overfishing Archives - Mission Blue

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Ocean Stories: Data from the Twilight Zone

By Mae Dorricott

With my face glued to the car window, mouth agape, making “ooos” and “aahhhs”, I kept my colleagues Vaughn and Kayem well amused as they drove myself and Sonia through the stunning scenery of Pohnpei to Nihco Marine Park. This place was to be our base and home for Sonia’s annual expedition to explore the twilight zone of Pohnpei and sister atoll’s reefs.

I was invited along on the expedition by Dr. Sonia Rowley, one out of three people to win the David Attenborough Award for field work. She is well deserving of this award as her research in the twilight zone takes her to depths of 140 m, the area of the reef where light begins to dwindle away.…

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Protect the Critically Endangered Goliath Grouper from Killing in Florida

In the earlier part of the last century, Atlantic goliath groupers were abundant from Florida to Brazil and throughout the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. If you have been lucky enough to be in the water with these creatures, then you appreciate their unflappable personality and awe-inspiring size, which reaches up to 8 feet and 1,000 pounds. The goliath grouper has no natural predators besides large sharks and humans. We are writing with regards to the latter.
Goliath groupers reached commercial extinction in the late 1980s. For this reason, in 1990 a federal and state ban on killing them was implemented for U.S. federal waters and state waters of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, followed by a 1993 ban in the U.S.…

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Kicking Off The United Nations Ocean Conference

By: Shilpi Chhotray, Mission Blue 

June 5th marks the first day of the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference, a major conference energizing efforts to promote ocean sustainability. Dr. Sylvia Earle and Mission Blue are thrilled to be partnering for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, life below water. SDG 14 aims to: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. The Ocean Conference, the first UN conference of its kind, coincides with World Environment Day and World Oceans Day on Thursday (June 8th).
The Ocean Conference will not only serve as a place to raise awareness of the state of the ocean but call upon global leaders and advocates to generate new dialogues and partnerships aimed at implementing solutions.…

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An Ode to Cocos Island, Circa 1987

The Mission Blue team is currently researching and tagging sharks in Cocos Islands. Learn more about our latest expedition. 
By: Robert Yuhnke

Isla de Cocos is magnificent. I spent 6 days there in 1987 diving with an expedition. We were blown away by the richness and diversity of the marine life. I can recall on a bright cloudless day drifting at 70 feet above a wall that dropped into the abyss when suddenly the light disappeared. Turning up, I could barely make out the sun shimmering through a swarm of fish (perhaps tang) so dense that the water had turned dark. On another day my crew mates thought I was nuts for diving over the rail one morning for a half-mile swim in a bay where I watched schools of 12-foot white tips below me as I swam.…

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Saanich Inlet and the Southern Gulf Islands at Risk – Mission Blue Takes Action

By: Emily Bates, PADI

Teeming in the cool waters of Vancouver Island, Canada is some of the greatest diversity of marine life in North America. The famous Jacques Cousteau stated that, “it’s the best temperate-water diving in the world and second only to the Red Sea.”
In March 2017, Mission BlueTM proudly announced the approval of a new Hope Spot: Saanich Inlet and the Southern Gulf Islands in British Colombia, Canada. Bordered by Vancouver Island, the mainland of North America, and the USA/Canada border, this special location is rich with ecologically diverse creatures and plants that are unique from anywhere else in the world.
Despite its value, this Hope Spot faces many challenges like overfishing, heavy marine traffic, urban development that causes pollution, and agricultural run-off that threaten the health of this region.…

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Working to End Whaling in the Saint Vincent and Grenadines Hope Spot

Note, this feature contains sensitive content.
By: Marc de Verteuil

Hundreds of cetaceans are killed by fishermen in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) each year. The species targeted includes humpback whales, orcas, bottlenose dolphins and pilot whales.
Adam Gravel, 28, is a Vincentian ocean activist and the founder of SalvageBlue, a NGO dedicated to establishing SVG as a Hope Spot.
Hope Spots sprang from the mind of marine biologist Dr. Sylvia Earle. She introduced the idea during a TED talk in 2009. The campaign is headed by Dr. Earle’s NGO Mission Blue and it receives support from National Geographic, Rolex and Google.
Gravel spent his childhood in the sea swimming with dolphins, turtles and sharks.
Sailing the Grenadines islands has given him an intimate knowledge and appreciation of the archipelago he calls home.…

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Destination Cocos Island: One of the Sharkiest Places on Earth

Considered to be the most beautiful island in the world by Jacques Cousteau, the island of Cocos in Costa Rica is a sight to behold. Located 350 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, lives a diversity of large pelagic species including sharks, rays, tunas, and dolphins. Sharks including hammerhead, Galápagos, silky, tiger, white tip reef and whale sharks are common sightings, making it a haven for scientists, divers, and marine enthusiasts alike. The iconic animals are known to migrate throughout the Eastern Tropical Pacific from the Galapagos to Columbia, Panama, and Costa Rica. Sharks are integral apex predators that shape the food web and maintain a healthy ecosystem for all marine life. Unfortunately, they continue to be hunted for their fins and exported to China in violation of international agreements, despite Cocos Island designation as a World Heritage Site. …

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The Night Watch

In Playa Grande, Costa Rica, more than 20 years of egg poaching consumed a generation of leatherback sea turtles, bringing the population in the Eastern Pacific to the brink of extinction. Today, Earthwatch scientists and volunteers are working alongside local communities to ensure there’s a future for this species.
By: Alix Morris, Earthwatch Institute

When María Teresa Koberg first arrived in Playa Grande, Costa Rica in the late 1980s to study nesting sea turtles, Doña Esperanza Rodriguez was concerned. At the time, Playa Grande was the most important nesting site worldwide for leatherback sea turtles, but it was also a dangerous place, particularly for a researcher. People were arriving on the beaches from all over the country to harvest eggs from the turtles’ nests, and Esperanza and her family were involved in managing these efforts.…

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The Case for Shark Fin Trade Bans

This article originally appeared on Southern Fried Science. 
By: Mariah Pfleger, Oceana

The demand for shark fins is widely recognized as one of the major contributors to shark mortality around the world. However, solutions to decrease this demand are hotly debated, especially in the scientific community. Southern Fried Science and other websites have published opinions that debate the effectiveness of shark fin bans, but as a shark scientist working to implement this policy I would like to present the case for shark fin trade bans.      
The conversation is newly relevant with the introduction of the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act in the Senate on March 30th by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Shelly Moore-Capito (R-WV) and in the House on March 9th by Representatives Ed Royce (R-CA) and Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (I-MP).…

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Saving the Tropical Pacific Sea of Peru

An update from the Tropical Pacific Sea of Peru Hope Spot! 
By: Eduardo G. Salcedo

Lima, Peru’s bustling capital city of almost 10 million inhabitants is sandwiched between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.  The country experienced a decade of prosperity between 2004 and 2014, a result of economic reforms that attracted international investments.  It was a welcomed breath of fresh air from the decade before, a dark economic period marked by inflation, corruption, and guerrillas. 
New business opportunities arose.  Peru’s gastronomic industry flourished and soon thousands of restaurants from cheap to high-end establishments popped up all over the city.  The result was an increased demand for seafood, a natural resource Peru may be blessed with but not without costs to the marine environment. …

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