By Eric Cheng, publisher and founder, Wetpixel.com; director of photography, Lytro Inc.

A time capsule of excellence

As I reviewed the body of work submitted for this year’s Ocean Views Photo Contest, I was blown away. The images were stunning and diverse. There were pictures of single-celled organisms, surprising behaviors, the largest fish and mammals on the planet, rare animals and aerial pictures bordering on the abstract. Photographers explored the waters of every part of Earth — from the tropical Pacific’s pristine reefs to the icy waters of the Arctic and Antarctic.

The collection of photographs submitted embodies the perfect ocean portfolio; it is unsurpassed by the work of any single photographer and made possible only by the efforts of thousands of inspired ocean folk putting in millions of hours of work. Improvements in computer and camera technology have been incredible enablers, allowing photographers to capture subjects and behaviors that would have been nearly impossible only a decade ago. We are squarely in the middle of a wildlife-photography renaissance driven by the combination of extraordinary technology in affordable cameras and the ingenuity of today’s professional and hobbyist photographers.

Great photographers are great regardless of the camera they use. They have skills that enable them to succeed as image-makers: deep specialization, tremendous domain knowledge born from years of experience, near-infinite patience and the drive to obsessively pursue that perfect picture.

While experience is king, technology also plays an important role in today’s photography. New technology enables new techniques that allow photographers to create new kinds of images. When I started my career as an underwater photographer, digital cameras were not something professionals took seriously. Now they are the standard. During a single scuba dive, a photographer can fire off the same number of pictures that a productive photographer in the film days might have taken in a month. Instant review permits a feedback loop that dramatically enhances the learning process.

Cameras now feature advances such as image stabilization at the sensor level and incredible low-light performance. Underwater-housing manufacturers are fine-tuning ergonomics, and continuous lighting has moved almost exclusively to LED. Now lighting is on the same exponential performance-increase curve that home computers are on. Frame rates in still photography are pushing into video territory, and photographers are experimenting with filters, time-lapse and unusual perspectives (e.g., relay lenses for wide-angle macro). Computational photography is peeking at us from around the corner, giving us powerful lens- and aberration-correction abilities, real-time high dynamic range (HDR), smart multi-image capture and even really crazy things like light-field imaging, which allows perspective changes and refocusing of pictures after they’re taken.

Photographers are getting really good at documenting the ocean and its inhabitants at a particularly crucial time. It’s hard to overstate the threats of ocean acidification, climate change and overfishing. When I talk to experienced photographers decades older than me, they describe with great nostalgia the oceans of their youth. Unfortunately, no one will ever get to experience those oceans again, and even the best photography from that era is unable to successfully communicate it.

One of the driving forces of my own photography is the desire to document what I see in the ocean now so my descendants might have an idea of what it was like. Contests like Ocean Views aggregate the beauty of the ocean at a particular moment, creating a time capsule of excellence that will enable future generations to see what drove us to spend as much time as possible in and around the water.

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By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

The rapid rise in cargo shipping has helped the spread of invasive species around the world Scientists have developed the first global model that analyses the routes taken by marine invasive species.

The researchers examined the movements of cargo ships around the world to identify the hot spots where these aquatic aliens might thrive.

Marine species are taken in with ballast water on freighters and wreak havoc in new locations, driving natives to extinction.

The research is published in the Journal Ecology Letters.

There has been a well-documented boom in global shipping over the past 20 years and this has led to growing numbers of species moving via ballast tanks, or by clinging to hulls.

Some ports such as San Francisco and Chesapeake Bay have reported several exotic new species arriving every year. Economic estimates indicate that marine invaders can have huge impacts that last for decades.

Now, scientists from the UK and Germany have developed a model that might help curb these unwanted visitors. They obtained detailed logs from nearly three million voyages that took place in 2007 and 2008.

