12/25/22
12/17/22
MARINE MAMMAL CARE CENTER : GIVE THE SICK SEA LIONS A HOLIDAY PRESENT
MARINE MAMMAL CARE ; San Pedro, California the only year-round marine animal hospital in Los Angeles County, admitting an average 350 animal patients per year, and serving from Malibu to Seal Beach - 70 miles of coastline. YOU CAN ALSO VISIT TO SEE THE ANIMALS...
"We actively seek out strategic partnerships to expand awareness for the work we do. One example is our participation as one of the primary care facilities in the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, which consists o 36 other wildlife rehabilitation organizations working under the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response. In the event of an oil spill, MMCC will stablize, wash and care for affected marine mammals."
This organization also works with ocean conservation organizations such as Atla sea, Oceana, the Sea Change Agency, Cabrillo Aquarium, and other mammal care centers.
12/15/22
ALL THOSE PRESENTS, ALL THAT PACKAGING!
So much paper, cardboard, and plastic that needs to go into the recycling, or at least in the proper garbage pickup bins.
PLEASE think about how YOU can recycle!
Reuse wrapping paper or skip it... use scrap fabric or a scarf instead! Or put the presents in a pillow sack!
12/14/22
11/27/22
11/24/22
11/17/22
THE UNDERSEA SCULPTURE OS JASON deCLAIRES TAYLOR
DAILY MAIL - JASON DECLAIRES TAYLOR _ UNDERSEA SCULPTURE
This is such an unusual and amazing sculpture garden, in a protected water space. The Museum of Underwater Sculpture Ayia Napa.
Excerpts: The Briton is known for creating underwater museums that feature striking scupture collections. He's created aquatic gardens everywhere from Cannes, Mexico, Grenada, the Bahamas, Lanzarote, Norway Australia, and the Maldives...
And it's hoped that the materials will be a haven for sea life.
A launch statement said, "The sculptures have been designed and made with materials that attract marine life, and are placed at different depths, thus creating a suitable substrate for marine life at all levels.
'The sculptures are made of inert materials, with neutrals pH, so as not to affect the area adversely. It's a sandy area and it is expected that over time the biodversity of the area will be enriches, thanks to the museum...
Go to the link to see wonderful photos and a video....
11/15/22
18th CENTURY SHIP - HMS ENDEAVER - CAPTAIN COOK'S SUNKEN SHIP FOUND! NEWPORT HARBOR
DAILY MAIL : CAPTAIN COOK'S SUNKEN SHIP FOUND!
250 years have gone by but what remains of the HMS Endeaver has been found in NewPort Harbor. the Australian National Maritime Museum people accept that this is the ship. This article from February 2022 has some wonderful photos and graphics such as the ship's route.
Excerpt: Originally lauched in 1764 as the Eart of Pembroke, the ship was renamed Endeavour in 1768 by Britain's Royal Navy and prepared for a major scientific voyage to the Pacific.
From 1768 to 1771 Endeavor sailed the South Pacific, primarily to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769.
Cook then sailed it around the South Pacific searching for 'the Great Southern Land' charting the coast of New Zealand and Australia's eastern coastline before claiming the land for Great Britain on August 22, 1770.
11/12/22
THE GENERATOR THAT TURNS PLASTIC TRASH INTO EDIBLE PROTEIN : THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE
NEWSWEEK - GENERATOR - PLATIC - PROTEIN By Georgina Jadikovskaall from a bit more than a year ago,
Excerot: Two U.S. scientists have won a 1 million euro ($1.18 million) prize for creating a generator conet that turns plastics into protein.
The 2021 Future Insight Prize went to Ting Lu, a professor of bioengineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Stephen Techtmann, associate pofessor of biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University, for their project. It used microbes to degrade plastic.
MORE INFORMATION ON THE FUTURE INSIGHT PRIZE:
11/8/22
YOU MAY NEED TO TRAVEL TO JAPAN TO SEE THE BEST AQUARIUM IN THE WORLD
On the top of lists is the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.
Their tanks are large enough to house a Whale Shark and the have a Coral breeding program.
The web site is in Japanese and in English: CHURAUMIT - OKINAWA AQUARIUM
11/5/22
SEA CREATURES RECENTLY DISCOVERED! SHARKS THAT GLOW BLUE! HOW ABOUT A SNAKE THAT SWIMS THROUGH GLACIERS?
An exciting video from Origins Explained.... Check out the Wandering Meatloaf!
11/2/22
WEIRDEST SEA CREATURES EVER - WHATS A WOBBEGONG? A RED HAND FISH?
