Ancient, Bizarre New Species of Ghostshark Discovered

The Eastern Pacific Black Ghostshark is a bizarre, highly unusual, newly discovered species… yet it was found off the coast of California. This ‘chimaera’ is part of an ancient and strange group of fish that branched off from sharks, in terms of evolution, nearly 400 million years ago. They’re normally found in deep waters.

From Science Daily:

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), was described in the September issue of the international journal Zootaxa by a research team including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long. Additional co-authors included Kelsey James, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This is the first new species of cartilaginous fish to be described from California waters since 1947.

This new species belongs to the genus Hydrolagus, Latin for ‘water rabbit’ because of its grinding tooth plates reminiscent of a rabbit’s incisor teeth. This new species was originally collected as early as the mid 1960s, but went unnamed until this year because its taxonomic relationships were unclear. A large blackish-purple form, Hydrolagus melanophasma (melanophasma is Latin for ‘black ghost’), is found in deep water from the coast of Southern California, along the western coast of Baja California, and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). This species is known from a total of nine preserved museum specimens, and from video footage taken of it alive by a deep-water submersible in the Sea of Cortez.

Deep sea creatures are so fascinating, aren’t they? Finding new species is always fun, but it’s even more interesting when they are so ancient and have remained mostly unchanged for millenia. The sea is packed with so many amazing, mysterious things.

Link [Science Daily]

Catfish Used to Clean Pools on Foreclosed Properties

Faced with dozens of smelly, swamp-like swimming pools on foreclosed properties, Florida officials are getting extremely desperate. With nearly 9 percent of upscale Wellington’s homes in foreclosure, they needed to find a fast and cheap way to deal with the problem. Their solution? Amazonian catfish, the very same fish used to keep aquariums naturally free of algae.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

Most bottom-feeders don’t make it past the guard gate. But Amazonian catfish, fashionably leopard-spotted and wearing fins as flamboyant as pool party caftans, are living the good life in several upscale Wellington neighborhoods hard-hit by foreclosures, including Olympia and Versailles.

“The water looks lighter around the edges,” said Debra Mitchell, the village’s lead code compliance officer, peering into a pool in Versailles, whose water is a putrid olive green.

The village has started a pilot program using the algae-eating fish, called pterygoplichthys and commonly known as “plecos” or “sailfin catfish,” in slime-choked swimming pools. Mitchell said she hopes the slime-eaters will be an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to clean up abandoned pools, an all-you-can-eat banquet of scum.

Unlike mosquito fish, which were dumped into swimming pools on foreclosed properties by California officials last summer, Amazonian catfish are already a part of the local ecosystem. They’re not native, of course – like many other species in Florida, they were dumped by irresponsible pet owners and subsequently flourished. They’re present in canals and lakes all over the state.

Using these fish – which were provided by a local fish farm that caught them in a nearby lake – will cost Wellington officials $700 for a year, versus the $7,000 that it would have taken to maintain the pools using chemicals and other traditional methods.

While it’s nice that officials consulted (and received encouragement from) the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Science before they did this, it’s hard not to be concerned about using live animals in such a way – particularly when, as the Sun Sentinel article states, the fish will be ‘destroyed’ when the houses are sold.

Link [Sun-Sentinel]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Subway Car Reef Project Fails Spectacularly

In an ECO FAIL of grand proportions, the project that aimed to recycle used subway cars into habitats for marine life has ultimately resulted in more junk floating around in the ocean. New Jersey paid millions to have the old subway cars shipped from other states and sunk into the ocean off the coast of Delaware, but the stainless steel cars quickly disintegrated.

Only two of the 48 cars that were submerged are still upright and intact. The Press of Atlantic City spoke to Darlene Yuhas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had estimated they would serve as good reef habitat for 25 to 30 years.

“All the evidence suggested they would be long-lasting. In fact, the EPA data was these cars should last 25 years,” Yuhas said.

Other East Coast states that took the subway cars have reported similar problems.

The state DEP has done more surveys since February and has decided to end the program after cars were only deployed at the Atlantic City Reef and the Cape May Reef, which is about 9.1 nautical miles off Cold Spring Inlet. Cars had been earmarked for three other reefs, including the Shark River, Garden State South and Deepwater reefs, before the termination.

“We did in fact notify the New York Transit Authority that we would no longer be accepting their cars,” Yuhas said.

As Shea Gunther points out over at MNN, we tried something like this before and made a big mess instead of helping marine life. The tires that were dumped into the sea off Florida’s coast in the 1970s to act as an artificial reef broke apart and caused damage to actual living reefs nearby. It’s probably just not a great idea to dump our crap into the oceans, no matter what it’s made out of.

