Best of our wild blogs: 11 Sep 10

Oil-spill check on Tanah Merah, part 2
from wild shores of singapore

golden orb-web spider
from into the wild

Monkey menace
from Life's Indulgences

5-star shore
from The annotated budak and into the wild

The Hardworking Rain God
from Macro Photography in Singapore

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Philippines creates task force to monitor coral bleaching

GMANews 10 Sep 10;

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Friday ordered the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau to create a task force that will monitor and document coral bleaching in the country.

The DENR made this directive following scientists and divers’ reports of a massive bleaching of coral reefs in the country due to warmer-than-usual ocean water temperature.

“Coral bleaching is among the many impacts of climate change that the country is expected to experience," DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said in a statement.

He said archipelagic Philippines bears the brunt of some negative impacts of climate change even though the “national emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming is very little."

Apart from monitoring coral bleaching, the task force is also expected to provide technical assistance to the local government units on how to minimize coral stress such as pollution control and solid-waste management of coastal communities, Paje said.

The task force would have to come up with recommendations on how to manage marine-protected areas and to restore and restock coral reefs, the DENR chief added.

According to Miledel Christine Quibilan of the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science Institute in her paper “Coral Bleaching Watch Philippines 2010," areas confirmed to be undergoing coral bleaching include some towns in Batangas, Quezon, and Oriental Mindoro.

Coral bleaching is also reported in some areas in Ilocos, Pangasinan, Zambales, Iloilo, Bohol, Zamboanga Sibugay, and Davao, Quibilan noted.

The worst bleaching observed is in northern Palawan, particularly in Calamianes, Taytay, and El Nido, Quibilan added.

Coral reefs in the country are estimated to cover some 27,000 square kilometers, nurturing around 430 species of coral fauna.

Recent studies also indicate that at least 3,000 species of fish plus thousands of other marine plants and animals are found thriving in the country’s coastal and marine habitats. —JE/OMG, GMANews.TV

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Malaysia : Widespread Coral Bleaching In Sepanggar Bay Serves As Reminder

Newmond Tibin Bernama 11 Sep 10;

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 11 (Bernama) -- The recent discovery of widespread coral bleaching off Sepanggar Bay should serve as a reminder that the marine ecosystem demands attention, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Director of Borneo Marine Research Institute Prof Dr Saleem Mustafa said.

He also said that carbon emissions had serious implications to the oceans.

"Oceans take up almost half of the carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Absorption of more of carbon dioxide results in acidification of seawater.

"This interferes with the calcifying activity of corals, thereby weakening their calcium carbonate skeletons. Coupled with this stress is the rise in sea water temperature that effectively disrupts the symbiotic relationship between corals and the nutrient gathering zooxanthellae... this manifests in whitening of corals called 'bleaching'," he told Bernama, here.

On July 29, this year, Saleem disclosed that UMS scientists, among them M. Ali, Aw Soo Ling and Dr Abentin Estim noticed bleaching in some areas of Sepanggar Bay.

"We cannot ignore that there are some 4,000 species of fish that live in or around coral reefs in the world.

"The reef fisheries provide sustenance to 200 million people worldwide. Sabah is home to 70 to 75 per cent of coral reefs found in Malaysia and the live reef fish trade earns millions of dollars annually that accounts for a major share of the total earnings of artisanal fishermen," he said.

Saleem said the Sabah part of the Sulu and Sulawesi seas were biodiversity hotspots.

He said marine biodiversity supported the functioning of the ocean ecosystem which in turn provided more goods and services to human beings.

The diversity also strengthened the ecosystem's resilience needed in the face of growing human footprint in the oceans, he said.

"Climate change is a global environmental phenomenon and combating it requires global efforts.

"However, its effects are more severe when the resilience of marine habitats and inhabitants is low," he added.

Saleem said building such resilience needed action plans that could be implemented locally and done collectively.

"The time has come for us to do valuation of our marine resources as an essential component of integrated coastal zone management, and to develop ecologically compatible and socially acceptable programmes of action," he said.

