Southern Fried Science

Rumors of the lesser electric ray’s demise have been greatly exaggerated

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 David Shiffman

A lesser electric ray. Photo credit: Brandi Noble, NOAA Fisheries Service

The lesser electric ray, a small sand-dwelling ray that lives from North Carolina to Brazil, has been considered one of the most endangered marine fish on Earth. A 2005 paper reported that 98% of these rays had been wiped out, a decline attributed to shrimp trawling bycatch. This paper resulted in these animals getting classified as IUCN Red List “Critically Endangered,” the highest risk category for any species that is still found in the wild.

A new paper published today in the journal Endangered Species Research shows that these rays are in much better shape than previously believed. “There is no evidence of a decline in the relative abundance of lesser electric rays,” said Dr. John Carlson, a NOAA Fisheries Service Research Biologist and lead author of the new paper.

Thursday Afternoon Dredging: February 23rd, 2017

February 23, 2017February 23, 2017 David Shiffman

Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Logo by Ethan Kocak

Watch this shark walk across a reef during low tide, from the BBC Shark special!
Follow the JCU Seagrass Ecology Lab on twitter!
Bring out your dead: donation of fish carcasses helps the community. By Henry Hershey, for the Fisheries Blog

Monday Morning Salvage: February 20, 2017

February 20, 2017 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Weekly Salvage

For all our US-based Readers: Happy President’s Day! For everyone else, this is the reason none of you USian colleagues are answering e-mails. Unless they are, in which case, *grumble grumble grumble* *something about work-life balance*

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The ocean is full of garbage and even the deepest trenches aren’t safe. Here’s an interview I did with KSPN Saipan where I talked about the garbage the precedes us everywhere we go.

Also: Banned chemicals persist in deep ocean. This seems important.

Thursday Afternoon Dredging: February 16th, 2017

February 16, 2017February 16, 2017 David Shiffman

Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Logo by Ethan Kocak

Watch cownose rays migrate past Destin, Florida, filmed by a parasailer

Follow Abby Lawson, a Ph.D. candidate researching alligators, on twitter!
Debunking myths about ocean garbage patches. From the NOAA restoration blog
What does BREXIT mean for UK fishing rights? By Daniel Boffey, for the Guardian

R1 research universities – is a biased, flawed ranking system crippling academia?

February 16, 2017February 20, 2017 Chris Parsons

Academic life

If you are at a university that has graduate students, you have probably heard about whether your university is an R1 or R2 or R-whatever research institution. Universities tout their position in this ranking system, awarded by the Carnegie Foundation, to denote how “prestigious” they are in terms of research. From 1994, the ranking used to be given according to how much federal research funding they were awarded.

Source: clipart panda

Because of this, all the ranking told you was how much federal money a particular university received. This system is incredibly flawed. For example, if you have faculty more dedicated to writing grants and less dedicated to teaching, mentoring graduate students, publishing articles or doing other activities that are supposed to be the mainstay of academia, then certainly you will get more money. However, this will be at the expense of teaching, mentoring, publishing, etc.

Monday Morning Salvage: February 13, 2017

February 13, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Bringing you the best of marine science and conservation from the last week.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This giant isopod just wrecking a shark.

More.

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

Thursday Afternoon Dredging: February 9th, 2017

February 9, 2017 David Shiffman

Uncategorized

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Watch this frilled shark swim in unusually shallow water off Japan
Follow Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, an AMNH conservation researcher, on twitter!
Last call for vaquita, the panda of the sea. WWF reports that there are just 30 vaquita left in the wild, down from 60 last year.

Conserving Chicago’s Lungfish Legacy

February 8, 2017February 8, 2017 Solomon David

Conservation, Science

Adult Australian Lungfish, part of a captive breeding program in Queensland, Australia.
Credit: Gordon Hides (used with permission)

On Sunday, February 5, 2017, Granddad the Australian Lungfish, the oldest fish in any aquarium or zoo, was euthanized due to health complications. Although his exact age is unknown, he arrived at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago as an adult in 1933. Australian Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) take over a decade to mature, so we can estimate he was over 90 years old when he passed.

The Australian Lungfish is a unique species, considered a “living fossil”, resembling its ancestors whose lineage dates back over 380 million years. The Australian Lungfish genus (Neoceratodus) itself has been around for about 100 million years. When first described, they were believed to be amphibians; one look at their elongate body and flipper-like fins, and you can imagine the classification conundrum. The fish even possesses a primitive lung, allowing it to breathe air in low-oxygen environments (although they usually breathe with their gills).

A Reading List for Environmental Resistance

February 7, 2017 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Blogging

We have entered a challenging new era for conservation and the environmental movement. Some of us feel as if we are hanging from the edge of a cliff. Others are preparing for the battles ahead. And many of us are still reeling from the whirlwind of changes taking place seemingly overnight.

We can’t tell you how to feel or how to act. We can’t really offer any comfort either, at least none that feels sincere. What we can provide are resources culled from a lifetime working in conservation science to provide, if not a map, than at least a scattered set of guideposts to remind us of where we’ve been and direct us to where we need to be going.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been collecting and curating a reading list for the conservation professionals, managers, and activists. I’ve culled from a diverse groups of writers to both focus and expand my vision of what conservation could become in the coming years.

This is, of course, not a comprehensive list of writings, but rather those which I have turned to, or turned back to, in the last few months, for inspiration and understanding. Some of them may seem a little out of place, but they have all offered guidance and insight as we move forward into this brave new world.