SwRI-led team's research shows giant asteroids battered early Earth Science Codex San Antonio — July 31, 2014 — A new terrestrial bombardment model developed by an international group of scientists led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) indicates that Earth's surface was heavily reprocessed — or melted, mixed and buried — as ... |
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Smithsonian Channel to Debut Season 2 of SPEED KILLS, 8/20 Broadway World We might think that we are the masters of speed, with our rockets, super cars and supersonic jets, but man-made technology is put to shame by the natural evolution of the earth's top predators. The new season of Smithsonian ... The Namib is the oldest ... |
Goldman's Icy Arbitrage Draws Interest to Meet EPA Rule Bloomberg And the long-term implications may be much greater. In Southern and Western states, the need for storage may be the greatest in the coming years because of the surging growth in wind and solar generation. “In the big picture, we have to reduce our ... |
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Here's the rover that will explore Mars in 2020 Vox At a press conference Thursday, NASA scientists announced the seven scientific instruments that will be on board the craft — and revealed that, among other things, it will include an experimental device that can convert Mars' carbon dioxide to oxygen ... |
CNN | 9 of the world's best city beaches CNN (CNN) -- Stressed colleagues, traffic jams, pollution. We're all familiar with the ... One of the world's most famous strips of sand, Bondi is the closest ocean beach to the center of the city, ensuring its popularity with tourists and locals alike ... |
Indiana teen pilot, dad raise $1 million for charity despite deadly crash KETK (CNN) — A California entrepreneur is helping salvage the dream of a father and son from Indiana who died trying to pilot a plane around the world in a record-breaking quest for charity. Entrepreneur Ashar Aziz has donated the remaining half of the $1 ... |
The Press Conference will be Live Streamed Worldwide from Torshavn
Pamela Anderson joins Sea Shepherd in the Faroes to support GrindStop 2014 Tomorrow, August 1st, Pamela Anderson will join Sea Shepherd in the Danish Faroe Islands to show her support for Operation GrindStop 2014, Sea Shepherd’s multi-national land- and sea-based campaign featuring hundreds of Sea Shepherd volunteers who are there to protect pilot whales and other cetaceans from the brutal and archaic mass slaughter know as “grindadrap”.
The actress and activist will join Sea Shepherd Global, Sea Shepherd USA and Sea Shepherd France for a press conference held at the well known Hotel Foroyar in Torshavn. The conference will be live streamed worldwide, as Pamela helps Sea Shepherd shine a spotlight on the cruel grind.
Please join us via our live stream as Pamela Anderson joins Sea Shepherd in defense of the pilot whales:
August 1, 2014 at 12:00 pm in the Faroes (and London)
1:00 pm Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome
4:00 am PST USA / 7:00 am EST USA
Live stream link: http://ift.tt/1xIe92U
Pamela Anderson, actress and star of Baywatch, is a lifelong animal advocate. A longtime Sea Shepherd supporter and friend to Sea Shepherd’s iconic Founder Captain Paul Watson, Anderson has greatly helped to further Sea Shepherd’s mission to defend ocean wildlife worldwide. In 2012, she traveled to Germany to draw global attention to Captain Watson’s plight when he was held under house arrest in that country due to politically motivated charges from Costa Rica in relation to his efforts to stop an illegal shark finning operation.
Along with joining Sea Shepherd in the call for an end to the senseless ‘grind’ slaughter of marine wildlife, Anderson has also been a vocal advocate for the establishment of a resolution in Denmark that would ban this ritual cetacean massacre.
Also speaking at the press conference will be Lamya Essemlali, President of Sea Shepherd France and GrindStop 2014 Offshore Campaign Leader; and Rosie Kunneke, Sea Shepherd South Africa Coordinator and GrindStop 2014 Onshore Campaign Leader for the USA.
For hundreds of years the people of the Danish Faroe Islands have been driving pilot whales and other small cetaceans into shallow water and slaughtering them. Entire family units are destroyed. The Faroese claim that without the meat from these cetaceans, the people would starve. Whether or not people would have starved in the past without eating whale is irrelevant. There is certainly no one in the Danish Faroe Islands who would go hungry today, much less starve, if no more whales were killed.
