Nature in Singapore: mushrooms, moths and mangrove palm
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
Where are Nipah palms found in Singapore?
from wild shores of singapore
Grey Heron in courtship mode
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Underwater blasting next to Labrador shore continues until Aug 10
from wild shores of singapore
Tough love in a troubled climate
from BBC blog by Richard Black
Insight Down South by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star 27 Feb 10;
The public housing crisis has revived the question whether Singapore, with only 700sq km of land, can continue to accommodate the current five million residents, let alone increase it by a further one-third.
HOW is this land-squeezed island coping with housing an enlarged population of five million, including hundreds of thousands of recent foreign arrivals?
The answer gleaned from public comments about the Housing Development Board (HDB), the national icon that builds homes for 80% of the people is: “surprisingly poor”, given its sterling track record.
For 50 years, the HDB has helped to transform this former squatter colony into a global city of fine homes. At early times, it set a world record of building an average of one flat every 45 minutes.
The recent unprecedented intake of foreigners has, however, dealt a blow to its reputation, judging by the widespread complaint of poor anticipation, insufficient flats and spiralling prices.
As a result, resale subsidised apartments, which are still cheaper than private ones, have moved out of reach of many young fresh graduates planning to get married and settle down.
With affluent foreign PRs joining in the rush – some for profits – resale prices of HDB apartments have increased by some 45% in the last few years. The government, which usually plans ahead, is finding itself in hot soup for being under-prepared by the explosive demand. An indication of this: In 2008, HDB built only 3,183 new flats when there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new citizens in the same year, according to official statistics.
Only Singaporeans – not foreigners or PRs – are allowed to buy new government flats, which are generally well designed and planned. Because of the long waiting time, however, many Singaporeans opt to pay more for resale units in the open market, where they run into competition from PR buyers.
Some commentators feel it is unfair just to blame the HDB, since the problem covers a wide range of population, immigration as well as manpower policies that involves the entire government and not just public housing.
The top leadership has drawn up plans and an overall strategy for a 6.5 million population without fixing a time-frame.
But with public unhappiness rising over the perceived costs, over-crowdedness, rising prices, the immigration inflow is being slowed down.
“This probably means that if the authorities want to stick to its 6.5 million population, it will have to take a longer time – probably more than 20 years,” one business executive commented.
The public housing crisis has revived a question whether Singapore, with only 700 sq km of land, can continue to accommodate the current five million residents, let alone increase it by a further one-third. The high density may already have affected some quarters overseas.
The Ireland-based International Living magazine recently ranked Singapore, one of Asia’s wealthiest states, a lowly 70th position among top places to live in.
The city scored well on safety and risk, healthcare, leisure and culture, but was penalised for its environment which included considerations of density and population growth.
The demographic change in Singapore has been dramatic. Twenty years ago, it was a more pleasant city of 3.05 million, some two million fewer people than 4.99 million reached last year.
This expansion of 64% (mostly through immigration) in 20 years is a rate matched by few countries in modern history. It succeeded in pushing out Hong Kong as the world’s third densest-populated place.
On average of 7,023 persons live in each square kilometre of this city, compared to 6,349 in Hong Kong. Both are behind Macau (18,534) and Monaco (16,923).
The Minister of National Development, Mah Bow Tan, one of the staunchest advocates of a bigger population, regularly reassuring the people that Singapore has enough land for 6.5 million people. There was no need for a massive across-the-board change in development intensity, he added, as there was sufficient supply to meeting needs for the next 10 to 15 years.
Some government officials say the Government had drawn up plans for future housing, creation and land transport needs for the next 20 years when the population reaches 6.5 million.
In its latest move that shows its determination in carving out more space for a larger population, the Government plans to move much of the city underground. A government strategic committee has called for the creation of more underground space to accommodate shopping malls, train networks, civil defence shelters, pedestrian links as well as ammunition and oil storage. It has been reducing the average size of residential flats, both private and public, as well as stacking them higher.
Matching the government’s enthusiasm for a bigger population, however, is an alternative voice against it.
“Why do we need 6.5 million people?” asked a private doctor and former opposition candidate Dr Wong Wee Nam in an article warning about the consequences for his fellow citizens.
“A city needs to rejuvenate, transform and re-create itself continually in order to stay healthy and alive,” he said.
“How can an over-crowded place with all the ills of high density be able to do that?”
Reclamation could expand the country’s size from 700 to 708 sq km, according to Dr Wong, but it would not reduce density very much.
With a 6.5 million population, Singapore could well become the most densely populated place on earth, with 16,640 persons per sq km.
