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Happy Friday, everyone!

This week in ocean news,





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10 Tips for Sustainable Sushi Eating

Oceana recently helped out Planet Green with a blog post about how you can order sustainable seafood while still enjoying your sushi. Faced with threats such as overfishing, climate change, and ocean acidification, the oceans are in danger of collapse. Here are 10 tips from the post about how to do your part and order sustainable seafood:

1. Know your catch. Stick with wild, locally-caught fish, which is usually more eco-friendly than farmed fish that has to be transported a great distance. Also look for special-caught fish (line, poll, troll, diver-caught, and sustainably caught/harvested) instead of fish caught in huge nets on factory farming ships.

2. Say NO to “Toro.” Bluefin tuna, also known as “Toro,” is the most endangered fish you can order at a sushi restaurant. But if you have to eat tuna, we suggest US Pacific Albacore, Bigeye, and Yellowfin instead.

3. Forget about farm-raised salmon. Farm-raised salmon, a.k.a. "Atlantic" salmon creates a lot of pollution from fish waste, and are often fed unapproved antibiotics to combat prevalent diseases.

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Whale Wednesday: Beluga to the Rescue

Here's a heartwarming story for you this WW, again featuring the playful beluga: Mila the beluga whale guided a free diver back to the surface when she was struck with wicked leg cramps during a competition. In freezing cold water without any breathing equipment, Yang Yun felt paralyzed during a free diving contest at Polar Land in Harbin, China. She and the other participants had to dive to the bottom of the aquarium’s arctic tank and stay there for as long as possible among the beluga whales. Yun began to sink, thinking she was done for, until she felt something pushing her up. It was Mila's nose guiding Yun safely back to the surface. Belugas' facial muscles allow them to smile -- and I'm sure Mila and Yun both were grinning big after this episode.

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Gulf Dead Zone Shrinks, Intensifies

dead zone

Would you like the good news or the bad news first? Personally, I’ve always been a bad-then-good-news person, so here’s the bad: scientists have found that a dead zone, a region of water with very low oxygen levels, in the Gulf of Mexico has a much deeper and thicker level of low-oxygen (hypoxic) water in some parts of the Gulf than normal. The good? That same dead zone is smaller than expected—it is about 3000 square miles instead of the predicted 8000 square miles. Essentially, this dead zone is smaller, but more concentrated in areas.

In an article published Monday in The New York Times, Henry Fountain explores the effects of this discovery. While the smaller area means less disruption for marine animals such as shrimp and crab, the organisms in the hypoxic areas were “obviously stressed.”

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Chile's Antibiotic Abuse


After Oceana requested information about the use of antibiotics in Chile’s salmon industry, Chile’s Ministry of Economy revealed for the first time ever that Chile used about 718,000 pounds of antibiotics in 2008 and 850,000 pounds in 2007. In an article titled "Chile’s Antibiotic Use on Salmon Farms Dwarfs That of a Top Rival’s" in Sunday’s The New York Times, Alex Muñoz, Oceana’s vice president for South America, was quoted criticizing Chile’s overuse of antibiotics in its salmon farms.

The world’s second biggest salmon exporter, Chile uses the antibiotics to control the spread of viruses and other fish-borne illnesses that kill millions of salmon. In addition, the report revealed that about one-third of Chile’s antibiotics are not approved for use in the US by the US Food and Drug Administration.

In 2008, Oceana submitted a plan to reduce and regulate antibiotics in salmon aquaculture to the Chilean government. Muñoz, says that "the ministry’s numbers confirm that the Chilean salmon industry has abused the use of antibiotics. They also show that the Chilean government has placed a higher priority on ensuring the profitability of a business sector than protecting consumers and the nation’s ecosystems."

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TGIF, everyone!

This week in ocean news,




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An Evening for Shark Conservation




To RSVP for the event, e-mail or call 202-482-2782.

We'll see you there!

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Whale Wednesday: Beluga Spit

beluga whales

How much would you pay to get spit on by a beluga whale? If the answer is $200, then head on over to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium and their new Beluga Encounter. The new 90,000 gallon tank has an area where trainers and participants can walk in the water and allow the whales to swim right up to them. Participants can rub the whales’ skin, scratch their tongues, listen to the whales’ songs, and, yes, get spit on as the beluga whales demonstrate how they hunt for fish. The program is safe for the beluga whales, who are around human trainers every day anyway. Ken Ramirez, the aquarium’s senior vice president for animal collections and training says, “the animals enjoy it, and the people enjoy it.”

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Oceans Are the Answer

Oceans have always been, and still are, the solution to many of Earth’s problems, argues Sam Waterston, an esteemed actor currently in Law & Order and also on Oceana’s board of directors, in an op-ed piece in Friday’s The Miami Herald. The oceans have been a source of food and wealth, a barrier to unwanted threats, and a sink for our waste and carbon dioxide.

But the seas are also giving us a clear warning sign that something's seriously wrong: ocean acidification.

Fortunately, Waterston argues, “the oceans are ready to be a solution.” From offshore wind power to tidal power, the oceans offer, once again, a stable answer to our problems.

"Carbon dioxide in the sea is the front line of climate change," he writes. "Reverse the trend toward ocean acidification, and we will have made a giant stride in addressing the impacts of climate change. The sea is warning us to change course and calling us to seize enormous opportunities. Now."

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A Golden Endeavor



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