-- BERNAMA

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Endangered Hawksbill sea turtle numbers show signs of hope

New paper in the journal Oryx shows 'comparatively optimistic' number of hawksbill nests were found between 2007 and 2009
David Malakoff for Conservation Magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk 10 Sep 10;

Things may not be as bleak as they once seemed for one endangered sea turtle. A new survey finds that hawksbill turtles are more widespread in the eastern Pacific than earlier studies had suggested. Still, the "comparatively optimistic" findings still show that the turtle continues to be highly endangered and will need help to survive.

The hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricate) is found around the world in tropical seas, but is deemed "critically endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In part, that's because the turtle has been heavily hunted for its elaborately colored shell, which is prized by jewelry and crafts makers. Whole turtles are also killed, stuffed, and sold as curios. By the 1980s, biologists feared the species was essentially extinct in the eastern Pacific, where it was once common from Mexico to Ecuador. It is now considered the rarest marine turtle in the region.

To get a better picture of how the hawksbill was faring, in June 2008 sea turtle experts gathered in El Salvador to share data and identify possible conservation strategies. Now, in the journal Oryx, the multinational team presents some encouraging news: Surveys conducted between January 2007 and May 2009 found hawksbills nesting on beaches in 6 nations in the eastern Pacific, and swimming in coastal waters off 7 nations. Overall, researchers spotted 540 nests, with nearly 80% in El Salvador. Mexico ranked first in swimming turtles, with about 60% of the 73 animals recorded, according to the study, which was published online on August 27.

The numbers are preliminary, in part because the surveys were limited and the animals tend to use remote beaches for nesting. Still, they suggest that El Salvador "hosts the largest known remaining hawksbill turtle rookeries in the eastern Pacific, highlighting the urgent need to consolidate protection, conservation and research for the species there." One continuing threat is "bomb fishing," or the use of explosives to kill or stun fish and force them to the surface. The number of turtles found off Mexico, meanwhile, underscores "the importance of the country's waters as a foraging and nursery area." But it also poses a puzzle, since the turtles don't seem to be nesting in Mexico. One possibility is that Mexican waters serve as "an important migratory pathway or developmental area."

Overall, the findings suggest just a few hundred turtles reproduce annually along more than 15,000 kilometers of coastline. Still, "the pervasiveness of the species in the region suggests potential for conservation and recovery," the authors conclude. So far, they add, the hawksbill has gotten relatively little attention from conservationists in the region, so even a modest increase in effort might bring significant gains.

Source: Gaos, A., Abreu-Grobois, F., Alfaro-Shigueto, J., Amorocho, D., Arauz, R., Baquero, A., Briseño, R., Chacón, D., Dueñas, C., Hasbún, C., Liles, M., Mariona, G., Muccio, C., Muñoz, J., Nichols, W., Peña, M., Seminoff, J., Vásquez, M., Urteaga, J., Wallace, B., Yañez, I., & Zárate, P. (2010). Signs of hope in the eastern Pacific: international collaboration reveals encouraging status for the severely depleted population of hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata. Oryx, 1-7 DOI: 10.1017/S0030605310000773

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Freshwater turtles face 'bleak future'

Jonathan Amos BBC News 10 Sep 10;

Freshwater turtles are in catastrophic decline, according to a new analysis by Conservation International (CI).

The group says more than a third of the estimated 280 species around the world are now threatened with extinction.

The unsustainable collection of turtles for food and to supply a lucrative pet trade are the key drivers behind the fall in numbers.

Habitat loss as a result of river-damming for hydro-electricity is another major concern.

Dr Peter Paul van Dijk, the director of Conservation International's Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Conservation Programme, said the outlook was bleak.

"These are animals that take 15-20 years to reach maturity and then live for another 30-40 years, putting a clutch of eggs in the ground every year. They play the odds, hoping that in that 50-year lifetime, some of their hatchlings will somehow evade predators and go on to breed themselves.