Another critic of mass immigration is the former top civil servant Mr Ngiam Tong Dow, who feels that Singapore is better served by investing in its own citizens than importing large numbers from abroad.
“We risk having them (talented foreigners) use us as a stepping stone... Singapore will be left with the second tier of average people,” he added.
Student campaign has 'Mother Earth' scaring people caught in the act
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 27 Feb 10;
SURPRISED by the amount of energy wasted in Singapore, a group of five business school students have launched an online campaign to raise awareness about the issue.
The campaign, run by MBA students at the Nanyang Technological University, directs members of the public to a website (www.energyoffences.com) which features video clips of unsuspecting people caught in the act of wasting energy.
In each clip, a mystery Mother Earth character appears and roars at the culprit, who is usually in the midst of wasting energy. This results in sometimes amusing reactions.
'The principle behind the campaign is that Mother Earth is scared by the global energy consumption, so now she's come to scare you,' said Miss Jenny Costelloe, 34, who is from Britain.
'We are all international students and we are struck by how efficient Singapore is. Yet, it blasts out air-conditioning from malls and leaves the doors open, and its energy consumption is inefficient. We are hoping to get people to think about that.'
The group said the website was a 'social experiment to see if confronting people in a (hopefully) funny way will make them think twice about what they're doing. By sharing the clips of people's reactions, we aim to make people laugh, to make people think and, most importantly, to get people to change their behaviour'.
The students are hoping that people will start posting their own videos of energy being wasted.
So far, the website, which went live last month, has had more than 600 visitors and the Facebook group has more than 230 members.
Another student, Mr Noah Gunzinger from Switzerland, said: 'What we've found is that most people know that they're wasting energy in some simple way, but they always feel that they have an excuse. This is what we're trying to change; we can't always have an excuse!'
All 'victims' of the Mother Earth scare tactics received a thank you gift for allowing their video to be used on the website.
Smart Car Rental will offer eco-friendly cars for hire later this year
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 27 Feb 10;
WANT to drive an electric car without blowing a small fortune on buying one?
Such eco-friendly cars, which cost twice as much as petrol equivalents, will be available for rent later this year from Smart Car Rental, a sister company of taxi operator Smart Taxis.
Smart will start this new business with three electric Mitsubishi hatchbacks and charge a rental of $150 a day - about twice the rate for an equivalent petrol model. It will add at least two more cars, possibly of other makes, later on.
The first electric cars will arrive in Singapore for test-bedding later this year. The Government will grant buyers a tax waiver under a research scheme open to corporations and institutions, but not individuals.
Smart Car Rental owner Johnny Harjantho said his battery-powered fleet 'will give us a unique selling point', as the average motorist without deep pockets is unlikely to be able to afford one.
He is also partly motivated by his pro-environment beliefs, he added. Three in 10 of Smart Taxi's fleet of 750 cabs run on compressed natural gas (CNG), deemed more environmentally friendly than diesels.
Of the electric cars, Mr Harjantho said: 'If we can rent them out more than 15 days a month, we'll make money.' His current rental fleet is made up of 10 CNG cars and more than 50 petrol cars.
The new battery-powered Mitsubishis cost around $90,000 each after the Government's tax exemption. When operational expenses such as maintenance, insurance and financing are factored in, each car will cost Smart about $160,000.
Meanwhile, other parties are also looking at leasing electric vehicles, as they can benefit from the revised tax incentive announced in this week's Budget for experimental green vehicles.
Multi-brand motor group Wearnes, for example, is working on a leasing scheme for Renault electric cars.
Nissan Asia Pacific's senior manager for marketing and sales Chuya Hara said: 'We hope to bring in our electric vehicle by next year.'
Mitsubishi agent Cycle & Carriage (C&C) said the tax break extension, from two years to six, makes ownership more viable. Users have a longer period for depreciation of the cars, explained Mr Alvyn Ang, director of operations of C&C, which will supply Smart Car Rental with its first electric cars.
To qualify for the tax break, Prime Taxi plans to convert its petrol-electric hybrid taxis into plug-in hybrids, which run like electric cars but have petrol engines as a back-up.
Mr Zafar Momin, a lecturer at Nanyang Business School and a former automotive specialist with the Boston Consulting Group, said: 'I believe electric cars will get off to a very strong start here... The key issue really will be the economics of ownership.� This is where government subsidies, in whatever form, can make a big difference.'
Michael Mccarthy, The Independent 26 Feb 19;
Why are we asking this now?
Because a female trainer, Dawn Brancheau, was killed this week by a captive killer whale which dragged her into its tank at the SeaWorld centre in Orlando, Florida.
Isn't that just a killer whale living up to its name?
