Would you rather save the whales or make some money? This article discusses how the Columbian government is being faced with this decision.
Malaga Bay, a booming ecological system, home to sea otters, dolphins, and coral, has long been an important breeding ground for humpback whales. With up to 1,000 whales arriving from June to August, this bay is a critical location along the humpback whales migration. Unfortunately, just as the Columbian government was about to declare Malaga Bay a national park, corporations proposed that the bay be turned into a deep-water port in order to profit off of trade coming out of the Panama Canal.
Initially, the government was looking into creating a port in a different location in order to curb drug trafficking, but a silting problem would cause yearly dredging of costs up to tens of millions of dollars. Malaga Bay is deeper and lacks a river outlet, meaning that it would be a much cheaper option to designate a port. Although the Columbian government has rejected proposals to “build a timber and pulp mill as well as an oil pipeline and tanker depot” in recognition of the ecosystem, the newly proposed port idea has a large economic advantage. However, the whales’s high birth rate is dependent on “low ship traffic and industrial contamination.”
Now the Columbia must make their decision – wealth or whales?
Businesses argue that humans are part of the environment as well and our needs must be met, but how will this kind of perspective effect other parts of the environment?
If you could make the decision for the Columbian government, what would you choose?
We’ve all heard of the whaling conflict between the world and Japan. They’ve been harvesting whales for profit under the façade of “scientific research,” but did you know that these whales may be in your sashimi?
In this article, its been revealed that The Hump restaurant in California has been serving illegally caught whale – the endangered sei whale. The Hump is now being charged with the illegal sale of a marine animal, but this isn’t the first time illegal whale meat has been discovered in restaurants. In 2009 a restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, was caught serving Antarctic minke whales in their sashimi as well.
This is a problem because as the article states, “sei whales and minke whales are listed in the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species, which bans international trading in endangered species.” If the Japanese are selling whales caught under “scientific research” to restaurants for the public to eat, this is further proof that such “scientific research” is a not so scientific after all.
What are your views on Japan’s “scientific research?”
Would you knowingly eat an endangered species?
Imagine if you could just switch a disease on and off. Wouldn’t that be a teenager’s dream? You could say to your teacher, “Well, I’m literally feeling sick today – see I’m getting a rash. Sorry, but I can’t take this test today, I’m going home.” Although this is currently impossible, this article discusses how bottle nose dolphins have the ability to switch diabetes on and off, providing an example for how humans may be able to fight the disease as well.
These dolphins have adapted to be able to ” keep their blood glucose levels high in a diabetic-like state when they have no food to feed the demand from their brains.” They become diabetic at night, but wake up the next morning to eat and no longer have diabetes. Since both humans and dolphins share “the same glucose blood chemistry needed to feed our large brains,” if we are able to study how dolphins control their insulin levels, we may be able to manipulate our bodies in order to mimic dolphins and turn off diabetes in humans. Unfortunately, since nobody wishes to make bottle nose dolphins testing subjects in labs, it is unlikely that further research will occur and diabetes will continue to rise.
Would it be inhumane to use dolphins as lab animals in order to end diabetes?
Would there be a way to study dolphins without turning them into testing subjects in labs?
In this article, I learned about the mating techniques of Sepioteuthis squid in the Caribbean. Apparently, squid don’t think about mating until the end of their lifespan – and then they go all out. Squid orgies are best found in the early mornings and late afternoons as females test males and males compete with each other for attention. In order to stay safe from predators, squids mate in large groups from four to fifty.
Researchers have noticed that while mating, Sepioteuthis use various skin signals to communicate. Firstly, they usually match up into same-sized pairs and then the skin shifting begins. When a male is interested, they coloring changes to Stripe, which is “a pair of wide black longitudinal stripes on either side of the mantle, with paler areas in between.” If a female is interested, they reciprocate by changing their skin color to what observers labeled as Saddle, which is when the “mantle goes white, except for a thin line of dark brown on the very anterior like a saddle over her body.” When a male is intent to mate, he begins flickering. When competing with another male, they’re color takes on a sort of Zebra like pattern. Sepioteuthis males are even capable of isolating different parts of their body to send different signals. On one side they can attract a female while simultaneously warding off competitors on another part of their mantle.
What I found most interesting about the article is the way they mate. After laying on top of one another and rocking back and forth, “males pass spermatophores to the female by sticking them onto her skin just below her eyes.” Then, the female “takes them and puts them in her mantle cavity, where the sperm are stored for later fertilization of her eggs.” She can do this with many males, storing different sperm in different areas, before she chooses which one she really wants to use for fertilization. Imagine that!
