Swim Across the Sea of Cortez

Want to know what it feels like to be an open water swimmer?  Watch the opening scenes of the video above.

Paul Lundgren is sharing his experience as he trains for the first-ever solo swim crossing of the Sea of Cortez, 76 miles of big water.  

I can feel it, I've done a bit of swimming, and I know this water.  One of my most memorable ocean experiences was near his planned finishing point, when I happened into an incredible feeding aggregation while sailing.  Dolphin and tuna underwater and seabirds above, on, and in the water were converging on a massive swarm of small fish, and they were so excited they forgot to notice a small about drifting into their midst.  We watch from mere inches away as many species of animals tried to eat and avoid being eaten.  I can see it like it was yesterday, even though it was decades ago.  Sigh.

Such is the value of watching Paul's video, I got lost and re-found myself minutes later sitting in a small room in front of a computer in landlocked Switzerland yet somehow feeling wet and salty. 

Go Paul, and thanks for sharing! 

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Voyage to the bottom of the sea

Explorer and film-maker James Cameron just completed the first-ever solo dive to the deepest point in the ocean in the Mariana Trench.

I can imagine a bit of what this felt like, I once was privileged to dive 10,000 feet to a hydrothermal vent site off the Galapagos Islands. The Mariana Trench, hallowed water for oceanographers, is about 35,800 feet. I expect the National Geographic writeup will include an exact measurement using modern technology and stunning visuals. Stay tuned.

For now, cheers for a grand adventure and adventurer, proving that the age of heroic exploration is not over.

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Beach foam engulfs coastal town

Sea foam lathered a coastal town in England in December. It's hard to believe how much foam, check out the picture (right).

This isn't the first time foam has covered a coastal area, more pictures from Australia show this type of mess. Apparently it's natural, caused by decaying algae whipped by the wind into mousse.

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Glowing surf, WTF!?

Strange beauty is common in the ocean, and glowing water is right at the top of my list of eerie yet fantastic ocean sights.

Churned by surf, fish, or boats, glowing ocean waters are the result of microbes that glow when disturbed, in the case of the photo at right, a red tide in California.

Click here for a fun video of surfing bioluminescence.

Thanks to DEEP BLUE HOME

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Nitrogen pollution disrupts Pacific Ocean

Surging nitrates in Asian waters could dramatically affect marine wildlife. So says science journal Nature in a news piece explaining why we should care about human-caused increases in ocean nitrate levels.

Waste from agriculture and burning of fossil fuels are the suspected cause. This is bad news, and could lead to increasing ocean "dead zones" where oxygen is depleted and many of our favorite ocean animals flee or die.

I always wonder about the demand-side effect on nitrogen that might occur in changed ocean ecosystems based on my experience with rivers. In some streams with healthy ecosystems, increased nitrogen causes increased growth of animals like fish. This happens in a "tightly coupled" ecosystem where fertilizer efficiently moves through plants to herbivores to predators. So the demand side of the system sucks up increased nitrogen supplies.

This effect is so pronounced that it's exploited by people in some places by fertilizing streams with nitrogen to increase the growth of desirable fish.

In our oceans, how much of the excess nitrogen would get cycled into fish biomass if the ecosystems were healthy? Is there a demand-side effect that we neglect to include in our analyses? Does anyone out there know the answer? I've seen tidbits of research that suggest it matters, but never a clear and precise study.

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Great surf video

You won't believe this one



Un film de Karim Rejeb, Production Anticyclone

Thanks to Deep Blue Home, where Julia posts the best stuff ever...

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Is small-scale fishing less harmful?

Who are the ocean villains? Large-scale industrial fishermen are the most convenient target, but is "industrial" really a dirty word in fishing?

There is an un-examined assumption held by many ocean scientists and environmentalists: that small-scale fishing is inherently less harmful to ocean ecosystems than large-scale industrial fishing. This assumption shows up even in research done by well-known scientists.

But a new study suggests that scale is not a good indicator of sustainability in fisheries.

From the abstract of the paper:

small-scale fisheries in Peru are widespread and numerous (100 ports, 9500 vessels, & 37,000 fishers), and our observed effort constituted c. 1% of longline and net deployments. We suggest that the number of turtles captured per year is likely to be in the tens of thousands. Thus, the impacts of Peruvian SSF have the potential to severely impact sea turtles in the Pacific especially green, loggerhead and leatherback turtles.

This study is not alone. This study found disproportionately large harm caused by certain small-scale fisheries, and this report cautions against assuming that small-scale fisheries deserve special support based on the idea that they're less harmful to ocean ecosystems.

