Save Our Seas Foundation - Blog

Surprising sleeper shark!

2012-02-22T09:34:54+00:00

Shark footage recorded from ROV onboard Stena DrillMAX at 9100 feet (2770 m) depth offshore Brazil, shot on February 11, 2012, showed a very deep diving shark. According to scientist Jeffrey Gallant of the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Grouep / GEERG, this is probably a southern sleeper shark, but it could also be a Greenland shark or a Pacific sleeper shark. It is however still not known if the distribution of these species extends to the southern hemisphere. These species are virtually impossible to distinguish with images alone. Incidentally, this would be a new depth record for the Greenland shark. The deepest observation to date was 2,200 m (1988), so this could be a new record!

You can watch the shark on Youtube, at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P__-YVYdNmE

A Special Meeting: Dr. Eugenie Clark of Mote Marine Laboratorium

2012-02-13T22:05:07+00:00

As a CEO of Save Our Seas Foundation, we get some great opportunities. One of those was a visit to Professor Emerita Eugenie Clark, also known as the ‘Shark Lady’.

Genie, as she prefers to be callled, has an impressive career. In 1955, she was is the Founding Executive Director of Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida (formerly Cape Haze Marine Laboratory), where she is now Director Emerita. She was the Principal Investigator of 45 grants, contracts from government and private scientific organizations for the study of the behavior, ecology and taxonomy of fishes. Current research is on behavior of sand fishes, feeding behavior of whale sharks, the effects of human activities on coral reef environments, and behavior of deep sea sharks recorded from 71 deep submersible dives. In 1955, the Mote Marine Lab consisted of one small shed… The complex is now 10,5 acres and has 195 employees and a large aquarium, and is famous for its groundbreaking research and support to countless projects and researchers.

Genie wrote 165 articles in scientific journals and popular magazines.

Times photo: John Pendygraft

Just before her 90th birthday on May 4th this year, this amazing lady will make a month-long field trip to Indonesia to study sand perches…. And she just published an update edition of her book ‘The Lady and the Sharks’ (Peppertree Press, Sarasota, Florida).

Eugenie has honored Save Our Seas by again being an Honorary Advisor in 2012. We discussed her view on shark conservation. To her, finning bans and eduction and awareness are most important factors in shark conservation. For us, this was a remarkable meeting, and we hope to see Genie again in Fort Lauderdale, at the opening of the SHARK Exhibition in the Museum of Art. We are already looking forward to it!

SOSF Main Sponsor of Education and Awareness Component of SHARK Exhibition in Museum of Art, Florida

2012-02-06T16:05:05+00:00

Long before humans first appeared on Earth, sharks were swimming the seas. They predate dinosaurs by about 200 million years and were revered by ancient human societies as gods. Sharks come in all shapes and sizes. There are angel sharks, basking sharks, blues sharks, bull sharks, gray sharks, lemon sharks, sleeper sharks, and tiger sharks, among many other varieties. Not only are they found in every ocean of the world, but in many rivers and lakes as well. There will be a major exhihibition about sharks, organized by the Museum of Art in association with Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center.
CEOs of Save Our Seas Foundation, Peter Verhoog and Georgina Wiersma, had a very interesting and exciting meeting at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. This exhibition, for which famous shark painter Richard Ellis is the curator, will open on May 12th. It will cover sharks in art over the centuries and will display several famous works of ‘shark’ art.

There will also be an extensive educational and audiovisual component to this event, and after meeting the directors of the museum and Richard Ellis in May last year, Peter and Georgina were invited to discuss SOSF’s involvement. The exhibition will run for seven months, and will travel to other museums after that period of time.

