WASHINGTON (DC) – About 72 species of sea grasses are nature’s protective chainmail that filter land runoff, boost water quality, recharge aquifers and provide habitat for thousands of species. Yet they, too, are being assaulted and plundered by man.
The world’s sea grasses are highlighted in green. Credit: United Nations Environment Programme
Sea grasses in mesmerising meadows occupy the coasts of every continent except Antarctica. Although their total ocean area is about 0.1%, sea grasses hold an astonishing 11% of the ocean’s carbon (sometimes referred to as ‘blue carbon’).
Each year, sea grass meadows drawdown 83 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (the equivalent emissions of 18 million automobiles). Credit: Christoffer Bostrom
Some of my colleagues affectionately call the sea grasses ‘the lungs of the sea’. And for a good reason, one square metre of a sea grass meadow releases 10 litres of oxygen each day of the year. Bonanza!
Each year, Mediterranean sea grass meadows are helping to protect the deep North Atlantic ocean and all life therein by sieving 900 million pieces of pernicious petroleum-based plastics. 
Natural bundles of fibres are known as ‘Neptune balls, capture plastics. Credit: Jordi Regas
Sea grass meadows trap plastic particles and roll them into seaballs that wash up on beaches in Spain. Hurrah for nature’s wondrous breathing prophylactic petticoats.
Insatiable human greed is wrecking two football fields of sea grass meadows an hour (an area each year about the size of 28 New York City Central Parks). Every football field’s worth of racked and ruined sea grasses decreases the animal kingdom’s chance of survival to midcentury. As if this ransacking of the sea isn’t distressing enough, a recent study determined that manmade ocean noises including seismic fossil fuel surveys, subsea mining, dredging, coastal development, military exercises, and propellers from 90,000 cargo vessels, 44,000 super trawlers (floating slaughterhouses), 3.7 million fishing vessels and an armada of 1450 fossil fuel supertankers, are uprooting sea grasses. Each supertanker and cargo vessel’s propeller can produce 173 underwater decibels, or, about the sound of a loud rock concert. 
Two hours worth of 157 underwater decibels of marine noise pollution knocks over and kills sea grasses, which have thrived in the oceans for an astounding 80 million years. The loss of sea grasses is now accelerating the climate catastrophe and the hideous Sixth Mass Extinction.
Sea grasses supply our kith and kin like the half-ton Aussie dugongs with about 90 pounds (41 kilos) of vegetation per mammal per day.
Those lush underwater meadows also keep our co-partners the sharks well fed with fish. In turn, they keep all populations of sea grass grazers under control. Sharks are indispensable carbon keepers of the sea. If just 1% of that vegetation that the sharks defend goes missing, 507 megatons of carbon would be released (equivalent emissions of 97 million automobiles).
Since 2000, fisheries and poachers have annihilated 2.1 billion sharks. Every single hour, 11,416 sharks are brutally definned. The horrific loss of sharks, which have swum the seas for 400 million years, is a deadly blow to the Gen Zs (under 26s) chance of living a full lifetime.
Each of us is obligated to lend a hand, right now, to help slow down the senseless destruction of sea grasses.
Convert your despair into action by joining climate and extinction rallies. Get invigorated by partaking in old-growth blockades that defend the hallowed old-growth forests, supreme climate-makers and incomparable climate-stabilisers.
Ladies and gentlemen, every action towards defending the animals and their irreplaceable habitat is a life-sustaining WIN because without them, there is no us! 
#EndFossilFuelSubsidiesNow #BobBrownFoundation #GenZEmergency
* The authors comments are his own and Living Ocean offers no responsability for any information or intent expressed in the blog.
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Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author.
Dr Reese Halter’s upcoming book is GenZ Emergency Tweet @RelentlessReese
The pharmaceutical gold rush to invent an antidote for the highly infectious airborne coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has set its sights on devouring the most perfect fish to swim the seas: the shark.
Some of the 176 coronavirus vaccine trials are using an oily animal hydrocarbon found in deepsea shark livers called squalene. Squalene is believed to improve the human response of the antigen (toxin) within the dose. 
Pharmaceutical companies are in search of endangered great white, hammerhead, Greenland and whale sharks because their livers are large and contain copious quantities of squalene, which the fish use for buoyancy.
If eight billion people were inoculated with vaccines containing shark squalene then almost a quarter of million large, masterpiece sharks would be decimated. Some pundits have predicted that each human may require two immunizations, hence ~500,000 endangered glorious sharks would be hunted, tortured and slain. 
But hold on a minute. Are sharks the only plentiful source of squalene on the blue planet? No. Plants to the rescue, again. Olives, sugarcane, grape seeds, peanuts, corn and others all contain squalene. The plants that are the richest in squalene hail from the genus Amaranthus, with about 75 species spread generously across six of the eight planetary continents. Their seeds are dripping with squalene, which is easily and affordably extractable.
Each day on Earth there is more man-created pain, loss of old-growth forests and coral reefs, and fewer of our brethren and sistren, the animals. The indisputable fact is that humans need everything in nature that surrounds us. Nature, on the other hand, does not need humankind.
The late conservationist and filmmaker, Rob Stewart, estimated since the dawning of the 21st century, man has slaughtered two billion sharks (100 million annually). Some species have been depleted by more than 90 percent. 
Transnational crime is marauding the sea and looting sharks to supply the insatiable global demand for shark fin soup. In addition, these and other planet-killers are concealing their untaxed, ill-gotten gains from nature within concrete monstrosities (skyscrapers) dotting the central business districts of every major city. By the way, from 2000 to 2011, crooks, corruption and fishery longlines have hauled in a staggering $3,783,386,000 in shark fins and $2.6 billion in shark meat, as estimated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, State of the Global Market for Shark Products report.
Sharks have miraculously survived the last four mass extinctions. Sharks are doomed by the man-driven accelerating Sixth Mass Extinction, which is wrenching them out of the ocean and off the planet. Most shark species are apex predators. They reach reproductive maturity slowly. Prior to man’s rampage, sharks lived long lives and self-regulated their populations. Sharks also keep populations of their prey fit by culling the old, weak and infirm.
Sharks play another fascinating ecological role which benefits all planetary life. These splendid finned gatekeepers protect the sprawling blue carbon stored within the sea grass, salt marsh and mangrove sediments (~27.5 billion tons). 
Fisheries have emptied the oceans and irreparably harmed its capacity to hold carbon, a natural climate solution. Overfishing of sharks has resulted in unnaturally high numbers of small marine grazers, which, in turn, have overgrazed the shoreline vegetation and begun to reduce some of the blue carbon reserves. If just one percent of the vegetation that sharks defend goes missing, 507 million tons of CO2 would be released (the equivalent annual emissions of 97 million automobiles, or, ~9 percent of the global combustion fleet). “Once you remove large ocean predators you get strange indirect impacts. There’s a meltdown in the ecosystem that influences the release of carbon, said oceanographer Dr Peter Macreadie, Deakin University, Australia.
