Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
Although marine fish face many threats, one of the greatest is large-scale modern commercial fishing. Technology makes it all too easy for so-called “factory ships” to remove enormous numbers of fish from the oceans, sometimes with devastating effects on the populations of those fish and their habitat. Marine conservationists have proposed a variety of policies … Read More “Can marine protected areas save the oceans? Under certain circumstances, maybe.” »
Conservation efforts often have an associated tradeoff, and many proposed solutions are shot down because the costs are perceived to be too high. A conservation policy that benefited a charismatic endangered species with very little cost should be popular and enthusiastically adopted. However, even though turtle excluder devices greatly reduce sea turtle mortality and have … Read More “Turtle excluder devices: analysis of resistance to a successful conservation policy” »
Yesterday afternoon, the Presidents of Honduras and Palau challenged other world leaders to follow their example by protecting sharks. Both nations have banned shark fishing within their territorial waters, and they are encouraging other nations (both rich countries with fishing fleets and poor coastal countries) to do the same. This announcement was timed to coincide … Read More “A global shark conservation challenge from Palau and Micronesia” »
Last weekend, longtime SFS reader Suzy sent me an interesting question. Suzy is Asian, and though she is a committed conservationist, several members of her family regularly eat shark fin soup. One relative just sent her a copy of a news article entitled “Shark Fin Soup: Eat it without guilt” (available here). Suzy asked me … Read More “Reader mail: Shark Fin propaganda” »
The structure of the science blogosphere is changing. That much is apparent to anyone who follows any of the many talented writers who sail under the flag of ScienceBlogs. Several of the most popular writers have left, gone on strike, or are in the process of deciding their fate. I don’t need to rehash any … Read More “The shifting winds of science blogging” »
Last February we introduced Bomai Cruz as the second blog in the Southern Fried Science Network and the first to operate under the blog.southernfriedscience.com format. Our plans to expand the network lay dormant after that first launch, for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had just moved Southern Fried Science to … Read More “Changes afoot” »
We sparked a good debate over the effectiveness of direct action conservation movements over at the post “Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales?” One of the most difficult questions raised was if Sea Shepherd wasn’t there, would the Japanese make their full quota? The data presented in that post was inconclusive, because the quota increase … Read More “Whale Quotas and Sea Shepherd” »
Sea Shepherd claims that their actions in the Southern Ocean opposing Japanese whaling fleets has effectively reduced the number of whales killed. What always rubbed me the wrong way about these claims is that they always compare their success against the Institute for Cetacean Research (the Japanese organization that oversees ‘scientific whaling’) Quotas. So at … Read More “Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales?” »
I recently attended a public hearing for a proclamation in the state of North Carolina that proposed to ban large-mesh gill nets in two areas of the state’s estuaries where sea turtle encounters have recently increased. There’s a large back story to both sides of the case and a lot of emotional motivation on both … Read More “Public fence-sitting then falling to one side” »
As promised, this week’s ethical debate deals with one of the most hotly debated issues in the marine conservation community- the tactics of “Sea Shepherd”. Though “Sea Shepherd” is most famous (or infamous) for their work with the Japanese whaling fleet, which is featured in “Whale Wars”, they are also heavily involved with the shark … Read More “Sea Shepherd: Friend or foe of shark conservation?” »