These are just some of the stark facts presented by Callum Roberts, professor at the University of York and member of the Save Our Seas Foundation Science and Conservation Advisory Panel, in a new book titled The Ocean of Life. In an excerpt published this week in Newsweek, Roberts describes the extent to which we have impacted the oceans through overfishing and CO2 emissions, painting a disheartening picture of the future in store for over 70% of our planet if we don’t change course.

On the subject of ocean acidification, he writes:

The oceans have absorbed around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide released by human activity since pre-industrial times, mainly from fossil-fuel burning, conversion of forests and swamp to cities and agriculture, and cement production. If carbon-dioxide emissions are not curtailed, ocean acidity is expected to rise 150 percent by 2050, the fastest rate of increase at any time in at least the last 20 million years and probably as long as 65 million years, which takes us back to the age of dinosaurs. As Carol Turley, an expert on ocean acidification from Plymouth Marine Laboratory put it, “the present increase in ocean acidity is not just unprecedented in our lifetimes, it is a rare event in the history of the planet.”

As a consequence of rising ocean temperatures and acidity, combined with a massive decrease in the numbers of predatory fish, many parts of the world are seeing an explosion of “slime” – jellyfish, microbes and algae:

Jellyfish, for example, are great opportunists, and some scientists fear that large parts of our most productive seas will transform into jellyfish empires. Jellyfish positively thrive in pollution-enriched seas. Given unlimited food, they can reach adult size fast. With their stinging tentacles, they are formidable predators. Here one of the quirks of ocean food webs comes into play to seal their dominance. Most animals that might eat jellyfish go through tiny egg, larval, or juvenile stages when the tables turn and they are themselves jellyfish prey. Such role reversals of predator and prey are rare on land. In the sea, however, they are prevalent, with surprising effects. The American oceanographer Andrew Bakun invites us to imagine a world in which zebras and antelopes are voracious predators of young of lions or cheetahs. What would the Serengeti look like if this were so?

In the face of such gloomy facts, what can we do? Professor Roberts stresses that there are dietary choices individuals can make that, on a worldwide scale, can positively impact the future of the oceans:

• Avoid eating fish that are overexploited in the wild or taken using methods that harm other wildlife. Try to avoid prawns or scallops and other bottom feeders fished up by dredgers and trawlers, such as plaice, cod, and hake.
• Eat low in the food web, so favor smaller fish like anchovies, herring, and sardines over big predators like Chilean sea bass, swordfish, and large tunas (you will be doing yourself a favor, as these predators also concentrate more toxins).
• If you can’t give up tuna, choose pole- and line-caught animals, which have virtually zero bycatch. (“Dolphin friendly” versions alone may not be very dolphin friendly, since tuna are often caught with purse seines, walls of net that surround and stress dolphins and snare sharks, turtles, and other wildlife.)
• By wary of farm-raised fish and prawns, asthey often come at a high environmental cost in destroyed habitat and wild fish turned into feed.

The full article is available here, and the book goes on sale later this month.

As nearly every major news source has reported, a cloud of uncertainty surrounds the die-off. Officials from Peru’s federal Ocean Institute are suggesting that the culprit, in the case of the dolphins, is morbillivirus, from a family of viruses linked to previous mass deaths of marine mammals. Others are less certain, and autopsies performed on the dead dolphins have found hemorrhagic lesions in the acoustic chamber and fractures in the periotic bones, pointing towards acoustic impact and decompression syndrome as the cause of death. This would suggest that seismic survey blasts used in oil exploration in the region may be a cause of death. Yet much uncertainty remains, as the New York Times reports:

The discovery of dead animals on beaches near Lima, the capital, in recent days has complicated matters. Over the weekend, the Health Ministry issued an alert advising people to avoid the waters around Lima and to the north, “until we know the cause of the recent deaths of marine species.”

It advised people not to eat raw seafood, an ingredient of the national favorite ceviche, and recommended that people disposing of dead marine animals wear gloves and masks. The warning sowed confusion, given earlier government statements indicating that the seabirds were probably starving rather than falling ill from some disease.

What about the pelicans? Officials maintain that there is no link between the bird deaths and dolphin deaths, and suggest that the birds are dying from starvation due to the scarcity of anchovies caused by rapid warming of waters in the region.

Another hypothesis involves suggests that biotoxins from raw sewage and other pollution may have made its way into the food chain, and both dolphins and pelicans, which consume anchovies, could have been poisoned this way.

“It’s unbearable to walk around those areas,” Mr. Alva said of the rapidly growing towns along the coast. “They dump both their industrial and residential wastes into the ocean without control, without consideration.”

Sophie Bertrand, a marine ecologist at the Research Institute for Development in France who is leading a research project on seabirds and sea lions in Peru, said that if there was a common factor linking the die-offs, it would probably be found in the anchoveta, eaten by all of the species concerned.

Meanwhile the die-offs continue, though in lesser numbers than before.

• Use the power of the internet to connect geographically disparate people in a meaningful way.
• Empower a global community of artists and developers to create an extraordinarily beautiful and high fidelity series of apps.
• Support non-profit collaborators in their efforts to better understand and protect the world’s oceans.