Scientists mapped the global routes taken by cargo ships over a two-year period “Our model combines information such as shipping routes, ship sizes, temperatures and biogeography to come up with local forecasts of invasion probabilities,” said Prof Bernd Blasius from the University of Oldenburg.

While this is a mathematical model, the researchers were able to adjust it by carrying out field observations. They were able to estimate the probability that a species can survive a journey and establish a population in a subsequent port of call.

“It is called ecological roulette,” said Dr Michael Gastner from the University of Bristol.

The tale of the Zebra mussel

One of the most celebrated examples of invasives is the Zebra mussel. They travelled by cargo ship from the Black Sea to the Great Lakes in the US in 1988. The invaders have caused severe economic problems as they have multiplied rapidly, clogging water pipes. At one point, they cut off a town’s water supply.

“The probability of winning from the perspective of the invader is really tiny – but because the number of attempts are now growing with more and bigger ships, you play this roulette so often that you become a likely winner sooner or later,” he added.

The team says that the key hotspots for invasion are Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Panama and Suez canals. Cooler climates like the North Sea are less likely to be troubled, unless ships come from similar waters such as the east coast of the US. They conclude that very long trips are less likely to be a cause for concern.

“If you are travelling 20,000 km, it is rather unlikely that an organism will survive this, as ballast water is not the most cosy environment to live in,” said Dr Gastner.

“There is a certain intermediate range of distances that you can survive as a potential invader. You are the new kid on the block and can increase your population in a very short time,” he added.

While the growth in cargo carried across the oceans means that the risk of future invasions is severe, the researchers say that tackling the ballast water issue can be a powerful means of mitigation.

But Dr Gastner is worried that economic pressure might prevent ship owners from taking the necessary steps.

“There is no single solution that seems to be working on a global scale; different ship sizes have different engineering constraints – and it takes too much time to have the water filtered.”

“For the shipping industry, even an extra half an hour in port means additional costs and they are trying to reduce this as much as they can,” he said.

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Nothing sends ocean swimmers fleeing for shore faster than a fin sighting. The word shark alone is enough to scare most people, immediately calling to mind the menacing theme song for the movie “Jaws”—and, of course, all the gruesome attack scenes therein. But some people look past the sensationalism and all those razor-sharp teeth (up to 15 rows of them) to see sharks for what they really are—streamlined, beautiful animals that are fantastically adapted to their environment. (There’s a reason they’ve been around for 64 million years.)

For those brave souls, the thrill of floating alongside these big fish far outweighs the fright. And in truth, many sharks pose a bigger threat to plankton than to surfers or other fish—though swimming alongside them still lends plenty of bragging rights. In order to do it, you’ll need a boat (in most cases, anyway) and local knowledge to find the fish. The surest bet is to hire a local guide service or naturalist who can take you out, outfit you with snorkels or dive gear, and—perhaps most important—let you know how close is too close.

We scoured the globe to come up with some great guide services that offer you a glimpse inside the watery world of the oceans’ most-feared fish. They’ll take you on daylong dive and snorkeling charters, set you up on a live-aboard yacht for extended, all-inclusive trips, and even load you into a deep-sea submersible to get a Cousteau-style look at some seriously creepy (and rare) creatures.

That underscores another fascinating fact about sharks—more than the much-maligned Great White, there are 470 species of sharks prowling the world’s oceans. There are bus-sized, plankton-eating whale sharks that you can snorkel up to and touch; little lemon sharks that you can lift out of the water (literally, but we don’t recommend it…their “nibbles” can cause serious injury); streamlined makos that blast through the water at upwards of 25 mph; bottom-dwelling nurse sharks who are sort of like catfish of the sea; and, yes, 5,000-pound apex predators called Great Whites.

It’s up to you what shark you want to see, and how close you want to get. Some you can reach out and touch, others are best kept on the other side of a thick steel cage. With that in mind, here are the best places in the world to get nose-to-snout with sharks.

