Andy Revkin of the New York Times has a story about Iceland’s plan to kill whales this year.

He sent an email to me and to several other people who’ve devoted considerable time to thinking about whales, whaling, and the humane treatment of animals, posing the question, “Is it just plain ‘wrong’ to kill whales?”

Here’s my response.  Look for others on his blog in the responses section.

Is it wrong to kill whales? Because some say it’s wrong and some say it’s right, I start with the assumption that it’s inherently neither wrong nor right. The question is: what should we do? And the answer to that comes from what we want, how we want to steer ourselves, and what kind of people we want to be.

Except for people who think the world cannot be depleted because it is miraculously re-stocked or that it is being depleted because it is supposed to end soon, it is universally agreed that we want to use many things in the world, but not exterminate or deplete what we use. No one seriously wants to use everything we could use; many people would draw the line at eating various creatures or other humans (though there are always exceptions).

So regardless of whether I like whaling or not, the question of should we kill whales becomes, by wider agreement, one of, ‘Can we kill whales sustainably?’

In theory, we could. But part of the answer comes from the performance of whaling itself. First, all hunted whale populations were depleted, some exterminated. Atlantic Gray Whales were completely wiped out. Several species remain near the brink of the blink; others are recovering. So there is a history of excess. Second, in modern industrial whaling, whaling boats’ log books were often falsified, sometimes reporting one-tenth of the whales killed. So there’s a history of dishonesty, and a willingness to break rules. Many whale-meat packages sold as food in Japan have been proven by DNA testing to be species other than the one advertised. Often, the meat actually comes from supposedly protected species in supposedly closed waters. As I said, dishonesty appears to be inherent in this business. Third, the world has a critical need to bring the oceans under the rule of law and to democratize decision-making, because boats working out of boundaries have depleted fish, turtles, sharks,  and formerly seabirds, whales, and seals. The international commissions set up to govern fishing and whaling activities on the world’s oceans are part of where civilization needs to go. Japan works against this civilizing process by threatening economic sanctions against countries inclined to vote differently, refusing to abide by agreed-to fishing quotas (they’ve been twice convicted in the World Court of systematic, government-sanctioned fishing well over their quota for bluefin tuna) and undermining the democratic intent of the International Whaling Commission by stacking the deck-paying for and bringing in member countries like Mongolia and many impoverished Caribbean states whose sole interest in whaling is to vote with Japan and get paid for it.

So can we kill whales sustainably? Apparently not. Then should we kill whales? No.

-Carl Safina

The following post by Carl Safina appeared in the New York Times Blog ‘Room for Debate,’ June 9, 2009.  For a full version of the blog, click here.

The Smaller the Fish, the Better

Carl Safina is the founding president of Blue Ocean Institute. His books include “Song for the Blue Ocean,” “Eye of the Albatross” and “Voyage of the Turtle.”

I’m not your typical consumer. I’m a scientist, writer, fisherman, New Yorker, scuba diver — for a living, I think about how the ocean is changing and what the changes mean for people. When I step up to a seafood counter, I think about the ocean we used to have, what we have now and what we want in the future.

The thing is, life changes and the answers to the questions I think about change over time. Swordfish, once the target of a successful consumer boycott, are doing much better now.

Do your homework before hitting the seafood counter.

In general, the smaller the fish the better. Bigger, longer-lived fish tend to be higher in mercury, slower to mature and reproduce, and therefore more depleted by overfishing. Farmed oysters, mussels and clams tend to be very sustainable and can actually improve local water quality. Domestic shrimp is O.K. these days, imported shrimp has problems. Environmentally, wild salmon is a better pick than farmed. Halibut? Go with Pacific. For lobsters: Atlantic or Australian are best-managed. Mahimahi reproduce abundantly and grow very fast. Sharks, snappers, groupers are not the best from a health or conservation standpoint. About half the seafood we evaluate is generally O.K. to eat with a good conscience, and the other half, well, you might want to skip it.

Do your homework — carry a wallet guide, surf the Web, hop on Facebook — before hitting the seafood counter, there are good resources at the ready.

Care. Ask questions. Decide. Repeat. Bon appetite.

Our first dive will be from the beach.  We suit up and walk into the shallows, pull our dive-masks down, and plunge seaward.

