2008 In Review

To my Austral-Asian readers a very happy New Year! To those of us still awaiting 2009, gird your loins for any late night commute or driving where you need to dodge over-zealous celebrants!

I thought I'd take a brief stroll through 2008, looking at some of the best (or worst?) of Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets. Granted, any such collection is entirely subjective--after all, it's all great stuff here, right? So to add an element of objectivity to this exercise, I've scanned my Google Analytics, Blogger Stats, and Technorati to identify highest traffic, multiple return hits, most linked, most comments, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So what MBSL&S post got the most traffic in 2008? Hand's down, it was my comic homage to the PZ Myers/Expelled expulsion. Thanks to a single PZ link (then a whole lot of Pharyngulites and Expelledites--aka Luddites--dropping by for a look-see) I received a whopping 5,264 hits over two days. For complete transparency, that's just slightly more than my monthly average total hits. See what an hour of Photoshop-ing can do?

Second most hit post (1,841 unique hits) was my speculation of a deep sea origin to the Cloverfield monster. I was just goofing around with that post (though I was tantalized by the movie build-up and did enjoy the CG carnage). But man, did I ever piss-off a lot of serious SciFi geeks on that one. I got linked to on a variety of Cloverfield discussion sites and royally chewed-out for not being up to speed on the latest gossip. Yeesh!

From a conservation impact perspective, my post from May, How to Kill a Reef: A Continuing Series, that focused on the ludicrous plans to build an artificial resort (Star Island) in the middle of a marine protected area in the Turks & Caicos Islands had the most satisfying of results. The pictures and post were picked-up by several news outlets and helped spur-on significant discussion among conservation-minded residents of the Turks & Caicos. The net result was that the Star Island project was officially halted when it was ruled that permits to proceed with dredging were illegally approved in the first place. Score one for conservation!

I'll be the first to admit, we don't get a lot of comment chatter here at MBSL&S. Being a niche topic in the science blogging world (ocean blogs) and then being even nichier within ocean blogs (coral reef conservation), and even further nichifying myself by occasionally throwing in political, social, and cultural commentary, I suspect I may be too all-over-the-map at times. But looking at comments over 2008, there were some peaks among the overall flat comment topography.

My post on Great Ocean Blogs got a lot of kind words (14 comments) from many of the blogs to which I linked. Not surprisingly, my Comic Guide to the Expelled/Science Blogs Kerfuffle got a spike of 13 comments. After that, there's a smattering of reader commentary equally dispersed across posts such as my photo essay on When EcoTours Go Bad on Maui, my quasi-live blogging of the 2008 Science Blogging Conference with Real-Time Blogging in the Marine Sciences, and a flurry of comments as I redesigned the front-end of my blog.

An apparent favorite for both comments and cross-linking appears to have been my silly Science Blogging Drinking Game. Maybe it hit a little too close to the mark? Maker's Mark, that is! Regardless, I got both kudos and traffic spikes as the little game wormed it's way through the intertubes.

Switching to a somewhat more personal tally, I have to admit enjoying the tag-team blogging (which began in 2007) and pressure collectively leveraged upon Planktos by Craig at Deep Sea News, Miriam at The Oyster's Garter, and yours truly. Perhaps I'm overestimating our impact on the nose-dive that for-profit iron fertilization schemes took in 2008, but I think the sort of collaboration we demonstrated shows the strength and influence that blogging can have, particularly as an education and conservation tool.

And what were some of my favorite posts from a sheer "pleasure of writing" perspective? I must admit I enjoyed researching and writing an answer to Christopher Taylor's question regarding what we know about moray eels primarily from museum collections. It was great to talk with curators from some of the most prestigious fish collections in the world, and it warmed my Grinchy heart to see how quickly busy scientists responded to my somewhat odd questions.

My essay on the challenges facing the people of Kwajalein Atoll in the former US territory but now Republic of the Marshall Islands, The People Who Harvest the Flowers, tugged at my heart as I researched the history of US military activities in this beautiful Pacific coral reef destination.