• 1 Whale Sharks: Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula

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  What better way to celebrate the official Mexican Day of the Whale Shark, on August 30th (yes, it is an official holiday), than by snorkeling alongside these gentle giants? They may be the biggest fish in the world—at up to 40 feet long and weighing in at 50 tons, with mouths that open as wide as five feet—but since they only eat plankton, it’s safe as can be to swim alongside them. The black-and-white spotted behemoths come to the waters off of Punta Sam each summer to feed, from mid-May through September. You can opt for a daylong snorkeling trip with Swim With Whale Sharks or a multi-day outing with Natural Habitat Adventures.

• 2 Bull Sharks: Beqa Lagoon, Fiji

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  • Few marine creatures are as intimidating as the bull shark. The carnivorous fish grow 11.5 feet in length and 500 pounds in weight. Scientists consider them one of the most aggressive and predatory species in the sea. That may be enough warning for most to stay away, but if flirting with deep-sea danger appeals, then you can sign up for Beqa Adventure Divers’ day-long Shark Dive outings in the protected waters off of Fiji. June is peak season for spotting these migratory animals, though they arrive in the waters off of Fiji as early as mid-May. You might also spot grey reef sharks, Pacific blacktips, whitetip reef sharks, sicklefin lemon sharks, silvertips, tawny nurse sharks and Fiji tiger sharks here this time of year.

   

• 3 Shortfin Mako Sharks: The Southern California Coast, USA

  NOAA
  • Dubbed the peregrine falcons of the shark world for their torpedo-like bodies, Shortfin Makos are the fastest of all sharks. Many can cruise along comfortably at 22 miles per hour, and one was clocked swimming a bullet-like 46 mph. They can even leap up out of the water, up to 20 feet in the air. These athletic creatures are most commonly found in warmer waters. San Diego-based Shark Chums runs regular diving trips out to the Mako-filled waters off of southern California.

   

• 4 Lemon Sharks: The Florida Coast, USA

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  • These small sharks are named for their buttery yellow skin color. Most grow no larger than 12 feet long, but they have been known to attack humans—though it’s usually attributed to fright rather than aggression. Lemon sharks are found mostly off the coast of the southeastern United States and also in the Gulf of Mexico. Jupiter Dive Center, out of Jupiter, Florida, just north of West Palm Beach, offers daylong diving trips to the Florida Reef, a favorite Lemon homesite.

   

• 5 Six-Gill Sharks: The Cayman Trench, Honduras

  NOAA
  • The prehistoric Six-Gill Shark is a deep-sea creature that dwells up to 6,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. Little surprise, then, that spotting one of these 20-foot-long fish is a rarity. But on one of Shark Diver’s unique submarine-based dive excursions, you can venture 2,000 feet beneath the sea into the Cayman Trench off of Honduras, and spot massive Six-Gills in their native habitat. Shark Diver’s specially designed submarines carry up to three people for six-hour dives.

   

• 6 Hammerhead Sharks: Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

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  Sneaking up on a hammerhead is next to impossible: Thanks to the positioning of their eyes—set on the sides of their distinctive hammer-shaped snout—they have virtual 360-degree vision. That’s why it’s best to get help from the experts if you hope to spot one in the wild. The folks at Quasar Expeditions have homed in on specific locations, including Wolf Island, in the Galapagos chain, off of Ecuador, where divers can swim alongside schools of hundreds of hammerheads. These sharks, which can grow up to 14 feet in length, can be spotted year-round in this area. Diving excursions are an optional add-on to all cruise expeditions with Quasar Expeditions, while Galapagos Diving offers more scuba-intensive weeklong trips.

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Captain Mike Johnson unloads tilefish that will be sold in New York City through Village Fishmonger’s local community-supported seafood program.
Photograph courtesy Village Fishmonger

Brian Clark Howard

National Geographic

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The world’s oceans are facing a bleak future, say marine scientists, unless we rebuild its abundance, variety and vitality.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) — As the human footprint has spread, the remaining wildernesses on our planet have retreated. However, dive just a few meters below the ocean surface and you will enter a world where humans very rarely venture.

