Earth Blog

I’ve talked about the Asian Carp invasion (bighead carp and silver carp) before and I can never remember the details. Are they here? Where is here when wildlife officials are monitoring all five Great Lakes and interconnected waterways from the Gulf of Mexico northward? What are the control methods currently in place and why can’t I buy Asian Carp at the store if it’s comparable to walleye and can be fried? If it can be fried don’t set it aside!

Apparently one of the methods to prevent the carp from entering Lake Michigan, the Great Lake that is shared by four states and is not bordered by Canada, in Illinois is an electric fence. But researchers, including Cory Suski an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, think two barrier methods is better than one and so they drugged some fish to the point of disorientation with carbon dioxide.

On Friday NOAA submitted a mandated biennial report to Congress that identified 10 nations that had fishing vessels engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in 2011/2012. A few of these countries weren’t doing enough to prevent the unintended catch (bycatch) of protected species last year. The report is a part of the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act.

The U.S. will start work with or continue where they may have left off after the 2011 report with these 10 nations: Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Venezuela, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Tanzania, Ghana, and Mexico. Portugal and the five countries listed above in italics have corrected some of their IUU issues with new laws and regulations.

Megapiranha paranensis, the three foot long ancestor of the piranhas found in waters today, likely had teeth that could slice through soft tissue-a normal piranha feature. However, Megapiranha who lived 10 million years ago in the Late Milocene period, could do something modern piranhas can’t do: bite through shells and crack bones like a nutcracker.

“If our calculations are correct, Megapiranha was probably a bone-crushing predator taking bites of anything and everything,” said Stephanie Crofts, a UW Biology student.

Crofts is the co-author of a study called “Mega-Bites: Extreme Jaw forces of living and extinct piranhas” which also looked at the black piranha (skeleton pictured at right), great white shark, and the extinct Dunkleosteus terrelli- a 4-ton whale eating shark for initial comparison.

Way back in February marine biologists at Kampachi Farms in Hawaii announced they had successfully completed the final harvest from the "Velella" Research Project.   Velella is the name of a genus of small drifting pelagic hydrozoan or the fancy words for creatures related to jellyfish that drift on the surface of the water.

I don’t know how I managed to miss the news from the farm but from the looks of it I was busy making giant penguins Google fight fat Ice Age coyotes in an effort to illustrate how much time I have on my hands.

In addition to October being Vegetarian Awareness Month it’s also National Seafood Month, a NOAA-designated celebration of marine life, conservation, and awareness.

While the two themes aren’t exactly compatible because some vegans and vegetarians do not include fish in their diet, both are food-related. A month long look at the stuff we eat is a chance to think about the amount of food (and water) we waste and how our food is cultivated before it ends up on our table.

There is a hardy fish in the central Australian desert with a bit of a Napoleon complex.

The desert goby or Chlamydogobius eremius is a bottom feeder that lives in the sometimes harsh aquatic conditions of the desert’s springs and pools.  At their longest they are a little over two inches in length.

Scientists have observed the desert goby live through droughts, extreme water temperatures, drastic changes in the water’s salinity and oxygen levels created in a lab or by nature when she’s feeling cranky.

Like the marine snail, featured last week, the male desert goby has a parental role beyond mating. After the female is lured into his cave -usually a crevice under a rock-to lays her eggs on the ceiling, the male guards the nest. He also keeps the eggs ventilated and clean from gunk by fanning them with his pectoral fins.

Next week on Tuesday, June 19th in Sacramento there will be a different type of casting call than normally conducted in California.

Anglers, conservationists, and curious spectators are invited to the third annual “Casting Call at the Capitol”-a celebration of California's trout, steelhead and salmon populations.

The event is sponsored by California Trout (Caltrout) and Trout Unlimited (TU), both organizations are committed to trout conservation and restoration of waterways but of the two TU is the nationwide organization.

The traditional pairing of white wine with a fish dinner has another relationship aside from your plate and palate.

Biologists at the University of California, Berkeley have found that fish and viticulturists in wine country may be unknowingly competing for one of the state’s most limited resources: water. Take a guess as to who is losing the struggle? There is a fifty/fifty chance you guess correctly. If you guessed the fish and are clutching a bottle of wine you are correct and win that bottle you are holding.

The ARC Centre for Excellence of Coral Reef Studies in Australia published a study in the latest issue of the journal Ecology that would like to remind us there are a bunch of little fish that make coral reefs happy and healthy. Despite our focus on higher profile marine animals that often tug on our heartstrings (sea turtles) or frighten us (sharks), the fish that provide basic maintenance deserve some credit.

"Herbivorous fishes protect coral reefs by limiting the growth of algae, or seaweed," says Loïc Thibaut, the lead researcher of this study. "Seaweeds grow rapidly and compete with corals for space. If left unchecked, they can smother the corals and take over the reefs. This shift, once it happens, is extremely difficult to reverse."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a study on PLoS ONE that presented findings that will help understand the affects of low-levels of domoic acid (DA) - a neurotoxic amino acid produced by marine algae- found in marine life like clams and mussels.

High-levels of DA can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning in humans which has vastly different symptoms from paralytic shellfish poisoning. Amnesic shellfish poisoning can cause seizures, memory loss, and coma as opposed to abdominal pain and vomiting. Both forms can cause death but that is only in rare cases. Scientists don’t know what low-levels can do in humans over extended periods of time.

This week Greenpeace released their sixth seafood sustainability scorecard for grocery retailers. They have had their eye on the industry since 2008 and have released a report ranking twenty popular stores since then but Greenpeace has always had their eyes on marine life since its birth in 1971.

The scorecard is part of an ongoing project known as Carting Away the Oceans (CATO) where they not only rank retailers but examine conservation efforts,discuss better practices or habits retailers and consumers can do to protect marine ecosystems.

Residents of towns where wind turbines are proposed tend to be focused on the aesthetics, noise, safety, and how living in the flickering shadow of the turbine blades will affect their health. In Denmark there are some creatures who are perfectly happy living with wind turbines.

New research by DTU Aqua has found that the fish living under the sea and amongst the turbines of one of the largest Danish offshore wind farms, Horns Rev 1, are thriving.