Well, yes and no. The name killer whale originally came from the fact that these striking, large and fierce animals had been seen to be "killers of whales" – and they do indeed sometimes hunt other whale species in the open ocean (The name biologists increasingly prefer to use is orca, the second half of its scientific name, Orcinus orca).
Yet even though they were feared for centuries – the first known reference is in the Elder Pliny's Natural History in the 1st century AD – there is no established record of orcas killing human beings in the wild, although there have been a few cases of what seem to have been accidental or mistaken attacks.
During Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole a century ago, a killer whale tried to tip over an ice floe on which a photographer was standing with a dog team, but it is thought that the dogs' barking might have sounded enough like seal calls to trigger the animal's hunting instinct.A surfer was bitten in California in the 1970s and a boy who was bathing was bumped by a killer whale in Alaska several years ago, but there have been very few attacks in the wild, and none fatal. In captivity, however, it's a different story.
How so?
There have been quite a few attacks by captive killer whales on their trainers. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) says: "It happens more than you think." One source suggested yesterday that since the 1970s, killer whales in captivity have attacked 24 people around the world, and some of these encounters have been fatal.
As recently as last December, a trainer at the Loro Parque animal park on the Spanish island of Tenerife, Alexis Martinez Hernandez, was crushed to death when a stunt he was rehearsing with a 14-year-old killer whale named Keto went wrong. And Tilikum, the animal involved in this week's fatal attack, who was captured from the wild in Iceland, was, with two other orcas, involved in the death of a trainer in Canada in 1991, and then of a man who had sneaked into Florida SeaWorld in 1999 and appears to have fallen into Tilikum's pool.
So why do they attack people in captivity when they don't in the wild?
The answer seems to be captivity-related stress. It's not hard to understand. Killer whales are wild animals. They are strong. They are unpredictable. They are very intelligent, with their own complex communications system. They are very social – in the wild, they live in closely co-operating social groups with maybe 10 to 20 members.
If you take one out of the sea and stick it in a concrete swimming pool for the rest of its life, do you think that will have a benign effect on the animal's personality? What, thanks for all the fish? When you consider the thousands of miles of open ocean though which wild killer whales freely roam – they are dolphins, after all, the biggest members of the dolphin family – ending up in SeaWorld is the orca equivalent of you or me being imprisoned by a lunatic in a cupboard under the stairs.
Many zoos have now recognised that close confinement of big mammals – sticking lions and tigers in cages, and elephants in concrete houses – is entirely wrong and counter-productive. In the 1970s, London Zoo, for example, held a polar bear in a concrete pit which used to pace up and down continually all day long in what was clearly mad despair. (The pit has long since been empty).
But the people who hold the 42 orcas currently in captivity around the world have too big a financial interest in keeping them in anything larger than a bare pool in which they can perform cheesy stunts for the benefit of paying tourists. And what happens is – to use the vernacular – that it does their heads in. If you think this is just opinionating, look at the mortality figures.
What do they show?
There is an increasing amount of data on orcas in the wild, especially from western Canada, where they have been studied for decades, and it is clear that in their natural state their lifespan is something similar to that of humans. They tend to live up to 50 years, but there are cases of some of the females surviving much longer, perhaps even to 80 and beyond.
In captivity the picture is very different. The figures are known precisely. According to the WDCS, there have been 136 killer whales captured in the wild and held in captivity since the first one in 1961, of which 123 have now died, and the average survival time is four years.
It is thought that the stress of captivity lowers their resistance to disease. And it clearly also alters their behaviour, leading among other things to unpredictable aggression. (The very first one to be captured, by the way, the 1961 animal, a small female taken in Californian waters, lasted one day. She died after repeatedly swimming around her pool at high speed, ramming into the sides of the tank).
So what should happen now?
Animal welfare campaigners and many biologists think that orcas should simply not be held in captivity. They should be freed, all of them. Unfortunately, it's not a simple business – you can't just chuck them back like a fish you might have caught. You would have to transfer them to pens in the sea, for them to be rehabituated to the wild, and then there is the question of whether or not they could rejoin the family pod from which there are taken.
The experience of Keiko, the orca who starred in the three Free Willy movies, shows how difficult it is – when he eventually was freed in 2002 he was never able to find a pod and only lasted 18 months, before dying off the coast of Norway.
But even if there can only be a halfway house – returning captive orcas to sea pens where they could be cared for – it is very likely preferable to a life of balancing a ball on your nose in front of 5,000 popcorn chewers.
Is freedom for captive killer whales likely?
Well, just so you know, no fewer than 21 of the world total of 42 orcas held in captivity are kept in the three US aquaria run by SeaWorld, which was part of the "entertainment business" of the giant brewing company Anheuser Busch until it was sold for $2.7bn last October to the New York private equity business Blackstone. Big bucks, big bucks. Freedom? What do you think?