A question I still have though is how do the squid know when they’re lifespan is nearing it’s end? You never know which day is your last, a squid could be swimming freely one morning and be dinner that same day.
Photo: Yomiuri Shimbun/AFP/Getty Images From: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0119_060119_jellyfish.html
Imagine pulling up your nets hoping to get a good catch, only to find swarms of Nomura jellyfish 6 feet in diameter, 450 pounds, with hoards of venomous tentacles tainting and killing all your fish. Yay, what a good way to start the day.
In this article, Japanese fishermen are experiencing just this. 2,000 species of jellyfish are experiencing larger populations which are broadening their range and arriving earlier in the season. Scientists speculate that this is due to a change in climate and jellyfish, such as the havoc-wreaking Nomura, are traveling to higher latitudes than usual. Places beyond Japan are experiencing the jellyfish’s sting such as China, Ireland, the Philippines, and Chesapeake Bay.
In the Yellow Sea, it has been concluded that jellyfish are are becoming more dominant due to runoff from agriculture and sewage. This runoff causes the fish population to decline and also sparks larger plankton blooms, paired with the 3 degree warming over the past 25 years – jellyfish are taking over. Not only are these jellyfish attacking the fish industry, but also stinging humans. The Japanese are trying to take advantage of the jellyfish uprising and catch them to make pickled plums or jellyfish ice cream, though the jellyfish industry will never outrank their fishing industry in terms of sushi.
How important is this issue in terms of the health of our ocean? What do you propose should be done?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Image-Blue_Whale_and_Hector_Dolphine_Colored.jpg
What swims, holds l20 barrels of oil, and has a tongue that weighs as much as an elephant? A blue whale of course. These amazing creatures once reached a population of 400,000 until hunting excess caused the population to sink down to 5,000 in the 1960s. Even with a hunting ban put in place, their numbers have continued to stay the same throughout the past 50 years. Surprisingly though, they are beginning to come back to their old feeding grounds.
In this article, some scientists think that this occurrence is due to competition for food where they are currently located, while others think that a change in ocean currents have changed the krill concentrations – a major food source for blue whales. Both of these possibilities would cause the whales to move elsewhere and therefore head back to old migratory and feeding grounds. Hopefully, if the hunting ban continues to be in place and the going back to old feeding/migratory grounds proves beneficial – the blue whale population will be back on the rise.
How else do you think we could aid in the blue whale population rebound? Or should we? How will returning back to old grounds help the population rise?
Within the past two weeks, three humpback whales have been caught in shark nets off the Australian coast this migration season – the most recent one being a month-old calf. Though rescuers are able to free the whales safely in a relatively short amount of time, focus is being thrown on how to prevent whales from being trapped in the first place.
The problem is that 12,000 humpback whales are migrating in an area where shark nets are located and are inevitably getting caught. The shark nets aren’t going anywhere and some are proposing to look into a way to prevent the whales from swimming too close to the coast while others are proposing attaching alarms that emit the sounds of killer whales to scare off the humpbacks. The problem with both of these solutions is that they don’t want to harm the whale watching or tourist industry and of course they don’t want to disturb their migration patterns.
Which, if any, of these solutions do you think will be the most effective? What kind of negative effects would scaring the humpbacks have on their migration patterns?
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pier39.jpg
Sea lions have lived on Pier 39 since the Loma Prieta earthquake two decades ago and have grown to a record number of 1,585 within the past week, a month away from the earthquake’s 20th anniversary. This event is leaving scientists puzzled.
Normally, this is the season when the sea lion numbers drop because the males travel south to mate – but not this year! Thankfully, the sea lions are welcome guests and instead of forcing them away, the harbor officials have provided more docks for the growing herd. This shows great respect humans have for marine life and I commend the harbor officials for furnishing more space for the sea lions to occupy.
Scientists think that a change in upwelling caused the sea lions’ source of food to change as well, so the sea lions are looking for food anywhere and everywhere. Currently, the area around Pier 39 is experiencing a large anchovy run which may have something to do with the sudden “attack of the sea lions.” With so many occupying the area, there have been 1,500 animals that have been rescued so far this year – triple the average. As long as El Nino is around, the sea lion size will most likely continue to grow, increasing the number needing to be rescued.
What do you think are some other factors that may contribute to the sea lion invasion? How else, if at all, should the harbor officials accommodate the increase in the sea lion herd?