The broken remains of past, vast Staghorn thickets were mounded on the beach and they carpet the shallows.  Old-timers tell of thickets of Staghorn and Elkhorn so dense that in the 1950s people here used chains and clubs to smash paths through the coral thickets so they could get out to go diving.

I see precisely zero live Staghorn, zero live Elkhorn.

Yet this is, overall, the best place in the Caribbean to experience a “healthy” reef.  That is to say, one that is still functioning as a coral reef and hasn’t gone over to the dark side of seaweed and gloomy shadow.

Past where those thickets once grew, the seafloor slopes to a rather narrow—but nice—band of reef sloping from about 20 to 50 feet deep.  There’s a decent amount of live coral—covering about a quarter of the bottom.  Coral boulders, brains, plates, and soft whips—.

On this island where since 1971 it’s been illegal to even possess a speargun, the fish on the reef are delightfully tame.  Yellowtail Snappers, Bar Jacks, swim almost touchingly close.  You can approach parrotfish easily; they’re as likely to turn towards you.

Over the slope swarm thousands of small fish—Brown and Blue Chromis; white-lipped Creole fish and platoons of Sergeant Majors—cloud the water in schools extending halfway to the surface, nipping invisible plankton from an imperceptibly gentle flow.

 A coral reef may be the most amazing natural system on Earth.  Forests and deserts are all wonderful, but a coral reef boasts one undisputed claim:  it is the most flamboyant show in nature.  Unlike a place that whispers its intimate secrets, a coral reef blares its razzle-dazzle pageantry. For newcomers, so much is so obvious so immediately.  For experts, so much remains hidden for so long.  It doesn’t come better than that.

Discus-shaped surgeonfishes rove the reef in herds of several dozen.  When they descend to graze, they give close buzz-cuts to coral heads, nipping any soft filaments, causing ruckus enough to dust up the place.  Trumpetfish follow them, hoping to pick off little swimming animals stirred from cover.

Of parrotfishes, eight kinds here are recognizable as adults—Stoplight, Queen, Striped, Redfin, Redband, Blue, Rainbow, Princess.  The only juvenile I learn easily is the Queen, because my dive partner calls them “crack-heads” for their washed-out gray-and-white appearance and the dark circles under their eyes.  The parrots scrape into the reef, chipping audibly, excreting lines of fine coral sand.  They seem abundant. Damsels are super-abundant.  Everywhere they’re chasing grazing fish from their little seaweed gardens.

Butterflyfishes flutter by like pennants in a stiff breeze.   Angelfishes—French Angels, Queen Angels, and the superb Rock Beauty—cruise by arrayed in blues and golds.

They can take your breath away, but so can mere time; our air is limited.

 I came to this last best place in the Caribbean to see a reef without obvious overfishing.  I’m a little late.  Old-timers say there were vastly more groupers and snappers—big ones—when they were young.  They’re predators, so much easier to catch on a hook than parrotfish.  Predatory fish eat, among other things, damselfish.  And damselfish defend their gardens against other grazing fish.  Damselfish grow seaweed.  Fewer predators mean more damsels, which means more gardens, more seaweed.  And people are starting to eat parrotfish—the main grazers of seaweed.  Every coral reef in the world where seaweed got a foothold—has unraveled.  No exceptions.

Bonaire’s government understands that luring tourists depends on Bonaire’s ability to boast the regions best reefs.  But “best” doesn’t mean pristine, and Bonaire has not been offered cosmic immunity from the region’s problems.  Bonaire was not spared the diseases that killed the Caribbean’s branching coral and grazing urchins.  It’s been spared the plague of algae only because its fish populations were better protected and in better shape compared to the rest of the region.  It’s not immune to overfishing.

The reefs need fish.  Fortunately, Bonaire’s government is considering a ban on catching parrotfish and a ban on fish traps.  If they’re going to act, the time is now—before Bonaire gets to be like the rest of the Caribbean.

The sea turtles heading to Florida’s shores for their annual nesting ritual are true survivors.   Unlike some of their kind, they’ve avoided getting snagged on commercial fishing lines that stretch for miles offshore.  One particular trouble spot is the bottom longline fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.