The more sharks that man brutally kills, the greater the chance that the Gen Zs (under 26 year olds) will be unable to survive on their only home. Massacring sharks and endangered horseshoe crabs won’t save the Gen Zs because we have entered into the Age of Pandemics. Protecting Earth’s biodiversity and all the remaining coral reefs and old-growth forests is THE key to the Gen Zs survival.
Nature is the source, not a resource. Every shark is priceless and so worthy of our total protection. There is ample plant squalene to make coronavirus vaccines. Please support the robust shark conservation work of our friends at Sea Shepherd Australia, Living Ocean and Shark Allies. It’s long overdue to end all fisheries and embrace healthy, nutritious, whole food plant-based diets. We have the seeds, the soil building and carbon retaining knowledge. We have the Gen Z labor force and available arable land. “Pitter patter, let’s get at’er!” 
* The authors comments are his own and Living Ocean offers no responsability for any information or intent expressed in the blog.
Living Ocean's Plastic Free July event will be held on July 19th-20th this year and will include a Recycled Fashion Show using some of those great numbers you won't find anywhere else but in Red Cross shops. The team is also keeping an eye on the growing seal colony on Barrenjoey headland and may be incorporating some research into this colony soon. On Saturday, June 8th, Worlds Ocean Day, members were at North Palm Beach with volunteer citizen scientists and Macquarie university students conducting another microplastics data collection as part of their research studies on our local beaches and waterways in conjunction with the world-leading AUSMAP program. Living Ocean's Centre for Marine Studies builds upon the expertise of the Whale and Seal Foundation (WSF), which merged into Living Ocean. WSF brought into Living Ocean experienced whale researchers and educators, including several of the most experienced whale rescue specialists in Australia. For many years WSF volunteers trained the NSW National Parks Service, Australian National Parks, Water Police and other organisations in the rescue of stranded and entangled whales. Bill Fulton - IT Cetacean behaviour and tracking programmer, was one of those WSF members and has spent over 35 years in the study of marine mammals, focusing on humpback whales, especially those that migrate north and south each year. Whales have been his passion but that was extended to seals and now is bringing in collecting data of microplastics on our beaches as part of Living Ocean's continued focus on a 'No Plastic Please' life. In 1992 the Government of Canada proposed setting a World Ocean Day during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. World Oceans Day provides an opportunity to honour, help protect, and conserve the ocean. This week a small insight into a member of Living Ocean who has been honouring and celebrating and working for everything in the ocean for longer than that and has introduced some things that were not here before he did this work. Where were you born? In Charters Towers in Queensland. I grew up in the Brisbane area. I remember holidays at Noosa, we used to go there for two or three weeks every year and stay in the camping ground. It was completely undeveloped then; lots of sand-flies, an old General store/Post Office, some fisherman’s huts and that’s all. The river mouth had not been rediverted then, it was just an amazing place. We’d do lots of walking in the National Park, a lot of fishing. I can’t fish now as I haven’t the heart for it anymore. When I go back now the Noosa National Park is just the same as it ever was, still wonderful. Did you go to university? I did, I majored in Physics and Mathematics. I took Russian as a side subject . Why Russian? We used to go to film festivals at Uni, we’d pig out on four films per day. One of them was a Russian film with a beautiful girl but I couldn’t understand a single word she was saying. If it’s French or something similar you can understand one or two words but with Russian – nothing. So I thought, ‘I’ve really got to learn this language’. And it turned out to be my best subject. What was the name of the film? Сорок первый, romanized as 'Sorok pervyy' – which means ‘The Forty First’. It was a wartime movie. What did you do after you graduated? I worked in the University Computer Centre for a year or so. The computer vendor who I’d been working with at the university invited me to join his company, which was a US computer manufacturer. I went straight to America for a year, which was quite an experience for a Brisbane boy from the backwoods. I was based just outside of Boston and worked for them for 25 years and would often go over there, so Boston is like a second home to me. I was just there last month for a holiday. A beautiful place – lucky you – so many historic buildings and a wonderful culture? Yes, a very beautiful place and so many historic contexts; it’s where the first shot was fired in the War of Independence, brilliant buildings, great stuff. How did your interest in what’s going on in the oceans commence? I’ve always loved the ocean and am an ocean person. It really started in 1983 when my wife Samantha and I went on a whale watch trip in Massachusetts, just south of Boston , from Provincetown. That is where whale watching started. The boat went out and we looked around and there were no whales. The boat stopped and nothing much was happening and then suddenly whales came to the boat, stuck their heads out of the water and I had eye to eye contact. They were humpbacks. We saw the humpbacks doing the bubble net feeding where they spiral up concentrating the fish and then break the surface with their mouth open, it was quite amazing. When I came back, a few months later, I was in Sydney on a rainy day, a Saturday I think, and there was a sandwich board placard on the street which said ‘ORRCA – Whale Rescue – Step Inside’. So I stepped inside…and the rest is history I suppose. They said ‘Bill, we need a newsletter Editor’. So I became the Newsletter Editor and this was before there were any computers – we were duplicating them, licking stamps and putting them in envelopes. Being a computer person I turned it into an electronic process. Over time I went through different roles in ORRCA, Treasurer and Secretary and eventually President. I started in the mid 1980’s and was there for many years. My wife Samantha, now sadly deceased, is the one who did so much for ORRCA. She was the Research Officer and transformed the organisation into a much more professional group – what it became is due much more to her than to me. Samantha had been a Research Assistant in Economics at ANU (Australian National University), but she also taught herself Biology and Marine Science and all about Marine mammals and could hold it with the best by the time she was done. Samantha created so many institutions in ORRCA that continue to today and I’m so thrilled that ORRCA is so successful today. She created the whale cemeteries – this is where we would be doing post-mortems on whales and then transporting them to this secret location whale cemetery in the National Park for the necropsies. Samantha invented the 24 hour hotline that was transferred from, home to home and was one of the main people manning the hotline 24/7 for many years. She absolutely reinvented ORRCA. ..and reinvented looking after our whales and seals and all other manner of Marine Mammals too then? Absolutely. About 15 years later I sat in on an ORRCA AGM and I was thrilled that all the institutions that Samantha had initiated were still part of the organisation.  