1. Whale Hunt in Faroe Islands Turns Sea Red With Blood
The Faroe Islands are located in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland and are made up of 18 tiny islands. Pilot whale meat and blubber are a food source that will help feed the 50,000 Faroese through winter. Locals have been carrying out the annual hunts for centuries, but the gruesome images will likely shock many outsiders. Mr. Ward said he had been stunned by the sheer number of whales in the bay.
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2. War on Sharks: How Rogue Fishing Fleets Plunder the Ocean’s Top Predator
MANTA, ECUADOR — It was billed as the biggest poaching bust in history, a monumental win for conservationists. An Ecuadorian Navy patrol vessel, guided by advanced radar and a small plane, bore down on a ship the length of a football field making a beeline across the Galápagos Marine Reserve — probably the most fiercely protected waters in the world. Filling the freighter’s freezers: 150 tons of dead sharks, most of them endangered and illegal to sell. Only small pieces of those 6,000 carcasses were actually of much value. The fins.
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3. State Effort to Put a Stop to Offshore Oil Threats
So some in Sacramento now are trying to lock those pledges into law — safeguarding the coast from offshore drilling no matter the whims of future administrations. Despite decades of lawsuits and regulations, the state’s ability to block offshore drilling hinges largely on who’s in power in the state Capitol. Even with staunch opposition by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and pledges from both candidates vying to be the next governor, future leaders could still allow new drilling if they choose.———————————————–
4. New Ploy to Undermine Species Act
Just two days after President Trump issued an utterly uninformed tweet about the causes of the California wildfires, his ulterior motives began to come into focus. That happened through an order issued Wednesday by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to the National Marine Fisheries Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.———————————————–
5. Sharks Have A New Enemy: Magnets
Forget the old “shooting the scuba tank” trick. The next time you need to ward off a shark, try wearing a giant magnet. Researchers at Australia’s University of Newcastle have found that attaching magnets to commercial fish traps can successfully ward off sharks and rays, meaning fewer sharks are caught as bycatch. The study, published in Fisheries Research, found that run-of-the-mill magnets could reduce bycatch rates by 30 percent, and lead to a corresponding increase in fish being caught by commercial fish traps.
Read more…
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6. Florida Declares a State of Emergency as Red Tide Kills Animals and Disrupts Tourism
Florida’s governor this week made official what residents of southwest Florida already knew: The bloom of toxic algae that has darkened gulf waters is an emergency. The red tide has made breathing difficult for locals, scared away tourists, and strewn popular beaches with the stinking carcasses of fish, eels, porpoises, turtles, manatees and one 26-foot whale shark. Gov. Rick Scott (R) late Monday declared a state of emergency in seven counties stretching from Tampa Bay south to the fringe of the Everglades. Scott promised $1.5 million in emergency funding.
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7. Tubbataha: Reefs for Keeps in Palawan
Back in 1981 when diver Angelique Songco first went to the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (TRNP), she was mesmerized by its beauty but was also worried by the rampant use of illegal fishing methods that were destroying its marine environment. In an interview with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Global in 2015, Songco said in the years she was going back and forth to the UNESCO World Heritage Site, she had observed fishermen using dynamite and cyanide, and poaching turtles and birds and their eggs. Some of the fishermen came from as far as Quezon province, which is 600 km. away from Palawan.
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8. New Caledonia Restricts Tourism and Bans Fishing to Protect Huge Swathe of Coral Reefs in Major Breakthrough
New Caledonia agreed Tuesday to tougher protections around a huge swathe of some of the world’s last near-pristine coral reefs, in a move conservationists hailed as a major breakthrough. The Pacific nation, a French overseas territory, is home to a rich array of wildlife including 2.5 million seabirds and over 9,300 marine species, such as dugongs – marine mammals related to manatees – and nesting green sea turtles, many of which thrive in and around remote zones off the island nation’s coast.
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9. Poachers in Marine Protected Areas go Unchallenged by Their Peers
In a new survey of fishers conducted by researchers at James Cook University, nearly half of all respondents admitted to having witnessed poaching inside marine protected areas. Of those who witnessed their peers poaching, the majority ignored the illegal act. “Enforcement capacities are often limited, so managers are trying to encourage fishers to help out when they see someone breaking the law,” Brock Bergseth, researcher at James Cook’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said in a news release. “But until now, we were uncertain about how fishers respond when they witness poaching.”
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10. ‘Most Brazen’: Last-ditch Bid to Halt Roll-Back of Marine Protection
Labor and the Greens are hoping last-minute pitches by billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest will prompt crossbench senators to join them in blocking a reduction of protection in Australia’s marine parks. Five disallowance motions will go to a vote in the Senate on Thursday on the Turnbull government’s plan to retain 3.3 million square kilometers of Australia’s protected offshore regions but allow commercial fishing and other activities in new areas.
