I heard some legitimate questions about how to identify European
green crabs and what to do if you find one. The main thing is to
get a photograph and send it to the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team,
which is leading the war on green crabs. I’m reminded that it is
illegal to possess a green crab without a permit.
Here are some links from the Crab Team website that could be
helpful:
I’m also pleased to see the announcement of a free online
webinar on July 10 to help people identify European green crabs.
The two-hour “First Detector
Training Webinar” is co-sponsored by the Crab Team and
Washington Invasive Species Council. Register ahead of time to get
information about the event.
It is rather amazing to watch live video from a submarine
creeping along along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon
Coast, and I wanted to remind everyone that this is something they
can experience right now via the Nautilus Live webfeed. The live
commentary from the operators can be amusing at times, but I didn’t
want to wait until Monday to let you know what’s going on.
Exploration Vessel Nautilus, with its remotely operated
submarines Hercules and Argus, has been exploring deep-sea vents
off Oregon the past few days, marking the beginning of a six-month
expedition along the West Coast and around Hawaii. The ROVs were
launched Sunday as the weather allowed, and the mother ship is now
moving up the coast. I’ve embedded the video on this page, but more
information and alternate channels are provided on the Nautilus homepage. One can also
send questions to the research team.
As I post this message at 11:30 a.m., Hercules is about two
hours into today’s exploration and examining a bacterial mat on the
bottom. If things ever seem to be going slow, one can always click
back on the video to see what was happening up to four hours
earlier.
As luck would have it, right before I posted this, the audio
went out. At the top of the page, you’ll see this message from
Marty Momsen, communications manager: “We have reached the ocean
floor at S Coquille and are actively seeking bubble streams! (We
are troubleshooting audio, so we recommend listening to your own
background music in the meantime!)”
The current expedition, funded by the Ocean Exploration Trust
and led by oceanographer Bob Ballard, will be the one of the
longest seasons of exploration since the Nautilus began
investigating the West Coast seafloor four years ago.
“With telepresence, you can send your soul to the bottom of the
Pacific Ocean with ROV Hercules, and then go home at the end of the
day,” Ballard said in a
press release. “Anyone with an Internet connection can explore
right along with us by watching Nautilus Live.”
The search will include “deep-sea coral habitats in national
marine sanctuaries, hydrothermal vents from an active submarine
volcano, bubbling methane seeps, and ancient shorelines just
offshore of some of North America’s largest cities,” according to
the press release.
The scientific endeavor begins with an ongoing study of methane
seeps along the Cascadia margin, where tectonic plates come
together off the coast of Washington, Oregon and Northern
California. During a mapping effort the past two years, more than
2,700 bubble streams were identified at 1,000 different locations,
and this expedition will add new scientific information.
The research team will also try to locate and recover the
fragments of a large meteorite that fell within the Olympic Coast
National Marine Sanctuary in March.
In British Columbia, the Nautilus will explore three offshore
seamounts in partnership with the Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as
the ship transits to Hawaii in August. The full schedule from June
to November can be see on “The Expedition” page
of the Nautilus website.
During the cruise, the Nautilus Facebook page
tends to provide some details of interest to online observers,
while the Nautilus Twitter
feed offers frequent reports of what is taking place.
An international team of taxonomists has chosen the “Top 10 New
Species of 2018” from among some 18,000 new species named last
year.
They range from the large — a majestic tree that is critically
endangered — to the small — a microscopic single-celled organism
discovered in an aquarium with no obvious connection to any known
species.
They include a fish that has survived in the deepest, darkest
part of the Pacific Ocean — at record depth — with credit for its
discovery going to a team of scientists led by a University of
Washington researcher.
The list of new species also includes a rare great ape — an
orangutan that has been identified as a separate species — as well
as a prehistoric marsupial lion identified from fossils found in
Australia.
The 11th annual list is compiled by the International Institute
for Species Exploration at the College of Environmental Science and
Forestry at the State University of New York.
College President Quentin Wheeler, the founding director of the
institute, said the annual list demonstrates the value of species
exploration and diversity.
“I’m constantly amazed at how many new species show up and the
range of things that are discovered,” he said in a news
release.
“We name about 18,000 per year but we think at least 20,000 per
year are going extinct,” Wheeler said. “So many of these species —
if we don’t find them, name them and describe them now — will be
lost forever.
“And yet they can teach us so much about the intricacies of
ecosystems and the details of evolutionary history,” he added.
“Each of them has found a way to survive against the odds of
changing competition, climate and environmental conditions. So each
can teach us something really worth knowing as we face an uncertain
environmental future ourselves.”
Wheeler blames humans for the high rate of extinctions. “At this
stage, it’s us,” he explained. “People are altering habitats and
changing the climate. As inconvenient as it might be to adapt to
climate change with our crops and relocate cities in the most
extreme scenarios, what we can’t do is bring back species once
they’re gone.”
The top-10 list is made public each year around May 23 to
recognize the birthday of Carolus Linnaeus, an 18th century Swedish
botanist who is considered the father of modern taxonomy.
Swire’s Snailfish: Deepest fish in the sea
Pseudoliparis swirei
Its appearance reveals nothing about its character, but a fish
that lives in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean must be doing
right. The newly named Swire’s snailfish (Pseudoliparis
swirei) is about 4 inches long with a translucent,
tadpole-like body with no scales — and no other fish on Earth has
been found in a deeper location.
Large numbers of the new species were captured in baited traps
in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific at depths between
22,000 and 26,000 feet (between 4 and 5 miles deep). One fish was
recorded on camera at 27,000 feet, but without a specimen
researchers could not be confirm it as the same species.
A scientific paper describing the fish was published in November
in Zootaxa,
and Michelle Ma of
UW News reported on the discovery.
