor's paradise</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">But turns out to be a bad dream</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Now you hit the ground running in Tokyo</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">From Kawasaki to Ebisu</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Yokosuka, Yokohama, and Shinjuku</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Shibuya, Ropongi, and Harajuku</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Aw, from Pusan and Ko Chang, Pattaya to Phuket</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">From Singapore to Kuala Lumpur</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Seen damn near the whole damn world</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">From the inside of a bar</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">I've got sea stories</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">They're all true</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Might seem a little bit far-fetched</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">But why would I lie to you</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Memories make forever stains</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Still got salt running through my veins</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">I've got sea stories</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">And my shellback, too</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Sometimes Sirens send a ship off course</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Horizon gets so hazy</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">Maybe get high, play a little GoldenEye</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">On that old 64</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">And if you get sick and can't manage the kick</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">And get yourself kicked out the navy</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">You'll spend the next year trying to score</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">From a futon life raft on the floor</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">And the next fifteen trying to figure out</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">What the hell you did that for</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">But flying high beats dying for lies</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />
<span style="background: #CCCCDD;">In a politician's war</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: rgb(204, 204, 221); font-size: 10pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In this video, Simpson calls it a "pirate song". </span></div>
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<span style="background: rgb(204, 204, 221); font-size: 10pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Listening to <i>A Sailor’s
Guide to the Earth </i>reminded me of reading <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1722428209008002318#editor/target=post;postID=1696147760639385604;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=9;src=postname">maritime novels</a>- Simpson’s snapshot
of the maritime world uses the lens of labor- that of the lessons learned as a
sailor laboring on the sea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Critics have struggled to place his album into a genre—it leans
in some places to blues, Southern Rock, traditional country—but it isn’t
difficult to see that it is, in many ways, most clearly in the maritime
tradition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to Neuenfeldt, maritime music traditions are songs of “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14443050209387810">longing and belonging</a>.” They typically take the form of shanties/chanties- specific song
structures of call and reply or singing in the round. There are several
groupings or “types” that one might be tempted to describe. When I first
started reading about maritime music I was tempted to make some divisions. Songs like those of Pacific Islanders that
tell the history of cultures and are integral to cultural identity seemed somehow
different than ‘Surf City’ and midcentury American rock-and-roll. But of course, the more I thought about the
divisions, the more colonially minded and close minded they appeared to me. It
is both simplistic and telling to say that maritime traditions of singing are
ways of exploring “longing and belonging”: all songs about the sea are built
around themes of culture building through leisure, labor, and longing (either
for the sea or to return home from it). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There’s a rich history of studying and recording these
musical traditions (and basically every sea-going culture from black boatmen in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AKQ1p1nJog8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR6&dq=maritime+canada+songs&ots=xhASvu2ySX&sig=oJKEVJrfFUBLQd1FYCnXuESFvIU#v=onepage&q=maritime%20canada%20songs&f=false">Maritime Canada</a>
to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TsMYe4MJvCEC&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=torres+straits+neuenfeld&ots=0LPco5xERC&sig=k8eEIM4K_qRhvDglmOpCYmGceSI">Pacific Islanders</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y1k-AQAAMAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR19&dq=pirate+music+maritime&ots=SN1yLpPend&sig=Tf3Rdl0btpX2qRz0D5HIW1XLTO4#v=onepage&q=pirate%20music%20maritime&f=false">pirates</a> [and basically all people who work on waterways- including
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aKOXCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP5&dq=river+workers+dock+workers+songs+music&ots=Uzvp8EoVAq&sig=5I0eakUs5crTmRVXqdPG4XDk0rA">rivers</a> and at <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/415415/summary">docks</a> in general]). I'm going to use just one of example of many here. In 1966,
Roger Abrahams, an American folklorist visited <a href="https://www.ijih.org/fileDown.down?filePath=2/8f88b16e-6fae-468e-a297-a0c845c61454&fileName=IJIH_Vol2.zip&contentType=volume&downFileId=2&lang=ENG#page=70">Barrouallie, St. Vincent</a>. The
village is a traditional whaling and fishing outpost in the Caribbean. In
addition to hosting a fishing community, it is also known for producing sailors
that served on fishing and shipping ventures throughout the world. The maritime
tradition in Barrouallie, one of labor on the sea, dependence on successful
labors, the seaside labor to convert a whale into money, and also of leaving home for extremely long stretches
with no ken of how quickly you would come back (if ever) produced a specific
type of musical traditional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Several types of songs emerged from this particular maritime
culture: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->The love song about loneliness and distance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Songs meant to keep time for rowing or to
encourage work <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Narratives that highlighted tensions between the
laborer and the owner or government<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The last is an interesting case. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When rigging broke or the boat was in poor condition, the
sailors might sing this shanty: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">if de owner is lame,
that’s the one we must blame<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">oy yay<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh Blow de Man Down<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Blow de man right down
to de ground<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another song in this tradition involved mocking those that
didn’t work on the water but reaped the benefits: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The song <i>De Man in De
Waistcoat </i>talks about the government official at the port that collected
taxes for bringing in catches. <i>He sittin’
on his stool just like a little boy in Sunday School, de man in de waistcoat
love fisherman’s money. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The combination of songs about loneliness and labor “of
longing and belonging”, match Simpson’s album perfectly. The album is meant,
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/arts/music/sturgill-simpson-a-genuine-alternative-to-alt-country.html">according to the musician</a>, to mirror a letter Simpson’s grandfather wrote in
the South Pacific during WWII in case he didn’t make it back from the war. <i>Sailor’s </i>is a letter to Simpson’s first
child in this vein. There is a song to his wife (<i>Oh Sarah</i>) that mimics traditional narratives about fears of not
returning from a voyage- of never finding a way home from the water (both
metaphorical and literal; several songs (<i>Keep
Between the Lines</i> and <i>Brace for
Impact</i>) give advice to his son for growing up without him- should the possibility
arise. And several (<i>Call to arms</i> and <i>Sea Stories</i>) have an edge of anger at
Simpson’s employer (the US Navy) in the tradition of employer/employee
relationships on the sea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The song I struggled to place into the maritime tradition
the most was the cover of Nirvana’s <i>In
Bloom</i>. How, I wondered, does this translate into maritime music? But
anthropologists and musicologists have studied the transfer of traditional,
terrestrial songs into maritime cultures as well. And what they’ve found is
that many maritime shanties/chanties are derived from a basic structure used in
both marine and field labor. The Shanties of the Caribbean whale trade borrow and
mimic the Chanties and songs of the field slaves and workers on Caribbean
plantations. Music was taken from each context and changed by workers to
suit the requirements of each group. I was reminded, when listening to <i>In Bloom</i>, of a friend who told me
offhandedly one time that while he was in the marines, everyone’s favorite song
was <i>Baby Hit Me One More Time </i>and many marines sang it constantly. At the
time, it struck me as odd. But when thinking about longing and belonging, about
floating on a boat in the middle of the ocean, about building identity, I place
<i>In Bloom </i>into these traditions- of
borrowing and building relationships through songs that are shared but not necessarily about the water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Maritime songs aren’t necessarily about the water but about
the identity one builds on the water to survive and thrive. And while Simpson
is no longer a sailor in the US Navy, he has created a maritime album that sits
squarely in the tradition. Give it a listen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And if you want to hear more traditional maritime
music, there are maritime music festivals all over the United States (and
World) each year. I leave you with a few videos of such a festival in Portsmouth, NH. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hUHGDuZmJgM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hUHGDuZmJgM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<br /><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZMSeWvxsFRY/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZMSeWvxsFRY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-42352334977041630202016-08-06T16:05:00.001-07:002016-08-06T16:05:48.083-07:00Trashing the Oceans Part 2: Normalizing Human Pollution in the Marine Environment<div class="MsoNormal">
My <a href="http://throughaquariumglass.blogspot.com/2016/07/finding-plastic-images-of-plastisphere.html">previous post</a> was on the inclusion of certain types of
plastic pollution in the movie Finding Dory. Basically, the type of plastic
that we see as a problem is really a problem for the 80s and 90s. The problem
today is microplastics spreading throughout the ocean and the food chain. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This post, I’m going to focus on a more theoretical question
about the depiction of plastic in the movie: Does the act of depicting garbage
without comment somehow normalize that sight for young children? or to ask it another way, Does Finding Dory succeed in its conservation messaging?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m going with a gut instinct here that the makers of the
film were making an environmental statement with the
inclusion of garbage in the movie. If not, we have a bigger problem because that
means the thing I fear will come to pass, i.e. that people have become so used
to an ocean full of trash that it seems somehow normal and natural to them, has
already happened. That would be bad. So I’m going with the more optimistic
belief that we as an audience are supposed to be appalled by this garbage and
angry that it’s there. But
unfortunately, the directors didn’t really make the garbage a plot point nor
did they give any information about picking up trash or recycling at the
beginning or ending of the film so the audience is left to assume their motivations. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So, for those of you that haven’t seen the film, maybe take
a look at the previous post to watch the Dory preview, but here’s a few stills
from the movie so that we can get an idea of how trash is being depicted. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><img alt="finding-dory-sixpack-trash" height="218" src="https://reefbuilders.com/files/2016/06/finding-dory-sixpack-trash.jpg" width="400" /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><img src="http://img3.looper.com/img/gallery/easter-eggs-you-missed-in-finding-dory_2/herbie-the-love-bug.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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In the past, overt environmentalist messages in animated
films have been just that: overt. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fern Gully (1992): The Last Rainforest is one of
my personal favorites. I’m old enough to
remember Fern Gully when it was new (when I anthropomorphize pollution in my
head it sounds just like Tim Curry). Fern Gully was heavy handed and pretty
much hit all the high points of environmental concerns- animal testing, native
rights, logging, eco feminism. This was a movie for the 80s and 90s crowd
raised on the even heavier handed Captain Planet. Our little hearts ate up
these messages and we swore to always protect the mythical, magical rain
forests of the world. There was no
guessing what this movie was about- save rain forests from logging!</span></span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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Wall-E (2008): Another overt message here. Wall-E is
startling because it portrays robots as having more humanity than humans where
the environment is concerned. Humans destroyed the earth, left it, got super
lazy and fat and it takes a robot to fix it. And when the earth is
fixed humans get to come back down to earth and reap the benefits of
reconnecting with the land. We get skinny! (ugh) We learn skills! We reclaim
our humanity from robots who love Hello Dolly!! <o:p></o:p></div>
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These movies have issues with their environmental message-
Fern Gully’s reliance on supernatural causes of environmental degradation is
labeled by Michelle Smith and Elizabeth Parsons as “<a href="http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30053429/smith-animatingchildactivism-2012.pdf">antithetical
to the environmental movemen</a>t.” Wall-E has some <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/2008/07/fate.html">major fat shaming issues</a> that make it basically unwatchable to me (and I won't ever show it to my child for this reason). But it is clear at least that these films
are meant to convey an environmental/conservation message. The plot revolves around pollution and the degradation of the Earth and the heroes are those that save the earth. There are more (<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/top-ten-kids-movies-with-a-green-theme-19409104/?no-ist">Bambi,
Over the Hedge, Princess Mononoke</a>), but these seem the most prominent in my
mind and what is striking is how they differ from Finding Dory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Finding Dory depicts a trashed ocean without it seemingly
impacting the characters. Yes, Dory gets
caught in a six-pack ring but it doesn’t lead to a story line where she can’t
find her parents because she is emaciated from being unable to eat- she gets picked up and taken into a marine facility for "rehabilitation" but the audience doesn't get the sense that she needs to be rehabilitated; she doesn't complain of pain or have any seemingly ill effects from the rings. She seems to be completely healthy while in quarantine. We don't even see the scientists cut off the ring or talk about the horrible nature of this type of pollution.<br />
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In addition, while searching for her parents, Dory swims
through a desert of rusted out automobiles, broken bottles, tin cans, and tires
but this is just background. Trash doesn’t stop her from seeing her parents’
shell directions and it doesn’t get her lost in the first place. In fact, during her search she comes across a graveyard of rusted metal containers serving as hiding places for a variety of sea creatures all of whom warn Dory to be quiet or she will wake the squid. Instead of appearing out of place, these cans and containers serve as useful housing for creatures just going about their lives.<br />
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At no time in the movie is the case made that the pollution is bad or that it hurts any of the animals in the ocean. Adults recognize trash in the ocean (and therefore in the
illustrated ocean) as being bad, but can we rely on subtle messages where
children are concerned or does this depiction without comment possibly
naturalize garbage in these environments? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8599975&fileId=S0021875812000175">Dolly Jorgensen</a> has written about the way that seemingly unnatural edifices become commonplace in our perception of the marine environment. Her work highlights the way that oil companies
seek to naturalize oil rig structures by sponsoring tanks containing these
pieces at public aquariums. When an oil rig is decommissioned, companies are
responsible for clean up and disposal of those rigs. A common way that oil
companies have sought to minimize clean up costs has been to cut the rig off under the water line and
leave it as an artificial reef. As Jorgensen points out, governments have to
give permission for this disposal and one way that companies are making sure
that people have no objections is to give them the sense that rigs actually
belong in the marine environment- that they’ve always been there. One way that
companies naturalize these rigs is to pay for tanks at public aquariums that
include rigs as reefs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Jorgensen uses the example of the rigs to reef tank at the
Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans. The Gulf of Mexico tank is sponsored by 5 oil
companies (<a href="http://haynesville.com/news/id/93204/new-orleans-aquarium-features-mock-oil-rig-display/">BP,
Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and KerrMcGee</a>) as well as an individual that has
worked in that industry. These companies could have sponsored an exhibit
without a rig in the tank (it’s prominent) but they didn’t and their money is
going further than to educate children about the underwater environment. It is
doing something priceless: naturalizing rigs as reefs in the ocean. After
seeing rigs in tanks at aquariums, a place that works to construct the
underwater environment for its visitors, who would be surprised when they
encounter one in the ocean? The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas is not the
only one with a rig tank- some are less prominent than others, but when they
become commonplace and unnoticeable, so do the rigs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If this sounds completely off, just bear with me. Do ship
wrecks belong in the ocean? Do they seem natural? Are they much of a bother? I
ask this because there are a lot of shipwrecks on the ocean floor and it is
with these that we see the work of naturalization done so well. Think of the
amount of times you have seen a shipwreck depicted in either animated or nature
films as part of the underwater landscape. We would be surprised if, in a
National Geographic episode our explorers scaled a particularly high mountain
and found a plane or tank (it happens but not that much) but we’re not at all
surprised by the depiction of ships in the furthest reaches of the ocean. In
fact, many sunken ships have grown reefs over their structures and have become
protected marine areas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Take for example the <a href="http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/shipwrecktrail/welcome.html?s=heritage">Shipwreck
Trail</a> in the Florida Keys. Located
in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, “The nine ships along this
Shipwreck Trail have many tales to tell, from the stories of individuals who
came before us to why they were here and their difficulties in navigating these
waters.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/shipwrecktrail/welcome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/shipwrecktrail/welcome.jpg" /></a></div>
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The nine wrecks consist of 6 accidental wrecks, 1 ship
purposely sunk to create a reef, and ironically, two ships that were about to
be sunk for artificial reefs that broke free from their tugs and went down
accidentally. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What is interesting to me is how common images of ship wrecks our in my imagination of the underwater world. So much so that sinking ships to create artificial reefs has become fairly common. Instead of questioning the role of ships in underwater reef building- do these things really belong?- we just keep adding more.<br />
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I think one of the largest questions is, why would we be making artificial reefs? The answer is varied. One major reason seems to be that we know that creating a reef will bring divers to that area- you are basically creating a space where you know that people are guaranteed to see the types of organisms that they imagine are in the ocean. In many ways, this is the impact of TV and public aquariums on our understanding of the ocean: most people think that the ocean resembles a tank of fish- full of beautiful corals, multiple types of fishes, and all of these organisms should be visible immediately. The truth, if you've ever dived is that this is just not so. The ocean is big, dark, cold, and generally pretty empty. Unless you're diving on a reef in relatively shallow water. So governments are trying to draw tourists in and give them what they want and artificial reefs do this. Scuttled ships and decommissioned reefs offer structures on which new ecosystems can grow. </div>
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In addition, these spaces are being built in places where humans have injured the existing reef structure. In places where reefs have been destroyed or are in decline, humans are using these reefs as band aids for the injuries they've caused. </div>
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Finally, there is some evidence that these artificial reefs increase fish stocks. Especially in areas with little diversity or decreasing fish stocks, the rigs seem to offer spaces for fishes to feed and hide. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/08/the_artificial_reefs_being_built_with_bp_money_seem_to_be_good_for_fishing.html">Slate</a> just reported this week that a large amount of BP money from the oil spill is being used to create artificial reefs to increase fish stocks. </div>
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There are ongoing debates about these artificial reefs and the possible <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08920750802395558">positive</a> and negative impacts on ecosystems. Studies show that rigs and ships (along with concrete pyramids) are successful in facilitating reef growth. However, the question is, at what cost? <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/100112/full">Some</a> suggest that, while these spaces increase fish stocks, they also allow poachers and illegal anglers to hone in on fish attracted to these areas easily; instead of large fish being spread around a large area, the reefs concentrate these fishes and make poaching easy. Basically, it gives new meaning to "shooting fish in a barrel". In addition, questions have recently been raised about the impact of these spaces on the spread of invasive species. Some researchers suggest that these wrecks amount to a disturbed ecosystem and allow <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-006-0552-5">invasive species</a> to build strong communities that will then increase their numbers and allow them to spread more rapidly though the ocean. Most reports are relatively early on the <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075281">colonization</a> of these spaces by corals, but most suggest that these spaces grow more slowly than natural reefs and support smaller coral (although some researchers believe this could change over time). Most of these studies are from the last 15 years and many in the last 10, with researchers calling for more expansive research on the impact of disintegrating ships on the health of these ecosystems long term. <br />
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What is interesting to me is the way that we take for granted (politicians and the public) that we already know the answers to the questions. Most people don't bat an eye at the idea that there is a ship being sunk to create a reef.<br />
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<a href="http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/9/92/The_s.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20150605080412" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/9/92/The_s.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20150605080412" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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It is this type of naturalization that I fear where rigs and small level pollution are concerned. It is true that we currently recognize sunken cars, rusted cans and broken bottles, and floating plastic, as not belonging in the marine environment. But Finding Dory did something concerning- it normalized that trash by having characters co exist without struggle.<br />
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So the question is, would it have been better for conservation goals to draw the ocean without pollution in the hopes that children would imagine it as such (and be startled when it is trashed) or is it better to show it as a site of trash in the hopes that children will want to clean it up.<br />
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I'm of the thought that the former is more useful than the latter. I'm open to conversation.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-34932227920195617612016-07-15T08:46:00.001-07:002016-07-15T08:48:00.491-07:00Finding Plastic: Images of the Plastisphere in Finding Dory Part 1<div class="MsoNormal">
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When I first saw the Finding Dory trailer, I knew I had to
see the movie. There are, of course, a
million reasons that someone interested in the history and current study of the
marine environment would want to see a movie about a bunch of lovable talking
sea creatures. A particularly important aspect of the movie (spoilers maybe?)
involves the role of public aquariums in conservation, a topic especially close
to my heart. And ensconced at this public aquarium is Sigourney Weaver, also
especially close to my heart (Aliens is a classic). <o:p></o:p></div>
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But nope, that wasn’t what caught my attention. What
immediately caught my attention was that a trailer is usually supposed to
include some of the most important and eye catching scenes in the film. And
what I saw was trash. Take a look:</div>
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Dory is caught in a piece of plastic from a 6-pack during
part of the trailer and she is swimming through a dead zone full of tires,
rusted cars, cans, and bottles in another. It is important to analyze why these
images are in Finding Dory and also the impact that the portrayal of the ocean
as a trash heap might have on the way that people think about the ocean. So for
this first blog post, I’m going to think about the history and current status
of trash talk and the ocean. In the next part of this series, I’ll talk about
conceptions of the ocean as a pristine environment and the possible impacts of
portraying the ocean as containing trash. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t find it surprising that the most noticeable piece of
garbage in this trailer is the six-pack-ring. The rings were brought to the
attention of the public during the earliest reports of ocean pollution. In
1988, a beach cleanup in <a href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1336/should-you-cut-up-six-pack-rings-so-they-dont-choke-sea-birds">Texas</a>
found 15,600 six pack rings in 3 hours (this was over a 300 mile span). If you
were a kid in the 80s or 90s, there’s a good possibility that you were taught
that you should cut up these rings before throwing them away so that if they
made it out to sea they wouldn’t kill a sea turtle or bird. Images of desiccated
animals caught in 6-pack-rings were used fairly regularly during the 80s to
galvanize a public to clean up their act. While the emphasis on these plastics
has been largely misplaced, the majority of debris in the ocean is not from six
pack rings, it is still a highly recognizable form of pollution and presents a
visceral message to those of us who grew up during this period.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<img height="266" src="https://assets.rbl.ms/843711/980x.jpg" width="400" /><br />
This is a picture of <a href="https://www.thedodo.com/turtle-six-pack-unstoppable-1166240209.html">Peanut</a>. A red-eared slider in Missouri that must have slipped into a six pack ring when she was born in the 1980s. Found in 1993, she was cut free and is now used for wildlife conservation education. She's still alive and living in Missouri. Obviously not a sea turtle, but you get the point.<br />
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The other visual in the trailer is that of Dory swimming
through a wasteland of sunken ships, cars, bottles, tins, and tires. I think
the ships are something we have come to expect and associate with the ocean- in
some sense shipwrecks have become naturalized and normalized when we imagine
the underwater environment (more on this in the next post). But there is
something jarring about the cars and tires, even though we shouldn’t be
particularly surprised that they are so common on the ocean bottom that they
exist even in animation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1972, officials in Fort Lauderdale, Florida proposed a
“tire reef”. The Reef would be built out of used tires- deemed an eyesore on
land but perfect for the building of artificial reefs. The proposal suggested a
win-win. The reef would get rid of ugly trash constructively (instead of just
chucking it into the ocean while no one was looking) and bring more game fishes
into the area for anglers and tourists (they were rapidly diminishing: read
about it here). Tire reefs had already
been initiated in Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa, Australia, and the American
Northwest (<a href="http://www.reefball.com/map/malaysiatires/Statement%20on%20Tires%20as%20Artificial%20Reefs%20For%20Malaysia%20by%20Dr.htm">agains</a>t
better judgement and advice from experts) and the South Floridians were super excited.
So yeah. In what I think you can imagine was a pretty bad idea, Broward county,
with the help of Goodyear and the Army Corps of Engineers, dumped over 2
million tires over 36 acres about 7000 feet off the coast in 35 feet of water.
The tires were tethered together at the time and anchored on concrete slabs. This
became known as the Osborne Artificial Reef. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-tB6VQMYHbpc/VAlzwvK3XII/AAAAAAAA6qc/SwNyV7SznKE/osborne-tire-reef-1%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" /><br />
A barge dumping tires onto the Osborne Reef. </div>
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<a href="http://www.projectbaseline.org/">photo credit</a></div>
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It didn’t work out so well. While some coral grew on the
tires, the tethers quickly eroded because of the salinity of the water and
tires began drifting. They damaged previously healthy reef structures. Each
subsequent hurricane pushed tires onto healthy reefs and further up and down
the coastline. Tires from the reef have washed up on the Florida Panhandle and
as far north as North Carolina. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Reef">200</a>1, a biologist at NOVA
Southeastern began a project to remove the tires but it wasn’t until 2002 that
government support began to remove most of the tires. The Army began removing <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thousands-of-tires-dumped-in-florida-waters-wrecking-coral-reef/">the
tires</a>, combining the conservation initiative with dive training exercises.
