Say Goodbye to Butterflyfish, Sharks, and Antarctic Marine Life

I haven't done a "Goodbye to" post for a while, it is a truly depressing activity. Anyway, no good news this time. The Butterflyfish, nine species of shark (including the hammerhead), and the Antarctic marine ecology are all on the way out, most likely within our lifetimes. The cause, as usual, is us.

The Butterflyfish is out because we are destroying its food supply:

The case of the Chevroned Butterflyfish is a stark example of how human pressure on the world’s coral reefs is confronting certain species with ‘blind alleys’ from which they may be unable to escape, says Dr Morgan Pratchett of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

In a study published in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology Dr Pratchett and Dr Michael Berumen of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA) warn that the highly specialized nature of the feeding habits of this particular butterflyfish – the distinctively patterned Chaetodon trifascialis - make it an extinction risk as the world’s coral reefs continue to degrade due to human over-exploitation, pollution and climate change.

“The irony is that these butterflyfish are widespread around the world, and you’d have thought their chances of survival were pretty good,” Dr Pratchett said.

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Sharks are out due to bycatch and the love of shark fin soup:

Nine more species of shark are to be added to the endangered list as scientists warn that oceans are being emptied of the fish by overfishing and finning.

The scalloped hammerhead shark, which has declined by 99% over the past 30 years in some parts of the world, is particularly vulnerable and will be declared globally endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) list.

"Sharks are definitely at the top of the list for marine fishes that could go extinct in our lifetimes," said Julia Baum of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California and a member of IUCN shark specialist group. "If we carry on the way that we are, we're looking at a really high risk of extinction for some of these shark species within the next few decades."

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston yesterday, Baum said that in addition to the scalloped hammerhead, other shark species that will be added to the revised IUCN endangered list later this year are the smooth hammerhead, shortfin mako, common thresher, big-eye thresher, silky, tiger, bull and dusky. There are already 126 species of shark on the IUCN's list.

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The sharks demise is happening in African waters:

"While the shark net catches have impacted on some species more heavily than others, most of the species that are caught in the shark nets are wide-ranging, with the tropical species inhabiting Mozambican and Tanzanian waters, where exploitation levels may be very high."

For example, their data showed that the great hammerhead shark not one of the nine had undergone a significant decline in catch rates in the nets, Cliff said.

"Between 1978 and 1993 we caught an annual average of 13 great hammers. Since 2000 we have only caught two per annum, with none since 2004.

"This species, very much a tropical one, has either changed its dispersal habits and is no longer visiting our waters, or it has been heavily fished to the north of us."

The local nursery ground of the scalloped hammerhead included the Tugela Banks, where the prawn trawlers had caught large numbers of neo-nates (baby sharks), he added.

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Global warming is heating up Antarctic seas, allowing predatory crabs and fish to move in on a marine system unprepared for such an assault.

Predatory crabs and fish are poised to return to warming Antarctic waters for the first time in millions of years, threatening the shallow marine ecosystems surrounding Antarctica. Antarctic marine communities resemble the primeval waters of millions years ago because modern predators - crabs and fish - are missing.

...Antarctic marine communities are functionally Paleozoic - typical of around 250 million years ago,' says paleobiologist Rich Aronson. 'If the crabs' invasion succeeds, they will devastate Antarctica's spectacular Paleozoic-type fauna and fundamentally alter its ecological relationships.'

In January 2007 Dr Sven Thatje and a group of ocean biologists from NOCS and BAS discovered crabs massing in deeper slightly warmer waters, ready to move into the Antarctic shallows should they warm up sufficiently.

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Oh fuck.

Japan Takes Hostages

The Japanese whaling fleet has taken hostages in its bid to continue the extermination of creatures that, as of yet, have not invaded the Japanese mainland. Obviously, the Japanese believe in the Bush doctrine of preemptive war. The Japanese whaling fleet took two activists from the anti-whaling ship, Steve Irwin, hostage and demanded that the Steve Irwin stay 10 nautical miles away from whaling fleet in order for the hostages to be returned:

"We are happy to hand the two men back in exchange for a couple of agreements -- that they remain 10 nautical miles away from the vessel," Glenn Inwood, spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, told Australian media.