OK, this collection of sea creatures is truly the weirdest. Imagine a fish that has red hands, or a fish that looks like a boulder. And only if you go to the National Geographic-Kids site here
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS - DISCOVER STRANGE SEA CREATURES
will you get to know hat a WOBBEGONG looks like...
10/31/22
10/26/22
VENOMOUS SEA SNAKES : MOST SEA SNAKES ARE!
THOUGHT and CO : VENOMOUS SEASNAKES The definitive article by Dr. Anne Marie Helmenstine...
There are 60 different sea snakes... some from the cobra family...
"You can find both true sea snakes and kraits in the sea, but only sea kraits crawl efficiently on land.
Excerpt: Sea snakes are found throughout the coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. They do not occur in the Red Sea, Atlantic Ocean, or Caribbean Sea. Most sea snakes live in shallow water less thatn 30 meters (100 feet) deep because they need to surface to breathe. yet must seek their prey near the sea floor. However, the yellow-bellied see snake may be found in the open ocean.
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Siren here! I'm so surprised they are not found in the Red Sea, the Atlantic, or the Caribbean!
10/23/22
10/20/22
DOLPHINS EAT SNAKES! SHOW THEIR TEETH EMIT SQUEALS!
Maybe dolphins just don't want to eat humans? In this article dolphin feeding shows they are determined and the fish escape swim till it's too late. But until now scientists didn't know a bottle nosed dolphin would eat a poisonous sea snake.
YAHOO - BUSINESS INSIDER : DOLPHINS GOPROS STRAPPED TO SIDES : FEED EXPOSE!
This article has videos that were recorded by the gopros strapped to the dolphins.
It says Dr. Sam Ridgway, famous as a dolphin doctor, was excited by this discovery before he died recently.
10/17/22
THAT ICEBERG THAT SUNK THE TITANIC WOULD HAVE MELTED AWAY...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE : THE ICEBERG THAT SUNK THE TITANIC The story article begins with an explanation of SNOWFLAKES and SNOW FALL... How ICEBERGS form... and how little was known about icebergs back when the Titanic collided with one that might have only lasted a few more weeks of cold ocean.
Excerpt: When the Titanic sank in 1912, it plunged an astounding two and a half miles and hit the seafloor at more than thirty miles per hour. The ship's ocean grave was so remote that its location remained a mystery until 1985, when a team that had the benefit of government-developed submarines and deep-water crafts was able to take some blurry snapshots. It took seventy-tree years, almost an entire human lifespan, to find the most illustrious and fascinating shipwreck of all time.
10/14/22
10/12/22
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FILM ABOUT THE SEA? SAILING? SURFING? MERMAIDS? WHALES?
I would like to know what you like and WHY!
Is the film Science Facts or Delicious Fiction?
Please leave a comment!
Siren
10/9/22
SHEDD AQUARIUM BELUGA WHALES and GIANT OCTOPUS and SO MANY MORE SEA CREATURES
SHEDD AQUARIUM Chicago is close to celebrating 100 years. This aquarium seems to come up on lists as the best or one of the best in the United States.
10/6/22
STELLER SEA LIONS ARE THE LARGESTS SEA LIONS : ANIMAL DIVERSITY WEB from UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY
WOW! This is a real exciting opportunity to look up your favorite animals and learn all there is to know about them. Since the Steller Sea Lions are threatened species, let's look at the page for them:
ANIMAL DIVERSITY ORG : STELLER SEA LION PAGE
Steller sea lions communicate with a roar, not a bark....
Find out what they eat ... sometimes they eat other seals ...
10/3/22
9/30/22
NOAA THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST... Three types of whales .. two types of turtles... 163 ON THE LIST
I dare you to check this list, pick one of the 163 whales, turtles, or fish on the list, and do more research!
9/29/22
9/27/22
LOSING SIGHT OF SHORE : SIREN'S LINK TO SEA FILM REVIEW
This is an exciting adventure of a film which I loved. In 2017 a group of British women broke World Records by ROWING across the Pacific Ocean. Yes - ROWING. They took turns rowing, two at a time, for two hours each, around the clock, never taking a break. It wasn't just a physical achievement but a psychological one. There were four women and a couple waiting in the wings to take over. They rowed via a specially designed boat which put them in rather cramped conditions when they were not rowing, and no trailing support boats were allowed. They did get behind schedule, especially when they encountered the Doldrums. As a group effort they rowed 8000 miles in about 9 months, and had to land on a beach rather than the marina in Australia that was part of the plan.