“This is the deepest fish that’s been collected from the ocean
floor, and we’re very excited to have an official name,” lead
author Mackenzie Gerringer, a postdoctoral researcher at UW’s
Friday Harbor Laboratories, was quoted as saying. “They don’t look
very robust or strong for living in such an extreme environment,
but they are extremely successful.”
Mackenzie also spoke with Craig Welch of National Geographic,
who said the pressures that the fish endure are equal to the weight
of 1,600 elephants.
“There are real limitations to life in these trenches,” she
said. “They have evolved adaptations to that pressure to keep their
enzymes functioning and membranes moving.”
P. swirei belongs to the snailfish family, Liparidae.
Among the family’s more than 400 named species are fish found at
all depths, from intertidal pools to the deepest reaches. It is
believed that about 27,000 feet is a physiological limit, meaning
that no fish can live in water any deeper.
Genomic evidence has revealed that a small, isolated population
of Sumatran orangutans is so distinct from other orangutans in the
region that they should be considered a separate species. With only
about 800 known individuals remaining, Pongo tapanuliensis
becomes the most endangered population of great apes in the
world.
In 2001, the orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo, which had been
considered one species, were recognized as two: Pongo
abelii and Pongo pygmaeus. Before naming the new
species, an international team of researchers examined the
morphometric, behavioral, and genomic evidence of the various
orangutan populations. Genomic evidence shows that the new species
— isolated at the southern limit of the range occupied by Sumatran
orangutans — diverged from other orangutans some 3.4 million years
ago, whereas the northern Sumatra and Borneo species separated
about 674,000 years ago.
The importance of this finding was quickly recognized, as the
estimated 800 individuals live in fragmented habitat spread out
over 250,000 acres in forested hillsides with elevations ranging
from 1,000 to 4,000 feet.
Size of the new species is similar to other orangutans, with
female heights under 4 feet and males under 5 feet. Researchers
discuss the unique characteristics of the new species and how it
was identified in
“The Conversation.” Meanwhile, several conservation groups
continue their efforts to save the last orangutans from
extinction.
Orangutans are considered great apes — although eastern and
western gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related
to humans.
More than 10 years ago, the biodiversity manager at a forest
reserve in Brazil sent taxonomic researchers samples from a large
tree that he believed was different from other trees in the region.
After much work, the tree was revealed to be a new species of the
genus Dinizia, which until last year had been represented
by only one species, D. excels.
The new species, Dinizia jueirana-facao, grows up to
130 feet tall and rises majestically above the surrounding canopy
of semi-deciduous, riparian trees in Atlantic Forest. The new
species is smaller than its closest relative and has been found
only in and near to the forest reserve, Reserva Natural Vale in
northern Espirito Santo, Brazil. So far, only about 25 individual
trees have been found, with about half in the protected area.
Like the large parent tree, its woody fruits are impressive,
reaching about 18 inches long.
More than 2,000 species of vertebrate animals live in the
Atlantic Forest, including almost 200 endemic species of birds.
This forest is home to more than half of the threatened animal
species in Brazil. The critical habitat has been severely reduced
and fragmented, leaving perhaps 15 percent of what had once been a
connected ecosystem of more than 330 million acres.
Discovered on brain coral in a tropical aquarium in San Diego, a
single-celled protist has challenged scientists to determine its
nearest relatives. It does not fit neatly within any known group of
organisms, and nobody knows where it may have come from.
Early lineage has been linked to the domain Eukaryota, the
highest taxonomic rank, and this new species features a rich
mitochondrial genome. Eukaryotes are organisms with cells that have
their genetic material bound within a nuclear membrane.
Prokaryotes, found in the domains of bacteria and archaea, lack
such an organized nucleus.
Eukaryotes include single-celled protists as well as a vast
array multi-celled organisms, including animals, plants and
fungi.
The new species, named Ancoracysta twista, is a
predatory flagellate that uses its whip-like flagella to propel
itself through the water. Its harpoon-like organelles, called
ancoracysts, can immobilize other protists on which it feeds.
Researchers say the unusually large number of genes in its
mitochondrial genome opens a window into the early evolution of
eukaryotic organisms. A search for close relatives will be an
ongoing challenge following the discovery of this new species at
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.
An amphipod, about 2 inches long, has been named Epimeria
Quasimodo, after Victor Hugo’s character, Quasimodo the
hunchback. Featuring a somewhat humped back, the new species is
among 26 new species of amphipods of the genus Epimeria
that have been identified in the Southern Ocean.
With incredible spines and vivid colors, the genus
Epimeria includes both free-swimming predators and sessile
filter feeders, and it has taken on an iconic status among
biologists studying the creatures. The genus is abundant in the
glacial waters circulating south of the Polar Front, and their
crested adornments are reminiscent of mythological dragons, they
say.
When a treatment of the genus was published in 2007, many
researchers assumed that the species were rather completely known.
But, by studying the morphology and DNA evidence, two Belgian
investigators demonstrated just how little is known of these
spectacular invertebrates.
A tiny beetle in Costa Rica, newly named Nymphister
kronaueri, survives among ants by pretending to be a piece of
the ant’s body.
At just 1.5 millimeters, the beetle goes for long travels with
army ants, Eciton mexicanum, which never builds permanent
nests but instead spends two or three weeks on the move as they
capture prey, then lay up in one location for the next two or three
weeks.
The hitchhiking beetle can move about and feed while the host
colony is stationary, but it must be ready to catch a ride when the
ants take off on their next trip.
The beetle’s body is the precise size, shape and color of the
abdomen of a worker ant. The beetle uses its mouthparts to grab the
skinny portion of the host abdomen and hang on, appearing as a
second abdomen. In addition to their appearance, they use chemical
signals and other adaptations to avoid becoming prey themselves,
but exactly how they fool the ants remains a subject of
investigation.