However, as of <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-tire-removal-20150514-story.html">2015</a>,
the state and federal budget only encompasses the time and manpower to remove
160,000 tires, leaving almost 40,000 to float freely off the coast of Fort
Lauderdale. The Osborne Reef wasn’t the
only tire reef to fail- all tire reefs have come to naught. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/--4JRsKjfO9M/VAlzrYxdO4I/AAAAAAAA6qE/pwvCkRDgUF8/osborne-tire-reef-3%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" height="358" width="640" /><br />
The Osborne reef today. Clean up is going slowly. </div>
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In truth though, neither six pack rings nor tires are the
biggest threat to the marine environment. In fact, even though images from the
great pacific garbage patch and recent reports of trash littering Chinese
beaches have called attention to the issue of pollution in the ocean, it is the
plastic that we can’t see that has recently been identified as a danger to
marine health. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Microplastics are just what they sound like: minute pieces
of plastic that are either the product of plastic that has degraded and been
broken down over time or small plastics like microbeads used in beauty products
and other industrial products. These plastics are nearly invisible to humans
but they taste, look, or feel (depending on how the organism senses) like food
to many organisms, especially gelatinous zooplankton. While it would be bad to
have an ocean full of jellyfish full of plastic, this probably doesn’t sound
horrible to you. What’s a few jellyfish in the grand scheme of things? But here’s
the thing- if plastic is the daily special for the lowest organisms on the food
chain, it will eventually be the inadvertent consumable of those highest on the
food chain (that’s us). Little fish eat jellyfish and bigger fish eat them and
so on and so forth until humans eat the biggest fish because we like those
predator fish so very much. And before you know it, we don’t just have to worry
about mercury in our tuna, but also plastics with a wide range of chemicals.
The ocean is full of these microplastics. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been reading about microplastics for a while now but
still I was startled after a storm in Florida to walk on the beach and
encounter a clear line of microplastics along the shoreline. I had gone to the
beach with a trash bag to pick up what I knew would be a huge amount of trash
kicked up by a heavy surf (even I was surprised by the amount and range of
trash I picked up). But there it is: a tiny, colorful line in the sand. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxCDUxvt1ljTAuSrdXzQE3bqB64KnxLokuvwZZkv7GBTDDmWkW_ZYRjS1tdaLgbZI6jjIMWmNEBG1lvDQ7FkkTe0bUINW2cM-RaazdrOS9lS5S5UeW-wrXN3J4gyzvRtqz9bc9PLd02U/s1600/IMG_20160606_094750897.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxCDUxvt1ljTAuSrdXzQE3bqB64KnxLokuvwZZkv7GBTDDmWkW_ZYRjS1tdaLgbZI6jjIMWmNEBG1lvDQ7FkkTe0bUINW2cM-RaazdrOS9lS5S5UeW-wrXN3J4gyzvRtqz9bc9PLd02U/s640/IMG_20160606_094750897.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsLog2wyYm38HQJajmZSsZSHxTumDcv70kIbgPasZinhJlQW86d4bC93vhUF_mYFulIBPnXUknEnkFQFRnn8xjTHWnXnaVHHBIC1Sh1GeZPfYO_Pr4FMpACeQxSruJoFoqZH6CrgcRelY/s1600/IMG_20160606_094746082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsLog2wyYm38HQJajmZSsZSHxTumDcv70kIbgPasZinhJlQW86d4bC93vhUF_mYFulIBPnXUknEnkFQFRnn8xjTHWnXnaVHHBIC1Sh1GeZPfYO_Pr4FMpACeQxSruJoFoqZH6CrgcRelY/s640/IMG_20160606_094746082.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can just see the microplastics of different colors on the tide line. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMaoAg-v0M8FDSgEM418rgBILtAQ0MoxRFhbUnEDUhYVfoBXKkmqanlTNg19lIxaMGx_RyXH_-hjKd6HMlHliF9ogTNRobM5oV4PD6FV-MzJ-cNMyLZnKMvW1AN_hA35LPY8f_BTRpdU/s1600/IMG_20160606_093738465.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMaoAg-v0M8FDSgEM418rgBILtAQ0MoxRFhbUnEDUhYVfoBXKkmqanlTNg19lIxaMGx_RyXH_-hjKd6HMlHliF9ogTNRobM5oV4PD6FV-MzJ-cNMyLZnKMvW1AN_hA35LPY8f_BTRpdU/s320/IMG_20160606_093738465.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a bottle cap found on the beach. It is ringed with algae and blends into the beach. If you weren't looking for plastic, you would think that it was a jellyfish or a beautiful shell. </td></tr>
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And it turns out that ingestion is not the only fear where
microplastics are concerned. While tires
might not be the best way to start coral reefs, it turns out that microplastics
are a pretty awesome place to build microbiomes. Microbiomes, conveniently
named the “<a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es401288x">plastisphere</a>”
by researcher to identify the newly created environments surrounding these
floating plastic trash heaps, are communities of microbes that build up on
these microplastics. When I initially
heard about this new area of study, I was initially optimistic. Wouldn’t it be
great if these plastics could host great little floating communities? Alas, no.
It appears that these microbiomes are a cause for concern because they could
serve as particularly crafty <a href="http://www.sgmeet.com/aslo/granada2015/viewabstract.asp?AbstractID=27426">vectors</a>
to move viruses and bacteria across the ocean relatively easily. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So what does all this plastic talk mean? The ocean has a big
plastic problem- humans have created a whole new ecosystem and handily named
it. We did that. But the type of conservation we are still talking about, the
type of plastic pollution we are still supposed to be fighting are the concerns
of the 70s, 80s, and 90s kids. Of course, it isn’t wrong to worry about six-pack-rings and
tires, but the major problem is something huger than these individual pieces of
plastic. It felt like nostalgia, watching these animated moments even though I
was startled that they appeared at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no solution to the plastisphere problem at the moment, technologies and strategies like those proposed by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/26/ocean-cleanup-project-environment-pollution-boyan-slat">The Ocean Cleanup</a> are still in developmental phase and fail to take into account the multiple variables required to pull-off such a large project. As of now, smaller projects to remove the plastic are here to stay. So focus needs to be on preventing more plastic from entering the ocean. </div>
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This is where films like Finding Dory come in. It is clear that the animators, writers, and directors were hoping to make some statement with these images. Portraying the ocean as a beautiful place being trashed seems like an important step towards teaching children stewardship. However, I wonder how the inclusion of trash without actually pointing out how wrong it is, how harmful it is, might actually go to naturalize or normalize these images for younger children. The question of how to raise good stewards, and whether these types of images work, is for the next post. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-46796725115985115802016-02-02T13:38:00.001-08:002016-02-02T13:38:28.037-08:00Eat Lionfish!: saving our seas by consuming invasive speciesLionfish are a rapidly advancing invasive marine species. They eat juvenile fish, reducing the diversity and native fish population on some species by up to 95%. So, what to do with these creatures?<div>
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As with all problems, my own personal answer involves food. So I have always been interested in the idea that we can best manage these invasive species by eating them. Proponents of this plan don't just want to get people to eat lionfish occasionally, but instead they want to develop a cultural and social acceptance of the organism as a commonly consumed species of fish. This is a lot harder than it might seem. </div>
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In the middle of the 19th century, two things happened in parallel: </div>
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The first was a large influx of immigrants from Europe (and especially Germany).</div>
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The second was a noticeable decline in native fish stocks (I say noticeable because they were probably declining for some time and it wasn't until this period when fishermen sounded the alarm). </div>
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These two occurrences (increased immigration and decreased fish stocks) <i style="font-weight: bold;">were not causal </i>(no, immigrants didn't steal our fish)<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i> but they did mean that there were more people and less fish to feed everyone. </div>
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So the newly created U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries decided to do something about this: they would farm carp and release it into nearly every part of the US. </div>
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<a href="http://www.nps.gov/miss/learn/nature/carphist.htm">Carp </a>was already a popular ornamental and food fish in Germany- so the US Commission thought that the introduction of this species would be a win-win. They already knew that immigrants considered this an acceptable food source and they assumed that the fish would become popular with other Americans as their native fish stocks declined. What could go wrong? </div>
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Initially, citizens responded favorably to carp introductions. According to Robin's Dougty's history of carp farming in Texas during this period: </div>
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"Texans were expected to find carp delectable-especially European</div>
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immigrants or first- and second-generation Americans of German stock,</div>
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who were supposedly accustomed to the practice of carp culture in the</div>
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Old World. Initially, people reacted very favorably to their stocks of</div>
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young carp obtained free from the U.S. Fish Commission ponds in</div>
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Washington, D.C., or, after 1882, from state carp ponds in Austin. In</div>
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July, 1883, the U.S. Fish Commission sent out a survey to 2,ooo recipients</div>
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of earlier carp shipments across the nation. Sixty-seven respondents</div>
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from thirty-three Texas counties replied positively to the set</div>
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of fifteen questions. The number of responses from the Lone Star State</div>
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matched that from Ohio (Texas ranked fourth in the nation); the response </div>
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was about half of that from Virginia, which ranked number</div>
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one."</div>
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But excitement about carp was quickly replaced by disgust and annoyance. Farm bred carp were kept in squalid conditions: the fish are hardy and thrived in muddy, murky ponds on basically any food. However, they also take on the taste of those muddy, murky and garbage filled locations. Complaints flooded into the Commission that the fish were inedible. </div>
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In addition, the stocking of lakes and rivers lead to an overabundance of the species. The German carp began to push out the already declining native species. For those fisherman interested in trout, the carp was a less beautiful and sporting fish, regardless of taste. </div>
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As public opinion turned against the carp, the Fish Commission continued to try to make it a thing. They posted pamphlets on cooking methods </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyoO4sPmYamGxBd401sx5nauXZejyphO50lP1WlhrN06vA2D9MXjfAzvGvDgDCDyZyJoXTpIU_kIis0tksSFUA21c4OcxHkvmowHxj1q7vxGXZswfDQ2Zc5WuZyaLhKKRKKsSi_BUB9Q/s1600/carp+bureau+of+fisheries.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyoO4sPmYamGxBd401sx5nauXZejyphO50lP1WlhrN06vA2D9MXjfAzvGvDgDCDyZyJoXTpIU_kIis0tksSFUA21c4OcxHkvmowHxj1q7vxGXZswfDQ2Zc5WuZyaLhKKRKKsSi_BUB9Q/s400/carp+bureau+of+fisheries.png" width="327" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This poster seems a bit informal, exasperated, and slightly grasping. I'm not sure it's particularly convincing all things considered. </td></tr>
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And they were particularly interested in promoting all fish during WWI and WWII because of meat shortages. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyoO4sPmYamGxBd401sx5nauXZejyphO50lP1WlhrN06vA2D9MXjfAzvGvDgDCDyZyJoXTpIU_kIis0tksSFUA21c4OcxHkvmowHxj1q7vxGXZswfDQ2Zc5WuZyaLhKKRKKsSi_BUB9Q/s1600/carp+bureau+of+fisheries.png" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5W1zRqkcMNErS4aLNn0vQDyAokTaefKJjTLAJTQ6ol2yfHz-blyXwjyrlORcPfFrmlwLD32N5m55ExIUFZwazZ54oQcPVGnYlMW1pyjJ0_wgvcau4Y-9m3IbfnMXK2kUpw__-5P1428/s1600/eat+fish+2.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5W1zRqkcMNErS4aLNn0vQDyAokTaefKJjTLAJTQ6ol2yfHz-blyXwjyrlORcPfFrmlwLD32N5m55ExIUFZwazZ54oQcPVGnYlMW1pyjJ0_wgvcau4Y-9m3IbfnMXK2kUpw__-5P1428/s320/eat+fish+2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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But alas, similar to fetch, carp was never really going to happen. </div>
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There are other instances of trying to interest people in eating invasive species, especially when those species have overtaken and threatened the food source upon which those populations used to thrive. For instance, the oyster and mussel populations in Cancale, France are being crowded out by the invasive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/europe/in-france-a-quest-to-convert-a-sea-snail-plague-into-a-culinary-pleasure.html?_r=0">Atlantic slipper snail.</a> While locals refuse to eat the snail, which they consider little more than disgusting vermin, one entrepreneur is trying to interest high end Parisian restaurants in the species. </div>
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No one quite knows how the lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific found its way into the Atlantic. The first sightings in Florida occurred as early as 1985. What we do know is what has happened since then. Lionfish have invaded the Caribbean and Atlantic seaboard. They have been spotted as far north as Rhode Island and are beginning to work their way into <a href="https://www.loxahatcheeriver.org/pdf/Jud_et_al._2011_Estuarine_Lionfish.pdf">estuaries</a>. The hope that lower salinity would stop the spread of these fish inland has been smashed <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick_Nichols2/publication/267507622_Broad_salinity_tolerance_in_the_invasive_lionfish_Pterois_spp_may_facilitate_estuarine_colonization/links/5450f97d0cf24e8f7376af01.pdf">by the realization</a> that they have broad salinity tolerance, meaning that they will have an impact on both reef ecosystems and broader littoral and coastal ecosystems. </div>
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Some scientists, activists, and environmentalists think that the best form of control could be to make it a popular food fish. The January 2016 updates to the Monterey Bay Aquarium <a href="http://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/groups/lionfish/overview?q=Lionfish">Seafood Watch</a> lists lionfish as a "best catch" and states that "When you buy lionfish you are helping to prevent the spread of this invasive species in US waters." <a href="http://earthinvaders.org/">Earthinvaders.org</a> points to Cuba's success with eating these fish: </div>
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"<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21.994px;">The Cuban government promoted harvesting lionfish in 2011–and when we visited in 2014, we saw only one </span><em style="color: #111111; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21.994px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pez león</em><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21.994px;"> over five days of snorkeling on the reefs. Although the invaders persist in deeper waters, the fishing pressure appears to be working." (They do not cite this assertion so take it with a grain of salt)</span></div>
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One of the concerns with harvesting and processing lionfish is understandable: they have poisonous spines. Those spines can remain poisonous up to an hour after they are caught. Learning to properly clean the fish is the first step to eating them. </div>
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After they are cleaned, they can be cooked like any other fish. Many people compare them to grouper or other salt water fish. </div>
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I was lucky enough to get to try lionfish this winter while vacationing in Cape Canaveral, FL. Grills bar and restaurant has started serving lionfish and I was excited to get to contribute to ecosystem conservation by eating and drinking beer on a deck in 80 degree weather. This is the type of conservation that Americans really like!</div>
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Grills prepares their lionfish by frying it and then broiling it (something they call froiling) and they serve it with a type of teriyaki sauce. </div>
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The fish is a huge amount of meat- in fact, we shared the appetizer above and it was overwhelming how much of the fish is actually meat. The flesh is similar to any white fish you might have had- it doesn't taste "fishy" (a common complaint about fish because apparently people like to eat food that doesn't taste like food and while I find that confusing I accept it). In fact, it doesn't taste like much at all, so I think that would be a great hit with consumers. There are a lot of tiny bones if you don't fillet it first, but the fish is so good it is worth the effort of weeding them out. </div>
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One of my favorite things about the lionfish is that its skin is edible. While many people don't like to eat fish skin, I absolutely love it. The taste and texture are something that appeal to me (I love trout and catfish for this reason). Lionfish skin is really good and on a fried fish like the one above, it was probably my favorite. part. </div>
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All in all, I hope that the lionfish catches on in the US. If it doesn't, it won't be because it isn't good to eat. I would order it as a regular entree, even without the added incentive of eating invasive species. </div>
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It's fetch. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-8834296540664010332015-10-01T10:38:00.001-07:002015-10-01T10:38:08.992-07:00The historical precedent to Mickey and Jay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you're on the internet, you might have been introduced to the above video of two guys freaking out about a sunfish they've spotted near Boston. If you haven't watched it, it's lovely for a few reasons but also not exactly safe for work (the cursing is epic). One of the reasons I was so excited when viewing it was that one of the first reactions is to "call the aquarium." I study the interaction of aquariums with the public and it's great to see that people see what they think is either a new creature or an injured creature and want to call their local aquarium.<br />
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But I was also interested in the video when I ran across this picture researching this morning:<br />
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This is a picture of a sunfish caught off the coast of Catalina Island on Sept. 3, 1919. Mr. Van Campen Heilner (The man behind the cart) describes the capture in the Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0QfJYlAeQxSAtbFciDzu7fQ5In1oNhp7bsUopOVcGg5cFjQoBpmKGgy0z7PeVqnARSg3PRmaGzolYyoKVGmBVsDHoGOFBLgxwth1FZtpCKbxbbEtmF_4XFs_4fiREvIMzEh5Ewvoyy8/s1600/story+sunfish.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0QfJYlAeQxSAtbFciDzu7fQ5In1oNhp7bsUopOVcGg5cFjQoBpmKGgy0z7PeVqnARSg3PRmaGzolYyoKVGmBVsDHoGOFBLgxwth1FZtpCKbxbbEtmF_4XFs_4fiREvIMzEh5Ewvoyy8/s640/story+sunfish.png" width="640" /></a>The narrator goes on to say he wanted to take the fish into shore alive, but quickly found that it wasn't going to happen- it was so heavy that the drag created from the boat basically killed the poor thing (if the harpooning and gaff through the mouth and eye socket weren't enough). While there wasn't a big enough scale the weigh it when they did get to dock, they did measure its length. The sunfish ended up measuring 10 feet 11 inches. </div>
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The sunfish in this narrative was doing the same thing that the one in the above video is doing: basking on the surface of the water to get warm after diving to great depths (go <a href="http://www.deepseanews.com/2015/09/55544/">here</a> to read more about it).<br />
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They are found throughout the ocean and there are often sightings similar to the one in the video (minus the freaking out and Boston accent).<br />
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We should never forget that the history of marine animal sightings is usually peppered with men on boats screeching "What's that?! Let's kill it and find out?!" However, we should be happy that the first reaction this time around was 'let's help it' and 'let's call the aquarium.' That seems to be progress, even if it devolves from there.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-2577044946039104482015-06-12T12:13:00.000-07:002015-06-12T12:13:59.563-07:00Beach Nourishment: Environmental QuestionsWhen I first started researching beach nourishment for this blog, my initial question was "how does this form of environmental engineering affect wildlife?" I thought there would be some pretty straightforward answers, especially since the history of beach nourishment in the US is almost 100 years old (1922-present). But instead, I found a lot more questions than answers.<br />
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Don't get me wrong- there have been studies done to try to assess the environmental impacts of beach nourishment on both organisms in the borrow area and the deposition area. There are several articles that highlight optimal studies (Nelson, "Beach Restoration in the Southeastern US" <i>Ocean &Coastal Management, </i>1993 and Petersen and Bishop, "Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Beach Nourishment" <i>Bioscience</i>, 2005) and after reading these and several other articles, there seem to be two different environmental questions that stem from beach nourishment: 1. what does constant sand removal and deposition do to organisms that live on or near the beach? and 2. how does a change in sand quality or quantity impact those same organisms?<br />
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The first set of questions, regarding the impact of removal and deposition of sand on organisms and the environment is probably the group of questions that spring to mind when thinking about this subject. In much of the reading, it would appear that, while rigorous research has yet to really be performed, early indications suggest deposition of sand does not negatively impact many organisms who live on or near the beach <i>in the long run.</i><br />
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Based on research highlighted by Nelson (1993), crabs and clams that live in the area closest to the beach do decrease in number after the initial deposition of new sand. For the first season, their numbers decrease and then steadily climb back to pre-deposit numbers over time.<br />
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While the impact on the beach fauna seems to be minimal, the impact on organisms in or near the borrow area might be more negatively affected. The process of dredging for sand can be destructive both to organisms directly in the line of dredging and ecosystems near the dredging area.<br />
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There are many different types of dredges, but they all basically scour a chosen area of the ocean bottom, picking up everything on the surface and either depositing it on the top of the boat for transportation into shore or directly pumped onto shore via a piping system.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Cutterhead Dredge</td></tr>
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Dredges tear up the seabed and they also kick up sediment that can settle on nearby coral reefs. Coral is extremely delicate and reacts to a variety of changes in the water (including <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080129-sunscreen-coral.html">sunscreen)</a>. Negligence in dredging can bury coral reefs in sediment, blocking the sun and effectively killing the reef; this type of careless dredging is less common today. However, dredging even near a coral reef can stress the corals and cause them go from slightly swollen to covered in a secreted mucus that could eventually kill entire reefs.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrMavKq2hX4BUVOQhRd1VsLk00ITYiA6Zo_ZbkGeRkJBDefmIX4Ex_UkTPZGWnrnZNJQoPQea9M-nWqawWj6dl7vfhB7U_zjrPQwRufYLLaok1R6TkELgHzuF0TCTAX2GFztDSgz_5c8/s1600/coral+stress+level.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrMavKq2hX4BUVOQhRd1VsLk00ITYiA6Zo_ZbkGeRkJBDefmIX4Ex_UkTPZGWnrnZNJQoPQea9M-nWqawWj6dl7vfhB7U_zjrPQwRufYLLaok1R6TkELgHzuF0TCTAX2GFztDSgz_5c8/s640/coral+stress+level.png" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stress Levels of Coral from Sand Dredging from Fisher et al "Real Time Coral Stress Observations before, during, and after beach nourishment dredge Offshore SE Florida" <i>Oceanography Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches and Lectures (Nova Southeastern University) </i>2008.</td></tr>
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According to Fisher et. al (2008), careful dredging causes minimal stress on corals. Throughout a single dredging season (2006), corals reached stress level two (exacerbated by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma). After dredging was completed, most corals went back to a stress level of 1 or under.<br />
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While Fisher et. al don't draw a lot of conclusions from this research- they merely report their method and findings- it is something to consider that dredging causes stress on coral reef ecosystems,leaving coral weakened and unable to fight viruses, hurricane damage, and a host of other predators or issues. Basically, the harshest effects of dredging on coral can be alleviated by choosing dredging spots and monitoring coral stress levels but the low level stress leaves coral vulnerable to other complications.<br />
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Finally, sea turtle nests can be buried when dredged sand is dumped on beaches. Hatchlings can have trouble getting out of the nest if it is buried too deep (and the temperature might also be too cold to actually incubate and hatch correctly). Careful monitoring of sea turtle nests and nourishing beaches in non-nesting season can alleviate these issues. Sea turtle nestings do go down on beaches the season after nourishment projects, but it appears as if they return to normal within a year of nourishment. (Rumbold, Davis, and Perreta "Estimating the Effect of Beach Nourishment on <i>Caretta caretta </i>(loggerhead sea turtle) nesting" <i>Restoration Ecology</i> 2001) However, the biggest threat to beach systems might not be where or how sand is deposited, but <i>what </i>sand is used.<br />
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Choosing sand for beach nourishment is a tricky business. There are a lot of variables to consider- location, cost, aesthetics, and ecological impact. Up to date, most borrow areas for beach nourishment have been located relatively near the fill areas. However, as of 2014, <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-03-12/news/fl-sand-mine-20120309_1_grain-size-beach-renourishment-beach-erosion">Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties</a> are out of usable borrow areas. While those counties have been begging their northern neighbors to share (the answer has been a pretty resounding "no") they are also looking to other borrow areas, including an inland source from an ancient ocean near the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/us/where-sand-is-gold-the-coffers-are-running-dry-in-florida.html?_r=0">Everglades</a> and sand dredged from the Bahama Banks.<br />
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Most borrow areas are relatively close to the deposit site which cuts down on cost (free sand if it is in your county and you only have to pay for the dredging equipment and man hours). It also commonly means it will be the same color as the original sand- something you wouldn't think is a huge deal but aesthetics are an important part of beach going apparently- just ask the citizens of Coney Island in 1922. The dredging brought up red sand from borrow areas. Locals flipped out- no one wants a red-sanded beach- THE SAND MUST BE WHITE! If you think this is a ridiculous reaction <strike>we're on the same page</strike> imagine the reaction people would have if they showed up to the white beaches of Pensacola to find them black, brown, or red. No more postcard beaches:( Beyond ease of dredging and consistency in color, dredging close to the original beach also generally assures that the sand is of a similar mineral make up and grain size as the original beach sand. While most people think all sand is interchangeable, it's not.<br />
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Grain size is something commonly debated in the beach nourishment community. When it comes to engineers, politicians, and tax payers looking at the financial bottom line, it makes sense to try to dredge and fill with a larger grained sand than that which was originally eroded. Why? Because larger grains are heavier and therefore less likely to be eroded quickly by wind and surf. However, grain size is a fine line to walk (pun alert!)- too heavy and it can crush sea turtle eggs or make it impossible for organisms buried to uncover themselves. In the other direction, if it's too fine grained (something that makes for great beach walking), it becomes too hard packed and organisms can't dig through it. This also hurts sea turtles who struggle to dig nests in tightly packed sand. So, grain size really matters. For more information on this, see Stauble's review of grain size variables in nourishment projects <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwjXvp3W5orGAhVOfJIKHY6fAGQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fsbpa.com%2F05Proceedings%2F02-Don%2520Stauble.pdf&ei=MSd7VZfiD874yQSOv4KgBg&usg=AFQjCNHMqCLQdiNBIa3-yCTWorYr2-yHAA&sig2=slBfPvwBCUjSb5hNiz-Ojw&bvm=bv.95515949,d.aWw">here</a>.<br />
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In addition to grain size, mineral make up can also change the ecology of the beach. Probably my favorite article I read for these two blog posts was "The Effect of Beach Nourishment with Aragonite versus Silicate Sand on Beach Temperature and Loggerhead Sea Turtle Nesting Success" by Milton, Schulman, and Lutz (<i>Journal of Coastal Research</i>, 1997). Seriously, it's a great article. It was written because the authors already recognized the issues facing South Florida if they ran out of borrow areas. Milton, Schulman, and Lutz sought to test the impact of using another available sand source, the Bahama Banks, on sea turtle nesting. The major difference between the original sand and the new sand was mineral make up- the new sand was primarily aragonite sand instead of silicate (These two materials are chemically different but I will not try to explain this because I am quite horrid at chemistry- trust me, they are different). So- similar grain size, different mineral make up.<br />
