By Daniel Hohler •
September 8, 2009
Last Tuesday, EcoWorldly Staff Writer Bryan Nelson wrote an article on the suspension of dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. The suspension came off of Japanese local media swarming on Taiji, after the award winning documentary film “The Cove” put the spotlight on the small Japanese village that slaughters thousands of dolphins every year.
Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer and activist who brought the location to the attention of filmmakers, returned to the site of the slaughter this week, just as the annual “hunt” would normally begin. However, this time with all of the media attention, no dolphins were killed in the first 2 days of the season.
The remarkable recovery of the Atlantic haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), a commercial fish species once in serious decline from over fishing, is described with reference to an article in The Scientist (July 1, 2009) and a discussion of the theorized causes for this fish species’ rebound. Quote from the post:
The decline of commercially valuable ground fish stocks is symptomatic of the global, over-fishing crisis. Perhaps no other region on the globe is more indicative of this crisis than New England [...]
By Stuart Stein •
November 24, 2008
I am a commissioner on the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, an industry-funded agency and part of the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Commission Program. Among our other responsibilities to the fishing fleet, we have been charged with the enhancement of the image of the Dungeness crab industry, and to increase opportunities for profitability through promotion, education and research.
An additional requirement is the sustainability of the industry as a whole. The Oregon Dungeness crab fishery is one of the most sustainable fisheries and the most valuable ’single-species’ fishery in Oregon. The issues of Wave Energy development along with the proposed Marine Reserves off of the Oregon coast have prompted the fishing industries to make sure our concerns are heard and taken into account.
By Stuart Stein •
October 3, 2008
With apologies to both Stephen King and Verizon Wireless, the “real” Dead Zones we need to talk about are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s water systems that can no longer support aquatic life. As Joshua Hill, over at Plantsave has eloquently said,
Dead zones are created, in the beginning, by nitrogen (among other things). Nitrogen is the byproduct (in this instance) of natural gas transformed in to ammonia fertilizer, which is then spread across the agricultural landscape of many western and emerging nations.
From there the runoff makes its way to streams, then rivers and finally the oceans. It is at this stage upon reaching the ocean that the real trouble begins. The increase of nitrogen in the waters fuels the increase of algae which subsequently absorbs exorbitant amounts of oxygen, making life unbearable for most creatures…