"But if you take these animals out before they've reached 15 and can reproduce, it all ends there," he told BBC News.
'Eco-warning'

Unlike their ocean counterparts, freshwater turtles are adapted to live far up river systems, even into small foothill streams. They populate lakes, rivers, estuaries; there are also some species that will tolerate saltmarshes and mangroves.

But the 11 families that comprise this collection of shelled creatures have seen their numbers fall relentlessly over the past two decades.

The turtles are highly prized across Asia, particularly in China, where their consumption is perceived to have medicinal benefits.

The market is so large it is now also being supplied by farms.

On top of this exploitation, some of their river habitats are being degraded.

"They need to have natural flow patterns in rivers otherwise their nests on the sandbank high up get flooded at the wrong time of year," explained Dr van Dijk.

"They need clear water so they can see what they're eating. They need underwater plants which can only grow if the water isn't too turbid. So, to some extent they can be seen as a proxy for the health of river systems."
Farming solution

The species in deepest trouble is probably the red river giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei). There are only four individuals remaining alive in the world. Efforts to get two long-term captive animals in China to breed have not met with success.

Two batagur species - the red-crowned river turtle and the Myanmar river turtle - have been hit particularly hard by collectors.

The red-crowned species was once widespread throughout the great rivers of northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal, but it has now been reduced to a single viable population in the "unholy" Chambal River of central India.

The Myanmar species was actually thought to be extinct for much of the last century. Once abundant in the Irrawaddy river system of Myanmar (Burma), its populations have dwindled to under a dozen mature animals in the upper Chindwin river.

Egg collection, hunting and habitat loss as a result of dams and gold mining are blamed. A captive population is being built up for re-introduction programme.

"All the tonnage of turtle that people want to consume can be satisfied by farming," Dr van Dijk said. "If we can eliminate the unsustainable collection from the wild, we have 80% of the battle won. Beyond that, it's a matter of habitat management for minimal impact on turtles and all the other wildlife in those habitats."

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Scientists Find Thick Layer Of Oil On Gulf Seafloor

Richard Harris NPR 10 Sep 10;

Scientists on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico are finding a substantial layer of oily sediment stretching for dozens of miles in all directions. Their discovery suggests that a lot of oil from the Deepwater Horizon didn't simply evaporate or dissipate into the water — it has settled to the seafloor.

The Research Vessel Oceanus sailed on Aug. 21 on a mission to figure out what happened to the more than 4 million barrels of oil that gushed into the water. Onboard, Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, says she suddenly has a pretty good idea about where a lot of it ended up. It's showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast.

"I've collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico, including around this area. And I've never seen anything like this," she said in an interview via satellite phone from the boat.

Joye describes seeing layers of oily material — in some places more than 2 inches thick — covering the bottom of the seafloor.

"It's very fluffy and porous. And there are little tar balls in there you can see that look like microscopic cauliflower heads," she says.

It's very clearly a fresh layer. Right below it she finds much more typical seafloor mud. And in that layer, she finds recently dead shrimp, worms and other invertebrates.

'A Slime Highway'

How did the oily sediment get there? Joye says it's possible that chemical dispersants might have sunk some oil, but it's also likely that natural systems are playing an important role.

"The organisms that break down oil excrete mucus — copious amounts of mucus," Joye says. "So it's kind of like a slime highway from the surface to the bottom. Because eventually the slime gets heavy and it sinks."

That sticky material can pick up oil particles as it sinks. Joye can't yet say with certainty that the oily layer is from BP's blown-out well.

"We have to [chemically] fingerprint it and link it to the Deepwater Horizon," she says. "But the sheer coverage here is leading us all to come to the conclusion that it has to be sedimented oil from the oil spill, because it's all over the place."

So far, the research vessel has traveled in a large "X" across the Gulf within a few dozen miles of the well. Scientists have taken eight sets of samples, and Joye says they all contain this layer. It's thin in some places, inches thick in others. Eventually, scientists hope to collect enough samples to figure out how much oil is now settling to the seafloor.