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The study found that there wasn't much difference in hatching success between these two types of sand. In fact, nearly the same amount of turtles hatched and made it out of the nest (there are always some turtles that hatch but aren't strong enough to make it out of the nest so these two variables are actually important to measure separately). This is awesome- no difference between these two sands means that we don't have to worry about ecological impacts of dredging, right? Wrong! Because the authors found something important- turtle nests in aragonite sand were consistently cooler than those in silicate sand.<br />
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Sea turtle sex, as is the case with many reptiles, is determined by temperature during a critical window in egg incubation. For an even sex ratio (50:50) in a clutch, the magic temperature is 29.1 C during this period. 1-2 degrees above and the majority will be female and 1-2 degrees below will be mostly male. Anything below 28 C will produce only males. This is a concern because altering sex ratios in endangered species could drastically change the availability of nesting females in this area. I loved the study not just because it was super clear, but because it really brought home something that has been bugging me about all the literature on beach nourishment: it just doesn't ask tougher questions most of the time. A simple, well the crabs came back the next year, seems to be as deep as many of these studies go. And that's a huge problem because this study shows that seemingly innocuous choices have unintended and possibly overlooked consequences.<br />
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The gaps in the literature have been clear for a long while. In 1993, Walter G. Nelson called for careful study designs for studying the impact of beach nourishment on ecological communities. In 2005, Charles Petersen and Melanie Bishop found that "A review of 46 beach monitoring studies shows that (a) only 11 percent of the studies controlled for both natural spatial and temporal variation in their analyses (b) 56 percent reached conclusions that were not adequately supported, and (c) 49 percent failed to reach publication standards for citation and synthesis of related work. Monitoring is typically conducted through project promoters, with no peer review, and the permitting agencies exhibit inadequate expertise to review biostatistical designs. Monitoring results are rarely used to scale mitigation to compensate for injured resources. Reform of agency practices is urgently needed as the risk of cumulative impacts grow." (abstract, "Assessing the Environmental Impact of Beach Nourishment" <i>Bioscience </i>2005)<br />
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Much of the issues seems to be that there are a lot of communities involved- local governments, environmental engineers, homeowners, ecologists. Beach nourishment is important for a variety of interests- it should be equally important to question how much it hurts local ecosystems and how we can find a way to nourish without destroying. Right now, we haven't scratched the surface of studying something so vital to all of these communities.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-18410468101426638282015-05-29T09:44:00.000-07:002015-05-29T09:48:13.332-07:00Beach Nourishment: The history of building beaches<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every year, my family heads to Florida around this time of year to remind ourselves what sunshine feels like; we started planning a vacation this year around the first week of April when it still wouldn't stop snowing in Northeastern Pennsylvania. A couple weeks ago, we headed to Cape Canaveral, Florida. While I'm at the beach, I have a tendency to pick up on something I'd like to write about on this blog- usually it's a question I have about something I see and can't explain or would like to know more about. Last year, I wrote about food gentrification and the year before that, sea turtles and the propensity for crazy people in Florida to try to ride endangered species (I'm not even going to touch the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/stop-riding-whale-sharks-floridians-331175">new problem with people trying to ride whale shark</a>s. What could possibly be wrong with people?) <br />
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This year, as I built sand castles with my 19-month-old, I started to think about the make-up of the beach. I'm from South Florida and went to Florida State University, so I've been on a lot of beaches in the Southeast. As a regular beach goer, you get a chance to understand something about beautiful beaches: they are a construction project not a natural wonder.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQRvbfIbAZrojSiT0tWjW9_ap5U8AhIed3FuwPhEJn71b8ytBx2EIquN7XrzGEPK2KcSOddYpAulOZeiSf-OMYoAHc3uJmdpHSJNdoItpWy8yXWFMauZONC9X0HKAsYPDNwp0L1HLQOg/s1600/beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQRvbfIbAZrojSiT0tWjW9_ap5U8AhIed3FuwPhEJn71b8ytBx2EIquN7XrzGEPK2KcSOddYpAulOZeiSf-OMYoAHc3uJmdpHSJNdoItpWy8yXWFMauZONC9X0HKAsYPDNwp0L1HLQOg/s1600/beach.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the first image that pops up on my google search of "beach"</td></tr>
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What do I mean by this? It is easy for tourists to take for granted that beaches are a form of "natural" beauty. But if you hang out at the beach long enough, you'll see a set of technologies that don't bring to mind the breezy palm tree filled calendar shots we associate with the shore. Instead, they offer a glimpse of the modern beach as construction site: heavy dredging boats, ugly pipe lines, and unsightly machinery.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwDk12LN-lWLGDpRZv20KE8pryQI8yhjHDMpUTE5bMkqL9YxJHL_-ZhacNoQeiq7IxvRZwKMcKkeiKhRIpJJkClgkyx13pL7-uuKRIYHmG4RU6x1l-zeJrj-DvdXHppa-Ktiy5m7cdYQ/s1600/1409424208006-bre-57wex7v33p4bhvxf9pt-original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtwDk12LN-lWLGDpRZv20KE8pryQI8yhjHDMpUTE5bMkqL9YxJHL_-ZhacNoQeiq7IxvRZwKMcKkeiKhRIpJJkClgkyx13pL7-uuKRIYHmG4RU6x1l-zeJrj-DvdXHppa-Ktiy5m7cdYQ/s320/1409424208006-bre-57wex7v33p4bhvxf9pt-original.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've never seen a beach calendar called "tractors and tans" but it would be a little truer to life.</td></tr>
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The practice of building up shorelines, commonly called beach nourishment, is done to replace eroded sand or to widen shorelines. Erosion of the shoreline occurs continuously- either slowly through day-to-day tidal erosion or more quickly due to large storm surges. While erosion is naturally occurring, man made structures can often disrupt the natural buildup of sand on beaches. For instance, in Cape Canaveral, FL, a jetty was lengthened in 1995 above the port entry in order to stop sand from re entering the dredged channel over time. This helped keep the newly dredged channel clear of sand, allowing cruise ships access to the port and making it easier to maintain water depth in that area. While this solved one problem, it created another. Sand usually flows southward in this region along the shoreline; basically, constant erosion of Northern beaches was replacing sand eroded on Southern beaches. However, the jetty blocked that replacement pattern, denying southerly beaches an estimated <a href="http://www.brevardcounty.us/NaturalResources/Beaches/RestorationProjects">156,000 cubic yards of sand a year</a>. There are several reasons why shrinking beaches are a problem.<br />
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Sand protects shorelines from storm surge. Giving the ocean more shoreline to "chew" on means less damage to coastal ecosytems and property during major storm surges. In addition, it sustains populations of animals who nest in these areas. Sea turtles, crabs, shore birds: all of these animals require a beach on which to build their nests.* And finally, of course, humans like to live and visit the beach. Some studies have shown that beach nourishment has a positive impact on the tourism economy (Klein and Osleeb, <i>Journal of Coastal Research </i>2010) and that oceanfront property values could drop between 17- 34% if nourishment programs were decreased or eliminated (<a href="https://nicholas.duke.edu/news/coastal-values-could-plummet-if-beach-nourishment-subsidies-end">McNamara et al </a><i>PLOS One</i> 2015).<br />
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*there's a caveat about sea turtles here and I'll talk about that in my next blog post about environmental questions about the process- dredging isn't always great for wildlife.<br />
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The first beach nourishment project was the construction and expansion of the shoreline off of Coney Island and Brighton Beach. At the turn of the twentieth century, salt water bathing and visiting the shore became a popular health cure. The combination of sun and sand was thought to cure a variety of diseases arising from the constriction of humans into dank, dark, and polluted urban spaces. As more and more people flocked to cities like New York and Philadelphia, more diseases arose including rickets, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and pellagra. And all of these illnesses were believed to be cured or at least alleviated by exposure to salt and sun. If you want to know more about this history see "They Can't Help Getting Well Here":Seaside Hospitals for Children in the United States, 1872-1917 by Crnic and Connolly in <i>The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth </i>(2009) or Crnic's dissertation from the University of Pennsylvania (2013) <i>Seeking the Salubrious Sea.</i><br />
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The city of New York developed plans to build a bathing beach and pier at the turn of the twentieth century, but it took almost 20 years to work out the legalities of transferring ownership of the beachfront property from private landowners to the city. It was complicated by the fact that many of these landowners were loath to give up their shore front property because they charged beachgoers to sunbath. By October 1921 the city of New York passed legislation allowing them to transfer titles for beachfront property in the same manner that property was acquired for public road projects.<br />
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The shoreline along these areas was sparse and eroding slowly; high tide reached the base of the buildings built along the water. This meant that an enormous amount of sand needed to be relocated to construct both a bathing beach and a pier.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8gj0rX7knTwl4A458SeFNd3bCXmdN_VvlOM6Hcl6QV1knZVktXjiPWGcdVI9lBiMfj5gmK2iPaH9kD0tge17gzfFqsjyKe0mXmvIp6MLAkr9-kUBiVN45ktltDYI6ioK8eYrDSWCCug/s1600/coney+island.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt8gj0rX7knTwl4A458SeFNd3bCXmdN_VvlOM6Hcl6QV1knZVktXjiPWGcdVI9lBiMfj5gmK2iPaH9kD0tge17gzfFqsjyKe0mXmvIp6MLAkr9-kUBiVN45ktltDYI6ioK8eYrDSWCCug/s400/coney+island.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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To secure the beach, 16 groins and jetties were built along the shoreline. This would stop sand from shifting too much. The boardwalk was built 13 feet above traditional high tide. After the boardwalk and support structures were built, the beach fill was brought in. In the image above, you can see the huge amount of sand utilized to create these beaches. In 1923, 1,700,000 Cubic Yards of sand were deposited to create a bathing beach. The new high water mark was extended 330 feet seaward. The sand was pumped from 4 separate borrow areas no more than 3500 feet off the coast. The total cost of the beach improvement was believed to be about $1,900,000 with half of that being spent on the boardwalk. (Dornhelm, R. "The Coney Island Public Beach and Boardwalk Improvement of 1923" <i>Shore and Beach</i> 1995)<br />
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As you can see from the image above, improvement of the beach continued throughout the first half of the twentieth century and maintenance continues today. Fill from borrow areas is required every three to four years to maintain the beachfront.<br />
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While there has been some theorizing that beach fill would eventually lead to a stable shoreline and negligible loss of sand mass on filled beaches (related to depth of closure- something I'll talk about more in my next blog), most beach nourishment projects require continuous upkeep. Brevard County, Florida where Cape Canaveral resides, has an amazing website detailing the history of their beach nourishment programs (They call it beach restoration). It tells the history of those projects from 1995 to the present day and is pretty cool.<br />
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<a href="http://www.brevardcounty.us/NaturalResources/Beaches/RestorationProjects">http://www.brevardcounty.us/NaturalResources/Beaches/RestorationProjects </a><br />
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Most information about beach nourishment projects in the US should be available given that the government subsidizes these projects heavily. Between 65 and 95% of all historical beach nourishment sand volume has been federally subsidized. It was estimated in 1998 that the US Government was spending between 100 and 150 million on beach nourishment (Trembanis et al. "Comparison of Beach Nourishment Along the US Atlantic, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, and New England Shorelines"<i>Coastal Education and Research Foundation</i> 1998)<br />
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Seeing the differences in shorelines is pretty amazing so I've included two below- Cocoa Beach (2001 project) and Miami Beach (1981). While many beaches need nourishing, Florida is where most federal money for nourishment goes. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuQf15-r5cvA2TvxqeinPI6a3fNUwsetEQoXlIb-Q2qNu1wnAndB6rvsEd2ahCHzOK4Rw3nVVsZPBEHGymcGUiAZAMD_Mk7gMrWIVgn4Txe3piyx_WOT6W3dUlyQ02GnuZoQv_BUynXw/s1600/brevard-county-shore-protection-program---north-reach-before-and-afterF28DFBF2866A.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="77" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSuQf15-r5cvA2TvxqeinPI6a3fNUwsetEQoXlIb-Q2qNu1wnAndB6rvsEd2ahCHzOK4Rw3nVVsZPBEHGymcGUiAZAMD_Mk7gMrWIVgn4Txe3piyx_WOT6W3dUlyQ02GnuZoQv_BUynXw/s400/brevard-county-shore-protection-program---north-reach-before-and-afterF28DFBF2866A.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhop2HUmkJ0cDf0v0BqiGO1OzIJeXZZepmnqsQU0tzbJTTOn6kz1VsMqMQK1qad1H0Gxkuav4tziINrnIPlmjH0dApW823aG-e5jmM9U8OwLmQbKZOj2TneTY6O9kdN3cK-z5wiNkBVTHo/s1600/miami.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhop2HUmkJ0cDf0v0BqiGO1OzIJeXZZepmnqsQU0tzbJTTOn6kz1VsMqMQK1qad1H0Gxkuav4tziINrnIPlmjH0dApW823aG-e5jmM9U8OwLmQbKZOj2TneTY6O9kdN3cK-z5wiNkBVTHo/s320/miami.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 1981 nourishment of Miami Beach involved depositing 12 million cubic yards of sand on the shoreline. </td></tr>
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Because of their nourishment projects, South Florida has run out of borrow areas. But that's something for the next blog...<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-16961477606393856042015-03-09T11:38:00.003-07:002015-03-09T11:40:52.618-07:00Manual and Scientific Labor in Marine Novels: Everyday Work on the SeaAbout six years ago, at the very beginning of my dissertation research, someone suggested to me that I read <i>Moby Dick</i>. Similar to<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/opinion/sunday/kamila-shamsie-reading-moby-dick-antarctica.html"> Kamila Shamsie's</a> recent story in the New York Times, I resisted this suggestion believing that a narrative about men, obsession, and whales had little to do with my research and even less to do with my life. I did try to pick it up, but it wasn't until I downloaded it on the Kindle that I was able to make it all the way through. I think the Kindle tricked my mind into believing the book was shorter than it is. Whatever the reason for my new found ability to make it through, I ended up really liking (and slightly loving) the book. However, I wasn't really convinced that I knew what to do with it. So I sat on the story and felt happy when I saw pop culture references to it (Scully's dog is named Queequeg in the X-Files).<br />
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Then, I ran across Margaret Cohen's <i>The Novel and the Sea</i>. Cohen is a literature professor at Stanford University and her specialty is the study of the Novel. The study of the novel is not merely the study of books, but the special narrative form of the novel, a genre characterized by the description of everyday events. Sometimes included under this umbrella is the Romance- a narrative that describes uncommon and marvelous events (<i>Moby Dick </i>is often included in this genre). I'm not a specialist in Novel studies and I'm grossly oversimplifying the field, but I picked up Cohen's book because her argument is this: literary theorists have often noted that the novel is characterized by a lack of labor in the narrative but the marine novel is different. That is, the genre of the novel was developed to be read by a certain class of people for leisure purposes. Rich people read novels. Even though the form of the novel is something that is believable, that doesn't suggest that it was everyday life for everyone. Everyday life for rich people wasn't a life of labor but of leisure. The novel wasn't about labor. But Cohen suggests that this is different in the marine narrative. In the marine narrative, labor, the very act of knowing and surviving on the sea, takes center stage regardless of the class of the characters presented. In some ways, the suggestion is that you can't write about the sea and write about leisure only- labor is the default way of learning the marine environment.<br />
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Cohen uses a lot of examples, including <i>Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, </i>and <i>Toilers of the Sea </i>(among many others). As I read Cohen's work and her arguments about labor, I admit that I was a bit lost- not because it isn't a great book but because I wanted to actually read the books from which she drew her examples. So I did. I read all of these books in the last couple years and I've been thinking about them in relation to labor. And something interesting happened when I read these books myself- I began to wonder, not just if the marine novel was special because it contained labor, but because of the <i>types </i>of labor they described.<br />
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While reading the books, I noticed two types of labor descriptions involved in working on the sea: physical labor or the labor of working on a ship and mental labor or the work required to know the ocean and its inhabitants. <br />
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<b>Physical Labor:</b><br />
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The physical labor described in these books is the work required to keep a person alive and a ship afloat for any length of time. In all of these narratives, the reader is not just offered glimpses of what this takes, but is given an in depth lesson on seafaring. In <i>Moby Dick</i>, we are offered images of what it is like to ship out from Massachusetts, to bunk with strange bedfellows and stand watch on deck.Ishmael gives an in-depth portrait of the physical labor required to hunt whales, break them down, and drag them to port. Both Melville and Hugo outline the etiquette of speaking with other ships, and getting information and mail while at sea. Even a romance like Verne's <i>Twenty Thousand Leagues</i> identifies boring, everyday requirements of seafaring in the <i>Nautilus</i>- finding food, burying the dead, and surfacing for air. Hugo's <i>Toilers of the Sea</i> introduces the reader to the inner workings of steam ships, navigating around the Channel Islands, the names and ways of navigation of every reef formation in the area, and a large amount of information on ropes and knots.<br />
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In addition to the everyday, the romantic portion of these novels, the uncommon, involves extreme physical labor. In <i>Robinson Crusoe, </i>Crusoe describes the physical labor required in salvaging from wreckage, building a homestead, raising goats and crops, and generally surviving alone on an island for forth years. In <i>Toilers on the Sea</i>, the protagonist Galliat also salvages from a steam boat and each backbreaking step, from building a makeshift forge to sleeping in rock crevices and scavenging for crabs on the rocks is recounted for the reader.<br />
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This type of labor seems to be the one on which Cohen focuses. She suggests that this labor is telling because it signifies the way that a form of knowing the sea through physical labor. The authors show their understanding of the marine environment by recounting how amazing their characters are at working on and in the water. All the protagonists are great navigators, they know the water and its peccadilloes because they are experienced workers in that environment. Through physical labor one becomes an expert at marine survival. When you read these works, you see this form of the narrative and Cohen's work really resonates. But I couldn't help but think of another kind of labor that I saw in these narratives and that was mental labor.<br />
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<b>Scientific Labor/Mental Labor:</b><br />
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In one of the most famous chapters of <i>Moby Dick</i>, the reader is introduced to a taxonomy of cetaceans. Really the chapter is just a laundry list of whale names and the reader (at least this reader) is a bit baffled- why include this in a book about hunting a whale? Amidst an adventure narrative, characterized by physical toil, we encounter this seemingly sterile way of knowing the ocean- by naming. In <i>Moby Dick</i>, I might have thought this was indicative more of Melville than the marine novel, but I saw a similar way of knowing in Verne and Hugo. In <i>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea</i>, the narrarator spends a large chunk of the chapters describing the species seen from the windows of diving suits or the Nautilus. In lieu of toiling for survival, as the crew is obviously doing everyday, the prisoners on the Nautilus perform another form of labor- that of naming the ocean creatures and observing their habits. Even in the physical act of wearing heavy gear to walk under water, we are granted a lesson on the newest marine technologies:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own countrymen, which I have brought to perfection for my own use, and which will allow you to risk yourself under these new physiological conditions without any organ whatever suffering. It consists of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the air under a pressure of fifty atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on the back by means of braces, like a soldier's knapsack. Its upper part forms a box in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and therefore cannot escape unless at its normal tension. In the Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two india rubber pipes leave this box and join a sort of tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce fresh air, the other to let out the foul, and the tongue closes one or the other according to the wants of the respirator. But I, in encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to shut my head, like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is to this ball of copper that the two pipes, the inspirator and the expirator, open."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Perfectly, Captain Nemo; but the air that you carry with you must soon be used; when it only contains fifteen per cent. of oxygen it is no longer fit to breathe."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus allow me to store the air under considerable pressure, and on those conditions the reservoir of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I have no further objections to make," I answered. "I will only ask you one thing, Captain--how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?" "With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax; one is carried on the back, the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a Bunsen pile, which I do not work with bichromate of potash, but with sodium. A wire is introduced which collects the electricity produced, and directs it towards a particularly made lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a small quantity of carbonic gas. When the apparatus is at work this gas becomes luminous, giving out a white and continuous light. Thus provided, I can breathe and I can see." "Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers that I dare no longer doubt."</span><br />
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This type of information- the scientific and technological details of marine science are integral to the marine novel narratives. </div>
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I'm pointing this out because these two types of labor (ways of knowing), physical and mental labor, seem intertwined in these narratives. Our protagonists survive because they physically and mentally know the sea. While the inclusion of physical labor may be revolutionary in the sense that it introduces the wealthier reader to the brute physicality required of sea life, the understanding that mariners must have both this physical knowledge and an academic understanding of the environment is equally as interesting. These physical laborers are also thinking beings- they not only know the ocean physically, but they know it and name it and construct the ocean with both physical and mental labor. But what does this mean and what might it tell us about the nature of oceangoing and our image of the ocean? <br />
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One of the interesting things about this intertwining, braiding, knotting of ways of knowing to me is that is is possible in all classes of workers on the ocean. While we might be tempted to think of Gilliat (Hugo's unemployed (?) protagonist) as being the ultimate in physical laborers and someone like Professor Pierre Aronnax (Verne's marine biologist) as the ultimate in mental laborers, the truth is that most of the characters in these novels utilize both ways of knowing the sea.<br />
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Gilliat is a perfect example: he performs great acts of physical labor to strip the engines of a wrecked steamer and these acts are described in extreme detail in the novel. Gilliat becomes weathered by the ocean- it strips him of clothing, weight, and water and leaves behind a desiccated husk; he is the closest thing to a merman one might imagine- a reluctant Tritan. But this physical labor is married with a mental labor of knowing the submarine environment. Gilliat describes not just the things he needs to know to physically survive in the moment, but all the things he knows about the sea in general- the seasons, waves, different spaces on a ship, different types of knots and sails. Half the book is a lesson in types of ships (the other half a tirade on Hugo's hatred of Catholicism but that's a different blog post on ways of knowing). In one particular chapter, Gilliat comes across a particularly disturbing creature- a "devil fish". This organism (The Monster) is described first in comparison to other land animals, and then the author goes into detail about how it is shaped, how it hunts, and then finally its scientific categorization.<br />
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This definition, which goes on for an entire chapter, intertwines ways of knowing and identifying the organism- folk understandings from mariners and academic understandings from zoologists. But it is done seamlessly so that the reader believes that Gilliat knows these things because he knows the ocean.<br />
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These marine narratives make me think of Anne Secord's work on <i>Science in the Pub</i>. Secord's <a href="http://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PHS171/%CE%9A%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BC%CE%B5%CE%BD%CE%BF%20%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1%2019.03/Secord-A_Science%20in%20the%20Pub,%20Hist.%20Sci.,%20xxxii%20(1994).pdf">work</a> suggests that not only did a wide variety of classes participate in science, but they did so because it meant something important to their everyday lives. In her study, artisans participated in the scientific practice of finding and naming new botanical species because the practice was meaningful in their culture. Horticulture, herbalism, and floriculture were part of the everyday life of artisans in the English countryside. Far from only being an academic pursuit, the ability to identify, find, and cultivate a variety of botanical species could mean extra money or even health to these individuals. While many individuals cared about this knowledge, scientific naming offered a common ground on which to build commonalities with other people of like mind. The very act of naming and acknowledging formed groups.<br />
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As I was reading these marine novels, I kept coming back to Second and thinking about her artisan botanists, sitting in a pub passing specimens around a group and naming. These artisans formed part of the scientific process, but they are unnamed and unacknowledged. That is, their contributions to scientific knowledge isn't particularly well understood. But also, the importance of scientific understandings to their everyday lives is also not well understood. What does the scientific naming of these plants mean to them? Secord explores both of these lines of inquiry and the paper (linked above) is worth a first, second, or third read.<br />
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We can apply these ideas to the marine world and just think about it- Yes, the physical labor of being on the water is important, but it appears that the scientific understanding of that environment is equally as important. There have been far more sailors than scientists on the water. Their knowledge of the environment has contributed much to scientific understandings of that vastness; but their scientific understandings might also have contributed to their survival in that environment. Marine novelists seem to recognize this by intertwining the physical and mental into a seamless narrative about the sea. While it might initially seem as if the scientific language is thrown in to appeal to the possible audience of novels (middle to upper classes), we can also read it through the lens of Secord's work to see that it is an important way of knowing the sea for anyone who works on it. It is part of the everyday life of sailors, this knowing and naming.<br />
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This doesn't mean that all mental labor on the ocean is scientific naming- we need not only point to Linnean taxonomy to suggest that scientific work is happening. Gilliat's (Hugo's) knowledge of the Sea Devil is half scientifically informed and half folk epistemology. And of course, I'm reading the author's knowledge as the character's knowledge. So I'm welcome to suggestions of how wrong this might be.<br />
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However, what I'd like to emphasize is that it seems, as I read more in this genre, that knowing the sea requires physical and scientific knowledge. Of course, we can say this about everything in life, but it is important to me that the marine space and novels about it are where this is laid bare for the reader. And it might be more important to ask why a narrative about this space can do that (since Cohen suggests that this is rare and special).<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-27563270320418228732014-12-20T06:45:00.000-08:002014-12-20T06:45:03.946-08:00Isinglass: The history of a useful but invisible marine productRecently, the "Food Babe" (real name: Vani Hari) has called attention to the fact that alcoholic beverages (beer and wine) do not adhere to the same labeling requirements as other foods in the US. Many of the ingredients and flavors, as well as the process of brewing alcohol, is considered proprietary information for companies- they do not have to disclose these to the<a href="http://www.beverageresources.com/faq/index.php#faq4"> public under current law</a>. In Hari's <a href="http://foodbabe.com/2014/06/17/not-so-fast-beer-companies-why-arent-you-disclosing-these-additives/">opinion</a>, alcohol companies should post their ingredients for purposes of exposing possible allergens, health concerns of consumers, and personal dietary restrictions (such as vegan and vegetarianism) . Her biggest issue seems to be with two specific things. One is an ingredient and the other is a product utilized in alcohol fining/clarification: corn syrup and isinglass.<br />
