35.

New BLM logging plan not whats needed for owl and murrelet recovery
American Bird Conservancy March 9, 2012 A new plan announced by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) threatens to enshrine forest management policies favoring logging, including mature forests needed by the threatened Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet - species dependent on an old-growth forest ecosystem that also provides clean air, clean water, and viable fish and wildlife populations. The Northwest Forest Plan protects old-growth forests and allows for the growth of mature forests into quality wildlife habitat; it should not be abandoned in favor of an untested aggressive logging regime, said Steve Holmer, senior policy for American Bird Conservancy. Recent studies show there has been no increase in high-severity fires in the region, which raises concern that this proposal is responding to unfounded fears rather than to the needs of endangered wildlife. The BLMs announcement to revise six Resource Management Plans comes on the heels of a controversial Critical Habitat designation for the Northern Spotted Owl that encourages logging of owl habitat across its range, including in moist, mature forests where logging is not recommended to reduce fire risks. With Northern Spotted Owl numbers in rapid decline, logging of its habitat, which can harm or kill the owls and reduce their prey base, should be prevented, said Holmer. It is of great concern that the administration is pursuing this logging program without any scientific studies showing owl populations will benefit. The new BLM planning process would replace the previous Western Oregon Plan Revisions that a federal magistrate has recommended be vacated. In a court filing, the administration conceded the plan was not legally defensible because it did not comply with the Endangered Species Act. The first WOPR was a disaster because the agency repeatedly failed to follow the best available science, said Holmer. Given the problems we see in the owls draft critical habitat plan released just last week, we believe that science is once again being ignored.

Comment: Glad the logging company is being called out on their bullshit. Researchers called them out on their unfounded claims, and now they look like idiots. Perfect!

36. Deadly fishery expansion planned into Californias sea turtle protected area
Oceana March 6, 2012 On Saturday, March 3, the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to pursue the expansion of Californias devastating drift gillnet fishery for swordfish and sharks into an area that is currently off-limits in order to protect critically endangered Pacific leatherback sea turtles. The Pacific Fishery Management Councils action specifically asked for an analysis of just how much of the sea turtle protected area could be reduced to allow more drift gillnet fishing. The Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area prohibits drift gillnet fishing between August 15 and November 15 along the California coast north of Point Sur out to the 200-mile Economic Zone. It was established in 2001 to protect the endangered leatherback which migrates from Indonesia specifically to feed on jellyfish off the U.S. West Coast. The Council tried to open the area once before in 2006, but the attempt was defeated by conservation groups. All the science suggests that endangered sea turtles need more protection, not less, said Oceana California Program Director Geoff Shester. Drift gillnets have unacceptable levels of bycatch of some of our most treasured and vulnerable marine life, so if we want to catch more swordfish, we need to pursue cleaner fishing methods. Every year, the deadly fishery indiscriminately captures and kills or injures more than 130 protected whales, dolphins, seals and sea lions as well as thousands of sharks and other marine animals. The vast majority of those animals are dumped back into the ocean, dead or injured. Expanding the drift gillnet fishery would also lead to increased bycatch of iconic sunfish, bluefin tuna, blue sharks, striped marlin, and Albacore tuna. A new federal bycatch report also revealed that fishery observers witnessed two endangered sperm whales entangled and killed in the fishery in 2010. Since most entanglements go unseen due to low observer coverage, federal fishery managers estimated that as many as 16 sperm whales were likely to have been injured or killed in the fishery that year. This is well above the legal limit of sperm whales allowed to be captured in the California drift gillnet fishery. Fishing that sweeps up the oceans marine mammals and sea turtles in big fishing nets, killing and maiming them, needs to be limited- before its too late, said Catherine Kilduff of the Center for Biological Diversity. To go backwards on saving these amazing creatures makes no sense. Our public resources cant sustain the cost of fish caught by indiscriminate fishing methods. The California drift gillnet fishery targets swordfish and thresher shark and uses nets

that stretch a mile in length. The nets are set to soak overnight and catch almost all fish and animals that swim into them in the dark ocean. The proposed drift gillnet expansion would also encroach on an ocean area that in January was designated as critical habitat for the endangered leatherback sea turtle. National Marine Fisheries Service and the State of California are also pushing to increase domestic Pacific swordfish landings by initiating a new shallow-set longline fishery for swordfish despite the fact that the market trend in swordfish demand has been decreasing since the 1990s. Longlining along the coast is now prohibited by the State of California because of high bycatch of protected marine species and has been consistently defeated by conservationists, scientists, and the public. New lower bycatch gear will also be studied by the Council. The California drift gillnet fishery needs to be phased out if we are serious about achieving healthy fisheries, said Teri Shore, Program Director at SeaTurtles.org, a marine conservation group based in West Marin, CA, that has won strong protections for marine life harmed in the drift gillnet fishery. Sea turtles are getting more endangered, not less, these federal fishery managers are going rogue in trying to push longlining that nobody wants, not us, not the fisherman, not the state. Who wants to eat fish that is caught while killing sea turtles or whales? Assemblymember Paul Fong (D- Mountain View), who passed last years shark fin ban, recently introduced legislation (AB 1776) that will designate the leatherback sea turtle as Californias official state marine reptile.