Discussing the exhibition and Save Our Seas’involvement (from left to right: Wendy Wood-Derrer, Save Our Seas Foundation / Nova Oceanographic Centre , Roberta Kjelgaard, Director of Development, Irvin Lipmann, Director of the Museum, SSOSF CEO Georgina Wiersma, Anna Fornias, Vice-director of Development

SOSF’s involvement will already start right at the entrance, with a spectacular multisensory impression of the underwater world! There will be educational trips by schools from Florida, special family events etc. etc
SOSF’s educational material from all over the world will be used to create a Resource Guide, that will be available on line for free as a preparation for school visits by students from all over Florida. Besides that, there will be a Family Activitity Guide, a special Shark App with a SHARK scavenger hunt, shark species matching guide, crossword puzzles, mazes, word search, coloring and stickers.

For more information visit: the website of the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale

Are Jellyfish Taking Over the Ocean?

2012-02-06T10:53:12+00:00

Jellyfish blooms have finding their way into the media recently – clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants – creating a perception that the world’s oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overfishing.

A new study conducted at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and published in the latest issue of BioScience questions this view. The study’s authors note that while there have been jellyfish blooms in certain areas (notably Giant Jellyfish in Japan), other regions have seen jellyfish declines or fluctuations. As noted in the press release,

Increased speculation and discrepancies about current and future jellyfish blooms by the media and in climate and science reports formed the motivation for the study. “There are major consequences for getting the answer correct for tourism, fisheries and management decisions as they relate to climate change and changing ocean environments,” says Duarte. “The important aspect about our synthesis is that we will be able to support the current paradigm with hard scientific data rather than speculation.”

The study has also led to the formation of the improbably named JEDI (Jellyfish Database Initiative), a database consisting of over 500,000 data points about global jellyfish populations collected from as early as 1790. By analyzing and continuously updating JEDI, scientists hope to learn more about how human activities, such as climate change, are impacting jellyfish populations. So are jellyfish burgers in our future? Looks like the jury’s still out on that one.

The full press release about the publication of this paper is available here.

Ecologists Capture First Deep-Sea Fish Sounds

2012-01-31T11:40:51+00:00

University of Massachusetts Amherst fish biologists have published one of the first studies of deep-sea fish sounds in more than 50 years, collected from the sea floor about 2,237 feet (682 meters) below the North Atlantic. With recording technology now more affordable, Rodney Rountree, Francis Juanes and colleagues are exploring the idea that many fish make sounds to communicate with each other, especially those that live in the perpetual dark of the deep ocean.

Though little is known at present about the significance of sounds made by deep-sea fishes, Rountree and Juanes say that if, as their pilot study suggests, these tend to be low-amplitude, then man-made noise in the oceans may turn out to be a particular problem for some important species. Noise pollution is a serious problem for cetaceans, which can be disoriented by man-made sounds and end up on beaches, but less is understood about how it affects fish.

Using hydrophones deployed by fishermen during normal fishing operations, Rountree, Juanes and colleagues obtained a 24-hour recording in Welkers Canyon south of Georges Bank that yielded “a wealth of biological sounds” including sounds of fin, humpback and pilot whales, dolphins and examples of at least 12 other unique and unidentified sounds they attribute to other whales or fish.

Juanes says some fish use special “sonic muscles” to produce some sounds, and different sounds have different meanings or functions. Many are believed to be related to reproductive behavior. Some fish use a “sound map” for orientation in their immediate environment and may even use sound waves returning from distant beaches to help them navigate over longer distances. “There is a fascinating acoustic soundscape out there just waiting to be explored.”

Rountree has made some of these recordings available for download here.

Their paper appears in the new book, “Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life,” from Springer Science+Business Media in its “Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology” series.

Beneath the Waves Film Festival Call for Entries

2012-01-30T15:28:51+00:00

This year’s Beneath the Waves Film Festival takes place from March 21-24, 2012 in Norfolk, Virginia, and the organizers have sent word that they are accepting submissions until February 24th:

The organizers of the Festival are currently seeking original films less than 10 minutes in length that highlight ocean/marine/aquatic themes or issues. The festival, while driven by science and research, caters to all levels of experience and backgrounds. Films with a conservation message or that feature scientific research are preferred, but not required.