Most plants are autotrophic, meaning they feed themselves by
capturing solar energy through photosynthesis. A few, like the
newly discovered S. sugimotoi, are heterotrophic, meaning
they cannot produce their own food and must depend on other
organisms.
This new species of plant is symbiotic with a fungus, which
provides nutrition, and neither species is harmed during the
process. It turns out that this new plant is part of a family,
Triuridaceae, made up of individuals that all derive their
nutrients from symbiotic fungi, thus they are called
mycoheterotrophs.
The new plant, which features a beautiful flower, was discovered
on Ishigaki Island in Japan, which has added to its acclaim, since
most plants found in Japan have been well documented over a long
period of time.
The delicate S. sugimotoi, which grows to just under 4
inches, appears during short flowering times in September and
October, producing small blossoms. The species is considered
critically endangered, as it has been identified in only two
locations on the island where about 50 plants were found growing in
an evergreen broadleaf forest. Like other fungal symbionts, the
species depends on a stable ecosystem for survival.
Colonizing bacteria
Photo: Miquel Canals, U. of Barcelona,
Spain
When the submarine volcano Tagoro erupted off the coast of El
Hierro in the Canary Islands in 2011, it abruptly increased the
water temperature, decreased the oxygen level and released massive
quantities of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, wiping out much
of the existing marine ecosystem.
Three years later, scientists found the first living colonizers
in this newly deposited area, including a new species of
proteobacteria that produces long, hairlike structures composed of
bacterial cells within a sheath.
The bacteria formed a massive white mat extending nearly half an
acre around the summit of the newly formed Tagoro volcanic cone at
depths of about 430 feet. Scientists who studied the bacteria
concluded that unique metabolic characteristics allow the bacteria
grow under such stark conditions. Early colonies of this newly
discovered bacteria could pave the way for successional development
of plant and animal communities. The researchers dubbed the
filamentous bacterial mat “Venus’ hair” and named the bacteria
Thiolava veneris.
About 25 million years ago, a marsupial lion, newly named
Wakaleo schouteni, roamed Australia’s open forest habitat
in northwestern Queensland.
Scientists from the University of New South Wales recovered
fossils in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland that
came to be associated with a previously unknown marsupial lion.
Weighing about 50 pounds — more or less the size of a Siberian
husky dog — this predator spent part of its time in trees. Its
teeth suggest that it was not completely reliant on meat but was,
rather, an omnivore.
Two species of marsupial lions may have been present during the
later Oligocene epoch, which ended with the Miocene 23 million
years ago. The other, Wakaleo pitikantensis, was slightly
smaller and was identified from teeth and limb bones discovered
near Lake Pitikanta in South Australia in 1961.
Evolution of the Australian creatures seemed to follow Cope’s
rule — named after American paleontologist Edward Cope — that
suggests an increasing body size over time, perhaps because of the
ability to eat larger prey and go longer between meals as the
climate grew drier and cooler and the plants underwent major
changes.
Cave beetle // Photo:
Sunbin Huang and Mingyi Tian
A variety of beetles that become adapted to life in the
permanent darkness of caves often resemble one another in a suite
of characteristics: compact body; elongated, spider-like
appendages; and loss of flight wings, eyes and pigmentation. A
newly discovered species of beetle in China seems to have taken
such changes to an extreme.
These cave-dwelling beetles provide an example of convergent
evolution, as unrelated species take on similar characteristics
over evolutionary time as they become better adapted to extreme
conditions. The new species of ground beetle, less than half an
inch long, features a dramatic elongation of its head and prothorax
— the body segment immediately behind the head to which the first
pair of legs attach.
Xuedytes bellus was discovered in a cave in Du’an,
Guangxi Province, China, known for its large number of caves that
have become home to the world’s most diverse collection of
cave-dwelling ground beetles found in the subfamily Trichinae,
family Carabidae. To date, more than 130 species, representing
nearly 50 genera, have been described from China.
Dungeness Spit on the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Sequim remains
a hot spot for the invasive European green crab, which first showed
up in Puget Sound during the fall of 2016.
This small male crab is one of
the European green crabs caught last year in traps at Dungeness
Spit.
Photo: Allen Pleus
The green crab, one of the most dreaded invasive species in the
world, brings with it the potential to destroy shellfish beds and
disrupt key habitats essential to native species in Puget
Sound.
Thankfully, except for the Dungeness Spit, new findings of green
crabs have been almost zero since a massive volunteer trapping
effort resumed in April throughout most of Puget Sound.
I do have some additional news about green crabs to share, so
please read on for a discussion of these topics:
Green crabs on Dungeness Spit
New findings on Whidbey Island
Where the crabs are NOT coming from
New efforts with Canada
First scientific paper on the green crab program
New assessment tool on the horizon
Green crabs on Dungeness Spit
So far this year, 42 of the invasive crabs have been found on
Dungeness Spit, compared to 96 for all of last year, according to
Lorenz Sollman, deputy project leader for the Washington Maritime
National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
European green crabs have been
found on Graveyard Spit, the small spit that juts off the main
Dungeness Spit.
So far, nobody knows if the first crabs to arrive on the spit
are reproducing or if the young ones being found there are new
arrivals. Crabs can travel great distances through the water in
larval form before they settle down and take on the familiar
appearance of a full-grown crab.
“We don’t have any reason to think that they are not reproducing
(at Dungeness),” said Emily Grason, Crab Team coordinator for
Washington Sea Grant. The Crab Team is a group of volunteers and
experts who monitor 54 trapping sites in the region.
Just this morning, Crab Team members found a new green crab at
Dungeness Landing County Park, west of the Dungeness River and just
outside the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.
“We’ve had our eye on that site, since it’s so close to the
Dungeness Spit and assumed it was only a matter of time before one
showed up there,” Emilly wrote me in an email.
