- March 2010 - Wild freshwater turtles under siege
- Feb 2010 - Benthic habitat atlas of coastal Texas available online
- Dec 17, 2009 - Choosing reusable water bottles helps ...
- Dec 2, 2009 - Tough season may force Texas oystermen to fold
- Nov 30, 2009 - Lab quietly keeps Gulf waters thriving
- Nov 2, 2009 - Louisiana copes with oil spill, high winds, flooding
- Oct 28, 2009 - New NOAA website focuses on tides
- Oct 27, 2009 - Plan identifies Gulf of Mexico research priorities
- Oct 26, 2009 - Flower Garden Banks among healthiest reefs
- Oct 15, 2009 - Sea life flourishing on Vandenberg wreck off Keys
- Oct 15, 2009 - Panel to secure wetlands' role in fighting ...
- Oct 15, 2009 - Seagrass Recovery, UN promote restoration
- Oct 14, 2009 - Healthy oceans key to combating climate change
Wild freshwater turtles under siege
Copyright 2009 Environment News Service. All rights reserved.
TUCSON, Arizona (ENS) - Conservation and health groups today filed emergency petitions with eight midwestern and southern states,
seeking to end the commercial harvest of freshwater turtles sold for food in the United States and abroad.
Not only are the turtles vanishing into extinction, but consumers are eating meat from turtles caught in streams contaminated with mercury,
polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides, the petitioners warn.
The coalition of two dozen groups submitted administrative petitions to state wildlife and health agencies in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee, asking for a ban on commercial harvest of freshwater turtles in all public and private waters.
The groups say wildlife exporters and dealers are harvesting massive and unsustainable numbers of wild freshwater turtles from southern and
midwestern states that continue to allow unlimited and unregulated take of turtles.
"Unregulated wildlife dealers are mining southern and midwestern streams for turtles for the export trade, in a frenzy reminiscent of the gold rush,"
said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE AT ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
Benthic habitat atlas of
coastal Texas available online
Copyright 2010 NOAA Coastal Services Center. All rights reserved.
February 2010 - NOAA's new online
Benthic Habitat Atlas contains
shallow-water habitat information for over 190 miles of Texas coastal bays. Users
of the website can access individual maps
in an Internet viewer and download and print them as PDF documents. The maps are useful for public meetings, field activities and planning
related to dredging, prop scar management and habitat change detection. Users can also access supplemental information on data development techniques.
NOAA'S BENTHIC HABITAT ATLAS OF COASTAL TEXAS.
Choosing reusable water bottles helps environment, health, wallet
Copyright 2009 PM Architecture. All rights reserved.
December 17, 2009 - Need an idea for a Holiday present for your loved ones? How about a reusable water bottle or home water purifying system?
This PowerPoint presentation developed by
PM Architecture focuses on how choosing reusable water bottles over disposable water bottles can not only help your
wallet but your
health and the environment as well. The presentation shows the enormous gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean, smokestacks of refineries
that process the oil used to make plastic bottles, as well as information about health concerns related to plastic bottles leaching contaminants into
drinking water. A healthier, more green solution to disposable water bottles is to drink either tap water or filtered water from refillable water bottles made of metal, glass
or non-leaching plastic.
WATCH POWERPOINT (2.61 MB)
(click screen or use arrow keys to move through pages, use ESC to end)
Tough season may force
Texas oystermen to fold
Copyright 2009 New York Times. All rights reserved.
SAN LEON, Texas - December 2, 2009
- A year after Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston Bay’s oyster beds, the oystermen who have been harvesting seafood from the bay’s fertile waters for generations are barely hanging on, and many fear that this could be their last oyster season.
The boats that fan out over the bay every morning are harvesting only a third of what they usually do, and some longtime oystermen are thinking of finding a new line of work.
“This year is a lot worse than last year,” said Joe Nelson, who owns Fisherman’s Harvest and has been pulling oysters from the bay for nearly four decades. “It is going to be really tough for us to make it through the season.”
When Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston on Sept. 13 last year, the storm buried nearly 8,000 acres of oyster reefs in sediment from the Bolivar Peninsula, state wildlife officials said. Half of the oyster habitat was wiped out, destroying the livelihood of more than 100 fishing operations.
Lance Robinson, regional director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said the state had begun to restore the reefs on the east side of the bay, where 80 percent were destroyed. State workers distributed more than 18,000 tons of river rock over 20 acres of water.
“This is to give oyster larvae, called spat, a chance to adhere to the rock and keep the life cycle going,” said Jennie Rohrer, an oyster restoration biologist for the state.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE AT THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Lab quietly keeps Gulf waters thriving
By Harvey Rice. Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle. All rights reserved.