Now in its third year, the goal of the student-run Festival is to and stimulates science communication while promoting sustainable usage of natural marine resources. You can find out more on the festival’s site and have a look at the submission guidelines here.

More on Effects of Acidification

2012-01-24T16:47:03+00:00

Three new studies looking at ocean acidification have shed light on some of its effects on marine organisms.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activities have accelerated the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide mixes with water. The two molecules combine to become carbonic acid, making seawater more acidic. As billions of molecules combine and go through this process, the overall pH of the oceans decreases, causing ocean acidification.

The first study, from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and published Nature Climate Change, documents the the effects of rising CO2 emissions on the nervous systems of coral fishes. Based on several years of observations of how baby coral fishes react to an environment with high levels of dissolved CO2, researchers have found that elevated acidity levels directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, impeding their ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators. Prof. Philip Munday, one of the study’s authors, noted that:

“We’ve now established it isn’t simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption – as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons – but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes’ nervous systems.”

The abstract and full paper (subscription required) are available here.

Also from the ARC Centre is a new paper on the symbiotic relationship between corals and reef fishes:

“Our latest research provides strong evidence for a view that today’s coral hotspots are both a refuge for old species and a cradle for new ones,” said Peter Cowman, lead author of a recent report. “This is the first real inkling we’ve had that just protecting a large area of reef may not be enough – you have to protect the right sorts of reef.”

What constitutes the “right sort” of reef? Early coral reefs, from 300-400 million years ago, were much simpler affairs than today’s complex and colorful reefs. The real explosion of reef diversity didn’t occur until about 50 million years ago:

“When people think of coral reefs, they usually think of the beautiful branching corals like staghorn (Acropora) – well the evidence is now fairly clear that Acropora needs certain fish for it to flourish. But, it now appears that this may be a reciprocal relationship with Acropora being important for the evolution and survival of fishes on coral reefs. ”

Unfortunately Acropora corals are highly vulnerable to external impacts like Crown-of-Thorns starfish, coral bleaching, climate change and ocean acidification. Their demise will have far reaching effects on the fishes which interact with them, such as damsels, butterfly fish, cardinals and wrasses.

More details about this research can be found here, along with a citation for the original publication.

Finally we return to a recent, wide-ranging study of ocean acidification around the world using new sensors developed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. The team measured the acidity of 15 ocean locations, including seawater in the Antarctic, and in temperate and tropical waters.

“This study is important for identifying the complexity of the ocean acidification problem around the globe,” said co-author Jennifer Smith, a marine biologist with Scripps. “Our data show such huge variability in seawater pH, both within and across marine ecosystems, making global predictions of the impacts of ocean acidification a big challenge.”

The study of ocean acidification on a global scale is still in its infancy, and the authors of the study note that they only made observations on coastal surface oceans, and that more research is needed in deeper ocean regions farther away from land.

With no major cuts of CO2 emissions on the horizon, more ocean acidification seems inevitable, and further research into its effects is necessary to deal with the inevitable consequences to the ecosystem that will accompany it.

UC Santa Barbara’s press release has video of the sensors deployed in some of the most remote regions of the planet, including under three meters of Antarctic sea ice.

Petition for a Malaysian Shark Sanctuary

2012-01-23T14:20:17+00:00

Semporna, Malaysia is home to many species of shark, from the extremely rare and elusive Borneo and hammerhead shark to the largest fish in the sea, the graceful whale shark.

A local group of conservationists and divers are petitioning the local state government to set up a Semporna Shark Sanctuary, which would cover some 83 islands, including the world renowned diving haven of Sipadan and its neighbouring Mabul island. Mabul-based divemaster and campaigner Oliver Ostick tells us that:

If we get 10,000 signatures then we can go to the government and have a great chance of succeeding.

Nearly 6,000 people have already signed the petition, so if you’re interested then please show your support! The initiative also has a Facebook page.