The woman who had most made rowing her life before this trip was the one who in the end lost her love of the sport. The repetition was just too much, even though there were times when spotting whales, going through a storm, or seeing flying fish or dolphins made what could have been a totally tedious journey less so. They rowed from San Francisco to Hawaii, then to Samoa, and then Cairns- Australia. Perhaps the last days when they ran out of food very close to their goal was the worst.
A motivation was the loss of a friend who died young of breast cancer. The women also gained great confidence in their ability to achieve goals through perseverance and endurance.
C 2022 Sirens Link To Sea BlogSpot
9/24/22
COPERNICUS : EUROPE : MARINE SERVICE
COPERNICUS : EUROPE : MARINE What does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have to say about the oceans and human causes of warming oceans?
Excerpt: Temporary but prolonged (five days or more) extreme rises in ocean temperature are called MARINE HEATWAVES. These events have increased in magnitude and frequency over the last couple decades, with harmful impacts on ecosystems and human activities alike. Marine heatwaves are projected to become more frequent in the future.
9/21/22
9/19/22
NASA on GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE : WHAT'S A ZETTAJOULES?
CLIMATE NASA on VITAL SIGNS OF OCEAN WARMING
Excerpt: Heat stored in the ocean causes its water to expand, which is responsbile for one-third to one-half of global sea level rise. Most of the added energy is stored at the surface, at a depth of zero to 700 meters. The last 10 years were the ocean's warmest decade since at least the 1800's.
9/17/22
I WANT TO AGE LIKE SEA GLASS : POEM by BERNADETTE NOLL
BEACHCOMBING MAGAZINE: I WANT TO AGE LIKE SEA GLASS : POEM : Bernadette Noll
Read the whole poem by going to the link...
Excerpt: I want to be picked up on occasion by an unsuspected soul and carried along - just for the connection, just for the sake of appreciation and wonder. And with each encounter, new possibilities of collaboration are presented, and new ideas are born.
9/14/22
9/11/22
9/7/22
CLIMATE CHANGE GOV : SCIENCE APPLIED TO THE HEATING OF OCEAN WATERS
CLIMATE GOV on HEATING OF OCEANS
Creatures that adapted to cooler oceans over thousands of years are moving to where the temperatures better suit them. Take a look at this science site.
Excerpt: The ocean is the largest solar energy collector on Earth. Not only does water cover more than 70 percent of our planet's surface, it can also absorb large amounts of heat without a large increase in temperature.
9/5/22
HEAL THE BAY BEACH CLEAN UPs
A good organization and a good place to meet like-minded environmental activists: beach clean ups can be quite social.
9/3/22
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEA CREATURE?
WHY!? WHERE DOES THAT CREATURE LIVE?
What ocean? What depth? What do they eat?
9/2/22
9/1/22
8/27/22
SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE ! EVER AVOID GETTING INTO THE WATER BECAUSE OF THE YUK FACTOR?
SURFERS AGAINST SEWAGE - GREAT BRITAIN
After learning that very many people avoid going into rivers or the sea because of fears of becoming sick from sewage, I learned about this group.
I sure hope the mermaids are not killed off from sewage.
8/25/22
8/23/22
DEEP SEA MINING COULD KILL OFF ANIMALS NOT YET DISCOVERED : CELL PHONE METALS DESIRED
SAVE THE HIGH SEAS ORG - DEEP SEA MINING WOULD KILL ANIMALS NOT YET DISCOVERED by Sabrina Weiss
This does not sound good.
The ocean floor is rife with life, some of it unseen, but the noise and the lights and so much else could disturb the ocean ecology...
8/21/22
UGLY FISH MORE LIKELY TO BECOME EXTINCT BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE COLORFUL AND FANCY ONES
THE GUARDIAN : THE REEF FISH PEOPLE FIND UGLY MORE LIKELY TO BE ENDANGERED
Basically, people like colorful fish.
Excerpt: "There is a need for us to make sure that our 'natural' aesthetic biases do not turn into a bias of conservation effort," said Nicolas Mouquet, a community ecologist at the University of Montpellier, and one of the lead authors of the study. This discrepancy between aesthetic value and extinction vulnerability could have repercussions in the long run, he said.
8/18/22
8/15/22
ONLY TEN VAQUITA EXIST - WORLD'S RAREST MARINE MAMMAL - A SMALL PORPOISE
WORLD WILD LIFE ORG SPECIES DIRECTORY
Excerpt: Vaquita, the world's rarest marine mammal, is on the edge of extinction. The plight of cetaceans - whales, dolphins, and porpoises - as a whole is exemplified by the rapid decline of the vaquita in Mexico, with about 10 individuals remaining. This little porpoise wasn't discovered until 1958 and a little over half a century later, we are on the brink of losing them forever. Vaquita are often caught and drowned in gillnets used by illegal fishing operations in marine protected areas within Mexico's Gulf of California...
