Ocean Currents » Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org News, opinions, photos and facts from Ocean Conservancy Mon, 25 Jul 2016 15:00:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 Tackling Ocean Acidification in Florida http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/07/06/tackling-ocean-acidification-in-florida/ http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/07/06/tackling-ocean-acidification-in-florida/#comments Wed, 06 Jul 2016 14:27:36 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/?p=12385

As the state representative for the Florida Keys and South Miami-Dade County, there are few things more important to our well-being than the health of our unique marine environment. We are home to the Everglades, the 3rd largest barrier reef in the world and the only living barrier reef in the continental United States. Since I took office, I have made it a priority to do everything I can to help raise awareness about our water issues in Tallahassee and we’ve made great progress in the last four years when it comes to improving water quality.

Despite this progress, there are still many stressors facing Florida’s oceans and ocean acidification (OA) is a particularly significant threat. Its impacts on our marine ecosystems are less visible so it has not been as widely discussed as other environmental threats, but that is starting to change, and I am excited to help bring further awareness to this issue. Side effects of acidification like decreases in coral reproduction, growth and calcification as well as slower shellfish growth mean that this is not an issue we can afford to ignore. Already, other fisheries across the country are seeing serious economic impacts from OA and if it continues unchecked, the impacts to Florida businesses and residents could be equally devastating.

I was first introduced to this issue by fellow lawmakers in Washington who have been aggressively researching OA after the Northwest lost 75% of their oyster larvae due to the increasing acidity levels. In the Florida Keys, our two biggest economic drivers are tourism and commercial/recreational fishing, so it is up to us to proactively start addressing the impacts of OA before our fisheries and tourism industries are adversely impacted. That’s why I was extremely excited to participate in a stakeholder workshop on this issue with the Ocean Conservancy and the University of Miami. The workshop provided an incredible opportunity for stakeholders on all sides of this issue to get together and discuss not just the science of OA but what policy decisions and approaches we can take moving forward to try and mitigate the risks to Florida’s oceans.

In order to move forward on this issue, we need to have a broad coalition of support and input and I believe that this workshop was a wonderful step in raising awareness and creating a framework for collaboration between stakeholders. Our waterways and reefs are our lifeblood. It is that collaboration and coordination among different groups that will help us drive this issue forward at the state level, find meaningful ways to combat the effects of ocean acidification, and protect the many industries that depend on a healthy marine environment.

Representative Holly Raschein is a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing the 120th District, which includes Monroe County and southern Miami-Dade County, since 2012.

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Poles Apart: The Differences between Antarctica and the Arctic http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/06/30/poles-apart-the-differences-between-antarctica-and-the-arctic/ http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/06/30/poles-apart-the-differences-between-antarctica-and-the-arctic/#comments Thu, 30 Jun 2016 13:00:09 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/?p=12378


Have you ever seen a cartoon or advertisement that showed penguins and polar bears cavorting together in the snow?

On the flip side, have you ever seen a documentary film that showed penguins and polar bears together in the wild? Didn’t think so, since they live poles apart. Nevertheless, not everyone (advertisers included) understands the difference between Antarctica and the Arctic. Here are eight ways to tell them apart.

1. The Arctic is the area that lies north of the Arctic Circle (66 degrees 33 minutes north, for GPS buffs). The circle more or less marks the southern extent of the region that experiences 24 hours of sunlight in summer, and 24 hours of darkness in winter; it also marks the area where the average temperature for July, the area’s warmest month, is below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The Antarctic lies south of the Antarctic Circle and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean.

2. The geographic North Pole is positioned at the northernmost point in the Arctic; the geographic South Pole is the southernmost point of the Antarctic. The geographic North Pole should not be confused with magnetic north, toward which compasses point and the position of which varies with time.

3. The Arctic region includes the Arctic Ocean, parts of Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Norway and Russia, and covers about 5.5 million square miles. The Antarctic covers nearly the same area, 5.4 million square miles.

4. The Arctic Ocean accounts for more than five million square miles of the Arctic region. During much of the year, the Arctic Ocean is covered in sea ice that can exceed six feet thick. The Arctic is therefore a watery realm, fed by waters from the surrounding seas as well as by large rivers, such as Russia’s Lena and Canada’s Mackenzie. The Arctic Ocean has an average depth of 3,240 feet and a maximum depth of 18,050 feet.