How did your whale research programs commence? I was with Sam Barripp and we’d go out in Sam’s little 5.3 metre boat studying the humpbacks. We started doing this just prior to leaving ORRCA. Sam is also another ex-President of ORRCA, a brilliant man. ORRCA could not support our research at that stage so Sam and I and some other friends from ORRCA went and formed the Whale and Seal Foundation. ORRCA focuses on rescue whereas the Whale and Seal Foundation was focussed on research. The entire Training Team from ORRCA then became part of the Whale and Seal Foundation – this was the team that trained the National Parks and Wildlife Service in whale rescue and disentanglement. One of the most satisfying things in my life was being able to institute how to deal with whale disentanglement. In Australia ancient and primitive techniques were being used that were very dangerous to humans and not very effective for the whales. I sat down in Provincetown on the beach with Dr. Charles 'Stormy' Mayo, who was the leading proponent in the US of this new disentanglement method. He was at the Center for Coastal Studies where I took a Summer School once. Stormy explained and showed the whole method to me that had been so successful and relatively safe. I came back to Australia and taught that to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service who then took it up. We were also able to share this with a gentleman from Western Australia, Doug Coughran, a leading light in their National Parks CALM department. Doug took it on board and he trained all the other states and now this method is universally used in Australia. That continued for many years until the time came when Sam’s boat could no longer be available and we were at a crossroads. We decided to approach Living Ocean as we knew they had a similar interest, objectives and focus and they were very welcoming. We merged the Whale and Seal Foundation with them and became the Research arm of Living Ocean, which they didn’t have before. How long have you been collecting whale migration data with Living Ocean? We started that in 2004. I wrote an App in 2003 to support it. That was the idea behind the App – we were going out in this little boat and we couldn’t take all this heavy and cumbersome computer equipment with us. Just at this time little hand held computers became available – a Microsoft pocket PC. So I wrote this App using the GPS and put other stuff in it so it would talk to the depth sounder and the temperature gauge in the boat and record all this automatically and accurately for us. So we now have these tracks on a map for humpbacks. Sam and I had stood there on a headland and wondered – well, where are these whales going? How do they, for instance, follow the seafloor topography – why do some of them go straight across to Copacabana and why do some of them come inshore – what’s going on? So it was just out of pure curiosity that we began following - which is always the best way to get involved in something – follow your curiosity.    Living Ocean’s research arm is also now focusing in on collecting data on microplastics? Yes, this is in conjunction with a group called AUSMAP. This is headed up by the Total Environment Centre with two Academics who are driving it, Michelle Blewitt and Scott Wilson at Macquarie University. This is a world first citizen science project in microplastics that’s has scientific validity. The objective of AUSMAP is to create a heatmap of microplastics in Australia. AUSMAP has trained Living Ocean and we’ve sat an exam and been certified as team leaders for microplastics collection. Living Ocean’s role is to round up the public, which we do via Facebook, and bring them along to these microplastic events where we collect data. What we want to do is find out how much microplastic is on the beach and what kind is it. We then roll that up onto the database where scientists can study what’s happening. At the moment there is very little information on microplastics so if government goes to scientists and asks ‘what should we do?’ they would shrug their shoulders as they don’t have the information to advise. This is a very very important project. We select a small strip of beach and first collect the macroplastic – which is pieces of plastic that are above 5mm in size. We then select up to several small squares, scrape off the top level of sand and then sieve these for microplastics, analyse them and then write up what is there and then put this on the database.  So this now full-time work for you Bill? No, it’s certainly an avocation though. I’m retired but am now working harder than I ever did. At present I’m working full-time on developing an iPhone app or mobile phone App for Behavioural Scientists who are studying animal behaviour. So obviously that grew out of that App I wrote in 1983 but it is totally general now and so can be used for any animal – a mountain gorilla or any other animal. It’s integrating the observation of behaviour and location and environment. So it will record the different behaviours the animal is doing, record their tracks, and the environment they’re in. So that all get’s integrated and comes up on a big map. I think you may be one of those quiet geniuses Bill… No – it’s what a famous person once said; 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. What is your favourite place in Pittwater? That would be on Barrenjoey Headland where there is at present a developing seal colony. This is a very interesting place to watch  What is your ‘motto for life’ or a favourite phrase you try to live by? "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood." – Marie Curie. BILLS APP. BEHAYVE IS NOW AVAILABLE ON THE APPLE APP. STORE 
*all blogs and the views expressed are entirely the writers own and Living Ocean waives any responsibility for views expressed, even if we believe them to be true. "It feels like the future, and the longer I own it, the more the idea of burning fossil fuel seems like the past" The future is fast, silent and exciting. Just over a year ago I was in the market for a compact modern hatchback for zapping around Sydney, and on an impulse test drove a 2015 BMW i3 with 26,000 k’s on the clock. About 100m into the drive, I was hooked and ended up buying it. This is the effect it has on every passenger or driver due to the effortless and silent power. It feels like the future, and the longer I own it, the more the idea of burning fossil fuel seems like the past. Since then I have completed 14,000.km’s, for a total cost in electricity of $560, charging exclusively from a standard 240v power point in my garage. The range is about 120k which rules it out for long trips, but it handles every journey I ever want to do within the Sydney metro including to the airport and back from my home in Avalon. The 2019 version now has more than double the range which provides an indication about how quickly battery technology is improving. One of the advantages of EV’s is their simplicity. The motor has one moving part, and the one speed gear box has only a few, so the total is small compared to the hundreds in the typical modern ICE ( internal combustion engine ) drivetrain. And the brakes don’t get used much as lifting off will slow the car to a complete stop while recharging the battery. All of this is reflected in the running costs which are significantly less. My i3 recently had its’ annual service and all that it needed was new brake fluid, and a window washer bottle top up. The main appeal of EV’s is zero emissions, but you can’t brag about that if you are using coal fired electricity, so I switched over to Power Shop which provides 100 % renewable power. Plus the factory where they are made in Germany also runs on 100% renewable energy, so bragging rights are preserved.  This is the second age of electric cars as they dominated car sales in the early 1900’s competing against petrol and steam power. In New York alone there were 15,000 EVs running around and charging stations through out the city. Even Grandma Duck had one !  At one stage Henry Ford and Thomas Edison teamed up to form the Electric Car Company, but petrol took over once the US government started building roads to connect the major cities.  1920's electric car. Thats over 100 years ago! Fossil fuel barons buried the concept. Speaking of driving between major cities, last Christmas I drove from Munich to Nice with my son in his Tesla model S which is about 1000 k’s. We did not attempt to maximise the range, and hit 200 a few times on the autobahn, but charging did not add any time to the trip as we topped up at Telsa fast charging stations at mid - morning , lunch and mid - afternoon. In each case we did not stop any longer than we would have in an ICE( Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle. The i3’s battery is warranted for 8 years, but overseas experience is showing that the batteries are lasting a lot longer than any one expected. I read a prediction recently that the battery in my car should be good for 20 years or 800,000 k’s, but I haven’t researched that thoroughly yet. End of life is defined as a 20% drop in charging capacity, so the battery will probably last longer than me. At present EV’s are much more expensive the ICE vehicles, but that will change rapidly. VW are planning on releasing 30 new EV’s between now and 2025 in every category ( including a super cool Kombi ), and their stated aim is to sell them at the same price as the ICE equivalent. Every car manufactures is jumping on board as most major cities are going to ban ICE cars in the next few years, there will be no other way to meet new emission and economy targets . Some may think that EV’s will be boring, but this is the best car I have ever owned including a couple of 911’s.  