SEA Blog

1st Annual World Congress of Marine Biotechnology

SEA bloggers,

I wanted to pass along for your information a link and some information about what sounds like it will be a fascinating meeting in April, 2011 in Dailan, China.  I was asked to speak at the meeting, but will be unable to attend and I wanted to make people aware of it.  I have copied the summary description for the meeting below and you can get more information at <http://www.bitlifesciences.com/wcmb2011/>

On earth the oceans comprise the biggest part of the biosphere and also contain the most ancient and diverse forms of life. It is only with the tools of modern science that these biological resources can be studied in detail, and the things learned from them applied for human benefit and fundamental scientific progress. Reports have shown that the resources of the sea remain largely unexplored, and that marine organisms represent a vast untapped resource with potential benefits in many areas including: medicine, aquaculture, fisheries, industry, research, and environmental protection and restoration. For this reason we have organized WCMB-2011 to bring together scientists and industry leaders from marine biotechnology organizations to encourage the development of commercial marine biotechnology.

 

Study endangered killer whales next spring

NOTE this new opportunity to study marine mammals through BeamReach

Subject: Study endangered killer whales next spring

Get off-campus and study wild orcas for 10 weeks next spring!  Apply now to conduct your own research with the Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability School.

Beam Reach is for you if you want to:
  -- study endangered orcas in the wild
  -- explore their ecosystem from phytoplankton to salmon
  -- use advanced bioacoustic tools in your own research project
  -- network with experts in marine conservation
  -- learn to sail a biodiesel-electric catamaran
  -- voyage through the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest
  -- earn 18 credits from the University of Washington

Check it out at: http://beamreach.org

We are still accepting applications for the spring 2011 program (Mar 28 - Jun 03) and the fall 2011 program (Aug 22 – Oct 28).  But hurry, the next monthly review date is January 3, 2011.  Apply now: http://www.beamreach.org/apply

To apply you should have completed your first year of college, be interested in the marine environment, and want to spend 10 weeks off-campus in an intensive field research experience.  A great way to see if Beam Reach is for you is to read students' blog posts.

Let us know if you have any questions!
Dr. Scott Veirs
[email protected]

National Geographic article on "Noisy Oceans"

The January 2011 edition of National Geographic has an article in their Big Idea feature on the rising human noise in the ocean from industrial activity.  You can find the article on-line now at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/big-idea/noisy-ocean

I have copied the text below, but I would encourage you to go to the website because the figures are really a major part of the story; Chris Clark and I worked with them on these figures (especailly him on the later one of his data) which I think are quite good.  I also think it is great that such a widely-read publication as Nat Geo has recognized the importance of the issue of overall increases in ambient noise.

 

Drifting in Static

A rising tide of man-made noise is disrupting the lives of marine animals.

The deep is dark, but not silent; it’s alive with sounds. Whales and other marine mammals, fish, and even some invertebrates depend on sound, which travels much farther in water than light does. The animals use sound to find food and mates, to avoid predators, and to communicate. They face a growing problem: Man-made noise is drowning them out. “For many of these animals it’s as if they live in cities,” says marine scientist Brandon Southall, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) ocean acoustics program.

Two years ago the problem made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case that might have been called U.S. Navy v. Whales. The Court’s decision protected the right of naval vessels to test submarine-hunting sonar systems, whose intense sound pulses have been linked to several mass whale strandings. But the Navy is not the lone villain. Oil company ships towing arrays of air guns fire round-the-clock fusillades loud enough to locate oil buried under the seafloor—and also to be heard hundreds of miles away. Undersea construction operations drive piles into the seafloor and blast holes in it with explosives.

And most of the rising tide of noise—a hundred­fold increase since 1960, in many areas—is created simply by the dramatic growth in shipping traffic. “Shipping noise is always there,” Southall says. “It doesn’t have to be lethal to be problematic over time.” The problem is getting steadily worse for another reason. As we’re making more noise, we’re also making the ocean better at transmitting it. Seawater is absorbing less sound as carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning seeps into the ocean and acidifies it.

Noise drives many species of whales, dolphins, and other marine animals to change their behavior markedly—their calling, foraging, and migration patterns—even when it’s not enough to drive them onto a beach. Cod and haddock in the Barents Sea have been found to flee the area when air guns start firing, drastically reducing fish catches for days. Large baleen whales are of special concern. They communicate over vast distances in the same frequencies, around the lowest C on a piano, that ship propel­lers and engines generate. On most days, says Christopher W. Clark, director of the bioacoustics research program at Cornell University, the area over which whales in coastal waters can hear one another shrinks to only 10 to 20 percent of its natural extent.

Clark studies endangered northern right whales, whose habitat includes busy shipping lanes for the port of Boston. In 2007 he and his colleagues deployed a network of seafloor recorders and automated listening buoys in Massachusetts Bay. From three years of continuous recordings, they then compiled a complete underwater “noise budget.” Color animations of the data show the calls of right whales getting all but obliterated as ships pass. “The whales’ social network is constantly being ripped and reformed,” Clark says. Unable to communicate, individual whales have trouble finding each other and spend more time on their own.

