Thank you President Toribiong (Palau)
September 25, 2009
President Johnson Toribiong of the tiny Pacific replublic of Palau is to create the world’s first “shark sanctuary”, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters.
With half of the world’s oceanic sharks at risk of extinction, conservationists regard the move as “game-changing”.
It will protect about 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles) of ocean, an area about the size of France. President Toribiong will also call for a global ban on shark-finning, the practice of removing the fins at sea.
“These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them,” said President Toribiong.
“Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out,”
From BBC News
Gallery: Satellite view of Bahamas Ocean sands
April 30, 2009
Though you would be forgiven for thinking this picture a work of abstract art, it is actually a photograph of the Bahamas Ocean Sands captured by the Earth-orbiting Landsat 7 satellite.
Ocean currents in the Bahamas made the sand-and-seaweed sculpture in much the same way that winds create sand dunes in the Sahara.
NASA’s Earth Observatory has announced the ten most popular pictures of our home planet from its Image of the Day catalog, the culmination of a user-voted contest marking the tenth anniversary of the observatory’s Web site.
From “The best pictures of Earth: Reader pics of NASA Shots” Gallery, NationalGeographic.com
For full gallery, click HERE
Baby blue whale video
April 13, 2009
A baby blue whale filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species.
During a January 2008 expedition to the “Dome” (a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away) the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.
“Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please,” Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary.
One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat and surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers’ protective reputations.
A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.
From National Geographic. Full article and video HERE
Maldives first carbon neutral country?
March 24, 2009
The pioneering new president of the Indian Ocean nation announces plans for his country – under grave threat from climate change – to go carbon-neutral in a decade
The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will today unveil a plan to make his country carbon-neutral within a decade. The announcement comes only days after scientists issued stark new warnings that rising seas caused by climate change could engulf the Maldives and other low-lying nations this century.
The president will formally announce the scheme – and make a plea for other countries to follow the Maldives’ lead – this evening, following the world premiere of The Age of Stupid, a major new climate change film in which a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055 looks at old footage from 2008 and asks why people didn’t stop climate change when they had the chance.
From The Guardian: Read full article here
Photos: The Amazing Sunfish in Bali
July 24, 2008
The sunfish is the largest and most fertile bony fish in the world. It is also the wierdest looking fish you’re ever likely to see.
Some sharks (such as the whale shark and great white) can grow larger, but these are cartilaginous fish, rather than bony fish. Sunfish can produce massive numbers of eggs: one female caught off Florida was carrying 300 million eggs. This makes the cane toad look quite modest, producing a mere 60,000 eggs per clutch.
Sunfish tend to lie on their side close to the surface of the ocean, appearing to bask in the warmth of the sun, say researchers at the Large Pelagic Research Lab at the University of New Hampshire. They may be ‘thermally recharging’ after diving to depths where their bodies have been significantly cooled by the deep water.
From ABC Australia: Read more