Is it right to trap such wildlife in artificial environments?
Yes...
* They can perform a useful educational function for adults and especially for children, who may become supporters of conservation.
* Captive breeding, where it is possible, may be a lifeline for species which are threatened with extinction.
* Modern methods of keeping animals – in some cases –are much better than they were a few years ago
No...
* Many big animals, orcas perhaps above all, are far too large and have too large a range in the wild to be held in narrow confinement.
* They clearly suffer from captivity-related stress which makes them susceptible to disease and shortens their lives.
* They may become aggressive and become a danger to their keepers as recent fatalities have illustrated.
What to do with captive orcas?
Matt Walker, BBC News 25 Feb 10;
The recent attack by a captive orca on its trainer at a SeaWorld facility in Orlando, Florida, has again raised questions about our relationship with these top marine predators.
No-one knows what triggered the latest incident, and experts agree that it is almost impossible to determine why the orca, called Tilikum, reacted as it did.
But it does highlight the tensions that occur when we choose to interact closely with these huge animals.
It is also debatable what to do with those orcas, also known as killer whales, that remain in captivity.
"They are highly social animals that tend to live in cohesive groups, so it's quite an artificial environment to capture them and put them in a small area," says Dr Andrew Foote, an expert on wild orcas from the University of Aberdeen, UK
"The tragic events are a reminder that orcas are wild, strong and often unpredictable animals," says Danny Groves, of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Wild attacks
Reports differ, but there have been up to 24 attacks by captive orcas on people.
Contrary to popular perception, attacks by wild orcas on people have also been recorded, though no-one has been hurt.
Researcher Chris Pierpoint of the Marine Mammal Observer Association was working in Antarctica when he once subjected to a rather sophisticated, planned attack by a group of orcas.
Wild orcas in the region cooperate to hunt by swimming together towards seals resting on ice floes.
As they do so, they create a bow wave that washes the hapless seal from the ice and into the water.
"Chris Pierpoint had that done to him when in a rib in Antarctica," says Dr Foote, though he wasn't thrown overboard.
"A famous incidence occurred in the 1960s when a surfer was knocked off his board, but he was fine, the whale didn't bite."
A couple of years ago in Alaska, a child swimming in the sea also described how an orca made a bee-line toward him, before aborting a supposed attack at the last minute.
One idea is that air bubbles in neoprene wetsuits can confuse the echolocation of orcas, so they do not realise that they are approaching a person.
But the scarcity of such attacks underlines the difficulty in pinpointing their cause.
"It's really isolated incidences. Killer whales live in cold water so they don't overlap with people much," says Dr Foote.
Send them home?
What the latest attack by a captive orca reveals is just how little we still know about the animals, in captivity and in the wild.
For example, we are only just glimpsing how intelligent orcas really are and the
However, few insights come from studying captive whales, though some have helped reveal their acoustic behaviour.
"The science doesn't justify the captivity. One thing I would hope is that this unfortunate incident might lead to a considered discussion on phasing out these marine parks."
So what can or should be done with captive orcas?
One option would be to prevent further deaths by restricting trainers from encroaching too close to the poolside.
Another would be to put down any whale considered too dangerous to be kept in captivity.
The final option, and that which on the surface appears the most palatable from an animals rights perspective, is to release those whales still in captivity back into the wild.
The WDCS has repeatedly called for captive whales to be returned, not least because captivity appears to drastically reduce their life expectancy.
But that is not as simple as it sounds.
A study published by US and Danish scientists last year in the journal Marine Mammal Science documents the
Captured in 1979 as a near two-year-old calf, Keiko found fame as the star of the 1993 family film Free Willy, after which public pressure grew to release him back to the wild.
Training for his reintroduction began in 1996, and after 2000 his trainers began taking him out into the sea on open ocean swims designed to prepare him for a wild life.
But Keiko rarely interacted with wild orcas, and never integrated into a wild pod.
He also struggled to learn how to hunt, making shallower and less frequent dives than wild whales.
Eventually, and despite the best efforts of his trainers, he could not break his need for human contact, and kept following or returning to the trainers' boat.
Keiko eventually died, still semi-captive in 2003.
"The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of long-term captive animals is especially challenging and while we as humans might find it appealing to free a long-term captive animal, the survival and well being of the animal may be severely impacted in doing so," the report's authors write.
ABC, CBS, Good Morning America, Orlando Sentinel 25 Feb 10;
The death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau illustrates how eyewitnesses can see a traumatic incident far differently.
