July 2015 - Mission Blue

Monthly Archives: July 2015

Gills Club Interviews Dr. Sylvia Earle

Our partners at the Gills Club recently interviewed Mission Blue founder Dr. Sylvia Earle. Learn more about the Gills Club and their amazing work on their website.

Why did you start studying marine biology?
My first encounter with the ocean was on the Jersey Shore when I was three years old and I got knocked over by a wave. The ocean certainly got my attention! It wasn’t frightening. It was more exhilarating than anything else. And since then life in the ocean has captured my imagination and held it ever since. I started out as a kid and never did grow up. The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids. They ask questions and have a sense of wonder.…

Posted in Partner Stories |

Fun, Games and Conservation in Japan

From our partners at earthlysoul in Japan:

On July 12th, earthlysoul held it’s first Kid’s Event of 2015! It is now the 7th year in the row that earthlysoul has held this event. Due to the approaching typhoon, we were unable to have outrigger canoe activities available, however the event was a big success with filled with fun SUP and Beach Flags games.
But first off, the event kicked off with some Beach Cleaning!

We made sure that everyone did warm up exercises and hydrated properly before getting involved with the activities, to make sure everyone was aware of how to get ready before getting into the sea to have fun!

Having fun aboard SUPs!! Running across SUP bridges and jumping!…

Posted in Partner Stories |

Protect the Grand Canyons of the Ocean

By Courtney Mattison

Hidden below the surface of Alaska’s icy waters lie the world’s largest underwater canyons, both more massive than America’s Grand Canyon. Home to orcas, walrus and fur seals, albatross and kittiwakes, king crab, squid, salmon and coldwater corals, brittle stars and sponges, the continental slope and canyons of the Bering Sea (known as the Bering Sea “Green Belt”) are home to an immense diversity of wildlife. Spanning more than 770,000 square miles between Western Alaska and Russia’s Siberian coast, the Bering Sea is an area of immense ecological value is also the source of more than half of the seafood caught in the United States and is subject to devastating commercial fishing tactics. This week, Mission Blue is launching a petition to urge Alaska’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council to protect the Bering Sea canyons and Green Belt.…

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, mission blue |

Marine Mammal Research & Conservation in Sri Lanka

From our new partners at the Biosphere Foundation

In 1979 the International Whaling Commission declared the Indian Ocean (north of 55° S latitude) a Marine Mammal Sanctuary and encouraged international cooperation to protect the populations of great whales in the area. Sri Lanka lies within the sanctuary and is frequented by blue, sperm, humpback, minke and Brydes whales as well as numerous other cetaceans. These dwindling populations are under threat from toxic pollution (mercury, PCB’s and heavy metals), noise pollution, gill net fishing that entangles marine mammals, collision by increasing commercial shipping traffic, starvation due to ingestion of plastic and other garbage, small gene pools, and shifting feeding and migratory patterns due to global warming.
Biosphere Foundation is collaborating with the University of Ruhuna and Captain Raja (whale watching ship, Raja & the Whales).…

Posted in Partner Stories |

Hurricanes are Making History this Year

Did you know that the 2015 tropical cyclone season in the Northern Hemisphere is already the most active on record? It’s a fact. Check out the graph below published by The Weather Channel and created by Colorado State University tropical scientist Dr. Phil Klotzbach and National Hurricane Center specialist Eric Blake. The take away: we are breaking records this year with the frequency of large weather events in the Northern Hemisphere.

The effects of this intensifying trend were more than evident on Mission Blue’s recent Gulf of California Hope Spot expedition. For starters, the original expedition was slated to launch in September of 2014. Those plans, however, were scuttled in the face of Hurricane Odile, a major category 4 hurricane that is known as the most powerful landfalling tropical cyclone ever recorded.…

Posted in mission blue |

Sacred Forests – Part Two: A New Friend to the Rescue

By Sam Low, author of Hawaiiki Rising

A year earlier, Nainoa had driven into Honolulu to a restaurant called Fisherman’s Wharf – a place with a maritime motif, a motley collection of binnacles, steering wheels and curved ship’s ventilators – to have lunch with Herb Kane and a friend of his from Alaska.
The meeting was inspired by an event that took place more than two centuries earlier when Captain George Vancouver visited the island of Maui. While there, he measured a large canoe and found it to be over 108 feet long. It was fabricated, as he later wrote in his ship’s log, “of the finest pine.” Vancouver knew that pine did not grow in Hawaii.
“Where did the wood come from?”…

Posted in mission blue |

Mission Blue Hope Spot: The Glorious Gulf of California

Earlier this month Mission Blue launched a Hope Spot expedition to the Gulf of California, a very special area of the world beloved by ocean buffs, surfers, scuba divers and the local communities.The purpose of the Expedition is to shine a light on the beauty of this region and those that are working to protect it. Thanks to jam-packed days connecting with Mexican policy makers, examining the health of local ecosystems and powwowing with marine scientists, we have much to share, including plenty of visual media. Check out the heartwarming greeting we received from a curious sea lion above. How’s that for southern hospitality? (Did you know sea lions like to nibble on your flippers? True story).

(Mission Blue meeting with the director of Mexico’s protected areas.…

Posted in mission blue |

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