8/13/22
CHECKING ON THE ELEPHANT SEALS - ANO NUEVO STATE RESERVE
CALIFORNIA PARKS : ELEPHANT SEALS
Excerpt: By 1892 only 50 to 100 individuals were left. The only remaining colony was on the Guadalupe Island off the coast of Baja California.
In 1922, the Mexican government gave protected status to elephant seals, and the U.S. government followed suit a few years later when the seals began to appear in Southern California waters. Since that time, elephant seals have continued to multiply exponentially, and they have extended their breeding range as far north as Point Reyes. Today there are approximately 200,000 Northern Elephant Seals. ...
At sea elephant seals typically dive 20 minutes to a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 feet in search of food: rays, skates. rat fish, squid, and small sharks. The maximum recorded depth is 5,592 feet. The females eat nothing while they are giving birth, nursing, and mating, and the males go without food for up to three months at a time. They are preyed upon by killer whales and sharks.
ADULT MALES ARE THERE NOW...
8/12/22
8/10/22
QUICK FACTS ON ICEBERGS - THEY ARE MELTING - FROM NATIONAL SNOW AND ICE DATA CENTER
NSIDC - ICEBERGS and GLACIERS - ICE!
Excerpt: The International Ice Patrol uses airplanes and radars to track icebergs that float into major shipping lanes. The U.S. National Ice Center uses satellite date rto monitor icebergs near Antarctia...
8/7/22
SIREN'S LINK TO SEA - CLIMATE CHANGE - ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM - OCEAN ECOLOGY
You've reached a Blog that includes news on CLIMATE CHANGE, OCEAN ECOLOGY, the SEA CREATURES that are so very interesting, as well as some MERMAIDS, PIRATES, SAILORS, and SURFERS too!
8/5/22
HORSESHOE CRABS PROTECTED IN PHILIPPINES
The story originates with National Geographic which asks for an email to log-in an read three free stories a month. I caught it at Daily Mail, a publication based in the UK.
DAILY MAIL SCIENCE : HORSESHOE CRABS THRIVING IN PROTECTED AREA PHILIPPINES Beautiful photos.
Their blood is blue and harvesting them is partly in order to make Covid-19 vaccines...
8/3/22
8/1/22
7/28/22
7/25/22
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANNOUNCES THERE ARE NOW FIVE OCEANS!
National Geographic - There Are Now Five Oceans A Part of the Pacific has been determined to be The Southern Ocean.
(You may have to sign up with National Geographic to read the whole article.)
CNN TRAVEL ; SOUTHERN OCEAN It's the ocean around Antarctica
7/23/22
WORLD'S LARGEST TITANIC MUSEUM
TITANIC - PIGEON FORGE - MUSEUM Yes it is in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA.
Wow! I had no idea. So, you get the ticket of a real passenger, you get to walk though, you get to feel that freezing water (just your hand), you get to see things that have been retrieved from the wreck...
7/21/22
RISING MANATEE DEATHS - ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS RESPOND WITH LAW SUIT
ABC : ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SUING OVER RISING MANATEE DEATHS
by Ginger Zee, Daniel Manzo, and Tracy J. Wholf.
The lawsuit is againsst the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service for not doing enough. Hundreds havce died in 2021.Excerpt: "That excess nutrient causes algal blooms that were so severe that it shaded out the seagrass that manatees and other species depend on. The seagrass died," Rose said.
7/18/22
SEA GYPSIES (Bugis sea nomads) WHO LIVE WITH WHALE SHARKS
BBC TRAVEL : SEA GYPSIES LIVE WITH WHALE SHARKS
Bugis sea nomads are human beings who spend most of their lives on boats...
Excerpt: Interestingly, the belief that the whale sharks bring good fortune is supported by science. "Whalesharks, as well as dolphins, are believed to be good luck because their presence bring important fish such as anchovies, mackerel and tuna to the waters where they feed. They are an indicator of nutrient-dense water and ecosystem health," said Iqbal Herwata, elasmobranch and charismatic species conservation strategy manager at Konservasi Indonesia, Conservation International's Indonesian division. "Overall, the presence of whale sharks helps balance the food chain and ensures abundant food sourves for their fellow ocean species and the Bugis fishermen.