Hideki Moronuki, of the Fisheries Agency of Japan, told Australian media that as soon as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society accepted the conditions regarding the safety of the Japanese vessel "they will release the two illegal intruders."

But Paul Watson, captain of the militant anti-whaling group's ship, rejected the condition. "When you are holding hostages and you make demands, that is the definition of terrorism," Watson said from his ship, the Steve Irwin.

The Institute of Cetacean Research has in turn called the anti-whaling activists "terrorist," for illegally boarding a ship on the high seas.

Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane boarded the Japanese whaling ship Yushin Maru No. 2 late on Tuesday. Sea Shepherd said they were delivering a letter advising the crew they were "illegally killing whales."

Japanese fishing authorities said the pair boarded the whaler after making attempts to entangle the screw of the vessel using ropes and throwing bottles of acid onto the decks. Sea Shepherd said the pair only threw stink bombs of rancid butter.

Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australian diplomats in Tokyo received guarantees from Japan's government that the two men would be released immediately after accusations by Watson that they were "roughed up" by the Japanese crew.

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Say Goodbye to Leatherback Turtles

The leatherback turtle is on the way; so, book a ticket, go to some exotic beach, find one (if you can), and take a picture hugging it. At least then, you'll have a tall tale to tell your great-grandchildren about the monsters of the deep that were wiped out in the 21st Century. I wonder, what will you say when they ask you why? Will you tell them that it was because of all those seafood meals you had? They may even get angry at you for leaving them a world of protein pills, concrete and the never-ending war on terror. History's condemnation of us will be harsh. Back to the the turtles:

The leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), the largest living species of sea turtle, is said to be in grave danger in Pacific waters. Turtles are among the world's creatures that survived the dinosaur age.

It could be the first of the turtle species to disappear from this part of the world unless remedial action is taken, says Penina Solomona, the Regional Marine Officer with the WWF South Pacific Programme...

...Asked if turtles were similarly threatened Morley said: "Absolutely. Once a species fall below a certain population size, they can fall into what we call an extinction vortex -- driven by things like loss of genetic diversity (which increases the likelihood for disease and genetic inbreeding), demographic imbalances (more of one sex than another), the allee affect (when they can't find reproductive partners), and they are more prone to environmental stochasticity (floods, droughts etc)...

...While several species of sea turtle are taken for food, the giant leatherback turtle is said to be the most threatened as they are accidentally caught and killed in long line fisheries. It is currently identified as 'critically endangered' and many scientists fear that unless threats to these animals are negated, they could suffer the same fate as the white dolphins.

"At the current rate of decline, there will definitely be a point in time when turtles will no longer exist," said Penina.

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Dumping in the Ocean

As stated before, overfishing is wiping out our oceans. We're also doing particularly nasty things like dumping chemical weapons, mercury, and nuclear reactors into the ocean. Things are not good when pregnant women can't eat fish due to high levels of mercury:

While the hadal zone is almost entirely unexplored, it is not untouched, for humans have been bombarding it with an array of materials ranging from deadly toxins to entire ships. The number of vessels lost to the deep during wars is well known, but what is more surprising is the number lost in peacetime. According to Lloyd's register, an average of one ship was lost at sea every two days between 1971 and 1990, and a great many go down with their cargoes and polluting fuel oil aboard. Yet these are some of the mildest threats to the abyss. Until 1972 it was a common practice to dump unwanted munitions at sea, including chemical weapons. Britain alone has dumped 137,000 tons of unwanted chemical weapons at sea, and some of the chemicals still remain in solid form on the bottom.