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The issue of corn syrup is not of particular interest to me, but isinglass is something I have run across in my research and my historian ears always perk up when something I previously thought of only in a historical context enters current conversations.<br />
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Isinglass, a term that probably comes from the Dutch word <i>huisenblas </i>or German <i>hausenblase </i>(meaning sturgeon bladder) is a gelatin product made from fish swim bladders (often known as 'sounds'). The fish swim bladder allows fish to control their buoyancy.<br />
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In 1908, George White of the US Bureau of Fisheries described the process for making gelatin from the collagen contained in swim bladders. The collagen of the trachea of a mammal generally requires heating to 100 degrees Celsius to transform into gelatin and the ear collagen requires heating to 110 degrees. Fish swim bladders convert to gelatin at room temperature.The sound contains a thin outer layer and a thicker layer which contains most of the collagen. The swim bladder is removed and the thicker layer is separated from the thin layer. Then the thick layer is pressed and folded into books or 'leafs'. The majority of production should be done during winter months, due to the nature of the sounds: heat liquefies and putrefies the organs pretty quickly. Check out the images below to see the process of turning hake swim bladders into strips of isinglass.<br />
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I first encountered isinglass when I was researching at the <a href="http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_621">Smithsonian Institutio</a>n in the records for the <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/19th-may-1883/11/the-international-fisheries-exhibition">International Fisheries Expositions</a>. Similar to World's Fairs, these Expositions were divided by countries. Each country sent people and objects to an exposition in order to introduce their fishing culture to the wider world. More importantly, they sent a variety of products in order to interest merchants in trading in their particular goods. For example, records show that America sent fishing boats and nets, harpoons, stuffed fishes and mammals, furs from seal rookeries, and jewelry and household objects made from aquatic resources. Tiffany & Co. sent pearl jewelry and a variety of bejeweled shells and corals.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqL7h7wLME5YTc2yLLjHPbe-e4aNjiYGTpsLdM0jTZks3hd9mlb1zShmGqTGzZo19GB1A79lwx5U-xgVbsveHG1CUJke3bhSwnIwmNJ53QPyc0TfQxz2aXswBrX_Ht7DyRQxCG979_24/s1600/http---sirismm.si.edu-siahistory-imagedb-2002-11551.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqL7h7wLME5YTc2yLLjHPbe-e4aNjiYGTpsLdM0jTZks3hd9mlb1zShmGqTGzZo19GB1A79lwx5U-xgVbsveHG1CUJke3bhSwnIwmNJ53QPyc0TfQxz2aXswBrX_Ht7DyRQxCG979_24/s1600/http---sirismm.si.edu-siahistory-imagedb-2002-11551.jpg" height="318" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the Fishing Exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, but it closely resembles the objects and arrangements at Fisheries Expositions during this period. </td></tr>
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In addition to all of these objects, the biggest displays often revolved around industrial products. America sent tons of canned and dried fish, prepared and preserved in the newest fashions for the widest audience. And, they sent isinglass.<br />
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When I entered the archives in Washington, D.C., I kept running across the word isinglass. I had no clue what the heck it was, but I knew that the US sent isinglass to the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jxT0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=Berlin+fishing+exposition&source=bl&ots=DGbppJ7JY1&sig=Oj-_pmVWL-znfmi6KdKF2d7hAqw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=stqUVIKZIo-cygSct4CgAw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Berlin%20fishing%20exposition&f=false">Berlin Fishery Exposition</a> in 1880. Quality isinglass could be used for a variety of purposes, including as a fining agent, glue or cement, and for food (think jello but with a slightly fishy flavor). The best isinglass was made from sturgeon sounds in Russia and could be used for envelope and stamp glue, as a fining agent, or as a food. The cheapest, often made from fish species with less natural collagen in their sounds, was used for glue or heated and mixed with other products to form a rough cement.<br />
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The isinglass America sent to Berlin was probably made from hake, although by the early 20th century the US Fish Commission began pushing for the use of tile fish for public consumption- including in isinglass production (a whole other blog). As cod and hake stocks fell in the Atlantic, tilefish began to become more prevalent. In 1908, the USBF tested tilefish sounds in the production of isinglass and found that their collagen levels were as good or better than hake for isinglass production. While it might have been the case that they could have taken the place of hake in production, America eventually stopped producing most of its isinglass and imported most of it from other countries. While we might have been proud of our isinglass production, America was never a large producer of the substance:<br />
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Russia was the largest producer of isinglass at the turn of the 20th century. Sturgeon sounds were considered the best swim bladder to produce isinglass- don't forget that sturgeon also produces caviar. So you might see why sturgeon are so endangered these days- producers of two very large Russia exports. Iceland also produced isinglass with cod sounds.<br />
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Isinglass was used for a variety of purposes throughout the 19th century, including envelope and stamp glue and even as a source of edible gelatin. However, by the first decade of the 20th century, isinglass was mainly used to make glues, cements, and as a clarifying/fining agent for beer and wine.<br />
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<a href="http://byo.com/grains/item/643-fining-agents-tips-from-the-pros">Fining agents</a> are substances used in alcohol making to produce a clearer liquid at the end of fermentation. Yeast and other particulates from the brewing process lead to an opaque liquid. If you wait long enough, the particulates will eventually settle, but brewers often utilize a variety of fining agents to clarify their liquids. Isinglass is one and another popular one is Irish Moss.<br />
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Irish Moss is negatively charged and binds to positively charged proteins in the beer mixture before it has been completely fermented. After beer and wine is finished fermenting, a fining such as isinglass is used: it is negatively changed and binds with positively charged yeast. Basically, both of these fining agents allow particulates to clump together and form large, heavy pieces that sink to the bottom of the fermenting vessel so that the liquid can be easily strained. Using this <a href="http://tempestinatankard.com/2013/11/21/of-isinglass-and-other-fine-additives-or-is-that-a-fish-bladder-i-spy-in-my-beer/">fining agents</a> results in a clearer liquid.<br />
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The Food Babe is concerned that little work has been done to show if any isinglass material remains in the alcohol after the fining process. While little work has been done, E. Denis Baxter et al. state in their paper "Analysis of Isinglass Residues in Beer" in <i>The Journal of the Institute of Brewing </i>in 2007 that<br />
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The results of the study reported here confirm that the</div>
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concentration of residues remaining in beers fined with</div>
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isinglass is indeed very low. For many bottled and canned</div>
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beers, levels of isinglass are below the limit of quantification.</div>
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Slightly higher concentrations may be found in beers</div>
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in large containers such as kegs and casks, but even here</div>
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the maximum concentrations would be likely to remain</div>
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below 5 mg/litre. There is no evidence of significant stratification</div>
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of isinglass residues in the marketable beer in</div>
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such bulk containers.(134)</div>
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Obviously, many vegetarians and vegans are concerned that any animal products have been used in their food production, so the lack of isinglass in the finished product is meaningless if this is your concern. However, if your concern is allergic reaction to fish, suffice is to say that it would be very difficult to react to such a trace amount in the finished product. </div>
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I have no side in the fight about beer labeling. Instead, I'm interested in the near invisibility of certain marine products in seemingly non-marine foods and products. Similar to the widespread use of seaweed in food products, isinglass is an important in the alcohol production process, yet many people know nothing about it. When we think of fishing, and harvesting from the ocean, we imagine fish and shellfish- whole organisms destined for human consumption in a restaurant. It isn't until we really understand how integral invisible marine products are to our daily lives that we can understand the impact that we have on the ocean. And in turn, the impact of our destruction of the marine ecosystem will have on the way we currently live. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-5260217632764066362014-08-01T11:37:00.002-07:002014-08-01T11:37:26.783-07:00Mermaid visions: the sexual politics of women and waterI have been thinking about a creature this summer: the mermaid. I've been spending a lot of time ruminating about this subject and it seems as if every time I have a handle on the nature of this cultural icon, I am presented with another story to analyze. There are so many sides to the mermaid that it is a slippery creature to study.<br />
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I picked up on the subject of the mermaid from Seanan McGuire's short story entitled "Each to Each" in the recently published "<a href="http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/special-issues/women-destroy-sf/table-of-contents/">Women Destroy Science Fiction</a>" special edition of the journal <i>Lightspeed </i>(Issue 49. June 2014- you should go read it now because it is that good). McGuire's narrative follows a female sailor in the US Navy, genetically and surgically enhanced with gills to explore and patrol America's national boundaries. Her story takes place in a not-too-distant future in which humans have abandoned our hope/dream of mining and colonizing distant planets and turned our attention to exploring and utilizing deep sea resources. Women, she suggests, were found to be better at working in the tight confines of deep sea submersibles (a hat tip to the breakdown of a gender barrier in the Navy: the ban on female sailors serving on submarines was lifted in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2620232/Sailing-history-books-Navys-women-submariners-Trio-complete-months-training-earn-Dolphins.html">2011</a> in England and<a href="http://www.navytimes.com/article/20120618/NEWS/206180310/Women-say-they-re-fitting-submarines"> 2012</a> in the US; Female officers currently serve on 14 USNavy submarine crews. The USNavy will begin integrating enlisted women in <a href="http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140723/NEWS/307230055/Enlisted-women-serve-attack-submarines-after-2020">2016</a> with the hope that by 2020, 20% of submarine crews will be female). It was merely a step, the narrator states, to the creation of all-female crews. From there, the idea to keep the crews and ditch the boats lead to modifications and the navy mermaids (or mods) were created. </div>
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McGuire's story is amazing, more so because it packs so many thought provoking elements into only a few pages. The narrator (who is in the process of conversion from dry sailor to mermaid) explains that the modified sailors serve two purposes for the Navy: they function as a tool to explore and patrol- they are sailors who value their duty. However, the Navy has also used them as symbols: both the future of exploration and national expansion and also as sex symbols. The mermaid modifications are made, not only with duty and work in mind, but also public perception: "mods" include not just gills, scales, and specialized eyes, but also breast implants and other cosmetic surgery meant to enhance the gendered profile of the mod (without the permission of the sailor). </div>
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The mods ultimately find this sexualized and demeaning aspect of their job oppressing. In addition, the more modified they become, the less time they can spend on land, creating a desire to transition fully to an aquatic existence. At the end of the piece, the reader is left with a vision of mermaid mods "going native": a splinter group of militant mermaids recruits the Navy sailors to join them in living fully in the sea, away from national and sexualized concerns. </div>
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What McGuire offers is a well-rounded examination of the traditional mermaid myth and its inherent complications. The mermaid is both feminized and bestial; she is both a sexual symbol for male sailors and a princess character for young girls, and also a vision of the evil and bestial nature of women. It is these opposing images that I would like to look at in this blogpost.<br />
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While there are mermen, it appears that this image has less weight and gender implications about the public perception of humans and the sea. A quick Google search shows no hits for "Jacques Cousteau merman." Michael Phelps has been photoshopped into a merman by Disney but I can't find any passing references to him swimming like a merman- even the <a href="http://www.ryanseacrest.com/2012/07/18/michael-phelps-is-a-merman-in-disney-dream-ad-photos/#/">copy</a> for the Disney promotion says he is "part fish" not a merman, per se. </div>
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This is different from the idea of women who explore and swim. They are commonly referred to <i>as </i>'mermaids': A<a href="http://www.isaachernandez.com/women-i-love-sylvia-earle/"> blog post</a> about Sylvia Earle states, " Dr. Sylvia Earle is a mermaid. She became one when she was pushed down by a wave at the age of three." Female athletes such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Kellerman">Annette Kellerman</a> and Diana <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElevenMermaidsWalk/posts/571171332943084">Nyad </a>are referred to<i> as</i> mermaids. Little girls want to be like Ariel from <i>The Little Mermaid</i> and books utilizing mermaids as strong figures for girls are still being written (<i>The Mermaid and the Shoe</i>- 2014). </div>
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What this suggests to me is that a man who is aquatic or close to the sea might be associated with fish and maybe they swim "like a fish" but a female who is close to the ocean, who immerses themselves in this environment <i>becomes</i> something other than a human female in our minds: she is a mermaid. This need not have completely negative connotations, but it is something that can be explored because it points to ideas about women in nature and the dual roles of both earth goddess and beast that have plagued this relationship throughout time. </div>
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<b>Behind the shells: the strange case of the mermaid bra</b></div>
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One of the most interesting aspects of McGuire's piece is her focus on the politics of breasts for "mods". McGuire picks up on one of the most important aspects of the mermaid: her chest. </div>
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<a href="http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/content/29/1_106/3.abstract">Historians</a> of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Platypus-Mermaid-Classifying-Imagination/dp/0674673581/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406912605&sr=8-1&keywords=the+platypus+and+the+mermaid">science</a> have talked about mermaids as <i>interspecies</i>: organisms or creatures that defy taxonomical categorization. Interspecies fall outside of conventional categories- human or fish- but because of our desire to categorize and order, we continuously seek to find a place for them. The mermaid is a difficult case (as is the merman) because, to put it bluntly, we aren't ever really offered an idea of how they reproduce. King Triton (Neptune, or any other name you want to call the king of the sea) has a billion daughters but we never meet a mother. How the heck does that happen? </div>
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It would be much easier for us to place the mermaid into a category if we knew a bit more about their bits. Do they lay eggs and then fertilize them outside of the body (closer to fish) or do they internally fertilize, and if internal fertilization, are they oviparous (egg layers) or viviparous (live birth)? Without this knowledge, we are forced to look at other telling features of the mermaid to classify her.</div>
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The telling characteristic of every mermaid depiction, from the youngest to the oldest, is the shell bra and this might tell us something about where she can be put in taxonomical categories. Breasts are extremely important when we think about what type of animal something is. Mammary glands equal breast milk and mammals. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2166840?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104430893137">Londa Schiebinger</a> has shown that the delineation of the category 'mammal' is intrinsically linked with the social and cultural history of the breast. Mammals feed their young with their breasts, so if you have breasts, you are probably a mammal. The breasts are so important because they are, in this case, a marker that tells the viewer that the mermaid is probably a mammal and closer to a human female than a fish. Interestingly, the merman has less of an identification, although they are often depicted as heavily muscled and therefore "masculine". However, muscles are much less a symbol of mammals and humanity than the breast and we are left feeling that mermen may be slightly fishy. Because of her obvious mammalian possession of breasts, the mermaid is marked fair game for the male gaze: you aren't lusting after a fish, but something almost human. </div>
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The breasts of the mermaid are intricately intertwined with her identity and the categorization of her as an organism close to human females. The sign of a mermaid is the upper body of a human female and sightings and reports of mermaids throughout history have called attention to breasts. The famous Feejee mermaid of 1854 was drawn with noticeable human breasts and <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=u_F7IWGHxNwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=sailors+superstitions&ots=J-0oEP-_gj&sig=8t7LkmrnP1NGqSSgf0hKfBRjKBc#v=onepage&q=breast&f=false">Dr. R. Hamilton</a> described a mermaid he had seen as having "protuberant breasts like a human woman" and had "breasts that were as large as those of a woman."</div>
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A drawing of the original Feejee mermaid- note the breast material on the chest area.</div>
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McGuire is right to call attention to the role of breasts in allowing the objectification of this mythical creature by human males. It is through the recognition that mermaids are close to humans, marked by their possession of mammalian characteristics, that make it possible to see them as sex symbols.</div>
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<b>Beautiful and Bestial</b></div>
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Cultural visions of the mermaid suggest that she is both beautiful and bestial: an organism that is closer to nature and animal than human, but can be made into a proper mate for a human male. The mermaid desires closeness with humanity, especially human males, but is inextricably linked to the sea. However, she is also physically malleable and able to be contained and changed. </div>
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Splash- Daryl Hannah as a mermaid. (1984)</div>
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Lady Gaga as a mermaid- You and I (2011) </div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Nature-Scientific-Revolution/dp/0062505955/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406915365&sr=8-1&keywords=women+scientific+revolution">Carolyn Merchan</a>t has written extensively on the understanding of women as bestial and the cultural and social perception that this closeness to nature means they need to be trained or domesticated. <a href="http://www.jeankilbourne.com/videos/">Jean Kilbourne</a> has shown how minority women are often portrayed in the media as <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XWL8QVcSlO4C&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=black+women+beast+exoticism&source=bl&ots=y6BWHaHYqY&sig=pBdN5UZsovV3fi7eqVG4waf599U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_NPbU_2qFYWuyATD4IH4DA&ved=0CHgQ6AEwDQ#v=onepage&q=black%20women%20beast%20exoticism&f=false">exotic beast</a>s of prey closer to nature than civilization. The mermaid also contributes to this concept of women as bestial, but in an interesting way: it allows women to be closer to nature without being overly scary. Many mermaid figures are portrayed as delicate, beautiful, and exotic without the mammalian land characteristics that might make them unattractive to human males. Instead, they have all the characteristics of the creatures men prefer to keep in their aquariums. Captivity suits the mermaid in a way it might not the tigress. </div>
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There is, of course, a scary side to mermaids. They were feared by sailors and other fishing communities. They have, in recent years, been shown as monsters. Joss Whedon used the merman as a particularly unattractive monster in his hit <i>Cabin in the Woods</i> (2012), although we never see the female counterpart we can imagine it is similar but, of course, has breasts almost as large as a human woman's. On the Canadian paranormal drama <i>Lost Girl</i> (Waves 4:10, 2014) mermaids are vicious creatures that bite off peoples' legs and use them to walk on land themselves. Interestingly, the television show <i>Grimm </i>(One Night Stand 3:4, 2013)<i> </i>depicts the entire mermaid culture and also seeks to answer the age old reproduction question by offering a new twist on the old tail/tale: mermen are sterile and mermaids must mate with human men to reproduce. This makes mermen extra vicious but it maintains the image of the traditional mermaid as a supplicant to human males and their virility. </div>
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Joss Whedon's merman from <i>Cabin in the Woods</i></div>
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However, the mermaid does not always stay on land. Even though the male gaze creates this creature, gives her an acceptable mammalian form and also requires her captivity and servitude, she (or the image of the mermaid) escapes this captive existence and stays wild. Daryl Hannah returns to the ocean and takes Tom Hanks with her- the wild female is worth turning wild. Lady Gaga's mermaid appears to have struck out alone instead of cleaving so closely to her capture/doctor/lover. Aquamarine becomes a symbol of freedom and growing up (okay, I won't go too far with the Aquamarine here because Disney hasn't really progressed that far in proving that mermaids can be feminist figures. But they are working on it?). In McGuire's piece the mermaid is literally created and sculpted by doctors (similar to Gaga mermaid) but she is anything but powerless. She is inadvertently given the tools needed to slip out of the net of sexuality and need meant to ensnare her for life. Her link with the ocean overcomes her link with humanity. </div>
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Aquamarine (2008)</div>
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The mermaid is a complicated figure: she represents an image of women as bestial creatures that can be manipulated and controlled by men. The very taxonomical features that identify the mermaid are those that mark her as a beautiful possession. However, the creature is also a symbol of freedom and adventure that seems to resonate with young women- the ability to get beyond a simple understanding of oneself as weighed down by the sexual conventions of humanity- to be weightless and free and to swim beyond imposed male conventions of beauty and duty. </div>
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It is this duality that has kept me thinking about this mythical creature all summer. I've been living a life dedicated to unpacking this creature and I'm not closer to doing so. What does one make of a creature that is both terrifyingly subservient to prurient alpha male notions of femininity and also a vehicle for women to enact fantasies of escape and empowerment beyond the masculine gaze? Only for me that it is a subject that requires more exploration because the image of the mermaid continues to be a powerful symbol of femininity in our culture. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-34795251680171759622014-05-02T08:09:00.001-07:002014-05-02T08:09:05.398-07:00#foodgentrification: seafood, class, and cultureI have been absent from this blog for <strike>candycrush</strike> a good reason; I've been using my time wisely to finish my dissertation. I have, as of today, deposited it, so I'm back. I started writing this blog about a month ago, so forgive the ridiculously old references!<br />
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Last year, I wrote a<a href="http://throughaquariumglass.blogspot.com/2013/03/loving-fish-to-death-dwindling-stocks.html"> blog</a> about consumers' preoccupation with certain fish species. Species such as tuna, salmon, cod, and Chilean sea bass are coveted by people seeking "super foods" or the next popular and exotic item on the menu- but these species are also some of the most endangered. I ended that post by asking how educators and officials might work to emphasize the value of local, more abundant, but less coveted, fish species (this list would be different for every region).<br />
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I'd like to revisit my suggestion about raising awareness of locally abundant but less coveted species. I'm coming from two places with this blog: the place of class in fish consumption and how the elevation of local species might hurt traditional food cultures.<br />
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<strike>Last week</strike> About a month and a half ago, John Stewart and The Daily Show expressed outrage and indignation that media outlets considered the purchase of seafood, and particularly 'organic salmon' and 'crab legs,' too luxurious for people receiving public assistance (see the video below). I don't include this video for political purposes- make of Stewart's rant what you will- but instead, I found it interesting because it is neither new nor should it be surprising that seafood, and particularly certain forms of seafood, are culturally linked with luxury and class status. The more dear the product, for logistical or environmental reasons, the more luxurious.<br />
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<b><a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/">The Daily Show</a></b><br />Get More: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/indecision">Indecision Political Humor</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></div>
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Class is an interesting concept to talk about when discussing the consumption of fish and other sea products. Cultures and societies that have grown up around the water have traditionally developed their protein consumption habits around water-sourced foods. Because of the delicate and perishable nature of seafood, cultures of consumption were not necessarily high class. Yes, the wealthy got the first pick of the day's catch at its freshest- paying full price for the choicest products. But the leftovers did not go to waste. If a fishmonger wanted to unload the day's catch, he or she marked down the catch throughout the day, allowing the consumption of fish by every social class, not just the rich. Of course, buying fish is not the only way to get it; if you live near the water, chances are you can catch enough seafood to supplement your diet or for subsistence. In these two ways, all classes of people in watery regions have developed ways of eating local seafood. While preparations differ, the entire community relied on that source of protein.<br />
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But, this changed. How, you ask, did this change? Refrigeration.<br />
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With the rise of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Perishable-History-Susanne-Freidberg-ebook/dp/B003UD7QKG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399038045&sr=1-1&keywords=fresh+refrigeration">refrigeration</a>, highly perishable seafood that previously could only be enjoyed close to its source, could be shipped further and further inland. It was still expensive, and the more perishable the product (cold water ocean fish being the first to spoil) the more status from eating it. With refrigeration, what was once a local staple became big business and most lower classes near the water were priced out of this protein source. The more in-demand the "fancy" fish became to upper class people inland, the more the lower classes near the shore were forced to make due with "trash" fish or by-catch that people inland were uninterested in consuming.<br />
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**This doesn't mean that poor people on the shore will eat just anything- food is always tied to culture and class. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/world/europe/in-france-a-quest-to-convert-a-sea-snail-plague-into-a-culinary-pleasure.html?hp&_r=0">crepidule</a> (Atlantic slipper snail) is an invasive species threatening crops of oysters and mussels in France's Mont Saint-Michel Bay. The snail is apparently pretty tasty and super abundant but because of social perceptions of the snail as "a parasite," locals won't touch it. Instead, entrepreneurs in the area are trying to rebrand the snail as a delicacy in high-end Parisian restaurants- a bit of a reverse of the above process.**<br />
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This is basically where we are today. People both inland and on the shore who can afford to, purchase the most coveted and freshest sea food. The Lower classes' seafood diet is relegated to species that these higher classes deem inedible or unworthy. And even though innovations such as fish farming and flash freezing have rendered this layering of seafood consumption plastic, uncoupling species from the geographical area from which they come allowing poor and lower middle class people to consume more fish, the cultural perception of certain seafood as being "upper class" or even too good for lower class consumption persists. Even if a form of seafood is affordable to the lower classes (perhaps a sale before it goes bad- the traditional way that the lower classes have partaken of the most coveted products), it is still seen as consuming outside of their class boundaries.<br />