A snapshot of the statistics shows why… 

When the NMFS ruled in 2005 that longline fishing boats could catch up to 113 “hard shell” sea turtles (several species except leatherbacks) during a three-year period without jeopardizing the turtles’ survival, they later found how off the mark they were.  Nearly 1,000 turtles were caught in just a two year period, and many of them drowned.  That’s eight times the limit.

Florida’s loggerhead population is crucial to the species’ worldwide survival.  That’s why it’s disheartening to note that in Florida, the number of loggerhead sea turtle nests plunged by 40 percent over the past decade.

The Obama administration can do two things;  monitor fisheries data and provide adequate field observes to  closely to prevent another slaughter like the one that occurred a couple of years ago.

For the rest of us, we can make our voices heard by signing on to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project’s petition at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1723/t/6251/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1850 or by visiting http://action.healthygulf.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27055

And we can learn how our seafood choices affect sea turtle survival at http://blog.conservation.org/author/blueoceaninstitute/

Let’s not vote any more turtles off the beaches this year by sitting on the sidelines.

Carl Safina with a Leatherback Turtle

I spent last weekend visiting evangelical Christians at several gatherings in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was surprised by the warm, and indeed, enthusiastic welcome I received. It’s not every day that a secular environmentalist gets a standing ovation from evangelicals in a church. But the message that we are all in this together resonates with people hungry to feel part of something larger, better, more important, and more transcendent than continued sniping.

Carl Safina at the University of Michigan Friendship Collaborative workshop

It can be science and religion; it doesn’t have to be science versus religion. We don’t have to believe all the same stuff, and we can work together with regard to those things we all value.  And we have a lot in common. We share a profound moral sense that we must be good stewards of the world and its creatures.

One of the events was a workshop of “The Friendship Collaborative.” I have co-founded this effort with Ann Arbor Vineyard Church Pastor Ken Wilson to bring scientists and faith groups into dialogue about our shared moral commitment to conserve and restore the natural world. One objective is to help extinguish the “culture wars,” show our shared humanity, communicate science to culturally influential faith-based audiences, and express our need to work to alleviate environmental problems for nature and people worldwide.
 
See for example:
http://www.friendshipcollaborative.org/events/
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/03/17/carl-safina-friend-of-sinners/comment-page-1/
http://deepgreenconversation.org/the-friendship-collaborative-part-1/
http://homepage.mac.com/catservants/iblog/C915294372/E20090322160241/
 
Some of the peacemaking tone of this project is reflected in this condensed excerpt from Rev. Ken Wilson’s website:
“Someone asked me: ‘Why are you having someone who doesn’t believe in God speak at church?’ I invited Carl to speak because I think we can learn something from him. More than that, I think we can feel something from him. We can feel love for God’s good earth and we can feel humility. I think Jesus wants to give us more of both and he’s planning to use Carl to do that. Can God use someone who doesn’t believe that he exists?  Read your Bibles and tell me. I’ve read mine and believe that he can and he does.”

I can only say, I had a terrific time, I realized more than ever that we share more than we disagree on, I got many very kind comments, and the church band let me sit in on drums.

I think this was a much more pro-science use of my time than talking to scientists or bashing religion. One might say that in the spirit of evangelism and my mission, I was spreading scientific understanding to people who don’t normally get to see and hear a scientist and ask him questions.  

Religious and scientific groups have often regarded each other as enemies. That’s been damaging. We can do better.

Ken Wilson at the University of Michigan Friendship Collaborative workshop

As we were recently reminded by Mac Maharaj, who has been described by the Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen as the last African National Congress fighter to give up, “It sounds so simple, it sounds silly, but it really is: You don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies, and the only way you end a conflict is to accept that premise.”

When I was a kid, it was widely recognized that America was based on religious freedom. Religion was not politicized. People were free to believe what they wanted, everyone assumed most people had some kind of religious faith, and we seemed to focus more on what we shared as Americans, in the same society. I hope that with these dialogues we can help recover that spirit of freedom and cooperation, and elevate both science and humanity in the service of community, our environment, and the creatures with whom we share the planet.

Something that seems new and unusual is suddenly going on. Evangelical Christians in some significant quarters are putting aside their weapons and defenses regarding science, quite publicly. And not just about climate but about evolution and the scientific enterprise itself.