First, though, SeaWorld didn’t help matters by suggesting, in a news conference yesterday afternoon, that the trainer had slipped and fallen in the tank. That incorrect information confused matters, and the theme park had to backtrack from it. Why add confusion to the tragedy? (
But what happened between Brancheau and the whale Tilikum? You have a range of accounts.
What did Tilikum do? ABC’s “Good Morning America” said the whale “suddenly lunged at the woman.”
On CBS’ “The Early Show,” a witness said her daughter saw the whale “kind of lashing out. He shook her [Brancheau] violently.”
The Sentinel quoted witnesses who said “the animal suddenly grabbed Brancheau by the upper arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her beneath the water.”
But a husband and a wife shared a less dramatic account on WOFL-Channel 35. The husband said the trainer’s hair must have been in the whale’s teeth when the animal rolled, taking her down with him. (Would that behavior qualify as an attack?)
The wife told WOFL there was a “a sudden jerk” and the whale brought the trainer up once before taking her down for five minutes.
Was the whale agitated? WESH-Channel 2 reported that it was.
On “Good Morming America,” George Stephanopoulos asked, “What pushed this whale over the edge?”
Yet a husband and a wife told “GMA” that the whale didn’t seem agitated while being patted by the trainer.
What was the whale’s manner?
WKMG-Channel 6 quoted the daughter of a former SeaWorld worker, who described Tilikum as “difficult, depressed and usually temperamental.”
On “GMA,” Chuck Tompkins, curator of zoological operations at SeaWorld, disagreed.
“I think that information is extremely inaccurate. I’ve worked with Tilikum his entire career here at SeaWorld,” Tompkins said. “I can tell you right now he is not a depressed animal. He is a very good animal.”
CBS’ “The Early Show” noted that the whale had many safe interactions with humans.
If Tilikum had a hard day yesterday, the killer whale was hardly alone. A witness told “The Early Show” that trainers had said three other whales did not want to perform and were not cooperating.
As for the late Brancheau, WESH had touching footage of her from 2000, when she said she had a lot of fun working with the whales.
From the reporting, we learned Brancheau knew the dangers and thought of the whales as her children.
I wonder what she would make of stories about a “killer whale attack.”
This is one of those stories that we’ll probably never know exactly what happened. Of course, that won’t stop anyone from talking about it. But when the human race deals with such magnificent creatures, mysterious things are bound to happen.
Death of Sea World trainer: Do 'killer whales' belong in theme parks?
Daniel B. Wood Christian Science Monitor Yahoo News 24 Feb 10;
Los Angeles – The death of a veteran Sea World trainer in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday has spotlighted the campaign of several major animal rights groups to keep marine mammals out of theme parks altogether.
Dawn Brancheau was killed when a 12,300-lb. male orca “killer whale” grabbed her in front of an audience at the Orlando theme park.
Now, animal rights activists say that many questions should be asked in the wake of Ms. Brancheau's death. Sea World has said that the very same orca is responsible for human deaths in 1991 and again in 1999. The Humane Society of the United States has long campaigned for marine mammals to be removed from theme parks.
“These behemoths are denied all of their natural, instinctual inclinations, and we humans tend to think, ‘Well, this is just a bad animal.’ But it is a wild animal, used to running free in an entire ocean, but now confined to a very small space,” says Joyce Tischler, founder of and general counsel for Animal Legal Defense Fund. She compares an orca’s life in captivity in a tank to keeping a human being in a bathtub for his entire life. She says most Americans have romanticized notions of sea life perpetuated by such TV series as “Flipper.” But even dolphins are known to aggressively run their teeth down the backs of humans in hundreds of incidents that are not reported outside the conservation community press, she says.
SeaWorld closed its Orlando park immediately after the tragedy, and suspended its orca show in San Diego. “We've initiated an investigation to determine, to the extent possible, what occurred,” SeaWorld President Dan Brown said in a brief statement to reporters. Ms. Brancheau had worked at the park since 1994. Mr. Brown said no SeaWorld park had ever before experienced a similar incident and pledged a thorough review of all of the park's standard operating procedures. “This is an extraordinarily difficult time for the SeaWorld parks and our team members. Nothing is more important than the safety of our employees, guests, and the animals entrusted to our care," Brown said. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the trainer and will do everything possible to assist them in this difficult time.”
The orca is the largest member of the dolphin family and is known as a favorite at Sea World. Killer whales are a highly social species.
But “the vast majority of the orca whales in captivity would be far better off to be returned to the wild. Orcas are unbelievably ill-suited to life in theme parks and can be successfully returned to the wild. We know, because we have done it,” says David Phillips, director of the International Marine Mammal Project for the Earth Island Institute, who led the effort to rescue, rehabilitate, and release the killer whale Keiko, made famous in the movie “Free Willy.” “Orcas deserve a better fate than living in cramped pools.