Following 1946 a far more ominous kind of waste began to be dumped—radioactive material. Until the practice was banned in 1993, 142,000 tons of such waste had been dumped in the North Atlantic alone. Secrecy makes it difficult to know the full extent of the problem, but in 1993 it was revealed that the Russians had illicitly dumped seventeen entire nuclear reactors into the Arctic Sea. Some marine creatures concentrate radioactive elements in their bodies. The liver-like glands of one species of shrimp, for example, have levels of polonium-210 a million times that of seawater, which makes scientists worry about the consequences of this deadly dumping.

Other pollutants include industrial waste and sewage, compounds that, among other effects, cause sex changes in mollusks, as well as chlorinated hydrocarbons (the villains of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring), mercury (most of which comes from burning coal on land, and provides the reason why pregnant women should abstain from fish), and cadmium, which can destroy organs in humans. As Tony Koslow piquantly reminds us, "neither distance nor depth shields the deep sea from pollution." Rather, our pollutants rain down from the sky and sea surface in a relentless stream, and like the sump of an engine, the deep is where much of the muck accumulates. But unlike a sump, the pollutants of the deep don't stay there. Instead they find their way back to us in the fish we eat.

Link (via Bradford Plummer)

I'd turn violent too...

A Siberian tiger escaped from its enclosure on Christmas Day at the San Francisco Zoo. Once out, it mauled one man to death and seriously wounded two others. Police then shot the tiger as it charged them:

The dead animal was a Siberian tiger named Tatiana, weighing 300lbs or 21 stone, one of 600 of the endangered species that live in captivity worldwide. She had arrived at San Francisco from Denver zoo several years ago, in the hope that she would mate. Instead, Tatiana established a record of violence. A year ago, under the eyes of horrified visitors, the tiger mauled a zookeeper, seizing her by the hands and trying to drag her closer.

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Fuck, I'm with the tiger on this one. Lifetime imprisonment by the very same species that's wiping it out in the wild. If someone destroyed my home, slaughtered my relatives, put me in a cage for life so that fat children could taunt me, I'd turn violent and suicidal. Shooting me would be a mercy.

Press Release: SA Protest Against Whale Slaughter

South Africans add their voices to the international outcry over the violation of the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary

There is no escape for the whales of the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. Flaunting the resolutions of the International Whaling Commission, the Japanese whaling boats set sail in the middle of last month for an orgy of killing. The Japanese, contemptuous of world condemnation, intend killing a thousand whales, including some endangered species – under cover of the lie that it is "scientific research".

The waters declared an international whale haven, which were almost free from blood-and-profit lusting humans, are being violated. The sea turns scarlet, as the giant mammals thrash in their death agonies. Explosive-tipped harpoons embedded in their flesh tear their bodies apart. Death comes slowly. The bloody horror recalls Ahab's final scream to Moby Dick: "From Hell's heart I stab at thee!"

Japan has invaded Australian Antarctic waters but the new Labour government in Canberra has reneged on its election promise that it would stop the whale killing by sending in the navy. It has maintained a stony silence in response to pleas for help.

Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd, an organisation for the protection of marine animals, is risking his life, the life of his crew and the destruction of his boat, the Steve Irwin, in an attempt to save the whales and to record the killings. But he and his crew are alone out there in the vast Antarctic Ocean.

Greenpeace the international environmental organisation (of which Watson was a founder, in 1972) has not responded to his plea that it send a ship to join his in Antarctica.