Meanwhile, in Makah Bay just outside the Strait of Juan de Fuca
in the Pacific Ocean, nearly 400 crabs have been captured in an
intensive trapping effort this year alone. The first crab was
spotted in the bay last fall. Matthew Nash of the
Olympic Peninsula News Group updated the situation this week —
although it is Makah Bay, not Neah Bay. The latter, which is
technically inside Puget Sound, has not been found to have any
green crabs.
New findings on Whidbey Island
At the beginning of this month, one of the most intensive
trapping programs yet in Puget Sound was conducted over three days
at Lagoon Point on Whidbey Island, where two green crabs were
caught on different days last year. Working in deep sticky mud,
only one green crab was caught in the enclosed lagoon during the
latest effort.
Crab Team leaders Sean
McDonald, Kelly Martin and Emily Grason following their three-day
trapping effort on Whidbey Island.
“While we might have been happier not to catch any green crab,
we are certainly glad that we only found one,” wrote Kelly Martin
for the Crab
Team Blog. Kelly, the newest member of the Crab Team management
group, goes on to talk about the trapping adventure — including her
accidental sit-down in the mud.
In a previous
blog post, Kelly, who is a graduate student at the University
of Washington, introduced herself to readers and talked about her
background.
Where the crabs are NOT coming from
It has been suspected that the European green crabs found at
Dungeness Spit as well as those on San Juan Island and Padilla Bay
may have originated from Sooke Inlet at the southern tip of
Vancouver Island, where a large infestation of green crabs has
become well established.
After all, Sooke Inlet is physically close to areas in Puget
Sound where green crabs have been found, at least when compared to
infested areas along the coast. Although a large channel separates
the U.S. from Canada, that might not be much of an obstacle for
crab larvae, which drift with the currents.
To the surprise of many, a research project involving crab DNA
showed that the green crabs in Puget Sound were NOT closely related
to those in Sooke. Instead, the crabs at Dungeness Spit came from
coastal populations, according to genomics work by Carolyn Tepolt
of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Sooke population is
considered genetically isolated and very different, probably
because it started some time ago by a small number of crabs that
did not mix with others.
Lagoon Point, Whidbey Island:
Blue dots are minnow traps; orange dots are larger fukui traps;
large orange circles are where two European green crabs were found
last year; and the yellow circle is where the one crab was found
this year. // Map: Crab Team
At the same time, studies of the tidal currents in the area
showed that Sooke was no more likely to be a source of crab larvae
than coastal areas. Crab larvae coming from Sooke are likely to be
swept toward the ocean, whereas rare conditions called “reversals”
can bring larvae from the Washington Coast along the southern shore
of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, according to a study by Elizabeth
Brasseale, a graduate student in oceanography at the University of
Washington. See the Crab Blog from April
25.
New efforts with Canada
Knowing that Sooke is not the source of the green crabs in Puget
Sound changes the dynamic with Canada.
“It was a relief to find out that crabs (from British Columbia)
were not inundating our shores,” Emily Grason told me. “If that had
been the case, the necessary management action would be to throw
everything at Sooke Basin.”
The cost of eradicating green crabs from Sooke would be enormous
and probably would not help the situation in the U.S. On the other
hand, the Canadians may learn some things from the extensive
trapping program taking place in Puget Sound, which seems to be
keeping the crab population in check. Sooke may be somewhat of a
lost cause, but there could be hope for other B.C. inlets at risk
of being invaded.
A cross-boundary task force has been discussing the green crab
problem on both sides of the border. Meanwhile, an expert panel at
April’s Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference discussed the pros and cons
of international cooperation as well as political realities of
dealing with the problem. Kelly Martin summarized that session for
the Crab
Blog on April 27.
First scientific paper on the green crab
effort
The first publication addressing Puget Sound’s European green
crab invasion documents the early stages of a horrific invasive
species while celebrating the collaborations of hundreds of people
making detection and control possible, according to Emily.Allen Pleus,
coordinator of Washington’s Aquatic Invasive Species
Program.
“If you are familiar with Crab Team, you might wonder why this
scientific paper, which only covers the findings through the end of
2016, is important,” EmilyAllen wrote
in the Crab
Team Blog. “We have certainly been sharing news about findings
through our blog, the media and other outlets.
“So, what does this publication add?” she asked. “This paper will
help scientists track how European green crab has spread across the
globe. Because of the rigorous review conducted on the paper by
multiple experts – and believe me, it was rigorous – the
information can be used to inform policy and management of this
species, both here, and in other locations.”
As with most scientific papers, the information shared with the
world lags behind current events, yet it reaches a depth of
information that will be most helpful for those working with
European green crabs, invasive species and related subjects.
Although trapping European green crabs has been effective at
locating the early stages of an invasion in Puget Sound, imagine
instead taking a water sample and sending it to a lab. After a
short wait, a technician using DNA techniques would tell you the
likelihood of finding crabs in that location.
This is the ultimate test that I’m imagining as a new effort
gets underway to identify invasive species by looking for DNA
floating in the water. The technique is known as environmental DNA
testing, or simply eDNA, and it is increasingly being used in
freshwater to look for the presence of species of interest.
Developing a technique for saltwater adds the complexity of
tides and currents moving DNA around, chemical breakdown of DNA,
and determining if the DNA signal is coming from the larval form of
a species or reproductive adults.
Alison Watts, an environmental engineer at the University of New
Hampshire, has received a two-year, $500,000 grant to study eDNA in
marine estuaries. She is collaborating with researchers at sample
sites in Oregon, Maine and New Hampshire. The idea is to use eDNA
techniques alongside traditional methods of biological sampling,
such as seining, trapping and electrofishing.
The eDNA samples undergo both “meta-barcoding,” which can
identify DNA from multiple species in a single sample, and
single-species PCR amplification, which is designed to test for the
presence or absence of a target species, Alison told me.