7/15/22
7/12/22
GLIDER DRONE USED UNDERWATER FOR SCIENCE EXPLORATION OF OCEAN
CBS CANADA GLIDER DRONE OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
Excerpt: The research could be a major step forward in ocean greenhouse gas monitoring because, until now, measuring CO2 concentrations - a quantifier of ocean acidification - was mostly done from ships, buoys, and moorings tethered to the ocean floor.
7/9/22
7/4/22
7/2/22
7/1/22
6/28/22
6/26/22
MAYFLOWER AUTONOMOUS SHIP ENDS JOURNEY A BIT OFF COURSE
GIZMODO - MAYFLOWER AUTONOMOUS SHIP ENDS JOURNEY by Jauren Leffer
Excerpt: "After a 40-day and 3,500 mile journey, Mayflower Autonomous Ship successfully compeled her mission to cross the Atlantic. She arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Sunday 5th June," said the project's website. However, the MAS400 was expected to land in Virginia, more than 1,200 miles southwest over land, and the vessel faced multiple mechanical difficulties throughout its ocean voyage.
6/25/22
MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION - BRITISH ISLES
Marine Biological Association Recording Scheme First read about this in Mudlarking, the book by Lara Maiklem.
Among the many activities that the MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION is working on is the monitoring of Mitten Crabs, apparently one the world's most invasive species that among other things, competes with native species.
6/23/22
MUDLARK by LARA MAIKLEM - SIREN's LINK TO SEA BOOK REVIEW - SEA FOSSILS
What a fascinating book. For those of you who like to go to the water's edge and see what you can find - besides sea shells and sea weeds washed ashore - this book may inspire you to think ahead about where you can go and why. Lara Maiklem's hobby as a mudlark, a person who finds things washed up by river tides, has made her an expert about the way the Thames River, the river that goes through the city of London to the ocean, flows. Most surprising to me was that this is a river that has tides. With the ebb and flow of the tides, various objects have been deposited, others have no doubt been washed out to sea for hundreds of years. So she and other mudlarkers make it a point of frequently visiting various areas where the river flows to see what has been brought up, what is embedded, and her finds include ancient coins, painted tiles, and a variety of objects like needles, pins, thimbles, and beads, religious objects and weapons. As most of these objects were made of natural materials - not plastic - they don't threaten the living creatures of those waters so much though of course there is a history of sea creatures becoming extinct over time. It's those creatures though that I want to excerpt about.
Page 53 Excerpt: Encased in clay and lying among the gravel on the foreshore are the fossilized remains of the creatures that inhabited those prehistoric seas. The pencil-like internal shells of belemnites, ancient extinct squid, that swam in shoals over 66 million years ago; bivalves the size and shape of cockles, frozen in stone; and 'devil's toenails', an extinct form of marine oyster that lived in the sediment of the seabed. At Warden's Point on the Estuary, fossilized crabs, lobsters, shells, twigs, and shark teeth fall from the low cliffs of London clay onto the beach where they can be collected by the handful, and occasionally smoothed pieces of yellow amber will wash ashore where the Estuary and the North Sea mingle. Years ago, before people knew what fossils were, they were shrouded in folklore and assigned all kinds of quasi-religious and mystical associations. One of the most commonly found fossils in the south of England, and along the Thames' foreshore, are echinoids. The colloquial name for echinoid is 'sea urchin', which comes from the old country name for hedgehog....
6/18/22
QUEEN CONCH IS FOOD and COLLECTED BUT ENGANDERED
Excerpts pages 269-270 : No human reimagining of a shell comes close to the Queen Conches' own transformative life cycle. The animals ride the currents as larvae, hide in seagrasses when they are little conches, hang out in grainy sand and rubble in middle age, and hope and leap to deep-sand channels when they reach old age., They are not all queens. They are female or male and must join up to mate, unlike the bivalves that send their eggs and sperm into the sea to meet the currents.
In the springtime, mature conchs gather in large herds and graze on algae, plowing the nourishment into eggs and sperm. The herds are crucial to their survival, scientists say it takes at least ninety Queen Conchs in a hectare to successfully reproduce. Each female will develop a million eggs. A male scoots over to stretch its long, spade=tipped penis underneath her shell. Within a day after her eggs are fertilized, the mother makes a little trench in the sand and poles up a half a million or so in a gelatinous strand, that, if extended, would stretch longer than a basketball court. She uses her all -purpose foot to camouflage the strand with sand as she goes, coating and heaping until it could pass for a hung of white coral. She lays about nine of these egg masses each season, bringing nearly 5 million larval concha a year into the world. Fewer than 1 percent - 50,000 or so - may survive to become adult queens.
6/15/22
WHAT IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO FOR THE CREATURES OF THE SEA ?
RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE RECYCLE
PLEASE ! When you throw garbage on the street, it gets washed into a gutter, and the gutter takes it to a river, and the river takes to the sea... By putting trash - especially PLASTICS into the right garbage bin - or taking your cans and bottles in for the deposit return - and taking all the things you brought to the beach back home with you - YOU ARE A CITIZEN ENVIRONMENTALIST!
PLEASE ! When you throw garbage on the street, it gets washed into a gutter, and the gutter takes it to a river, and the river takes to the sea... By putting trash - especially PLASTICS into the right garbage bin - or taking your cans and bottles in for the deposit return - and taking all the things you brought to the beach back home with you - YOU ARE A CITIZEN ENVIRONMENTALIST!
6/12/22
DOLPHINS PLAY WITH MACHINE MADE BUBBLE RINGS
Another wonderful video from BBC Earth - one of my favorite channels! Siren
6/9/22
HUMPBACK WHALES HAVE SECRET LIFE - SCIENTISTS RECORD NEW 'GUNSHOT' WHALE COMMUNICATION
DAILYMAIL : SCIENCE: SECRET LIFE OF HUMPBACK WHALES includes recording of sounds
Excerpt: The team from the universities of Exeter and Stellenbosch (South Africa) and Greenpeace Research Laboratories, recorded sounds at the Vema Seamount in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles west of South Africa.
Whale sounds are categorized into continuous 'song' and shorter 'non-song' calls 0 and the study recorded 600 non-song calls over 11 days.
These included an 'impulsive sound' == dubbed 'gunshot' by the researchers --that has never been recorded before.
They also captured 'whup' and 'grumble' calls, suggesting this location could be an important stop on the whales' migration to polar feeding grounds.
6/6/22
PROTECTION FOR THE GIANT CONCH OF MEXICO - YUCATAN PENINSULA - MEXICAN CARIBBEAN
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY : PROTECTION SOUGHT FOR MEXICO'S GIANT CONCH
Excerpt: The Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula is one of the last remaining fishing areas in the Mexican Caribbean, where more than 90% of the country's queen conch production is harvested. Despite policies involving bans, minimum harvest size and catch quotas, fishing pressure and uncontrolled poaching in recent years have decreased queen conch populations, which are now considered over-exploited. The Mexican National Fisheries Chart describes the fishery as "in deterioration."
6/4/22
5/31/22
REUSE PLASTICS : THESE IDEAS ARE GOOD BUT YOU MAY NEED SUPERVISION!
I like the sock storage idea! They're all interesting!
5/28/22
ENDANGERED SPECIES INTERNATIONAL on THE GIANT CLAM
ENDANGERED SPECIES INTERNATIONAL on GIANT CLAMS
Excerpt: Giant clams are facing important threats from coral reef degradation and destruction, harvesting by coastal and island communities, and the sale and export of wild and dead specimens for the illegal aquarium trade and ornamental shell trade. Further, giant clams are one of Buddhism's "seven treasures" along with gold. China's new rich with no conscience and awareness prize their big shells as showy ornaments. Each can cost as much as $3000...
5/26/22
TAMPA BAY SCALLOP and MANATEES ENDANGERED - TAMPA BAY WATCH
Cynthia Barnett in THE SOUND OF THE SEA writes about what's been happening in Tampa, Florida, where the Tampa Bay Scallop has been the symbol of the city as well as the popular shell that tourists buy.
Excerpt page 257: Where singling algal mats covered the surface of Tampa Bay in the 1970's, sunlight now streaks through clear water across more than 40,000 acres of sea grass. Manatees have returned with turtles and fishes; the shuttered Tampa Tarpon Tournament is back on.
The turnaround began with touch sewage regulations: Tampa and other cities could no long dump barely treated waste into the bay. Nearby power plants stopped burning coal to cut nitro germ pollution carried from air to water. Programs for farmers and landscapers pared fertilizer runoff. The Tampa Bay Estuary Program rallied citizens, business people, NGOPs, and government around more than five hundred projects over three decades to restore the region's liquid heart.
None of it has been enough for the Bay Scallop. State fish and wildlife officials shuttered Florida's harvest in all but the Big Bend while scientists spent year's growing millions of larvae in hatchilings and transferring them to waters where scallops once thrived. In Tampa Bay and P8ine Island Sound, numbers of zigzagging scallops would dramatically increase following each round. Then, after a few generations in the wild, the populations would again collapse.