Angry South Africans will add their voices to the international outcry over the killing of the whales at a protest on 20 December, outside the Japanese embassy, in Pretoria. They can complain to the prime minister of Japan at http://whales.netfirms.com/alert/japan/letter.html

For more details contact:
Beauty without Cruelty Anne van Vliet: 082 7750711 mwvliet@mweb.co.za
Earth 2 Anastasya Eliseeva: 072 638 0064 www.earth2.co.za
Animal Rights Africa Michele Pickover: 082 253 2124 www.animalrightsafrica.org
Earthlife Africa Warwick Humphris: 072 235 823 cwfh2007star@gmail.com
Friends of the Cat Joan Norman: 083 643 9720 friendsofthecat@wol.co.za

Issued by United for Animals

Say Goodbye to Penguins and Bigeye Tuna

The Emperor, Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adelie penguins are on the way out. As we heat up the atmosphere, we melt the ice (taking away their homes, if you will). We're also catching all their food. Say goodbye:

The Emperor penguin, the largest in the world, has seen some of its colonies halved in the past century as warmer temperatures and stronger winds force them to rear their young on increasingly thin ice, the report published at the UN conference on climate change in Bali said. WWF said in recent years sea ice had broken off early and many eggs and chicks had been blown away when they were too young to survive on their own.

The melting sea ice - which covers 40% less area than it did 26 years ago off the West Antarctic Peninsula - has also led to reduced numbers of krill, the main source of food for chinstrap penguins. Some colonies of chinstraps have seen reductions in numbers of up to two thirds because reduced food has made it more difficult for youngsters to survive, the Antarctic Penguins and Climate Change report said.

The gentoo penguin has also seen numbers shrinking because they are increasingly dependent on the krill as their usual food sources have been depleted by overfishing, the report said. And on the northwestern coast of the Antarctic peninsula, populations of Adelie penguins have dropped by 65% in the past quarter of a century.

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The Bigeye tuna is also on the way out. They love Bigeye in Japan, makes for great sashimi. Interestingly enough, bigeye tuna are often bycatch (go here for some pictures of bycatch, do it, see what your fish fingers really cost) for fishing boats searching for Yellowfin and Skipjack tuna:

But bigeye tuna stocks in the Eastern Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Western and Central Pacific Oceans are all suffering from excessive fishing and the Eastern Pacific stock is overfished. In the Eastern Pacific up to 60 per cent of the bigeye tuna catch are small, juvenile fish, meaning it has had insufficient time to breed and replenish stocks.

A new report from TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, and WWF warns that bodies set up to protect stocks are failing to meet legal obligations, are too slow to respond to scientific advice and have failed to halt overfishing.

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Global Warming and the Extinction Process

Global warming is pushing us deeper and deeper into the next great extinction. We're going to be so busy running around and saying goodbye--shaking paws, flippers, fins, wings and legs--that you may want to keep that diary open and save up some leave time:

More than 3,000 flying foxes dropped dead, falling from trees in Australia. Giant squid migrated north to commercial fishing grounds off California, gobbling anchovy and hake. Butterflies have gone extinct in the Alps.

While humans debate at U.N. climate change talks in Bali, global warming is already wreaking havoc with nature. Most plants and animals are affected, and the change is occurring too quickly for them to evolve.

"A hell of a lot of species are in big trouble," said Stephen E. Williams, the director of the Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change at James Cook University in Australia.

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Say Goodbye to a Whole Bunch of Fish

Too many fish on the way out, too little time to shake some fins and say, "Sorry for wiping you out so we could have neat cocktail platters and super-duper soup."

In Europe, 200 freshwater species are about to go extinct:

Twelve of the 522 species are already extinct, mainly due to population growth and the accompanying use of water, pollution and overfishing over the past 100 years, the IUCN said in a statement.

"With 200 fish species in Europe facing a high risk of going extinct we must act now to avoid a tragedy," said IUCN programme officer William Darwall.

"Many of these species, not considered as 'charismatic' or with any apparent 'value' to people, rarely attract the funds needed for their conservation -- they risk disappearing with only a dedicated few noticing the loss," he added.

The IUCN said the biggest single threat comes from water shortages in Mediterranean areas, which are increasingly leading to dried rivers in summer months as climate change progresses.

Endangered species include the European freshwater eel due to overfishing, dams, new parasites and pollution, the IUCN said.