Today, the ‘grindadrap’ (whale slaughter) or ‘grind’ is a barbaric and cruel relic of history that has no place in modern civilization. The wholesale slaughter of entire family units and the unimaginable horror inflicted upon these sentient, intelligent beings are unconscionable. The continued pillage of the oceans is causing disastrous consequences. Even the meat of these creatures is dangerous to consume. The European Union does not allow such activity, but the Danish Faroe Islands manage to side-step EU restrictions with their overfishing and harm to marine mammals. Sea Shepherd has led the opposition against the grind in the Faroe Islands since the 1980s.
Sea Shepherd’s multi-national crew of volunteers has been present on both land and sea in the Faroe Islands since mid-June. No whales have been killed during this time. Sea Shepherd will remain in the Faroes throughout the peak killing months of the grind season – until October 1st - and our goal is to bring the grind to a complete stop. The only grind this year took place on May 18, before Sea Shepherd arrived in the Faroe Islands.
Tensions have been rising in recent weeks and Sea Shepherd volunteers have experienced harassment, though some Faroese people have been supportive of Sea Shepherd’s efforts to end the grind and want to see an end to the whale massacre that stains their beautiful islands. No matter the opposition, Sea Shepherd volunteers will stand fast in our mission and will intervene in defense of the whales should a grind be initiated.
The Columbian | Rising acidity plagues Pacific Coast waters The Columbian The top layer of the world's oceans, perhaps the first 100 meters, absorb the elements in the atmosphere. The more carbon, the more acidic the water becomes. Currents take that layer of surface water and plunge it into the depths of the Pacific ... |
Alaska fisheries and communities at risk from ocean acidification, study shows Government Security News The term “ocean acidification” describes the process of ocean water becoming more acidic as a result of absorbing nearly a third of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from human sources. This change in ocean chemistry is affecting marine ... |
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New law hampers Galveston Bay storm study Houston Chronicle The need for a coastal protection study became apparent and the Corps suggested to the General Land Office that it be done using the existing authorization and money from the aborted Galveston and Jefferson counties study. The Land Office agreed and ... |
Sundale expects increase of about 10 percent for 2014 grape volume The Produce News The company continues “to do extensive replanting and grafting to newer varieties,” seeking always to stay at the vanguard “when it comes to planting new varieties” and strengthening the program for the long term, he said. To keep pace with its ... In ... |
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Graphic design: Cassie Randall Southwest Airlines has announced today that they will end their long-standing partnership with SeaWorld at the end of this year.
In January, Sea Shepherd called upon Southwest Airlines to end the 25-year partnership, and remove SeaWorld marketing from their planes. We even proposed a partnership of our own, and showed the airlines how great their planes would look if, instead of SeaWorld’s imprisoned orcas, they sported Sea Shepherd’s Jolly Roger — a logo that represents protecting marine life, not exploiting it. Though it doesn’t sound like they’ll be taking us up on our offer just yet, we are happy to report Southwest listened to calls to end the relationship from activists worldwide and is going to be removing SeaWorld’s name and images from their planes.
The companies have stated that they came to a mutual decision to end their relationship, with Southwest calling it a “business decision” to direct their focus internationally. But based on the enormous positive response that Sea Shepherd received following our proposal to Southwest Airlines, and the ever-growing backlash against SeaWorld in the wake of the ground-breaking documentary Blackfish, it is almost certain that the concerns of the public about SeaWorld’s treatment of its captive animals played a deciding role in Southwest’s decision.
As Sea Shepherd’s Cove Guardians have documented time and time again in Taiji, Japan, there is bloodshed behind the aquarium industry. In Taiji, in the infamous cove, entire pods of dolphins and small whales are driven in by boats and either killed or separated from their family forever to become a performing spectacle in captivity. They’re sent not only to marine parks in Taiji but elsewhere around the globe. The captive selection occurs simultaneously to the slaughter, despite claims from Taiji officials and fisheries. It is undeniable – the captive marine mammal industry, of which SeaWorld is a key player, is inextricably linked to the killing of wild marine mammals.
Though SeaWorld emphasizes that they do not have animals from drive hunts like the one in Taiji, recently they quietly received a permit from NOAA to import Kirara, a Pacific white-sided dolphin who was born in captivity in Japan, but whose wild parents were kidnapped from their ocean home. They will also obtain wild-caught beluga whales from Russia, if the Georgia Aquarium succeeds in their lawsuit against NOAA to import them into the United States and scatter them to various aquariums and parks. This is all in addition to the blood already on SeaWorld’s hands — a grim history of animals dying prematurely in their “care” and trainers being injured and even killed by stressed, desperate captive whales.
