MPAs | Southern Fried Science

#JacquesWeek, Lionfish tax, coral that glows, accelerating climate change, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 10, 2017

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Protect the Outer Continental Shelf! Last week, the president announced a plan to open up significant portions of the outer continental shelf for oil and gas exploration. Call you representative! The public comment period opens today and runs through August 17. We’ll have a template script prepped for your use this week.
Today is the day to submit public comments to defend America’s National Monuments! More than 1 million comments have been submitted so far, and from my cursory survey, almost all of them are in favor of protecting these gems of American history and nature. Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

#JacquesWeek! It’s coming! Only two weeks to go!

Tangier Island. I’m still thinking a lot about the Island out of Time.

What does your sandwich cost, rare species in the deep, dong worms, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 26, 2017

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

NPR did a great breakdown on the full carbon cost of one sandwich.

Public Lab was born from the desperate need for unconflicted data during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Since then, they’ve grown into a global movement for citizen science. They just relaunched their world-changing balloon mapping kit on Kickstarter. Get yours now!

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.

Time to release the Kraken ! Addressing controversial questions in marine conservation

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Chris Parsons

A few years ago, we organized a group of marine conservation scientists to meet to discuss, and list, the most urgent issues that need to be studied. The resulting paper came up with 71 questions which urgently needed to be addressed, because a lack of an answer was severely impeding marine conservation. However, during this exercise we also came up with a list of other questions – these were issues that were controversial, that everyone knew were important, but were unwilling to raise as being an issue. These were the Voldemorts of marine conservation questions (they that shall not be named), the elephant (or elephant seal) in the room questions …. or as we more aquatically termed them: “the kraken in the aquarium” questions.