Cryptic hammerhead shark species in the western South Atlantic revealed by DNA analysis

2012-01-18T11:50:49+00:00

Prof. Mahmood Shivji, director of the Save Our Seas Shark Centre at Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, United States, and colleague scientists have made a remarkable discovery. Through sampling and DNA analysis, the scientists have further confirmed the existence of a cryptic species of hammerhead shark that looks very similar to but is evolutionarily very distinct from the scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini). Prof. Shivji’s group first reported the existence of this new hammerhead species in the western North Atlantic Ocean in 2005. Now, using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences they have documented that this cryptic lineage also occurs in the western South Atlantic Ocean, extending its distribution >7,000 km from its only previously reported location.

Given its only recent discovery and close morphological resemblance to the real S. lewini, it is reasonable to postulate that the new Sphyrna species (currently called Sphyrna sp. since it has not yet formally been named) has been subject to similar fishing pressure as S. lewini, which is in the midst of a stock collapse in the western North Atlantic (Hayes et al. 2009) and listed as “Endangered” worldwide by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (Baum et al. 2007). We therefore speculate that the population status of the Sphyrna sp. lineage throughout the western Atlantic might similarly be of concern, especially in light of its presence in fisheries landings and apparent low-frequency occurrence in the wild.
Why is this important?
Given solid genetic evidence for its existence and expanding concerns about overfishing of the large-bodied hammerhead sharks, this cryptic species urgently needs to be formally recognized and incorporated into shark management and conservation planning to avoid the inadvertent, potential extirpation of a unique hammerhead lineage. Comprehensive studies of its life history (i.e., fecundity, breeding regularity, age and growth and distribution) are needed to allow for its proper management.

Also of concern now is that due to decades of unrealized species mis-identification betwen the real S. lewini and the cryptic species, stocks of the endangered S. lewini may be even smaller than previously assessed. The United States National Marine Fisheries Service is currently conducting a status review of S. lewini to consider if it should be listed as Threatened or Endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The existence of the cryptic species and mis-identification issues interjects additional considerations in this status review.
Sharks are under tremendous threat worldwide with many species facing extinction. Without adequate research it is difficult to create the right legislation to protect sharks and to formulate practical methods of enforcing this legislation. Dr. Shivji’s work is crucial in both these areas.

An abstract of the paper can be read here:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/48385113gqr22660/

Pinhal1, D., M.S. Shivji, M. Vallinoto, D.D. Chapman, O.B.F. Gadig and C. Martins. 2011.

Cryptic hammerhead shark lineage occurrence in the Western South Atlantic revealed by DNA analysis. Marine Biology. Online First™, 23 December 2011

Jason Hall-Spencer on Ocean Acidification Research (Vancouver, February 18, 2012)

2012-01-13T11:31:04+00:00

Often called the “evil twin” of climate change, ocean acidification results from fairly simple chemistry and yet has significant implications for marine species and ecosystems. While scientists have resolved the details of many of the physical and chemical processes related to ocean acidification, they have not yet built a parallel understanding of the future of marine ecosystems in a more acidic ocean. Acidification clearly interferes with the ability of some marine species to build shells and develop normally, but how do these changes in individuals translate to changes in populations, food webs, and entire ecosystems through both direct and synergistic processes? Save Our Seas Support Scientist Jason-Hall Spencer of the University of Plymouth, UK, is an acclaimed expert in this field. During the Annual Meeting of Advanced Science, Serving Society (AAAS), on February 18th, 2012, he will present the results of his last two papers on this intriguing subject. Following his paper in the prestigious Nature Magazine, he presents a new paper “Responses of marine benthic microalgae to elevated CO2” (Johnson and al. 2011).

More information on this and the Annual Meeting of AAAS can be found at
the website of AAAS.

Read more about Jason Hall-Spencer’s SOSF supported project here

Ocean acidification can prevent healthy coral growth