As I mentioned last week, a prominent evangelical pastor whom I’ve become friends with, Ken Wilson, has posted an “Apology to Darwin,” and taken evangelicals to task over the “culture wars.” See his site, especially:
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/12/apologies-to-the-memory-of-charles-darwin/
and:
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/21/evangelical-conscientious-objectors-to-the-culture-war/

He is getting dozens and dozens of comments such as:
New comment on your post #373 “apologies to the memory of Charles Darwin “

Comment:
I am sorry for being mean and not always giving science the chance to speak and tell the story the way science tells the story… As an evangelical I want to learn more about our mother earth and care for it scientifically and spiritually. It matters. It is part of the story. I am listening…
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/12/apologies-to-the-memory-of-charles-darwin/#comments

To see this discussed as a larger movement, see:
http://www.ReadTheSpirit.com/explore/ 

To learn of a new dialogue-oriented project Blue Ocean Institute and Rev. Wilson have initiated, see:
http://www.friendshipcollaborative.org/

–  Carl

My recent article in the New York Times was widely discussed and raised a bunch of written reactions. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10essa.html?_r=1&ref=science

I’d like to share one positive comment and then summarize and address some of the flames and anger I got for seeming to ‘dis’ Darwin.

But first some further clarifications.

So few people believe life evolves that one must admit scientists have not effectively conveyed the fact and importance of evolution.

So I tried a different approach. For the record, it’s obvious Darwin was uniquely productive and left a record that is incredibly accessible in the combination of his science books, his autobiography, and the narrative of his voyage. His combination of genius and humanity makes him arguably the greatest biologist of all time. At any rate, he’s my favorite of history’s giant scientists.

But I think that, for people who don’t share this view, the constant adulation from scientists and science writers makes it look as if Darwin had the first and last word on evolution. To people outside of science, the adulation looks a lot like a religion. So, I set out to take a few steps back and look at Darwin—and the way Darwin is perceived and discussed—from a different angle.

I separated Darwin and his work from the ideological and quasi-religious impression that the word “Darwinism” apparently conveys to many non-scientists. I also sought to boil Darwin’s insight on natural selection to its barest essentials, and to show that evolution and our understanding of it is now much bigger than the subject of Darwin. I sought not to further lionize Darwin (he’s pretty famous already), but to show that—once you take away the courage and insight required at the time, and once you put in perspective the ensuing 150 years of research—natural selection is so simple, so obvious, that it need not be seen as arcane or threatening.

As I’d written, Darwin gets more astonishing with time, as science proves how much he correctly observed, intuited, reasoned, and expressed. Most biologists understand all these things. Most people don’t.  Darwin remains lightning rod and whipping boy for many people who simply don’t realize that there is much more evolutionary science done since Charles Darwin than by him, comprising whole disciplines of genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology, etc. Getting some of the pressure off poor Darwin, and some of the attention to these other scientific advances, could only help public understanding of evolution (and reflect well on Darwin’s insightfulness in the process). Or so I thought; not everyone agreed, and many people missed the point entirely.

One person who read and “got” my article was professor Carl Woese, who discovered Archaea, one of the three main groups of living things. His discoveries led to a reorganization of the kingdoms of life. Because of Woese, we now understand living things as belonging to three main groups: Bacteria, Archaea, and everything else. See him at (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaeasy.html)

Woese wrote me this supportive note, which, amid the complainers was, by late afternoon, quite welcome:

Dear Prof. Safina,

You are a skilled gem cutter who has just cleaved an iceberg.

You have my deep thanks and admiration.

As I read your elegant piece, the most trenchant ever written on this issue, I had a favorite phrase of mine from Whitehead running through the mind:
 
 ”A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost”

In your article, you have expressed it better!

I could thank you many times for what you have done for evolution—and will.

   — Carl Woese

Now let me now summarize and address some objections.

Objection: ‘We scientists know very well that there is a difference between Darwin and all the work on evolution since. We don’t confuse the two.’