Norway races ahead because they made a fortune from fossil fuels and invested in a sovereign fund that has allowed them to now rapidly divest from that industry and go 'green'. The irony is Australia isn't even on the chart below. To add insult to this fact, Norway is having one last slurp of black gold here in the Great Australian Bight so they can afford to make the transition to electric even faster.   Distinguished conservation biologist. Award-winning author & broadcaster. Eco-stress physiologist Reese Halter specialises in Earth life support systems. The whales, turtles, manatees, dugongs, albatross, ravens, hummingbirds are his brothers and sisters. Visit DrReese.com *all blogs and the views expressed are entirely the writers own and Living Ocean waives any responsibility for views expressed, even if we believe them to be true.  *Earth is roasting right before our very eyes. The heatwaves in Siberia and Lapland have begun with fury, again. Alaska recorded its hottest spring on record. It’s warming at 2.2C (3.96F), or, twice that of continental United States. The more fossil fuels burned, the faster the globe heats. That means less polar ice and more global heating methane and laughing gas from the thawing soils. A deadly feedback loop.  The second heatwave in three weeks is parked over Siberia. Image credit: Twitter At the melting North Pole, researchers have linked Man-made heat from fossil fuel combustion with the jet stream’s erratic sinuous behaviour. In the past, the six-mile high tropical, mid-latitude and polar jet streams reached wind speeds averaging 300 mph, powered by the difference in temperature between the tropics and Arctic. Today, the northern hemisphere jet stream winds repeatedly sputter. Instead of tightly hugging tropical, mid-latitude and polar bands, huge jet stream waves are stretching across the northern hemisphere. Climate instability has broken loose. Not just in the winter.  In USA the March 2019 prediction that two-thirds of the lower 48 faced flooding for months, came true. Image credit: NOAA Epic flooding across the U.S. this spring has prevented farmers from planting corn and soybeans. Some estimates predict as many as 10 million acres were under water or too soggy and late to plant. 125-year flooding records were squashed and there’s more flooding ahead. Heatwaves and droughts are wreaking havoc amongst Earth’s emerald crown, its largest remaining tracts of ancient forests. It’s tinderbox dry across northern Canada. Firestorms are raging. One out of control monster, the Chuckegg Creek Fire, is roaring near Alberta’s fossil fuel tar sands. It’s 50 percent larger than last year’s record breaking Mendocino Complex Fire in California.  As many as 11,000 people were evacuated from their homes as firestorm embers spewed over parts of northern Alberta. Image credit: CNN Across Canada, 87 wildfires are scorching the land and incinerating wildlife. 6 million acres are charred each year. It’s doubled since the 1970s. The fires season is beginning sooner, burning hotter and lasting longer into the autumn. Human fossil fuel fingerprints are all over this crime scene. Forests are the lungs of Earth, vital climate stabilizers. The more subsidized fossil fuels that are combusted, the faster atmospheric oxygen tumbles.  Greenland’s melting ice will flood coastal megacities around the world, from New York to Sydney, as sea level rise accelerates from burning fossil fuels. Image credit: Henry Patton Further south, along the U.S. eastern seaboard, Gulf coasts and elsewhere, intense polar heat is very evident as sea level rise is also killing the forests. Greenland is melting almost six times faster than the 1980s. It lost two billion tons of ice on Thursday. Unprecedented.  On the other side of the world, India a nation of 1.3 billion humans is broiling. Earlier this week, the capital of New Delhi broke its all-time high of 48C (118.4F). A day later, a merciless heat dome smothered many millions of people as the mercury soared to 50.6C (123.1F). India has a water shortage. How will they contend with the next decade?  This 32,000 square-mile Antarctic sea ice hole was detected in September 2017 from satellite imagery. Image credit: NASA In the middle of winter, the South Pole, too, is melting at an unprecedented rate. Vast holes the size of South Carolina and larger are splitting open sea ice. There’s so much fossil fuel heat stored deep within the Southern Ocean, it’s begun to surface and devour sea ice with vengeance. Earth is losing its white reflective surfaces everywhere. While these Man-made telltales are flashing code red, rapacious bankers are instructing corrupt politicians to greenlight more fossil fuel plays and disregard all scientific warnings. For example this week in Queensland Australia, the government rubber-stamped a water permit enabling the Indian-based Adani Group to drain a rare oasis, the Doongmabulla Complex Springs, for a new behemoth coalmine. If that isn’t heartbreaking enough, the Carmichael coalmine contamination will seep into the Great Artesian Basin, the largest aquifer on Earth. That ancient freshwater is vital for all life especially as the climate gets hotter and drier in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and South Australia, or, 22 percent of the area of Australia. To poison that sacred life-sustaining water and knowingly fricassee our only home is deranged ecocide! We must all do our part to protect our glorious planet and our brethren, the animals.
 *Around the globe dolphins & WHALES are showing scientists that the planet has become unlivEable. deaths are piling up. Each year, 400,000 cetaceans are destroyed. We are knowingly sentencing our brothers and sisters to extinction. Yet, our fate is inexorably linked to theirs. Overfishing. Globally, 44,000 floating slaughterhouses are marauding the oceans 24/7/365. Measuring a total of 13 million miles, with a couple of billion legal and illegal hooks, they are wiping, tunas, sharks, rays, sea turtles, cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), sea birds and so many other masterpieces off the planet at an unprecedented rate.  The economics of extinction is quickly driving bluefin tunas off the planet. Individual fish sell for $3.1M. Image credit: CNN Overfishing is rampant. It’s rife with corruption and organized crime. In February, along France’s western coastline, 600 mutilated dolphins drifted ashore. They drowned in the Bay of Biscay as bycatch within fishery nets. 90 percent of these masterpieces were amputees with broken jaws caused by being trapped in nets and struggling unsuccessfully for life.  Fishery nets killed 600 French dolphins from the Bay of Biscay. Image credit: Pelagis Marine Life Observatory Never have the oceans been emptied of every large creature of every species in 1.1 billion years of reproductive evolution. Each year, deep-sea trawling is ransacking the ocean floor and its seamounts by an area 150 times greater than clear-cutting ancient forests. 4,000-year-old deep-sea cold coral gardens, the slowest growing communities on Earth are being smashed to smithereens. Hideous biological annihilation.  400 tons of mackerel caught in just one massive planet-killing net. Image credit: Whikepia Poisons. Annually, 250 billion metric tons of Man-made long lasting poisons are running into waterways that drain into the oceans. Bottlenose dolphins from Perth’s Swan River and Adelaide’s Port River are laced with cancer-causing non-stick chemicals used in cookware, upholsteries and carpets. These dolphins contain some of the highest known concentration levels in the world. Every Port River bottlenose dolphin born this year along Adelaide’s river is dead. Over the previous two years, 11 of 13 calves have perished. Shipping strikes as well as poisons are the culprits.
