aquaculture | Southern Fried Science

Seafaring neanderthals and switchblade fish: A mega Thursday Afternoon Dredging, May 10th, 2018

Posted on May 10, 2018 by David Shiffman

After two weeks off, we’re back and bigger than ever!

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow
Archaeologist makes case for seafaring Neanderthals. By Christopher Ingraham, for Scientific American.
Larson Creek trout may have been wiped out. By Randy Shore, for the Vancouver Sun.
US Coast Guard steps up efforts to protect right whales. From GCaptain.
The US and Britain are teaming up to study a massive glacier in Antarctica. By Laurel Wamsley, for NPR.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Fish with a switchblade and other animal weapons. By Liz Langley, for National Geographic.
Fish and chips shops battered by soaring costs: Brexit threatens Britain’s national dish. By Jamie Doward, for the Guardian.
Noisy reefs help fish find their way home. By Sue Palminteri, for MongaBay
Something slithery this way comes: the difference between sea snakes and eels. By Emily Brauner, for the Ocean Conservancy blog.
Catch and deceased. By Christopher Pollon, for Hakai.
Why Atlantic species are invading the Arctic. By Eli Kintisch, for Vox.
New Brunswick fishermen not happy with rules to protect whales. By Alexander Quon, for Global News.
Chinese fish farm tests the waters with the world’s largest salmon cage. By Frank Tang, for the South China Morning Post.
Unique Amazon coral reef at risk from oil drilling. By Amelia Urry, for OceansDeeply.
Feds agree to list 75 remaining pink dolphins as endangered. By Ramona Young-Grindle, for Courthouse News
How to save the high seas. By Olive Heffernan, for Nature.

Please add your own cuttings and spoils in the comments!

If you appreciate my shark research and conservation outreach, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Any amount is appreciated, and supporters get exclusive rewards!

Giant whales and collapsing cod stocks: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, March 29th, 2018

Posted on March 29, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow shark and ray biologist Jeremy Vaudo on twitter!
Science may have a reason why whales get so big. By Carrie Arnold, for National Geographic.
Paleo profile: The fish from China. By Brian Switek, for Scientific American.
Mass stranding in Australia claims 130 whales. Video, for the Guardian.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Newfoundland cod stocks suffer serious and surprising decline. By Jessica Leder, for the Globe and Mail.
Under the sea: life is the bubbles in newly discovered deep reef zone. By Basten Gokkon, for MongaBay
Scientists just fast-forwarded ocean acidification on a coral reef. By Maddie Stone, for Earther.
Can Aquaculture solve the fishing crisis in the South China Sea? By Zhang Hongzhou, for the Diplomat.
To save whales, Maine’s lobster fishery must change. By Fred Bever, for NPR.
Ocean scientists forecast huge plankton blooms in the Arabian sea. By Jeff Tollefson, for Nature News.
Fish crossing genetic borders as oceans warm. By Matthew Berger, for OceansDeeply.

Please add your own cuttings and spoils in the comments!

If you appreciate my shark research and conservation outreach, please consider supporting me on Patreon! Any amount is appreciated, and supporters get exclusive rewards!

Irma’s Caribbean devastation, aquaculture, and Okeanos education: Thursday Afternoon Dredging: September 7th, 2017

Posted on September 7, 2017 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Watch how goblin sharks feed
Follow the Sawfish Conservation Society on twitter!
Sturgeon survives kidnapping, stabbing, and wildfire. By Amelia Templeton, for Oregon Public Broadcasting
UK coast haven for seabirds becomes a marine protected area. From The Guardian.

Chasing Genius, aquatic brain blobs, hurricanes, bats, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: September 4, 2017

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Hurricane Harvey has passed, but its impacts will continue to be felt for years to come. There’s lots of great organizations to donate to, but in the immediate aftermath,it’s often best to donate to local relief programs that already have a ground team in place, rather than national groups that will take weeks to build up their infrastructure. I’m a fan of the Texas Diaper Bank and Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, both of which serve communities that tend to be particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.
Gratuitous self promotion! The OpenCTD and Oceanography for Everyone has been selected as a finalist in National Geographic’s Chasing Genius Challenge! Please help me win the People’s Choice award by voting for the OpenCTD. Visit http://www.natgeochasinggenius.com/video/776, create or sign into your Chasing Genius account, and click the yellow star to vote on my video. Thank you!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

It will take months, if not years, to fully understand the impacts of Hurricane Harvey, which already looks to be the costliest storm in US history. These drone videos give you some idea of the sheer scale of the damage. The Washington Post has an interactive map to help visualize what the equivalent deluge would look like around the world: What the Harvey deluge would look like where you live.

