Sea Grant...in Space?

New evidence suggests Mars may have 'tendrils' of water running down its slopes. Martian temperatures typically don't break -5°C (23 °F) even in the summer, so any liquid water would be salty, since salt water has a lower freezing point than fresh water. Could this lead to the addition of a 33rd Sea Grant Program: Mars Sea Grant? Dave Partee from Alaska Sea Grant gives us a preview of their logo. I wonder if their Knauss fellows would get a higher travel allowance...

12 Questions: Andy Coleman

 Knauss Placement: Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard

1. Where were you before beginning Knauss, and what were you doing there?

I was finishing my Ph.D. at University of Alabama at Birmingham.  My research focused on a depleted population of diamondback terrapins (a species of turtle) along the Gulf Coast of Alabama. I defended my dissertation in May, so please refer to me as Dr. Andy when we converse.  Just kidding.

 2. What drew you to the position you chose?

I was interested in the subcommittee office due to its national and international perspective.  I have learned about fishery issues from the Gulf of Maine to the South Pacific.  I was given the chance to be a part of the U.S. delegation to the KOBE III meeting in La Jolla, CA (I’ll write about that experience soon).  It has also given me a chance to learn more about issues that are taking place in the Gulf of Mexico.

3. How will you use your background in your new office?

I haven’t really used my background for the office, I’ve definitely received more from being in my position than I have contributed.  I’ve learned so much.

4. What has been the biggest change for you since starting the fellowship?

Wearing SUITS!!!  I prefer the graduate school attire, but I’ve adapted like a zebra mussel.

5. What have you found to be your most essential piece of 'work attire'?

The blackberry for those especially “interesting” briefings.

6. Where is your favorite spot on Earth?

I know I’m biased and can be a little obnoxious about it, but Alabama is such a great place that too many people overlook.  There’s a wonderful variety of habitats and wildlife (including its people), and there’s only one University of Alabama (not including University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Alabama at Huntsville).  Roll Tide!!!

I haven’t done a lot of traveling, unfortunately, but for a non-Alabama place, some of my favorite spots would be the coral reefs of Hawaii (where I saw a manta ray) and the tidepools of the Pacific Northwest.  And if I could add just one more…Melbourne Beach, FL, is awesome because you have nesting leatherback, loggerhead, and green sea turtles on one side of the road and gopher tortoises on the other side.

7. What's at the top of your recommended reading list for someone wanting to explore a career in your field? 

Fire in the Turtle House was the first sea turtle related book I read, and it’s a very interesting and easy read.  It discusses the issue of fibropapillomatosis (don’t worry, I consulted Wikipedia for spelling) in sea turtles and it interviews some of the great sea turtle researchers. 

But for any good sea turtle natural history book, you can’t go wrong with Archie Carr.

8. Personal favorite book? 

A series of memoirs written by Rick Bragg…All Over Bout the Shoutin’, Ava’s Man, and The Prince of Frogtown.  Bragg does a great job of describing what it was like growing up in the rural South.  AND, the books are set in Alabama.

9. What are your hobbies?

Playing and watching a variety of sports.  I like seeing new places and getting outside.  One unique sport I enjoy is fencing, I was a member of a fencing club in Birmingham for a few years and would like to do it again sometime soon.

At the time I write this, football season starts in 32 days! Roll Tide!!

10. What would you be doing if you hadn't gone into your field?

In high school, I thought of two other possibilities besides marine biology…forestry (I was a member of the 4-H forestry team growing up) and the seminary.  But I feel today that I’m doing what I was put on the Earth to do.

But wildlife photography and environmental film making seem like very inspiring career choices, but as you can see, I wrote off actually making a lot of money a LONG time ago.

11. Who is your favorite historical scientist and why?

E.O. Wilson—He’s been involved in science and trying to effectively communicate it for so many years.  He was the first person to document the invasion of fire ants into the U.S. as a 13 year old!  And, he grew up in ALABAMA!! Roll Tide!!!

12. Any idea what you're doing next year?

I miss the research, so I hope to find a way to get back into that somehow.  But now I have new avenues of research that I would like to pursue thanks to the fellowship.  If I had my choice, I would find a career that combined research, policy, and public outreach/education.

Field Notes: Knauss in Chicago

In continuation of our Field Notes series, Abby Graefe writes us about her experiences two weeks ago in the Windy City.  Read on for more on her adventure and check back soon for more stories from Knaussers in the field.

My kind of town, Chicago is!