Climate change. In addition to all these atrocities, the oceans are broiling with stored fossil fuel heat. 2018 was the hottest global ocean temperature ever recorded. It is the equivalent heat of detonating 100 million Hiroshima-style bombs.  Rescuers worked to help some of the 416 long-finned pilots back into the Tasman Sea. Image credit: Associated Press Seismic. Expanding and accelerating oil and gas seismic surveys are also wreaking havoc with all sea life. Pulses of 242 decibels every 10 seconds 24/7 for weeks or months are deafening cetaceans and shattering larvae of many species in the phytoplankton off Australia, New Zealand, Mozambique, Peru and elsewhere. We need courageous lawmakers that will end this global insanity now. In 2017, a record number of 416 long-finned pilots were stranded on a remote coastline of New Zealand. Seismic surveys were fingered as the perpetrator. These pernicious explosions shatter cetacean eardrums. When these superlative mammals lose their hearing, they cannot communicate or hunt, so they must commit suicide. Man’s shameless lust for more climate-destroying petroleum is evil!  One of 16 huge plastic bags found in the stomach of a Cuvier’s beaked that suffocated and washed ashore onto the Philippines on March 16, 2019. Image credit: Mary Gay Blatchley Plastics. Lastly, wretched petroleum-based plastics are choking the dolphins and all marine life. Recently, an Olympian deep diver, a Cuvier’s-beaked dolphin washed ashore near Davao City, Philippines. Our brethren was crammed full of 88 pounds of plastics including 16 rice sacks, four banana plantation-style bags and many dozens of single-use disposable bags. It’s the latest in an ever-growing list of cetaceans suffocating on plastics.  Take action now.
We are all required to lend a helping hand by consuming and wasting much less. Refuse plastics. Reduce your family’s carbon footprint by switching to a plant-based diet. Walk more. Bicycle more. Drive less. Ride share. Spend 15 minutes daily next to a tree and breathe. Join the resistance. Each of us must change and we must change now. Support organisations like SeaShepherd and Living Ocean because they are protecting our kindred beings, the whales, the dolphins and the porpoises.
Distinguished conservation biologist. Award-winning author & broadcaster. Eco-stress physiologist Reese Halter specialises in Earth life support systems. The whales, turtles, manatees, dugongs, albatross, ravens, hummingbirds are his brothers and sisters. Visit DrReese.com  The Great Australian Bight is home to endangered pygmy blue whales, southern right whales and southern bluefin tunas. It’s an essential feeding ground for sea lions, great white sharks, migratory sperm whales and short-tailed shearwaters. 85 percent of all the marine species that are found in the Bight occur nowhere else on the globe.  Non-stop ear shattering pulses of 242 decibels every 10 seconds will occur for 90 consecutive days. Not only do seismic surveys burst larvae within the plush mats of phytoplankton, the basis of the entire marine web, but also, they smash to smithereens eardrums of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). Excruciating pain drives these masterpieces to beach themselves before eventually expiring. “I fail to see how you can actually approve this type of seismic activity in the middle of one of the most significant nurseries in the world,” remarked Peter Owen, South Australian Director at The Wilderness Society Australia. “It’s totally unacceptable.”
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Author DR REESE HALTER*Distinguished conservation biologist. Award-winning author & broadcaster. |
*The fate of our brethren, the highly intelligent and sensitive cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), is very grim. The hideous man-made Sixth Mass Extinction is accelerating more than 1,000 times faster than the previous five others.
Legendary biologist and animal activist Farley Mowat meticulously documented the human destruction of cetaceans in Sea of Slaughter. He estimated that humans murdered in excess of five million whales in 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
Legendary biologist and animal activist Farley Mowat meticulously documented the human destruction of cetaceans in Sea of Slaughter. He estimated that humans murdered in excess of five million whales in 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
WHALING IN THE FAROE ISLANDS, DENMARK. PHOTO CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA
A more recent account by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) workers found that 2.9 million whales were slain between 1900-1999.
PERUVIAN FISHERMAN MASSACRE DOLPHINS FOR BAIT TO CATCH ENDANGERED SHARKS. PHOTO CREDIT: JIM WICKENS
In 2003, Duke University and the University of St. Andrews researchers sounded the alarm on discarded fisheries gear slowly drowning 308,000 cetaceans annually. Instead of the world leaders addressing this ocean crisis they subsidize it by more than $250 billion per annum.
The World Animal Protection conservation group blew the whistle in 2017 on 640,000 metric tons of fisheries gear, mostly petroleum-based plastics, discarded annually. They estimated that the life span of those nets and hooked lines was 600 years.
The World Animal Protection conservation group blew the whistle in 2017 on 640,000 metric tons of fisheries gear, mostly petroleum-based plastics, discarded annually. They estimated that the life span of those nets and hooked lines was 600 years.
This week, a detailed account by Whale and Dolphin Conservation revealed that more than 40 countries savagely hunt 100,000 dolphins and small whales each year. Heartbreaking carnage. These glorious masterpieces are tortured and slowly executed, then disdainfully used as shark and tuna bait.
Some 13 million miles of longlines with a couple billion hooks indiscriminately kill 50 million sharks and another 50 million are ruthlessly annihilated annually. 100 million butchered sharks each year.
Some 13 million miles of longlines with a couple billion hooks indiscriminately kill 50 million sharks and another 50 million are ruthlessly annihilated annually. 100 million butchered sharks each year.
…more than 40 countries savagely hunt 100,000 dolphins and small whales each year.“
The top annual offenders driving dolphins and small whales quickly to extinction are:
The worst cetacean-killer of them all is Japan. Japanese ocean-killers have exterminated 173,662 dolphins and small whales.”
- Peru (15,000 for bait and shark finning);
- Nigeria (10,000 meat market and fishing bait);
- Brazil (several thousand for fishing bait);
- Venezuela (several thousand for meat and fishing bait);
- India (several thousand for meat and fish bait);
- Madagascar (several thousand for meat and fish bait;
- South Korea (several thousand for meat);
- Malaysia (several thousand for meat and fish bait);
- Greenland (3,100 for meat) and
- Japan (about 2,300 for meat).
The worst cetacean-killer of them all is Japan. Japanese ocean-killers have exterminated 173,662 dolphins and small whales.”
BETWEEN 2007 AND 2016, GREENLANDERS HARPOONED 232 ORCAS. PHOTO CREDIT: TOM LEE
Psychopathic.
As if this insatiable human lust for cetacean cruelty isn’t enough to sicken you, there’s more.
At the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting on September 4, 2018, in Florianopolis, Brazil, Japan intends on introducing and passing a motion to resume commercial whaling. Recently, Japan went on a Caribbean buying spree to attain votes ahead of the whaling meeting. Japan is well known for its overt bribing of government officials from industrialized developing countries in order to control the IWC.
Each year, Japan kills hundreds of pregnant minkes in both the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. But that is not enough. They want more whale blood, not for human consumption, but rather, as dog treats
As if this insatiable human lust for cetacean cruelty isn’t enough to sicken you, there’s more.
At the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting on September 4, 2018, in Florianopolis, Brazil, Japan intends on introducing and passing a motion to resume commercial whaling. Recently, Japan went on a Caribbean buying spree to attain votes ahead of the whaling meeting. Japan is well known for its overt bribing of government officials from industrialized developing countries in order to control the IWC.