My perspective: True. That’s why I did not send my piece to a science journal. My piece was published in the New York Times, which is a newspaper. The audience is the general public. Most people have no idea what evolution is or means, and many are under the impression it’s just something scientists believe because Darwin said so. So, mainly, I was addressing people unfamiliar with evolution, and people inclined to be resistant to Darwin. The point: even if you get past or ignore Darwin, we’re still stuck with the reality of evolution. Even if we “get over” Darwin, even if we end the adulation, stop the gushing, cease the celebration of his name, and in fact even if Darwin was never born—evolution stays.

I was also saying that calling evolution Darwinism, as many scientists and even more science writers do, is sloppy, and helps keep the public ignorant of the fact that while Darwin was right about most things, we know how right he was (or that he was wrong, unaware, or incomplete about some things like genetics) only because of 150 years of testing and advancing science by thousands of researchers.

We’ve concluded he was right because lengthy debate, research, challenge, and testing, as well as new fields of science like genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology, and behavioral ecology have show Darwin was mainly right—life evolves. And we know this not because we simply believe what he wrote.

People constantly still ask, “Do you believe in evolution?” And scientists still say, “Of course I believe in evolution.” Well, I don’t “believe in” evolution. To me, it’s an obvious and proven fact that life evolves. And I love Darwin and his astonishing, brilliant work (he remains, as I called him in my Times piece, a “towering genius”). But I don’t “believe in” “Darwinism.” “Believing in” any “-ism” does not seem scientific to me. I believe things once I’m convinced of the evidence. Believing “in” is the language of faith and not of science (though many scientists believe in God, for example).

Objection: “Your article trashed Darwin.”

 My perspective: I wrote that there is a saying in Buddhism that, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The idea is to focus on the teaching, because if you focus too much on the aura surrounding the teacher you may miss the teaching. So a little irreverence can be healthy because it can let you see past the veneer of adulation and celebrity to the essence of the work.

Since we would not imagine that the Buddhist monk would really kill Buddha, the hyperbole is obvious. Or so I thought. It surprises me how few of the people who wrote about my article caught the hyperbole, irony, and tongue-in-cheekiness I intended. Lighten up a little! And let’s have some fun. In my mind, taking a fresh look and allowing yourself to be irreverent helps separate the essence from built-up baggage (and “Darwinism” certainly has baggage). Unless, of course, you think Darwin is so solemn a subject that he cannot be messed with or joked about. That kind of rigidity strikes me as rather, well-fundamentalist.

And as I said in the last sentence of my piece, ‘Only when we get past Darwinism, and fully acknowledge the subsequent century-and-a-half of value added, can we really appreciate both Darwin’s genius and the fact that evolution is life’s driving force.’

Anyone who thinks those words amount to trashing Darwin needs a refresher in reading comprehension, and should get themselves a glass of wine.

Objection: “In the guise of helping the scientific cause, you have really given aid and comfort to the enemies of science.”

My Perspective: In the span of 1,200 words, I call Darwin a “genius,” a “towering genius,” and someone who continues to ‘get more astonishing with time as scientists prove how much he got right.’ So it’s surprising that anyone could think I was trying to advance creationism, or aiding enemies of science.

Quite the opposite, I explicitly dismiss creationism. I was saying that constantly making it seem to the public that evolution begins and ends with Darwin, or that Darwin is equivalent with evolution, or that we believe dogmatically in what Darwin said because he said it, or that teaching evolution is exactly the same as “teaching Darwin”—and many, many non-scientists have exactly that impression—those are things that give aid and comfort (and worse, ammunition) to enemies of science and of reason.

Humor-challenged people who can’t stand an angle that differs from all-reverence, all-the-time, seem to object to my “tone.” But how they could think I give aid to enemies of science is quite beyond me, unless their scientific-fundamentalist rigidity blinded them to the words I used.

My main point was: Don’t use a word that sounds like an ideology or religion (Darwinism) to describe a science. It confuses people about evolution, and evolution is too important for people to stay confused about.  Language matters. The sloppiness of words like “Darwinism” and “Darwinist” allows creationists to look (and believe they are) more scientifically legit.

Objection: “Only creationists use Darwinism.”

My perspective: Not so. Check the February ’09’s National Geographic or the recent Science with the nice portrait of a young Charles Darwin on the cover (9 January ‘09). Scientists and science writers use “Darwinism” all the time. Indeed, numerous angry blogs, many from scientists, defended using this term. Again, this helps confuse the public because it sounds like “Darwinism” (like any “-ism”) is a belief, dogma, doctrine, based on the work and dictates of one man, one book. This is awfully similar to how Christians refer often to one man, one book.