Some impromptu blogging from the field (in this case from the Big Island of Hawaii) and documented in Breakfast With Republicans was a swift bit of personal journaling, but it's impact is still with me.

And finally, my take on the morning after the historic November elections, Yes We Did, Except in California, exposed some very personal feelings of joy and pain as I attempted to sort through a confusing landscape of hope and defeat. I was touched deeply by the words of encouragement that came through comments or emails after that posting, and it reminds me that despite setbacks, a more enlightened future is hopefully before us.

Well, that's about all I care to look back upon. I hope some of your favorite posts were mentioned. If not, feel free to share any favorites with me. It's time to look forward now. Here's to 2009 and more opportunities to share some thoughts with my readers!

Line Drawing And The Canadian Seal Hunt

In looking at the picture above, does the image on the right of a man leveling a gun at a seal pup make you feel somewhat better about the act of seal hunting than the image on the left of the same man about to drive a metal-spiked club into the seal pup's skull? The Canadian government is hoping you do. If so, then you've "drawn a line" for yourself to separate what is (at least for this example) permissible vs impermissible.

Last Saturday, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa drew their own line by releasing a report on amending the Marine Mammal Regulations (MMR) to make the annual seal hunt more humane. Chastised for decades for the cruel and now needless culling of seals using a spiked club called a hakapik, the Canadian government now faces pressure from the European Union which has threatened to ban imports of seal products next year from "countries which practice cruel methods."

Canada's answer? Institute a three-step process called Stun, Check, and Bleed. The line drawing will stipulate that the hakapik will now be reserved for use on seals of one year of age or older--apparently splattering the skulls of adult seals is less traumatizing in the minds of seal product consumers than the same act being carried-out on pups. Depending on the seal's age, seals will first be stunned with either rifle or hakapik, confirmed dead by palpating the smashed heads, and then bleeding the animal for one minute prior to skinning just to be sure.

Line drawing is nothing new. It's how we've come to rationalize most of the fuzzy distinctions involved in difficult choices. Where does life begin and end? Where you draw that line as a doctor, lawyer, scientist, or citizen inherently parses your decision making and comfort level. Why are marijuana, morphine, and heroin illicit while alcohol, tobacco, and methadone licit? Is alcohol and tobacco any less addictive or potentially deadly? Both heroin and methadone are powerful opiates, yet a line has been drawn for methadone as a preferred treatment for heroin addicts. As Steve Gould once remarked, "Curbing your appetite for heroin with methadone is like curbing your appetite for Coca Cola with a Pepsi."

Line drawing may be necessary for legal processes, but it's not particularly helpful when we start applying it to define ethical or moral distinctions. Canada's annual commercial seal hunt is the largest commercial hunt of marine mammals on the planet, and by whatever metric you wish to use or lines you wish to draw, it is stunningly cruel and completely unnecessary.

Because sealers shoot at seals from moving boats, the pups are often only wounded. The main sealskin processing plant in Canada deducts $2 from the price they pay for the skins for each bullet hole they find––therefore sealers are loath to shoot seals more than once. As a result, wounded seals are often left to suffer in agony. Many slip beneath the surface of the water where they die slowly and are never recovered.

Despite the proposed Stun, Check, and Bleed protocol, training for sealers is woefully inadequate and promotes continuation of illegal and cruel hunting methods.

Cruelty aside for the moment, the annual seal hunt is also incredibly wasteful. The seals are killed for their skins, which are sold in overseas fashion markets. The carcasses are almost always left to rot on the ice because there are virtually no markets for the meat. The seal hunt provides very low economic returns for Canada, Newfoundland and individual sealers. So why continue to hunt seals if it's so unprofitable? It can't simply be keeping good old traditions alive, can it?

Look closer. The seal hunt is such a losing economic venture that the government of Canada regularly provides subsidies to the sealing industry through Human Resources Development Canada, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and other federal programs. These subsidies are provided in the form of grants and loans to seal processing plants, sealing industry associations and private companies, and cover capital costs, employee salaries, operating expenses, and product development and marketing.