Okay, I MAY be a little biased since I was born and raised in Chicago, but Chicago was the perfect location for this year’s Coastal Zone Conference – a.k.a. "CZ11". Coastal Zone is a biennial international symposium, which draws the largest international gathering of ocean and coastal management professionals in the world. Session topics ranged from aquatic habitat restoration to sea level rise adaptation/communication, and from Asian carp control to CMSP tools. When the 900 attendees weren’t busy participating in over 180 technical sessions and workshops and countless numbers of networking opportunities, they were able to enjoy beautiful Lake Michigan’s coastal scenery and activities.  Bi-weekly fireworks, river and lake cruises, kayaking, swimming, and water-side dining anyone??

Enthusiasm for the National Ocean Policy (NOP) was elevated all week, as the conference fell on the first birthday of the NOP!  We celebrated its birthday cruising Lake Michigan on an interpretive boat tour and reception sponsored by the Chicago Park District and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the beautiful skyline, since the city was enveloped in fog! However, the fog cleared as the boats re-entered the lock, and some of us got an extended tour up the Chicago River to view the city’s magnificent architecture. On the shores of Lake Michigan, attendees also received a taste of the Pacific Northwest and the Caribbean at the world-renowned John G. Shedd Aquarium. We ate dinner and mingled with new friends and contacts surrounded by sharks, sting-rays, and hundreds of reef-loving fish. 

Through the conference, I gained crucial networking experience and a new stack of business cards. I have also spent slow office days researching various programs, policies, and management tools that were brought to my attention that week. I definitely recommend attending this conference’s next installment in 2013. No, you won’t get the added bonus of enjoying the fantastic city that is Chicago, but you will leave the conference with new knowledge and a larger professional network.

Chicago Poems : "The Fog” by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on. 

Field Notes: Knauss in Hawaii

Aloha!  This past week, Knauss took me on a tropical adventure.  Destination: Waikiki Beach; purpose: False Killer Whale Take Reduction Team meeting.  My office generously sent me halfway across the Pacific because I expressed interest in our marine mammal bycatch program and have been redesigning fact sheets, tracking historical funding, and working to collaborate with the NMFS Fish Watch team.  On this trip, I witnessed first hand the advantages and challenges of a multi-stakeholder process and had time to reflect on some of the benefits of this fellowship. 

False Killer Whale, by SeaWorld

In this year, we are all given the gift of exposure: we are shown realities that you cannot read about in books, journals, or tech memos.  Going into this trip, I had spent countless hours reading Section 118 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, where Take Reduction Teams are appointed to minimize bycatch in fisheries that have been categorized as catching too many animals within marine mammal species whose populations have declined below the “optimum” level.  This process can take several years and involves fishermen, scientists, conservation groups, and state and federal government devising regulations and voluntary measures that include using different hooks or nets, closing areas to fishing, or even encouraging captains to communicate with one another.  Sounds easy, right?  Guess again.  These teams must face complex statistics, aging abundance estimates, statutory ambiguities, international politics, fisheries hardships, and economic bottom lines that all play out much differently than the law might dictate. 

Longline bycatch, by SeaTurtle.org

In this multi-stakeholder process, NMFS maintains enormous responsibility in representing all parties and addressing all concerns while still meeting the (sometimes unfeasible) obligations of the law.  In this team's case, commercial fisheries are only allowed to capture or entangle a mere two whales of this species each year before triggering conservation provisions that restrict fishing.  It is a tall order, but no one can argue with the pre-established equations that underlie this process.  So, negotiations can lead to some compromises, but there are always a few sticking points where parties simply agree to disagree.  One of the painful realities for fishermen is that NMFS analysts and scientists go home at the end of the day and do not feel the impacts of the regulations they design. 

Still, no one is at fault for the complexities and lingering uncertainties inherent in marine mammal protection.  On a practical level, how can a limited number of observers and officers enforce rules throughout an entire fleet, and how can fishers be incentivized to report entanglements?  On a statistical level, how can you know that entanglement rates won’t rise if closures move vessels to alternative fishing grounds?  And on a more fundamental level, how can we target commercial fishermen for regulation when (1) they are by no means the only source of mortality (pollution, sport fishing, ship strikes), and (2) the darn animals have learned to follow ships for a certain and easy snack?  With optimism in mind, it is clear that you have to start somewhere and trust in the iterative process. 

Endangered Hawaiin monk seal, by NGS

For me, it was exciting to think of these complex challenges while surfing, paddling, and exploring in the evenings.  Just as I was starting to feel spoiled by the sun, sand, and clear water, I thought of the Google model.  It really is important to go to these places and be stimulated by new people and fresh ideas that make the issues personal.  After all, we are all in the business of fairly distributing the value of precious natural resources, and it is important to remember how much we ourselves actually value them.  These types of collaborative discussions are happening every day in every discipline and in every city and every state across the country – kudos to the enormous time and effort that people dedicate in the name of progress, be it big or small.  Mahalo and come find me if you want to learn more about NOAA’s Take Reduction program! 

