Deep Sea News

There is a disturbing trend in this BBC news article about the relationship between whaling and carbon. The report comes from a talk at The Ocean Science meeting in Portland last week discussing some calculations presented by Dr. Andrew Pershing on how whaling is putting “locked up” carbon back into the atmosphere.

“Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon,” he said.

“And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that’s removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere.”

He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.

“And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.

“If they die where it’s deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years.”

Pershing’s solution is to offer a trading scheme similar to carbon credit trading. Whaling nations can receive good carbon karma for not whaling or whaling less. I haven’t seen the talk nor read a paper on this so do not feel qualified to opine on this matter. The troubling aspect to me is the general idea sinking things to the deep-sea is a great way to solve problems. Out of sight, out of mind right?

What happens to a whale after it sinks to the seafloor? Let’s review!

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Last week, NPR had a fascinating story on how worldview influences belief in climate change.

Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the “individualistic” group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them “communitarians.”

…The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information.

“It doesn’t matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information,” Braman says.

Scientists deal in data, but it is extremely hard to change people’s minds using data. What to do? Unfortunately the article offers no useful suggestions, saying only

“The goal can’t be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want,” he [Dr. Kahan, the featured researcheer] argues. “The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded.”

I have no idea how to do this or how to help fellow scientists do this, but it’s critical that we figure it out. Climate change has the potential to absolutely devastate the ocean – not just with temperature, but with the increasing acidity of the water. Ocean acidification is incredibly terrifying to every scientist I know, and yet we don’t know how to communicate this to the public. Even Nemo isn’t helping to spur action.

So how can we help people be open minded? Should we make a little table in front of our local Wal-Mart and demonstrate how oysters dissolve in acidic water? Should we scrape together our (rather pitiful) salaries and hire high-priced PR people to fight the high-priced PR people employed by the energy industry? Should we quietly replace Senator Inhofe with a data-crunching Cylon? I don’t know – but it’s clear that our current fact-based communication strategies aren’t working.

Photo from Jacksonbrowne.com.

As a lifelong Jackson Browne fan, I am excited to announce that he will be awarded Duke University’s LEAF award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in Fine Arts.

Browne was selected by the executive committee of the school’s Board of Visitors, which cited “his extraordinary body of work as a songwriter and musician that reminds us of the magical and redemptive connection that exists between all peoples and the natural world, and of the mysteries of time and distance that constrain our lives.” In recognition of this, as well as his “early, strong and untiring advocacy for the planet,” Browne will be presented with the LEAF award in a public ceremony at Page Auditorium beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday during Duke Alumni Reunion Weekend.

“Jackson Browne is no pretender. While inspiring a generation to work for a better life and a better future for our children through his music, he has advocated for environmental stewardship and has a house that runs entirely on wind and solar power,” said William L. Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School. “Browne exemplifies what the Duke LEAF Award is all about. We are thrilled to have him come to the Duke campus to receive the award.”

Ginormous halibut from Cousteau Society's World Ocean Census. Picture taken c. 1910 at Provincetown, MA. (click image)

Perusing the internet for maps, I came across the Cousteau Society’s World Ocean Census. They have several extracts available to read online. I clicked on Extract 4: Painting a Picture of the Past – Whaling Logs, Menus and Other Records and found this ginormous halibut! As an example of how baselines shift, I didn’t even know halibut got that frikkin big!! Its pretty frightening to think how I have lived slightly over 30 years with the image in my head of a fish that I typically eat that is only a fraction of the size it once was. The scarier part is that, halibut, indeed all fish, may be even smaller or not even around for my kids to enjoy. A world without smoked halibut or halibut Bearnaise is not a world I want to pass down to my adorable children.

I want my kids to be as enthralled with tasty large fish as I was with this image. Except, I do not want to look at pictures of ghosts of large fish past, I want to see them out there in the ocean. I want to eat halibut, but see healthy populations thriving on seafloor.

Can I have my cake and eat it too? I think so, this is why we need to continue providing sound science-based management and interact with policy makers and fisheries manager.  Most importantly, we need to reach out to fishermen and provide incentives and technology that aide them in earning their living sustainably and support an industry that provides many jobs in rural economies. This includes reducing demand, and thus raising prices, to relieve pressure on the fish. Are you prepared to pay the real worth of your food in the western world? I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

Buy The World Ocean Census, visit The Cousteau Society.

Across the internets a movement is surfacing.  Its nothing short of a smear campaign.  Across the web it is becoming fashionable to hate on the blobfish.