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11. Apathy Towards Poachers Widespread in World’s Marine Protected Areas
A new study has found that nearly half of fishers from seven countries had witnessed someone poaching in marine protected areas in the past year and most of them did nothing about it. Dr. Brock Bergseth from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University led the study. He said poaching is widespread in the world’s marine protected areas, and that fishers have the potential to make or break a marine protected area.
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12. US Senators Learn How Sharks Might Help Cure Cancer
Genetic analysis of 9,200 shark fin by-products in Hong Kong reveals that several threatened shark species are still common in the fin trade after being listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Hong Kong is one of the world’s largest importers of shark fins, which are used to make the delicacy shark fin soup.
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13. We Know West Antarctica is Melting. Is the East in Danger, Too?
Along the coast of West Antarctica, glaciers are retreating at alarming rates, crumbling as warm waters chew at their fragile edges.
But for years, scientists thought that the glaciers of East Antarctica—the hulking ice sheet on the other half of the continent, nearly three miles thick in some parts—were stable. Recently, though, evidence has emerged that shows that some of the East Antarctic glaciers have also started on a slow, inexorable backward march that could eventually lead to the loss of even more ice than exists in all of West Antarctica.
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14. From Starbucks to McDonald’s, These Huge Businesses are Taking Action on Plastic Pollution
From rivers to oceans and forests to city streets, the issue of plastic waste is a serious one. Europeans, for example, produce 25 million tons of plastic waste per year, according to the European Commission. Less than 30 percent of this is collected for recycling. 2018 has seen a raft of big companies make pledges on their use of plastic. Here, CNBC’s “Sustainable Energy” takes a look at some of the most high-profile.
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15. Extreme Temperatures ‘Especially Likely for Next Four Years’
The world is likely to see more extreme temperatures in the coming four years as natural warming reinforces manmade climate change, according to a new global forecasting system. Following a summer of heatwaves and forest fires in the northern hemisphere, the study in the journal Nature Communications suggests there will be little respite for the planet until at least 2022, and possibly not even then.
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16. Colorful New Seahorse is the Size of a Grain of Rice
Meet the Japan pig, a newfound species of pygmy seahorse discovered in Japan. Only the size of a grain of rice, these colorful creatures inhabit shallow waters and blend in well with the algae-covered rocks where they live. They’re easy to overlook, as their color makes them look like little bits of floating seaweed. Their coloration is “very special,” says Kevin Conway, associate professor and curator of fishes at Texas A&M University. “It’s like a seahorse wearing a paisley pattern.”
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17. New Zealand Becomes the Latest Country to Ban Plastic Bags
New Zealand will ban single-use plastic shopping bags next year, the government announced today. Retailers will be given six months to phase out the bags or face fines of up to NZ$100,000 (£52,000). In a press conference, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that plastic was the single biggest subject school children wrote to her about. “We’re taking meaningful steps to reduce plastics pollution so we don’t pass this problem to future generations,” she said.
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18. A High Seas Treaty to Protect Marine Biodiversity Could Benefit Fisheries
A biennial report released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in July has stark implications for the world’s ocean: Ninety-three percent of fish stocks are fully fished or overfished, with more than a third of stocks taken at unsustainable levels. The news wasn’t necessarily a surprise. Global stocks have been continuously overfished since the mid-1970s. And as more people rely on fisheries for their food and livelihoods, stocks are expected to continue to decline, a trend that will be exacerbated by ocean acidification and other impacts of climate change.
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19. Ocean Temperature Off San Diego Coast is Warmest in 102 Years of Measurements
Last week, the water off the San Diego coast was the warmest it has been since measurements began. On Thursday, the temperature of the Pacific Ocean at Scripps Pier was 78.6 degrees. That, in itself, was a record. Then it broke the record again Friday when it climbed to 78.8 degrees. Scripps scientists maintain sea-surface temperature records back to August 1916. Before last week, the warmest temperature on record was 78.4 degrees in July 1931. A blog post on the Scripps website describes that period as being “unusually warm.”
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20. Scientists Trace Atmospheric Rise in CO2 During Deglaciation to Deep Pacific Ocean
Long before humans started injecting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal, the level of atmospheric CO2 rose significantly as the Earth came out of its last ice age. Many scientists have long suspected that the source of that carbon was from the deep sea.
But researchers haven’t been able to document just how the carbon made it out of the ocean and into the atmosphere. It has remained one of the most important mysteries of science.
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Sea Save Foundation is committed to raising awareness of marine conservation. The Week in Review is a team effort produced by the Sea Save staff to provide a weekly summary of the latest in marine research, policy, and news.