whales | Southern Fried Science

Pirates, conch, and surfing scientists: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, July 19th, 2018

Posted on July 19, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow Erin Meyer, the director of conservation programs for the Seattle Aquarium, on twitter!
Piracy Incident Reported in First Half of 2018 at Lowest Level in 10 Years. From GCaptain news alerts.
She said she didn’t know it was illegal to take conchs. She’s heading to jail anyway. By Gwen Filosa, for the Miami Herald.
Canada Post releases new shark stamps! By me, for Gizmodo’s Earther.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Surfing For Science: A New Way To Gather Data For Ocean And Coastal Research. By Nathan Rott, for NPR news.
Are the fish in Florida’s polluted waters safe to eat? By Ed Killer, for the Treasure Coast Palm.
What Were Two Humpback Whales Doing with a Dead Gray Whale Calf? By Erica Cirino, for Hakai.
Warm water threatens what should be bumper year for Fraser River sockeye. From CBC news.
Canada’s high Arctic glaciers at risk of disappearing completely. By Ashifa Kassam, for the Guardian.
Taiwan Pushed to Confront Work Abuse in High Seas Fishing Fleet. By Nick Aspinwall, for OceansDeeply.
Bold initiative aims to protect coral reefs in the Dominican Republic. By Greg Asner, for MongaBay
Groupers on the Comeback in the Caymans. By Ben Shouse, for Scientific American.
Seashell Souvenirs Are Killing Protected Marine Life. By Tina Deines, for National Geographic

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!

#JacquesWeek returns! Falling glaciers, fish that don’t eat plastic, sharks and the women who study them, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 16, 2018

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Jacques Week is coming! Have no fear. Our annual answer to Shark Week’s ocean madness will be back for a forth season!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Saving the Vaquita was always about understanding human cultures and how social structures intersect with the ecosystem. Investigation reveals illegal trade cartels decimating vaquita porpoises.

Fishermen with an illegal haul of totoaba. Image courtesy of Elephant Action League.

Keep beating this drum until it sinks in: Plastic Straw Bans Leave Out People With Disabilities.
Climate change may be a boon for archaeology: Scorching Heat Wave Reveals Signs of Ancient Civilization in the UK.

Photo: Toby Driver (RCAHMW)

Ice-free Arctic and salmon symphonies: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, July 12 2018

Posted on July 12, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow environmental social scientist Angela Dean on twitter!
Ice free passage for ships could cause problems for marine mammals. From MongaBay
Bone scraps hint at whale harvest by ancient Romans. From Nature News.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and and Transportation is holding a hearing entitled “SHARKS!” “We don’t see many in South Dakota” says chair John Thune.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Symphony of the salmon: How scientists are learning by putting fish migration to music. By Kevin Davenport, for the Idaho Statesman.
Island of Coral Resilience Shows Hope – and Limits – for Reefs’ Future. By Jessica Leber, for OceansDeeply
Krill fishing firms back Antarctic sanctuary. By Matthew Taylor, for the Guardian.
Fish Fried: What Rio Grande Drought Means for Endangered Silvery Minnows. By Maggie Grimason, for Revelator.
New Surveys Give a Clearer Picture of Recreational Fishing. By Meredith Moore, for the Ocean Conservancy blog.
Rats are wreaking havoc on our coral reefs and reducing fish numbers. By Nick Kilvert, for ABC news.

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!

Valuing the deep sea, send @mcmsharksxx to Antarctica, deep-sea mining takes a dive, explore Kiribati, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 9, 2018

Posted on July 9, 2018 by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Melissa Márquez is fundraising to participate in a women-in-science leadership retreat that culminates in a 2.5 week trip to Antarctica. Help her out! Or back her Patreon!
The scandal-plagued, utterly ineffective, Scott Pruitt is out, just days after an American patriot told him exactly how she felt about him in a restaurant. Good.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Investing in indigenous communities is most efficient way to protect forests, report finds. This should surprise no one but it often does.
Explore the deep waters around Kiribati with OpenExplorer!

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Virtual Reality Preserves Disappearing Land: Coastal communities are capturing their cultures and landscapes in virtual reality before sea level rise steals them for good.
Where Did the Oil Go In the Gulf of Mexico? a storymap.

Smart phones are worse than you think, SeaWorld takes a dive, this week in deep-sea mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 9, 2018

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Stop raising awareness already (and start translating information into action).
Scott Pruitt still has a job [As of 16:59 on 4/8/2018 ~Ed.]. A Running List of Wild Shit Scott Pruitt Hasn’t Been Fired For (Yet).
What to up you outreach skills? Sign up for Andrew Lewin’s Podcasting for Environmental Communications course.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Smart phones. As you know I have a love/hate relationship with tech and the resources needed to fuel our increasingly demanding hardware. Now, we’ve got the most clear picture yet of the impact of smartphones on the environment and it’s not pretty.
- Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected.
- Smartphones are warming the planet far more than you think.