"It's starting to sound like a tremendous amount of oil. And we haven't even sampled close to the wellhead yet," she says.

A Blizzard Of Oil

Last month, another research group also reported finding oil on the seafloor. Researchers at the University of South Florida say they saw oil particles sprinkled on top of the mud. These new findings strongly suggest that it didn't just drizzle oil — in some places it was a blizzard.

David Hollander, from the University of South Florida, says the government's original attempt to figure out what happened to the oil toted up how much washed ashore, how much evaporated and how much might have stayed under the waves. But it didn't consider that oil could also end up on the seafloor.

"And so now the bottom really is turning out to be an important sink for the oil," Hollander says.

But the ecological impacts of oil on the seafloor depend on the depth of the ocean where it lies. Joye's findings so far have found oil in depths ranging from 300 to 4,000 feet. Shallower waters, in particular, are potentially important not just for life on the bottom but for the entire marine ecosystem.

"A lot of fish go down to the bottom and eat and then come back up," Hollander says. "And if all their food sources are derived from the bottom, then indeed you could have this impact."

Figuring all that out though, will probably take many years.

Where's the oil? On the Gulf floor, scientists say
Cain Burdeau And Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 13 Sep 10;

NEW ORLEANS – Far beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, deeper than divers can go, scientists say they are finding oil from the busted BP well on the sea's muddy and mysterious bottom.

Oil at least two inches thick was found Sunday night and Monday morning about a mile beneath the surface. Under it was a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals, said University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye, speaking from the helm of a research vessel in the Gulf.

The latest findings show that while the federal government initially proclaimed much of the spilled oil gone, now it's not so clear.

At these depths, the ocean is a cold and dark world. Yet scientists say that even though it may be out of sight, oil found there could do significant harm to the strange creatures that dwell in the depths — tube worms, tiny crustaceans and mollusks, single-cell organisms and Halloween-scary fish with bulging eyes and skeletal frames.

"I expected to find oil on the sea floor," Joye said Monday morning in a ship-to-shore telephone interview. "I did not expect to find this much. I didn't expect to find layers two inches thick. It's weird the stuff we found last night. Some of it was really dense and thick."

Joye said 10 of her 14 samples showed visible oil, including all the ones taken north of the busted well. She found oil on the sea floor as far as 80 miles away from the site of the spill.

"It's kind of like having a blizzard where the snow comes in and covers everything," Joye said.

And the look of the oil, its state of degradation, the way it settled on freshly dead animals all made it unlikely that the crude was from the millions of gallons of oil that naturally seep into the Gulf from the sea bottom each year, she said. Later this week, the oil will be tested for the chemical fingerprints that would conclusively link it to the BP spill.

"It has to be a recent event," Joye said. "There's still pieces of warm bodies there."

Since the well was capped on July 15 after some 200 million gallons flowed into the Gulf, there have been signs of resilience on the surface and the shore. Sheens have disappeared, while some marshlands have shoots of green. This seeming recovery is likely a result of massive amounts of chemical dispersants, warm waters and a Gulf that is used to degrading massive amounts of oil, scientists say.

Animal deaths also are far short of worst-case scenarios. But at the same time, a massive invisible plume of oil has been found under the surface, shifting scientists' concerns from what can be easily seen to what can't be.

For Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University biological oceanographer who wasn't part of Joye's team, the latest findings confirm that government assessments about how much oil remains — especially a report on the subject by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August — were too optimistic.

The oil "did not disappear," he said. "It sank."

Not all scientists agree with this assessment.

Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University chemist who has analyzed the spill for NOAA, doubted much oil was resting on the bottom. He said the heavier components in oil — the asphalts — make up only about 1 percent of the oil that was spilled.

And Roger Sassen, an organic geochemist at Texas A&M University who has studied natural oil seeps, said so much oil seeps naturally into the Gulf each year that it's hard to argue that the BP spill will make a significant difference.