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Global speaking, only 10% of all large fish are left in the ocean according to a 2003 study. We ate the other 90% :

“From giant blue marlin to mighty bluefin tuna, and from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean. There is no blue frontier left,” says lead author Ransom Myers, a world-leading fisheries biologist based at Dalhousie University in Canada. “Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10% – not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles.” This study not only confirms the bad news emerging from individual fisheries showing that species like cod can be fished below recovery, but it also reveals a grim global mosaic that demands immediate action. “The impact we have had on ocean ecosystems has been vastly underestimated,” says co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and the University of Kiel in Germany. “These are the megafauna, the big predators of the sea, and the species we most value. Their depletion not only threatens the future of these fish and the fishers that depend on them, it could also bring about a complete re-organization of ocean ecosystems, with unknown global consequences...

...“This is because we have forgotten what we used to have,” says Jeremy Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We had oceans full of heroic fish - literally sea monsters. People used to harpoon three-meter long swordfish in rowboats. Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea was for real.”

Myers and Worm observe that the tendency in fisheries biology to use only the most recent data increases the problem of shifting baselines. These great fish are not only declining in numbers, but with intense fishing pressure they can never attain the sizes they once did. “Where detailed data are available we see that the average size of these top predators is only one fifth to one half of what is used to be. The few blue marlin today reach one fifth of the weight they once had. In many cases, the fish caught today are under such intense fishing pressure, they never even have the chance to reproduce,” says Myers.

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Shark fin soup is a pretty expensive dish. The real cost? A world without sharks. The solution? Pretty simple actually...

The bright side to this very dark problem is the simplicity of one solution. Don't eat shark fin soup. Don't consume any shark products at this point. Refuse to patronize restaurants that serve shark fin soup until they remove it from their menu and encourage others to do the same. It's the easiest action we can all take that will have enormous impact. In this instance we are not being asked to make any large sacrifices, compromise comfort or even donate any money. We are just being asked to avoid one kind of soup!

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Say Goodbye to Bluefin Tuna

Yet another international meeting goes by on the fate of marine life and nothing is done, except some finger pointing. It looks like Japan has been under-reporting its bluefin tuna catch. In other words, it has been catching more than it should be:

Conservation groups say an international commission's failure to prevent overfishing of the southern bluefin tuna is driving the species closer to extinction.

Wildlife trade-monitoring network Traffic and conservation body WWF said today the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna's (CCSBT) annual meeting in Canberra at the weekend made no significant progress in preventing the overharvesting of the internationally popular table fish.

"The meeting became embroiled in discussions that went round and round in circles getting nowhere, Traffic spokesman Glenn Sant said in a statement.

"The southern bluefin tuna stock is at historically-low levels with less than 10 per cent of the virgin stock left.

"Reviews conducted by the commission have shown massive over-catch by a member, yet Japan has continued to ensure that any finger pointing to those responsible is locked up in confidentiality."

Traffic said overfishing was driving the species further towards extinction.

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Say Goodbye to Abalone

South Africa's abalone is about to go extinct. Why? Ecological changes and overfishing. The overfishing being mostly illegal as the catch enters the black market in exchange for drugs; the abalone being, eventually, sent to the Far East:

SA's abalone stocks are almost depleted and the species will most likely be extinct soon. For this reason one can understand Environment and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk's intentions in imposing the ban.

But the government has already banned abalone fishing and it hasn't worked. Artisanal fishing -- the only legal abalone fishing until Van Schalkwyk's ban -- is practised by a handful of coastal people who take less than 10% of the catch. The rest is illegal plunder.

The immediate effect of the previous ban on commercial abalone fishing was a drastic rise in the price. The abalone trade is run by large, well-organised crime syndicates, for whom the ban is a boon and the minister their best friend.

The previous ban also accelerated the depletion of the stocks as dishonest people found that policing the catch was woefully inadequate. That much is not about to change, which means that even more people will successfully exploit the government-created price bonanza.

