Parvin Dabas aims for safeguarding marine life through photography
January 1st, 2009
| January 1, 2009 7:54:41 PM IST |
After the successful opening of his film –THE WORLD UNSEEN in USA and Canada, Parvin Dabas treated himself to what he’s most passionate about – Photography. He traveled to Egypt for an Underwater Photography workshop with 26 experienced divers and clicked the most amazing underwater pictures. While capturing the incredible marine life and loving every minute of it, the only time grief gripped him was when he realized that this beautiful marine life is on the verge of extinction.
‘’As a photographer, you tend to look at the surface and capture the most visible beauty. However, in the process you may not realize the inner beauty of the object under appreciation. During my underwater stint, I was totally preoccupied with what I saw and was capturing on lens. It was amazing to be a part of the life which exists so deep down. However, I froze for a moment when realization struck that all of this may not exist in some years from now.'’
That’s when he continued non stop freezing them on his lens to show people the beautiful life that exists underwater wanting to inspire them through his photography to keep the environment clean.
‘’We are going miles up in the sky with 100–200 stories buildings coming up. Great, I am all for it. However, miles below the sea, we are just not maintaining Earth’s beauty any more. It seems that we have become completely selfish and are only interested in building walls around us while completely ignoring the free world that lies beneath.'’
He pauses for a while before reasoning, ‘’I just hope that I am able to aid in some safeguard of this beautiful world through my photographs. May be that would enable people to wake up to this charming world that is just unexplored!'’
Toview complete article: http://www.glamsham.com/movies/scoops/09/jan/01-parvin-dabas-aims-for-safeguarding-marine-life-010909.asp
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Community Service Awarded
December 30th, 2008
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart recently honored two students at Brother Rice High School in Chicago with the Sheriff’s Youth Service Medal of Honor.
The award is given to young people throughout Cook County who contributed at least 100 hours of volunteer service to their communities.
Brother Rice senior Kendall West, of Beverly, completed more than 100 hours of volunteer service at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park.
Junior Joe Alfano, of Beverly, served his 100 hours of service at three different locations.
First, Alfano volunteered 55 hours at Smith Village Nursing Home where he visited residents.
Then he spent his spring break in Mexico and volunteered 18 hours helping at a school in a small rural town.
Finally, over the summer, Alfano went to Australia and spent 30 hours helping marine biologists doing research on the Minke whale. Alfano, a certified scuba diver, observed the whales from 60 feet under water.
To view article: http://www.southtownstar.com/neighborhoodstar/oaklawn/1350650,122808dartaward.article
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Antarctic islands surpass Galapagos for biodiversity
December 28th, 2008
01 December 2008 by Tamsin Osborne
A group of isolated Antarctic islands have proved to be unexpectedly rich in life. The first comprehensive biodiversity survey of the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, has revealed that they are home to more species of sea and land animals than the Galapagos.
See a gallery of South Orkney animals
The findings raise the issue of what sort of impact climate change - already hitting the Antarctic hard - will have on this rich biodiversity.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Hamburg, Germany, carried out the survey using a combination of trawl nets, sampling as deep as 1500m, and scuba divers. The team found over 1200 species, a third of which were not thought to live in the region. They also identified five new species.
The majority of animals were found in the sea, with most living on the seabed.
These findings go against the traditional view that biodiversity declines away from the tropics and towards the polar regions, says lead researcher David Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey.
“Our paper makes the point that if you go right the way across different animal groups rather than taking one specific animal group, which is what most biodiversity studies do, then you get a much better perspective of real biodiversity,” he says. “This is the first place in either polar region, not just the Antarctic, where we’ve actually got a biodiversity across all groups.”
Previous research has shown that Antarctic waters harbour a surprising diversity of plankton and larvae and that deep-sea life in the Southern Ocean is similarly rich. But the new study is the first to look at all animals on land as well as in the seas.
“As the sea gets warmer, then temperate species will move into Antarctica and Antarctic species will shift further south or into colder regions,” says Barnes. “The South Orkney Islands is the one place where we have a real possibility of detecting new things arriving and things leaving.”
