Environmental News October 7 to October 28, 2016

World’s Largest Marine Protected Area declared in the Antarctica
By Matt McGrath
October 28, 2016
Delegates from 24 countries and the European Union have agreed that the Ross Sea in Antarctica will become the world's largest marine protected area (MPA).
Some 1.57m sq km (600,000 sq miles) of the Southern Ocean will gain protection from commercial fishing for 35 years.
Environmentalists have welcomed the move to protect what's said to be the Earth's most pristine marine ecosystem. They hope it will be the first of many such zones in international waters.
At this meeting in Hobart, Australia, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) agreed unanimously to designate the Ross Sea as an MPA, after years of protracted negotiations, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced.
The Ross Sea, its shelf and slope only comprise 2% of the Southern Ocean but they are home to 38% of the world's Adelie penguins, 30% of the world's Antarctic petrels and around 6% of the world's population of Antarctic minke whales.
Read more here.

Wildlife facing mass extinction ‘on a dinosaur level’
October 27, 2016
Conservationists have warned of a global "mass extinction" for the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared.
Global wildlife populations are set to fall by more than two-thirds on 1970 levels by the end of the decade.
By 2020, populations of vertebrate species could have fallen by 67% over a 50-year period unless action is taken to reverse the damaging impacts of human activity, experts said. Species affected include the African elephant, killer whale and Leatherback sea turtle.
Read more here.

Life Advice from Sylvia Earle
By: Melissa Gaskill, Men’s Journal
No one person pushed the limits of ocean sciences further than Sylvia Earle. As the first female chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earle has an unparalleled professional resume, but what really sets her apart is the time spent underwater, often in harm’s way, for the sake of science.
Read more here.

Philippe Cousteau’s “The Aquatic World” Is the Escape We All Need
By: Ellie Kincaid, Men’s Journal
We all could use a little ore levity in our daily media consumption. That’s one reason we’re so excited for the new season of The Aquatic World, a playful, light, and short (at just around 2 minutes each) series about the ocean, starring Philippe Cousteau, his wife Ashlan, and his Steve Zissou – inspired crew.
Read more here.

New 13-year Study Tracks Impact of Changing Climate on a Key Marine Food Source
By: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
A new multiyear study from scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has shown for the first time how changes in ocean temperature affect a key species of phytoplankton
Read more here.

Strange purple sea creatures found in deep ocean trenches
Date: October 20, 2016
By: Matt McGrath, BBC News
Scores of spectacular and rare under sea species have been found by expeditions this year to some of the deepest trenches in the Pacific Ocean.
Read more here.

Dow Chemical, Tiffany & Co. join a rising tide for ocean cleanup
Date: October 20, 2016
By: Sara Murphy, Green Biz
The future of humanity depends on the health of the oceans. Yet oceans are under tremendous pressure from unsustainable and illegal fishing pollution and climate-related impacts, their resources on a rapid decline. The imperative for action is stronger than ever, and the private sector must play a leading role.
Read more here.

Céline Cousteau Is More Than Keeping Her Head Above Water
Date: October 19, 2016
By: Hillary Potkewitz, The Observer
She’s a documentary filmmaker, a leading conservationist, a jewelry designer and a mother, but Céline Cousteau knows that she will always be introduced first as the granddaughter of Jacques Cousteau.
Read more here.

Bloom of ‘pink meanies’ jellyfish bob offshore Bay County
Date: October 19, 2016
By: Katie Landeck, Panama City News Herald
Since early October, Panama City Beach has been experiencing a bloom of “pink meanies,” a type of bright pink jellyfish that can grow up to 3 feet wide, with a plume of magenta tentacles that can extend up to 80 feet. As a result, the beaches have been flying purple flags to warm people of the potentially dangerous marine life in the water.
Read more here.

Petoskey State Park
Date: October 19, 2016
By: Atlas Obscura
In the Paleozoic Era, roughly 400 million years ago, Michigan wasn’t the chilly northern state we know it as now. It was somewhere near the equator and it was covered in a shallow, tropical sea, complete with ancient marine life.
Read more here.

Researchers study vast carbon residue of ocean life
Date: October 18, 2016
By: Phys.org
The oceans hold a vast reservoir – 700 billion tons – of carbon, dissolved in seawater as organic matter, often surviving for thousands of years after being produced by ocean life. Yet little is known about how it is produced, or how it’s being impacted by the many changes happening in the ocean.
Read more here.

The Secret Life of Krill
Date: October 18, 2016
By: Michelle Innis, The New York Times
On an August morning aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel floating at the bottom of the world, Christian Reiss was listening for acoustic signals bouncing off krill, a pinkish, feathery-limbed crustacean that is the lifeblood of the Antarctic ecosystem.
Read more here.

Impact of the Fukushima accident on marine life, five years later
Date: October 18, 2016
By: Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Science Daily
Five years ago, the largest single release of human-made radioactive discharge to the marine environment resulted from an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. A new study explored the environmental consequences in the marine environment of the accident.
Read more here.

Chinese Company Seeks to Capture Orcas and Hundreds of Marine Mammals in Namibia
Date: October 14, 2016
By: Maureen Nandini Mitra, Earth Island Journal
When it comes to wildlife trade and trafficking, sadly, way too many roads lead to China. Usually it’s the demand for animal parts to be used in traditional Chinese medicine that spurs this trade, but now there’s growing demand for live animals, especially marine mammals, for the country’s exploding theme park industry.
Read more here.

Life is looking up for California sea lion pups, marine researchers say
Date: October 14, 2016
By: Erika Ritchie, Los Angeles Daily News
California sea lion pups born at the Channel Islands rookeries this year are returning to normal weights after four years of mass strandings off the coast caused by changing ocean conditions and lack of food, experts announced Friday.
Read more here.

ndangered green sea turtles released into the wild
Date: October 14, 2016
By: Ryan Lothspeich, Hawaii News Now
Two endangered Hawaiian green sea turtles were released into the wild near Makapuu Beach on Friday as part of the Sea Life Park’s turtle breeding program.
Read more here.

UAE fishermen prepared to change their tune in face of falling stocks
Date: October 14, 2016
By: Naser Al Wasmi
As witnesses to the gradual decline in marine populations, fishermen in the UAE for years thought they had nothing to do with it.
Read more here.

Environment: Climate Change Affects Every Issue
Date: October 13, 2016
By: Robert Redford, Time
The environment rarely polls high as a concern for the American electorate. It’s usually topped by health care, the economy, national security – all of which are valid concerns. But the largest environmental issue – climate change—is altering our voting landscape.
Read more here.

Ocean rogue waves: A mystery unveiled?
Date: October 13, 2016
By: Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB)
Rogue waves are extremely high ocean waves that exceed the significant wave height by more than a factor of 2. The origin of rogue waves is still disputed, with a multitude of competing theories that fall into two basic categories: linear theories consider incidental random interference the origin of rogue waves.
Read more here.

Restored oyster reef creating booming marine life in Matagorda Bay
Date: October 13, 2016
By: Shannon Tompkins, Chron
Less than four years ago, anglers would have been hard pressed to catch much, if anything, from the Half Moon Reef area. That has changed, dramatically and significantly, in the wake of one of the largest, innovative and, so far, hugely successful oyster reef restoration projects on the Gulf Coast.
Read more here.

Beer company invest EDIBLE six pact rings to save sea life – and even humans can eat them
By: Lauren O’Callaghan, Express
A beer company has come up with a novel way to stop marine life being killed by the ring tops on cans tossed into the sea – make them edible.
Read more here.