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But there is another part of this story. I started this post by pointing to a previous entry where I urged people to consider consuming the less-coveted fishes instead of the most highly coveted. The price of the most in demand has risen even higher recently as those fish stocks are destroyed by over consumption. I asked, why can't we start a campaign to get more people to eat catfish instead of salmon? Sounds good, right? But I'm rethinking my proposed plan after a recent twitter/blog conversation about "food gentrification."<br />
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The term "<a href="http://thegrio.com/2014/01/20/breaking-black-1-in-5-children-face-food-insecurity/">food gentrification</a>" was coined in January of this year by Mikki Kendall, a blogger who writes about black feminist issues. Kendall points to a recent trend of upper class white consumers co opting or adopting traditionally lower class staples as the new "it" food. <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/foodgentrification-and-culinary-rebranding-of-traditional-foods">Soleil Ho</a> at <i>Bitch Magazine</i> picked up Kendall's commentary and applied it to Whole Foods' new "Collards are the new Kale" campaign. Collard greens are a traditional poor Southern black food- a product deemed undesirable by upper classes that is a good source of fiber, protein, and vitamins for the lower classes. According to Ho's <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-cost-of-kale-how-foodie-trends-can-hurt-low-income-families">followup post</a>, the cost of this gentrification is exactly what Kendall hypothesizes- lower class families become priced out of their traditional food stuffs due to competition for higher class consumption.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKhnx14r_9rDV9CjjEfBCZ9IxN7qbA7u6ImeZDadTDU62-04W3_cdW8rJONuYqihCCeQk_Rj5TvuSm8xmPOFSLkb4aO3VLqv922IlKBHjtAlOW89jGAddIw8fSCjwvPohGoui1mEDCZ3g/s1600/kale.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKhnx14r_9rDV9CjjEfBCZ9IxN7qbA7u6ImeZDadTDU62-04W3_cdW8rJONuYqihCCeQk_Rj5TvuSm8xmPOFSLkb4aO3VLqv922IlKBHjtAlOW89jGAddIw8fSCjwvPohGoui1mEDCZ3g/s1600/kale.png" height="320" width="250" /></a></div>
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The combination of Kendall and Ho's posts (and this newest post by <a href="http://www.renderfoodmag.com/blog/2014/4/28/first-world-guilt-and-the-gentrification-of-coconut-in-ecuador">Pilar Guevara </a>about coconut in Ecuador) with the clip from the Daily Show I posted above have gotten me thinking about food gentrification and seafood consumption. In many ways, the rise of refrigeration allowed the gentrification of seafood. While there was and is always class involved in seafood consumption, the ability to ship certain desired species to markets drove up cost and priced locals out. No longer could lower classes get reduced price end-of-day products- the less desirable fish could just be frozen and package for the in-land consumer. </div>
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Poor people have built cultures around less desirable species. And it's no surprise that these are the species that are not over fished or endangered. Smaller, lower class consider these sources of protein to be integral to their diet. Is it dangerous for me to push for a marketing shift to make these species seem desirable to the white upper classes? Would this cause another gentrification of fishes that could potentially lock out the lower classes from eating any seafood at all?</div>
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Add to this another concern, and one that should be highlighted: many communities that subsist on these undesirable species also seek to market them to the upper classes. The Southern catfish consuming community also produces catfish for the market. They would love to see higher consumption of their product in the United States, even if it priced out poor Southerners from their product (and they themselves are currently poor southerners). Is it paternalistic to want to block the gentrification of a fish like catfish, if it would possibly benefit communities of fish farmers throughout the South? Is it harsh to call the cooption of traditional lower class foods gentrification instead of success by local markets in selling a product? How do we balance a knowledge of the destructive nature of food gentrification with the positive impact that this gentrification has on growing markets in these communities and the possible relief it might give to the stocks of overfished species?</div>
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on my concerns.</div>
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For more information on the #food gentrification, you can follow all the tweets about it here: </div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=foodgentrification">https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=foodgentrification</a> </div>
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For information on the history of seafood consumption and the culture of seafood consumption, here are a few papers I looked at before writing this blog: </div>
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"Tales from Two Deltas: Catfish Fillets, High-Value Foods, and Globalization"</div>
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Dominique M. Duval-Diop and John R. Grimes <i>Economic Geography</i>, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 2005): 177-200.</div>
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- This article talks about the cultures in each area, and also the market competition between Vietnamese and Southern United States catfish farms. To read about the ongoing battle between American and Vietnamese catfish farmers for the lion's share of the American market, see the New York Times articles <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12catfish-t.html?pagewanted=all&action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%232&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry297%23%2Fcatfish%2Fsince1851%2Fallresults%2F3%2F">here</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/opinion/harvesting-poverty-the-great-catfish-war.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%231&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry297%23%2Fcatfish%2Fsince1851%2Fallresults%2F2%2F">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/business/18catfish.html?pagewanted=all&action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%232&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry297%23%2Fcatfish%2Fsince1851%2Fallresults%2F3%2F">here</a>. </div>
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"Fish and Chips and the British Working Class, 1870-1930"</div>
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John K. Walton <i>Journal of Social History</i>, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Winter, 1989): 243-266.</div>
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"Eating the Claws of Eden: Stone Crabs, Tourism, and the Taste of Conservation in Florida and</div>
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Beyond"</div>
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Nicolaas Mink <i>The Florida Historical Quarterly</i>, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Spring, 2008): 470-497.</div>
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- This is an interesting article about the association of food with place. </div>
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"Loaves and Fishes: Food in Poor Households in Late Nineteenth-Century London"</div>
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Anna Davin <i>History Workshop Journal</i>, No. 41 (Spring, 1996): 167-192.</div>
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"Between Life Giver and Leisure: Identity Negotiation through Seafood in Turkey"</div>
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Ståle Knudsen <i>International Journal of Middle East Studies</i>, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Aug., 2006): 395-415.</div>
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- I loved this article. It is particularly interesting because it looks at two cultures of fish consumption right on top of each other: one higher class and one lower.</div>
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Finally, the book <i>Caviar: The Strange history and uncertain future of the world's most coveted delicacy </i>by Inga Saffron is very interesting and fun (a good beach read). Caviar is <i>the </i>example of the rise of a seafood delicacy and Saffron shares her adventures with caviar eating in Russia after the fall of the USSR (apparently there was a robust black market that allowed the lower classes to eat the stuff by the spoonfull). The author also talks about the consequences of the over consumption of this delicacy- the near extinction of the sturgeon species that produces it. good book.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-27862492378687687382014-01-12T12:23:00.000-08:002014-01-14T11:23:10.659-08:00Blackfish: Cultural images of killer whales, their captivity, and Sea WorldIt seems inevitable that I would write a blog post on '<i>Blackfish</i>'. There has been a lot of buzz around this (as of this post) Oscar-shortlisted documentary. The film, first released at the Sundance film festival in January 2013, has since been broadcast on CNN (its debut swept every demographic under the age of 55 watching TV on Oct. 24, 2013) and is available for live streaming on Netflix (having garnered over 600,000 views since December 13). I cannot remember a time when a documentary seemed so popular.<br />
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The film written and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite details the life of a captive orca, Tilikum, and discusses the death of three humans that interacted with the killer whale-Keltie Byrne at Sealand in British Columbia and Dawn Brancheau at Sea World Orlando 'theme/amusement' parks and a man who apparently sneaked into the orca tank at Sea World after closing time. The director, Gabriela Cowperwaithe, theorizes (through her direction and through interviews) that Tilikum's aggressive behavior toward humans is caused by his captive condition.<br />
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There's a lot going on in the film and a lot that I could discuss. But I wanted to just talk about a few of the things I found interesting about the movie and the discussion about captivity and killer whales that the movie has prompted.<br />
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When reviewing depictions of orcas in the media, you might get the feeling that there are two separate species: Killer Whales <i>and </i>Orcas. I viewed <i>Blackfish</i> on Netflix when it became available, and immediately after I watched and rated it, Netflix offered me two more movies that I might be interested in: <i>The Whale</i> and <i>Killer Whales</i>. The first, a 2011 documentary produced and narrated by Ryan Reynolds, follows the tale of Luna, an orca that became separated from its pod and was adopted (with many social and political consequences) by a small town in British Columbia. <i>Killer Whales </i>is a 2010 documentary from the discovery channel detailing the natural history of the species. Both of these films are good examples of how the orcas image is split in the media.<br />
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In <i>The Whale</i>, orca are depicted as a gentle species with a strong family bond and a love of social interactions. Luna is separated from his pod and just wants people to pay attention to him; he wants and needs affection. There is an emphasis on explaining that orca have advanced social interactions, that they are an intellectually advanced species, and that they have an advanced form of communication, explained in the film as a sort of <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Understanding-Orca-Culture.html">"regional accent".</a> Even when Luna causes trouble (getting too close to boats, etc) he's depicted as just trying to snuggle. He wants friends! The friendly orca image was heightened by the movie <i>Free Willy </i>(1993).<i> </i>This cultural image of the orca appears to be similar to that of our image of dolphins- a smart, lovable creature that just wants to hang out with friends and play.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blogs.etruth.com/takefivewithhaley/files/2013/08/lf-whales-penguins_290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://blogs.etruth.com/takefivewithhaley/files/2013/08/lf-whales-penguins_290.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's smiling because it's surrounded by food. So much food. </td></tr>
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<i>Killer Whales</i> is another depiction- of an incredibly smart apex predator. The description of the documentary states<br />
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"Highly social and highly deadly, orcas are the ocean's greatest predators--and far more dangerous than their Sea World training may suggest. This documentary explores the fierce behaviors of the killer whale in the wild."<br />
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The whole documentary basically consists of watching killer whales creatively hunt other animals.<br />
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While watching this, I was reminded of the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swarm-Novel-Frank-Schatzing/dp/0060859806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389224422&sr=1-1&keywords=the+swarm"><i>The Swarm</i> by Frank Schatzing. </a>The wildly popular science fiction book posits that a conscious "swarm" rallies ocean animals into fighting back against ocean-destroying humans. In the book, one of the most destructive forces is the orca. In one scene, a group of humpback whales tip over boats to knock humans into the water and the killer whales eat them. One particularly upsetting scene plays out a little something like this:<br />
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"He caught a glimpse of her head between two waves. A second woman was with her. The orcas had surrounded the upturned Zodiac and were closing in from both sides. Their shiny black heads cut through the waves, jaws parted to reveal rows of ivory teeth. In a few second they would be upon the women...She slid back into the water and the whales dived down behind her...The blue-green water parted as something shot up at incredible speed. Its jaws were open, exposing white teeth. Then they snapped shut and Stringer screamed. Her fist hammered on the snout that held her prisoner. 'Get off' she yelled." (130-131)<br />
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Needless to say, it doesn't. <br />
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In this cultural image of the orca, it is a killer- and potentially a human killer (although Schatzing mentions that this is aberrant behavior because a killer whaler has never attacked humans in the wild [130]). Unlike dolphins, which many people have pointed out as<a href="http://deepseanews.com/2013/02/10-reasons-why-dolphins-are-aholes/"> having too good of a cultural reputation</a>, orcas' reputations seem to be a mix of awe and fear.<br />
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Cowperthwaithe highlights the extreme social identity of orcas in one of the most haunting episodes of Tilikum's history. The orca was captured as a two year old in Icelandic waters in 1983. Although she has no footage of his particular capture, the director shows footage of an orca captured in Washington State in the 1970s (before the state stopped allowing Sea World to take orca in their waters). She interviews a fisherman who helped capture orca in Washington and he states that after the baby orca was captured and penned, the rest of the pod stayed nearby and called to it. He says that watching their behavior, he realized how horrible it was to separate these calves from their parents. <br />
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But the movie doesn't only highlight the cuddly traits of the species. The director also notes the bullying behavior of the whales. Tilikum was apparently repeatedly bullied by the females at Sea World. In the wild, orcas "rake" each other with their teeth and get into fights to establish social hierarchy and apparently this occurred in the small pens of Sea World (it is a matriachal society but male on female aggression during mating is very common as well- something it seems the director fails to mention).<br />
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All in all, the film maker does make the choice to highlight the loving and caring nature of orcas over their aggressiveness (with each other and towards other organisms and humans). Cowperthwaithe points to Tilikum's personal narrative, being ripped from his family unit at a young age, kept in dark isolation in his first water park, constant bullying from females, and social deprivation at Sea World, as the reason for his aggressiveness. But I wonder if focusing on Tilikum's story does take too much attention from the overall behavior of killer whales as aggressive for other reasons besides captivity?<br />
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Tilikum is not the only orca to be involved in accidents with trainers and it appears there is a pattern.<br />
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At Sealand, where Tilikum was penned with two pregnant females, a female trainer (Keltie Byrne) was drowned. Sea World purchased Tilikum shortly after the incident and assured trainers that they believed that there was no reason to worry- the accident was caused by the female orcas. Of course, what makes this assertion ridiculous is that they could not have been too worried about the other females because both Haida II and Nootka IV were bought by Sea World as well. <a href="http://cetacousin.bplaced.net/captive/orca/profile/haida2.html">Haida</a> went to San Antonio and <a href="http://cetacousin.bplaced.net/captive/orca/profile/nootka4.html">Nootka</a> to Orlando. It does appear that Sea World may have believed the females were especially aggressive during this time because of their pregnancies, but in the end it appears that many believed that the whales were not being aggressive but merely<a href="http://cetacousin.bplaced.net/captive/orca/profile/haida2.html"> playful</a>. <br />
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The movie also highlights another attack: the death of Alexis Martinez at Loro Parque in the Canary Islands. Interestingly, Cowperthwaith doesn't follow up this story with any information about the whale that killed Martinez either. The bull whale, named Keto, was born at Sea World Orlando in 1995 and is described online as a "<a href="http://cetacousin.bplaced.net/captive/orca/profile/keto.html">punk</a>." At 3.5 years old he was transferred to San Diego to try to correct his behavioral issues, but still showed aggression towards other whales. After 9 months in San Diego, he was sent to Ohio and then to San Antonio. That's 4 water parks in 7 years- for an animal that supposedly needs a strong family environment and had already shown aggressive tendencies that seems like quite a misstep. He was sent to Loro Parque to perform and also to hopefully mate with the two females sent from Sea World San Antonio.<br />
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Keto had been aggressive around other males because of mate choice in the past, and it appears he was at Loro Parque as well. In Tim Zimmerman's article "Blood in the Water" in <i>Outsider Magazine</i>, he quotes a journal kept by Martinez, in which he notes the "complicated sexual dynamics in the pools, which also affected the stability of the killer whale grouping."<br />
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"Keto is obsessed with controlling Kohana, he won't separate from her, including shows," he wrote. "Tekoa is very sexual when he is alone with Kohana (penis out). Keto is sexual with Tekoa." On September 2, 2009, without elaborating, he noted that "Brian [Rokeach, SeaWorld's supervising trainer at Loro Parque at the time] had a small incident with Keto the first hour of the morning," and that is was "a very bad day for Keto." On September 12, he wrote, "All the animals are bad. Dry day for Kohana."<br />
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Martinez was killed by Keto Dec. 9, 2009. You can read Zimmerman's full articles about both Martinez's death and Dawn Brancheau's <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/Blood-in-the-Water-Keto.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/The-Killer-in-the-Pool.html">here</a>.<br />
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On, in<a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/killer-whale-attack-explanation.htm"> 2004</a>, Ky (the offspring of Tilikum and Haida II when they were at Sealand) attacked his trainer at Sea World San Antonio. The bull male pulled his trainer into the water and tried to bite. This incident was chalked up to "raging hormones."<br />
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Finally, in 2006, <a href="http://orcapod.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Kasatka">Kasatka</a>, the dominant female at Sea World San Diego, attacked her trainer Ken Peters and held him underwater intermittently for 9 minutes (see video below). It seems that the attack was prompted by the distress vocals being emitted by her offspring Kalia in a neighboring tank. However, it appears that Kasatka had also shown aggressive behavior towards trainers in the past.<br />
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For more information on issues between trainers and whales, see <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/26/how-orky-and-kasatka-almost-sank-sea-world/">this article</a> on an attack by Kastka and Orky and Orky's past attacks on trainers at Marineland in California.<br />
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In all of these cases of attack, it appears that the one thing in common is that these animals show aggression towards trainers during sexually charged periods (adolescence, breeding, pregnancy, and parenthood). <a href="http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/killer-whale-attack-explanation.htm">Some experts </a>have suggested that Tilikum's frequent breeding and mating could have been a contributing factor in his attack on Dawn Brancheau. While few studies have been done on orcas and aggression during mating, extreme aggression in mating has been observed in <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4536227?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103328506683">dolphins and other whale species. </a><br />
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If these animals are particularly aggressive due to mating issues, it raises a huge concern for training and working with these animals closely at Sea World because they are used, in addition to their entertainment quality, mainly as breeding species.<br />
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In 1972, the United States passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibited the capture and trade of marine mammals. The Act did allow for permits to be granted for scientific purposes or for entertainment purposes, but the combination of more stringent Endangered Species Act (1973) and the MMPA meant that most marine cetaceans would be off limits to marine parks. While the orca is not considered endangered (it is actually labeled as having deficient information for making that claim) the pods that live on the Northeastern Coast of the US are labeled endangered (as of 2005) and therefore they can no longer be collected by marine parks (for information on the MMPA and how it changed scientific research on marine mammals see Etienne Benson's article <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1525/hsns.2012.42.1.30?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103328765303">here</a> and the actual act <a href="http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/laws/mmpa.pdf">here</a>). Long before this, however, Sea World was prohibited from collecting in this region after it was discovered they were utilizing dynamite to herd the animals into inlets for capture and that many members of pods were being killed due to this practice. The deaths were being covered up by opening the whales, placing rocks in their stomachs, and sinking them. After they were banned from collecting in Washington (and after a failed petition to the Alaska government to collect 100 whales in the <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/26/how-orky-and-kasatka-almost-sank-sea-world/">1980s</a>), Sea World was forced to collect their animals from Iceland. Keiko, the orca in <i>Free Willy </i>was captured in Icelandic waters in 1979, Kasatka in 1978, Tilicum in 1982, Haida II, Nootka IV, and Freya in 1982. But pressure to stop the captures in Iceland became more intense and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/keiko/world.html">by the early 1990</a>s the minister of fisheries in Iceland appeared to be issuing fewer and fewer permits for capture. The other place to get captured orca is Japan, but Taiji fisherman responsible for the captures have been called into question because of the horrendous slaughter and most parks would rather not associate themselves with this practice. Even Japanese water parks would rather pay the import fee and purchase orca from Iceland than buy fro the Taiji (their methods are detailed in the movie <i><a href="http://www.thecovemovie.com/">The Cove</a></i>). <br />
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What all of this means is that in order to continue their franchise, breeding orca is much easier than capturing wild species to replace those who die in captivity (which is a lot of whale death). Tilikum, Ky, and Keto are all bull whales that have naturally and artificially inseminated female orcas in captivity. When the females do not naturally breed with males, they are artificially inseminated (Kasatka was the first successful artificial insemination with Tilikum's sperm in 2001, giving birth to Nakai).<br />
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What is also means is that, while breeding might be the most dangerous time for trainers to work with these creatures, it is the most desired condition for these animals at Sea World. Sea World might be able to decrease the danger if they separated females during estrus, pregnancy, and early motherhood. They could also separate the females from males during these periods so that they did not mate at all. But, this is not Sea World's goal. In fact, they have spent a lot of money and research trying to figure out how to tell when a female is fertile so that they could put males and females together to promote natural fertilization so that artificial insemination is not needed.<br />
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Although the park often points to working to reproduce these species for conservation, this argument does not work well with orca. The authors of a paper on orca breeding research (three of whom work at SeaWorld San Antonio, Orlando, ad San Diego) state that killer whales are one of the few marine mammals that are ubiquitous to ocean habitats around the globe.<br />
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"Despite their prevalence in the wild, the worldwide captive population of killer whales comprises less than 48 animals. The captive population is limited further by the size and space requirements of the species, resulting in the formation of numerous, small genetically isolated groups. Despite this fractionated population, improved understanding of the environmental and social requirements of killer whales has led to successful natural breeding. Since 1985, when the first successful birth and rearing of killer whales occurred, approximately 26 births have followed at six facilities. As a result more than half the present population (26/48) has been born in captivity, including second generations." (for the entire article, go <a href="http://www.biolreprod.org/content/71/2/650.full">here</a>)<br />
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The purpose of the breeding program at SeaWorld is to breed more whales for SeaWorld. That's it. But it appears they might be putting their trainers in danger to accomplish this goal.<br />
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One problem that I had with the movie involved the issue of breeding. Tilikum's breeding chart (below) is utilized in the movie to suggest that his aggressive tendencies have been bred into a great many calves in Sea World's family (he's sired 21 calves and 11 remain living).<br />
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My concern with utilizing this chart is that the director isn't particularly clear about her concerns regarding Tilikum's breeding. It appears that the director and the respondents in the film are suggesting that Tilicum has a genetic predisposition to aggression and that this aggression is being genetically passed to his offspring. Unfortunately, the director does a bad job of clarifying what this means and so it seems fairly easy to poke holes in this "chart of aggression" based on other claims she makes. </div>
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If the director is suggesting that Tilikum is naturally more aggressive than other whales, and that this is a trait that can be bred into his offspring, then it might be easy to suggest that his aggression is individual- a fluke (no pun intended). It appears that one of the former trainers interviewed in the movie tries to make this claim- Tilikum is an especially bad whale. </div>
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But I don't think the director means to boil everything down to genetics. I think she wants to suggest that Tilikum has naturally aggressive tendencies (that might be genetically linked) that mean that in the captive environment he is especially susceptible to displaying aggression. If he passes the genetics that make him susceptible to his offspring, they too will show violent tendencies. This is a much better argument, but it also seems weak to me. </div>
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If Tilikum's offspring fail to show aggression, does that mean they got their mother's genes in this department? What about Tilikum and Kasatka's offspring Ky? Where did his aggression come from - his mother or his father? Appealing to genetic arguments is concerning. If you think aggression is heritable, then Tilikum is merely a bad seed. If you think it is a combination of nature and nuture, then you might be able to make the case that all of Tilikum's offspring were born in captivity and therefore have had a very different life than he has, meaning that the same stressors he experienced have been alleviated in his calves (although you could also make the case that they are almost the same given that most calves born in captivity are eventually taken from their mothers and placed in tanks at another theme park). </div>
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I would much rather the director have made the movie less about the aggressive behavior of one whale and suggested that <i>most </i>killer whales in captivity have the capacity, especially during times of mating, to display aggressive behavior. This trait does not need to be genetically heritable, it is indicative of the species not of the individual specimen. While it does appear as if she tries to do this by mentioning the incidents with Keto and Kasatka, she could have gone further. </div>
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Sea World:<br />
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<i>Blackfish</i> was a movie about Tilikum, but in many ways it is largely an indictment of Sea World. While Sea World bills itself as a learning institution, Susan Davis in her book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spectacular-Nature-Corporate-Culture-Experience/dp/0520209818">Spectacular Nature</a></i> has written that Sea World is actually a theme park where the theme is "science". Davis believes that there is little to no educational value to these institutions and it would seem that Cowperwaith might agree. In the film, she catches tour guides giving false information about the natural history of orcas, stating that they live much longer in captivity than in the wild. If Sea World must skew natural information to make their animals appear more healthy, how can they be trusted as an educational institution?<br />
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I am torn about these institutions. I did visit Sea World Orlando as a child, and it is a place that is largely responsible for my childhood compassion for sea creatures. I'm from the midwest and if it weren't for that park I would not have seen a whale or dolphin close-up. However, some would argue that advances in underwater filming and the prevalence of film can do as much for educating the public as these institutions can. In any case, I couldn't afford to see the whale show and I can't imagine that the performances could do more for the public's understanding of whales than merely seeing them in tanks does. How does a performing animal cause compassion? <br />