Jon Copley, a marine ecologist at the University of Southampton, UK, agrees. “The starting point for any conservation strategy has got to be knowing what you’ve got to conserve,” he says, “and this study provides a very valuable baseline in that regard.”
While biodiversity in this region may not decrease as a result of the warming, says Barnes, it is likely that the changes in species composition will result in an overall loss in the Earth’s biodiversity.
“All that it will take is for a few things to alter,” says Barnes. “It is only a matter of time.”
Journal reference: Journal of Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.02030.x
To view the complete articel: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16130-antarctic-islands-surpass-galapagos-for-biodiversity.html
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Will to survive
December 25th, 2008
A rescued monk seal pup thrives after being released into the wild
By Laurie Au , Honolulu Star Bulletin
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 24, 2008
Scientists released the pup in an undisclosed location last week and will continue monitoring it for another week.
In May, biologists rescued the pup just 24 hours after it was born and abandoned by its mother on Kauai’s North Shore.
“One of the saddest things I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been working with marine mammals is to see this little black monk seal pup with its little flippers stretched out with this large rock and trying to nurse from it,” Schofield recalled.
The following days were the most critical for the 30-pound pup. Biologists knew there was a great chance of the pup dying, because no one has ever successfully cared for a monk seal that young.
Dr. Gregg Levine, the chief veterinarian for the pup, said the most important thing at first was finding the right formula with enough nutrition since the pup didn’t nurse from its mother at all.
In August, when the pup was 3 months old, scientists felt it was ready to be introduced in the wild again and moved it to an ocean pen at the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe. There, the pup learned how to eat on its own, catching live octopus, fish and crabs.
“Our focus was, once we got this animal in, was to ensure his health and safety,” Levine said. “But we also wanted to maintain a sufficient quarantine so he could be released back into the population.”
Last week, the Coast Guard transported the pup to a location in the main Hawaiian islands with other endangered monk seals. When scientists brought him to the water’s edge and opened the cage, the pup immediately took off into the water and didn’t look back.
The monk seal, which now weighs a healthy 150 pounds, has so far successfully adapted to the wild, Schofield said.
But Levine and Schofield say it’s difficult to predict the pup’s chances of survival. The real test is seeing if the pup makes it to sexual maturity, which typically occurs when it is 5 to 7 years old.
“Thinking back on how small and scrawny that little seal was, a little bag of bones, and then seeing it fat and healthy and on its way out to the wild, it’s just the best feeling in the world,” Schofield said.
He said scientists have learned valuable lessons from this monk seal - lessons that can be used to help this endangered species.
“We’re very happy for the individual,” Schofield said. “If this population continues to decline at the rate that it is, efforts like this is going to be necessary to recover the species.”
A 7-month-old Hawaiian monk seal nursed back to health by scientists appeared to be thriving during its first week back in the wild in what officials say was a “pioneering achievement.”
The male pup, named KP2, was the youngest Hawaiian monk seal ever to be raised by scientists of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and later released successfully into the wild.
“This has never been done before. … He still has a lot to learn and a long way to go. Even though it’s only a week out, we consider this a groundbreaking success,” said David Schofield, marine mammal response coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of NOAA.
Scientists released the pup in an undisclosed location last week and will continue monitoring it for another week.
In May, biologists rescued the pup just 24 hours after it was born and abandoned by its mother on Kauai’s North Shore.
“One of the saddest things I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been working with marine mammals is to see this little black monk seal pup with its little flippers stretched out with this large rock and trying to nurse from it,” Schofield recalled.
The following days were the most critical for the 30-pound pup. Biologists knew there was a great chance of the pup dying, because no one has ever successfully cared for a monk seal that young.
Dr. Gregg Levine, the chief veterinarian for the pup, said the most important thing at first was finding the right formula with enough nutrition since the pup didn’t nurse from its mother at all.
In August, when the pup was 3 months old, scientists felt it was ready to be introduced in the wild again and moved it to an ocean pen at the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe. There, the pup learned how to eat on its own, catching live octopus, fish and crabs.