5.. With an average winter temperature of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the Arctic is balmy compared to the Antarctic, where winter temperatures in the interior have sunk to minus 136 degrees Fahrenheit, the world’s record for cold temperatures.

6. Freezing temperatures and long stretches without sunlight limit plant growth at both poles. The Antarctic is home to only three terrestrial flowering plant species—Antarctic hair grass, Antarctic pearlwort and nonnative blue grass. Most of the plants in the Antarctic are mosses, liverworts, lichens and fungi. 1,700 different species of plants that grow in the arctic tundra (arctic and sub-arctic).

One problem for polar plants is that neither region receives much precipitation. The Arctic gets an average of less than 20 inches of annual precipitation, and the Antarctic is functionally a desert—the area around the South Pole gets six inches of precipitation in an average year.

7. Compared to the Antarctic, mammals abound in the Arctic on seasonal sea ice. The polar bear, the largest terrestrial carnivore in the world, hunts on the sea ice in winter, and summers on land where it fasts or leavens its diet with plants and other foods, including carrion. The polar bear does not live in the Antarctic. The northern reaches of the globe also are home to wolves, arctic foxes, snowy owls, ptarmigans, wolverines and ground squirrel species, as well as marine species such as walruses, whales and various seals and sea lions. The area also is a breeding ground for many migratory waterfowl species.

The Antarctic lacks many of these animals, but what it does house is impressive. Consider the southern elephant seal, one of the largest pinnipeds (the group that includes seals, sea lions and walruses). Adult males grow to about 19 feet long and average about 7,000 pounds. The Weddell seal, another native species, has the southernmost range of any seal, showing up at 77 degrees south in McMurdo Sound. It ranges throughout marine waters around Antarctic, maintaining its bulk of up to almost 1,400 pounds by eating an array of fish, krill, squid and other sea animals. The Antarctic is home to several penguin species—birds that don’t live north of the Equator, let alone in the Arctic. They feed on sea life and are preyed upon by the leopard seal, a relative of the Weddell’s. The ocean surrounding Antarctica produces vast quantities of krill, which feeds creatures ranging from whales to penguins to fish.

8. Humans have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years. The Antarctic, surrounded by rough, forbidding waters, was never seen (as far as history knows) by humans until 1820, and no human set foot on the continent until 1821, when an American seal hunter John Davis debarked from a ship near Cape Charles in West Antarctica. However, Davis’s claim to fame is contested—some historians maintain that the first documented visit by humans occurred at Cape Adare in 1895. Either way, human arrival on the fifth-largest continent is a recent development. Today, some research stations are active in the Antarctic. Various treaties protect the continent and its oceans from exploitation, to one extent or another.

The Arctic is not so lucky, so an international scramble to lay claim to parts of it and its natural resources, such as its abundant oil reserves, is sure to arise as winter sea ice continues more than 30 years of shrinking at a rate of three to four percent per decade. Such trends suggest that the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at more than twice the rate of the global average, may be free of summer sea ice within the next 30-40 years.






10 Things to Know About Sea Turtles http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/06/16/10-things-to-know-about-sea-turtles/ http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/06/16/10-things-to-know-about-sea-turtles/#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:00:48 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/?p=12205




1. Sea turtles are reptiles, like snakes and lizards, and breathe air. They first evolved about 150 million years ago, making them survivors of the Age of Dinosaurs. The first turtles were land animals that probably looked much like the tortoises of today, with powerful, column-like legs designed to support a heavy body. Evolution turned these elephantine legs into flippers as the creatures adapted to a life of swimming. Today turtles swim in all oceans except those in the chilly Polar Regions.

2. The most obvious characteristic of any turtle is its shell. It evolved from the ribs into a box of bone covered in tough skin that protects all but the head, tail and flippers. The shell is part of the turtle’s spine and forms a sort of outer skeleton reminiscent of the exoskeletons of insects and spiders.

3. The ocean is home to seven turtle species: the leatherback, loggerhead, olive ridley, hawksbill, flatback, green and Kemp’s ridley.