Each year, Japan kills hundreds of pregnant minkes in both the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. But that is not enough. They want more whale blood, not for human consumption, but rather, as dog treats
JAPAN ILLEGALLY WHALING INSIDE THE SOUTHERN OCEAN WHALE SANCTUARY. PHOTO CREDIT: TIM WATTERS/SEA SHEPHERD
In addition to all this human-induced mayhem, cetaceans face deadly ship strikes by 100,000 ocean vessels daily as well as constant propeller noise pollution. Hundreds of thousands of crab pot lines entangle cetaceans and slowly, painfully kill them. Fish farm microbes and viruses poison them along with as many as 51 trillion pieces of ocean plastics.
Worst of all, 242 decibels of incessant global seismic surveys every 10 seconds for weeks or months on end that deafen them, as humans scour the sea beds for every last drop of climate-wrecking subsidized fossil fuels. A deaf whale is a dead whale.
Already, deadly fossil fuel pollution has claimed 337 giant sei whales in the largest mass stranding of filter feeders ever recorded. The whales were victims of man-made fossil fuel heat. They ate squat lobsters laced with domoic acid from a heat-induced red tide along the shores of Patagonia.
At this current rate of unrelenting persecution the cetaceans have no chance of survival. Not only is this amoral and criminal, it is suicidal for the human race. Without the whales, dolphins and porpoises the oceans will collapse.
It’s time for each of us to double-down and reaffirm our morals and love of Nature.
“Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for life affords my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil,” wrote Dr. Albert Schweitzer.
Worst of all, 242 decibels of incessant global seismic surveys every 10 seconds for weeks or months on end that deafen them, as humans scour the sea beds for every last drop of climate-wrecking subsidized fossil fuels. A deaf whale is a dead whale.
Already, deadly fossil fuel pollution has claimed 337 giant sei whales in the largest mass stranding of filter feeders ever recorded. The whales were victims of man-made fossil fuel heat. They ate squat lobsters laced with domoic acid from a heat-induced red tide along the shores of Patagonia.
At this current rate of unrelenting persecution the cetaceans have no chance of survival. Not only is this amoral and criminal, it is suicidal for the human race. Without the whales, dolphins and porpoises the oceans will collapse.
It’s time for each of us to double-down and reaffirm our morals and love of Nature.
“Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for life affords my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil,” wrote Dr. Albert Schweitzer.
- Do not purchase cetacean-killing country products or services.
- Refuse to support their tourism.
- Refuse to support the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
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*all blogs and the views expressed are entirely the writers own and Living Ocean waives any responsibility for views expressed.
The Future Of The Ocean: A Positive View
The Five Biggest Impacts Facing Our Oceans, plus Five Easy Ways You Can Make A Difference.
A BLOG by alice forrest - conservationist, activist, mermaid, ocean frother & adventurer.
Don’t worry, this is not another doom & gloom article about how we’re trashing the planet, killing our oceans, and are inevitably going to end up in a post-apocalyptic world filled with trash (just like Wall-E). However, given that two in every three breaths we take come from the ocean, and just how generally amazing the ocean is, it would be useful for all of us to be armed with some knowledge about what to do in the face of all these problems. So, in hope of inspiring some positive actions, here are the five biggest things impacting the future of our ocean, plus five easy things you can do right now to be part of the solution.
Alice free diving with Humpbacks
#1: PLASTIC
We all know about this one – almost everything we use day-to-day is packaged in, surrounded by, carried in or drunk out of plastic. From those sneakily plastic-lined coffee cups, to the ubiquitous supermarket bag, to straws & soy sauce fish & bottled water. It’s inescapable. You may not know that it has now made it to the bottom of the deepest sea, to the inside of humpback whales & even inside people (11,000 microplastic particles a year for seafood eaters!). You may not be aware of quite how huge this problem is, with virtually every piece of plastic ever made still in existence and more microplastic in the ocean than stars in the Milky Way. It all seems a little overwhelming. The good news is, we have all the solutions we need. This is as simple as reduce, reuse, redesign & change your habits. There are a million things you can do, but here’s just one easy thing to start with:
SAY NO TO SINGLE USE PLASTICS: straws, coffee cups, bottles, bags… Choose one and start with that and for good measure, you can also TAKE 3 pieces of trash next time you’re at the beach.
We all know about this one – almost everything we use day-to-day is packaged in, surrounded by, carried in or drunk out of plastic. From those sneakily plastic-lined coffee cups, to the ubiquitous supermarket bag, to straws & soy sauce fish & bottled water. It’s inescapable. You may not know that it has now made it to the bottom of the deepest sea, to the inside of humpback whales & even inside people (11,000 microplastic particles a year for seafood eaters!). You may not be aware of quite how huge this problem is, with virtually every piece of plastic ever made still in existence and more microplastic in the ocean than stars in the Milky Way. It all seems a little overwhelming. The good news is, we have all the solutions we need. This is as simple as reduce, reuse, redesign & change your habits. There are a million things you can do, but here’s just one easy thing to start with:
SAY NO TO SINGLE USE PLASTICS: straws, coffee cups, bottles, bags… Choose one and start with that and for good measure, you can also TAKE 3 pieces of trash next time you’re at the beach.
Alice on the remote Henderson Islands where rubbish has washed up at the ends of the world
#2: CLIMATE CHANGE & ACIDIFICATION
I’m sure you’re probably heard of this one too, but did you know it affects our ocean in a range of different ways, not just through rising water levels in South Pacific Islands. Here’s a brief list: ocean acidification (nicely summed up in this daggy cartoon video), mass coral bleaching, changes in fish distribution, drowning our wetlands, changing plankton behavior (the base of the whole food chain), and messing with tiny baby turtles (their sex is determined by temperature). Even potentially changing the basic oceanic currents, which keep Europe warm and the Arctic cold.
Again there are many solutions, from taking the bus more to switching your energy supplier, but probably the easiest thing you can do right now is to:
CHANGE YOUR DIET – this could be going vegan (trust me, it’s easier than it sounds and you do get used to life with no cheese) or even just reducing your meat consumption (Meat Free Mondays anyone?) – animal farming is a huge producer of CO2. Additionally, shopping local & in season makes a massive difference.
I’m sure you’re probably heard of this one too, but did you know it affects our ocean in a range of different ways, not just through rising water levels in South Pacific Islands. Here’s a brief list: ocean acidification (nicely summed up in this daggy cartoon video), mass coral bleaching, changes in fish distribution, drowning our wetlands, changing plankton behavior (the base of the whole food chain), and messing with tiny baby turtles (their sex is determined by temperature). Even potentially changing the basic oceanic currents, which keep Europe warm and the Arctic cold.
Again there are many solutions, from taking the bus more to switching your energy supplier, but probably the easiest thing you can do right now is to:
CHANGE YOUR DIET – this could be going vegan (trust me, it’s easier than it sounds and you do get used to life with no cheese) or even just reducing your meat consumption (Meat Free Mondays anyone?) – animal farming is a huge producer of CO2. Additionally, shopping local & in season makes a massive difference.