Comment: That didnt take long! I remember posting an article back in January about how they established the protected area. Now they want to know the bare minimum space they can spare, so they can go back to raping the marine coastal environment. I hope conservationists stay strong on this one and dont budge.

37. Shell sues Oceana, others over Arctic drilling

Oceana March 5, 2012 Youve probably heard that Shell is planning to drill in Arctic waters. But now the plot thickens: In a bizarre move, Shell has decided to preemptively sue a group of environmental groups, including Oceana, to attempt to silence our voices and remove our right to challenge their spill response plan. Naturally environmentalists have been fighting against Shells plan the Arctic is a fragile environment, and an oil spill there would be a tragedy for Arctic communities, seals, polar bears, and more. Even the US Coast Guard has said they dont have the resources to deal with an Arctic spill.

Oceana has been campaigning to prevent unsafe drilling in the Arctic, along with many other environmental groups. Greenpeace made the news recently for protesting aboard an Arctic bound oil-drilling ship with actress Lucy Lawless. The truth is, there is no known technology to clean up spilled oil in icy Arctic ocean conditions. Shell does not have some magic solution. Clean-up crews at the recent Gulf of Mexico spill were only able to recover about 10% of the spilled oil, and that was in a warm environment with relatively calm seas. In the icy Arctic 1,000 miles from the nearest Coast Guard station, clean-up efforts would be extremely difficult if not impossible. By saying otherwise, Shell is misleading the public and the government. Well keep you posted as this curious lawsuit unfolds...

Comment: This leaves me scratching my head. Why are they suing them for raising valid scientific information? Even the coast guard said theyd have no chance in hell of cleaning up a spill. This will be an interesting lawsuit to follow. 38. Dont bite the hand that feeds: Using satellite technology to evaluate the effects of ecotourism on Tiger sharks.
Science Daily March 9, 2012 Ecotourism activities that use food to attract and concentrate wildlife for viewing have become a controversial topic in ecological studies. This debate is best exemplified by the shark dive tourism industry, a highly lucrative and booming global market. Use of chum or food to attract big sharks to areas where divers can view the dwindling populations of these animals has generated significant criticism because of the potential for ecological and behavioral impacts to the species. However, the debate has been largely rhetorical due to a lack of sufficient data to make any conclusions either way.

Five University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science researchers, Drs. Neil Hammerschlag, Jerald S. Ault and Jiangang Luo, and graduate students Austin Gallagher and Julia Wester, combined efforts to tackle this issue. In a paper published in the British Ecological Society's Functional Ecology titled, "Don't bite the hand that feeds: Assessing ecological impacts of provisioning ecotourism on an apex marine predator," the team conducted the first satellite tagging study to examine the long-term and long range movement patterns of tiger sharks (the largest apex predator in tropical waters) in response to dive tourism. "We studied two separate populations of tiger sharks: one that originated in Florida and the other in the Bahamas," says Hammerschlag. At the Bahamas site, nicknamed Tiger Beach, chum is widely used to attract sharks for dive tourism purposes. In contrast, shark feeding for ecotourism in Florida waters is illegal.

The team hypothesized that Tiger Beach sharks would exhibit restricted movements around the dive site, especially when compared to tiger sharks tagged in Florida. However, what they discovered was totally different -- Tiger Beach sharks did not exhibit restricted movements near the dive site. Instead, the Bahamas sharks occupied an area over 8500 km2 in size -- almost five times greater than Florida tiger sharks. "Not only did we discover that ecotourism provisioning did not affect tiger shark behavior, we found that tiger sharks undergo previously unknown long-distance migrations up to 3,500 km into the open Atlantic. These apparent feeding forays follow the Gulf Stream, an area of high biological productivity that concentrates shark prey," said Ault. "Given the economic and conservation benefits we believe managers should not prevent shark diving tourism out of hand until sufficient data were to demonstrate otherwise," added Hammerschlag. Shark finning, the practice of catching a shark, slicing off its fins and then disposing of the body at sea, is resulting in immense shark population declines worldwide. Fins are sold to support the growing demand for shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. In a 2011 study by UM's Gallagher & Hammerschlag, they showed that shark dive tourism generates more money to local economies than does killing the sharks.

Comment: The overall issue is tough. Waters are protected because people value the sharks and the economic benefits. It also creates a bond between the pubic and nature. But the science behind this whole study is terrible. A) they used one highly migratory species, and they only talked about their migration behaviour. What about their behaviour around humans when they are in the area? Need to study a bunch of shark species, and evaluate behaviour around humans with chumming. The study is very biased science.