The eDNA techniques might provide an early warning of green
crabs — say in South Puget Sound, where they have not been found
before — but it would not provide information about the number of
crabs or their physical conditions.
“We are developing and testing the methods this summer, then
will validate and develop guidance materials next summer,” she said
in an email. “Once the initial methods are developed, it is our
hope that they will be useful for a range of applications,
including early detection of green crabs or identifying their range
within a system.”
Hood Canal has changed colors again, shifting to shades of
bimini green, as it did in 2016, when satellite photos showed the
canal standing out starkly among all other waters in the
Northwest.
Hood Canal has changed colors
as a result of a plankton bloom, as shown in this aerial photo
taken in Northern Hood Canal.
Photo: Eyes Over Puget Sound, Washington
Ecology
The color change is caused by a bloom of a specific type of
plankton called a coccolithophore, which shows up in nutrient-poor
waters. The single-celled organism produces shells made of calcite,
which reflect light to produce the unusual color.
Observers are now waiting for the clouds to depart, so we can
get new satellite images of the green waters.
The plankton bloom started June 1 in Quilcene and Dabob bays,
according to Teri King of Washington Sea Grant. It came about a
week earlier than last year and has since spread through Hood
Canal. Observers in the Seabeck area reported seeing the bloom the
past few days. The bimini green color, which gets its name from an
island in the Bahamas, is especially noticeable when the sun comes
out.
Coccolithophores are known for dominating other phytoplankton
when there is a shortage of nutrients, such as nitrogen, in the
water. We usually get an influx of nutrients when it rains, so I’m
not sure how long the bloom may last. I’m told, however, that the
white calcite shells, called coccoliths, can stick around after the
organism has died, although they eventually sink to the bottom.
Electron microscope image of
plankton Emiliania huxleyi
The species of coccolithophore in Hood Canal is believed to be
Emiliania huxleyi, shown in the microscopic photo on this
page. They don’t produce any known toxins harmful to people or
marine life, experts say, and they can be eaten by small fish and
larger zooplankton.
For additional information, click to the following:
Artists possess the creative power to portray a simple bird —
say a male mallard duck — in a multitude of ways, something I never
really appreciated until I reviewed hundreds of duck portraits in
the Federal
Duck Stamp Contest.
The acrylic painting of mallard
ducks by Bob Hautman of Delano, Minn., took first place in the
Federal Duck Stamp Contest. // Photo:
USFWS
Judges in the annual contest seem to prefer a super-realistic
style. Each year, the winning entry is used to create a federal
duck stamp, which are the stamps that waterfowl hunters must carry
while hunting. They are also purchased by many people who care
about conservation.
Details in the duck portraits are important, but it is also
interesting to observe the landscapes that the artists place in the
backgrounds and foregrounds of their pictures. Take a look at the
Flickr
page where 215 entries are shown in the latest contest
sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Eligible species
for this year’s contest were the mallard, gadwall, cinnamon teal,
blue-winged teal and harlequin duck.
The acrylic painting of a
cinnamon teal by Greg Alexander of Ashland, Wis., took second place
in the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. // Photo:
USFWS
The winning entry for this year’s duck stamp was submitted by
Bob Hautman of Delano, Minn., whose acrylic painting shows a pair
of mallards in flight. This is Bob’s third winning entry, after two
previous paintings were turned into stamps in 1997 and 2001.
Hautman comes from an artist family. His brothers, Jim and Joe,
have each won the same contest five times.
“Congratulations to Bob Hautman on his win today,” said Greg
Sheehan, deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service when the
winners were announced last fall. “He is part of a collection of
talented wildlife artists whose work has helped conserve habitat
not just for waterfowl, but for a vast diversity of wildlife.”
The oil painting of a
blue-winged teal by Christine Clayton of Sidney, Ohio, took third
place in the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. // Photo:
USFWS
The Federal Duck Stamp, which will go on sale later this month,
sells for $25. Proceeds, which total about $40 million a year, go
for protecting wetland habitats in national wildlife refuges across
the country.
Second place was an acrylic painting of a cinnamon teal by Greg
Alexander of Ashland, Wis., and third place was an oil painting of
a blue-winged teal by Christine Clayton of Sidney, Ohio.
By the way, Christine was the third-place winner of the
National Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest in 2000, when at age 17
she entered a painting of a northern pintail.
The acrylic painting of an
emperor goose by Rayen Kang of Johns Creek, Ga., took first place
in the Junior Duck Stamp Art Contest. // Photo:
USFWS
The winner of this year’s junior contest is Rayen Kang of Johns
Creek, Ga., who submitted an acrylic painting of an emperor goose.
Second place went to Daniel Billings, 17, of Gallatin, Mo., who
painted a redhead in oil. Third place went to Larissa Weber, 17, of
Anderson, Ind., who painted trumpeter swans in acrylic.
The Federal Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program
encourages students from kindergarten through high school to
explore their natural world, learning about biology and wildlife
management. A $5 Junior Duck Stamp is purchased by collectors, with
revenue going to support environmental education.
If you notice an orange tint to the waters of Central Puget
Sound, it’s not your imagination. It is a dense plankton bloom
dominated by the dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans.
Noctiluca scintillans bloom
comes ashore at Saltwater State Park in Des Moines on Monday of
this week.
Video: Washington Department of Ecology
Noctiluca is often seen in some numbers at this time of
year, but it may be a bit more intense this time around, according
to Christopher Krembs, an oceanographer with the Washington
Department of Ecology. Christopher tells me that the orange color
may stick around awhile.