It’s not easy to get an idea of what theBlu is exactly from the description, but we’ve tried it and it’s definitely worth checking out! theBlu is available as a free download for PC and Mac.

From social gaming to social responsibility

“theBlu” turns the internet into a globally-connected 3D digital ocean wherein every species and habitat is an original work of art created by a worldwide community of artists, animators and developers, including Academy Award winners Andy Jones and Kevin Mack, and students alike.

Exploring “theBlu” is as easy as browsing the web and includes information about species, exploration of geo-located habitats, in-ocean tagging of fish, the purchase of species to grow your collection and customise your experience, social activity streams, event and photo sharing, and ocean life swimming from user to user across the Internet, creating real-time social interaction.

At launch, “theBlu” will enable a connected social exploration across eight ocean habitats, including over one hundred life forms with new habitats and species released monthly, and fifteen “ambassador” species, sponsored by non-profit cause collaborators, to raise awareness and funds for ocean conservation. Currently a downloadable app for PC and Mac, “theBlu” will soon be available on phones, tablets and smart TVs.

Non-profit cause collaborators

theBlu’s inaugural non-profit cause collaborators include: Mission Blue, OceanElders, Oceanic Preservation Society, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and WildAid.

How it works: Participating non-profit collaborators sponsor “ambassador” species or habitats in “theBlu” and users of “theBlu” are offered the opportunity to purchase these “ambassador” species or habitats for their virtual ocean environment. Twenty-five percent (25%) of the purchase price of these virtual species or habitats goes directly to the non-profit collaborators to fund projects that support their work in the real ocean environment. The program is also designed to increase awareness and reach for collaborating organisations and their conservation efforts. Users of “theBlu” have the opportunity to effect real change for the world ocean.

The Great Fiji Shark Count an initiative of Fiji tourism operators and organised by Helen Sykes, the co-ordinator of Fiji Coral Reef Monitoring Network will be held throughout this month and again in November. Helen stated: “We’ll count the sharks, rays and turtles during diving, snorkelling, fishing trips or on boat voyages and contribute to shark research and protection.” The event follows on the heels of another of her work the Great Fiji Butterflyfish Count in 2008-2009.


And that is just what happened!

CEO and Save Our Seas Photographer Peter Verhoog was there, and took some incredible pictures.

A whitetip Reef Shark in Shallow Waters

A bull shark in the Fiji Shark Reef Marine Reserve

The next week is devoted to obtaining all the sighting reports from the participants and then Helen and a gaggle of volunteers will embark on the tedious task of analyzing and formatting everything. A first informal analysis can be expected at the Dive Fiesta, and a proper review in a few months.

Curious Bull Shark © Save Our Seas Foundation / Peter Verhoog

And there was even a very remarkable guest, a Mobula tarapacana (Chilean Devil Ray), seen from the boat off Frigate’s Passage right under the surface, and never observed in Fiji before!

Unexpected guest! (Picture © Shutterstock)

In a study published in the journal Conservation Biology, an international team of marine scientists provide the first estimates of reef shark losses in the Pacific Ocean. Using underwater surveys conducted over the past decade across 46 U.S. Pacific islands and atolls, as part of NOAA’s extensive Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/) the team compared reef shark numbers at reefs spanning from heavily impacted ones to those among the world’s most pristine.

The numbers are sobering.

“We estimate that reef shark numbers have dropped substantially around populated islands, generally by more than 90 percent compared to those at the most untouched reefs”, said Marc Nadon, lead author of the study and a scientist at the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (JIMAR) located at the University of Hawaii, as well as a PhD candidate with Dr. Jerry Ault at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. “In short, people and sharks don’t mix.”

To obtain these estimates, Nadon and his colleagues used an innovative survey method, called ‘towed-diver surveys,’ which were designed specifically for the census of large, highly mobile reef fishes like sharks. The surveys involve paired SCUBA divers recording shark sightings while towed behind a small boat.

“Towed-diver surveys are key to our effort to quantify reef shark abundance,” said Ivor Williams, head of the team responsible for these surveys. “Unlike other underwater census methods, which are typically at an insufficient spatial scale to properly count large, mobile species, these surveys allowed our scientists to quickly record shark numbers over large areas of reef.”

The team crunched the numbers from over 1,600 towed-diver surveys, combining them with information on human population, habitat complexity, reef area, and satellite-derived data on sea surface temperature and oceanographic productivity.

The models showed the enormous detrimental effect that humans have on reef sharks. “Around each of the heavily populated areas we surveyed – in the main Hawaiian Islands, the Mariana Archipelago, and American Samoa - reef shark numbers were greatly depressed compared to reefs in the same regions that were simply further away from humans.” Nadon said. “We estimate that less than 10% of the baseline numbers remain in these areas.”

Like all fishes, reef sharks are influenced by their environment. “They like it warm, and they like it productive,” said Julia Baum, Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada, referring to the increase in reef sharks the team found in areas with higher water temperatures and productivity. “Yet our study clearly shows that human influences now greatly outweigh natural ones.”