“Our focus was, once we got this animal in, was to ensure his health and safety,” Levine said. “But we also wanted to maintain a sufficient quarantine so he could be released back into the population.”
Last week, the Coast Guard transported the pup to a location in the main Hawaiian islands with other endangered monk seals. When scientists brought him to the water’s edge and opened the cage, the pup immediately took off into the water and didn’t look back.
The monk seal, which now weighs a healthy 150 pounds, has so far successfully adapted to the wild, Schofield said.
But Levine and Schofield say it’s difficult to predict the pup’s chances of survival. The real test is seeing if the pup makes it to sexual maturity, which typically occurs when it is 5 to 7 years old.
“Thinking back on how small and scrawny that little seal was, a little bag of bones, and then seeing it fat and healthy and on its way out to the wild, it’s just the best feeling in the world,” Schofield said.
He said scientists have learned valuable lessons from this monk seal - lessons that can be used to help this endangered species.
“We’re very happy for the individual,” Schofield said. “If this population continues to decline at the rate that it is, efforts like this is going to be necessary to recover the species.”
To view complete article: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20081224_Will_to_survive.html
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China’s Largest Cyber Store Ban Shark Fin Trade
December 25th, 2008
December 25, 2008
(Beijing) - The International Fund for Animal Welfare congratulates Taobao, China’s largest shopping website for its ban on the sale of shark fin products on the site. Taobao.com announced to its 400 million online members that all shark fin products will be banned from trade on Taobao.com starting 1, January 2009…
The announcement was made as part of a campaign IFAW (IFAW-www.ifaw.org.cn) and Taobao (www.taobo.comcn) collaboratively initiated to combat online wildlife crime. In the unprecedented collaboration, IFAW and Taobao.com share information about online illegal wildlife trade and jointly raise consumer awareness about the detrimental impact wildlife trade has on species in the wild.
Asia is the main market for shark fin products. In major cities in China, shark fin soup is readily available on the menu in restaurants. With the coming of Chinese New Year Festivals, shark fin soup consumption will significantly increase.
However, fueled by big profit margins and the increase in shark fin consumption, overfishing of sharks is threatening more than 50 percent of the shark species with extinction. As top predators in the ocean, sharks play an important role in keeping ecosystem balance. However, an estimated 100 million sharks are killed globally each year.
“Consuming shark fin is not only harmful to the marine biodiversity, but promotes the cruel practice of shark finning, where sharks had their fins cut off then thrown back into the ocean, still alive, die a horribly painful death.” said Grace Gabriel, IFAW’s Asia Regional Director. “It is our choice as consumers to say No to shark fin products. Consuming wildlife equals killing.”
Taobao’s decision to ban shark fin was also applauded by its users. In an online message, an Hangzhou netizen condemns the shark fin trade by posting shocking pictures of shark finning. According to this posting, 5000 Kilos of shark fin are consumed daily in Beijing alone. Active Taobao users also call on others to report online shark fin sales to site management when the notice takes effect in January.
Peter Pueschel, IFAW’s Program Manager hailed the move. “This is really amazing and wonderful that the leading cyber market provider in the biggest shark fin consumer nation bans shark fins. What a strong signal to other auction sites and governments in other parts of the world!”
To view the complete article: http://www.divenews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6698
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The Pacific Lionfish Continues Spreading Southward in the Caribbean Region
December 25th, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
As a followup to a prior story, the invasive Pacific fish, the lionfish, has now been sighted in Belize, the first such sighting in Central America. As the species spreads southward, the Bonaire National Marine Park is making plans for its arrival on Bonaire.
Although not yet sighted in the Netherlands Antilles or Aruba, it’s only a matter of time before the lionfish makes an appearance in local waters. Certain research by Mark Albins in the Bahamas indicates that a single lionfish transplanted onto small patch reefs can reduce the recruitment of natives fishes by 80%.
Because of the effect the species may make on Bonaire’s reefs, STINAPA and the Bonaire National Marine Park are making proactive plans for the fish’s arrival.
