Melancholy Mangroves

According to Treehugger and Brian Skerry, who took this great shot, this is a lemon shark pup only a few months old (about 12 inches in length), and it swims in the shallow water (about 12 inches deep) of a mangrove on the Bahamian island of Bimini.

Mangroves serve as natural nurseries for sharks and many other species of marine wildlife, offering protection until they are large enough to live in the open ocean.

After this photograph was made, much of the mangrove habitat in Bimini was destroyed by developers building a resort and golf course.

Another Red Flag Flutters So Briefly

Australian scientists recently described the deadly effects of rising ocean temperatures, due to the combustion of fossil fuels, on economically important seaweeds.

"Without these seaweeds, grazing species of fish and invertebrates would lose a vital food source. These same creatures — along with encrusting animals that must anchor themselves onto a surface for survival, such as barnacles, sea sponges and corals — would also lose their habitat," according to Reuters.

"These...organisms are probably much more ecologically and socioeconomically important for the marine environment on a global scale," said Thomas Wernberg, a marine biologist at the University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute.

"We are now starting to see the effects of historic fossil-fuel combustion and cannot prevent the outcome," said Sandra Brooke, a marine biologist. 

It's more grim news about how human activity slowly, steadily undermines the natural world while many fossil fuel burning companies throw millions of dollars at keeping the status quo, and their wallets stuffed.

This is how it happens. We hear a little bit about it, maybe we skim the story, another red flag for the health of the oceans flutters ever so briefly. Few people can really be bothered. It's really, really far away, you know? How can I be responsible for that? It is almost too much to ask, isn't it? 

This is usually where I try to inject some optimism but I'm all out today.

Read the full story by Katherine Bagley here.

Good But Go After the Source

Great news for sharks from Chile and the Bahamas but the real challenge is on the other end of the economics of killing sharks.

To really save sharks is to go after demand. That's the people who eat shark fin soup.

A huge shark sanctuary has been declared in the Bahamas and Chile has banned finning. As noted in Treehugger, "Illegal shark catches are unfortunately all too common, and with demand for shark fins still high in the world market, countries instituting bans on commercial fishing will have to put in the effort to ensure the bans are followed." 

As uncomfortable as it may be to tell people what they should or should not do, shark fin soup is the poster child for abuse of the natural world. 

Ancient Oceans

Lots of sand, no ocean. Sitting here in Northern New Mexico, enjoying the beautiful land with no beach. Although hundreds of millions of years ago this area was an ocean and we're still finding the bones that remind us that this place was once teeming with marine life.

Guest Blogger: Jennifer Klopp

Think Before You Spray

Or don’t spray at all.

This is the time of year for fun in the sun and for spraying chemicals all over the place, apparently.

The big news is this summer you can not only get some weed and bug killer but also you can buy it in jumbo size, so you can be ready for the giant insect that ate suburbia I guess.

TV commercials show someone splashing the man-made chemical onto the house and yard and driveway with a continuous jet spray. The music is upbeat and the sprayer is an attractive woman who makes it look as effortless as a stroll in the park. Maybe she’s humming a song “we’re killin' the bugs, we’re killin' the bugs, do da do da”.

 How about a pause and, perish the thought, a thought.

What are these bugs that we all trying to kill?  What is this horrendous threat?  And finally, is killing the bugs worth it? Not the cost in dollars and cents but in health and psyche plus the impact on the natural world.

All roads lead to the rivers and streams and oceans. Those chemicals eventually find their way into that stream there and that bay over there. Runoff pollution is no minor problem. Just ask the out of work lobster fishermen in Connecticut who are certain their million dollar fishery collapsed due to pesticide spraying for bugs in nearby towns, some of them miles from the coast.

Surely all of these chemicals are heavily regulated and the government wouldn’t allow anything unsafe to get into our hands. Riiiiiiiight.

How many times have we heard the news report that shows such and such product (surprise! surprise!) previously deemed fine by the US Government, and the industry that created it, has been determined to sterilize humming birds or cause cancer in people?

I’m pretty sure the guy who fishes locally or likes to turnover rocks looking for salamanders at the nearby creek would think before spraying and probably not spray at all. That’s because in some small way, he is connected to nature.

But it’s sad because when we kill the natural world, we kill ourselves. We are a part of it and it is a part of us. Ask: Why is it invariably refreshing to get out and see some nature versus not? Why do patients in hospitals heal faster if they have a view of some greenery than patients who do not?

Nature is good for people in ways we don’t even fully understand. So let’s treat it better.

Start by not dousing our yards and homes in chemicals you wouldn’t want near your baby or your cat or your glass of water.

How about introducing natural predators to eat those bugs you don’t like? How about realizing that the bugs are just bugs, who cares -- why are you killing those bugs?

Who knows, you may even decide that the threat of the bugs is minor compared to the potential heavy costs of spraying, and you might not spray at all.

Happy Energy Independence Day

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the capitalistic bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the renewable energy powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and clean energy from domestic sources.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed not the fossil fuel industry and their lobbyists.

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government unbeholden to partisan bickering, posturing, and a general waste of voters’ time and money.

Success with Whale Sharks

In the Philippines, US AID's conservation via tourism model has found success with Whale Sharks.

This quote from a local fishermen sums it up and provides a bit of hope in the bad news world of the big blue.

“In the next ten years, if we continue to protect whale sharks and its habitat, I see more people like me benefiting from it,” said Abe (Abelardo Llave).

It took a lot of work to get here though, so great job all involved including those at AID and the World Wildlife Fund and the fishermen. Thanks! 

Read the whole story from US AID  here.
 
Image courtesy of smh.com.au