“Darwinism,” and equating evolution almost entirely with Darwin in the public mind, sounds more religious than it does scientific. And that helps open a space for religion to demand equal time in what is actually a scientific topic: evolution, or teaching about evolution.

Objection: “Creationists will use your piece to advance creationism and ‘intelligent design.’”

My perspective: My piece explicitly dismisses creationism. So far, it seems that at least some religious people understood my point better than some scientists who let their religious-like zeal for “Darwinism” blind them to what I’d written in black-and-white.

At least some religious people were open to considering what I was writing about. I noticed this on the Web, by a pastor:

“I see Safina’s point. Evolution is about more than one man. But at the same time, as we stop to remember Darwin’s 200th Birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species, I think it is appropriate to remember him for his discoveries, his determination, and his persistence, while at the same time remembering that this is not a static theory, but one being revised all the time as more discoveries are made.

So, while Darwinism maybe should die—as an ideology Darwin himself never would have abided—Charles Darwin’s genius should be celebrated.  -Posted by Pastor Bob Cornwall.

And here is another post from my evangelical Christian friend Ken Wilson (horrors! I speak to people who have different beliefs!) who manages numerous Vineyard Churches in the Midwest. I’ve been very explicit with him that I’m secular (atheist). He likes me anyway. (Contrary to those fundamentalist scientists who derided my article so angrily but so selectively.) Wilson’s “Apology to Darwin”—yes, that’s what it says—is at:
http://kenwilsononline.com/2009/02/12/apologies-to-the-memory-of-charles-darwin/

And unlike some rigid scientists, one Reverend understood that I was writing with some hyperbole and having some fun—and offered to defend the piece against any complaining Christians. (Because unlike some scientists, the Reverend understood that Christian evangelicals could be upset about my article. Interesting that some religious people were drawn in to reading my piece carefully.) The Reverend wrote:

Carl,

Read and enjoyed it immensely!  As soon as the word “feckless” appeared in the first sentence I knew Safina was on his game!  If there are any well-read blogs of a Christian variety that give you any trouble, send me a link and I’ll add a comment or two just for fun.

Or are you getting pushback from colleagues on the “Let us now kill Darwin” motif?

Hopefully both! That way you know someone’s actually reading the doggone thing.

(Name withheld)

Well, hey, Reverend—that’s the spirit!

 My first week in Palau—in the west Pacific several hundred miles east of the Philippines—focused on the recovery of corals. My second week is focused on the effects of sea level rise. Sea level isn’t just rising here; it’s rising worldwide. Near my home on Long Island, east of New York City, beaches have lost yards of dunes this fall to high tides. And the beach nearest my home has dropped about 3 feet in the last 8 years as rising tides sweep sand away. This net erosion is a symptom of sea level rise. If sea level were falling, coasts would be extending, not eroding.

 So, why come all the way here? Because a much larger proportion of the population lives much closer to sea level. Some islands have no land higher than a few feet above sea level. A few islands have already been evacuated. And Pacific islands are forming a coalition called Islands First, with the aim of bringing climate change to the United Nation’s Security Council as a matter of international security. Some of the lowest island countries face total inundation in the foreseeable future. Many of their people would rather die on their islands than live as refugees in a foreign place.

 So there is more at stake here. And that’s why I came.

 Much of Palau is higher than many island countries. But many Palauans live along the shore. And the tides, they all say, are in the last few years coming higher than ever before.

 I’ve seen high tides, stoked-up by the full moon, rising into people’s yards in the low-lying neighborhoods of Palau’s capital, Koror.

Flooded family

 I’ve also seen the tide come over the dock of a popular scuba-diving operator.

Flooded scuba business

 And I’ve seen taro patches (the starchy root that is Palau’s traditional staple food and is still important culturally, ceremonially, and for the poorer elder people here) flooded and rotted by the combination of high tides and torrential rains. Elders say the rains are also abnormal in recent years, and that there is no longer a dry season, and the tide tables no longer work well to predict the time or elevation of tides.