The ten listening buoys now bobbing in Massachusetts Bay could actually help the animals. The researchers are sharing their real-time data on whale locations, transmitted from the buoys via satellite, with tanker captains, who can then slow down their ships or alter course to avoid whales. It’s a small note of hope in the din. “Science can only help in so many ways,” Clark says. “Then we have to decide whether the animals are important to us.”  —Leslie Allen

Recent News Article on SOCAL-10 Behavioral Response Study

Yesterday the Santa Cruz Sentinel ran an article on our SOCAL-10 behavioral response study.  Here is the link <http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_16844518> and we have copied the first few paragraphs of text of the article below.  Any comments or feedback are welcome and thanks for all the interest thusfar.

Scientists study sonar's impact on whale behavior

By Nadia Drake

Posted: 12/13/2010 01:30:41 AM PST

SANTA CRUZ -- Many marine mammals rely on sound for communication and navigation.

Whale songs can span oceans, and some mammals routinely plunge thousands of feet into salty darkness in search of supper. But what happens when the whales' auditory environment is overwhelmed by loud undersea noise from Naval sonar?

Circumstantially, nothing good: For decades, mass strandings have been reported in the wake of sonar-using naval training exercises. Mid-frequency tactical military sonar is used to detect underwater objects like submarines, and sonar noise levels exceed 230 decibels -- the equivalent of multiple jet engines.

Many of the better-known, potentially sonar-induced strandings involve dozens of whales and multiple species. In March 2000, 16 whales beached themselves in the Bahamas following a training exercise. In September 2002, 14 beaked whales washed up in the Canary Islands. Then, in 2004, as many as 200 melon-headed whales got stuck in a shallow Hawaiian bay. Similar incidents have been reported in Greece, Japan, Washington state and Spain.

But scientists still don't know how sonar leads to mass casualties, and whether it causes direct physical harm, interferes with navigation, induces panic or causes disorientation.

Santa Cruz researcher Brandon Southall is trying to find out. Southall is affiliated with UC Santa Cruz and is the president of Southall Environmental Associates Inc. Earlier this fall, he and colleagues from institutions including the Cascadia Research Collective, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute completed the first stage of a five-year study addressing marine mammal response to sonar-like sound.  

The study -- called SOCAL-10 -- is funded in part by the U.S. Navy, which by all accounts is interested in using the results to lessen the effects of its sonar use on marine mammals.

(continued...please see link above for full text)

FERC proposes rule to integrate variable energy resources

A slightly older post, but an important fairly recent development with regard to offshore energy in the U.S. nevertheless -- see:

http://www.ferc.gov/media/news-releases/2010/2010-4/11-18-10-E-1.asp

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) today (18 Nov) proposed reforms to its rules to lay the foundation for integrating the rapid growth of variable energy resources into the nation’s power grid while ensuring reliability and bringing potential savings to customers.

The proposed rule would reform the Open Access Transmission Tariffs (OATT) and the Large Generator Interconnection Agreements filed by public utility transmission providers to require them to offer services that will allow for a more efficient integration of variable energy resources such as wind, solar and hydrokinetics into the grid system.

B. Southall to give keynote lecture at 38th Annual IMATA conference

On Saturday Dec 4th I will be giving the keynote lecture at the 38th Annual Conference of the Intnational Marine Animal Trainers' Association at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts.  My presentation will be entitled: "Marine Mammals and Sound: Perspectives from the Career of Ronald Schusterman and the Role of Marine Animal Trainers".  I will be discussing some of the very broad and profound impacts and implications of the career's work of my mentor, the late Dr. Schusterman.  And I will be coming home to the New England Aquarium where I began my own career nearly 20 years ago.  More information on the meeting is available at: http://boston2010.imata.org/  If you would like a .pdf version of the talk, please send me an email at [email protected] and I will get it to you as soon as I can.

Expert panel on oil and gas development impacts on critically endangered whales

This week, the western grey whale advisory panel (WGWAP) is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.  Information on the meeting and documents about the assessment of this summers seismic survey in Russia off Sakhalin Island, the primary feeding grounds for western grey whales, is available at:

http://www.iucn.org/wgwap/wgwap/meetings/wgwap_9/

I have served on the seismic survey task force the past three days here in snowy Switzerland leading up to the meeting, and additional information on the task force and it's work and recommendations leading up to the survey are also available through the IUCN website.  This is critical habitat for a critically endangered marine mammal, and the amount of thought, planning, and integrated remote sensing technology for the execution of the survey was in some ways unprecedented. 

Whether or not their should be full-scale rapid development of this important and unique environment for offshore hydrocarbon extraction is, of course, another matter, but in conducting the survey with the sensitivity of this area there were some very important new steps and precautions taken.  YOu can find out more about these at the site given above.