mpa | Southern Fried Science

Alvin dives for early-career scientists, join me in the Marianas Islands, stump a scientist, embraces MPAs, and more! Tuesday (?) Morning Salvage: April 17, 2018

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Andrew David Thaler

We’re late because Andrew doesn’t understand time zones.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

This is an incredible oportunity for an early career researcher to get their feet wet leading a deep-sea science cruise: Announcing a NSF-UNOLS Early Career Training Cruise Opportunity to the East Pacific Rise 9° 50’N – December 2018

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

We have a new writer! Please welcome the Original Saipan Blogger, Bucky Villagomez!
Hafa Adai from the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands! Are you following along with our adventure on OpenExplorer? Yesterday was one of the highlights of my career: Marine Ecology and Underwater Robotics in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The Okeanos Marianas. Our research vessel for the day.

Add this to the list of things that are really not good: Atlantic Ocean Current Slows Down To 1,000-Year Low, Studies Show.
Look, if anyone could actually pull this off, it’s Phil Nuytten, but I. Have. Questions: Who’d like to live under the sea? H/T to Dr. Diva Amon.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Behold, the interactive Salt Marsh!
David S. and S. David did a thing!

Monday Morning Salvage: December 26, 2016

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Andrew David Thaler

Welcome back! We missed a week while I was traveling across the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and Guam, so dig in and enjoy!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The Mariana Trench!

The Mariana Trench Monument

It’s the deepest place on the planet and we’ve been all hands on deck sharing the latest science from the bottom of the ocean with our friends in Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam. Check out our expedition on OpenExplorer for a blow by blow of the 12-day adventure. Visit the Friends of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument Facebook page for more exciting stories from the field. We even got some nice coverage in the local press: Marine scientists talks about Marianas Trench at Rotary and Marianas Trench Marine National Monument to be discussed on ‘Your Humanities Half-Hour’.
The Guam Daily Post has my favorite coverage of this adventure: With the help of a tiny robot, scientists deepen support for a Mariana Trench sanctuary.

15 important shark conservation and management terms explained with memes

Posted on April 1, 2013 by David Shiffman

If interested citizens want to get involved in conservation and management policy, it’s absolutely vital to use proper terminology. The policy world can be full of confusing jargon, but there are few ways to discredit yourself in the eyes of decision makers as quickly as using a critical term incorrectly. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for a decision maker’s response to a petition or public comment to consist entirely of correcting inaccurate terminology, if a response is issued at all. There are well over 100 acronyms and terms that I’ve seen regularly used, but in the interest of brevity, I’ve selected what I believe to be the 15 most important terms that I’ve seen people repeatedly use incorrectly.

For each term, I’ve provided a definition from a scientific paper or technical report whenever possible. I have also provided some additional explanation in my own words, and some assistance from familiar memes. Whenever possible, I’ve linked to blog posts, articles, or websites that provide even more information. Most of these terms are broadly applicable to fisheries management policy, but some are specific to shark fisheries. It is not my intention with this post to strongly advocate for or against any specific policy (I do plenty of that with other posts), but to make sure everyone is speaking the same language.

Shark Science Monday: Grant Galland discusses sharks and marine protected areas

Posted on September 5, 2011 by David Shiffman

In this week’s edition of Shark Science Monday, Grant Galland from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography discusses marine protected areas and sharks.

If you have a question for Grant, please leave it as a comment below and I’ll make sure he sees it.

Can marine protected areas save the oceans? Under certain circumstances, maybe.

Posted on January 20, 2011 by David Shiffman

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 to protect fish populations around the world. Of these, the concept of the marine protected area (MPA) is arguably the most popular. Though technically a marine protected area is any area of the ocean where human activities are restricted in some way, the best known version is an area where fishing is banned with the goal of letting exploited fish stocks recover.