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The issue with Tilicum and <i>Blackfish</i> has been a <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130803-blackfish-orca-killer-whale-keiko-tilikum-sea-world/">nightmare </a><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OkwmT6kWlpYJ:www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmcwilliams/2014/01/01/seaworlds-popularity-tanks-as-blackfish-documentary-makes-a-splash/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">for the</a> <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jordanzakarin/the-documentary-blackfish-problems-for-seaworld">parks</a>- prompting protests of SeaWorld floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and at the <a href="http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/general-news/20140101/19-arrested-while-protesting-seaworld-float-at-rose-parade">Rose Bowl Parade</a> in California. Their <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-14/seaworld-swings-prices-up-visitation-flops">stock</a> is <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-seaworld-tank-after-expose-in-blackfish-2013-11-07">down </a>from its initial offering, but this could be due to low attendance due to a new price hike although some people have suggested the movie has hurt attendance as well. Many performers, including<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/showbiz/seaworld-trace-adkins/"> Trace Adkins</a>, have cancelled shows at Sea World amid the fallout from the film. In addition, many are calling for the <a href="http://www.freetillynow.org/">release </a>of Tillicum to a sea tank and the cessation of his breeding program.<br />
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Unfortunately, many people don't understand that he is no longer releasable to the ocean. In the most dramatic case of public pressure to release a captive orca, Keiko, who played Willy in <i>Free Willy</i>, became the center of a firestorm about releasing these animals back into the wild. Over a number of years, biologists and trainers sought to rehabilitate Keiko and teach him to hunt in the wild. Because he had spent so much time in a small tank, Keiko did not even have to ability to hold his breath as long as wild orca. Eventually, after an enormous amount of money was thrown at the problem, Keiko was released, only to continuously appear near civilization. He died of pneumonia in 2003 after failing to reintegrate into the wild.<br />
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There's a great video about his here:<br />
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Freeing Tilicum would mean putting him in a sea pen for the remainder of his life (although he's in isolation right now so anything would probably be better). But this might be better for him and Sea World trainers.<br />
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Whatever happens to this particular whale, it seems more important that people understand that aggressive behavior by these animals is not an isolated event and that Sea World is not "saving" these animals by breeding them. There is no reason that Sea World should propagate these organisms other than to continue to run this franchise (it appears that the majority of scientific findings about these whales leads directly to understanding their mating and how to breed them).<br />
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I'm interested to hear others' takes on this film, what they took away from it, and if it changed their concept of Sea World. Is the market going to take care of this issue when people stop going to Sea World because of these exposes? or Should Sea World be forced to stop their breeding program and retire their whales regardless of the market and the robustness of their business?<br />
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For me, I would be more interested in seeing activists trying to make changes to the MMPA than focusing on one whale's release. If it is illegal to harass these creatures in the wild and we value them enough to protect them in their natural habitat, we should work to protect them in captivity. I'm not sure that Sea World could prove that their small contributions to understanding these organisms outweighs the stress that the organisms are subjected to in captivity. What do you think?<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-7887229019049928502013-12-04T08:57:00.000-08:002013-12-04T08:57:11.239-08:00Visualizing the Deep Sea Environment: Vehicles and VideosI used to be the type of person who clipped newspaper articles out of the paper and sent them through the mail to people. Just a little something to say, hey, this story about whatever is something that might interest you. Some people have called this habit "old fashioned" and likened me to a grandmotherly-type (haters, unfortunately, are gonna hate), but it turns out if you make the ability to clip articles painless and stamp-less, bunches of people do it. So in the last few years, I've become known on Facebook as a lady who digs the ocean, and I receive a lot of posts pointing me towards cute videos of seals and crazy stories about whales. The last few years, the video below has been posted to my wall several times:<br />
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And just the other day, this one popped up:<br />
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These images have a lot in common.<br />
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They were both captured by remote video technology on deep sea oil drills. The first video was captured at the depth of 7828 feet and the second at about 5000 feet below the surface.<br />
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The organism featured in each video was billed in news stories as a "Monster"- Am I the only person in the world that gets a little sad every time a deep sea organism gets billed as a monster just because they don't show off in front of cameras all the time like dolphins (total media whores)? In fact, neither one of these things are "monsters" (whatever that word implies- I think it implies teeth and intent- two things neither of these animals posses) and they were both already known to science.<br />
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The first video is probably of a <i>Magnapinna </i>squid.<a href="http://deepseanews.com/2013/11/an-amazing-image-of-the-elusive-big-fin-squid/"> Specific identification is difficult</a>, not because it's a grainy shot, but because researchers have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfin_squid">never </a>actually collected the adult form of this squid- its taxonomy was worked out from larval and juvenile forms (these are more easily collected at the ocean's surface- pelagic organisms migrate into deeper water as they mature) so scientists are guessing that this particular specimen belongs in the same family as those forms (<i>Magnapinnadae</i>).<br />
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The second video features the pelagic jellyfish <i>Deepstaria Reticulum</i>. (It was initially misidentified by <a href="http://deepseanews.com/2012/05/solving-the-mystery-of-the-placental-jellyfish/">Deep Sea News</a> as <i>Deepstaria enigmatica</i> but later <a href="http://moreinterestingthings.com/2012/05/19/mysterious-deep-sea-creature-identified-as-deepstaria-reticulum/">identified </a>as a separate but similar species)<br />
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The last thing that these videos have in common is that they offer images of organisms that are rarely seen and difficult to collect and analyze. But science is coming to know more about them through the use of manned and unmanned vehicles and video technology.<br />
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The study of deep sea organisms has proceeded slowly. In early marine expeditions such as the <i>Challenger </i>expedition of 1872-76, researchers sampled and surveyed pelagic organisms by dredging and netting off the ship. While this method brought up a variety of specimens, certain groups of organisms, especially those that are gelatinous or fragile, were mangled in the process and identification was difficult.<br />
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William Beebe pushed the process of exploring these organisms forward with his bathysphere. Between 1930 and 1934, Beebe used his submersible to observe deep sea creatures in their native habitat. He described quite a few new species (some have never been seen again).<br />
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But there were some problems with the bathysphere when it came to consistent study of the denizens of the deep. Beebe had no ability to grab the specimens he saw so the only way to "see" the specimens was through Beebe's descriptions and the illustrations produced by his illustrator, Else Bostelmann. Underwater photography and flash was not advanced enough to take photos out of the bathysphere at great depths. Beebe took notes and made drawings during the dive, and he was also connected by radio wire to Else on the boat. She took notes and made sketches based on these real time descriptions and combined with Beebe's own notes and imput, produced some pretty unforgettable images of these newly discovered pelagic organisms.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Else Bostelmann's illustration of a new pelagic species seen by Beebe in the bathysphere. </td></tr>
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These research platforms have come far since Beebe's work in Bermuda. Both HOVs (human occupied vehicles) and ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) are used to give researchers direct access to organisms in their habitat. Scientists can study behavior, interactions between species, and physiological measurements; in addition, they can take photographs and video for further study.<br />
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According to<a href="http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/zij/ocn621/reading-drazen3.pdf"> Bruce H. Robison</a>, high-resolution video systems attached to these vehicles can perform quantitative surveys as accurate and useful as those conducted with nets. In addition, they can capture images of delicate organisms such as the <i>Deepstaria. </i>Another plus- most gelatinous pelagic organisms are transparent, so the video recording does not merely display the features of the main specimen, but often the prey is visible in the digestive tract (I know, super cool!).<br />
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Observations of pelagic animals has increased due to the use of HOVs and ROVs. In 2002, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/003648202320205274#.Up5MJsRDugI">Guerra et al. </a> described some of the advances teuthologists (people who study cephalopods) had made working in HOVs with video attachments, including new behavioral patterns (Vecchione and Roper, 1991), light displays of octopuses (Johnsen et al 1999), a description of a new genus of cephalopod living in hydrothermal vents (Gonzalez et al, 1998), and new types of locomotion (Villanueva et al, 1997). Guerra et al. reported a series of cephalopod observations made with HOVs in 1988, 1992, and 2000.<br />
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Guerra et al. tentatively identified the specimens through video footage and still photographs as belonging to the <i>megapinnidae </i>family.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvzRjE2jVSTjknjA6vXGLeNn6ilTM3BHKFqLXWwwk7v9y35QJjFxZ5JFuLTBRAwyYSd6antI7aRlvQAlH3_PSNlJW4Iv7sgF87g-16JxlCgAHV6rdpc2GogvLso65g_5EIoilKQhgJ9Q/s1600/megapinnidae.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvzRjE2jVSTjknjA6vXGLeNn6ilTM3BHKFqLXWwwk7v9y35QJjFxZ5JFuLTBRAwyYSd6antI7aRlvQAlH3_PSNlJW4Iv7sgF87g-16JxlCgAHV6rdpc2GogvLso65g_5EIoilKQhgJ9Q/s400/megapinnidae.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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At the end of the paper, the researchers state that "It is amazing that a large and completely unknown animal has suddenly been observed in the last ten years at similar bathypelagic depths in the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and western and eastern Atlantic (Lindsay & al, 2000; Vecchione & al., in press; present paper). This is clear proof of how little we know about the bathypelagic, the largest ecosystem on the earth." </div>
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It is, indeed, amazing but not particularly surprising because of the impact that vehicles and video have had on the exploration of the bathypelagic. The difference that these tools make has not gone unnoticed and researchers are working to extend the use of video in survey work. In 1998, <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.57155469,d.cWc,pv.xjs.s.en_US.v-r5CthikH8.O&biw=1366&bih=666&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr=&cites=1327761393664097648">Euan Harvey and Martin Shortis</a> proposed using a stable underwater video surveillance system to survey the size and quantity of specific species of reef fishes in a given area. The authors' major struggles come from calibration of the system: how do you make a remote video system as accurate as physiological information taken from SCUBA divers tasked with surveying fishes? The authors offer several suggestions, one of which is to look towards the oil rig systems that have already captured the images above. Harvey and<a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.57155469,d.cWc,pv.xjs.s.en_US.v-r5CthikH8.O&biw=1366&bih=666&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr=&cites=1327761393664097648"> other researchers </a>are still working out how to get accurate information from these systems, but it is clear that stable surveillance could be one of the next steps for pelagic exploration as well. </div>
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In addition to stable systems, Robinson states that </div>
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"Development of AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles/gliders) with target acquisition and tracking control software is underway, and once available these systems will tell us a great deal about the daily lives of deep pelagic species by following and recording them through their daily ambits. Large-scale, deep survey requirements, both explorations and quantitative, can also be met by AUVs. In this case, data from on board imaging systems will be process by image recognition and analysis software that will eliminate the requirement for labor-intensive enumeration by human reviewers. This development will greatly expand the scale and scope of deep pelagic surveys." (269-270)</div>
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Robinson's prediction is in the offing- in November, 16 American and Canadian research teams launched <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/science/earth/ocean-drones-plumb-new-depths.html?pagewanted=1&smid=fb-share">"Gliderpalooza"</a>: a joint effort to survey the world's oceans using unmanned automated underwater gliders collect an <a href="http://www.neracoos.org/datatools">enormous amount of data</a> that will hopefully help predict weather patterns. But it isn't such a stretch to suggest that video surveillance could be added to these gliders to gather information in deeper water (these gliders only go to about 650 feet but can be used to dive much deeper). </div>
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HOVS, ROVs, Stable video surveillance, and gliders are all technologies that are advancing our understandings of the pelagic environment and the animals that live there. If researchers are granted access to these tools (funding is always a problem but gliders are surprisingly inexpensive when compared to ship-based surveys), we will no longer have to label every deep-sea creature a monster when it is caught on camera. Unless they have big teeth and a monstrous intent (but only then)!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-5047591348936456512013-11-06T16:54:00.001-08:002013-11-06T16:54:48.819-08:00Townsend's Tortoises: an early example of historical ecology and the conservation of endangered speciesIf you read this blog often, you may have noticed my love of Charles Haskins Townsend. Townsend was the first director of the New York Aquarium under the New York Zoological Society (there was a previous director when the aquarium was run exclusively by the city) and before that he worked for the United States Fish Commission in a number of capacities.<br />
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Townsend was a rather interesting fellow and he shows up in so many important episodes of aquatic science at the turn of the twentieth century: he researched fisheries and he was also interested in basic research questions about fish physiology and behavior. But what I find most interesting about Townsend is the project he died believing was a failure, and which I think of as his biggest success: Townsend's tortoises.<br />
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Charles Townsend was an integral member of the Pribilof Seal Commission (for information on the Commission see <a href="http://throughaquariumglass.blogspot.com/2013/09/historical-lessons-pribilof-seal.html">this previous blog post)</a>. Under the direction of David Starr Jordan, Townsend wrote extensive reports on the status of the seal rookery on Pribilof Island.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQV0fNtT7JdbqpCwxYl51W3Pxv-SAFj3TdZZDhyaO4KXW2UxDMH0f0cFn0L4ClLfYqDPJwQRnAxLeoj9Dn6TfCqAQwhM2wOCGn20dKzWt9D5usIwcHfFSODEM6zfdkYwSz2bsGXbcKBc/s1600/WCS1208+(898).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQV0fNtT7JdbqpCwxYl51W3Pxv-SAFj3TdZZDhyaO4KXW2UxDMH0f0cFn0L4ClLfYqDPJwQRnAxLeoj9Dn6TfCqAQwhM2wOCGn20dKzWt9D5usIwcHfFSODEM6zfdkYwSz2bsGXbcKBc/s320/WCS1208+(898).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Townsend with other members of the Pribilof Seal Commission. That's him (#11) in the amazing deer stalker. WCS Archives<br /></td></tr>
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As stated in my previous post about historical ecology (<a href="http://throughaquariumglass.blogspot.com/2013/09/salvaging-historical-ocean-data-role-of.html">here</a>), one of Townsend's jobs was to collect historical information about sealing from other countries. Well, while Townsend was collecting sealing data, he collected whaling data and this collection lead to a rather startling discovery: Galapagos tortoises were declining rapidly in population. <div>
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The first reason that I love this story is that I love the way that Townsend followed a line from seals to whales to tortoises. As a historian who went from studying the history of religion and syphilis to eugenics to the history of marine science, I find in his trail of research a kindred soul. I get it- sometimes you just get sucked into a mystery and it consumes you. Townsend became consumed by tortoises (in an awesome non-painful way because they are herbivores- but seriously, nothing could be scarier because if they were actually to attack, I assume it would be a horribly slow and boring death).</div>
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The second reason that I love Townsend's interest in tortoises is because of what he did with the information: </div>
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Townsend collected whaling logs from as many sources as he could find. In another historical study, he looked at these logs to ascertain how many tortoises these whaling ships had taken off the Galapagos islands for food on each voyage. By examining the data, Townsend found that the number of tortoises taken off each island had rapidly decreased over time, and that it appeared as if very few tortoises remained. </div>
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Seeing this decline, he sought more data. He reached out to anyone who knew the islands to ask the question: how many tortoises are left? Can they be saved? </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5h_Ed1M4B_mb7ZQeXIPAEY8aqn6m6CWeGfxFYvCAPN9cyTEQyyLU7gq6zZXUAZBneq7DZoaOGohSyqMxORkBXVfErrUnPpRWnMsSYsSP-N8t75PTfCH0hDqO3m5LXjPPO-SC-QT2EEk/s1600/tortoises.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5h_Ed1M4B_mb7ZQeXIPAEY8aqn6m6CWeGfxFYvCAPN9cyTEQyyLU7gq6zZXUAZBneq7DZoaOGohSyqMxORkBXVfErrUnPpRWnMsSYsSP-N8t75PTfCH0hDqO3m5LXjPPO-SC-QT2EEk/s320/tortoises.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Townsend received this photo of a turtle harvest on one of the Galapagos Islands from a natural history dealer. WCS <br />Archives<br /></td></tr>
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What he found wasn't promising: some populations were so depleted that sailors, explorers, and natural history dealers reported seeing few or no tortoises on several islands previously known to contain large populations. <div>
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Townsend collected all his data and published it in <i>The Galapagos Tortoises in relation to the whaling industry </i>which you can read <a href="http://mysite.du.edu/~ttyler/ploughboy/townsendgaltort.htm">here</a>. But he didn't stop there. Townsend set out to try to save the animal he saw rapidly declining. </div>
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Through the use of historical data, Townsend recognized the dire prediction for the Galapagos tortoise and he sought to do something about it. Before his work with these creatures, most conservation efforts in the United States were centered on organisms that were considered edible or economically valuable. Clubs like the Boone and Crocket club had spearheaded conservation efforts of megafauna in the United States because they wanted to conserve those organisms for hunting; and Townsend was close to these men because they ran the New York Zoological Society. In the past, Townsend was involved in conservation efforts for organisms deemed economically valuable such as the Pribilof seals and also for sea turtles such as the black diamond terrapin that the USFC was trying to farm back from near extinction in Beaufort, N.C. And Townsend was not opposed to conserving species so that they could be farmed for their perceived value, but for some reason he didn't take that tack with Galapagos tortoises. People had eaten them in the past, but he chose not to market his conservation efforts as saving a food source: he went a new route and wrote to zoo and aquarium directors asking that they raise these tortoises because they were valuable to humanity and the earth just because they were awesome. </div>
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In 1928, Townsend sailed to the
Galapagos Islands to trap and transport as many different species of Galapagos
tortoises to the United States as possible. Throughout the previous 6 months,
Townsend had been corresponding and traveling with various zoos and aquariums
throughout the United States that he believed might have the climate and space
to keep and breed these animals. He
eventually sends a varying amount of tortoises (usually between 2 and 10
specimens) to 15 different locations in and around the United States, several
of its territories, and even to Sydney, Australia. Most of these institutions
were zoological gardens, but Bermuda, San Diego, Honolulu and New Orleans were
combined zoological parks and aquariums. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Every six months, the directors of
these institutions measured and weighed the specimens- sending Townsend a
report on their progress. If these
animals died or in the case of poor 120 at the New York Zoo, were stolen, a
necropsy was performed and the cause of death was reported. Many directors received animals without
knowing their sex or even what species they were- so a commentary on shell
shape, sexual characteristics, and observations on behavior were reported as
well. Townsend entered this data into a special spread sheet- which he later
utilized to make comparisons between the sites. <span style="line-height: 150%;">Throughout
the years, the breeding and conservation of the tortoises took precedence
over the ownership of the somewhat exotic specimens. While the tortoises
were large draws for crowds, Townsend reserved the right to send the
tortoises to new locations that might help them to breed more
quickly. </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">In a letter to the
Director of the Desert Arboretum in Arizona, Townsend uses his collected
data to analyze what might be inhibiting growth and causing fatalities at
the arboretum.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Of the original 18
specimens sent to Arizona, only 7 survive 2 years later.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Townsend states that the species in Bermuda
and Honolulu are doing well, while those in the American west of Arizona
and Texas have struggled because of cold nights.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">He asks that Arizona send their remaining
specimens to Florida so that they might have a better chance of survival
and eventual breeding.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">This moving
of specimens is very common during the years Townsend was overseeing the
breeding program. Ground cover was analyzed- there was a concern that some
sites weren’t sandy enough for the turtles to lay eggs so they were moved
to sandier locations. Food and environment were analyzed.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">The tortoises apparently were deemed to
like roaming room and hated being put in pens for the winter so the
climate had to be warm year around.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;">
</span><span style="line-height: 150%;">And, there were quite a few pests and diseases that struck the
tortoises. </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">But the interesting
thing about all this is that, when told to move the specimens, for the
good of the program and experimentation, the zoos and aquariums gave up
those exotic species, or took on more.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgcAqQEhmszVtkOLjv3bu85f4N9zf72QWUSuIQ2yeivTUoVc9Kcnk3Rbi-BVl8I4sEfADdRiRh90zofpAOUyzrGyK87m78uqsQFd9mbw-yEfbeJjHVc45ZMqh73SZfcTSoGwCcDa_Q2Y/s1600/riding+tortoise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgcAqQEhmszVtkOLjv3bu85f4N9zf72QWUSuIQ2yeivTUoVc9Kcnk3Rbi-BVl8I4sEfADdRiRh90zofpAOUyzrGyK87m78uqsQFd9mbw-yEfbeJjHVc45ZMqh73SZfcTSoGwCcDa_Q2Y/s320/riding+tortoise.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A child riding one of Townsend's tortoises. WCS Archives</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 150%;">While this conservation effort
eventually did end in breeding colonies of Galapagos tortoises at some of these
institutions, Townsend did not live to see them.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%;">The Bermuda Aquarium and Zoological Garden
did not successfully breed Townsend’s tortoises until the early 1950s. But,
that success was followed by those in Honolulu and San Diego breeding. Some of
these tortoises are still breeding and several have been sent back to the
Galapagos to take part in the breeding program set up on the islands. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNn8YGyGRaoI0tluifOx5EN2tjtt4m2sBPfsrlUjQvbdJ5jlKJYlLGyPSOppsnTZA0sP65fv4tdR4RGrwDIIl0VmpzYYU8Wy2qup9V9biUhVzZsO-ou4ZwTKhWMnB5mr3Nwg2GJ_YGI8/s1600/montly+record+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNn8YGyGRaoI0tluifOx5EN2tjtt4m2sBPfsrlUjQvbdJ5jlKJYlLGyPSOppsnTZA0sP65fv4tdR4RGrwDIIl0VmpzYYU8Wy2qup9V9biUhVzZsO-ou4ZwTKhWMnB5mr3Nwg2GJ_YGI8/s320/montly+record+(2).jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detailed record of the tortoises at their various locations around the U.S. Each tortoise was assigned a number and details such as weight and height were recorded monthly. WCS archives.</td></tr>
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In addition to trying to save the tortoises by bringing them to American zoos and aquariums, Townsend was integral in jump starting the campaign to get the Galapagos declared a conservation area closed to hunters. </div>
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Townsend was an old-fashioned fisheries scientist- he believed whole-heartedly in managing fisheries for sustainable harvesting, but for some reason he went a different direction with his tortoises. He didn't sell their conservation to the public as a part of fisheries management, but instead sought complete protection for the species. </div>
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I'm a historian; I love complicated narratives and Townsend's is one of my favorites.<br /><br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-47367522844935296442013-10-17T10:14:00.000-07:002013-10-17T10:14:14.175-07:00New discoveries in unlikely places: the role of built spaces in ocean explorationRecently, <a href="http://wired.com/">Wired.com</a> featured the Bobbit Worm (<i>Eunice aphroditois</i>) as their <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-bobbit-worm/">"Absurd Creature of the Week.</a>" Don't be fooled- there isn't a weekly column about absurd creatures (which would have been awesome); they just invented that column name to shame this awesome marine polychaete. It can't help it that it's a worm that snaps its prey in half and happens to also be both slightly adorable when young (rainbow colored) and then really repulsive when mature (10 feet long and slimy). <br />
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Yes, the bobbit worm is a little creepy because it's super dangerous to other fishes and such, but it is also creepy because it is mysterious. Who doesn't love a mystery?<br />
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This polychaete isn't often seen in the wild, so scientists know little about their life cycle, feeding habits, or breeding habits. What they do know has come, not from viewing these organisms in the wild, but in aquarium setting, sometimes accidentally.<br />
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Matt Simon at Wired.com recounts the <a href="http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/giant-sea-worm-terrorizes-aquarium/10208">2009</a> discovery of 'Barry', a bobbit worm discovered in a public aquarium in Cornwall, England after aquarists noticed the disappearance of fish, damaged coral, and the loss of bait and hooks left out overnight to catch whatever was disturbing the<br />
aquarium inhabitants. Eventually, the aquarists dismantled the aquarium and found 'Barry' (pictured below) concealed in some coral. Surprise! They didn't really know how he'd gotten there, but guessed he was a tiny little stow-away when the coral was first introduced into the tank, and had rapidly developed into the awesome, if appallingly unattractive, specimen you see below.<br />
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My interest in this tale doesn't have much to do with the aesthetics of polychaetes, but instead stems from the fact that it is more common than people think to find these unintended guests in aquariums.<br />
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William Innes, an early luminary in the aquarium hobbyist field, often sent unknown fish specimens from his aquarium to Carl Hubbs and George Sprague Myers for identification. Hubbs and Innes <a href="http://141.213.232.243/bitstream/handle/2027.42/56781/OP342.pdf?sequence=1">published</a> taxonomic information on the first known blind fish of the family characidae after Innes received some of the fishes from a fish dealer in Texas.<br />
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But there are similar stories to Barry- and my favorite comes from the Royal Botanical Society at Regent's Park, London in 1880. On June 10, 1880, Mr. Sowerby, the secretary of the RBS, spied something swimming, or more accurately, pulsing, in the giant Amazonian lily pad exhibit (<i>Science</i>, July 17, 1880, Lankester) . The <i>Victoria Regia </i>exhibit was quite popular at the RBS- these giant lilypads from South America were named after Queen Victoria (now known as <i>Victoria amazonica</i>). But whatever was in the shallow water wasn't supposed to be there, and had definitely not been placed there by an RBS member. (For a completely interesting paper on the naming controversy of <i>Victoria amazonica</i> check out Donald Opitz's <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8943575">paper</a> in the <i>British Journal for the History of Science</i>)<br />
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What had made its way into the tank?<br />