Neatorama…Back in 2006, we blogged about Mr. Blobby, the ugliest fish ever

John Kaus at the Chicago Tribune and LA Times…With its humanlike face, the blobfish is a creature of nightmares and who knows what terrors it could bring upon us…Its hideously deformed body is quite boneless, a gelatinous orb hovering in the deep, covered in slime and mucus. But there’s something even worse. Its face.

Metro…the the ocean’s saddest little gelatinous lump, the Blobfish

Mail Online…the world’s most miserable-looking fish

The smears start with the name, blobfish. Why can we not use the more preferable Australian Sculpin or Toadfish for this deep dweller?  Even the Smooth-Head Blobfish would be better.  Better yet, can we all use its scientific name, Psychrolutes marcidus (Greek, psychrolouteo = to have a cold bath)?

Miserable, sad, ugly, evil?  Hardly!  This sweet little fish is the product of millions of years of evolutionary fine tuning!

Fish with bladders would fair poorly in the deep depths (600-1200m, ~2000-4000ft) of Australia and Tasmania where our friend dwells.  The gelatinous appearance everyone seems soooo critical of is a brilliant adaptation allowing this fish to be slightly less dense than water.  This slight positive buoyancy allows P. marcidus to hover over the seafloor without expending energy, a huge advantage in the food poor deep sea.

Psychrolutes marcidus may be no muscular tuna but that relative lack of muscle is o’ so advantageous.  Muscle tissue consumes a lot of energy.  Why have it?  Why even swim or move if you don’t need to?  Why not just wait for your food to float by?

And where did that photo come from used all over the internet?  Worst picture ever! This pictures looks a like a mug shot taken Sunday morning after Psychrolutes marcidus went binge drinking across the town, smoked 5 packs of Marlboro reds, hadn’t showered in 48 hours, and got arrested for public nudity.  How about the lovely video below instead?

We at DSN ask the rest of the internet community to cease and desist in the slander of the Psychrolutes marcidus. We at DSN herald the Blobfish (your term not ours) as the elegantly adapted creature it is, a product of its environment.  So don’t hate the player…hate the game.

Maybe if more of us appreciated the blobfish it wouldn’t be threatened.

P.S. Crocheted blobfish coolest thing ever…me wanty!

It is with great sadness that we report the death of Captain Phil of the F/V Cornelia Marie. He suffered a massive stroke a week ago and though he was showing signs of recovery, passed away yesterday.

You can say what you want about Discovery Channel and their program Deadliest Catch, but Captain Phil was a fisherman through and through. The show is about real people doing real work, dangerous work. He always had his crew’s best interest in mind and was an inspiration to sons, also fishermen. The next time you crack open an Alaskan king crab leg, think about all the fishermen past and present who risk their lives on the high seas to bring you that food. Though they choose that life (some might say it choose them), they are out there working hard to help feed all of us who eat seafood. As part of the Alaskan fishery, he participated in one the best managed fishing areas in the US.

Below is a segment of Captain Phil and his two sons on Larry King Live.

Fig. 5 from Watters et al. (2010). "Examples of debris items observed from the Delta submersible during deep-water surveys on the seafloor off central and southern California: (a) monofilament fishing line in gorgonian corals off central California at 95 m (photo by M. Yoklavich); (b) gill net snagged on rock off southern California at 80 m (photo by D. Schroeder); (c) beer bottle with shortspine combfish off southern California at 182 m (photo by L. Snook); (d) derelict spot prawn trap continuing to capture crabs off southern California at 247 m (photo by M. Love)."

Monofilament fishing line is not what you expect to see on the deep ocean floor.  What would your response be if I told that enough occurs at depths over 1000 feet you can tally it?  And what if I told you it occurs frequently even in marine sanctuaries?  What if I told you it is not just fishing line but fishing poles, empty bait cans, longlines, nets, traps, fishing gear, fishing weights along with nonfishing items of beverage cans, bottles, construction debris, boxes, 55-gallon drums, artillery, anchors, chains, cables, lines, hub caps, tires, outboard motors, and let’s not forget the tank. That’s right a freaking tank.

On multiple surveys with a submersible, Watters and colleagues found all these items on the deep seafloor habitats off the California coast…often in marine sanctuaries.  In some localities, a piece of trash occurred every eight feet, just a little more than the height of most doors.

You should stop reading here if you don’t want to cry

The discovered trash was dominated by plastics and typically monofilament line from recreational fishing.  These densities of the trash diminished as frequency from ports like Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Moss Landing, increased.  As distance from shore increased, trash “diversity” increased with fishing debris becoming less common.  As most California fisheries target rockfish, rocky surfaces contained disproportionally more trash.  Also disheartening,

Although we did not observe a change in the overall distribution, types, or sources of debris found off central California between the 1990s and 2007, the amount of debris in- creased over time as traditional sites continued to be fished.