Sea Shepherd applauds Southwest Airlines’ decision to fly into a future that is becoming more and more possible — one in which tanks are empty and the oceans are full, in which the killing ends in Taiji because people will no longer support the captive industry that funded it, and in which cetaceans are finally left to swim freely in their ocean home with their families.
Commentary by Captain Adam Meyerson, M/Y Brigitte Bardot
Endangered birds fly at Ileu Raso, watched over by the Brigitte Bardot Photo: Sea Shepherd The MY Brigitte Bardot just returned from a short voyage around the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of West Africa, where Sea Shepherd and local NGO Biosphera are working on a joint project to protect endangered marine life in this unique archipelago. The Bardot and her crew hosted Tommy Melo, one of the founders of Biosphera, on a trip to the local seamounts to survey populations of endangered Cape Verde shearwaters. Very little is known about the feeding habits of these birds that occur nowhere else in the world and are threatened with extinction due to overfishing and direct human predation on the fledgling chicks.
As Tommy predicted, we observed flocks of shearwaters feeding on fish at each seamount. He was happy to have the long-range capability of the Brigitte Bardot to enable him to see these beautiful seabirds at their feeding grounds.
The crew was also happy to be visited by a large pod of Pantropical spotted dolphins. There is nothing better than watching these beautiful and social animals playing freely in the ocean. Several jumped up to deck level to have a good look at who we were.
After two days at sea, we called on Iléu Raso, where we were privileged to see the shearwaters sitting on their nests. Each pair of shearwater adults raises one baby in their cave nests. The birds are extremely vulnerable while on their nests and it is easy to approach them. The fledgling chicks will grow to twice the weight of the parents from baby fat.
Endangered Cape Verde Shearwater Photo: Sea Shepherd During this time, people come to the island and wring the necks of the fat, fluffy chicks and eat them. As many as 15,000 babies would be killed if they were left unprotected. Until now, Biosphera has been the only group that has had people on the island to protect these endangered birds, but this year Sea Shepherd will be by their side providing a ship and crew to help stand guard over the shearwater fledglings.
Iléu Raso is home to several other critically endangered species of animals. These islands are a model of the world and we can see the effects of humans clearly here. The Raso Lark population consists of only a few hundred individuals, and these birds occur nowhere else in the world but on this rocky islet. The Cape Verde sparrows followed the crew like curious dogs as we hiked around the island. Tommy showed us caves with red-billed tropicbirds sitting on their nests. In the same caves the endangered giant wall gecko lives, eating the parasites from the birds and their cracked eggs. The gecko also only lives on two of the Cabo Verde islets, both of which have protected status — with only Biosphera to ensure that people follow the rules.
Red Billed Tropic Bird chick in nest Photo: Sea Shepherd Santa Luzia is a major loggerhead turtle nesting area, and another place that Biosphera has been protecting from poaching. Sea Shepherd will be assisting with this project as well, helping to transport volunteers to the island, counting turtle nests and hatchlings, guarding the eggs and turtles from poachers, and relocating nests when needed.
As with the world, we can all sit idly by as species after species is wiped out by overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution or we can stand up and fight for the animals’ right to live unmolested, to let them have – at the very least – this tiny corner of the world. The crew of the Brigitte Bardot is happy to be working with the passionate and dedicated crew of Biosphera to help make the human impact on Iléu Raso and the neighboring reserve islands of Branco and Santa Luzia a positive one.
The problems in Cabo Verde are the same problems the oceans are facing everywhere. The solution is the same as well: management, enforcement, education and clean up. It is inspiring what Biosphera has done on an extremely limited budget with a small group of dedicated volunteers. Like the islets, they can serve as a model for the rest of the world. Thanks to our multitudes of supporters from around the world, Sea Shepherd and the crew of the MY Brigitte Bardot and the MY Jairo Mora Sandoval are able to help Biosphera in this fight.
The fangtooth moray eel, an eel species with multiple glass-like teeth. (Photo: Philippe Guillaume / Flickr Creative Commons)
When you’re out swimming or surfing at the beach, have you ever wondered which ocean animals surrounding you have teeth? It turns out that sharks aren’t the only marine animals with teeth—a tool in some marine animals may be more widespread than you thought.
From hundreds of sharp, razor-blade-like teeth in great white sharks to the singular long, spiraled tooth on narwhales, teeth come in all shapes in sizes in marine ecosystems. This diversity is for good reason—some use their teeth to shred and slice prey, while others use their teeth more as a harpoon.
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