In many ways, it is the forgotten world on Earth. A ridiculous thought when you consider that oceans make up 90% of the living volume of the planet and are home to more than one million species, ranging from the largest animal on the planet — the blue whale — to one of the weirdest — the blobfish.

Remoteness, however, has not left the oceans and their inhabitants unaffected by humans, with overfishing, climate change and pollution destabilizing marine environments across the world.

Many marine scientists consider overfishing to be the greatest of these threats. The Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international survey of ocean life completed in 2010, estimated that 90% of the big fish had disappeared from the world’s oceans, victims primarily of overfishing.

Tens of thousands of bluefin tuna were caught every year in the North Sea in the 1930s and 1940s. Today, they have disappeared across the seas of Northern Europe. Halibut has suffered a similar fate, largely vanishing from the North Atlantic in the 19th century.

Opinion: Probing the ocean’s undiscovered depths

In some cases, the collapse has spread to entire fisheries. The remaining fishing trawlers in the Irish Sea, for example, bring back nothing more than prawns and scallops, says marine biologist Callum Roberts, from the UK’s York University.

“Is a smear of protein the sort of marine environment we want or need? No, we need one with a variety of species, that is going to be more resistant to the conditions we can expect from climate change,” Roberts said.

The situation is even worse in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, people are now fishing for juvenile fish and protein that they can grind into fishmeal and use as feed for coastal prawn farms. “It’s heading towards an end game,” laments Roberts.

Trawling towards disaster

One particular type of fishing, bottom-trawling, is blamed for some of the worst and unnecessary damage. It involves dropping a large net, around 60 meters-wide in some cases, into the sea and dragging it along with heavy weights from a trawler.

Marine conservationists compare it to a bulldozer, with the nets pulled for as far as 20km, picking up turtles, coral and anything else in their path. The bycatch, unwanted fish and other ocean life thrown back into the sea, can amount to as much as 90% of a trawl’s total catch.

Upwards of one million sea turtles were estimated to have been killed as by catch during the period 1990-2008, according to a report published in Conservation Letters in 2010, and many of the species are on the IUCN’s list of threatened species.

Campaigners, with the support of marine scientists, have repeatedly tried to persuade countries to agree to an international ban, arguing that the indiscriminate nature of bottom-trawling is causing irreversible damage to coral reefs and slow-growing fish species, which can take decades to reach maturity and are therefore slow to replenish their numbers.

Opinion: Deep sea fishing is ‘oceanocide’

“It’s akin to someone plowing up a wildflower meadow, just because they can,” says Roberts. Others have compared it to the deforestation of tropical rainforests.

Bottom-trawling’s knock-on impacts are best illustrated by the plight of the deep-sea fish, the orange roughy (also known as slimeheads) whose populations have been reduced by more than 90%, according to marine scientists.

Orange roughys are found on, or around, mineral-rich seamounts that often form coral and act as feeding and spawning hubs for a variety of marine life.

“Anywhere you go and try to harvest fish with a trawl you are going to destroy any coral that lives there, and there is example after example of the damage that is done by trawlers,” says Ron O’Dor, a senior scientist on the Census of Marine Life.

“If I ruled the world, they would be banned, they’re just such a destructive method of catching fish. Fishermen have other methods, such as long-line, that cause far less damage.

“The disturbing truth is that humans are having unrecognized impacts on every part of the ocean, and there is much we have not seen that will disappear before we ever get a chance,” says O’Dor, who is also a professor of marine biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Acid test for marine species

At the same time fisheries and vital marine ecosystems like coral are being decimated, the oceans continue to provide vital services, absorbing up to one third of human carbon dioxide emissions while producing 50% of all the oxygen we breathe.

Hi-res gallery: Extraordinary creatures of the Great Barrier Reef

But absorbing increasing quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) has come at a cost, increasing the acidity of the water.

