State of the Oceans — Log 57
YOUR WEEKLY BRIEFING FROM PARLEY
OVERFISHING
International and local conservation groups are calling for an immediate closure of the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia, after recently released data from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans revealed the population biomass has dwindled by almost 60 percent in four years.
The small fish are a crucial part of the West Coast’s marine ecosystem, feeding salmon, seals, sea lions and killer whales. Sea Shepherd and other groups are fighting to save the last viable herring population, which is highly fragile as young fish rely on older ones to guide them to the spawning grounds. If they die, the link is broken. Compounding the insanity is the fact most herring are ground up to feed to farm-raised fish.
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CARBON & CLIMATE
In the frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada’s high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest. The findings flip our conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions. In temperate rivers, a bounty of organic material – plant life and fish – results in higher levels of decomposition, meaning the bodies of water emit a far greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they absorb. But glacial rivers are not very hospitable to aquatic life, leading to less organic decay and little carbon output. The fine sediment scraped from glaciers, including silicate and carbonate, when tossed along in the rushing waters, begins the geological process known as chemical weathering.
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MARINE LIFE
New genetic research has identified fin whales in the northern Pacific Ocean as a separate subspecies, reflecting a revolution in marine mammal taxonomy as scientists unravel the genetics of enormous animals otherwise too large to fit into laboratories. Fin whales are the second-largest whale on earth and the fastest whales in the ocean, which made them one of the last whale species hunted to the edge of extinction. Whalers killed about 46,000 fin whales in the North Pacific Ocean from 1947 to 1987, and they remain one of the least-known large whale species. They mainly roam the open ocean, farther from coastlines where they might be seen and studied more easily. Scientists from NOAA Fisheries and other organizations who led the researched have named the new subspecies Balaenoptera physalus velifera, which means "carrying a sail" in Latin.
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Header image: Jorge Cervera. Above: Mateus Morbeck
BRAZIL OIL SPILL
Brazilian investigators announced today that a Greek-flagged ship carrying Venezuelan crude was the source of oil tarring their coastline over the past two months. Brazil’s solicitor general said the country would seek damages in the case, which has stained tropical beaches along 2,500 km of coastline with a thick sludge, hurting tourism and fishing communities in the poorer northeast region. Between late August to the end of October, the oil had washed ashore in nine states and 94 cities, according to Brazilian police, killing scores of animals and closing hundreds of beaches. Parley is currently working with local partners on cleanup efforts in the region.
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PHOTO ESSAY
Meanwhile, a photo series by Rodrigo Abd published in The Guardian shows crude oil oozing into the waters of Lake Maracaibo – a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea – and the fishermen and local residents who still scratch a living on its sticky shores. Nobody lives as closely with the environmental fallout of Venezuela’s collapsing oil industry as the fishermen who scratch out an existence on these blackened, sticky shores. Environmentalists say the lake, which is actually a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea, was first sacrificed in the name of progress in the 1930s, when a canal was excavated so bigger oil tankers could reach its ports.
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