“The pattern — of very low reef shark numbers near inhabited islands — was remarkably consistent, irrespective of ocean conditions or region,” added Williams.

The Shark Alliance has made great animation:

Finning bans made simple from Shark Alliance on Vimeo.

Check out the website of the Shark Alliance for more information.

Fishermen in the region are finding significant deformities in large proportions of their catch: eyeless shrimp, fish covered with lesions, missing appendages, and others. As Al Jazeera reports:

“What we found is a very clear, genome-wide signal, a very clear signal of exposure to the toxic components of oil that coincided with the timing and the locations of the oil,” Whitehead told Al Jazeera during an interview in his lab.

According to Whitehead, the killifish is an important indicator species because they are the most abundant fish in the marshes, and are known to be the most important forage animal in their communities.

“That means that most of the large fish that we like to eat and that these are important fisheries for, actually feed on the killifish,” he explained. “So if there were to be a big impact on those animals, then there would probably be a cascading effect throughout the food web. I can’t think of a worse animal to knock out of the food chain than the killifish.”

But we may well be witnessing the beginnings of this worst-case scenario.

Whitehead is predicting that there could be reproductive impacts on the fish, and since the killifish is a “keystone” species in the food web of the marsh, “Impacts on those species are more than likely going to propagate out and effect other species. What this shows is a very direct link from exposure to DWH oil and a clear biological effect. And a clear biological effect that could translate to population level long-term consequences.”

Back on shore, troubled by what he had been seeing, Keath Ladner met with officials from the US Food and Drug Administration and asked them to promise that the government would protect him from litigation if someone was made sick from eating his seafood.

“They wouldn’t do it,” he said.

“I’m worried about the entire seafood industry of the Gulf being on the way out,” he added grimly.

The article summarizes the findings of three scientists: Dr Darryl Felder (Department of Biology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette), Dr Jim Cowan (Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences), and Dr Andrew Whitehead (Louisiana State University):

Felder: Studies carried out from January 2010 to present in BP’s Macondo well area. Found abnormalities in shrimp post-spill, whereas pre-spill found none.

Cowan: Studies carried out from Nov 2010-present, from west Louisiana to west Florida, from coast to 250km out. Found lesions/sores/infections in 20 species of fish, as many as 50 per cent fish in some samples impacted. Pre spill levels were 1/10 of one per cent of fish.

Whitehead: Species such as the Gulf Killifish, in and around the Gulf of Mexico, will continue to be subject to negative effects of the BP oil spill disaster of 2010. The Killifish, which researchers consider a good indicator of water quality in the Gulf of Mexico, is showing signs that the oil spill is having a negative impact on its health. Tracked killifish for the first four months after spill across oil-impacted areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.

In a study published in this month’s edition of the journal Hydrobiologia, UBC scientists examined data for numerous species of jellyfish for 45 of the world’s 66 Large Marine Ecosystems. They found increasing jellyfish populations in 62 per cent of the regions analyzed, including East Asia, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Northeast U.S. Shelf, Hawaii, and Antarctica.

“There has been anecdotal evidence that jellyfish were on the rise in recent decades, but there hasn’t been a global study that gathered together all the existing data until now,” says Lucas Brotz, a PhD student with the Sea Around Us Project at UBC and lead author of the study.

“Our study confirms these observations scientifically after analysis of available information from 1950 to the present for more than 138 different jellyfish populations around the world.”

Jellyfish directly interfere with many human activities – by stinging swimmers, clogging intakes of power plants, and interfering with fishing. Some species of jellyfish are now a food source in some parts of the world.

“By combining published scientific data with other unpublished data and observations, we could make this study truly global – and offer the best available scientific estimate of a phenomenon that has been widely discussed,” says Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project and co-author of the study. “We can also see that the places where we see rising numbers of jellyfish are often areas heavily impacted by humans, through pollution, overfishing, and warming waters.”

Pauly adds that increasing anecdotal reports of jellyfish abundance may have resulted from an expansion of human activities in marine habitats, so the study also provides a concrete baseline for future studies.

The study also notes decreases in jellyfish abundance in seven per cent of coastal regions, while the remainder of the marine ecosystems showed no obvious trend.

We have been sponsoring Jason Hall-Spencer’s ocean acidification research for several years now. He recently appears on a number of programmes to talk about his work, including Australia’s RadioNational and the David Suzuki Foundation blog:

A 30 per cent decrease in the number of species is observed at levels of acidification expected to occur across oceans later this century. Both calcifying and non-calcifying organisms (such as urchins, snails and fish) are adversely affected by acidification, allowing invasive algae to thrive in their place. Transformation of diverse benthic ecosystems into monocultures of invasive algae and seagrass is observed at CO2 vents in Mexico, New Guinea and the Mediterranean, a strong indication of what we can expect to see in the future. Although many large fish species are present in the acidified areas, they have not been observed to deposit their eggs in the algae and eelgrass, opting instead to lay eggs among coralline algae at normal pH levels.

You can listen to RadioNational’s interview with Jason here (mp3 download).