There are no easy answers, and I'm sorry to say that "small is beautiful" just doesn't work in fisheries.

"Turtle graveyard" photo from small-scale fishery impacts.

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Extreme ocean video with a mini-quadrocopter

Now you can use this:














To make this:

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SeaMonster, a great new ocean blog

Where do you go when you want the real truth about oceans? Blogfish, of course, but now you can have a new ocean friend who may turn out to be another Blogfish.

It's SeaMonster and it's sooooo attractive that I just might forgive you for dallying there when you should really be here.

Have a peek at the S'Monster:

SeaMonster Recent Posts

• Those who can — teach!
• Oceans retrospective trailer
• The problem of lionfish – great short film
• Assessing the impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill on coastal fish populations
• Forum on fish, food, and people
• Teach your children well
• Holy Mackerel!
• Underwater robots listen out for whales
• The century of the environment and biology
• A coral reef time machine
• Competition for krill links a rebounding ecosystem to penguin declines
• Your chance to name an ocean critter
• Whales converge on the Big Apple
• Let us eat (other people’s) fish
• Who’s the daddy?
• Ian Alldredge kitesurfing Rincon
• Sea squirts and the secret to eternal life
• How to get a horseshoe crab in the mood
• What fish is in a fillet-o-fish?
• Causing explosions crustaceanologically
• When one set of sex organs just isn’t enough
• Coral bleaching on Ningaloo reef, Western Australia
• Ocean friendly seafood? There’s an app (or two) for that.
• Whale shark aggregations!

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Real ocean sustainability action from Safeway

Safeway, the supermarket chain, has made an impressive seafood sustainability pledge. They are working with NGO FishWise to make their pledge real and credible.

They are reforming their seafood purchasing, but that's not all. To me, the most impressive part is their work outside of what they buy and sell. Safeway has sailed into some rough waters around Marine Protected Areas in California, including no fishing zones in California and around Antarctica. And the California action is not risk-free.

California's Marine Life Protection Act has supporters and detractors. Some activist recreational fishermen are aggressively fighting closure of fishing spots, even though most of the coast remains open for fishing. But Safeway is willing to stick their necks out and support the rational, transparent, inclusive, science-based process of creating marine protected areas that allow fish some refuge areas.

This is real green, when entities with political clout use their influence for the public good. Safeway can help achieve ocean protection that will make their sustainable purchasing goals easier to achieve. Go Safeway!

You can see for yourself, read about Safeway's sustainable seafood pledge:

"As one of the nation’s largest food retailers, Safeway recognizes its responsibility to be a steward of our natural resources. We aim to develop an unrivaled reputation for pursuing growth through leadership in environmental, socially responsible and ethical business practices.

As part of this important “sustainability” journey for seafood, we are fully engaging with our vendors to balance our ongoing business requirements for meeting growing consumer demand for seafood while making a measurable difference to our rivers, lakes, and oceans. To achieve our goal, we have joined forces with FishWise, a non-profit organization focused on improving the sustainability of seafood retailers, distributors, and producers, and have implemented a comprehensive sustainable seafood policy centered on four key areas: formation of a sustainable seafood task force, supplier outreach, staff training and customer outreach. In fact, information about our seafood sustainability policy can now be found at most Safeway seafood departments.

An important part of being a responsible seafood business is to not only limit the impacts of where we are fishing, but to set aside areas where we are not. Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) are important to ensure the biodiversity and productivity of our oceans. In California, Safeway is a proponent of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPA), which balances the use and conservation of living marine resources through a statewide network of MPA's. Additionally, we are helping to preserve one the last pristine marine areas on earth; Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Safeway has pledged to not buy or sell toothfish (Chilean Sea Bass) harvested from the Ross Sea and encourages Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) member countries to designate the entire Ross Sea as an MPA.


We are also taking the following actions:

Supporting groups that make a difference, such as the Food Marketing Institute’s Sustainable Seafood Working Group, the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions and the World Wildlife Fund’s Aquaculture Dialogues

Not selling “Red List” species, for example, bluefin tuna and shark

Supporting fishery and aquaculture improvements by encouraging unsustainable fisheries and farms to establish credible improvement projects designed to both meet our purchasing policy and result in measurable conservation gains

Seeking sustainable alternatives from sources that are working towards eliminating the environmental impacts of traditional harvesting and production methods, like coho salmon and shrimp from contained aquaculture production and handline caught tuna from Indonesia"

Thanks: Casson Trenor

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Is science failing to self-police big claims?

What do you think happens when a splashy scientific claim is debunked by a rebuttal paper? Science self-corrects and the original claim fades away? Guess again.

