Want info on invasive species?

I found a website, titled the Global Invasive Species Database that lists all the invasive species throughout the world. You can be specific by typing the country, location, species name, habitat and/or organism type. I found the Nova Scotia coastland has 5-7 invasive species ranging from algae, herbs and molluscs. Interestingly, it also lists the native species of NS that are invasive to other countries. It also lists the 100 worst!

Smiling baby thornback ray

Baby Thornback Ray's gill slits make it look like a smiling children's tv creature. Tourists are flocking to a Hampshire aquarium. Read about it here

Mislabeled fish in stores and restaurants: Are you getting what you think?

New York Times had an article on mislabeled fish and how 2 high school students underwent a year-long investigation to see if consumers were getting what they thought they were. Makes you wonder how far mislabeling activities go?

How many species live in the sea?

230,000 marine species have been recorded and they will soon be catalogued on a website so that people can search them by a click of their mouse.
The World Register of Marine Species is launched today by the the Census of Marine Life. Once complete, it will provide the first definitive list of all known species in the world's oceans.
The Register is freely accessible online and includes descriptions of the species and photos. It will allow both the public and scientists to identify species they come across and easily recognise entirely new species.

Mussel mania

Dr. Conrad had mentioned in class about a volunteer
opportunity in saving mussels in Lake Banook. So on october 23, which was a chilly, windy day, I borrowed a pair of totally awesome hip waders from Dr. Conrad, dressed myself in my warm manitoba gear and headed down to the lake. For some reason I expected there to be a lot more people because of all the classmates who had expressed interest in volunteering. I guess that just meant more mussels for me to catch! There were approximately 12-15 people. After a brief background on mussels and why we were doing this, we suited up, got our onion bags to hold our catch and ventured out. At first we were positioned in lines approximately a foot or two a part, and from there we slowly combed the waterbed. Because it was quite windy, the rippling water made it difficult to clearly see the bottom, and our walking so close together stirred up the floor which made the water opaque. We eventually discarded that process and as you can see in thte photo, we are randomly placed. The waterproof gloves we were given didn't hold up to the deeper waters as the water rushed in from the top anyhow, so many of us went bare handed. We found the most effective way of finding the most mussels was simply to keep our catching arm under water, and scour the lake bed with our fingers. It got to the point that having our arm in the water was warmer than taking it out, and since we lost feeling in our hands anyway, we continued on. We caught about 150 mussels in just over an hour. Once we had finished, the mussel-filled onion sacks were attached to empty bottles that would act as buoys and canoed them to deeper parts of the lake.

It was interesting to find out the lake had approximately 15 species of mussel and some of them were between 150-200 years old!

The mussels had to be moved because the lake is being partially drained to install a sewage pipe and because the world canoe championships are being held on the lake next year, certain construction needs to be done before then. As you can see, the lake is being dammed up beneath the highway bridge as water is being slowly drained into Sullivans duck pond. This decrease in water volume also decreases oxygen in the water, which is why the mussels are stored in the lakes deep parts. The coordinator said that mussels only move approximately 10 feet a day, so they wouldn't be able to keep up with the draining. It is important to save them because Mussels are filter feeders. They eat tiny animals (protozoa) and plants (algae) that they filter from water passing across their gills. Mussels are good for the environment because their filter feeding helps make water clear. They are also an important food resource for muskrats, raccoons, river otters, and some fish.


Here you can see the water has dropped quite a bit. But the more intense draining was to occur on the weekend. Clean NS was planning on returning as the water dropped to do some more mussel saving as well as clean up the exposed lake bed of garbage. They would probably need a lot of volunteers for that event! (hint, hint). I definitely had a good time and met a lot of great people, and though we joked about taking our onion sack of mussels home for dinner, it was nice to help out in this small way.