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In 1880, <i>Science</i> published the first description of what they believed to be a new species, <i>Limnocodium Victoria</i> (later known as <i>L. Sowerbyi</i> and now known as <i>Craspdacusta sowerbii</i>), a fresh water jellyfish. This was huge, because a. no one had ever recorded jellies living in freshwater in the field and b. they had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. In fact, Sowerby stated that there hadn't been any new additions to the lilypad exhibit in months so the RBS was at a loss when pinpointing the origin of these jellies. What they surmised is that they had to have originated from the same water that the lily pads came from, and therefore probably came from the Guyana region in South America.<br />
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It was examined (by no less than George Romanes) and named, but researchers found it impossible to maintain in captivity and eventually all the specimens died and were preserved.<br />
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And then, it reappeared in the same tank of lily pads in 1888. This time, G. Herbert Fowler reported that the entire tank was covered in hydroids (a life cycle of jellyfish) but the origins and life cycle were still unclear" (Fowler, G.H. "Notes on the Hydroid Phase of <i>Limnocodium sowerbyi</i>." <i>Quart. Jour. Micr. Sci. </i> 30 (1890): 507)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Craspedacusta_sowerbyi_by_OpenCage.jpg/599px-Craspedacusta_sowerbyi_by_OpenCage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Craspedacusta_sowerbyi_by_OpenCage.jpg/599px-Craspedacusta_sowerbyi_by_OpenCage.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A modern photograph of <i>C. Sowerbii</i></td></tr>
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After these initial descriptions of freshwater jellies at the RBS, they started to show up everywhere. In 1916, 1922, and 1924 Harrison Garman reported in <i>Science </i>finding large swarms in a creek in Kentucky. In 1925, Frank Smith collected them in the Panama Canal Zone (also published in <i>Science</i>). By 1928, Charles M. Breder announced that the jelly had found its way into tanks at the New York Aquarium.<br />
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We now know that <i>C. sowerbii</i> is a hearty species of jelly native to China with a very special ability: it has a chitin-covered resting stage which allows it to survive in drought years. This ability means that it can be spread through mud or detritus without anyone knowing that they are transporting the specimen. And, it means it pops up in unexpected places, like the Royal Botanical Society. (This has become a bit of a problem as the fresh water jelly is now considered an invasive species- check out <a href="http://www.aquaticinvasions.net/2011/Supplement/AI_2011_6_S1_Gasith_etal.pdf">this article</a> about its introduction to Israeli waters).<br />
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But, guess what: no matter how many times or how many places its been found, the first description stands. It continues to be named after the startled secretary of the Royal Botanical Society and the date of discovery is still listed as 1880.<br />
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Aquariums, both hobbyist and public, have continuously served as spaces containing undescribed and undiscovered organisms. We often don't think about these seemingly domesticated and constructed spaces as containing unknown entities, but they can and do often unveil new delights to the aquarists who might think they've seen it all (or at least that they know what they are working with). <i>C. sowerbii</i> and unexpected visitors like 'Barry' serve to remind us that built environments are still places of mystery and discovery.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-44313884015929590992013-09-28T08:13:00.002-07:002013-09-28T08:13:49.863-07:00Historical Lessons: The Pribilof Seal Commission and the Proposal to Protect Antarctic WatersI know what you're going to say: we're all getting tired of know-it-all historians swaggering around talking about how you could have "learned something" and "not made the same mistakes" if you had just studied your history. "Just like last time" we have been known to say in our condescending way before running along to read more old musty letters that will probably give us an even more Cassandra-esque precision into guessing the future. We are snarky snarky bastards.<br />
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Okay, we're not actually that bad. Historians in general tend to be pretty quiet about making direct links and saying things like "nothing changes"- probably because we love the idea of subtle change. No situation is exactly the same, but I think we can learn something from examining history.<br />
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I've been thinking about this recently as I've read about the difficulties in establishing a major antarctic conservation zone. If you're unfamiliar with what has occurred, here it goes:<br />
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In<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130702-antarctic-marine-protected-area-ocean-conservation/"> July 2013,</a> the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCALMR)- established in 1982 to safeguard Antarctic marine life- called a meeting between 24 nations and the European Union to try to designate one of the largest Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in the Antarctic Ocean. One area encompassing a portion of the Ross Sea, proposed by the United States and New Zealand, would cover 600,000 square miles; another in East Antarctica proposed by France, Australia, and the European Union would cover another 600,000. It would, if passed, have doubled the amount of MPAs in the world and been the largest protected ocean region in the world.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/07/russia-contests-u-s-proposal-for-major-antarctic-conservation-zone/">But it didn't pass</a>.<br />
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There were some reservations before the meeting in July- America and New Zealand had already scaled back their proposal, which had originally included all of the Ross Sea. That area is especially important in these negotiations because it contains the fishing grounds for the Chilean Sea Bass (a very yummy, very non-sustainable ocean resource that can sell for upwards of 35$ a pound). As I've previously discussed on the blog, protecting marine fish stocks is very difficult because those suckers just swim everywhere and they don't really recognize man made borders. So, you can only protect those sea bass if they stick to the area you can get protected, and people who want to harvest these fish know it just as well as people who want to protect them.<br />
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And they aren't the only valuable resource in the Southern Ocean. Krill harvesting for animal feed and the Omega-3 fish oil dietary supplement market is on the rise. (I know all about this market as I'm a currently pregnant lady and those doctors push Omega-3 fish oils on you like, well, a pusher. Little did I know that those little pills could be filled with Southern Ocean krill!) With the warming oceans and the increase in krill fishing, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/science/tracking-antarctic-krill-as-more-is-harvested-for-omega-3-pills.html?pagewanted=all">scientists</a> are in a race against time to establish baselines for a sustainable krill catch- first, they have to know a heck of a lot more about krill in general.<br />
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So when the meeting happened, things went south- and not in a good, let's-save-the-Southern-Ocean way. But in a Russia-and-the-Ukraine-are-questioning-the-legality-of-MPAs-to-try-to-block this-measure- kind of way. It's pretty clear that the CCAMLR has the legal standing, if they can get an accord, to establish MPAs. So why would Russia and the Ukraine try to block the MPAs? The larger issues for Russia were the size of the proposed area and the fact that a ban on fishing and harvesting within that region would be indefinite. And a big thing, they suggested their wasn't enough scientific evidence to make all of these waters protected indefinitely. We don't know much about baselines when it comes to these organisms, and a lot of what we know is rough data and guess work. One of the reasons that protection would be a good idea is that it would actually allow researchers the chance to study the area intensively without worrying about harvesting. Who is to say what over harvesting krill and sea bass looks like? Right now the data is rough at best and that could change if scientists get down there and find that stocks of krill are fine. But if they find that, it doesn't mean you can go harvest because now it is an MPA- I think you can see that this would be a problem- if there is a way to harvest krill sustainably in this area but we only discover that after we've blocked the region from fishing, we've cut off a huge supply of food from a lot of people. (also, there might be oil under the Southern Sea and we wouldn't want to leave that alone now would we) So. No. Go.<br />
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America and New Zealand have<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/world/proposal-to-protect-antarctic-waters-is-scaled-back.html?_r=0"> revised their proposal</a> for a meeting next month in Hobart, Australia. The new proposal will start at 40% the second proposed size of the original, which was already smaller than the United States initially wanted (the entire Ross Sea) and this concession has angered many conservationists. But, we'll have to see what happens.<br />
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So, what about this situation reminds me of the past?<br />
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The situation in the Southern Sea reminds me a bit of another marine area with highly valued resources contested in the late 19th and early 20th century: The Pribilof Seal Islands in Alaska.<br />
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The United States purchased the Seal Islands from Russia in 1867, and by 1868 enterprising Americans (like their Russian counterparts before them) rushed to the islands to take advantage of a valuable resource that was considerably easier to mine than gold: the northern fur seal.<br />
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I think we're pretty familiar with what happens when people find a resource and harvest it unchecked: the fur seal almost went extinct twice. The incursion of Japanese, Russian, and English independent sealers nearly caused an outbreak of war over the territory. In other words, things got pretty hairy up north; but instead of allowing extinction, the concerned governments decided to try to scientifically figure out a baseline population that would make it possible to sustain a seal herd and allow a robust sealing season.<br />
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The United States Fish Commission set up a seal commission to investigate how many seals still lived in the herd, their breeding cycles and behaviors, statistics and birth records for each year, and any other data that might help figure out what a normal and sustainable herd of these animals might entail. Of course, they started gathering this data at an all time low of the population, so a lot of information gathered was historical in nature. Charles Townsend, then an investigator for the Bureau, was in charge of gathering as much historical data as possible about the fur seal herd, and he was incredibly interested in solving the mystery of how many fur seals had existed on the islands before they were decimated by humans.<br />
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He turned to some amazing sources of information. Townsend asked diplomats in Russia, Japan, Canada, and England to gain access to as many sealing vessel logbooks as they could and send him the numbers of seals taken for each season. This wasn't easy work for the diplomats and there were major gaps in the records, especially because there were so many independent sealing vessels that had made clandestine runs into the seal islands.<br />
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But some information trickled in, including data from England for the years 1894 and 1895.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimTFQDcKALO6oHP8de26vuPWfnLhVqz4TUJNMgNXaqZ8oOoOu_NQb0KuU1aQ3mOAE1hvr-BzCPJUK4gArIFh8l6kp-TwNHVYE4RBNUmPRRlGThENDcag3g6CJYWBGakbIEeK8AH25DSMg/s1600/WCS1208+(19).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimTFQDcKALO6oHP8de26vuPWfnLhVqz4TUJNMgNXaqZ8oOoOu_NQb0KuU1aQ3mOAE1hvr-BzCPJUK4gArIFh8l6kp-TwNHVYE4RBNUmPRRlGThENDcag3g6CJYWBGakbIEeK8AH25DSMg/s320/WCS1208+(19).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wildlife Conservation Society Archives Charles Townsend Files<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
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You can see that sealing was on the rise, even as the number of seals were falling. The data trickling in from England, Japan, and Russia suggested that as the Alaskan rookeries became more cut off by American intervention, pelagic sealing (catching seals in deeper waters as they hunted) was on the rise.<br />
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Townsend and the Commission wanted more accurate data about breeding habits and sex ratios and the impact of taking male versus female seals on the herd, but this data was somewhat difficult to come by. A request for a count of fur skins by sex was met with consternation: how does one tell the sex of a fur seal after death? Townsend claimed it was rather easy to tell the difference (nipples!) and sent along a particularly helpful circular outlining where one might look to find the answer, but in the end the data was still patchy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wildlife Conservation Society Archives Charles Townsend Files </td></tr>
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In the end, Townsend and his boss David Starr Jordan collected sealing data for the years 1894-1896 from historical records, and tried to reconstruct the size of the herd, including the distribution of males and females, in order to set limits on sealing without cutting off the resource completely. <div>
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Many aspects of the seal herd and its behaviors remained contested. One particularly interesting question involved accidental infanticide. Some scientists claimed that it was important to thin the herd of seals, because if the population became too large, females were known to accidentally roll over onto their cubs and smother them to death (a fear I seriously am having). Eye witness accounts claimed they had seen accidental deaths occur in highly populated areas, and this suggested to some in the Commission that it would be healthiest to maintain a smaller number of seals in a given area to allow all individuals a chance at growing to adulthood. But other scientists claimed that these eye witness accounts were unreliable and that, if such deaths occurred, they were uncommon and a negligible loss compared to the losses suffered from over harvesting.</div>
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Fur sealing was a big industry, and the fight over the right to harvest seals was a huge international issue. The Pribilof Islands were not the only fur seal rookeries in the world, Russia, Japan, and Canada all had locations where seals were present and they looked into their rookeries during the same period- I have not been in those archives but I hope someone will write a book someday on the seal convention of 1911 because they would definitely have a reader here!</div>
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The Pribilof Commission started gathering data and working on American harvesting issues as early as 1898, but an international Convention was not signed between Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States until 1911. That convention basically banned pelagic sealing and made it illegal for ports to take in illegally caught seal skins for processing (seal skin processing was just as big a business as the sealing itself). Each government agreed to patrol their own herds and waters for poachers and to cooperate internationally to prevent pelagic sealing. It's an involved convention and if you feel like reading it, go<a href="http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/noaa_documents/NOS/ORR/TM_NOS_ORR/TM_NOS-ORR_17/HTML/Pribilof_html/Documents/THE_FUR_SEAL_TREATY_OF_1911.pdf"> here</a>. It's clearly written and very interesting. </div>
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You might still be wondering though, what does this have to do with current issues in Antarctic waters? </div>
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I think one of my concerns is that, in an effort to build MPAs, conservationists might be demonizing the industries that have grown up around the "blue economy". Is it wrong that certain companies want to harvest krill in the Southern Ocean- not necessarily. There is nothing inherently wrong about finding a natural resource and utilizing it. Of course, we would hope with the proper data and international agreements that people would follow the rules and only harvest in a sustainable way- but the very act of wanting to harvest does not make you a demon. Yes, Russia is a pain in the butt, but they aren't the only country that wants to harvest krill, and I'm sure they aren't the only country that is interested in oil under the Ross Sea. They are just a country that isn't afraid to say it- and that might be a good thing in the long run. </div>
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A lesson we might learn from the Pribilof Commission and the eventual Convention is a lesson in time and the scientific process. Understanding the ocean, its inhabitants, its resources, and how we can sustain harvesting without harming will take more time, and scientific effort, than merely setting up zones where no one can harvest. Focus should be on international data collecting and sharing in these areas, and long term scientific studies that can give us more information about the ecosystem and organisms involved. If we rely on scientific data to make claims about sustainability, it is important that we admit when more data is needed. And that takes so much time. </div>
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Yes, this is a dangerous statement. Global warming and new fishing technologies and methods mean that time is definitely not on our side. The ability to decimate an ecosystem is enhanced by a shifting climate and the ability to take larger and larger catches through updated tools- but there has to be something scientists can do to gather international data that would serve everyone's interest. </div>
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What does not help is setting up a dichotomy between industrial/commercial fishing interests and the scientific and environmental communities. The oceans have long been a valuable resource for humans of all nations- Americans overfish their own waters and have failed time and again to set sustainable baselines for catches- because industry and culture have trumped scientific data. We should recognize in Russia's concerns what we can see in ourselves- not pretend we are perfect scientific stewards of the sea. </div>
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The science of the sea is intimately entwined with feeding people on land and to pretend otherwise is to set up a harmful dichotomy that disallows conversation. Both Russia and the US (and all 24 countries and the EU gathered at these meetings) want one thing in the end- to not die on a wasted planet full of nothing but boiling oceans and toxic air. Work your way up from there and they'd like to figure out how to feed the world, by land or ocean, without turning those resources into boiling and toxic places. As we saw with the Pribilof Seals, once the US shut down the islands to outside sealers, these sealers got very good as sitting outside the protected zone and picking off seals in deeper international waters. This bears a striking resemblance to the ability to catch krill and sea bass outside the Ross Sea. If we concentrate too heavily on preserving area, instead of sustainable catches based on data that each nation will want to enforce, are we really doing anything that will help sustain these organisms- or are we just shutting down future conversations about actually protecting these resources? </div>
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International cooperation is the key to saving the Antarctic Conservation areas, not condemnation. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-80954054159514314192013-09-04T12:47:00.000-07:002013-09-04T12:47:53.850-07:00Salvaging Historical Ocean Data; the role of the archive in current scientific debatesI've just finished Callum Roberts' 2012 book <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/jun/07/callum-roberts-ocean-of-life">The Ocean of Life</a> </i>and it has me thinking about how useful historical data can be to modern debates about ecology and climate change. My husband bought me the book to read during my plane ride to Manchester, UK to attend the International Congress for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (ICHSTM) last month and it, combined with a talk I saw while at the conference (which I will discuss later), lead to this blog post.<br />
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Roberts is a professor of Marine Conservation at York University and he has a fairly simple message:<br />
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"We find it hard to believe...descriptions of extraordinary past abundance because it has been so long sing such scenes were commonplace. It is a human trait to give greater weight to personal experience than to others' descriptions. The result...is an intergenerational shift in the way we perceive the world. Science is particularly susceptible to these shifting baselines, as scientists work at the forefront of knowledge and are always in hot pursuit of the latest ideas." (48)<br />
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It seems simple to say that humans have a hard time believing things we can't see with our own eyes. I've talked a lot on this blog about the difficulty of reintroducing "native" species because the people who have to deal with the reintroduction don't imagine them as "natural" to that landscape- they've never co-existed with them in the past. But it is something else to say scientists have a hard time dealing with these historical issues. It makes sense- scientists are totally humans. But what does it mean to deal with an "intergenerational shift in the way we perceive the world" in science?<br />
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Roberts suggests that this limited ability to visualize the past landscape leads ecologists and environmentalists to underestimate the amount of change in an ecosystem over time. If you can't even imagine what it used to be like, or that it was different, how can you predict the changes that might occur?<br />
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One way to do this is to use historical archives to establish baselines so that we can see the change. Roberts points to two bodies of work, that of <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/lorenmcclenachan/">Loren McClenachan</a> (a professor at Cobly College in Maine) and Ruth Thurstan (one of his graduate students at York). Both of these scientists use different forms of archival data to establish change over time in a given ecosystem. McClenachan utilizes a variety of archival sources, including historical photographs of game fishing in the Florida Keys, to ascertain the downward shift in size of game fishes caught in the Florida Keys from the 50s to the present.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUvOs6ageN5HOWk6q5rE_I7PCrAFOUSL5_XMotG33AxiThpH-G2lWvx2hb5CIfdAohv0FUpqrvQZB6UZeNklH2nwdqvDlOYt0eJjWdWPYJxpqcF1IvDS13KgaNhb199iVxavW_qBvZlo/s1600/key+west+game+fishing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsUvOs6ageN5HOWk6q5rE_I7PCrAFOUSL5_XMotG33AxiThpH-G2lWvx2hb5CIfdAohv0FUpqrvQZB6UZeNklH2nwdqvDlOYt0eJjWdWPYJxpqcF1IvDS13KgaNhb199iVxavW_qBvZlo/s640/key+west+game+fishing.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
"Documenting Loss of Large Trophy Fish from the Florida Keys with Historical Photographs" <i>Conservation Biology </i>23:3 (2009)<br />
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Thurstan utilized previously forgotten government fishing data from the 1880s to the present to analyze the decline in catches.<br />
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From "The effects of 118 years of industrial fishing on on UK bottom trawl fisheries" by Thurstan, Simon Brockington, and Collum Roberts in <i>Nature Communications</i> 1:15 (May 2010).<br />
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Both of these papers are exceedingly interesting for what they tell us about the overall decline of fish stocks, but they are also examples of how scientists have extracted useful information from data gathered for a completely different purpose. The photos of game fishes were not taken to later be used for scientific purposes, and a scientists could not necessarily use just any picture as scientific data. McClenachan used photos taken on two separate boats by the same professional photographer, and each photo displayed the largest catches each day. In essence, the author had to make sure that the photographs represented something important, and that they were taken in a consistent manner.<br />
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Thurstan ran into a different problem: fishing technology has changed greatly since the 1880s. So, how do you compare information gathered in the late 19th century with information gathered today? Thurstan looks at different "units of fishing power" and measures the size of stocks based on "landings per unit of fishing power".<br />
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Both scientists found useful data, but not in ready use form (or the form that many scientists are used to working with); the historical information wasn't necessarily ready-use, but it was useful.<br />
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This brings me to the paper I saw in Manchester. While I was at the conference, I was lucky enough to catch Marcel Wernand speaking about his recent paper with Hedrick van der Woerd and Winfried Gieskes entitled "Trends in Ocean Colour and Chlorophyll Concentration from 1889 to 2000, Worldwide" published in June 2013.<br />
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Wernand and his colleagues start with the understanding that ocean color correlates to specific conditions, i.e. a green color corresponds to a higher content of chlorophyll blooms. Most recently, scientists have used data about ocean color collected from satellites, but Wernand et al wanted to look at a longer data set to ascertain plankton bloom changes over a greater period of time. But, how to access data about ocean color before satellites existed?<br />
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The authors turned to something called the Forel-Ule scale. This tool has been included on board ships from the 1880s onward, and is fairly simple to operate.<br />
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Above, you see there are 21 different colors of water in the tool. Anyone on a ship- from the naturalist to the captain to a sailor- could enter Forel-Ule data each day during a sea voyage. And, it turns out, they did. The authors used digitized oceanographic and meteorological databases archived by NOAA-NODC totally 220,440 <i>FU</i> observations between 1907 and 1999. Before 1907, they turned to other historical information from major voyages and came up with 221,110 <i>FU</i> observations with which to work.<br />
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Unlike recent papers that suggest that plankton blooms have decreased worldwide recently, using these data sets Wernand et al found that plankton blooms have shifted throughout the world's oceans since 1889, but they have not experienced a blanket decline.<br />
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All three of these papers utilized a different form of historical data to assess the current status of the world's oceans, and archival data continues to be useful. NOAA has <a href="http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/historical_ecology/#monterey">three </a>ongoing historical ecology projects looking at the history of Stelweggen Banks and cod fisheries in Massachusetts, the Florida Keys coral reef project, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary project. Theses projects pair historians and scientists together to sift through archival data and examine the relevance of that data to modern understandings of ongoing ocean change. Pretty cool.<br />
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When I'm in the archives, I consistently run into large data sets- something that isn't necessarily helpful to me but could be helpful to scientists interested in catches and data from a particular area. In the Smithsonian archives, there are log books that contain hourly information on tides, ocean color, temperature, location, and fish catches. All are meticulously kept and just waiting for someone to take a look. And even though I get bummed that what I thought might be a useful journal (for me) turns out to be thousands and thousands of tiny entries about water temperature and color, in the long run, it's great to know that that data can be mined for useful information.<br />
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And, it makes it all the more important that we recognize that archives and historical data are not useless- they need to be preserved not only for historians but for the establishment of baseline ecological and environmental data.<br />
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Callum Roberts laments society's short memories of our surroundings- He suggests we scoff at the musings of our parents and grandparents when they states that our environment has changed over time; we understand only our limited personal experiences. But, this doesn't mean we can't access and quantify those memories at which we sometimes scoff. Historical ecologists and climatologists working with archival data have found multiple ways to access and quantify these memories, including photographs, statistics, and consistent tool use over time.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-6468575803665065932013-08-13T17:58:00.002-07:002013-08-13T17:58:38.292-07:00Letting a Species go- reposted from "A Last Word on Nothing"I'm in the process of moving from Salt Lake to Wilkes-Barre, PA so blogging hasn't been at the top of my list. But, I wanted to repost this blog from Erik Vance's blog. It ties nicely into my last post on living with endangered species.<br />
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<a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/08/07/a-tiny-dolphin-and-a-big-problem/">http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/08/07/a-tiny-dolphin-and-a-big-problem/</a><br />
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A<a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2013/08/07/a-tiny-dolphin-and-a-big-problem/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #14181a; outline: none; text-decoration: none;"> Tiny Dolphin and a Big Problem</a></h1>
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<b style="color: #989898; font-style: italic;">By Erik Vance</b> | August 7, 2013</div>
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<em>The following is an essay I wrote while reporting from the Sea of Cortez last fall. To learn more, read <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2013/08/emptying-the-worlds-aquarium/" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">my piece </a>in this month’s Harper’s Magazine: “Emptying the World’s Aquarium.”</em></div>
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<em><a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha018.jpg" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><img alt="marcha018" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6278" height="220" src="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha018-500x220.jpg" style="border: none; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 15px; padding-top: 7px;" width="500" /></a></em></div>