What cool places have YOU been to recently? 

Mapping the World, One Pixel at a Time

Credit: NMFS

We as humans have a natural tendency to describe our surroundings.  We need only look to historical accounts and museum artifacts to see that societies have been mapping the world since the dawn of exploration.  Today in the 21^st century, it would be easy to assume that everything has been mapped and that satellites have driven cartographers to obsoletion.  However, I would argue that some mystery and allure still remain.  Even though there are few coastlines that need to be redefined or underwater gorges that need be discovered, the art of mapping could unlock technological tools that integrate information across disciplines, inform management, and bring unimagined places into school classrooms. 

Bering Straight, courtesy of NASA

Modern mapping is arising as an incredible tool for overlaying knowledge from all kinds of different sources.  By combining everything from recreation, resource values, pollution hotspots, or construction projects, mappers can actually produce new pieces of interdisciplinary information that can be used for spatial planning now and into the future.  One of the regions where this is particularly true is in the U.S. Arctic, specifically the Bering Straight, which is emerging as one of the most contentious stretches of sea on the planet.  Some covet the Bering Strait for its shipping potential, others see an area with dangerously insufficient infrastructure, while still others fear for the countless species that depend on the narrow channel for transiting between foraging and mating grounds.  Russia and the U.S. share jurisdiction in these waters that span a mere 53 miles across, with the shared Diomede Islands directly in the middle.  When I first arrived in DC, I spent some time investigating existing mapping tools that might inform this conservation and management nightmare, and was surprised by the relative wealth of information that I found not only for the Alaskan arctic but for all our nation’s coastline.

Bowhead whale habitat use

As it turns out, NOAA is a leader in coastal mapping efforts, with the Multipurpose Marine Cadastre, OCRM In Your State, National Geophysical Data Center, and Shorezone, to name a few.  Not only are these maps helpful for managers and researchers, but the aesthetic quality would make any early cartographer proud.  I would go as far as arguing that the beauty of these maps is what makes them such effective educational tools.  NOAA is also not alone on this frontier: the Audubon Society recently partnered with Oceana to create the Arctic Marine Synthesis Atlas (scroll down to your favorite topic and check out the relevant maps!).  

Credit: NASA

All around the world, maps are being drawn and redrawn each year, with new and valuable information generated with each iteration.  With the increasing complexity of images and layers, it is likely impossible to depict the comprehensive realities of the natural and human landscapes in two dimensions.  In fact, with all these advanced and detailed tools, manipulating what a map conveys can be done in a few simple clicks.  In this way, while our experts rely on objective scientific data, we all still have the power to influence the range of truths that can be portrayed about our favorite city, beach, or watershed.  This ability to shape our realities has become even more accessible through the development of community-based GIS and it’s many applications such as stories and clips within Google Ocean.  If we can integrate personal accounts of ocean adventures with objective oceanography (bathymetry, paleochemistry, etc.), who knows what innovations will inspire us and help expose the mysteries of the deep.  Next time you sense that everything is known about a given place, think about all the infinite layers of information that could be combined to reveal new and unique insights from the past and into the future.

Book Review: Four Fish by Paul Greenberg

In his recent book, Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, Paul Greenberg presents readers with an enriching history of our dynamic relationship to the fish we domesticate.  I was pleasantly surprised that Four Fish does not mirror a typically dry historic tale nor does it in any way feel like an “environmental” book, as the title might suggest.  Instead, Greenberg gives readers an intriguing (and humorous) picture of the intentional choices and accidental moments that have brought specific seafood to our plates.  Similar to our dependence on four primary red meat and poultry animals, Greenberg traces the technological achievements from Canada to Greece that led to an increasingly presumptuous domestication of riverine salmon, coastal sea bass, offshore cod, and finally transnational tuna.  This journey shows us why we should strive to master the complexities of wild fish in addition to feeding the world by perfecting genetic modifications in tank systems (if we must). 

One interesting theme throughout the stories was how both global politics and fish biology have guided which fish came to international prominence.  Salmon were the first farmed fish not only due to population declines, but because their large eggs allowed for curious entrepreneurs and early geneticists to decode their spawning secrets decades ago in Norway, one of the birthplaces of aquaculture.  Another example of this biological selection is Vietnamese tra, which can withstand low oxygen conditions because it breathes air.  Similarly, the Australian barramundi has become popular not due to its tasty flesh, but because they are naturally docile, fertile, and disease-resistant.  (In fact, many of the fish aquaculturists promote around the world gain traction because they taste like nothing rather than tasting “fishy”).  