An interesting new study says rebuttal papers have little impact on recent high-profile papers in fisheries science.

The biggest problem is that most rebuttal papers are ignored compared to the attention lavished on the original claims, based on a review of citation patterns. Rebuttals do matter when they get noticed; scientists citing rebuttals tend to be more criticial of the original claims.

Does this mean something is wrong with science? Since rebuttals "aim to highlight substantial flaws in published papers and act as the first line of defense after scientific research passes the review system," what should be done? The authors suggest:

"Our results point to an urgent need to change current publishing models to ensure that rebuttals are prominently linked to original articles."

This sounds like a big problem. Could it be that scientists are allowing fiction to parade as fact?

But there may be some self interest here. The authors of this paper are mostly on the "rebuttal" side of a divide that separates two competing research programs. The splashy papers come from some researchers who are challenging established views of fisheries science, and getting the expected rebuke.

So the identified "need" to change current publishing models looks like an attempt to get more attention to their own rebuttals.

I think people writing rebuttals should get attention focused on their rebuttals the old-fashioned way. Instead of seeking to change current publishing models, they should write a more compelling rebuttal.

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Tsunami wipes out Japan's whaling?

Is whaling finished in Japan now that the tsunami wiped away infrastructure and perhaps the will to rebuild this beleaguered industry? People from small coastal whaling towns are reacting with shock and horror to the damage, and some don't see a future.

Japan's whaling industry was already reeling before the tsunami, so perhaps it's time to let go.

But others vow to continue whaling and the government of Japan is not pleased about newspaper stories predicting the industry's demise. Indeed, there's another side to the industry beyond the traditional and cultural relevance that keeps Japan going after whales.

The big distant-water boats that fish in the southern Oceans are government-run, and at least some of them are undamaged because they were out at sea when the tsunami struck. There are plenty more battles to be fought before all Japanese whaling stops. One sticky reason for Japan's persistence might be the cushy jobs for bureaucrats that the whaling industry generates.

Besides that, there are the international precedents that would be set if Japan caves in to foreign demands to stop whaling. What comes next, cutbacks in tuna fishing? Reduced access for Japan's fleets to other resources?

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Our radioactive ocean

Radioactive iodine is now at scary levels in the ocean near Japan's broken reactors. But we're advised not to worry because the area has been evacuated and fishing has been stopped.

Also, radioactive iodine will decay quickly and become non-radioactive iodine (this is true).

What this doesn't tell us is whether other radioactive elements that last longer are also leaking. One expert says that more releases are likely because it appears that one reactor core has suffered a meltdown.

I think we should expect more bad news about our radioactive ocean, including some elements that are more worrying than iodine.

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Peer pressure saves the lives of fish

Big schools of fish make better decisions than small schools of fish. Less smoking, less risky sex, and no flirting with predators.

How can this be? Is it more likely that big schools have some super-smart fish that help the group? Or is it just that numbers are helpful? If you've ever watched the behavior of fish schools being chased, you'll probably guess the answer, it's group behavior that helps individual fish survive.

Watch these videos (below) and other you can find online for "super-organism" behavior where fish schools look like one giant creature swooping and swirling.

If I remember right, the great oceanographer John McIsaac once theorized from physical principles that a fish school could function like a lens focusing sound so that the fish could detect predators better in a swarm.

hat tip: Deep Blue Home

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Sperm whales use names?

Messages broadcast by sperm whales seem to come with a speaker's signature. At least that's how it looks based on a new scientific paper about sperm whale sounds. Could it be true that whales use names?

It makes sense, if you're a sperm whale listening to whale chit-chat, you want to know who's talking when you hear a juicy bit of gossip. Hey, guess who was out fooling around last night...?? Oh yeah, says who??

Here's an example of a sperm whale sound, and here's a place where you can click and listen to an entire collection of sounds from sperm whales.

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Sea turtles: garbage in, garbage out

Sea turtles eat garbage. It's not because they're stupid, it's just that our garbage looks like their food.

Imagine you found a yummy-looking box of chocolates that your roommate left on the kitchen table and took a big bite only to find out it was dog poop in disguise. Yucck, that's how we trick sea turtles into doing something stupid.

How much plastic can one sea turtle eat? Look at this photo (right) of the plastic found in the stomach of one green sea turtle. And consider the story of one sea turtle that pooped plastic for a month after getting a blockage cleaned out of its gut. And those are just two of the turtles we know about.

Sea turtles are really smart at being sea turtles. And that means eating floaty, semi-transparent jellyfish and other sea creatures. Oooops, and also plastic. After 200 million years of these grand reptiles swimming in earth's oceans, will they be done in by our plastic garbage (and getting caught by fishing gear)?