Her taro has rotted

 

Flooded woman

 Ultimately most of this problem results from melting land-ice and the expansion of warmer waters worldwide. As climate change continues, the sea will continue rising. The world may shirk off the problems of thousands of Pacific islanders. But what happens when it becomes necessary to move hundreds of millions of people living along the coast of Bangladesh and south Asia? On the other hand, there could be good news: Wall Street in Manhattan might begin flooding soon, too.

Flooded dog

The third and final entry in Research Scientist Dr. Alan Duckworth’s blog on sponge studies in Jamaica.

Days 9-12

 The settlement plate experiment is now finished, with plates anchored to the reef at two depths in an impact and two control locations. Now we wait 6 months to see what marine organisms have settled and are growing on the plates. To get meaningful data that encompasses any seasonal and annual effects, this experiment will run for 2 years. Ideally, the experiment should last for another year or more, but research funding always dictates what marine science you can do. 

Brown tube sponge, agelas tubulata

The next experiment is a growth study, where we tag several sponges of various species at the three locations to determine what effect, if any, coastal development has on sponge growth rates. All up, 180 sponges will be monitored over time, which means a lot of swimming to find suitable sponges to tag. The tag is nailed onto dead coral next to the sponge, so it does not interfere with its growth. Each sponge is then measured and photographed. Diving days for the growth study are similar to the settlement plate experiment, but no heavy drilling gear is needed.  

Measuring sponges

This field trip is rapidly coming to a close, with only one full day left. Before I came down I had heard of the great diving in Jamaica, and it’s true. The water is clear, warm and inviting. The local reefs are a sponge mecca, encompassing all different shapes, sizes and colors. The lack of medium and large coral reef fish is a concern, but it is not likely to change anytime soon.

Ballonfish

Eel being defensive

 Much of the success of this field trip is due to the friendly and helpful staff of the Discovery Bay Marine Lab, who I thank greatly. Lastly, I leave you with a series of photos, showing some of the visual highlights from Jamaica.

 Cheers, Alan 

Flamingo tongue on Gorgonian

Sponges

 

The giant barrel sponge - xestospongia muta

Moonrise over Discovery Bay

This is Part II of Blue Ocean Research Scientist Dr. Alan Duckworth’s  blog as he oversees a coral reef study in Jamaica.

Days 5 – 8

The past few days have been mostly spent attaching settlement plates to the reef. Each plate, 11 x 11 cm in size, is made of terracotta, which is a good substitute for coral substrate. This will allow us to measure the number and type of sessile organisms (e.g. sponge, coral, and algae) that settle and recruit onto Jamaican reefs.

Deploying sediment traps

First, two small holes are drilled into the reef using an air drill run off a large SCUBA tank. Next the stainless steel base plate is secured to the reef, using two “xmas tree” bolts. Finally, a numbered settlement plate is bolted onto the base plate. The settlement plate rests about 1 cm off the substrate so organisms can settle on the top and bottom. Most animals settle on the bottom side, away from light and predators.

Drlling holes in coral

 

Side view of settlement plate

Although it’s heavy work, drilling holes is a lot of fun. We drill holes into dead coral only so there is minimal impact to the reef. However, some dead coral is so dense that only a few holes can be drilled off one tank, which means that you need to swim back to the boat several times to swap tanks to finish the job. Afterwards, small fish swarm around inspecting the work, trying to find any worms flushed from the dead coral.

Our dive gear

We have attached settlement plates at 30 and 60 feet in one impact location (next to several resorts), and two control or non-impacted locations. Plates will be photographed, examined and replaced every 6 months for 2 years. This experiment will help determine what effect coastal development has on the recruitment of sessile organisms onto coral reefs.

 At each depth and location we also deploy settlement traps. These will record the amount, type and size of particles (e.g. sand, terrestrial mud) that wash off from the surrounding land. These are left out for one week only.

 

Settlement plate and sediment trap, seen from above

All going well we should knock it off in one more day. The work is very enjoyable but tiring. Generally we leave at 7 am and return at 1 pm. If the weather holds we head out for another dive in the afternoon. In between we clean gear, fill tanks, get equipment organized, brush-up on sponge identifications, plan for the next day, and….eat.

Cheers, Alan