In season vegetables, fresh herbs and grains
#3: OVERFISHING
Basically, we are now just much too good at catching fish, and we are pulling them out of the ocean faster than they can reproduce. Our vast ocean is not limitless, and many fish stocks have collapsed. This includes the large predators – populations of big fish like marlin, tuna, and even cod have been reduced by 90 percent since 1950. Some studies say we can expect total fisheries collapse by 2048. Farmed fish is also not a great answer and pirate fishing is a growing issue.
Luckily the news here is not all bad, recent research has shown that fisheries management programs in some countries (including Australia, Canada & Norway) are increasing fish stocks. However there are many countries where the opposite is true. So, is seafood really necessary for you? If so, there are Sustainable Seafood apps out there: know what you’re eating, and how/where it was caught. As well as changing your diet, an awesome way to protect our oceans is simply to:
SUPPORT MARINE SANCTUARIES – they maintain critical biodiversity, protect habitat, can boost fish stocks, and help oceanic communities build resistance to problems like climate change. (There’s a sweet video here if you want to learn more.)
Basically, we are now just much too good at catching fish, and we are pulling them out of the ocean faster than they can reproduce. Our vast ocean is not limitless, and many fish stocks have collapsed. This includes the large predators – populations of big fish like marlin, tuna, and even cod have been reduced by 90 percent since 1950. Some studies say we can expect total fisheries collapse by 2048. Farmed fish is also not a great answer and pirate fishing is a growing issue.
Luckily the news here is not all bad, recent research has shown that fisheries management programs in some countries (including Australia, Canada & Norway) are increasing fish stocks. However there are many countries where the opposite is true. So, is seafood really necessary for you? If so, there are Sustainable Seafood apps out there: know what you’re eating, and how/where it was caught. As well as changing your diet, an awesome way to protect our oceans is simply to:
SUPPORT MARINE SANCTUARIES – they maintain critical biodiversity, protect habitat, can boost fish stocks, and help oceanic communities build resistance to problems like climate change. (There’s a sweet video here if you want to learn more.)
Marine sanctuaries seed life to surrounding areas
#4: TOXIC SUNSCREEN
While we were all told in the 90s to Wear Sunscreen, it’s now increasingly clear that it’s actually causing huge amounts of damage to coral reefs. Oxybenzone, along with several other chemicals found in almost all sunscreens (particularly sprays) seriously harms coral, having a similar effect as gasoline! That’s why Hawaii is currently introducing a law to make certain sunscreens illegal.
While pollution in general, along with habitat destruction, seismic testing, seabed mining, oil spills & introduced species could all probably be put on a list like this, I feel like the sunscreen thing is much easier to take on board. As well as finding some shade, covering up (hats/shirts/shorts/rashies) & learning more, all you need to do is:
SWITCH YOUR SUNCREEN. Consider awesome alternatives like SurfMud, Sun Butter or Surf Yogis (or at least check the bottle & buy non-nano Zinc Oxide based sun protection).
While we were all told in the 90s to Wear Sunscreen, it’s now increasingly clear that it’s actually causing huge amounts of damage to coral reefs. Oxybenzone, along with several other chemicals found in almost all sunscreens (particularly sprays) seriously harms coral, having a similar effect as gasoline! That’s why Hawaii is currently introducing a law to make certain sunscreens illegal.
While pollution in general, along with habitat destruction, seismic testing, seabed mining, oil spills & introduced species could all probably be put on a list like this, I feel like the sunscreen thing is much easier to take on board. As well as finding some shade, covering up (hats/shirts/shorts/rashies) & learning more, all you need to do is:
SWITCH YOUR SUNCREEN. Consider awesome alternatives like SurfMud, Sun Butter or Surf Yogis (or at least check the bottle & buy non-nano Zinc Oxide based sun protection).
#5: THE BELIEF THAT SOMEONE ELSE WILL SAVE THEM
Of all these threats, this one is the most toxic, terrifying & ominous one of them all. And also the most easily fixed. While it’s easy to feel like our actions don’t make a difference, it’s also literally the only thing we can do. You can’t control the climate, government decisions, business activities, or fishing pirates. You can take your own coffee cup to work, switch sunscreens and think about what you’re eating.
Supporting legislation changes like marine sanctuaries (for example in Sydney) and organizationswho fight to protect the ocean is also worth doing, but at the end of the day the best thing you can do is:
JUST DO SOMETHING. Start with One Thing. Make it as simple as you need, but the important thing is that you try. Also, smile why you do it. And most importantly, get out there and enjoy it. Because there’s no way we’ll be able to save our big blue planet without positivity & some serious love for that magical salty playground.
Of all these threats, this one is the most toxic, terrifying & ominous one of them all. And also the most easily fixed. While it’s easy to feel like our actions don’t make a difference, it’s also literally the only thing we can do. You can’t control the climate, government decisions, business activities, or fishing pirates. You can take your own coffee cup to work, switch sunscreens and think about what you’re eating.
Supporting legislation changes like marine sanctuaries (for example in Sydney) and organizationswho fight to protect the ocean is also worth doing, but at the end of the day the best thing you can do is:
JUST DO SOMETHING. Start with One Thing. Make it as simple as you need, but the important thing is that you try. Also, smile why you do it. And most importantly, get out there and enjoy it. Because there’s no way we’ll be able to save our big blue planet without positivity & some serious love for that magical salty playground.
BILL FULTON, LIVING OCEAN MARINE RESEARCH DIRECTOR, VOLUNTEERS WITH DR. JENN LAVERS ON LORD HOWE ISLAND TO ASSIST IN ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF PLASTICS IN SHEARWATER POPULATIONS.
LIVING OCEANS FUNDS SOME OF THIS RESEARCH WITH DONATIONS FROM ITS MEMBERS AND TRUST FUND...
Alone at night in the middle of a sandy rainforest on a remote Pacific island, this Living Ocean volunteer is utterly lost. A step in any direction might collapse sand on the burrow of a chick, dooming the bird within. My companions are nowhere in sight and I have no idea which way to go. With wife Ineke I’m assisting a team of scientists researching how ingested plastics affect the health of shearwaters. Lord Howe is an island of incredible beauty — World Heritage — but right now I’m wondering if being here was such a good idea. Most of our two-week stay lies before us. At last I momentarily spot the distant gleam of a lamp and, remembering with enormous gratitude the compass app on my phone, manage to navigate back to our makeshift camp, cyclist’s lamp on head, with the chick I’ve captured.
Like so many others bagged that night, it weighs only a couple of hundred grams, far below the healthy weight of 550-750 grams for a chick its age. It is emaciated and starving. As is usual for the species, its parents have left for the Sea of Japan in advance of the chicks, so there isn’t going to be any more food until the chick departs the island and learns how to catch it. Clearly this one will never be able to. The starvation may be due to the lack of food in the Tasman Sea, where the parents have ranged over hundreds of kilometres, even as far as Sydney, or a stomach full of plastic that the adults have inadvertently regurgitated along with the squid. Or both. We will be finding out.