The lionfish has no natural predators in the local Caribbean waters, which is one reason why it can easily consume a large number of small reef fish. Therefore, STINAPA is instituting a plan to use the island’s dive guides, who are in the water each day, to immediately notify the marine park when a lionfish is spotted. When this occurs, Bonaire National Marine Park staff will enter the water at that dive site, and each ranger will be carrying two aquarium-type nets, and their plan will be to catch the fish and thus remove it from the area. STINAPA does acknowledge that this plan may have to be adjusted as time passes, depending upon the number of sightings reported.
Lad Akins, from REEF, provides some valuable web site links for lionfish information and reportings of sightings. He reports that many have already been collaborating on research, education/outreach, early detection/reporting/rapid response and control, and many lessons have been learned from the past few years of intense work in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the US East Coast and the northern Caribbean.
For those of interested in staying current on lionfish distribution and new reports, please consider signing up for the USGS early warning notification system. All data that is received is forwarded into this master database and any new records of lionfish or other non-native species are broadcast to those signed up for the early warning system. You can access the site at by clicking here, and just follow the links to subscribe. For each of the records listed in the lionfish distribution map, additional information is accessed by clicking on the map dot. Records in this system are well vetted and QA generally requires an image or very strong evidence of occurrence before inclusion.
Another site of interest may be the lionfish progression map showing the spread of this invasion by year, available by clicking here. This map is updated regularly though not daily.
Sightings of lionfish and other non-native species can be reported via either the REEF Exotic Species Reporting page or the USGS NAS System. (Source: NACRI and STINAPA (Bonaire National Marine Park)
To view this article: http://www.bonaireinsider.com/index.php/bonaireinsider/the_pacific_lionfish_continues_spreading_southward_in_the_caribbean_region/
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Curse of the fish that time forgot: Believed to be extinct for 65million years - it returned with ch
December 23rd, 2008
By Samantha Weinberg Last updated at 12:32 AM on 19th December 2008
Heat cloaked the small South African city of East London like a steaming towel.
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the young curator of the local natural history museum, had just received a phone call from the captain of the trawler Nerine, to say he had landed a catch that might interest her.
She was tempted not to go to have a look; it was too hot, and she wanted to finish a display of fossils before the museum closed for the holidays. But something persuaded her it might be worth it. So she grabbed her assistant, Enoch, and caught a taxi to the wharf.
Fossils show coelacanth were alive 400million years ago - 200 million years before the first dinosaurs
The Nerine was moored nearby, with a heap of fish on its fo’c’sle deck. Marjorie hitched up her cotton dress and climbed aboard. It was while she was sorting through the sharks, starfish, sponges and rattail fishes that she noticed a blue fin sticking up from beneath the pile.
‘I picked away the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen,’ she later recalled. ‘It was 5ft long, a pale, mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange little puppy-dog tail.’
What Marjorie had stumbled on, 70 years ago this month, would change her life for ever. More than that, it would profoundly alter man’s understanding of the natural world.
For this was the first recorded specimen of a coelacanth (pronounced see-la-canth) - a fish thought to have been extinct for more than 65 million years, which was believed to be ‘the missing link’ that marked the moment when animal life first left the ocean for the land.
Previously, the coelacanth’s existence had only ever been known from fossil records that showed the species had lived as long as 400million years ago - 200 million years before dinosaurs had first walked the Earth.
Early naturalists, who had studied the fossil records, had long been puzzled and intrigued by this creature, with its lobed, limb-like fins. But it was only with the publication of Darwin’s Origin Of the Species, in 1859, and his theory of evolution, that its true significance first became apparent.
For here was a fossil species that answered the critics who poured scorn on the very idea that fish could somehow have ‘walked’ out of the sea and later diversified into the huge variety of land-based animals around us today - including man himself.
Yet even after Darwin’s theory became widely accepted, no naturalist ever imagined that coelacanths might have survived into the modern age. At least, not until Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer made her astonishing discovery amid the foetid heat of that South African dockside.