5/24/22
5/21/22
THE SOUND OF THE SEA - INTERVIEW CYNTHIA BARNETT and MARINE MOLLUSKS
Cynthia Barnett, an environmental journalist, who has written two books about fresh water, and one about rain. The book Sound of the Sea is about the oceans. Many people do not know that a sea shell is made by a living animal and are not rocks or stones. We love the shells for their beauty but don't know about the creatures that make them and live in them.
Beaches are sometimes covered with the living shelled animals crawling on the sand.
She will show you where the animal was with the shell when it was born.
5/16/22
ARE SCALLOPS ENDANGERED? YES and NO!
The term Scallop can refer to any bivalve, however, when it comes to scallops as endangered, it depends on which kind of scallop. The Great Scallop found around the coasts of Great Britain is endangered. Shells build from calcium in the water. Acidic water harms that process. The seas are significantly more acidic then they were a hundred years ago. So the shells are having difficulty making their shells. The ocean is also absorbing most of the extra heat and the water temperature is harming the sea creatures.
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ESA JOURNAL LIBRARY - HOW MANY SCALLOPS ARE THERE ANS WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Excerpt: Scallops (Order Pectinida) have had a tumultuous existence over the past 245 million years, bearing witness to numerous transformations in ocean conditions and surviving two mass extinctions...
5/11/22
SOUND OF THE SEA by CYNTHIA BARNETT
We think of clams as common but they are almost extinct in some places in this earth's waters.
The oceans are also absorbing more heat. Where the water is too warm for them, mollusks are dying out. Carbon Dioxide in the sea water has made sea water 30% more acidic than it was at the start of the industrial era. Ocean acidification makes it difficult for the creatures who depend upon the shells they make to protect their bodies to create thick enough shells. Thin and pitted shells make them more vulnerable.
SO THE NUMBER ONE THING YOU CAN DO AS A CITIZEN IS TO PICK UP AFTER YOURSELF, PUT PLASTICS IN RECYLCLING BINS, DON'T LEAVE ANYTHING IN THE SAND BECAUSE IT WILL PROBABLY END UP IN THE OCEAN/
THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO AS A CITIZEN IS TO NOT BUY SEA SHELLS - NOT FOR DISPLAY, NOT AS NECKLACES, NOT DECORATING THINGS.
5/8/22
5/5/22
5/3/22
MOLLUSKS ARE BEING KILLED OFF BY CLIMATE CHANGE - OCEAN TEMPERATURES - AND OVER HARVESTING
VOX: COLLECTING MOLLUSKS and CLIMATE CHANGE
Excerpt: Shells also reveal a frightening future that climate change is swiftly ushering in. "The sea and its life are taking a far greater blow than those of us on land," she writes. Oceans are absorbing far more heat than land and they're becoming more acidic, as they suck up much of the carbon dioxide we emit into the air. That's taking a toll on many mollusks, she writes, as is over-harvesting.
Referencing a book by Cynthia Barnett called Sound of the Sea
4/29/22
COWRIE
4/27/22
STOP BUYING and COLLECTING SEA SHELLS - AVOID PURCHASING CRAFTS MADE OF SHELLS
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - SEA SHELL COLLECTING and CRAFTS HARMING OCEAN SEALIFE ECOLOGY
Excerpt: In the little coastal town of Kanyakumari, in southern India, mountains of newly harvested mollusk shells - living animals still inside them - lie drying out near a sun-drenched beach. Next up for these seashells : a dunking for a few hours in large cats of oil and acid to clean them. Any remaining flesh or scaly growth is then scraped off each shell by hand by one of hundreds of local o, and they're given another soaking in oil. After a final hand-polishing, many are shipped to artisans in nearby towns who craft jewelry and other memeotos to sell to tourists. The remaining shells are destined for elsewhere in India and abroad.
***
My opinion is if a shell or item that includes shells, such as shelled mirrors, has made it all the way to a charity thrift store, then OK, buy it, but there are so many ways to use draw, paint, mache, or use other techniques to image shells, buying ones that involved killing the animals inside, hurting the ocean n and sea creature ecology is wrong.
4/24/22
4/20/22
IS IT ETHICAL TO COLLECT SEA SHELLS? IMPACT TRAVEL ALLIANCE HAS AN OPINION
IMPACT TRAVEL ALLIANCE on ETHICAL SEA SHELL COLLECTING
EXCERPT: The idea of killing an animal just to display some of its body parts (much like trophy hunting) may sound disgusting, but many folks are willing to do just that to have a shell, a sand dollar, or a starfish on their shelf It's not just immoral, it is illegal in Sanibel and Lee Couty (according to the laws about recreational sea shell harvesting in Florida) to "harvest or possess any shells that contain a live organism except for oysters, hard clams (quahogs), sunray venus clams and coquinas."
