Whale Doody Does Duty

Talk about the mother of all floaters. Whale poop pumps much-needed nitrogen to the ocean surface, among providing other valuable ecosystem services.

According to Science Daily, "this liquid fecal matter, rich in nutrients, has a huge positive influence on the productivity of ocean fisheries."  These fecal matters came from University of Vermont whale biologist Joe Roman and his colleague, James McCarthy from Harvard University.

For those wondering about dead zones, which result from too many nutrients especially nitrogen, many places in the ocean have a limited supply of nitrogen, that is until whales drop the kids off at the pool, or more precisely, the ocean.

Here's a conceptual diagram from Science Daily. For those who just want to see it, scroll down.

It's Pink!

Read more here.

Photo courtesy of ScotS101

Adrift

Canadian researchers are dropping bottles in the ocean to better understand currents and drift patterns. The bottles contain contact information for retrievers to notify the researchers.

Previous bottle drops yielded some surprising results. One far-flung "drifter" turned up in Puerto Rico after travelling about 15,000 kilometres -- almost a third of the way around the Earth -- from where it was dropped near Baffin Island four years earlier, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Pretty cool project. Of course a message in a bottle is a bit cliche and the basis for at least one really bad movie, but it does tantalize the romantic imagination. Even conjures a good Police song about loneliness. Maybe you'll find one.

Read more.

Celebrate Healthy Oceans

October is National Seafood Month. Even if it's all about marketing by the seafood industry, let's celebrate by getting a refresher on what seafood is sustainable and what is not. Consult the lists. Ask questions. Be responsible. Don't worry there are plenty of tasty fish on the green, or "ok to eat" list.

A great step in the right direction are the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood pocket guides.

The Abundance Around Columbus

Today celebrates Columbus Day in many places in the Americas. In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue as the poem goes. That was five hundred plus years ago.

Imagine the seas that Columbus sailed through. Full of fish and manatees and whales and other marine life. But that's mostly gone. The lost abundance is staggering. Some may consider it an exercise in futility to ponder such things, sentimental nonsense really. It's progress, they might say. Some may think it's just plain sad.

I say it's important. Pondering the way things were in the natural world can inform how we treat the ocean now and going forward. At least it could help silence those who continue to act as if the oceans are endlessly abundant. Recorded observations from Columbus's journey compared to what's left today say otherwise.

"When Christopher Columbus sailed through the Caribbean 500 years ago, green sea turtles were so abundant that one of his men wrote in his diary, 'the sea was thick with them so that it seemed that the ships would run aground on them, and were as if bathing in them'.

"Columbus observed Caribbean “sea wolves”along the coast of Santo Domingo and ordered his crew to kill eight of them for food. This event set in motion large-scale hunting of the Caribbean monk seal, which continued until the 20th century. The last recorded sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952."
 
These excerpts are from Oceana's Coral Reefs Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow concise pdf. Take a look and think about how different the oceans are going to be on Columbus Day even 50 years from now.

Little Known Hero of the Planet

We've all heard the notion that we know more about our own solar system than we do about our oceans. Now there are numbers to support this.


Unsung

A recent census of the seas has found 6,000 new species, and scientists estimate 750,000 species remain unknown. Talk about boldly going where no one has gone before. Humans have only just begun to fathom the benefits of the oceans to all life on the planet.

Still, we know oceans are key to everything. Australian Ian Poiner, the chairman of the census summed it up well in a few choice quotes that appeared in The Age:

''All surface life depends on life inside and beneath the oceans."

''Sea life provides half of our oxygen and a lot of our food and regulates climate.''

Read more here.

Photo courtesy of National Geographic.

One Good Reason

National Geographic released the winners of the Best Environmental Photos of 2010. This aerial photo of rays by Florian Schulz in the Sea of Cortez won. Yes, that's thousands of rays schooling, layer upon layer, in the azure blue off the ochre shores of Mexico's Baja.

See other great photos here.

Nod to Starr.

Rhymes with Rouche

What happened with legislation to put the brakes on shark finning? US Senator Tom Cohen (R-Oklahoma) happened.

Tough to tell what his problem is. He's an M.D. so apparently he has some sense. Maybe he's just ignorant, short-sighted, weak, and definitely part of the problem. Shark finning kills millions of this important top predator every year mainly so people in Asia can enjoy soup made with the fins. Cohen seems to have forgotten a key part of the Hippocratic oath he swore when he became a doctor -- "never do harm".

Two great blogs, Treehugger and Huffington Post, articulated the scenario with a much clearer head than Eco Ocean. Apologies.

Huffington explains it like this:

"Coburn [blocked all of the bills] under the pretense of fiscal restraint. But these measures cost very little, and they were all advanced to protect wild creatures from cruelty and in some cases from extinction. It's worth the very modest investment to prevent such awful outcomes... Cautious spending is an important value, but so is the defense of animals from cruelty, the rescue of marine creatures injured by human actions, or the protection of wild species from extinction. Coburn has corrupted a laudable principle of fiscal conservatism, and used it to negate and nullify valuable initiatives designed to protect vulnerable species at serious risk."

There are more colorful words to describe Cohen, but they're less tactful. Rhymes with Rouche.

Read more here.