Marjorie’s find turned conventional scientific thinking on its head. But it was by no means the end of the coelacanths mystery. Not by a long chalk. For in the decades after that discovery, the coelacanth continued to defy man’s best attempts to study it.
Sightings of the coelacanth remained as rare as Yeti’s footprints
Despite the promise of vast rewards for any live specimen, sightings remained as rare as Yeti’s footprints. Yes, one or two were dredged up for the ocean depths to become museum pieces. But only a live specimen would help solve the mystery of how it had survived, unchanged and undisturbed, for so long.
What ensued was one of the greatest fishing-hunt of the last century. For some, the search would become a lifelong obsession.
Certainly, it inspired extraordinary levels of devotion and dedication. But it would also lead to greed, recklessness…and, ultimately, to a sequence of agonising deaths that raised a bizarre and haunting question: Could this ‘living fossil’ be cursed?
I saw my first coelacanth 15 years ago, in a small museum in the remote Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean, between Madagascar and Mozambique. It was pouring outside, curtains of tropical rain, and I needed shelter until the storm passed.
Wandering around the museum, my attention was drawn by the large stuffed fish in a glass case. The story on the card beside it captivated me; the tale of a creature from pre-history, who had somehow managed to survive the coming and going of dinosaurs, ice ages, and the dawn of mankind.
Like Marjorie and many others before me, I became obsessed with this, our oldest living ancestor, and determined to find out everything I could about it. The more I learned, the more intrigued I became.
An expert measures a fish caught in the Sixties
My first step was to travel to South Africa, where I spent several days with Marjorie, then a sprightly 90-year-old. She told me what had happened after she’d brought that first coelacanth back to her museum, and her desperate battle to find some way to preserve it for a closer scientific analysis.
Wheeling the fish around town on a handcart, much to the annoyance of Christmas shoppers, she had tried the mortuary and the cold storage. But there was no room at either inn.
So with the help of a friendly taxidermist, she managed to wrap the fish up in formalin-soaked newspaper and a sheet, which she borrowed from her mother.
Then she sent a letter, with a rough sketch, to her friend and mentor, Dr JLB Smith, a lecturer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, on the Eastern Cape, asking for his assistance. It was 13 anguish-filled days before Smith read Marjorie’s letter and studied her sketch.
‘I stared and stared, at first in puzzlement,’ he later wrote in Old Fourlegs, his account of the story.
‘And then a bomb seemed to burst in my brain…I was looking at a series of fishy creatures that flashed up as if on a screen, fishes no longer here, fishes that had lived in dim past ages gone, and of which only fragmentary remains in rocks are known.’ Smith was sure he was looking at a sketch of a long-extinct coelacanth, and immediately dashed off a telegraph to Marjorie, asking her to preserve the coelacanth’s body at all costs.
Coelacanths defy man’s attempts to understand them
But it was too late. The all-important innards had long been consigned to the ocean.
So distraught was Smith at this missed opportunity that he spent the next 14 years searching, obsessively, for another coelacanth. With his wife, Margaret, he scoured the southern and eastern coasts of Africa. They talked to fishermen and distributed ‘wanted’ posters across the area.
But it wasn’t until Christmas Eve, 1952, that they found what they were looking for.
It was then that Smith received a telegram from an English sea trader named Eric Hunt, informing him that a curious-looking fish had been spotted in a market in the Comoros, which he suspected might be what the naturalist was hunting for.
Smith went into a state that he later described as ‘possessed’. He was prepared to do anything necessary to get to the Comoros as quickly as possible.
His only option was to charter a plane, but since it was Christmas, only one man had the power to help him - the South African Prime Minister, DF Malan. But there was a problem: Malan was a strict Calvinist and creationist. Surely he would reject any request for help from a scientist hoping to prove Darwin’s theory of evolution was right.
Filled with despair, Smith tried phoning the Prime Minister at his Cape Town retreat. The premier came on the line - and to Smith’s eternal surprise, agreed to help.
A creature caught in the Fifties
The following day, Smith flew in a South African Air Force Dakota to the Comoros and hurried to see the fish, which was lying in state in a coffin-shaped box aboard Hunt’s schooner.
