Giant squid escapes icy tomb
One of the ocean's monsters is being revealed to the public for the first time in the Queensland Museum's latest exhibition.
The giant squid has been thawed and preserved for public display at the Queensland Museum for the first time. (ABC Multiplatform:Lucinda Kent)A giant squid that was found frozen in a block of ice has been thawed and meticulously preserved by scientists for display in the Deep Oceans exhibition.See more photos at the 612 ABC Brisbane Facebook page.Mollusc expert Darryl Potter says the squid on display may seem large at around seven metres long, but the species can grow all the way up to 13 metres in length including their 'club tentacles' used for killing prey.Giant squid live in some of the deepest parts of the ocean and were thought to be mythological creatures until around 100 years ago, but the first sighting of a live giant squid in the ocean was in September 2004."They were spotted by mariners in early days and that lead to the tales of monsters from the deep," Mr Potter said."That of course led to all your science fiction movies with grossly distorted facts about the size of these things and what they ate."Mr Potter says the giant squid on display in the Deep Oceans exhibition, is known as Cal, short for calamari, is one of the best preserved specimens in the world.Breaking the ice Cal the squid had previously been on display at Underwater World on the Sunshine Coast, where it was kept frozen in the block of ice it was found in, which kept the creature intact before museum scientists used professional preservation techniques."We brought it back to the museum here and it took about three days of chipping through the ice very carefully because you didn't want to damage any of the appendages," he said."Not only just chipping through it but there's a lot of ice that was inside it that had to thaw, it sat around for about a week completely thawing."Museum workers had to don protective 'spacesuits' while they applied chemicals that keep the animal's skin, tentacles, and head permanently fixed.The squid has been kept in the museum laboratories for the past 5 years and can be seen for the first time out of the ice at the Deep Oceans exhibit at the Queensland Museum from 28 March to 6 October 2014.
Exotic Opah in San Diego Harbor
‘Craziest day ever’ as exotic opah beaches itself in San Diego Harbor
It's unclear how the colorful, deep-water denizen got so far off-track
Brandon Buono poses with 91-pound opah that was found swimming in front of Fisherman’s Landing; photo by Doug KernThe opah is a solitary denizen of deep water and caught very rarely by anglers fishing far offshore for other species.So folks at Fisherman’s Landing Tackle in San Diego were understandably surprised this week to discover that a 91-pound opah had swum right up to the dock area, where it was promptly gaffed by a landing employee.That would mean the exotic opah either swam into and through much of San Diego Harbor to reach the landing, or the colorful fish was somehow delivered alive—say, in the ballast of a ship or the hold of a commercial fishing boat.
Exotic opah after its capture at Fisherman’s Landing; photo by Doug KernEither way, it was a bizarre event, one that led landing co-owner Doug Kern to write on Facebook: “CRAZIEST DAY EVER AT FISHERMAN’S LANDING!”Kern, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, also posted this statement: “I never would have believed it if I wasn’t there to see it. The fish was swimming around in circles and then just beached itself. Brandon [Buono, a landing employee] got a gaff and pulled it up on the sand.”Opah are large and colorful fish that roam tropical and temperate seas and are delicious as table fare. They’re caught mostly by long-lining commercial fishermen targeting tuna and other pelagic fish. However, they’re caught very sporadically by anglers on San Diego’s long-range sportfishing fleet, which targets tuna and wahoo in Mexican waters.One of the Facebook comments reads, “That was the El Nino messenger,” in reference to a warm-water event that appears to be developing in the eastern Pacific and could result in sending exotic species of fish far north of their typical range.Those fish might include opah, yellowfin tuna, or mahi-mahi. But don’t count on any of those fish swimming ashore.
A super El Niño on the way? Subtle signs emerging
Mashable’s Andrew Freedman has penned an intriguing and important piece suggesting the possible El Niño in the pipeline may be a doozy, comparable to the strongest ever recorded:Since climate forecasters declared an “El Niño Watch” on March 6, the odds of such an event in the tropical Pacific Ocean have increased, and based on recent developments, some scientists think this event may even rival the record El Niño event of 1997-1998.Recall an El Niño event is an episodic warming of the eastern tropical Pacific ocean, which often has worldwide weather implications.Freedman interviews two scientists, Eric Blake from the National Hurricane Center and Paul Roundy from SUNY-Albany, who see early indicators reminiscent of the development stages of past whopper El Niño events.One important possible indicator of the lead up to an El Niño is a reversal in the trade winds observed in the equatorial Pacific, from a prevailing easterly (from the east) to westerly (from the west) direction. In recent weeks and months, there have been strong westerly “bursts”.Read the full article here.