“The two worst things in my mind happening to oceans are global warming and ocean acidification,” says O’Dor, “They’re going to have terrible effects on coral reefs. Because of acidification essentially, the coral can’t grow and it’s going to dissolve away.”

The ocean has become 30% more acidic since the start of The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century and is predicted to be 150% more acidic by the end of this century, according to a UNESCO report published last year.

“There’s a coral reef off Norway that was discovered in 2007 and it’s likely to be dead by 2020,” says O’Dor.

“The problem is that the acidification is worse near the Poles because low temperature water dissolves more acid. Starting from the Pole and working south these reefs are going to suffer extensively.”

Current estimates suggest 30% of coral reefs will be endangered by 2050, says O’Dor, because of the effects of ocean acidification and global warming.

Higher acidity also disrupts marine organisms’ ability to grow, reproduce and respire. The Census of Marine Life reported that phytoplankton, the microscopic plants producing most of the oxygen from the oceans, have been declining by around 1% a year since 1900.

The falling numbers of smaller, but lesser known species and plant life has significant impact further up the marine food chain. For example, seabirds which used to visit and breed on Spitsbergen — a Norwegian island near the Arctic — are being wiped out because of changes in their previously abundant food sources.

Bringing law and order to ocean protection

“There’s a real lack of public and political awareness of these issues,” says Alex Rogers, professor of conservation biology at the UK’s Oxford University.

“They’re too big to understand in economic terms. We can put a value on the loss of fishing, but how can we put a value on oxygen production or the absorption of carbon dioxide?” he says.

The problem is that most of the world’s ocean is located outside of international law and legal control. Any attempts to implement rules and regulation come with the problem of enforcement, says Rogers, who is also scientific director of the International Program on State of the Ocean (IPSO).

Marine conservationists estimate that at least 30% of the oceans need to be covered by marine protected areas, where fishing and the newly emerging deep-sea mining of valuable minerals on the seabed, is banned or restricted.

Callum Roberts, who helped form the first network of marine protected areas in the high seas in 2010, says on their own they are not enough.

“I could sum it up as: we need to fish less and in less destructive measures, waste less, pollute less and protect more,” says Roberts.

“This change of course will see us rebuild the abundance, variety and vitality of life in the sea which will give the oceans the resilience they need to weather the difficult times ahead. Without such action, our future is bleak.”

The post Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the brink of catastrophic collapse appeared first on Jupiter Dive Center.

A recreational diver tries closed-circuit

It was dinner time at Divetech. As I walked past the kitchen, I noticed two red lights blinking on the side of the oven. Before I realized what I was doing I had raised my hand to my mouth and tilted an imaginary switch away from my face while reciting to myself, “If you encounter a problem, bail out to open-circuit scuba” — the mantra of the recreational rebreather student.

I hadn’t even gotten my hands on a rebreather yet, but I’d been doing a lot of reading. I had studied my training manual for weeks, and on the flight to Grand Cayman I carefully read every page of the owner’s manual for the Poseidon MKVI, the rebreather I would be learning to dive during Tek Week 2012. Once I actually started my class I learned that checking my console was a better response to a warning light, but I was still reassured by my heightened awareness.

I’ve been diving for 20 years, but I have yet to venture into technical diving. With the growing popularity of recreational rebreathers, though, I saw an opportunity to get a glimpse into that world.

Apparently, in all my years as a diver I’ve been using my breath to make fine adjustments to my buoyancy. I know this because on my first day as a rebreather diver my buoyancy control went to hell. The main difference is this: When using a closed-circuit rebreather (CCR), breathing doesn’t change the amount of gas in the system; it simply moves a volume of gas back and forth between your lungs and the unit’s counterlungs (gas reservoirs). Thus, efforts to fine tune buoyancy with well-timed inhalations led me to crash awkwardly into the bottom of the pool on several occasions.