4/17/22
OYSTERS
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4/15/22
ANIMALOGIC PRESENTS A VIDEO ON SEALS
This video is informative and fun and I loved the art too : From Animalogic. In a lifetime the most dominant Elephant Seal can sire 500 pups. But he sure does have to fight it out to do so. The females choose!? They can hold their breath for a hundred minutes while the harbor seals can hold it for 30.
4/10/22
PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR THREATEN SPRING BREAK
Daily Mail : Portuguese Man of War Spring Beak
Excerpt: The Portuguese Man O War, which are related to jellyfish, are loaded with dangerous toxins for anything that happens to brush up against their tentacles.
4/9/22
4/6/22
4/3/22
ELEPHANT SEALS OF THE PIEDRAS BLANCAS MARINE ANIMAL SANCTUARY - REBOUNDED FROM NEAR EXTINCTION
This Marine Animal Sanctuary that is about six miles of California Pacific Ocean coastline is the only one in the world that is free and always open.
The Elephant Seals were once, before the Endangered Species Act, thought to be down to about 30 animals as they were hunted for their blubber, their skin and coats not used for fashion. However, the population is now estimated to be up to 250,000!
TIDES AND CURENTS MAP from NOAA
Click on the map and get the tide predictions! TIDES and CURRENTS - NOAA GOV
4/1/22
3/31/22
GORILLAZ : PLASTIC BEACH
Thought this was an interesting song but I hate to post anything with commercials.
3/5/22
THE PLASTIC PROBLEM - A PBS NEWSHOUR SPECIAL
What can YOU do to prevent this problem? The number one thing you can do is put plastics in recycling. If you do not have recycling in your area, at least put plastics into the garbage pickup bins.
Don't leave plastics on the beach or in the street.
Insist your friends follow your good example.
Learn what happens to the garbage in your area. Is it time to advocate for recycling?
Reuse plastic bags or take your own cloth sacks to the grocery and other stores.
2/17/22
STINGRAY AMBUSES CRABS
This video from BBC Blue Planet shows how stealthy sea creatures can be but is not for the squeamish!
2/14/22
2/12/22
SPECIAL SEAL KILLED IN GREEK RESERVE - OUTRAGE
BBC NEWS EURO - SEAL KILLED BY SPEAR FISHERMAN
Kostis, a MEDITERRANEAN MONK SEAL was a rare type, and the island of Alonissos thought of him as it's symbol...
2/11/22
SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM YOUR MERMAID FRIENDS
The fish are all waiting for the mermaid's message?
Do you think she might write "Happy Valentine's Day?"
2/9/22
BEACH AND RIVER CLEAN UPS!
No matter where you live there is probably an opportunity to roll up your pant legs and get with a group of like-minded people who are working to keep the beaches and waterways clean of garbage and debris.
Besides the beauty of cleanliness, we are helping our ocean environment and all the sea creatures that live in it.
A quick search brought up these Southern California Events
2/5/22
LOS ANGELES MARITIME MUSEUM HAS REOPENED!
THE FIRST FLOOR IS OPEN, after renovation, and events are started to be scheduled. This is an affordable and easy spot to visit if you're in the Los Angeles Harbor Area.
2/4/22
1/25/22
LAND OR SEA DO NOT PAINT A TURTLE'S BACK
BOSTON CBS : NEW HAMPSHIRE FISH AND GAME : DO NOT PAINT TURTLES BACKS
EXCERPT: ... turtles shells are living tissue and paint toxins can not only get into their bloodstream, it can make them more visible to predators.
1/23/22
GREEN SEA TURTLES
OCEAN SEA TURLES - SMITHSONIAN
EXCERPT: Though often associated with the tropics, sea turtles are actually found in all of the world's oceans except for the polar seas. Sea turtles have been revered by humans for millennia. In fact, many creation stories in various world cultures feature tales of the world being built on the back of a sea turtle.
Today there are seven species of sea turtles in existence...
1/7/22
1/4/22
PROJECT POLLUTION PREVENTION and DOGGIE PET POO (Pick it Up! Throw flea meds in Hazard Waste!)
LA DWP WINTER NEWSLETTER - PROJECT POLLUTION PREVENTION - PET WASTE
Did you know that flea medications in poo can hurt ocean life?
Or that as it decomposes, pet poo uses up a lot of oxygen in the water and the decomposition can contribute to killing off marine life?
Department of Water and Power - Los Angeles reminds us that we should include flea control products including shampoos, sprays, and collars in Household Hazardous Waste Collection and that pet poo we have not picked up can wash into storm drains...
1/1/22
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