Looking at the curious specimen, the scientist could not contain his rapture: ‘I knelt down on the deck to get a closer view, and as I caressed that fish, I found tears splashing on my hands and realised I was weeping, and was quite without shame.’
Smith and his team flew the fish back to Durban to be greeted by a battery of flash bulbs. There, he spent the night in the barracks, the fish beside him, while a special detail of Zulu guards patrolled outside. By the next day, the story was on the front pages of papers around the world. The coelacanth had become an unlikely global celebrity.
Following Smith’s dramatic rescue mission, representatives of museums from every country in the world were desperate for their own display specimen, and offered enormous sums as rewards. But it seemed that coelacanth could not be caught to order.
While one or two dead specimens were successfully preserved, the ultimate prize - a live fish - remained unclaimed. Despite the best efforts of scientific expeditions, it seemed the coelacanth could not be kept alive at the sea’s surface.
Moreover, those who tried their luck often came to an unhappy end. After an illustrious career as South Africa’s most revered scientist, Smith committed suicide in 1968, when he felt his mental faculties beginning to fade.
And Eric Hunt, the English sea captain who had landed the Comoros specimen, died in a shipwreck in 1956.
Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, the coelacanth continued to excite the imagination of scientists and adventurers around the world. But it was not until the mid-Eighties that the breakthrough came, when a German animal behaviourist named Hans Fricke found and filmed a number of live coelacanths from his two-man submersible in the waters off the Comoros.
The coelacanth continues to excite the imagination of scientists and adventurers around the world
Then, in 1997, a marine biologist, Mark Erdmann, saw what he was convinced was a coelacanth in an Indonesian fish market while on his honeymoon. He took photographs and returned the next year to search for more, offering a one million rupee reward (equivalent to six months’ salary) to any fisherman who could land a fish known locally as rajah laut - the king of the sea.
Months passed. And then it happened. On July 29, 1998, (just as an elderly Marjorie was being presented with a special gold coin to commemorate her discovery) an Indonesian fisherman called Om Lameh netted a rajah laut.
It was still alive as he brought it to Mark Erdmann on the island of Bunaken, off Sulawesi. Erdmann filmed his wife swimming with the coelacanth - but it was already dying. Erdmann watched as the life went out of it, and within hours, was hard at work dissecting the coelacanth to try to work out how closely related it really was to other living creatures - and ultimately, to us.
Two days after this discovery, I arrived on Bunaken, and spent the next three months there, living in a small shack between the Erdmanns and the fishermen. I had hoped to be there when the next coelacanth was fished up, but it wasn’t to be.
The rajah laut, it seemed, was determined to remain as elusive as ever. I was disappointed, yes, but also inspired - my subsequent book about the coelacanth’s story, A Fish Caught In Time, became a surprise best-seller.
But it turned out this was not quite the end of the story. For the coelacanth continued to exert an eerie pull on naturalists - and the closer man got to its secret world, the more dangerous these encounters became. In 1998, a professional diving trainer name Riaan Bouwer was searching for coelacanths in the deep water off Sodwana Bay in South Africa, determined to be the first diver to see them.
Diving to great depths is technically complicated, requiring a specific mix of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen, as well as several stops during the ascent to prevent decompression sickness, or the bends. Tragically, Bouwer’s equipment malfunctioned, forcing him to attempt a rapid ascent to the surface. He never made it. Because his body hadn’t decompressed sufficiently, it sank back down and was never recovered.
Two years later, three more South African deep-water divers were exploring the same area. This time, they were more successful. ‘I saw this eye reflecting towards me and that made me curious,’ said expedition leader Pieter Venter. ‘I approached, and underneath an overhang, I saw a fish of about two metres long.’
After a few seconds, he realised it was a coelacanth. But he had no camera. ‘It was like seeing a UFO without taking a photograph,’ he said. He immediately started planning a return trip with a camera crew.