Mr. Phillips recalls that Keiko went from languishing in small pool in Mexico City all the way to swimming with wild whales in his native waters in Iceland. He ended up swimming to Norway and living there in a bay with some human care until he died. Phillips says the public would be better served by seeing orcas in the wild and ensuring their protection there.
“This isn’t the first time that stressed-out orca whales have injured or killed people, and unfortunately, it is not likely to be the last,” says Phillips. “It is high time that the marine park industry get out of the captive orca business.”
Tischler takes on the argument most often given by defenders of such captivity: That it is educational and spotlights the need for conservation and protection of such creatures: “The people who run these theme parks are not interested in conservation or protection, they are interested in making money,” Tischler says. “I would be asking, ‘Why was this animal kept after the first death?’ ”
“This is a giant warning sign that society needs to rethink this question of holding large predators in captivity,” says Chris Palmer, author of “Shooting in the Wild,” a book about wild animals in captivity, who also teaches at American University. “Having a trainer killed this way can’t justify whatever benefits we get from conservation or protection.”
SeaWorld Won't Euthanize Whale, Feds Investigate Trainer Death
Park Has No Plans to Euthanize Killer Whale Linked to Deaths of 3 People
Russell Goldman, ABC News 25 Feb 10;
SeaWorld has no plans to euthanize the killer whale that dragged a trainer to her death Wednesday, and will allow trainers to continue to work with the animal, a park official said today.
As two federal agencies launched investigations into Dawn Brancheau's death, the park said it will review its safety policies and determine whether Tillikum, a 12,000-pound bull killer whale, will be used in shows and publicly displayed.
Brancheau, 40, an experienced trainer, was snatched by the whale in front of a stadium of horrified onlookers, thrashed and ultimately held under water to drown.
SeaWorld has for years banned trainers from swimming with Tillikum, who was linked to the death of a Canadian trainer in 1991 and another man who snuck into a holding area in 1999. The whale has, however, been used in public shows and is given commands from trainers from the sides of the tank.
Environment News Service 25 Feb 10;
DUBAI, February 25, 2010 (ENS) - The world's largest shopping mall was partially evacuated today as a crack opened in an enormous aquarium full of sharks, frightening shoppers and gushing water onto the floors.
Maintenance crews at the Dubai Mall rushed to the scene to contain the leak, which was captured in an amateur video taken by a shopper.
According to a spokesperson for Emaar Retail, which manages the Dubai Mall and the aquarium, "A leakage was noticed at one of the panel joints of the Dubai Aquarium at the Dubai Mall and was immediately fixed by the aquarium's maintenance team."
"The leakage did not impact the aquarium environment or the safety of the aquatic animals," said the spokesperson in a statement. "The Dubai Aquarium works with international experts in aquarium management and upholds the highest safety standards in its management."
The ground floor and basement around the aquarium was evacuated and the area has been cordoned off. The aquarium is closed to the public indefinitely.
A spokesman for the civil defense force in the Persian Gulf city-state told reporters that "the situation is under control and a team is working on fixing the problem." As many as 300 cleaners were deployed to mop the water off the floors.
Open since November 2008, the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo has over 33,000 aquatic animals and holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest acrylic viewing panel - 32.88 meters wide by 8.3 meters high by 750 mm thick and weighing 245,614 kilograms.
The thick acrylic viewing panel must withstand the pressure of the 10 million liters of water used in the aquarium, but its transparency gives visitors clear views of over 33,000 marine animals on display.
More than one million visitors have attended the aquarium, located in the mall adjacent to the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which opened in January.
The 270-degree walkthrough tunnel leads viewers through the aquarium and Underwater Zoo, which features 36 aquatic displays in three ecological zones: rainforest, rocky shore, and living ocean.
Aquatic animals featured include: penguins, crocodiles, octopus, piranhas, spider crabs, water rats, giant catfish, lizards and tiger fish. An attraction at the aquarium is the Shark Dive, introduced in May 2009 as a first in the region within a mall environment.
Straits Times 27 Feb 10;
Evidence of last August's Montara oil spill may be nearly gone from the Timor Sea, but the effects of one of Australia's worst environmental disasters will be seen for years to come, affecting the feeding and breeding of marine life and vital fisheries and coral spawning. Here's a look at how oil spills affect marine life.
Charles Haviland, BBC News 26 Feb 10;
The Sri Lankan government says that it is concerned about the welfare of sea turtles which live and breed on the island's southern coastline.