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Natural disasters and ocean ecosystems

How did the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami affect the oceans?

Really, we don't know, but it's nearly certain that ocean effects are less dramatic than effects on people.

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article on the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia:

"...man was not alone in feeling the impact. Ecosystems and other species were also hit.

To be sure, photographic and video images relayed by the media have shown trees swept away by waves and water-drenched lands. Other reports have mentioned wildlife that escaped the destruction, as some sort of instinct seemed to tell them to seek higher ground prior to the arrival of the tsunami waves. And yet the full scope of the tsunamis’ environmental impact remains under-reported, despite its obvious importance for the recovery of the affected areas and the well being of the survivors.

Experience from previous tsunamis and other major floods suggests that the environmental damage they inflict is linked to saltwater intrusion in ground water and to the disappearance or relocation of beaches. Tsunamis may make small, low islands uninhabitable. Vegetation in large stretches of lowland can be hurt substantially as saltwater-tolerant mangroves and grasses take over from other species. For rare animals with specific reproduction sites, like marine turtles, the tsunami’s effects could spell extinction.

But whereas the damage to the environment on land can be seen, the ravages imposed on the marine environment are hidden. Obviously, when extremely strong waves hit coral reefs, some coral breaks off. But this is a comparatively small problem. The surface of coral is highly sensitive, and will now be exposed to major damage from all sorts of silt and debris carried back by water receding from flooded land.

At the same time, the material brought back from land to sea include nutrients and trace elements that cause a boom among plankton, which in turn feed other marine biota. Locally, but sometimes still at a grand scale, the shock waves cause major sediment slides on steep underwater slopes such as those of the continental shelves.

Closer to the shore, many natural ecosystems, most notably coral reefs and mangroves, act as natural shock absorbers and wave breakers. During the past several decades, these ecosystems have been damaged and reduced in most countries along the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the damage from the tsunami waves was far more devastating than it would have been had they still been intact.

Wildlife may fare better than the physical environment. This is particularly true of fish stocks, owing to large-scale destruction to fisheries. More than 13,000 fishermen were killed and another 5,000 evacuated in Sri Lanka alone, with 80% of the fishing fleet lost or severely damaged. On the Thai coast, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 4,500 fishing vessels were smashed, jeopardizing the livelihoods of 120,000 people in fishing villages there.

The situation on Sumatra is similarly grim, and it is perhaps even worse in the Maldives, Laccadives, Andamans, and Nikobar islands, where not only fishermen and boats were lost, but harbours were ruined. Along the coast of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, some 30% of the fishery capacity was lost. Mozambique, Somalia, and Tanzania on the African side of the Indian Ocean have also reported severe damage to their fishing.

Such major losses in fishing capacity, with their far-reaching negative socio-economic consequences on the human populations affected, are bound to have major, mostly favourable, effects on the fish stocks. The reason is simple: with most fish populations nowadays hit hard by over-fishing, fewer fishermen will mean more fish. Another factor that will help fish stocks is a religiously motivated hesitation by the public in some areas to eat marine fish, as they are perceived to have fed on human corpses washed to sea."

And here's an index of tsunami information from National Geographic.

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Awkward teen white sharks

You know them, you knew them, maybe you were them.  Awkward teens that can't seem to get anything right.

It's true for white sharks too...those scary monsters of the deep have trouble biting prey when they're teens. So when they're little, say 9 feet long, great white sharks aren't really so great.  Teen white sharks have weak jaws that are prone to damage if they bite big prey.

Take heart, human teens, you're not alone.  Even scary predators have awkward teen years.

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Where's the octopus?

Where's the octopus? It's a question that goes well beyond cute videos and actually explains most of the world's problems and how to solve them. More on that later...

But first, the star of today's show. Watch the video below, and see how an octopus can hide in plain view, just like yesterday's blogfish showed you fish camouflage.



It's amazing how the octopus can hide so effectively as if it were a rock, a piece of coral, or a clump of algae. It's still an octopus, but its shape, texture, and color match perfectly with it's surroundings.

More later on solving the world's problems with the wisdom of the octopus...

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Your car just ran over my plankton

Ocean phytoplankton (tiny plants) are in a century-long decline, and climate change appears to be the culprit.

This is bad news, since we rely on ocean phytoplankton for oxygen, and food (after they feed fish). And, of course, we shouldn't be monkeying around with the ocean like this. Or I suppose I should say we shouldn't be human-ing around with the ocean since no monkey could squelch ocean productivity.

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