In addition to relearning buoyancy control, I had to get over my desire to feel the familiar flood of cold, dry air that a second-stage regulator delivers. I’ve always heard divers talk about breathing normally while open-circuit scuba diving, but breathing with a rebreather is much more like normal topside breathing than open-circuit breathing is. It’s so similar to normal breathing, in fact, that it felt very strange to do it underwater.

A rebreather’s hoses, mouthpiece and counterlungs are known as the loop. The beauty of recreational rebreathers is their ability to make sure the gas in the loop is always optimized for breathability. They do this automatically, detecting the percentage of oxygen in the circulating gas, accounting for depth and adding oxygen or air to the mix as needed. A canister of carbon-dioxide-absorbing scrubber removes CO₂ from the gas. All this delivers two primary benefits to recreational divers: long dive times and the quiet absence of bubbles.

Rebreathers combine stunningly complex components with very simple, yet brilliantly implemented ones. On the complex side, the battery of the unit I used can get 30 hours out of a charge, has its own onboard computer (which stores dive-log data and decompression status separate from the unit’s main computer) and even houses LEDs and a speaker that broadcast distress signals if the computer detects any problems. On the simple side, rebreathers’ mushroom valves are a pair of thin, rubbery discs that sit within the hoses on either side of the diver’s mouth. When the diver inhales, the valve on the side of the freshly scrubbed and properly oxygenated gas is pulled open, while the one leading toward the scrubber is pushed closed. When you exhale, the flexible discs blow the other way. These two thin discs are all it takes to keep the air moving through the loop in the right direction.

A recreational rebreather is so thoroughly automated that I had some initial trepidation about trusting my life to a computer. “You do it every time you fly,” pointed out my instructor, Georgia Hausserman, who was a pilot. I also appreciated the perspective offered by another grinning rebreather diver, who said, “Think of it this way — who would you rather have making these calculations: Richard Pyle and Bill Stone or YOU?” Perhaps most reassuring was a comment made by another diver: “Don’t think of your rebreather’s computer as a PC; think of it as a calculator.” That worked for me; I’ve wanted to throw my laptop out of a window more than a few times, but I’ve never had a calculator tell me two plus two equals five.

Learning to use a checklist and conduct a prebreathe (a five-minute test breathe of a rebreather before diving) are essential parts of becoming a rebreather diver. Georgia had seen a man become hypoxic on the surface and nearly die just a few weeks earlier. He had failed to reconnect his oxygen after a predive problem that required him to disassemble and reassemble his unit. If he had done any number of things, including starting his checklist over from the beginning, conducting a proper prebreathe or checking his display, he wouldn’t have come within inches of his life while trying to put on fins in three feet of water. Fortunately, bystanders noticed he wasn’t moving, pulled him out and saved his life. The man had been arguing that checklists don’t work the previous evening at dinner.

When I asked Georgia about her own transition into rebreather diving, she told me she was dragged kicking and screaming but that she now dives more with her rebreather than she ever did with open-circuit scuba. When I asked her why, she said, “Because I expect to have amazing experiences.” One such experience involved an eight-foot hammerhead, which swam up behind her and passed within a few feet. Another involved a whitetip reef shark that circled her three times, while a second whitetip cruised in from out of nowhere to make a close pass.

I’ve only logged a few rebreather dives so far, but I’ve had some memorable interactions, too. A big mutton snapper and I watched each other closely as it swam toward me, gazing intently, before veering off mere inches from my face. Early in my training before I had figured out how to maintain the right amount of gas in my loop, I was watching some jawfish dance above their burrows. Every time I had to vent gas from the loop they shied downward into their holes. When I managed to achieve proper loop volume and stopped making bubbles, they danced like no one was watching.

I heard some unforgettable sounds while diving with the rebreather, too. I watched a parrotfish nibble the reef for minutes on end, and I heard every crunch. Later, I became keenly aware of a rushing roar that seemed to come out of the heavy blueness around me as I hung above a deep pinnacle.

