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Satellite image provided by NASA
Conservation, Science
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.
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“Wrap with care… save the polar bear.” Charlie relaxes while show off his Endangered Species Condoms. Visit the Center for Biological Diversity’s Endangered Species website here.
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The Finatics, a group of middle school and high school students dedicated to shark conservation, are finalists for the junior Oceana Ocean Hero award. I encourage everyone to support them. There is also an award for adult ocean heroes. ~WhySharksMatter
Science
Brought to you by the Census of Marine Life.
Science
This week’s ResearchBlogCast featured the paper “Decline in top predator body size and changing climate alter trophic structure in an oceanic ecosystem”, originally discussed at Fish Schooled (Prey populations explode as predators get smaller). In both the podcast and the blogpost, the authors argue that prey abundance booms despite predator biomass remaining constant because the average size of predatory fish is decreasing, a trend that has been describe as fisheries induced selection.
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“Wear a jimmy hat… save the big cat” Charlie shows off some Endangered Species Condoms. Visit their website.
Science
The discipline of geography is one that most people likely dismiss as mapmaking. Gone is the stodgy cartographer and here is the GIS tech wizard. But outside of very particular applications, do most people really give geography a second thought? I hope to show through a famous fishery example that the world should give geography more attention – the Peruvian anchovy fishery.
First a bit of context. Geography is a diverse discipline, spanning applications from environment to physics to cultural anthropology. At the core of the discipline is the importance of place – something very simple yet very often forgotten.
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Southern Fried happenings from the weekend of April 24, 2010. On Friday, a Great Horned Owl was driven into the water by a flock of gulls at the Duke Marine Lab. I posted a few picture of it on my twitter feed – The Owl and The Owl Rescuer. XKCD rocked the marine science world … Read More “Monday Morning Blogaerobics – Aquatic Owls and Cephaloid Overlords” »