Sound familiar? It should, since it's the same formula for disaster that has set-up most commercial fisheries for the collapse they are now realizing worldwide. Why do many fishers continue fishing even in the face of reduced catch? Fisheries biologist Daniel Pauly has outlined numerous times how receiving subsidies as supplemental income to offset poor fish catch results in a lack of incentive to leave fishing--even if it is a meager living. All the while the fisheries resource continues to erode.

In the case of the seal hunt, subsidies are supporting an annual exercise in cruelty that should have ended decades ago. According to Rebecca Aldworth, spokesperson for Humane Society International, "the overwhelming majority of Canadians want the seal hunt to be ended." The most recent public opinion survey, conducted in August 2005 by Environics Research, shows nearly 70% of Canadians holding an opinion opposed to the commercial seal hunt outright. Opposition to specific aspects of the seal hunt was even higher with some 77% of voters calling for a ban on the killing of seals under three months of age and 78% opposed to government subsidies for the hunt. Seventy-eight per cent felt that killing seals by clubbing them is inherently cruel. Only 4% of respondents stated that they would be very upset if the hunt were ended.

For me, my line drawing on this issue has less to do with population dynamics, resource management, or public opinion polls than it has to do with the simple acts of compassion and mercy. While I can't possibly know how a seal perceives its surroundings, I am reasonably confident that a seal feels pain. I've said this before, so I risk sounding like an echo chamber, but while kindness to animals may not be our most important duty as human beings, it should certainly not be treated as our least important. Clubs that crush skulls, rifles, bleeding to death, leaving skinned carcasses to rot while harvesting pelts to satisfy human vanity is humane and the best we can do?

If I'm destined to go down as the bleeding-heart conservationist then so be it. But that's what heart's do... they bleed. And I could not even imagine remaining engaged in the important work of conservation with a heart hardened to suffering. The seal hunt is cruel and promotes suffering. The same can be said of factory farms for pigs, chickens, and cattle. My point here is not to proselytize for vegetarianism--though it wouldn't be a bad lifestyle choice. But of all the possible cruelties that could easily be relinquished for the betterment of both the ocean and our humanity, certainly putting an end to the annual Canadian seal hunt is a no-brainer.

Coral Recovery Story

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today announced that four years after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004, badly-damaged coral reefs along the Indonesian province of Aceh are making a comeback. The Boxing Day tsunami killed more than 225,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. Areas of once submerged coral coastline in Aceh were uplifted above sea level, and remaining coastal reefs were pummeled by debris carried in the tsunami's surge.

But WCS researchers looking at 60 sites along nearly 500 miles of coastline in Aceh, Indonesia, observed robust recolonization by resilient coral species. But active coral recruitment is just part of this success story. Researchers also attribute the recovery to more sustainable fishing practices by local communities as well as decreased cyclical threat from coral predators such as the crown-of-thorns seastar.

This encouraging recovery story speaks directly to the importance and value of community-based conservation work and local management of coastal resources.

The Advantages Of Being A Biologist, Too

See Pharyngula for the context. And thanks for some afternoon distraction, PZ!

Bad Harvest, Little Demand, Big Bills

The confluence of a weak crab harvest due to increased fishing earlier this year, ocean conditions that disrupted the marine food chain, and the natural cycle of crab populations which tend to peak every seven to 10 years has resulted in troubled times not just for San Francisco Bay Area crab fishers, but fishers in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington as well.

Combine that with an economy that remains in the toilet and people that normally buy crabs not shelling-out for crab meat during the holiday seasons from Thanksgiving through Christmas (historically the busiest time of the year for crab sales in San Francisco). In most years, low supply means higher prices, but this year crab fishermen are getting paid less than they got in more abundant years.

"With this crab season being slim at best, it's going to be pretty hard to make it through to the next one," said 58-year-old Duncan MacLean, a commercial fisherman since 1972. "I would suspect there are going to be lots of people falling by the wayside."

"It's disappointing to everybody because you want to support your family," said 45-year-old Steve Mills. "Even though we're not catching crab, the bills still pile up."