The authorities say turtle hatcheries are operating there which contravene conservation laws and that they will prosecute those people involved.
Sri Lanka is a vital habitat for sea turtles as five of the seven species come ashore here to lay their eggs.
Watching adult and newly-hatched turtles is also popular with tourists.
That seems to be contributing to the problems faced by these endearing reptiles.
The Sri Lankan Daily Mirror Online website says in a new report that hatcheries which use them for commercial or leisure purposes are harming the species.
Dead hatchling
Environment Minister Champika Ranawaka says that wildlife officers have informed all hatcheries that selling the turtles or using them as meat or for any other commercial purpose is illegal.
"They can only be used for educational purposes," he said. "We've investigated the illegal places and given them warnings not to do that."
Senior wildlife official Sarath Dissanayake told the BBC that turtle hatchlings should have the freedom to walk over the beach to the sea, but hatcheries were illegally putting walls and barriers in their way.
A tourist said he had recently been at a facility where guests were encouraged to pick up baby turtles and "set them free" into the ocean.
He said the place was like a zoo and that at least one hatchling appeared to be dead.
But one hatchery owner told the Daily Mirror Online he is protecting the animals, not profiting from them.
"They have asked us to hatch them on the beaches," he said, "but we can't do that.
"If we wanted to do that, we'd need at least 20,000 soldiers guarding these turtles, because people are hungry for them, most use them as meat."
But the authorities are not convinced. They are preparing new guidelines on how turtle hatcheries should be maintained and say that those who violate them will be prosecuted.
FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
EurekAlert 26 Feb 10;
Spanish scientists have studied interactions between the loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) and fishing gear such as longline hooks used at the water surface, mass beachings, and the effects of climate change on these animals.
In order to reduce captures of this marine species without causing economic losses for fishermen, the scientists are proposing that fishing in the summer should only be carried out by night and in areas more than 35 nautical miles from land.
Populations of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) are in decline all over the world, and particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, where more than 20,000 animals are accidentally caught each year. Finding responsible and sustainable fisheries solutions was one of the prime objectives of this research study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Applied Ichthyology.
Researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) in Malaga, the University of Malaga (UMA) and the Sea Classroom, also in Malaga, tested whether using different kinds of animal bait would reduce captures of loggerhead turtles, and how these changes could impact on fishing yields.
The scientists used real commercial fisheries data taken by scientific observers on board fishing boats. The results were clear. "Using fish as bait could greatly reduce incidental catches of loggerhead turtles, but could also severely affect catches of swordfish", José Carlos Báez, lead author and a researcher at the IEO, tells SINC.
The research team also showed that stopping using small molluscs such as squid as bait could not ensure that incidental catches of loggerhead turtles would be prevented, since "as an opportunistic predator it also preys on hooks baited with fish, and can find these more easily when molluscs are used", explains the expert.
The study proposes other measures that, the researchers say, would not involve modifying the equipment used in any way that "could result in low economic yields because of a decline in fish catches", says Báez. These techniques would reduce the number of turtles caught while maintaining fishermen's profits.
"Most accidental catches happen during the day, more than 35 nautical miles from the coast, and in the summer, meaning that it would be enough to limit longline fishing at these times and places in order to drastically reduce captures of this species", says Báez, who adds that these measures should be tested before being adopted.
Longline fishing is practised by 356 vessels in Spanish waters, and provides employment for many coastal towns. However, accidental captures of species such as the loggerhead turtle are also damaging to fishermen's interests, because of the economic losses caused and the time spent in freeing the turtles.
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References:
Báez, J.C.; Real, R.; Macias, D.; de la Serna, J.M.; Bellido, J.J.; Caminas, J.A. "Captures of swordfish Xiphias gladius Linnaeus 1758 and loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta (Linnaeus 1758) associated with different bait combinations in the Western Mediterranean surface longline fishery" Journal of Applied Ichthyology 26(1): 126-127, febrero de 2010.
WWF 26 Feb 10;
Koror, Palau. Eight Pacific nations yesterday announced they would seek sustainable seafood certification for up to 40 percent of their skipjack tuna fishery, potentially bringing a significant source of canned tuna into the range of sustainable seafood choices available to global consumers.
The announcement that Marine Stewardship Council Certification would be sought for the fishery exploiting free swimming schools of skipjack came from the first Presidential Summit of Parties to the Nauru Agreement, a joint fisheries agreement between Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Nauru and Tuvalu.
The size of the potentially certifiable skipjack catch is about 330,000 tonnes. With much of the fishery overlapping with the ecologically significant Coral Triangle area, WWF expects to be significantly involved with the assessment.