GIF by Anthony Antonellis

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Knitting *and* environmental justice? Sign me up! Stitching Hope for the Coast: Creative pieces that celebrate coastal optimism for Louisiana.

Invisible squid and fish with glowing eye spikes: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, April 5th, 2018

Posted on April 5, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow Louise Chavarie, an Arctic aquatic ecologist, on twitter!
A squid-skin inspired invisibility cloak. From Nature News research updates.
Underwater noise pollution disturbs fish, too. From CBC News.
NOAA publishes list of global fisheries and their risks to marine mammals. By John Cannon, for MongaBay
Antarctic ice melting faster than thought. By Jonathan Watts, for the Guardian.

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Why did this fish evolve a glowing eye spike? By Troy Farah, for Smithsonian Magazine.
Spying on whales to save them. By Marguerite Holloway, for the New Yorker.
Why red coral lives 500 years. By Liz Langley, for National Geographic
Rising CO2 levels could be messing with squid. By Maddie Stone, for Earther.

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!

Giant penguin colonies and tiny squid: Thursday Afternoon Dredging, March 8th, 2018

Posted on March 8, 2018 by David Shiffman

Cuttings (short and sweet):

Follow Travis Tai, a graduate student studying climate change and fisheries, on twitter!
Thumbnail-sized pygmy squid discovered in Australia. By Shreya Dasgupta, for MongaBay.
This octopus is 40,000 times heavier than its mate. By Liz Langley, for National Geographic.
Seal poo reveals plastic’s path in the sea. Nature research highlights.
Grass is back in the Chesapeake, and crabs will follow. By Dan Charles, for NPR.
Be sure to fill out your Mammal March Madness brackets, now featuring a Cookiecutter Shark! (Don’t know what March Mammal Madness is? Check out my 2017 article about it)

Spoils (long reads and deep dives):

Mega-colony of 1.5 million penguins discovered. By Damian Carrington, for the Guardian.
Supplemental nutritional assistance for whales. By John Strang, for Hakai.
Is ocean acidification a chance for bipartisan cooperation in Congress? By Ian Evans, for Oceans Deeply.
The fish that makes other fish smarter. By Ed Yong, for the Atlantic.

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!

The hunt for Soviet submarines, a 5-foot-long shipworm, the impossibilities of deep-sea mining, and more! Massive Monday Morning Salvage: March 5, 2018.

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Subscribe to the Chesapeake Bay Journal (it’s free)! The venerable grey lady of the Bay survived the EPA’s attempt to defund them. Consider sending a few dollars to the journal, too. If you’re filing MD taxes this year, you can earmark some of you return to Chesapeake Bay programs.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The secret on the ocean floor: the wild, weird origin of the modern deep-sea mining industry, complete with spies, Soviet submarines, and Howard Hughes. How much is real? How much is emergent from this first fake venture? If you only read one thing about deep-sea mining, read this.

We really misled a lot of people and it’s surprising that the story held together for so long”

source.

As biodiversity declines, so does public attention. We need to push back against this trend.
After Centuries of Searching, Scientists Finally Find the Mysterious Giant Shipworm Alive!

A shark for all floods, Crowdfunding scams, old fish, bold fish, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: September 18, 2017

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Andrew Thaler

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

The fight for our Marine National Monuments isn’t over. We finally know *some* of the contents of Zincke’s monument review memo, and it’s not great. The DOI wants to see commercial fishing return to the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll Marine National Monuments. Longline fishing in these regions has historically been conducted by foreign fishing fleets which have been documented using slave labor. Many ecologists believe that maintaining these protected zones serve as a refuge that boost populations of many important commercial fish and improve the overall health of the fishery.
Here’s the good news: Any change to monuments created under the Antiquities Act must be approved by congress. You’ve got a lot of reason to call you representatives this week, so why not add “I opposed the reintroduction of ecologically and economically destructive commercial fishing to the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll Marine National Monument.” to your script?

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Hero Shark, the shark who shows up to every flood, ostensibly to save us all from our own hubris, has a long a fascinating history. “Shark in flooded street” wasn’t even the first time that photo was used for fake news.

Photo by Thomas P. Peschak.

NOAA’s New Weather Satellite Captured Stunning Images of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. These are amazing and terrifying.

GOES-16.

Rick MacPherson and I made a bot that generates random ocean conservation solutions from a massive archive of policy jargon. Follow @OceanCon_Bot. It is good.