4.  Sea turtles begin life in leathery-shelled eggs laid in holes dug by their mothers in sand. Depending on the species, a female may produce 50 to 200 eggs at a time, most species laying them at night. About 60 days later, the eggs hatch within a few minutes of each other and the babies races to the sea, often assaulted by a gamut of predators like crabs, gulls, raccoons and sharks. A female may lay as many as eight clutches per breeding season. On average, about one hatchling per 1,000 survives to adulthood.

5. The largest sea turtle is the leatherback, which possesses a flexible, leathery shell. It reaches a length of four to eight feet and weighs 500-2,000 pounds—not bad for a reptile that feeds mostly on jellyfish. Its search for food can take it down to 4,000 feet and across hundreds of miles: they can easily migrate 3,600 miles each way.

6. The smallest sea turtle is the Kemp’s ridley, which measures less than 30 inches long and weighs less than 100 pounds. The Kemp’s has the most-restricted nesting range of any sea turtle species—one beach, about 15 miles long, near Rancho Nuevo in Mexico. Unlike other sea turtles, Kemp’s ridleys usually lay eggs during the day and in massive groups, called arribadas (Spanish for “arrival”). In the 1940s, an arribada typically would number around 40,000 females. By the 1980s, as a result of uncontrolled collection of eggs and meat for human food, the entire The Mexican government has enforced stricter provisions on egging, and the United States has a  nesting beach in Texas where more than 100 females have laid eggs yearly for the past decade. Biologists raise the hatchlings in captivity until they are large enough to have an edge on survival, then release them from the beach where they hatched.

7. Young turtles head to the open sea, returning later to offshore and reef areas to feed. Some species travel hundreds of miles. The flatback sea turtle, however, restricts its activities to seas off Australia.

8. Sea turtles can rest underwater without breathing for up to two hours. When seeking food or evading predators, they need to surface for air more frequently.

9. All sea turtles are omnivorous when young, but the green sea turtle becomes purely herbivorous as an adult. As omnivores, the turtles will scarf down seaweed, sponges, mollusks, worms, fish and other sea life. However, leatherbacks tend to eat almost exclusively jellyfish, some of which can grow to be several feet across.

10. The average lifespan for a sea turtle is hard to nail down, given that they live for several decades and few research projects last that long. Current conventional wisdom suggests that they reach breeding age anywhere between age 3 and 50 and may live 80 to 100 years, though these figures are ballpark.












But you do need to be prepared.





10 Things to Know About the Walrus http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/05/19/10-things-to-know-about-the-walrus/ http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/05/19/10-things-to-know-about-the-walrus/#comments Thu, 19 May 2016 13:30:41 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/?p=12079





3. Walruses depend on sea ice, and spend much of the summer on flows from which they dive into relatively shallow waters in search of food. In winter, the walruses go to shore and feed in near-shore waters. They communicate with grunting and roaring sounds.

4. Despite their size and their ability to stay underwater for up to half an hour, walruses are not deep divers—they usually feed at depths of less than 300 feet.

5. Walruses find much of their food by poking around on the ocean floor. When a walrus finds a tasty crab or clam buried in sand, it creates powerful suction with its mouth to vacuum it up. Walruses are not picky eaters—they feed mainly on mollusks, but will also eat worms, cephalopods, crustaceans and more. They even nosh on an occasional seal, though observations of walruses hunting their close relatives are rare.

6. Walruses are able to locate buried food thanks to the 400-700 stiff bristles, or vibrissae, which grow on their muzzles. Like a cat’s whiskers, vibrissae are sensitive to touch, telling the walrus when it has come in contact with an appropriate food. Vibrissae can grow up to a foot long, but scraping against sand and rock usually keeps them shorter.

7. Adult walruses have few enemies, mostly due to their massive size and sharp tusks, which can grow to more than three feet long. Bears sometimes attack young walruses, as do orcas. A bear attack on a beached walrus herd can make the pinnipeds rush headlong for the safety of water, causing injuries to adult walruses in the general crush and making them vulnerable to bear attacks.

8. The scientific name for the walrus genus is Odobenus, which is Greek for “tooth walker,” so-called because walruses sometimes use their tusks to haul themselves onto ice.