“This step by the ministers of PNA countries to improve their skipjack tuna fisheries and promote responsible fishing through MSC is an important development for the conservation and responsible management of tuna stocks in the Coral Triangle region,” said Dr. Jose Ingles, leader of WWF’s Coral Triangle Tuna Initiative.
“WWF will press for issues to be addressed throughout the assessment process and by the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the regional fisheries management organization that manages fisheries in the area.”
Certification is not being sought for any fishing involving the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs).
The MSC evaluation will only assess skipjack tuna caught in purse seine fisheries in unassociated sets, a fishing technique with the lowest likelihood of catching other overfished species such as juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tunas. This distinct section of the fishery catches approximately 364,000 tons of skipjack tuna per year in the Western and Central Pacific.
“If successful, this certification also brings new hope for heavily exploited juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna in the Coral Triangle, which are mostly caught in skipjack tuna fisheries and hopefully encourage other fisheries, not only tuna, to shift to unassociated sets or perhaps find better solutions to address the juvenile bycatch issue ” Ingles added.
The bycatch of juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna has plagued the Coral Triangle for decades, contributing to the decline of tuna populations in this resource-rich region and on which the food security and livelihoods of millions depend. Other important issues WWF will press for include the need for rigorous traceability ensuring the fish sold is traceable to the particular fisheries.
“Certification of tuna products reflects the growing demand for responsibly-caught seafood by consumers willing to pay a premium. This impels players from the supply chain to step up their efforts and get in on the act of responsible fishing,” Ingles said. “WWF will ensure that sound conservation and management principles are taken into account at every step of this third party auditing process.”
The Coral Triangle—sometimes known as the nursery of the seas—is the most diverse marine region on the planet, matched in its importance to life on Earth only by the Amazon rainforest and the Congo basin.
Defined by marine areas containing more than 500 species of reef-building coral, it covers around 2.3 million square miles of ocean across six countries in the Indo-Pacific – Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. It is home to 3,000 species of reef fish and commercially-valuable species such as tuna, whales, dolphins, rays, sharks, and 6 of the 7 known species of marine turtles.
The Coral Triangle also directly sustains the lives of more than 120 million people and contains key spawning and nursery grounds for tuna, while healthy reef and coastal systems underpin a growing tourism sector. WWF is working with other NGOs, multilateral agencies and governments around the world to support conservation efforts in the Coral Triangle for the benefit of all.
Victoria Gill, BBC News 26 Feb 10;
A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes - or a large forest's worth - of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say.
Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released.
US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at a major ocean sciences meeting in the US.
Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the "forests of the ocean".
Dr Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew.
"Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon," he said.
"And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that's removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere."
He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.
"And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.
"If they die where it's deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years."
Ocean trees
In their initial calculations, the team worked out that 100 years of whaling had released an amount of carbon equivalent to burning 130,000 sq km of temperate forests, or to driving 128,000 Humvees continuously for 100 years.
Dr Pershing stressed that this was still a relatively tiny amount when compared to the billions of tonnes produced by human activity every year.
But he said that whales played an important role in storing and transporting carbon in the marine ecosystem.
Simply leaving large groups of whales to grow, he said, could "sequester" the greenhouse gas, in amounts that were comparable to some of the reforestation schemes that earn and sell carbon credits.
He suggested that a similar system of carbon credits could be applied to whales in order to protect and rebuild their stocks.
"The idea would be to do a full accounting of how much carbon you could store in a fully populated stock of fish or whales, and allow countries to sell their fish quota as carbon credits," he explained.
"You could use those credits as an incentive to reduce the fishing pressure or to promote the conservation of some of these species."
Is bigger better?
Other scientists said that he had raised an exciting and interesting problem.
Professor Daniel Costa, a marine animal researcher from the University of California, Santa Cruz, told BBC News: "So many more groups are looking at the importance of these large animals in the carbon cycle.
"And it's one of those things that, when you look at it, you think: ' This is so obvious, why didn't we think of this before?'."
Dr Pershing pointed out that whales, with their huge size, were more efficient than smaller animals at storing carbon.
He used the analogy of a small dog compared to a large dog.
"My wife's 6lb (2.7kg) toy poodle eats one cup of food per day and my dog - a 60lb standard poodle - eats five cups of food per day," he said.
"That's only five times as much food but my dog weighs ten times as much."
He said that the marine carbon credit idea could be applied to other very large marine animals, including endangered bluefin tuna and white sharks.
Dr Pershing said: "These are huge and they are top predators, so unless they're fished they would be likely to take their biomass to the bottom of the ocean [when they die]."
The American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences meeting has been taking place this week in Portland, Oregon.
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