On my last day in Cayman I was happy to get acquainted with the wreck of the USS Kittiwake. The Kittiwake lies in the sand a short distance from the top of a wall, which plunges dramatically into untold depths. Across the sand from the wreck, situated near the top of the wall, massive coral structures rise high off the sand. Swimming along the seafloor through a narrow passage that separated two of these towering reef structures, I emerged from between them at the top of the wall. As I hung there above the void, its allure was tremendous.

“So this is what all those tech divers are going on about,” I thought.

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MAR. 13/13

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Five commercially valuable shark species, manta rays & freshwater sawfish listed

We’re grateful to proponent governments for recognizing the value of thriving shark and ray populations, and for championing sound proposals”

Ania Budziak, Project AWARE Associate Director, Science & Policy

Bangkok, 14 March 2013. CITES plenary today accepted Committee recommendations to list five species of highly traded sharks under the CITES Appendices, along with those for the listing of both manta rays and one species of sawfish. Japan, backed by Gambia and India, unsuccessfully challenged the Committee decision to list the oceanic whitetip shark, while Grenada and China failed in an attempt to reopen debate on listing three hammerhead species. Colombia, Senegal, Mexico and others took the floor to defend Committee decisions to list sharks.

“We are thrilled with this result and the groundswell of government commitment that made it happen,” said Amie Brautigam, Marine Policy Advisor for Wildlife Conservation Society. “These hard-fought decisions to secure CITES regulations on international trade in sharks and rays are based on a solid foundation built over two decades, and surmount the long-standing opposition to listing shark species that are taken at a commercial scale.”

The oceanic whitetip shark, porbeagle, three species of hammerheads, and both manta rays – all classified as threatened on the IUCN Red List — will now be added to CITES Appendix II, which prompts permits to ensure exports are sustainable and legal. The only sharks listed under CITES previous to this meeting – basking, whale, and white sharks – are not taken in the high volumes associated with the newly listed sharks. The freshwater sawfish will be transferred from Appendix II to I, where all other sawfishes are listed, thereby completing a global ban on international commercial trade in these critically endangered species.

“We’re grateful to proponent governments for recognizing the value of thriving shark and ray populations, and for championing sound proposals,” said Ania Budziak, Project AWARE’s Associate Director. “We’re proud that the divers’ voice has contributed to achieving this key milestone in shark and ray conservation.”

Proponents of the various listing proposals include the 27 Member States of the EU, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, Mexico, and the USA.  The shark and ray proposals received more than the two-thirds majority of votes necessary for adoption while the sawfish listing succeeded by consensus.

“With relief that the Committee decisions were not overturned, we now turn our focus to the essential phase of their implementation,” said Sonja Fordham, President of Shark Advocates International.  “We urge all Parties to recognize the urgency of the shark and ray plight and to begin this work to ensure the sustainability of international trade in newly listed species, as a matter of priority.”

The German Elasmobranch Society, Humane Society International, Project AWARE, Shark Advocates International, Shark Trust, and Wildlife Conservation Society worked as a coalition to promote the shark and ray listing proposals.

The post Historic Shark Decisions Survive Final Threat at CITES Plenary appeared first on Jupiter Dive Center.

Mar. 11/13

Source: CITES4Sharks

Conservationists look to final plenary to cement positive yet tentative decisions

We are delighted by the outcome of today’s votes for listing several species of sharks under CITES, and hopeful that these responsible decisions will be upheld in plenary later this week”

Sonja Fordham of Shark Advocates International

Bangkok, 11 March 2013. In a highly anticipated Committee vote today, proposals to list under CITES* five species of sharks were supported by more than the two-thirds majority of voting countries needed for adoption. Conservationists are pleased yet mindful that decisions must still be confirmed in the final plenary session later this week.