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Say Goodbye to Mangroves

According to FAO, mangroves are declining:

The results of the trend analyses indicate that the current mangrove area worldwide has now fallen below 15 million hectares, down from 19.8 million ha in 1980. The world has thus lost 5 million ha of mangroves over the last twenty years, or 25 percent of the extent found in 1980.

If the mangroves go, then so do the breeding grounds for many fish species, setting off a 'domino effect' of ecosystem collapse. Fun, fun, fun.

Say Goodbye to Herring

Looks like herring in Alaska are on that all too familiar road:

Today the herring have become smaller and smaller. According to marine biologists, Pacific herring up to 18 inches have been recorded. But the Alaska herring have become smaller and smaller and now an eight-inch fish is considered "good sized." No one - biologist, politician or fisherman is venturing a guess as to the reason for today's smaller fish. In some ways it seems obvious. Perhaps not.

And today the wisdom and safety of the sac roe fishery is repeatedly questioned. There has been the argument that "A dead herring is a dead herring" regardless of the method of its harvest, bait or sac roe. At present, there is also a newer development: Perhaps the sac roe fishery will in time become a thing of the past on its own. Japan long ago fished its own herring populations to extinction.

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Say Goodbye to Grey Whales

The irresponsible and pointless hunting of whales isn't the only threat to their survival. Grey whales populations are dwindling and individuals appear highly stressed due to a lack of food. That's right, we are eating their food, starving the poor bastards out.

There is new evidence that gray whales are now thin and starving, possibly a result of changes in the oceans resulting from global warming and overfishing. This is ominous news for the health of the whales, and our oceans as well.

It has been 25 years since the international community agreed to a moratorium on commercial whaling. There is no question that this major conservation achievement saved many whale species, including gray whales, from the brink of extinction. However, in the past decade, there has been steady erosion in the protection of the world's great whales. This is of concern not only because whales are special creatures that generate awe and wonder but also due to the many roles they play in the ocean ecosystem as predators and prey.

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The situation in Lake Victoria (Uganda) is as equally depressing, as commercial, export orientated companies are hoovering the lake of all its fish. Once again, the problem is not local fishermen catching fish to eat or to sell at a local market, it is the organised and industrialised fishing techniques of capital. Simply put, the rich are screwing us and the generations to come.

Lake Victoria is the world's largest tropical lake and the second largest fresh water lake and most of it is found in Uganda. The ecological health of the lake is deteriorating because of a rapidly growing human population, clearance of natural vegetation along its shores and most of all a booming fish export industry, which has caused the disappearance of several fish species.

Although nearly all fishermen are guilty of using unrecommended fishing gear, the international commercial businessmen are the main culprits. The Nile Perch, for example, lives too far out in the open water for the little fishing boats and too big to be caught in the unsophisticated nets. In response to the increased demand for the Nile Perch, commercial fishing has increasingly displaced local fishermen.

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Oceans in Peril

The Worldwatch Institute has released a new report on the state of the oceans. Basically, they're fucked. From the report summary:

Presently, 76 percent of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited or overexploited, and many species have been severely depleted, largely due to our growing appetite for seafood. Current fisheries management regimes contribute to the widespread market-driven degradation of the oceans by failing to implement and enforce adequate protective measures. Many policymakers and scientists now agree that we must adopt a radical new approach to managing the seas—one that is precautionary in nature and has the protection of the whole marine ecosystem as its primary objective. This “ecosystem approach” is vital if we are to ensure the health of our oceans for future generations.

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Greenpeace has this to say on the report:

"Recent studies such as the one which shows how 90 percent of the world's large predatory fish, which include the sharks, swordfish and tuna, have disappeared due to overfishing since the 1950s have helped expose what has been happening under the waves and have therefore been out of sight and out of mind to most people", says Paul Johnston, Greenpeace's chief scientist.