Not Faceless

Perhaps the 52.3 percent of California voters who supported Proposition 8 couldn't imagine there were actually faces and lives attached to their vote to change the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman and eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Perhaps. But thanks to the Courage Campaign, now you can flip through a photo album of California lives and families who now face an uncertain future. I've posted a few of the hundreds of images here. Check it out yourself and maybe feel the mix of joy, anger, sadness, and hope as well. If you feel inclined, support the Courage Campaign efforts for a more progressive California.

Rethinking Tsunami Protection From Mangroves?

Four years to the day of the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami which claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives around the eastern Indian Ocean, researchers have issued a strong warning against coastal communities and governments putting their trust in mangrove and tree barriers erected as a means of protection from earthquake-driven tidal waves.

One of the investigators in this study, Dr Andrew Baird of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University explained, "Following the Boxing Day Tsunami scientific studies were released which claimed that the damage to coastal communities had been less in places where there was a barrier of trees or coastal vegetation." As a result, a lot of tree planting projects were undertaken in coastal areas affected by the tsunami, in the hope it will protect coastal communities in future from such events.

"However these studies looked only at the presence or absence of vegetation and the extent of damage, continued Baird. "They did not take account of other important variables, like the distance of a village from the shore, the height of the village above sea level or the shape of the seabed in concentrating the tsunami's power."

The message here? Many variables were at work in determining how the force of the tsunami driven water affected people and structures on land, and these all need to be taken into account – not just a few of them. And importantly, coastal communities should not be lulled into a false sense of security simply because one of these variables appears to be in place. Researchers also urged governments in tsunami-prone areas to invest in early warning technology which has demonstrated success in Hawaii and Japan.

Benefits we receive from ecosystems such as storm protection from healthy coral reefs, sea grass bed, and intact mangrove systems are called ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are distinct from other ecosystem products and functions because there is human demand for these natural assets. Conservation organiztions often leverage ecosystem services as yet further rationale for protection of a species, habitat, or entire ecosystem. This new Arc Centre report points out the potential dangers of rushing the scientific analysis (or conclusions) that, while beneficial for immediate conservation value, can prove devastating to future safety.

Papua New Guinea Sea Floor Gets A Break

As first reported over at the tasty-sounding Southern Fried Science (does that come with a side of corn and buttermilk biscuits?), it seems that even Nautilus Minerals is not immune to a sour economy.

In a news release dated December 17, Nautilus announced it had decided to adopt a more cautious strategy by delaying the construction of the equipment for the Solwara 1 mining system. Is that code for nervous investors jumping ship on an untested, unproven, and potentially environmentally disastrous mining process? The press release goes on to explain that to preserve capital, Nautilus contracts and purchase orders will be suspended or terminated depending on their criticality (sic) to the revised development program. Most satisfying for me, their Mining Support Vessel agreement announced on June 20, 2008 is in the process of being terminated.

Regular readers will recall that I've been following Nautilus Minerals since they first announced plans to mine deep sea vent systems in the exclusive economic zone of Papua New Guinea. Craig McClain with Deep Sea News has also been following Nautilus' activities with interest.

Nautilus’s first major exploration site, the Solwara 1 Prospect, is located in the Bismarck Sea, 50 kilometers north of the active volcanic island of Rabaul and approximately 670 kilometers east of Madang. The Company also has a total of seven other named Solwara prospects throughout the Bismarck Sea, 33 total tenements, and 57 applications for exploration. Nautilus had planned to begin development and construction in Solwara 1 in 2009, and commence mining in late 2010. The Company estimated an average of two megatons of ore per year would be extracted by Nautilus in a singe strip mining operation.

And speaking of criticality, the global biodiversity conservation community still awaits a full environmental impact study from Nautilus for any potential damage resulting from an unprecedented deep sea vent mining operation. Perhaps a delay while Nautilus awaits a more solid financial landscape will encourage them time to answer many environmental safety questions regarding their operation.

Holiday Cheer From MBSL&S

An Alternative To The Yule Log