Back at the camp, everyone is a picture of concentration and words are few. It’s a production line, and time is precious. Dr Jennifer Lavers from Tasmania is measuring and weighing birds, banding the ones that can be released. Rubbing the chicks’ stomachs, Jennifer gets a good idea of how much plastic they contain. Blood samples that she is taking will be analysed for a range of diseases such as diabetes, allowing a correlation between the amount of plastic and incidence of disease. So far, it’s looking like even small amounts of plastic may cause disease. This year with a larger sample, the blood analysis costs being underwritten by Living Ocean, this suspicion may be confirmed. That would be a stunning result, likely with huge implications for most marine life and ultimately human life as well.
A few steps away Dr Alex Bond, from the UK, is working on the ‘how much plastic’ part with the original instigator of the project, Ian Hutton of the wondrous local Museum. Water under gentle pressure is being introduced into the upper stomach, the proventriculus, flushing its contents into a tub. In the lab tomorrow morning we’ll be counting, classifying and weighing the plastic pieces - 80 of them in one case — nothing near a record, we’re told. Ineke has found a niche as data recorder extraordinaire.
It’s early morning on the beach. After too short a sleep, Ineke and I have slogged our way over to the other side of this mountainous island, and are weary. Rainshowers on the eastern horizon, caught by the light of the rising sun, have a transcendent beauty that ameliorates the tragedy unfolding before us. Here is an emaciated dead chick at the high tide line, here is another, and another. At the base of the cliff, a dying chick is pathetically scratching away in a totally failed attempt to start a burrow. I look away for a moment, then I catch it and put it gently in a carton.
9am sharp and here we are in the lab. There’s scarcely a ‘good morning’ — nothing unfriendly, it’s just there is so much work awaiting. Everyone is at it immediately, a well-oiled machine. The scientists are dissecting birds, dead ones and ones that needed euthanasia. Jennifer, who comes here every year at this time, relates how for years she tried to feed and save emaciated birds but could not succeed with even one. We watch with awe and horror as the two stomach compartments, gizzard and proventriculus, are slit open, revealing piece after piece of plastic, some large, some small, some tiny. Pumice as well - that’s normal. Bottle tops, bits of a computer, nurdles used in plastic manufacture, sharp bits puncturing the stomach, round bits, every shape and colour. And ever so many balloon clips — three in one bird! Plastic and pumice are being counted, weighed to four decimal places, classified and recorded. These, along with feathers, liver and other organ samples are wrapped in aluminium foil for later study. I make some mistakes and am gently corrected. Occasionally I briefly run out of work and can get some video. Twenty-two birds today.
We get a few hours off while the scientists are transferring data to computer. They never stop; it’s awesome to behold. Already it’s time for the next night’s work.
Looking down on the mountains and lagoon as our prop-jet bears us away from the island, our hearts are filled with such varied emotions. The amount of data is stupendous, with a record number of birds processed in 2+ weeks. We reflect on our new-found love for these beautiful birds and hope that our small efforts will in some way help future generations of a species whose numbers have plummeted dramatically in recent times. We think also of the luckier, healthy chicks, who will spend around seven years at sea shuttling between hemispheres without ever making landfall, returning eventually to breed in the colony of their birth and in some cases even to the very same burrow, where some future researcher may find them wearing the bands we attached with love.
Like so many others bagged that night, it weighs only a couple of hundred grams, far below the healthy weight of 550-750 grams for a chick its age. It is emaciated and starving. As is usual for the species, its parents have left for the Sea of Japan in advance of the chicks, so there isn’t going to be any more food until the chick departs the island and learns how to catch it. Clearly this one will never be able to. The starvation may be due to the lack of food in the Tasman Sea, where the parents have ranged over hundreds of kilometres, even as far as Sydney, or a stomach full of plastic that the adults have inadvertently regurgitated along with the squid. Or both. We will be finding out.
Back at the camp, everyone is a picture of concentration and words are few. It’s a production line, and time is precious. Dr Jennifer Lavers from Tasmania is measuring and weighing birds, banding the ones that can be released. Rubbing the chicks’ stomachs, Jennifer gets a good idea of how much plastic they contain. Blood samples that she is taking will be analysed for a range of diseases such as diabetes, allowing a correlation between the amount of plastic and incidence of disease. So far, it’s looking like even small amounts of plastic may cause disease. This year with a larger sample, the blood analysis costs being underwritten by Living Ocean, this suspicion may be confirmed. That would be a stunning result, likely with huge implications for most marine life and ultimately human life as well.
A few steps away Dr Alex Bond, from the UK, is working on the ‘how much plastic’ part with the original instigator of the project, Ian Hutton of the wondrous local Museum. Water under gentle pressure is being introduced into the upper stomach, the proventriculus, flushing its contents into a tub. In the lab tomorrow morning we’ll be counting, classifying and weighing the plastic pieces - 80 of them in one case — nothing near a record, we’re told. Ineke has found a niche as data recorder extraordinaire.
It’s early morning on the beach. After too short a sleep, Ineke and I have slogged our way over to the other side of this mountainous island, and are weary. Rainshowers on the eastern horizon, caught by the light of the rising sun, have a transcendent beauty that ameliorates the tragedy unfolding before us. Here is an emaciated dead chick at the high tide line, here is another, and another. At the base of the cliff, a dying chick is pathetically scratching away in a totally failed attempt to start a burrow. I look away for a moment, then I catch it and put it gently in a carton.
9am sharp and here we are in the lab. There’s scarcely a ‘good morning’ — nothing unfriendly, it’s just there is so much work awaiting. Everyone is at it immediately, a well-oiled machine. The scientists are dissecting birds, dead ones and ones that needed euthanasia. Jennifer, who comes here every year at this time, relates how for years she tried to feed and save emaciated birds but could not succeed with even one. We watch with awe and horror as the two stomach compartments, gizzard and proventriculus, are slit open, revealing piece after piece of plastic, some large, some small, some tiny. Pumice as well - that’s normal. Bottle tops, bits of a computer, nurdles used in plastic manufacture, sharp bits puncturing the stomach, round bits, every shape and colour. And ever so many balloon clips — three in one bird! Plastic and pumice are being counted, weighed to four decimal places, classified and recorded. These, along with feathers, liver and other organ samples are wrapped in aluminium foil for later study. I make some mistakes and am gently corrected. Occasionally I briefly run out of work and can get some video. Twenty-two birds today.
We get a few hours off while the scientists are transferring data to computer. They never stop; it’s awesome to behold. Already it’s time for the next night’s work.
Looking down on the mountains and lagoon as our prop-jet bears us away from the island, our hearts are filled with such varied emotions. The amount of data is stupendous, with a record number of birds processed in 2+ weeks. We reflect on our new-found love for these beautiful birds and hope that our small efforts will in some way help future generations of a species whose numbers have plummeted dramatically in recent times. We think also of the luckier, healthy chicks, who will spend around seven years at sea shuttling between hemispheres without ever making landfall, returning eventually to breed in the colony of their birth and in some cases even to the very same burrow, where some future researcher may find them wearing the bands we attached with love.
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