On November 27, 2000, they dived down to 115 metres. At that depth, they would have only 15 minutes of time at the bottom before their air ran out. They moved from cavern to cavern against a long wall of a canyon. Twelve minutes into their dive they got lucky: they found and filmed three coelacanths, all hovering in such a way that it made them seem as if they were standing on their heads.
The dive team were thrilled - but in a bizarre repeat of the earlier tragedy, disaster struck again. One of the team’s cameramen lost consciousness, forcing his diving buddy, Dennis Harding, to rush him to the surface. From a depth like that, a safe ascent should take around two hours. They had to do it in minutes.
The two men made it to their boat, but after helping his buddy on board, Harding started to complain of neck pains. Shortly afterwards, he died from a massive cerebral embolism brought on by his rapid ascent.
The curse of the coelacanth had struck again - just as it would do the following year, when yet another diver, Erna Smith, died in the same waters while practising for another coelacanth expedition.
In three years, then, the coelacanth had claimed the lives of three divers. It was almost as if death and suffering was the price paid by those who dared to intrude on the king of the sea’s private realm. Ultimately, though, the mystery of the coelacanth couldn’t last. In 2004, the first of 15 specimens was caught - this time, off the coast of Tanzania. Today, they are being caught at an increasing rate, not least on account of an intensification of trawling, particularly by Japanese fishing boats, near the coelacanth’s habitat.
In one way, this signifies hope that there might be many more groups of these astonishing creatures living undisturbed around the world. But it is also worrying for those of us who see the coelacanth as not just a fish, but almost a spiritual talisman of life’s infinite mystery.
The South African, Comoran, Tanzanian and Indonesian governments have recently announced measures to limit fishing in the areas where coelacanths are known to live. I only hope they succeed - and that the coelacanth will find a way to endure, as it has done for 70 million years, a haunting symbol of eternity in our transient and troubled times.
To view this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1097925/Curse-fish-time-forgot-Believed-extinct-65million-years–returned-chilling-consequences.html#
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Humpback whale rescue
December 22nd, 2008
Divers rescue a humpback whale in Mexico after being trapped in a fishing net.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11183124
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Last chunk of old Dupont heads to Gulf floor
December 20th, 2008
PARKER — A 180-foot section of the old Dupont Bridge was buried at sea Friday, destined to become an artificial reef to be used by anglers and scuba divers.
A tugboat pulled a barge carrying the 375-ton steel trussell under the new Dupont bridge at about 8:30 a.m. Friday, and headed for the reef site, about 10 miles out. Officials hope the former bridge will become a breeding and feeding ground for aquatic life.
“It’s just a tremendous asset for this whole area,” said Bay County Commissioner Bill Dozier of the old bridge/new reef.
The bridge served as the connection from Parker to Tyndall Air Force Base until it was closed in the early 1970s. Fishers used the old bridge until January 2006, when it was deemed structurally unsound.
The reef effort is part of the state Department of Transportation’s $3.3- million demolition project slated to be completed next summer. The third bridge chunk rests in about 95 feet of water, 1,800 feet away from the second section, which is about 1,000 feet away from the first.
“Throughout the Panhandle … there really are no natural structures, like limestone rocks or coral reefs, like you have down in South Florida. It’s mainly just a sandy, flat bottom; there’s nothing there,” said Brian Cameron, an official with the University of Florida’s Bay County Extension who worked on the reef project.
Fish will begin to poke around the new addition to the ocean floor in the next few days, according to Cameron, and the old bridge could soon be teeming with snapper, grouper, crabs, pin fish, sea turtles, barnacles and more. The steel truss will not pollute the water, Cameron said, or do any other harm to the underwater ecosystem.
“It’s providing a habitat for these fish, and shelter from hurricanes and predator fish,” Cameron said. “It also brings a lot of interest in terms of diving as well as fishing, and in turn, when those people come down here they are spending money, they are staying in hotels, and going out to dinner. Overall, it’s really good.”
ON THE WEB: To view a video and a photo gallery of the Dupont Bridge dismantling, go to www.newsherald.com.
To view the article: http://www.newsherald.com/news/last_70500___article.html/chunk_old.html