GALVESTON, TX - Nov. 30, 2009 -
Pitching decks in rough seas, getting along with macho fishing crews and sometimes spending weeks at sea working 10-hour days are part of the job for Andria Schurman,
an observer for the National Marine Fisheries Service Galveston Laboratory.
Schurman, 32,
is on the front line of an effort to ensure that redfish, shrimp, grouper and other threatened species will continue to be on restaurant menus. Stationed on a
randomly chosen fishing boat, she sorts through the catch to find out how much is being taken, what kinds of unwanted fish and other sea life are caught in the
nets, and other data that she records in a waterproof logbook.
The data eventually makes its way to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration outpost at Fort Crockett on Galveston Island.
That's where the information is entered into computers and used for scientific research that helps Texas and other Gulf Coast states regulate
the fishing industry and keep species from being fished to extinction.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE AT THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Louisiana copes with oil spill,
high winds, flooding
Copyright 2009 Environment News Service. All rights reserved.
NEW ORLEANS, LA,
November 2, 2009 (ENS) - An oil spill south of
New Orleans and flooding across northern and western parishes has made it a
difficult weekend for Louisiana as strong winds, heavy rains and tornadoes
struck the state beginning on October 28.
Pacific Carriers' cargo ship Pac Alkaid is now at a ship repair facility in
New Orleans, after spilling 12,000 gallons of fuel oil near the mouth of the
Mississippi River, off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Worker walks the Red Chute Levee in Bossier Parish. (Photo
courtesy Bossier Parish Levee District) |
Coast Guard officials said divers have now patched a hole in the ship about
five feet below the waterline that penetrated the vessel's starboard fuel tank,
which has a capacity of nearly 120,000 gallons of bunker oil. Oil continued
leaking from the 179 meter long Singapore-flagged vessel over the weekend while
divers waited for parts to arrive. The cause of the hole is currently unknown.
The Pac Alkaid reported the discharge to the Coast Guard at 2 am Friday, when
it was anchored five miles southeast of Southwest Pass. The Coast Guard ordered
the vessel to move further offshore to lessen the impact of the oil on the
shoreline. Winds and currents pushed the oil to the northwest, which has caused
a sheen to wash up against the rocks of the Southwest Pass jetty.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE AT ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
New NOAA website focuses on tides
Copyright 2009 NOAA. All rights reserved.
October 28, 2009 - The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services recently released a we-based tool called NOAA Tide Predictions.
Highlights include:
- Accurate, easily accessible tide predictions for more than 3,000 locations
- User-friendly options to generate customized tidal predictions
- Ability to package text and/or graphical displays of tidal predictions for a selected day, week, month or year
- Advanced options to generate predictions relative to a variety of tidal datums, as well as selections for height units, time zones, and threshold values
VISIT NOAA TIDE PREDICTIONS ONLINE
Plan identifies Gulf of Mexico
research priorities
Copyright 2009 SeaGrant. All rights reserved.
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. - October 27, 2010 - The Gulf of Mexico Research Plan that identifies marine research priorities in the region has been released.
More than 1,500 people with more than 20,000 combined years of professional service from 260 organizations, government agencies and universities worked to
identify and prioritize these needs. During the two-year planning effort, more than 250 research priorities were distilled into a list of 17 top research
priorities. These priorities share five theme areas:
- Ecosystem health indicators
- Freshwater input and hydrology
- Habitats and living resources
- Sea-level change, subsidence and storm surge
- Water quality and nutrients
The Gulf of Mexico Research Plan covers many disciplines including anthropology, biology, climatology, economics, engineering, geology, hydrology and others.
Fourteen research funding groups and government agencies already use the plan
to address Gulf of Mexico needs. Agencies recently followed the plan to help
determine which research projects would be supported with more than $1.8 million
in available funding.
READ GULF OF MEXICO RESEARCH PLAN REPORT ONLINE
Flower Garden Banks NMS among healthiest coral reefs in Gulf of Mexico
Copyright 2009 Science Daily. All rights reserved.
Oct. 26, 2009 - Flower Garden Banks National
Marine Sanctuary is among the healthiest coral reef ecosystems in the tropical Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to a new NOAA report.
The report, "A Biogeographic Characterization of Fish Communities and Associated Benthic Habitats within the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary," offers insights into the coral and fish communities within the sanctuary based on data collected in 2006 and 2007. Sanctuary managers will use the report to track and monitor changes in the marine ecosystem located 70 to 115 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
"We found that 50 percent of the area surveyed for this report is covered by live coral," said Chris Caldow, a NOAA marine biologist and lead author on the report. "This is significant because such high coral cover is a real rarity and provides critical habitat for many different types of fish and other animals that live in these underwater systems."