The orange-colored species does not produce any toxins found to
be harmful to humans, but it is not exactly a friendly organism
either. It often shows up in marine waters that are out of balance
with nutrients or impaired in some other way. It can gobble up
other plankton that feed tiny fish and other creatures, but it does
not seem to provide a food supply that interests very many species
— probably because of its ammonia content. Consequently,
Noctiluca is often referred to as a “dead end” in the food
web.
A plankton bloom at the north
end of Vashon Island gets a distinct edge from the tidal currents
flowing through Colvos Passage.
Photo: Eyes Over Puget Sound, Ecology
I had a lot of discussions with Christopher and other plankton
biologists earlier this year while writing a series of articles
about the importance of plankton to the entire Puget Sound food web
— right up to orcas. A primary point to the series was to describe
how excessive nitrogen from human sources may be upsetting the
balance in Puget Sound.
For a deeper dive into plankton, please take a look at this
package of stories in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound titled
“Nutrient
Pollution,” with a special focus on plankton in the second
story in this list:
Christopher Krembs manages a program that assesses water
conditions throughout Puget Sound, including aerial views of the
surface waters, where he often observes different types of
plankton, as well as jellyfish and other creatures that provide
clues to water quality. See the webpage
Eyes Over Puget Sound, where he expects to post his latest
report next week.
The waters in Budd Inlet turned
green from a plankton bloom near Olympia.
Photo: Eyes Over Puget Sound, Ecology
His flight on Monday revealed intense blooms of
Noctiluca throughout Central Puget Sound, including the
waters near Vashon Island.
“What is striking is the very high phytoplankton biomass in
Central Sound and not so much in South Sound and other places from
the air,” Christopher said in an email. “The jury is still out when
the monitoring data come in.”
He’s not sure why the Noctiluca bloom is occurring
right now. May was a record-dry month, he noted, and rain-fed
rivers are running low. On the other hand, snow-fed rivers are
running fairly high, while the mighty Fraser River in British
Columbia has dropped down from its previous levels.
Rivers can bring nitrogen down from the uplands to feed the
phytoplankton, which capture the energy of the sun to grow and
multiply rapidly.
As Christopher points out, we need more studies focused on the
base of the food web, which supports our salmon populations and
ultimately thousands of species in and around Puget Sound. Clues
that could help us understand how to recover Puget Sound are likely
to be hidden in the water, where basic biological responses result
from water chemistry and circulation patterns throughout Puget
Sound.
As a result of the current Noctiluca bloom, the
Department of Ecology has posted a discussion as part of its
“Puget Sound Nutrient Watch” series on the blog ECOconnect. Efforts to reduce
nutrient loading in Puget Sound are being discussed in a workgroup
called the
Puget Sound Nutrient Forum, which anyone can follow online or
in person.
Marine geologist Peter Harris, a 1976 graduate of North Kitsap
High School, has been awarded the prestigious Francis P. Shepard
Medal for Sustained Excellence in Marine Geology.
Peter Harris
The annual award, from the Society for Sedimentary Geology,
recognizes Peter’s 30 years of research accomplishments — “from the
polar to the tropical,” as the judges described it — including his
discovery of new coral reefs off Australia.
Also noteworthy is his work documenting the margins of the
Antarctic continent; describing the prehistoric formation of the
Fly River Delta in Papua New Guinea; and explaining changes in the
“Antarctic bottom water,” a dense water mass surrounding
Antarctica. Peter has published more than 100 research papers in
scientific journals.
After an awards ceremony in Salt Lake City, Utah, Peter returned
last week to Kitsap County, where he spoke to me about his current
efforts on upcoming state-of-the-environment report for the United
Nations. He is working on an oceans chapter for the “Sixth Global Environmental
Outlook,” known as GEO-6, which will be used to advance
environmental policies around the world.
“There are so many environmental issues in the ocean,” he told
me, “but we were asked to identify three things that are the most
urgent.”
The last time I spoke to Peter was in 2004 (Kitsap
Sun, Jan 31,2004) when he was working for Geoscience Australia
and presented his latest findings on coral reefs to audiences in
Kingston and Poulsbo. His dad, Alfred Harris, still lives in
Poulsbo, while his mom, Sydney Cotton, lives in Silverdale.
For the past four years, Peter has been working in Norway as
managing director at GRID-Arendal, a nonprofit
foundation that gathers and synthesizes scientific information to
help decision-makers. He heads a staff of about 30 people,
including experts from various countries.
By the way, GRID stands for Global Resource Information
Database, and Arendal is a community about the size of Bremerton,
where Peter has purchased a home and agreed to stay on with GRID
another four years.
I asked him what his team concluded about the three biggest
problems facing the world’s oceans. He said the group, after much
consideration, decided that what rose to the top —above ocean
acidification, chemical contamination, noise pollution and others —
were coral reefs, plastics and overfishing.
“The world is past the tipping point for coral reefs,” he said.
“We are past the point where the corals are under stress. They will
keep dying off.”
Peter Harris at sea in
2011
Warm water causes the coral colonies to reject their symbiotic
algae, leaving them white in a process called coral “bleaching.”
They can recover if cooler water returns and there is enough time
between bleaching events, he said. But it takes about 10 years for
corals to recover, and the Great Barrier Reef has undergone
bleaching for three years in a row. Vast areas may never
recover.
Coral reefs provide habitats for huge numbers of marine species,
and their loss will be an environmental catastrophe brought about
by climate change. Even if humans eventually reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions, the ecological diversity may be lost in
many areas.
“The only solution is to try to preserve coral reefs in
locations where they are less susceptible,” Peter said.
The second ocean problem Peter mentioned was plastic
pollution.
“More and more people are using more and more plastic,” he said,
and some of it eventually reaches the ocean. It can come from
stormwater, litter, fishing activities, garbage picked up by the
wind and outright dumping. Much of it comes from developing
countries with inadequate waste-treatment systems.