9. The brownish, heavily seamed skin of the walrus is over 1.5 inches thick and covers a layer of blubber that can get to 3.9 inches thick.  The skin grows paler as the animals age, until the dark brown of the young fades to cinnamon in mature animals. The color depends partly on blood flow to the skin; when in cold water, blood flow to the skin reduces, so the skin of a pink walrus can turn nearly white.

10. Walruses breed from January to March while winter is in full swing, and females give birth about 16 months later. A newborn calf can weigh 100 to 165 pounds and may stay with the mother for two years or more, though usually weaned after a year.

The Ocean Conservancy is using science-based solutions to tackle the biggest threats to our ocean, including ones that threaten walruses and other wildlife. See how you can take action.

10 Things to Know about Penguins http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/04/25/10-things-to-know-about-penguins/ http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/04/25/10-things-to-know-about-penguins/#comments Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:25:00 +0000 Guest Blogger http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/?p=11981

Adelie penguin


The tuxedo seems to have two separate origins. Why the fashion industry came up with the tux, and why it hasn’t vanished with the top hat, is tough to say. But why penguins evolved into tuxedo-wearing birds is pretty clear: The white belly makes them harder to spot when viewed in water from below against the surface of a sunlit sea, and the black back does the same against the dark ocean surface. It’s all about tricking predators. The survival of this monochromatic color scheme in all 17 penguin species is a measure of how well it has worked in nature’s often-unforgiving game of survival.

Here are ten other fun facts to know about penguins.

1. Penguins are birds designed by evolution for swimming rather than flying. Their wings have turned into flippers, and though they usually walk upright on land, some drop on to their bellies to scoot over ice. Most species cruise underwater at an average speed of 4-7 miles per hour, but the Gentoo can speed up to 22 miles per hour.

2. All penguins live south of the equator. Although we often associate them with Antarctic, they also occur farther north on beaches and rocky shores in coastal South America, the Galapagos Islands, Australia and South Africa.

3. The largest penguin you will ever see trundling around the Antarctic is the emperor, which can stand in excess of 3.5 feet tall and weigh nearly 80 pounds, roughly the weight of two or three Thanksgiving turkeys. The emperor is also the only bird species that nests in the Antarctic during the winter, when temperatures can drop below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Emperor penguins

4. The smallest penguin is the little blue or fairy penguin, which grows barely more than two pounds and 16 inches tall and is found in Australia and New Zealand.

5. The largest known penguin of all time is Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi or giant penguin, which lived more than 37 million years ago, stood 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. Its rival in size, the New Zealand giant, dates from around 30 million years ago, stood 5 feet tall and weighed close to 130 pounds.

6. Small penguins usually feed at the surface of the sea, rarely diving for more than a couple minutes. The emperor, however, can dive for more than 20 minutes, reaching depths in excess of 1,800 feet to feed on fish, squid, krill and other crustaceans.

7. Penguins can drink sea water. Salt is filtered from the blood by special glands and the salt is secreted from the nasal passages.

Magellanic penguins

8. With the exception of yellow-eyed and Fiordland penguins, these birds are colonial nesters, gathering in breeding groups that range in number from 100 pairs among gentoo penguins to several hundred thousand in the king, macaroni and chinstrap species. In most species, each pair produces two eggs, though emperor and king penguins—the two largest living species—usually lay only one egg. Among emperors, males incubate the eggs, but in all other species mom and dad take turns. The little blue penguin lays the smallest eggs, about 2 ounces, and the emperor pops out the largest, which can weigh a full pound.

9. In the Antarctic, penguins have no land predators, though skuas—gull-like, predatory birds—may feed on eggs and hatchlings. Consequently, penguins have no fear of people and may approach to with a few feet of Antarctic visitors. This defenseless behavior might have proved fatal for penguin species, as it did for other flightless birds such as the dodo and the great auk, wiped out centuries ago by ship crews who took them for food. But Antarctic penguins got lucky. Surrounded by dangerously rough seas and harsh climate, the Antarctic proved a penguin haven. No human set foot there until the 1800s.

10. The oldest known penguin species, Waimanu manneringi, was found in New Zealand as a 62-million-year-old fossil. Looking something like a loon, it had short wings designed for diving but not flight.

The Ocean Conservancy is using science-based solutions to tackle the biggest threats to our ocean, including ones that threaten penguins and other wildlife. See how you can take action here.

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