“We are delighted by the outcome of today’s votes for listing several species of sharks under CITES, and hopeful that these responsible decisions will be upheld in plenary later this week,” as said Sonja Fordham of Shark Advocates International. “These highly traded, threatened shark species urgently need protection from the unsustainable trade that jeopardizes populations, ecosystems, livelihoods, and ecotourism.”

Porbeagle, oceanic whitetip shark, and three species of hammerheads have been proposed by a variety of countries for listing under CITES Appendix II, which would prompt permits to ensure exports are sustainable and legal.

“We are encouraged that the required majority of CITES Parties voting this morning supported the shark listing proposals,” said Ali Hood from Shark Trust. “Between now and plenary, we will be urging governments to remain vigilant and ensure final adoption of these vital international trade controls.”

CITES Parties will reconvene in plenary to finalize decisions, likely this Thursday.

*Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

The German Elasmobranch Society, Humane Society International, Project AWARE, Shark Advocates International, Shark Trust, and Wildlife Conservation Society, with support from Oceans 5, are working as a coalition to promote the proposals to list shark and ray species at the 16th Conference of Parties to CITES.

The fins of hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks are in great demand in Asia for use in shark fin soup while porbeagle sharks are prized primarily for their meat in Europe.

The CITES Parties are also considering proposals to list manta rays and freshwater sawfish.

For more information and species factsheets visit www.CITES4sharks.org and follow @CITES4sharks and @projectaware.

via Shark Proposals Adopted at CITES Committee Meeting | Project AWARE.

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Publix Seafood Practices Rank 19 of 20 Stores Analyzed

Wikimedia CC

Publix seafood practices score a failing grade of 2.7 out of 10, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. A study by the organization’s Carting Away the Oceans project (CATO) analyzed major grocers such as Target, Safeway, Whole Foods, and Winn-Dixie. Publix landed at 19 among the 20 supermarkets analyzed.

The study took into consideration each supermarket’s progressive policy development, public support for conservation methods, and the elimination of unsustainable seafood items.

It also considered the amount of “red-list” species — fish that are at high risk of being sourced from unsustainable catching methods and fisheries — that are available at the supermarkets for sale.
Publix failed because it continues to sell 15 of 22 “red-listed” species, such as Alaskan pollock, Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean sea bass, grouper, red snapper, South Atlantic albacore tuna, and tropical shrimp.
In 2010, the chain announced the beginning of a seafood grading initiative. But two years later, this system still has not been implemented. Labeling at Publix was also deemed insufficient, since the supermarket does not provide enough information to encourage consumer awareness about sustainable seafood.

Greenpeace also noted that Publix ignored the organization’s invitation to participate in the study. As a result, all of the information was compiled from public reports, consumer information, and other readily available information.

The highest scores were awarded to Whole Foods and Safeway, which both actively participated in the study. Both chains were presented as leaders in the industry for their efforts in promoting sustainable seafood practices.

On Earth Day, April 22, Whole Foods announced it would no longer carry any fish considered unsustainable. The announcement, via the Whole Foods blog, stressed that the retailer would not offer any species that suffer from overfishing or any catching methods that might harm natural habitats. This plan made Whole Foods the first national retailer to stop selling all red-listed seafood.

The worst score was awarded to Winn-Dixie, with 1.15 out of 10, for the lack of any sustainable seafood policy.

CATO noted that scores have been increasing annually as major grocers become more aware of the importance of sourcing sustainable seafood.

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Dive Against Debris on Earth Day with Jupiter Dive Center Sunday April 21, 2013

Join us on this 2 tank dive as we clean the ledges off Jupiter. Depths can be 80 feet, surface marker required, Nitrox recommended.
$65 Mesh bags, t-shirt, 2 tank dive charter (rental gear, tanks extra) Results will be reported to Project Aware and to the NOAA Marine Debris Program. Call 561-745-7807 to sign up or e-mail amy@jupiterdivecenter.com for more info.

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