Conservation – Page 45 – Southern Fried Science

Ethical Debate: Should we have freed Willy?

April 29, 2010 David Shiffman 65 Comments

Jean-Michel Cousteau with an orca. Photo credit: Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society

The death of Sea World trainer Dawn Branchaeu revived an old debate over whether it is appropriate to keep orca whales in captivity. Many people are calling for all captive orcas to be set free, but I continue to support aquariums because of the roles they serve as educators and conservationists. Although several readers have pointed out that the sea world incident itself would make for a solid ethical debate, I am instead going to take you back more than 15 years to a movie that started this whole movement: Free Willy.

What the hell happened to the environmental movement?

April 22, 2010April 21, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

This post was originally published on Earth Day, 2009. The responses I received from it were tremendous, both positive and negative. Were I to write it again today, I would include a discussion of Carbon Offsets and Eco-Guilt.

There is a real challenge in the environmental movement. On one hand, the science is on our side, but on the other hand, there is a growing group within the movement committed to dogma and willing to sacrifice facts for pseudoscience. So, this Earth day, we once again bring you “What the hell happened to the environmental movement?”

Forty-seven years ago, a brilliant, passionate scientist who understood the power of public outreach, noticed a decline in songbird populations, discovered a trend of decreasing egg shell thickness, and correlated this effect with the increase in the use of DDT as a pesticide. After thoroughly and rigorously verifying her results and conclusions, she did something revolutionary; she wrote a book. The publication of Silent Spring in 1962 marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement in America. Its simple, elegant prose made the complex interaction between humankind and the environment accessible to a public that had limited exposure to scientific writing. Like other works of literary science, Silent Spring, wove the scientific method into a narrative; observations, questions, conflicts, discoveries, joy and sorrow. To struggle and to understand, never the last without the first. The beauty of her words still echo with that same power today.

Seeing Green

April 21, 2010April 21, 2010 Bluegrass Blue Crab

Conservation

Did you ever meet that gear-head who had a shelf full of Nalgenes or a trunk full of those reusable shopping bags? At the time, did you stop and think about the environmental impact of these eco-friendly products? In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to take a moment to step back and evaluate the state of our environmental movement.

Yes, at some level these things reduce your personal environmental impact. They save millions of plastic bags and cups from entering the waste stream and therefore our biosphere. At the same time, they promote the consumer culture that created many of our environmental issues in the first place.

Crowdsourcing ConGen – Effective size of a population in flux

April 21, 2010June 16, 2010 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Conservation, Science

When presented with a threatened population in need of conservation, the simplest and most basic question a manager can ask is “how big is it?” Unfortunately, this is one of the most challenging questions to answer. Determining the number of individuals in a population is fundamental to effective management. Small, concentrated populations can be destroyed in a single sweep, while large, broadly distributed populations require more resources and complex management involving many stakeholders.

A population that is easy to sample is rare. Animals move – sometimes over enormous distances. Habitats are difficult or impossible to access. Entire popualtions may be adept at avoiding capture. For most populations, it is impossible to count every individual. In marine ecosystems populations can span the entire globe, and the cost of mounting an expedition to systematically sample all members is huge. In order to get accurate estimates of the number of individuals, ecologists have had to devise statistical techniques to estimate the size of a population.

A different perspective on the CITES disaster

April 7, 2010 David Shiffman 2 Comments

Conservation

Lots has been written about the recent failure of CITES to protect marine species. Most of it focuses on blaming countries like Japan and China for putting commerce ahead of science and conservation. However, SCUBA operator and blogger Mike Da Shark has a different perspective- he criticizes the NGOs who advocated for conservation.

Grounded Bulk Carrier Ship Leaking Oil

April 6, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Conservation

from The Right Blue ~Southern Fried Scientist

Reader mail: Sustainable shark finning?

April 5, 2010April 5, 2010 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Conservation, Science

Our latest reader mail comes from my friend Mike, who writes for the conservative political blog SaveTheGop. Though we don’t agree on much, he’s usually a reasonable guy. His question concerns a post I recently wrote about Hawaii’s proposed bill to ban the sale of shark fins within their state.

Shifting Sands: The Fight for the Outer Banks

April 4, 2010 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Conservation

A documentary produced by Ashwin Bhandiwad and premiered at the Benthic Ecology 2010, enjoy! Shifting Sands: The Fight for the Outer Banks from Ashwin Bhandiwad on Vimeo.

Might as well eat ’em: A semi-serious April Fool’s Day ethical debate

April 1, 2010April 4, 2010 David Shiffman 38 Comments

Conservation

Bluefin tuna are some of the most endangered fish in the sea. Prized by the sushi industry for their delicious flavor, populations of bluefin have declined precipitously in recent decades.

They also may be the first species of fish to be driven to extinction by commercial fishing. Normally, when populations of fish get low, it isn’t profitable to fish for them anymore- thus they are not driven to extinction. However, a single bluefin tuna can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it is still profitable to fish for the last one.

Has President Obama broken a promise on offshore drilling?

March 31, 2010 David Shiffman 15 Comments

Conservation

I received an e-mail from Oceana today encouraging me to “tell President Obama to keep his promise”. The e-mail claims that while running for President, he campaigned against offshore oil drilling, which would make his recent announcement about allowing offshore drilling a broken promise indeed. However, I seem to remember that Obama as a candidate was for offshore drilling. I went to my favorite non-partisan fact check website, Politifact, to sort this out.