Important baby sea bass food!

If modern salmon were born in Norway, Greenberg argues that farmed sea bass got their start in Israel, of all places.  However, once Israel lost access to the coast, they lost their competitive edge to the Greeks.  Interestingly, the African tilapia (grown all over the world and now considered a pesky invasive species) was a convenient front for Columbian drug lords.  As can be seen, it is not always cultural traditions that generate demand (Japanese only acquired a taste for fatty Bluefin tuna after the Americans did post WWII!), but rather a convenient alignment of strange circumstances that lead to one fish (often farmed) replacing a wild fish in global markets.  

In the final chapter, Greenberg takes readers back to the early 20^th century to draw a comparison between tuna’s plight and that of another long-lived sea creature: the whale.  Whale populations owe their recovery not to the moratorium that was signed in the early 1980s, but more to the development of cheap whale oil substitutes and the anti-whaling sentiments that stirred the world throughout the 1960s and 70s.  First comes economics and values, then governance and management.  Greenberg argues that the moral evolution that turned whales from food into wildlife is entirely lacking for tuna.  Tuna is fish is food.  While there is nothing amoral about this logic, when people fail to recognize that the planet’s wild-life that we cherish is also the same wild-life that we eat, there is little support for conservation and management in the face of short-term economic gains. 

Aside from pointing toward the need for a greater appreciation of wildness within our fishing industry, Greenberg does note the importance of fish for feeding the growing global population.  He simply wants us to make smart aquaculture choices (rather than farming tuna at a 20:1 pound feed ratio or using surrogate fish moms – imagine!).  One challenge he admits is that science and political will can’t change the fact that consumers aren’t yet familiar with fish such as tra, barramundi, or the more recent kona kampachi from Hawaii.  So, in the meantime, Greenberg encourages the global fishing community to master the subtleties of fisheries science for wild predators and leave the fish farming to the vegetarian species that can have a smaller impact on surrounding ecosystems.  Overall, I highly recommend this book for a very engaging and thought-provoking read.  

Follow AquacultureWorld news for more information and come find me if you want to discuss!

Sharks! It's What's NOT for Dinner....

The planet's largest fish: the peaceful whale shark.

 Hold on to your hats folks, because Shark Week 2011 is on the horizon!  What started out as a series of highlights on the Discovery Channel has grown into an international celebration to showcase conservation efforts for what might be most misunderstood group of animals on the planet.  From Juliet Eilperin's Demonfish to stories in the news, everyone is talking about sharks.  This year, even singer Lady Gaga and SNL's Andy Samberg are teaming up to promote the event.  But, more significant than celebrity support is that these media-generated festivities can really create buzz that gives more meaning to scientific discovery, conservation triumphs, and even policy decisions in the eyes of the public.  Keep reading to learn more about some of the exciting shark news coming out this month.

The trouble of bycatch.

In a way, sharks really do have it tough.  Similar to many of our long-lived charismatic ocean creatures, their populations have declined globally due to ecosystem changes, direct harvest, bycatch, international management challenges, and pollution.  However, unlike dolphins and whales, for example, sharks have been demonized for decades AND eating them is not considered a moral taboo. More troubling, the global market for sharks is not driven by their meat but is motivated by the demand for only their fins, promoting over-exploitation and waste.  While none of this is new information, it deserves mention because as hard as shark-lovers try, it is difficult to convince the world that fewer sharks is actually a bad thing.

Despite this difficult situation, Chile and the Bahamas showed the world their appreciation for these apex predators by passing laws banning shark finning and making trade and possession of their precious fins illegal.  These two countries join a growing list of countries passing finning laws that includes Palau, Honduras, and the Maldives.  In many cases, these acts are not simply a national expression of compassion, but are evidence that the countries are acknowledging how valuable these animals are not just to their tropical ecosystems and food security, but mainly for the tourism industry. 

Sharks harvested for their fins.

Island nations are not the only countries working to protect sharks.  Aside from the large number of nonprofit organizations working on the issue in the U.S., NOAA also pursues research, conservation, outreach, and management.  These efforts largely amount to testing different fishing gear types to minimize bycatch, placing observers on fishing vessels, and developing international relationships.  However, not wanting to be left out of the digital social media age, NOAA jumped on the bandwagon and says, "wait, there's an app for that!"  That's right, NOAA released an android application so that anglers who release shortfin mako sharks can submit the timing and location of their catches with the touch of a few simple buttons.  Take a look at the data this tool has generated so far.

With technological advances and shifting international perceptions and moods, it seems that anything could be possible for these mysterious creatures.  Let's all think about ways that we can learn something new about them in honor of Shark Week!