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Over the past few days I have found myself thinking a lot about the tragic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In it, the narrator kills an albatross and brings on the wrath of the ocean – bad weather, ghost ships, and whirlpools. It’s a transfixing tale of willful destruction followed by forgiveness and redemption. One particular quote keeps popping to mind.</div>
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<em>He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast.</em></div>
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<em></em><em>He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small</em></div>
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Here in the Upper Gulf of California, fishermen, governments, and environmentalists have been struggling with a different kind of albatross – not one that soars high on the wind but rather lurks unseen in the murky water. But when the fishermen pull it into their nets, it’s an omen just as bad as that legendary bird.<span id="more-6274"></span></div>
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Their albatross is the Mexican porpoise, more often called the vaquita (little cow). It’s a small, shy animal – four or five feet long with a blunt nose and rarely glimpsed even by the most determined scientist. They poke silently about, unique to just the very top slice of the Sea of Cortez, growing slowly, reproducing infrequently, and wandering into fishing nets. In short, it’s the kind of creature that seems almost designed to go extinct.</div>
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In the past few decades, the vaquita has become the Gulf’s spotted owl – a quiet spokesman for conservation in the region. After NAFTA was signed, its environmental wing (the Commission for Environmental Cooperation) and the Mexican government decided that saving the vaquita was priority number one. In 1994, Mexico created a massive reserve covering the entire Upper Gulf to protect the vaquita and in 2004 another area within that as a specific vaquita reserve.<a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha006.jpg" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><img alt="marcha006" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6276" height="210" src="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha006-500x210.jpg" style="border: none; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 15px; padding-top: 7px;" width="500" /></a></div>
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Ever since the Chinese river dolphin went extinct in 2006, the vaquita has held the dubious title of “world’s most endangered marine mammal.” It’s not clear how many vaquita are left in the world. They were probably never common like their more congenial cousin the harbor porpoise but for the past 50 years as US demand for fish and shrimp exploded and the Colorado River dried up, the tiny population has crashed. Some estimates (mostly considered to be outdated) are as high as 500 but estimates go as low as 150, which would put them in grave danger of serious inbreeding problems in the future. The most recent comprehensive study four years ago put it at just 220 lonely creatures.</div>
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Fishermen by nature are not crazy about dramatic changes or outside intervention. When PROFEPA, Mexico’s fishery enforcement wing, moved in to try and enforce the reserve by fining poachers or checking permits in the 90s, their cars got torched. So to save the vaquita, the government tried some carrots instead. They cut back the giant trawlers, hated by local fishermen, and offered to push out all the outsiders so that locals fortunate enough to own a permit could have the fishing grounds to themselves.</div>
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Yet still the vaquita disappeared. So in 2008, they offered to buy out any fishermen or pay them to switch their shrimping gear to a dolphin-safe version. The payouts were generous – $25,000 or so each – as long as they spent it on building tourism businesses in the area, like hotels and seafood restaurants.</div>
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This should have been the happy ending of the story. Except that this is the Upper Gulf, not Cancun. Tourism is limited to a few Arizonans wearing “I’m with stupid” T-shirts who bounce down the dunes in their ATVs. Furthermore, not many fishermen know anything about hotels and restaurants (which are plentiful here, but oddly no fishing tours). Four years on, most of those businesses have failed.<a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha013.jpg" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><img alt="marcha013" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6277" height="300" src="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha013-300x300.jpg" style="border: none; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 15px; padding-top: 7px;" width="300" /></a></div>
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As for the dolphin-safe nets, they do indeed spare the dolphins – and unfortunately the shrimp too. According to the government, the new nets (big scoopy things, in contrast to wall-like, filamentous gill nets) catch more than 220 pounds of shrimp per day – a really good haul. But I talked to fishermen who helped in that study and they said the dolphin-safe nets couldn’t catch enough shrimp for a dinner plate. But they were asked to write those numbers in pencil so that the researchers could change the numbers later.</div>
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Ask a fisherman today what he thinks of the vaquita and you are going to get an earful. Most who have followed government or NGO advice have either gone broke. Worse, you can’t have “vaquita tours” for rich Americans or see them frolicking from the beach since they’re shy and virtually invisible in their murky water (one fisherman told me his friends think outsiders made up the dolphin).</div>
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So in the end we have a story without any bad guys but one really tough decision. The fishermen have begrudgingly complied with the regulations but they haven’t really worked. The Mexican government – not known for its conservation prowess in other places – seems to have put in a genuine effort of money and time to solve this problem. The NGOs have done what NGOs do – try and save a charismatic species on the brink of extinction.</div>
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All that’s left is a question – one that will come up again, I promise you. When is it time to let a species go? Without local buy-in, conservation never really works. I mean, no one here wants anything to do with vaquitas and fishermen tell me if they find a dead one in their net, they just quietly slip it back in the water. It may be that in order to bring fishermen on board to help save other species in the Sea of Cortez, we have to let this one go. For people dedicated to saving the vaquita, like the ancient mariner, it’s been a journey filled with hard lessons.</div>
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<em>He went like one that hath been stunned / And is of sense forlorn: </em></div>
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<em>A sadder and a wiser man / He rose the morrow morn.</em></div>
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<a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha005.jpg" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><img alt="marcha005" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6275" height="217" src="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/marcha005-500x217.jpg" style="border: none; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 15px; padding-top: 7px;" width="500" /></a></div>
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All photos of Upper Gulf fishermen courtesy of <a href="http://www.primecollective.com/bracco/" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Dominic Bracco II</a></div>
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Reporting and travel supported in part by <a href="http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/sea-of-cortez-aquaculture-ocean-fish-farming-global-market" style="color: #886353; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-86881904824195276982013-07-14T17:54:00.001-07:002013-07-14T17:54:41.144-07:00Eel ProblemsI've been away from the blog lately- finishing a dissertation chapter and researching my next one. My final chapter to write will focus on embryology and morphology at marine laboratories, and I've recently run across a problem: eels.<br />
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Did you know eels are problematic? They are, in a punny and scientific way, slippery.<br />
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I can truthfully say I've never been particularly interested in eels as a species. I knew nothing about them, and I didn't think my knowledge or lack thereof, would become a problem. But eels- they keep coming up in my research so I thought I'd sketch out here why they were so interesting to early 20th century biologists.<br />
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The mature form of the eel lives in particularly hard to reach places. They prefer to hang out near the ocean or estuary floor (some live in the ocean and some in fresh water), buried under mud or in rock crevices. This posed a huge problem for collectors of marine organisms in the early 20th century. Most collecting happened from boats- people threw nets or dragged the ocean floor- and examined what they could from these methods. Dredging involved basically dragging a metal object along the ocean floor behind a boat; some things looked like rakes or grappling hooks and others like big shovels. You can imagine what came up- slow-moving creatures, sponges, corals, sea stars, and sometimes a squid wrapped itself around the dredge. But eels, they're quick and slick and slippery and bringing mature forms to the service wasn't that easy.<br />
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The majority of eel forms that were collected during this period were from the surface of the water: eggs and leptocephalii. The leptocephalus, also known as the "slim head", is the larval form of the eel.<br />
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So far, these eels are sounding difficult, but not totally problematic. And actually a little boring. But here's where it gets good: Holy goodness these organisms end up all over the place!<br />
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Take, for example, the American eel. The American eel live in rivers on the Northeastern Coast of the United States in their mature form. But they are catadromous, meaning they migrate to salt water to spawn. Can you even imagine where they spawn? The Sargasso Sea. So, they swim from Eastern Estuaries into the Atlantic and lay millions of floating eggs and then, they die. The Sargasso Sea is big, and it's a gyre formation, meaning that things that float could end up anywhere. Down near the Bermuda Triangle, up near the coast of Newfoundland: there's much floating to be had- like a really long trip on the lazy river at Typhoon Lagoon.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Sargasso.png/260px-Sargasso.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Sargasso.png/260px-Sargasso.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gyre of the Sargasso Sea.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinGBAHEV6i6yGCOE-tOnXrtgYVJFcWtTg5s2r3S3Ir2zBZzW9n3r1oihRXJ-Oc-wCv1qD7ZGtAF8HXuLoIhqHQxUCccv3HuMxzbB4VkuVm-vLd72IeQ0iMfTBmuq1HP_rm4EeI4rWDhY/s1600/01.29.2013+A+Day+at+Typhoon+Lagoon+(18).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinGBAHEV6i6yGCOE-tOnXrtgYVJFcWtTg5s2r3S3Ir2zBZzW9n3r1oihRXJ-Oc-wCv1qD7ZGtAF8HXuLoIhqHQxUCccv3HuMxzbB4VkuVm-vLd72IeQ0iMfTBmuq1HP_rm4EeI4rWDhY/s320/01.29.2013+A+Day+at+Typhoon+Lagoon+(18).JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eels don't have feet, but imagine just floating around and around maturing in the Atlantic Ocean. </td></tr>
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So eel eggs (and leptocephalii) are just out there floating around. And when early 20th century marine scientists find them in their nets, they have to try to figure out what mature form they might become. This is super hard for three reasons: </div>
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1. you can't match up eggs and mature forms based on collection location: as we just saw- there are just crazy eel eggs floating all over the place. Why would you think that something you found near South America had anything to do with a mature form that burrows in the mud in estuaries of the American northeast?</div>
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2. eel eggs and larval forms actually look pretty similar to each other- there's actually a time where nearly every eel species is just called leptocephalii because no one can tell them apart. </div>
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3. All this migrating during development meant that eel forms really needed something special at each part of their separate life stages and these needs were very difficult to transfer to the laboratory. So raising eels from egg to mature form wasn't really possible during this period. And, if you can't do that, it's hard to figure out what type of eel you're looking at. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Rostratamuk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Rostratamuk.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The migration of the American eel leptocephalii during its life cycle. </td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/02/obituaries/marie-fish-88-dies-navy-oceanographer.html">Marie Poland Fish</a>*, one of the most kick ass ichthyologists of the 20th century (and not just because her last name is Fish), tried figuring out what type of eel eggs she'd netted in the Sargasso Sea during the voyage of <i>The Arcturus</i> in 1925. Fish transferred the eggs to an aquarium on board ship and watched their development every day to try to ascertain what type of eel the eggs came from. She thought that they were American eel eggs, but couldn't rear them past the leptocephalic stage. </div>
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So, I've been looking at the mystery that is eel taxonomy and development at the turn of the twentieth century. And I suppose I assumed it was a problem that was cleared up sometime between Fish's observations and now. But it turns out that we still don't know that much about eel development. What are they doing out there in the Atlantic? What do they even eat? </div>
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While the pattern of migration has been worked out for the American eel, the life cycle of the Conger eel, who also spawns in the Sargasso Sea, is largely a mystery. </div>
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Interesting. An interesting eel mystery.</div>
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*I'm sure I'll get around to writing a blog about Marie Poland Fish because she may just be a new hero of mine. She made her name, not because of her work with eel embryology, but because of her later work with the Navy on marine sound detection. She basically helped the Navy calibrate their sonars to differentiate between fish and other sources of marine noise. Super super cool. Also, her last name is Fish and she works on fish. Still kills me!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722428209008002318.post-81791743355843542952013-06-13T09:44:00.002-07:002013-06-13T09:44:43.492-07:00Riding Manatees, or, living with Endangered Species (Sea Turtles: Part II)So, this post was supposed to be about sea turtles until I became completely upset about that fact that people will not, apparently against all better judgement, STOP RIDING MANATEES! They won't stop and it is upsetting me horribly.<br />
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In February of this year, The Daily Show broke the story that Tea Party members in Florida were fighting for the right for people to ride manatees after <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/manatee-riding-woman-photo-crime_n_1933672.html">Anna Gutierrez</a> was caught in photos trying to ride one in Fort De Soto Park. According to Tea Partiers, everyone should be able to ride manatees; it's our God-given constitutional right and no one should interfere (make of that what you will and watch<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/tea-party-manatees_n_2735864.html"> this ridiculous video</a> which may sway you that it's a stupid argument).<br />
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When I heard the story about Gutierrez in October, I was really confused. Manatees are not an animal that I see and think, "that must be an awesome thing to ride." In fact, they look proficient at very few things, including swimming, and seem to only have floating down as a form of mobility. In truth, I'm as confused about manatee riding as I am about the sea turtle riding I wrote about in my last post. But, people <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/ride-manatee-florida_n_3331306.html">keep doing it.</a> Some people are even belly flopping onto manatees from piers. Why? Because it's Florida and seriously, craziness shakes south (Think Texas or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093824/">Antarctica</a>)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s.ngm.com/2013/04/manatees/img/florida-manatee-kings-bay-615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://s.ngm.com/2013/04/manatees/img/florida-manatee-kings-bay-615.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Does this look like something you would want to ride? Take note of the tiny appendages and the obvious delight it takes in floating. </td></tr>
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My rage at manatee-riding fits nicely into the post I already had planned about living with endangered species, a topic I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. Alison Reiser's book examines the debate over ways to save the green turtle. According to Reiser, Archie Carr and other activists and scientists believed that the best way to save the species was to have it placed on the endangered species list, so that it would be illegal to sell, trade, transport, or purchase pieces of the organism in the United States. While Carr knew that other steps had to be taken to ensure the survival of the species, especially protecting nesting grounds, he felt that stopping all trade in the turtles was the best path. The other alternative, farming green turtles to supply the market with sustainable products from the species (including meat and shell) was deemed too risky, mostly because of the difficulties with getting these organisms to breed in captivity. Reiser's work raises some questions about this debate (farming versus protecting as endangered species) but, in my opinion, farming remains an unconvincing avenue because of the difficulty of breeding green turtles in captivity. If you always have to collect turtle eggs from wild sources, are you really going to be able to grow the species in any appreciably manner? There's room for debate, but that's not necessarily what this post is about.<br />
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Instead, after reading Reiser's work I came across the manatee business listed above, and then a couple news articles that really made me think about the impact of endangered species conservation on human-nature interactions.<br />
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There are a lot of reasons that an animal might become threatened or endangered. In the case of the green turtle, it's tastiness (we'll call this over harvesting). Turtles, bison, passenger pigeons, many many other animals have been over harvested as a commodity, be it food or fashion.<br />
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Recently, sea turtles have been back in the news. In early June, <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/06/the-death-of-a-conservationist-who-fought-poachers-and-the-drug-trade-that-funds-them/">Jairo Maro Sandoval</a> was murdered by drug traffickers in Costa Rica while patrolling a beach for sea turtle nests. Maro Sandoval had previously called attention to the link between drug trafficking and turtle endangerment- the same beaches used by nesting turtles are also used by drug smugglers. In addition, it seems that many drug cartels with access to these beaches are poaching turtle eggs to trade for drugs. The ivory trade has been linked to larger networks of terrorism, illegal firearms dealing, drug and human trafficking. Last year, six Kenyan Wildlife Services Rangers <a href="http://www.kws.org/info/news/2012/16DeCheroes2012.html">were killed</a> by poachers for trying to protect endangered elephants and rhinos.<br />
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The intersection of poaching and other illegal activities has caused a crisis, not just for endangered species, but also in the environmentalist community- where deaths of conservationists is on the rise. Below is the chart for the number of environmentalists killed in 2002-11 (see how they compiled the data <a href="http://66.147.244.135/~enviror4/people/environmental-murders/">here</a>). Animals are still over harvested for commodities. The combination of violent drug cartels, illegal poaching, and a concerned international community of environmentalists has caused a rise in violence.<br />
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Another route to extinction is human encroachment upon habitat. In some ways, this is probably the most overarching of the problems. The manatee falls into this category- as do many species, especially plants, that occupy a niche ecosystem and don't evolve quickly enough to combat human interaction, introduced species, or other results of human habitation. Manatees can't get away from boats and they have a very limited range in which to feed and breed- a range that is now inhabited by the dreaded power boat and screaming children. Hence, decline.<br />
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The Florida panther is an animal that struggles to co-exist with humans. Most of the deaths of panthers can be linked to automobile accidents. As of April 29, 2013,<a href="http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1648/20130429/panther-roadkill-sixth-florida-killed-car-accident-reported.htm"> 6 panthers</a> have been fatally struck by cars in Florida, and the number will rise throughout the summer season. Efforts have been made to build wildlife corridors that will allow panthers to range broadly without encountering humans (or where humans will know to be cautious) but more corridors are needed. The car is not the only danger for Florida wildlife. A highly endangered <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/09/3441980/fla-deputy-removes-doritos-bag.html">key deer was found last week </a>on Big Pine Key with its head caught in a Doritos bag. Luckily, a sheriff's deputy saw the deer and removed the bag, but the detritus of human habitation directly effects animals. No need to bellyflop on the deer (although I'm sure someone in Florida has tried- see above statement about insanity shaking south).<br />
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But there is another form of extinction that links these two- endangerment due to human intended decline. Let's face it- when we think about extinction, we'd rather think about these other two forms- humans needed food or they just didn't know better. But there is a more pointed form of animal extinction and it usually involves predators that feed on animals we find tasty. Mark Barrow <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Ghosts-Confronting-Extinction-Jefferson/dp/0226038149/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371134904&sr=1-2&keywords=mark+barrow">has written </a>about the systematic killing of raptors by Europeans because they were considered unwanted pests that killed the beautiful and yummy birds we wanted around. Other animals, including wolves, big cats, and pennipeds (seals, sea lions, etc) have all been targeted by human ranchers, fishermen, and farmers as nuisance predators that literally take food out of human mouths.<br />
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It's easy to think that humans might have outgrown this ridiculous stage of over killing large predators. It makes sense in some respect that a rancher would protect their cattle by shooting a single predator that has found a tasty hunting ground, but merely killing animals because they are of a predatory species doesn't make much sense. We understand, right, how important these creatures are to a healthy ecosystem? But it's clear that humanity hasn't outgrown the inclination to kill "pest" species and this has made the news lately.<br />
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In an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine entitled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/magazine/who-would-kill-a-monk-seal.html?pagewanted=all">"Who Would Kill a Monk Seal" </a>Jon Mooallem looks at a spat of recent monk seal killings in Hawaii. In a <a href="http://www.throughaquariumglass.blogspot.com/2012/09/saving-endangered-hawaiian-monk-seal.html">previous post</a>, I talked about the Hawaiian monk seal and the lengths that are being taken to preserve this species. Since 2009, several monk seals have been viciously killed- beaten to death or shot. But no one has come forward regarding these killings, even though there is a sizable reward involved. But why would someone kill a monk seal?<br />
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Protection of the monk seal has changed the environment of the Hawaiian islands- not just for the seals but for humans. When endangered animals move back into human populated areas, human use of those areas can be changed- fishing rights might be revoked, access to resources decreased for humans and increased for the seals; even beach goers have to monitor their activities so as not to startle monk seals that may be nesting on the beach. This protection of nature is seen as coddling by many human inhabitants of the islands- if an animal cannot survive on its own, it should not survive. But, it is also seen as inherently unfair to the human population and the protection of these animals has lead to violent episodes against endangered species. Mooallem highlights the bizarre overkill of endangered species throughout the United States. Check out the horrible list of killings:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">In North Carolina, for example, hundreds of brown pelicans have recently been washing ashore dead with broken wings. The birds, nearly wiped out by DDT in the 1970s, are now plentiful and often become semi-tame; they’re known to land on fishing boats and swipe at the catch. One theory is that irritated fishermen are simply reaching out and cracking their wings in half with their hands. In March, in Florida, someone shoved a pelican’s head through a beer can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Around the country, at any given time, small towers of reward money sit waiting for whistle-blowers to come forward. This winter four bald eagles were gunned down and left floating in a Washington lake (reward: $20,250); three were shot in Mississippi ($7,500); and two in Arkansas ($3,500). Someone drove through a flock of dunlins — brittle-legged little shorebirds — on a beach in Washington, killing 93 of them ($5,500). In Arizona, a javelina, a piglike mammal, was shot and dragged down a street with an extension cord strung through its mouth ($500), and in North Carolina, 8 of only 100 red wolves left in the wild were shot within a few weeks around Christmas ($2,500). Seven dolphins died suspiciously on the Gulf Coast last year; one was found with a screwdriver in its head ($10,000). Sometimes, these incidents are just “thrill kills” — fits of ugliness without logic or meaning. But often they read as retaliation, a disturbing corollary to how successful the conservation of those animals has been.</span></div>
It's clear that some animals, especially predators, are considered more dangerous than other endangered species. The debate over legal wolf hunting seasons has escalated in the last few years- spreading from the west to Wisconsin and the midwest. In<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/science/cougars-glamorous-killers-expand-their-range.html?ref=science&_r=0"> an article today</a> in the Times, Guy Gugliotta reports that the spread of large cats has caused less problem than wolves, possibly because cats scare easier or perhaps because a larger cultural stereotype of wolves (which they consider vermin and disposable).<br />
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Regardless of cultural perception of certain species over others, the reintroduction and success of certain endangered species has hit an unexpected roadblock: What happens when you successfully bring back a population of animals that might not be able to co-exist with humans? In Mooallem's article, he raises an interesting point. While it is scientifically proven that these animals were part of the food chain and the environment before they started to decline, they are not perceived by the humans inhabiting the area now as being part of the natural landscape. They are perceived as dangerous interlopers. Instead of seeing these organisms as a triumph of human action and science, they are seen as soaking up human resources and changing an environment that can and does exist without them. And in a sense, it's hard to argue with this reasoning: if you've lived your entire life in the same spot and never seen a bear in your neighborhood, is it going to seem very natural to see a grizzly strolling down your street?<br />
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Environmental Historians have often struggled with the problem of how humans perceive "wilderness." It's a question that has been asked consistently in the field. Something to add to this is the question that seems to come from reintroduction of species: how important is the lived experience of environment to the conception of "nature" and "wilderness?" And how does this lived experience limit certain aspects of conservation and environmentalism? While we might be able to scientifically save species, will the culture developed around their absence allow them to be reintroduced and thrive next to human populations?<br />
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I hate to be such a debbie-downer about species preservation. And I hate to leave you with such a sad taste in your mouth. I suggest reading Mooallem's article- it is both informative and even handed. The voices of islanders who clearly dislike the encroachment of monk seals are balanced by those of conservationists and I think presented the issues from both sides nicely (something that is rarely done even-handedly in my opinion). It is sometimes easy to dismiss individuals who would kill an organism we ourselves find precious and worth saving- but often the reasons for the resentment and killings are dehumanized. I'm not saying that there is anything right about ivory poachers or anyone that has killed a monk seal, but the reasons that these people believe are valid deserve to be reported on and Mooallem does this nicely.<br />
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But I hate to leave you in such a sad state. Really, not everyone is out there bellyflopping on endangered species all summer- and conservation efforts at zoos, aquariums, and public schools has lead to more and more children and adults that recognize the importance of preserving endangered species. So here's something huge:<br />
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This week, U.S. Fish and Wildlife suggested that chimps in laboratories be added to the endangered species list. Read <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-proposes-chimps-added-endangered-species-list/story?id=19382605#.Ubny-fmTgv4">here </a>for the implications of this suggestion.<br />
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The very fact that I am forced to ask the questions above means that the efforts of conservation and environmental groups have, in so many ways, surpassed expectations. We are struggling with how to live with panthers, manatees, chimps, monk seals, and key deer. 10 years ago, I don't think many environmentalists would have thought this would be a problem. Instead, they saw a clear and quick path for all of these species to extinction. So we keep trying, and in the process, we address the issues above. Because it matters.<br />
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**I apologize for all the Florida Bashing but really, my fellow Floridians make it too easy**Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15262607188356298097noreply@blogger.com0