The sanctuary is also unusual in that it is dominated by top-level predators, including large grouper, jacks, and snappers that are virtually absent throughout the U.S. Caribbean. Researchers looked at the relationship between physical measures of the sanctuary's habitat such as depth, slope and geographic location, and the nature of the fish community in each location.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE ONLINE AT SCIENCE DAILY
Sea life flourishing on
Vandenberg wreck off Keys
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved.
KEY LARGO, FL, October 15, 2009 - Since it was sunk in May the 527-foot former missile tracking ship, the second-largest ship in the world to be
scuttled as an artificial reef, has become encrusted with several species of soft corals, a hairy mat of billowing polyps.
In addition to the corals, nearly 50 different species of fish have already taken up residence on the ship, according to the Reef Environmental
Education Foundation which is involved in monitoring the proliferation of sea life on the wreck.
"The growth has taken off just wonderfully," said Dive Key West instructor Jeremy Hansverger, who has observed the ship since it was sunk.
"We have a bit of diversity of pretty much every kind of marine life on the Vandenberg."
Gray angelfish and butterfly fish have laid claim to the ship's rudder and the anchor chain, while small triangular-shaped arrow crabs speed
along the hull, scavenging for food.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE & WATCH VIDEOS AT CBS4.COM
Panel to secure wetlands' role in fighting greenhouse gases
Copyright 2009 Restore America's Estuaries. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON - October 15, 2009 - Restore America's
Estuaries (RAE) announced today that it has convened a blue ribbon panel of nationally recognized experts to explore the role coastal wetlands play in
sequestering greenhouse gases (GHG). The panel's ultimate goal is to develop a national greenhouse gas offset protocol for wetland restoration projects.
Marine and tidal wetland soils remove vast amounts of carbon dioxide, one of the most significant greenhouse gases, from the atmosphere.
Composed of leaders in science, environmental engineering, public policy, and carbon offset investing, the panel is charged with examining the field's
current state of knowledge, assessing information gaps, and developing accounting and monitoring guidance for carbon sequestration, through coastal wetland
restoration projects.
The panel will help answer important questions, according to Jeff Benoit, President and CEO of Restore America's Estuaries.
"Coastal wetlands store carbon and the potential of restored and expanded tidal wetlands to sequester vast amounts of carbon dioxide is
tremendous. This panel will help give us the keys to unlocking that potential, by creating a mechanism for attracting greenhouse gas offset
investment into new and expanded wetlands restoration projects," said Benoit.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT ESTUARIES.ORG
Seagrass Recovery joins UN in promoting seagrass restoration
Effort works to create jobs, reverse the decline of
fisheries and combat climate change
Copyright 2009 Seagrass Recovery. All rights reserved.
TAMPA, FL - October 15, 2009 - A report
released yesterday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) stresses the importance of urgent action to maintain and restore marine ecosystems
such as seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes (blue carbon sinks) as the key to combating climate change.With the announcement, a call to action is
being made for the restoration of the world's blue forests and blue carbon sinks to combat climate change and sea level rise. Florida-based
Seagrass Recovery has been successfully restoring seagrass meadows since 1996
and stands ready to meet this expected increase in the need for restoration of this important resource.
The report’s findings detail that the key element to combating climate change is the restoration of degraded seagrass meadows. Seagrass Recovery
has spent the last 14 years developing innovative techniques and patented technologies to replant and restore damaged seagrass areas. The success of
these methods have been scientifically evaluated and documented by National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE ONLINE AT SEAGRASS RECOVERY
Healthy oceans new key
to combating climate change
Seagrasses to salt marshes among the most cost-effective
carbon capture and storage systems on the planet
Copyright 2009 United Nations Environment Programme. All rights reserved.
Cape Town, Nairobi, Rome, Paris - 14 October 2009 - A new Rapid Response Report released today estimates that carbon emissions-equal to half the annual
emissions of the global transport sector-are being
captured and stored by marine ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses.
A combination of reducing deforestation on land, allied to restoring the coverage and health of these marine ecosystems could deliver up to 25 percent of the
emissions reductions needed to avoid 'dangerous' climate change.
But the report, produced by three United Nations agencies and leading scientists and launched during National Marine Month in South Africa, warns
that far from maintaining and enhancing these natural carbon sinks humanity is damaging and degrading them at an accelerating rate.
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE ONLINE AT UNEP NEWS CENTRE
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