“It seems like many people and countries see this as a problem
that can be addressed, like the ozone problem,” he said. “It all
comes down to how you deal with plastic in your own life.”
The third problem he mentioned was overfishing, which has the
potential to drive some populations to the brink of extinction.
While some countries, such as the U.S. and Canada, are doing
much better in managing their fisheries, many developing countries
are stuck in a cycle of needing more fish to feed a hungry
population while generating revenue from fisheries, he said. Taking
more and more fish from the ocean will lead to population
collapse.
Some of the greatest concerns are on the high seas, where there
is little control over what anyone does, he said. Some fishermen
are targeting seamounts, where large numbers of various fish
species congregate.
“When fishermen find a good spot out in the ocean it is usually
a spawning aggregation,” he said, adding that removing those fish
can affect growth of entire populations.
“One solution is to put a moratorium on high seas fishing
altogether,” he said, adding that it would take a major
international effort, but people should recognize that the high
seas is the least productive part of the ocean.
GEO-6, the U.N. report on the world environment, is scheduled
for publication before the end of the year.
Through GRID-Arendal, Peter keeps in touch with many
environmental issues, which can be reviewed on the foundation’s
“Activities” page as
well as its “Publications” and “Graphics”
pages.
Peter’s world travels are as interesting as his research. After
graduating from North Kitsap High School in 1976, he went on to
receive an oceanography degree from the University of Washington in
1981.
“I think I have always had an interest in the ocean,” he said,
noting that his father built sailboats as a hobby and raced them on
Puget Sound.
At the age of 12, he took a course at the Poulsbo Marine Science
Center (now SEA Discovery Center). After that, he took advantage of
every opportunity to visit the marine animals in tanks at the
center and to go out on tide-pool walks on Puget Sound.
“I was really captured by the image of how this place was
formed,” he said. “I came to understand that there is a reason for
everything you see. Puget Sound was once under an ice sheet. The
gravel is glacial till. Suddenly it all starts to make sense.”
While other places, such as Chile and Norway, have waterways
that look similar to Puget Sound, they often lie over rocky
outcroppings rather than gravelly substrate. Puget Sound is truly
unique, he added.
“When you travel the world, you realize how rare and precious it
is,” he said. “There are no other places like it.”
At the UW, one of Peter’s professors, Dick Sternberg, convinced
him to do his graduate work at the University of Wales in Great
Britain, where he could work under the late Michael Collins,
co-editor with Sternberg of the journal “Continental Shelf
Research.”
While there, Peter met his future wife Ellen, an Australian
native, and he decided to take a job at the University of Sydney,
where he taught oceanography and conducted research on the Great
Barrier Reef. When he joined the Australian government, he was
required to become an Australian citizen, though he maintained his
American citizenship. He worked for Geoscience Australia for 20
years, becoming head of the Antarctic marine and coastal programs,
before moving to Norway in 2014.
He and his wife have three grown children, two still living in
Australia. Eleri, the oldest, recently took a job with the online
political cartoon magazine “The
Nib” in Portland, Ore. With a grandchild now on the way, Peter
says he has even more reasons to return to the Northwest.
There’s nothing like spending some relaxing time in a natural
environment. It does a body good — mentally and physically — to go
into new or familiar surroundings while basking in the full-bodied
sights and sounds of a forest, a stream or a marine shoreline.
We are fortunate in the Puget Sound region to have easy and free
(or low-cost) access to all sorts of natural places. If we are
lucky, we may catch a glimpse of wildlife and incorporate the
sighting into our memory of that place.
What we don’t normally see, however, are the natural behaviors
of wildlife away from people, because the presence of humans often
changes what they are doing — nor would we want to impose on their
lives any more than we already do.
The best nature photographers learn how to stay out of the way,
often spending hours, days or weeks waiting quietly to capture an
amazing image of an animal or group of animals worthy of sharing
with the rest of us.
I’m taking a long-winded approach to make a point about live
wildlife videos, brought to a wide Internet audience by placing
cameras in strategic locations — often before the animals arrive.
All sorts of creatures are left to do their own things as the
cameras spy on their activities. While you might not experience the
smell of a great blue heron nest by sitting in front of your
computer, it is great to know that you can watch all day long
without disturbing the animals.
I sometimes wonder what the animals would do if they knew they
were being watched. Would they put on a show, mug for the camera or
just go and hide somewhere else? For the sake of the viewer and the
wildlife, it is better for us to stay out of sight.
The technology for live video cameras has gotten better and
better. The images sent over the Internet are generally crisper
than ever before, and many places use microphones to pick up the
sounds. Meanwhile, the number of live feeds has expanded to more
places all over the world, not just in zoos and aquariums. A few
cameras have been shut down for lack of money to maintain them.
Explore.org, a
division of the Annenberg Foundation, has become the go-to website
for connecting people with animals via live webcams. As I write
this, the number of live video feeds listed on the website totals
161, although the number changes frequently as a result of shifts
in animal activity as well as technical issues. Scroll down below
the video player for text messaging related to each camera as well
as notes from video operators and online observers. Those who
maintain and sponsor the specific camera networks are
recognized.
The Explore.org website has a fairly consistent format from one
camera to the next. Functions allow viewers to take and save
snapshots of an interesting scene. Instructions on that feature and
many other features are provided in a 30-page “Website
Handbook” (PDF 7.2 mb).
The first video on this page shows a bald eagle nest near a
trout hatchery in Decorah, Iowa. The young eagles are now nine
weeks old and have grown to the size of their mother, who is often
gone from the nest, but she brings back plenty of food, according
to observers.
The second video is mounted in an ideal location to watch marine
mammals in Blackney Pass in British Columbia. The site is the
headquarters of OrcaLab, managed
by Paul Spong and Helena Symonds on Hanson Island. This is one of
the primary travel routes for Northern Resident killer whales as
they make their way through Johnstone Strait. When night
approaches, this location provides a view of some spectacular
sunsets.