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This report seems to confirm what I have been posting about for the last couple of years; we are vacuuming the oceans clean. The really bad news about the report is that the Worldwatch Institute isn't offering a free download. Shame on them for reproducing the same kind of commodity trading that got us into the very situation which the report laments. And, isn't this topic too important for cost recovery?

Say Goodbye to Sharks

In what has to be one of the more wasteful uses of a marine organism, sharks are being driven to extinction for their fins, which are used in soup:

Long-line fishing methods used by shark fishermen are believed to be responsible for indiscriminate shark catches environment groups say are endangering populations of grey nurse sharks, classified as critically endangered, and the vulnerable great white shark.

This has been compounded by the growing number of fishermen along the east coast who are turning to shark fishing, seen as a more lucrative area of the often difficult fishing industry.

Shark fishers can earn as much as $100 a kilogram for the fins which are in demand on the Asian market where they become shark-fin soup, a prized delicacy.

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In related news, there seems to be a last-ditch effort to save the Hawaiian Monk Seal. Bound to fail, one fears. The only way to save our oceans is to catch a lot less fish, drastically reduce by-catch, allow developing countries to close down fishing grounds to foreign trawlers, and stop subsidies to fishing fleets. And, to do all of that, you'll have to struggle against capitalism.

Whales take Revenge...Again

High levels of mercury in whalemeat are poisoning Japanese schoolchildren. Whalemeat is part of Japanese school lunches; the children of Japan wolf down toxic food so that the old men can hang onto their sacred tradition of killing whales, the continuation of which is derived from illogical nationalism and cultural superiority. This would be ironic if it wasn't so sad and pointless:

Whalemeat served in school lunches in an area of rural Japan are contaminated with alarming levels of mercury, a local assemblyman said on Wednesday, calling for a halt in plans for the meat to be shipped to schools nationwide.

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Time to say Goodbye after 400 million years

It never stops, this relentless destruction of oceanic life. After having outlived the dinosaurs, the coelacanth looks like it on the way out. The reason? Us and our wasteful overfishing:

Now it seems that man may have discovered the fish just to eradicate it, as ever deeper trawling throws up serious fears for the already dwindling populations of the fish, which lives at depths of between 100 and 300 metres (328ft to 984ft).

It never stops, this charting of death and xenocide. An unrelenting parade of dead fish, born of shortsighted greed and stoked with the hellfire of capitalism.

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What happens to Horses after the Tuna is Gone

It looks like Japanese sushi chiefs are turning to horse meat to replace bluefin tuna. Why? They're consuming tuna at a rate faster than nature can replenish. One imagines that the same will be said for horses. You see? That shifting predator thing again. Anyway, from the Telegraph:

Sushi chefs are considering using raw deer and even horse meat because of an international shortage of tuna.

Spiralling demand for the fish coupled with shrinking supplies have prompted a culinary crisis in Japan, where tuna is regarded as the height of seafood perfection. Sushi restaurateurs in Tokyo are scouring restaurants in the US for alternatives in case the tuna runs out.

The shortage is the result of the growing international popularity of sushi, particularly in new markets such as Russia and China, as well as a squeeze on fishing quotas. The most popular sushi tuna, bluefin, is also one of the slowest to mature and so particularly at risk from over-fishing. Japan consumes about three quarters of the world's annual bluefin catch.

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Say Goodbye to South Africa's Abalone

The South African government is thinking about a 10 year ban on commercial fishing of abalone (perlemoen). My guess is too little too late:

By November this year, if no significant reversal was seen in the decline of abalone stocks, "we will be forced to announce a plan to close down the commercial abalone sector for a period of about 10 years", Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk warned on Tuesday.

Opening debate on his department’s budget vote in the National Assembly, he told MPs the main causes of the decline were poaching and "ecosystem effects", the latter the result of a southward migration of rock lobsters that had wiped out the sea urchin population on the Cape’s south coast.

Young abalone - an edible mollusc, known locally as perlemoen - take shelter from predators under the spines of sea urchins.

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