Things anyone can do to protect the ocean

This website has a good list of things we can do to protect the ocean: things we can do inside and outside our homes. Even starting small is a step, and hopefully people will take on more responsibility when they realize how vital it is to be apart of a lifestyle change towards our oceans and environment. http://marinebio.org/Oceans/Conservation/local.asp

How the lobster clawed its way up

Someone told me that way back in the day lobster was once food only fit for prisoners. So I did a little searching, and sure enough, back in the 17th and 18th centuries along the eastern coast of the U.S, lobster was a junk food item fed to orphans, prisoners, widows and servants and it was "commonly found in the dinner troughs of pigs, cows, and goats. It was so commonly used as a food for servants and prisoners that Massachusetts passed a law forbidding its use more than twice a week....a daily lobster dinner was considered cruel and unusual punishment! People were downright ashamed to eat lobster. Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation, wrote American observer John Rowan in the mid-19th century." In one Massachusetts town, a group of indentured servants became so upset at their lobster-heavy diet that they took their masters to court and won a judgment protecting them from having to eat it more than three times a week. Some contemporary Canadians remember kids from poor towns, as late as the 1940s, trading lobster sandwiches for peanut butter and jelly in the school cafeteria. (I find this hilarious!) The reason for it's gross unpopularity is that it was so plentiful. But when uppity tourists travelled to these coastal towns, they wanted to eat seafood, and it became a hot commodity. The locals began cooking it up in various ways, and when these uppity tourists returned home, they wanted to be able to have lobster whenever they wanted. So the lobster industry exploded...and here we are today, where lobster is a treat, the demand for it ubelievable and we all pay a lot to have it. Oh to have grown up along the east coast at that time..mmm! This goes to show the huge affect of public demand...yes, businesses want to make money, BUT we fuel it. We can't rely on business to be ethical for us, unfortunately that doesn't work, so we, the public, must make our own ethical and sustainable choices, and demand that businesses do the same thing.

Strange deepsea marine life

"Combining the latest scientific discoveries with astonishing color imagery, The Deep takes readers on a voyage into the darkest realms of the ocean. Revealing nature’s oddest and most mesmerizing creatures in crystalline detail, The Deep features more than two hundred color photographs of terrifying sea monsters, living fossils, and ethereal bioluminescent creatures, some photographed here for the very first time. Accompanying these breathtaking photographs are contributions from some of the world’s most respected researchers that examine the biology of deep-sea organisms, the ecology of deep-sea habitats, and the history of deep-sea exploration."

Videos on the environmental impacts of humans

Are you afraid of the world?

A short video, Are you afraid of the world, is actually a set of 3, so be sure to check out the other chapters. It is chock full of sad facts of how our current way of life grossly affects water resources...not that our class doesn't know, but is good to check out nontheless! The second video has scenes asking people on the street where their water and food comes from, many answer they have no idea! Nor do they know where their waste goes.

Another video, Once upon a Tide, is geared towards younger viewers, as it's in a fairtale with a message type setting...but I found it sweet to watch, and could imagine showing something like this to my nieces and nephew.

Ocean Acidification

Ocean Acidification has been mentioned in class a few times and so I did a little searching...and I came upon this article. It just goes to show how widespread and interconnected environmental impacts are. The change in the Oceans pH because of rising CO2 levels within the ocean does more than harm coral and crustaceons, apparently it can also make the ocean a louder place. More research is needed to see what sorts of impacts this will have on all marine life, but the worry is that the increased noise will make it difficult for whales to communicate.

Interesting take on photo contest

A diver prepares to free a sperm whale from a drift net

I came across a photo contest that has redirected its focus from "not seeking the typical beauty shots but rather images that inspire public action". Coming from the prairies, I sometimes feel that marine life is a distant world! The only thing I've seen are seals.

Society is incredibly visual and I wonder if people feel disconnected with marine life because you don't see it, like you see land animals like cattle, horses and deer. I feel this photo does a good job in provoking feelings of anger and sympathy as you see marine life struggling with our economic need to fish and impose ourselves on them.