Chesapeake Conservancy operates several wildlife cameras,
including the Osprey Cam featured in the third video. Observers
have been following the activities of the nesting pair, Tom and
Audrey, who have been at the site on Maryland’s eastern shore since
2009. Audrey laid three eggs this year. One was not viable, but the
other two chicks hatched about a week apart in late May.
For a bird of a different character, check out the Puffin Cam at
Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, shown in the fourth
video within a burrow. Audubon’s Project Puffin operates a field
station on the island where the puffins on the island were wiped
out by hunting in 1887. The birds were reintroduced by bringing
puffins from Newfoundland and now more than 50 pairs nest on the
island. Four live videos are set up to show the puffins.
Always great to watch are the brown bears at Brooks Falls in
Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, shown in the last video
on this page. The bears come down to the falls to catch salmon
trying to make their way upstream. The bears’ fishing activity
reaches its peak in July or August. Observers say they occasionally
catch sight of a wolf or a moose.
Taking on the enormous problem of plastic pollution in the
ocean, the European Union is on track to ban single-use items made
of plastic, while communities in Washington state slowly adopt bans
on plastic bags.
Straws are listed as a problem
plastic.
Photo: Horia Varlan, Wikimedia Commons
The European Commission is targeting specific plastic products
that constitute 70 percent of the items found among marine debris
lost in the sea and along the shoreline. Cotton swabs, plastic
cutlery, plates, drinking cups and straws are among the items that
would be banned outright, because non-plastic alternatives are
available.
The proposal announced this week goes well beyond those items,
however, calling for a 90-percent reduction in plastic drink-bottle
waste, possibly through a deposit system. In addition, plans are
underway for new waste-disposal programs, ongoing cleanups, and
educational efforts designed to reduce the purchase of and
encourage the proper disposal of food containers, plastic wrappers,
cigarette butts, wet wipes, balloons and fishing gear.
Manufacturers of plastic products would help fund those various
programs, according to the proposal.
See news releases and related documents from the European
Commission:
The new legislation, which must be approved by the E.U
Parliament and Council, goes far beyond anything being proposed in
the United States, but it seems that awareness of the marine debris
problem has been growing among Americans.
The June issue of National Geographic magazine is devoted to the
marine debris problem in a package of stories called “Planet or
Plastic?”
“Nine million tons of plastic waste winds up in the ocean each
year,” writes
National Geographic reporter Laura Parker, who reports that
ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every
year. Among the losses are 700 different species, including
endangered species.
“Some are harmed visibly — strangled by abandoned fishing nets
or discarded six-pack rings,” Parker said. “Many more are probably
harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to
whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of
an inch across.
“On Hawaii’s Big Island, on a beach that seemingly should have
been pristine — no paved road leads to it — I walked ankle-deep
through microplastics,” she said. “They crunched like Rice Krispies
under my feet. After that, I could understand why some people see
ocean plastic as a looming catastrophe, worth mentioning in the
same breath as climate change.”
Unlike climate change, there are no “ocean trash deniers” — at
least not so far, Parker notes. “To do something about it, we don’t
have to remake our planet’s entire energy system.”
I believe
Parker’s story could be eye-opening for many people. National
Geographic is certainly concerned about the plastics problem, as
the magazine launches a multi-year campaign against plastics
starting tomorrow. The magazine will take steps itself, first by
eliminating its
plastic mailing wrapper. The organization is encouraging
everyone to take a
pledge to reduce plastic waste. Other organizations leading the
charge include the
Plastic Pollution Coaliton, which even built a page around the
NatGeo information.
While there is no legislation to impose a nationwide ban on
plastics, California and Hawaii have statewide bans on plastic
grocery bags and are looking at other items. (See
Monday’s L.A. Times.) Many local communities across the country
have taken various actions. In Washington state, King and Thurston
counties have banned plastic bags, and the idea is under
consideration throughout Kitsap County, where the city of
Bainbridge Island has imposed such a ban.
Kitsap Sun reporter Chris Henry does a nice job outlining the
situation in Kitsap, where county leaders would like to see the ban
imposed by all city governments at the same time a new county ban
goes into effect — perhaps with some action by the end of this
year. Port Orchard officials held a town hall forum on Tuesday to
discuss the issue.
To learn more about plastic pollution in Puget Sound, check out
the slideshows and videos from last year’s Plastics
Summit coordinated by Zero Waste Washington.
With regard to the European Union, the proposal is expected to
reduce Europe’s littering by more than half for the 10 single-use
items targeted by the proposal. The monetary savings in
environmental damages is estimated at 22 billion Euros — or about
$26 billion in U.S. dollars — by 2030. Consumer savings is
estimated at $6.5 billion Euros — or $7.6 billion. Carbon emissions
are expected to be reduced by an equivalent 3.4 million tonnes — or
3.7 million U.S. tons — in that time frame. (See news
release from the E.U.)
Targeted items are cotton buds (swabs); cutlery, plates, straws
and stirrers; sticks for balloons and reduction of balloon waste;
food take-out containers; drink cups; beverage bottles; cigarette
butts; bags; wrappers for candy, cookies, etc.; and wipes and
sanitary products. Fishing gear is on a separate action list.
Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European
Commission, stressed the importance of European nations working
together for solutions, including banning some products, finding
new alternatives for others and getting people to properly dispose
of plastic to avoid pollution. He wants the E.U. to lead the way in
cleaning up the world’s oceans, and he downplayed any inconvenience
that people may experience.
“You can still organize a picnic, drink a cocktail and clean
your ears, just like before,” he was quoted as saying in a
New York Times article. “And you get the added bonus that when
you do so, you can have a clear conscience about the environmental
impact of your actions.”