Oceana bycatch report first salvo in next NGO campaign to restrict fisheries
Oceana has released a report on the nine dirties US fisheries in terms of bycatch to great media fanfare. "Anything can be bycatch,” said Dominique Cano-Stocco, campaign director at Oceana. “Whether it’s the thousands of sea turtles that are caught to bring you shrimp or the millions of pounds of cod and halibut that are thrown overboard after fishermen have reached their quota, bycatch is a waste of our ocean’s resources. Bycatch also represents a real economic loss when one fisherman trashes another fisherman’s catch.”“Hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, sharks, sea birds, sea turtles and fish needlessly die each year as a result of indiscriminate fishing gear,” said Amanda Keledjian, report author and marine scientist at Oceana. “It’s no wonder that bycatch is such a significant problem, with trawls as wide as football fields, longlines extending up to 50 miles with thousands of baited hooks and gillnets up to two miles long. The good news is that there are solutions – bycatch is avoidable.”This is not the language of scientists seeking to lower bycatch. It is a call to arms to shut down fisheries.Bycatch issues in fisheries are not new. US fishery managers have spent huge amounts of time addressing bycatch.For example, one of the key functions of fisheries observers is to accurately record and document bycatch, so that impacts on stock are understood and included in fishery management decisions.Read the full article here.
World's oceans hold 30 times more fish than believed
Pew research by an international team of marine scientists suggests that the global biomass of fish is 30 times more than the accepted estimate, contradicting previous beliefs about the biomass of fish in the world's oceans.The team investigated mesopelagic fish that tend to dominate the world total fish biomass. Mesopelagic fish are open-sea species that occupy the mid-depth of the oceans from 200 metres to 1,000 metres below the surface.They are small, often migrate to the surface at night, and have remarkable senses - in vision and in sensing pressure and motion - which enables them to avoid nets and fishing gear.In a report in Nature Communications, the scientists say they had not been able to accurately estimate the biomass of fish in the past because of the difficulties in sampling and the fact that available estimates were based on false premises.To overcome these problems, the researchers analysed acoustic observations collected during the Malaspina 2010 Circumnavigation Expedition. Their calculations showed that the previous estimate needed to be revised to a higher biomass of at least one order of magnitude.This means there could be more than 3,000 million tonnes of mesopelagic fish in the ocean - a stock still untouched by fisheries and possibly increasing because of the decline of their main predators, tuna and swordfish.Read the full article here.
Assessing the Vulnerability of Fish Stocks in a Changing Climate
What is the Fish Stock Climate Vulnerability Assessment?NOAA Fisheries, in collaboration with the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research - "Earth System Research Laboratory, is finalizing a methodology to rapidly assess the vulnerability of U.S. marine stocks to climate change. The methodology uses existing information on climate and ocean conditions, species distributions, and species life history characteristics to estimate the relative vulnerability of fish stocks to potential changes in climate.Climate change is already impacting fishery resources and the communities that depend on them. Scientists are linking changes in ocean temperatures to shifting fish stock distributions and abundances in many marine ecosystems, and these impacts are expected to increase in the future.To prepare for and respond to current and future changes in climate and oceans, fisheries managers and scientists need tools to identify what fishery resources may be most vulnerable in a changing climate and why certain fish stocks are vulnerable. By providing this information, the methodology will be able to help fisheries managers and scientists identify ways to reduce risks and impacts to fisheries resources and the people that depend on them. These kinds of climate change vulnerability assessments are increasingly being used to help assess risks to terrestrial and freshwater natural resources and man-made structures such as buildings and bridges.Read the full article here.
El Nino predicted to return this year with implications for weather and fisheries
A warming of the central Pacific Ocean this year will change weather worldwide, US forecasters predict.The warming, called an El Nino, can mean an even hotter year coming up and billions of dollars in losses for food crops.Australia and South Africa should be dry while parts of South America become dry and parts become wet in an El Nino. Peru suffers the most, getting floods and poorer fishing.But it could bring good news for some parts of the planet, leading to fewer Atlantic hurricanes and more rain next winter for drought-stricken California and southern US states. It could also bring and a milder winter for the frigid US north next year, meteorologists sayThe National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration issued an official El Nino watch today. An El Nino is a warming of the central Pacific once every few years, from a combination of wind and waves in the tropics. It shakes up climate around the world, changing rain and temperature patterns.Read the full article here.
Has There Really Been A Sardine Crash?
Sardines have been a hot news topic in recent weeks. Environmental groups and others have claimed that the sardine population is collapsing like it did in the mid-1940s.The environmental group Oceana has been arguing this point loudly in order to shut down the sardine fishery. That’s why they filed suit in federal court, which is now under appeal, challenging the current sardine management.So what is the truth about the state of sardines? It’s much more complicated than environmentalists would lead you to believe. In fact, it’s inaccurate and disingenuous to compare today's fishery management with the historic sardine fishery collapse that devastated Monterey's Cannery Row.Read the full story here.