Nonetheless, the big questions now are exactly how much oil is at the bottom and how many organisms are being exposed to it, said Robert Carney, an oceanographer and deep-sea expert at Louisiana State University. The answers to those questions could shed some light on the unseen damage to wildlife from the oil spill.

"Deep-sea animals, in general, tend to produce fewer offspring than shallower water animals, so if they are going to have a population impact, it may be more sensitive in deep water," he said. "There is also some evidence that deep-sea animals live longer than shallower water species, so the impact may stay around longer."

At first, scientists, the media and the federal government focused their attention on tracking rainbow sheens approaching land, tar balls hitting beaches, measuring oil in marshes and scouting for oiled birds and sea turtles. But a spate of recent studies increasingly points to the deep.

NOAA's Aug. 4 pronouncement that the oil was mostly gone also indicated that some 53 million gallons remained in the Gulf. At the time, federal officials said some of that could be on the sea floor, adding that the rest was mostly broken down naturally or by the widespread use of chemical dispersants.

"As we get into weathered oil, there is more likelihood that it will get into the sediment," said Steve Murawski, chief scientist at the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of NOAA.

Getting a handle on where the oil is at extreme depths will not be easy. Scientists will have to use expensive 1,000-pound devices that look like moon landers. The spindly legged machines land on the bottom and shoot tubes into the sea floor to collect 20-inch-long samples.

The terrain is exceedingly difficult. The area where the busted BP well sits is on the continental slope, formed by millions of years of deposits from the Mississippi River. It's a region of bumps and valleys, salt domes, canyons and slopes.

Government scientists acknowledge they've not done enough to look for oil in the obscure corners of the Gulf's bottom, but promise to do a better job.

"There are plans to do a considerable amount of that" sampling, said Debbie Payton, an oceanographer with NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration. In the coming weeks, NOAA and BP vessels will sample the deep bottoms, she said.

Joye's latest discovery backs up the findings of a University of South Florida crew that reported pulling up oily sediment in August.

"What we saw were flecks, little discontinued droplets, or spots" of oil on the sediment, said John H. Paul, a biological oceanographer on the USF survey. The oiled sediment was found about 1.4 miles down in the De Soto Canyon, an underwater canyon east of the blown-out well.

Sediment brought up still needs to undergo laboratory testing to verify that the oil found on the bottom comes from the BP oil spill.

For oil to sink, it must attach itself to materials that are heavier than water, such as detritus, flecks of mud, sands and other particles. Such materials are abundant in the Gulf in places where rivers, especially the Mississippi, flush mud and sand into the open sea. Oil also can sink as it ages and becomes more tar-like in a process known as weathering.

Scientists also say the oil may be sinking because it was broken up into tiny droplets by dispersants, making the oil so small that it wasn't buoyant enough to rise. One problem with oil at the sea floor is that it will take longer to degrade because of cold temperatures in the deep.

Borenstein reported from Washington, D.C.

Online: http://gulfblog.uga.edu

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Sea temperatures around Japan hit record high

Yahoo News 10 Sep 10;

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan, which has just endured its hottest summer on record, said Friday it had also last month recorded the warmest sea temperatures since it started gathering comparable data 25 years ago.

Ocean surface temperatures in much of the archipelago's Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan waters reached more than 25 degrees centigrade (77 degrees Fahrenheit) in August, said the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The average sea temperature was the hottest recorded since 1985 when the agency started a new measuring system, and was also a record 1.2 degrees centigrade above the average for the 1971-2000 period.

"When examining the earlier data also, I would say global warming is one of the factors behind the warmest recorded sea waters," said an agency official.

Scientists warn that the greenhouse effect caused by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere is raising global temperatures, melting the planet's ice caps and triggering more severe weather events such as storms and floods.

Japan this year experienced its hottest summer since records began in 1898, with thousands of people taken to hospital with heatstroke. The average temperature for June to August was 1.64 degrees centigrade above average.

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