How to help Houston, GameBoy SONAR, buy a lighthouse, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: August 28, 2017

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Hurricane Harvey is sitting over the city of Houston, dumping biblical amounts of rain and flooding nearly the entire metropolitan area. There’s lots of great organizations to donate to, but in the immediate aftermath, it’s often best to donate to local relief programs that already have a ground team in place, rather than national groups that will take weeks to build up their infrastructure. I’m a fan of the Texas Diaper Bank and Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies, both of which serve communities that tend to be particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe has become one of the most important voices in Climate Change over the last few years. Her latest, I was an Exxon-funded climate scientist, is a sober look at who where the money really goes and who pulls the strings in the climate change denial industry.
Bandai and Nintendo once made a SONAR that runs on a GameBoy Pocket, and I want one. Has anyone ever encountered one of these rare and wondrous techno chimeras?

Titanic tourists, nodule mining, right whales, and more! The Monday Morning Salvage: April 17, 2017

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

The EPA is seeking public input on the new administrations approach to environmental regulations. They are required to seek public input. They are required to respond to public input. Go tell them how you feel. Public comments close May 15. Here’s the docket with instructions on how to comment: Evaluation of Existing Regulations.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Titanic Tourism. Like this article: To Visit Titanic Firsthand, New York Banker Dives Deep Into Wallet. I have thoughts. Oh so many thoughts.

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

Deep-sea mining meets alternative energy: Renewables’ deep-sea mining conundrum. I once calculated that all the copper in Solwara 1 could make 800 1-megawatt wind turbines [note: I am not good at math].
Two really cool expeditions coming out of Louisiana this year: Exploring Changes on the Gulf Coast and Ecology of Shallow Wood Falls. Neat!
Begun, the crab wars have. Svalbard’s Snow Crabs: a Pincered Proxy for Arctic Oil.
A wonderful piece on field notes and what they mean to past a future fisheries biologists from our friends at the Fisheries Blog.
A tiny Iowa paper just won a Pulitzer Prize for tackling farm pollution. This mouse roars.
Farm-raised superbugs find their way into kids’ noses somehow. This is fine. Every thing is fine.

Thursday Afternoon Dredging: March 9th, 2017

Posted on March 9, 2017 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Logo by Ethan Kocak

Watch this whale shark suck fish out of a net in Indonesia, video from Conservation International
Follow #2017MMM, March Mammal Madness, and read my story about it from American Scientist.
The fish that hunts with flashlights embedded in its face. By Jason Bittel, for Hakai Magazine.

Shark DNA Used to Buff Up Aquacultured Fish

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Chuck Bangley

It’s not every day that catching up on scientific literature causes you to almost do a spit-take on your laptop screen. This happened to me recently due to the weird and wild world of aquaculture. Aquaculture is the practice of growing aquatic animals such as fish and shellfish for the purpose of food, and has been held up as both a savior and destroyer of the marine ecosystem. To get an idea of what this generally looks like (at least here in the U.S.), Amy has a whole series of posts on aquaculture operations in North Carolina.

As with land-based farming, aquaculturists are motivated to find ways to increase the food value of their stock. The methods used are varied, from high-protein feed mixes to genetic manipulation. Recently, farmed salmon genetically-modified to grow larger and faster than their wild conspecifics have been approved for human consumption by the FDA, though not without debate. This man-made subspecies was created by modifying the already-existing DNA of the fish, but what if it turned out that simply injecting DNA from a different species could improve the growth and protein output of farmed fish? And what if that foreign DNA came from sharks?

Aquaculture in NC: Carolina Mariculture Co.

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Amy Freitag

Jay onto his boat, photo by author

Though oyster mariculture isn’t new to places like the Chesapeake Bay, Jay Styron’s Carolina Mariculture Company, based in Cedar Island, NC, is a shining vision of the future in North Carolina. Much of the state’s efforts in aquaculture are directed at tilapia, catfish, and hybrid striped bass, which are grown in ponds on traditional farm land. These are often grown as a means of diversifying an existing farm economy. Mariculture, though, blends this type of aquaculture with commercial fishing to grow seafood in estuaries and inshore regions, creating a saltier crop. In many ways mariculture should be embraced by both farming and fishing communities but is often instead viewed as the strange uncle of the food production family. Enter pioneer Jay Styron, who grows oysters not only for food but also demonstration purposes – and he proudly creates delicious oysters.

Aquaculture in NC: The Global Connection

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Amy Freitag

“We just sold a much bigger one to Denmark, but couldn’t be this style”, said the trade show representative as if he had traveled to the town next door. Aquaculture has its roots in northern Europe in many ways, mainly through connections to the beginnings of domesticating Atlantic salmon. So many American companies are making good money selling their technology and feed to customers around the world that have already made the step into large-scale aquacultural production.

A few countries in particular made their influence known several times: Denmark, Chile, and Canada. Though these have prominent roles in the global capture fisheries as well, their particular geology gave them a head start on salmon that is expanding over into other types of aquaculture.