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A brutal slog through some of the worst ocean and climate news of the summer. Also, fish cannons. [Tuesday] Morning Salvage: August 13, 2019.

Posted on August 13, 2019August 13, 2019 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

  • Trump Administration Guts Endangered Species Act, setting back conservation efforts by decades, dooming thousands of charismatic species to extinction, and sealing his legacy as the racist president that is unambiguously worse than Nixon. Look, at this point, if you aren’t calling your representatives on the regular to demand impeachment, I don’t know what to tell you.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • This Satellite Image Shows Everything Wrong With Greenland Right Now.
Image: Pierre Markuse (Flickr)
  • Ballard announces new plan to search for Amelia Earhart’s plane. Cool.
    • Side Note: Ballard’s search for the Titanic has now been revealed as a front to search for two lost US nuclear submarines. Many defense experts also believe Earhart’s flight was used to provide cover as the Navy populated the Pacific with airfields. So perhaps something else is happening here, too.
  • Whooshh! Salmon Cannons Are A Thing.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1159610222148669440

Jetsam (what we’re reading from around the web)

  • Fewer than 19 vaquita porpoises left.
A dead vaquita porpoise entangled in an illegal gillnet. Scientists say the species could be extinct with a year. Photograph: University of St Andrews/PA
  • Alex Rogers: ‘We are accelerating biodiversity loss in the ocean’.
  • US states differ wildly in response to climate crisis.
  • Moving aquaculture out to sea could rescue coastal ecosystems. Fish ponds have scarred coastal environments in Asia, but offshore fish farms might save wetlands and improve yields.
  • Samsung Heavy Industries Develops Korea’s First Marine Lithium-Ion Battery System.
  • 28 days later, French deep-sea divers rise from the depths.
  • TerraMar was a weird NGO that stole content from us and many other ocean blogs. This does not surprise me: Investigators are reportedly probing close Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s mysterious ocean non-profit.
  • Bow of WWII US Submarine Discovered Near Remote Alaskan Island.
In this undated file photo, the submarine USS Grunion (SS 216) is seen underway. (U.S. Navy Photo)
  • Going Fishing for Ghost Gear: Scientists are developing tracking tags to help catch lost fishing gear.
  • Climate Change Has Made Our Stormwater Infrastructure Obsolete.
  • The Pacific Islands are ground-zero for climate change. Pacific Islands Declare ‘Climate Crisis’ That Calls for the End of Fossil Fuels.
  • Same. United States Wants Ships to Keep Their AIS On.
  • Six underwater volcanoes found hiding in plain sight.
  • High seas treaty: race for rights to ocean’s genetic resources.
  • Should China build the world’s longest undersea tunnel? The biodiverse opening of the Bohai Sea, dotted with rich island ecosystems, would be impacted.
  • Critically endangered sawfish deaths on cattle station drew fears of ‘negative story’, FOI reveals.
One of the rescued sawfish from the fish kill at Blina Creek on Liveringa Station. Supplied: David Morgan to ABC.
  • Really cool. How some of the world’s rarest fish dodged a California earthquake.
  • How Climate Change Is Becoming a Deadly Part of White Nationalism.
  • Stop Trash Talking These Fish! from our friends at the Fisheries Blog.
  • Coexistence isn’t just about science and self-interest. It’s about stories, too.
  • I will never get tired of robots versus aliens stories: It’s Drone Vs. Raven as Scientists Fight to Save the Threatened Desert Tortoise.
  • Some Fish Are Still Full of Mercury, for a Worrying Reason: Emissions of mercury have declined, but levels in fish could still increase thanks to overfishing and a changing climate.
  • Delightful deepsea encounter with a wildly cute and weird piglet squid.
  • This whole story is just utterly wild: How a 6,000-Year-Old Dog Cancer Spread Around the World.
  • North Sea cod at critically low levels, study warns.
  • Even more evidence that big animals help fight the climate crisis.

The Gam (ocean podcasts we love)

  • Podcast: Can the push for sustainable seafood change Chinese traditions?
  • Speak Up For the Blue has been fantastic, recently. Ocean news you can use, every day.

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

A banner month for hydrothermal vent science (and they’re all open access)!

  • Thaler and Amon (2019) 262 Voyages Beneath the Sea: a global assessment of macro- and megafaunal biodiversity and research effort at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7397.
  • Menini and Van Dover (2019) An atlas of protected hydrothermal vents. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103654.
  • Van Dover (2019) Inactive Sulfide Ecosystems in the Deep Sea: A Review. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00461.
  • Da Ros and friends (2019) The deep sea: The new frontier for ecological restoration. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103642.

The rest of the ocean is pretty interesting, too.

  • Laffoley and friends (2019) Eight urgent, fundamental and simultaneous steps needed torestore ocean health, and the consequences for humanity andthe planet of inaction or delay. DOI: 10.1002/aqc.3182.
  • Zhang and friends (2019) How to predict biodiversity in space? An evaluation of modelling approaches in marine ecosystems. DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12970.
  • DeCarlo and Harrison (2019) An enigmatic decoupling between heat stress and coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7473.
  • Holderegger and friends (2019) Conservation genetics: linking science with practice. DOI: 10.1111/mec.15202.
  • Lucrezi and friends (2019) The effects of stakeholder education and capacity building in marine protected areas: A case study from southern Mozambique. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103645.
  • Ryan and friends (2019) Effectiveness of biodiversity‐conservation marketing. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13386.
  • Nielsen and friends (2019) More is less: net gain in species richness, but biotic homogenization over 140 years. DOI: 10.1111/ele.13361.

Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)

  • The news out of Alaska is Grim. ‘No one is immune’: Alaska’s scientists despair over plan to shrink state universities.

Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Shipping News, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. For just $5 per month, you can support the SFS Writers Fund, which helps compensate your favorite ocean science and conservation bloggers for their efforts.

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Tags: climate change deep-sea mining Greenland

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❮ Previous Post: A global assessment of biodiversity and research effort at active Seafloor Massive Sulphides: Transcript from my talk at the International Seabed Authority.
Next Post: Ballard’s hunt for Earhart’s wrecked plane, sink or swim for deep-sea mining, prints of whales, and more! Monday Morning Salvage, August 19, 2019. ❯

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