Is there good news?  A glimmer of hope in the findings?

Along the Big Sur coastline south of Monterey and absent of towns and ports, trash was virtually absent.

Sorry that was all I could find in the paper.

Watters, D., Yoklavich, M., Love, M., & Schroeder, D. (2010). Assessing marine debris in deep seafloor habitats off California Marine Pollution Bulletin, 60 (1), 131-138 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.08.019

Frankly, I’m a little ashamed to have my first post be all human-interest-y, without a single hypodermic penis in sight. Still,  I can’t resist highlighting this ludicrous NYT article about couples who bicker over sustainability. NYT human interest stories always end up making you hate everyone in it, and this is no exception.

Mr. Fleming, who says he became committed to Ms. Cobb “before her high-priestess phase,” describes their conflicts as good-natured — mostly.

But he refuses to go out to eat sushi with her anymore, he said, because he cannot stand to hear her quiz the waiters.

“None of it is sustainable or local,” he said, “and I am not eating cod or rockfish.”

That’s so sad. The guy lives in Santa Barbara CA and he can’t find tasty seafood to eat? (Also, cod and rockfish are not necessarily sustainable.) I’m no fan of preachiness, but what surprised me about this article was how trivial all the disagreements were. He can’t stand to have his girlfriend ask where the seafood comes from? Another woman’s sister can’t be bothered to recycle cardboard? Someone’s mother won’t eat off reusable plates? This isn’t exactly selling all of one’s possessions and living off the grid in a van down by the river.

But maybe that’s just my delicate ladybrain talking, since according to the article:

Women, Ms. Birkhahn said, often see men as not paying sufficient attention to the home. Men, for their part, “really want to make a large impact and aren’t interested in a small impact,” she said.

How can men make manly large impacts? The NYT doesn’t say, but somehow I doubt that the people in this article spend all day writing their representatives and hand-feeding injured sharks. Perhaps the only kind of conservation that really sells is the dinosaur-riding ass-kicking kind.

As always the good fellows (ahem and lady) at Southern Friend Science are tackling complex issues and generating discussion.  The latest from Why Sharks Matter “If you want something done right, do it yourself”  address the role of scientists in advocacy.  Science Online 2010 did much to bring this to the foreground for me as I begin to shape my research program for the next five years.  DSN and public outreach continue to be integral to my overall science program.  The days of scientists not engaging the public are long over.  I commented at Science Online in Miriam’s SEAPLEX session that to get NSF funding you not only had to do outreach, but do it well.

I do disagree with WhySharksMatter though.

I keep hearing of this mythical scientist/purist who believes that outreach and advocacy are unimportant. Frankly, I just don’t see this.  I am surrounded by scientists who continuously convey passion about science to the public.  Sure there are the naysayers among the ranks who down play this component but for everyone of them there are two who do not.  No longer can our default comment or excuse be that scientists do not want to or cannot effectively engage the public.  The magnitude of scientists on the web, at ScienceCafes, on Twitter, in your newspapers, writing books, and giving lectures is without precedent.  Public engagement has become vital to our research programs. We enjoy doing it and we do it often.

I am also frustrated by those who’s 40+ hour a week job is to communicate science to the public criticizing scientists for not spending even more time on this. Meanwhile scientists are balancing the demands of teaching, administration, research, and of course outreach. Please support instead of disenfranchising us.

I want to finish on another thought about the post over at Southern Fried Science.  We should be careful to discuss outreach and advocacy individually. Each presents unique issues and engage the public differently.  Advocacy is the “active support of an idea or cause etc.; especially the act of pleading or arguing for something”.  On the other hand, outreach or public engagement is “is an effort by individuals to connect ideas or practices to groups, specific audiences or the general public.”  Advocacy comes with an agenda and you become a stakeholder in that process with a bias.  Outreach should be to convey information but free from other agendas. All scientists should engage in outreach, advocacy should be considered carefully.

The comments section is always open…so go at it.

Out of Science Online 2010 came many things, perhaps the best for Kevin and I is Miriam joining us from Oyster’s Garter.  Let’s just say this shit just got real. If you don’t know how bad ass Miriam is then there is no help for you.  Miriam not only developed Oyster’s Garter to be one of the shining examples of marine science outreach on the web while simultaneously working on a Ph.D. but served as chief scientist of SEAPLEX to quantify and explore the Pacific Garbage Patch, no small feat for a graduate student.  Her scientific and outreach work epitomize the new generation of scientist with an integrated program.

So in a swift move Kevin and I moved quickly on ScienceOnline to assimilate her into the DSN collective.  This represents a new chapter of this blog and we’re going to blow your socks off.