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MCBI in the News
MCBI’s work and staff are cited in numerous newspapers, magazines, and journals. Here’s a selection of these news stories and journal articles.
Marine Life Gasping for Breath? — May 1st, 2008 Chalk up another environmental problem that could be stemming from global warming: New research shows that oxygen is vanishing from ever-larger swaths of the oceans. If the trend continues, it could disrupt marine ecosystems. More... Money Key to Saving Monk Seal — May 1st, 2008 Saving the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal from extinction requires millions more federal dollars and a widespread effort that includes businesses, organizations and residents, marine experts said yesterday. More... Group Seeks Seal-Recovery Funds — May 1st, 2008 Funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's recovery plan for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal population falls short, critics charge. More... Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals Need Funding — April 30th, 2008 As one of the most endangered marine mammals in America, the fight to save the Hawaiian Monk Seal is going national. Hawaiian monk seals, like those at the Waikiki Aquarium, could be extinct by the end of this century. More... Surviving the Ocean Acid Test — April 17th, 2008 espite dire warnings about the dangers of carbon dioxide (C02) buildup in Earth's atmosphere, the phenomenon may harm some residents of the ocean less than others. Researchers have found that one species of plankton seems to thrive on ocean changes due to increased CO2 content. The study serves as a reminder that nature can be more adaptive and resilient than expected when facing environmental challenges--although what those adaptations will mean for marine ecosystems remains an open question. More... Bottom Trawling Impacts on Ocean, Clearly Visible From Space— February 18th, 2008 Bottom trawling, an industrial fishing method that drags large, heavy nets across the seafloor stirs up huge, billowing plumes of sediment on shallow seafloors that can be seen from space. More... Lautenberg bill on ocean study released by committee— December 5th, 2007 A bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., to address rising acidity levels in the ocean caused by burning fossil fuels cleared a big hurdle Tuesday. The bill was released by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Lautenberg hopes it is heading for a full Senate vote, whether it stands alone or is tacked onto other legislation, before the year is out. More... Conservationists and Fishers Face Off Over Hawaii's Marine Riches — July 19th, 2007 The school of bigeye jacks was right where Alan Friedlander of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s biogeography branch said it would be, circling slowly at the mouth of Hanauma Bay, a protected area just 15 kilometers from the skyscrapers of downtown Honolulu. There must have been close to 200 fish, each about 50 centimeters long and utterly unafraid as Friedlander, a marine biologist, glided through them. More... Corals: Suffereing from Whiplash — June 22nd, 2007 What a difference 48 hours makes: On 13 June, delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species voted to list all species in the genus Corallium (pink and red corals) in Appendix II, which limits trade. But on 15 June, after the conference was scheduled to end, they voted by secret ballot to reverse that decision, leaving the jewel-like colonies to the mercy of the coral hunters who scrape the sea floor with heavy trawlers for their prey. More... The Fading Forests of the Sea — July 2-9, 2007 Coral reefs are often called the rain forests of the sea. And like their terrestrial counterparts, they're in big trouble. Since 1980, an estimated 20 percent of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed—a number that could well triple by the end of the century. More... CITES: Species, business in the balance — June 11th, 2007 A commission is meeting in The Hague to hammer out trade laws to help save species in peril. But the panel's actions can have some unforeseen consequences on niche industries. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports. More... Our Opinion: Deep-sea fish are on the line — February 21st, 2007 The overfishing off California and other coastlines around the world has been well-documented, with destructive practices ranging from trawling of the ocean bottom to the lack of proper fishery management plans to help individual species make a comeback. More... Overfishing Imperils Fish in Deep Waters— February 21st, 2007 With declining catches close to shore, commercial fishing is turning to deeper waters, threatening species that live in the cold and gloom of the deep oceans, according to researchers. More... The Last Wild Hunt: Deep-sea Fisheries Scrape Bottom of the Sea — February 17th, 2007 At a 9 am press conference at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting (AAAS) on February 18th, an international team of leading fisheries economists, biologists, and ecologists will call for the abolition of government fuel subsidies that keep deep-sea fishing vessels moving to deeper waters. More... Canada Fights Ban on "Bulldozers of the Sea" — October 13, 2006 Canada is trying to scuttle a proposed United Nations moratorium on destructive bottom trawling of the open ocean that has received surprisingly strong support from the United States, as well as other countries. More... White House Joins International Call for Ban on Deep Sea Trawling — October 11, 2006 Following an international plea by a coalition of 60 environmental groups concerned about the health of marine ecosystems, the Bush administration last week joined dozens of other countries in calling on the United Nations to institute an international moratorium on unregulated high seas bottom trawling. Scientists say the fishing practice is destroying some of the world's rarest and most sensitive ocean habitats. More... NOAA Names Nancy Foster Award Recipient for Habitat Conservation — September 12, 2006 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has named Elliott A. Norse as the 2006 recipient of the Nancy Foster Award for Habitat Conservation. NOAA announced the award at the annual American Fisheries Society meeting in Lake Placid, N.Y. More... A Chemical Imbalance — August 3, 2006 Scientists report that the seas are more acidic today than they have been in at least 650,000 years. At the current rate of increase, ocean acidity is expected, by the end of this century, to be 2 1/2 times what it was before the Industrial Revolution began 200 years ago. More... Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals — July 5, 2006 The escalating level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the world's oceans more acidic, government and independent scientists say. They warn that, by the end of the century, the trend could decimate coral reefs and creatures that underpin the sea's food web. More... Vast Hawaii Sea Area Becomes National Monument — June 15, 2006 A vast chain of remote Hawaiian islands, teeming with endangered sea life, has become the nation's newest national monument — a nd the largest patch of protected ocean on earth. President Bush bestowed monument status on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which span 1,200 nautical miles. More... Bush creates world’s biggest ocean preserve — June 15, 2006 President Bush created the world's largest marine protected area — a group of remote Hawaiian islands that cover 84 million acres and are home to 7,000 species of birds, fish and marine mammals, at least a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii. At a White House ceremony, the president designated the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands the United States’ 75th national monument. More... Pombo's fishing bill limits power of sanctuaries: Magnuson-Stevens Act would have final say over marine waters —May 15, 2006 Deep in a fishing bill before Congress is a clause that would wrest control of fisheries inside marine sanctuaries — such as the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary just west of San Francisco and Marin — away from sanctuary managers. The bill voids the carte blanche managers now have to write rules for fisheries within their waters. More... Deep-sea corals in danger: Study finds reefs could turn brittle from global warming — April 3, 2006 Even the coldest, darkest depths of the world's oceans can't escape the harmful effects of global warming -- and that includes deep-sea corals, local researchers have found. The scientists are connecting the ocean's increasing absorption of carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels -- with changes in the chemistry of seawater. More carbon dioxide leads to a reduced supply of calcium compounds used by corals and other marine creatures to build their shells. More... Fishing ban in reserve sought — Oct 25, 2005 Commercial fishing that is responsible for about a third of Hawaii's bottom-fish catch is threatening the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, two national conservation organizations said yesterday. The Ocean Conservancy and the Marine Conservation Biology Institute recommended that fishermen be paid to stop fishing in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. More... Scientists Fear Oceans on the Cusp Of a Wave of Marine Extinctions — August 22, 2005 Dozens of biologists believe the seas have reached a tipping point, with scores of species of ocean-dwelling fish, birds and mammals edging towards extinction. Although a number of previous extinctions involved birds and marine mammals, it is the fate of many fish that now worries experts. The large-scale industrialization of the fishing industry after World War II, coupled with a global boom in ocean-front development and a rise in global temperatures, is causing fish populations to plummet. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands must be protected — June 7, 2005 The Hawai`i public has repeatedly shown its overwhelming support for full protection in the NWHI. Protections in federal waters should match the full protection recently passed in state NWHI waters to ensure that species are not harmed merely by crossing an imaginary boundary. Empty Nets: Fisheries may be crippling themselves by targeting the big ones — June 5, 2005 In the 1850s, 43 schooners from a single port, Beverly, Mass., plied the North Atlantic’s Scotian shelf, which is prime cod territory in Canadian waters. Over the sides of the ships, crews dropped lines with single hooks and doggedly jigged their bait along the seafloor to entice the big predatory fish. More... [PDF] Ocean Exploitation Surfaces as Crisis: Widespread Pollution, Overfishing Spur Presidential Panel to Urge New Rules — October 9, 2004 Every year in late July, about 30,000 boats descend on this tourist mecca carrying tens of thousands of scuba divers who scour the coral reefs in search of tasty spiny lobsters to catch and eat. Government officials say the two-day frenzy nearly doubled the monthly reports of boats ramming fragile coral heads or grounding on delicate sea grass compared with the month before. More... Deep trouble in deep blue: Decline of great sea predators imperils ocean ecosystems — May 16, 2004 The first in the series of editorials deals with the decline of great sea predators and discusses the seafood choice movement. Read the first of these compelling opinion pieces. Longlines lethal to giants of sea — July 18, 2004 Read the second in the series of opinion pieces, as well as a piece by the Santa Barbara News-Press Editorial Staff on Dynamic Marine Reserves. Atlantic coral detected off coast of Washington — June 11, 2004 Scientists exploring underseas waters off the Olympic Peninsula have made a rare Pacific sighting of a classic hard coral found in the deep Atlantic, a branching white species known as Lophelia pertusa. The research was one of the most concerted efforts yet made off Washington's coast to document coral — deep-sea formations that can help provide shelter and food for a wide range of fish and other sea life. More... Deep-sea corals protection call—February 16, 2004 More than 1,100 marine scientists have signed a statement calling on the UN and world governments to stop the destruction of deep-sea corals. The researchers want a moratorium on the use of the heavy trawling gear that gouges coral and sponges from the ocean bottom in search of valuable fish. More... Journey to Middle Ocean: MCBI on the Discovery Channel —February 13, 2004 MCBI has a new plan to save marine life by creating a preserve in the middle of the ocean. This interview reveals Elliott's thoughts and ideas on benefits, challenges and possibilities for open ocean marine reserves. Click here to watch the interview... Not just how many fish are caught — September 2003 The title is a triple-play on words but the subject of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute’s Shifting Gears is deadly serious. Expanding its earlier work documenting the sea-floor devastation caused by bottom trawling , MCBI has produced a frightening analysis of collateral damage—habitat destruction and bycatch—caused by all the major kinds of fishing gear. More... [PDF] "Dirty Fishing" Emptying Oceans, Experts Say — August 11, 2003 Across the world's oceans, large commercial fishing boats haul aboard huge nets and 60-mile (97-kilometer) lines teeming with unwanted creatures - bycatch, sometimes referred to as "bykill" or "dirty fishing." Bycatch is a mix of young or low-value fishes, seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles, often considered worthless and tossed overboard - dead or dying. More... Depths of despair - Trawlers accused of endangering coral, which provide habitat for Pacific fish — August 11, 2003 Vast colonies of living coral are being found in the deep ocean off the West Coast, fragile and slow-growing habitat for sea creatures and an important hunting ground for commercial fishing. Now, even before scientists have had a chance to survey just what's down there, conservationists say the coral is being wrecked by ocean trawlers dragging heavy equipment along the bottom. More... Under the Sea: Conservation as the Catch of the Day for Trawlnets — July 29, 2003 For more than six centuries, the wide-mouth bottom-scraping nets called trawls have been praised as the ultimate fishing device and cursed as a wasteful destructive scourge on the seas. Today, thousands of oceangoing trawlers are set up like floating factories, with slanting platforms astern where bulging nets are drawn up and assembly-line operations where the catch is sorted and flash frozen. More... Challenge to Fishing: Keep Unwanted Species Out of Its Huge Nets — July 29, 2003 The most common way to trawl for shrimp is to dredge the ocean floor. As a result, fishermen catch a lot more than shrimp — 3 to 15 pounds of marine life, including fish, turtles and sharks, for every pound of shrimp. Most of that marine collateral damage, known as bycatch, is simply dumped back into the water, dead and dying. More... Early Whale Population Undercounted, Study Says: Their numbers before commercial hunting may have been much higher than thought — July 25, 2003 (This Los Angeles Times article discusses a study by MCBI's Tegner Grant Awardee Joe Roman and Steve Palumbi) Before they were harpooned, sliced up and boiled for lamp oil, whales were far more plentiful in the North Atlantic than previously thought, according to new genetic analysis that could thwart any attempt to resume commercial whaling for half a century or more. More... Orthodox Church Patriarch Says Stop Overfishing, Establish Marine Reserves — July 24, 2003 (MCBI President Elliott Norse aided in the design of this historic declaration and is quoted in the Christian Science Monitor article) From a most unlikely quarter, the global environmental movement has gained a new leader, one with hundreds of millions of potential followers. Last month, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians, called for the establishment of marine protected areas and an end to overfishing. More... Trawling blamed for loss of corals — July 15, 2003 Large fishing operations that skim the ocean floor with 1-ton nets are causing "massive" destruction to a little-known form of cold-water coral important to the world's fish population, according to a report released by a Washington-based nonprofit marine conservation group. More... Ecologists seek to turn tide on Colorado River — June 16, 2003 Scientists and environmental groups are battling on several fronts to try to revive the Colorado River delta, a once-vibrant ecosystem in the Mexican desert. In US courtrooms, in diplomatic meetings and even on the waterways of the delta itself, advocates are trying to secure the primary component that can enhance the region: the flow of fresh water. With almost all of the Colorado’s flow extracted for irrigation and water supply in the United States, the river is reduced to a tiny stream by the time it arrives at the Gulf of California in Mexico. More... [PDF] Fished Out - It's Not Too Late to Rescue the Oceans and Keep Seafood on Our Plates — June 9, 2003 The conversion from living animal to antipasto takes only seconds. A thumb pries off the head like a bottle cap. A finger splits the abdomen and with two practiced tugs removes first viscera, then exoskeleton. The proffered meat glistens in the predawn lights of New York City's Fulton Fish Market - translucent, almonst glowing with the faintest coral hue. More... [PDF] Prospecting Beneath the Seas — February 11, 2003 For decades, scientists have searched for plants that contain disease-fighting compounds. Some powerful cancer drugs are derived from a flower that grows in the forests of Madagascar. But experts say a better place to search for these natural medicines may be among the myriad life forms that dwell in the ocean. As NPR's Eric Niiler reports, researchers are now scouring the seven seas in hopes of finding the next blockbuster drug.
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