Link [MNN] + [Press of Atlantic City]
Photo credit: NJ.com

Greenpeace Knocks “Traitor Joe’s” for Unsustainable Seafood

“Traitor Joe’s: Your one-stop shop for ocean destruction.” That’s what Greenpeace branded specialty retailer Trader Joe’s after they were rated dead last among 9 supermarket chains on seafood sustainability. Trader Joe’s scored lower than Winn-Dixie and Wal-Mart because it serves red list fish.

Fish on the red list is either imperiled, or comes from fisheries that harm other sea creatures like turtles, dolphins, seals and sea lions. Among those on the list are Atlantic Cod, Orange Roughy, red snapper, Chilean sea bass, grouper and yellowfin tuna.

Greenpeace sent out protesters dressed as Orange Roughy to the Trader Joe’s in San Francisco, urging the company to stop its environmentally unfriendly practices.

Click ‘Go’ below to watch a quick animated video:

From the Traitor Joe website:

Hello friends. Traitor Joe here. I’m up to my eyeballs in red list seafood. There is so much in my stores that I bet there is nothing left in the oceans. That’s the beauty about red list species. They are doing so badly in the oceans that they need extra help and conservation in order to survive. But will I help save them? Heck no! I need to make a profit and if that means I am helping these dwindling fish stocks to go extinct, oh well. I’ll still sleep at night.

After all, you’d never know my seafood was caught in ways that endanger ocean habitats and other marine creatures. Why? I conveniently leave the labels off my seafood. Ha, ha ha. Pretty good trick, right? My customers never know what they are really buying. That way I can pass the guilt on to you, so you can help me turn the oceans into a giant, empty bathtub without ever knowing. How’s that for giving my customers what they want?

As Greenpeace notes, Trader Joe’s could escape the harsh spotlight easily by removing all red list seafood from its stores. After all, their core customer base cares deeply about the environment – and is it really smart to alienate them?

The other retailers that have made no visible effort whatsoever to increase the sustainability of their seafood operations include Aldi, Costco, Giant Eagle, H. E. B., Meijer, Price Chopper, Publix and Winn-Dixie.

Wegmans, Ahold, Whole Foods, and Target were praised for their efforts to improve.

Link [Traitor Joe] via [Marc Gunther]

Pollution-Detecting Robot Fish to be Released into Spain Waters

Robot fish developed by British scientists will be released into the sea off northern Spain next year in an effort to detect pollution.  If the yearlong trial in the northern Spanish port of Gijon goes well, the scientists hope that the fish will be used in rivers, lakes, and seas across the globe.

From Reuters:

The carp-shaped robots, costing 20,000 pounds ($29,000) apiece, mimic the movement of real fish and are equipped with chemical sensors to sniff out potentially hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from vessels or underwater pipelines.

They will transmit the information back to shore using Wi-Fi technology.

Unlike earlier robotic fish, which needed remote controls, they will be able to navigate independently without any human interaction.

They’re creepy enough until you realize that they’re FIVE FEET LONG. Holy crap, can you imagine snorkeling and running into one of these things? They’re the size of freaking seals and their lifeless black eyes are kind of disturbing.

Weirdness factor aside, this is an awesome idea. And there’s a good reason why they didn’t simply create mini submarines instead of developing these bionic fish: they felt that building a design based on millions of years’ worth of evolution, which was incredibly energy efficient, was the best approach. Taking cues from nature is definitely smart design!

Link [Reuters]

3 Reports Don’t Lie: Ocean Fish Rapidly in Decline

80% of the world’s ocean fish species have been over-exploited and are in rapid decline, according to three new reports. Overfishing, climate change, acidification, agricultural runoff and, most interestingly, U.S. taxpayer subsidies are responsible for the steep drop in fish populations.

From The Daily Green:

The U.N. Food and Agriculture’s State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture concludes that about 50% of all marine fish stocks are being “fully exploited” — meaning they are being fished at or near sustainable limits. Another 19% are overexploited, 8% depleted and 1% recovering from depletion.

Oceana, meanwhile, has released a report, Hungry Oceans (pdf), predicting the collapse of the ocean ecosystem because of overfishing of the smallest fish in the ocean. These prey species were considered so abundant, and so quick to replenish their own numbers, that depletion wasn’t a concern. We have proved that theory wrong, particularly as the world has begun catching more small fish — not only for direct human consumption, but to feed fish in aquaculture operations.

Finally, the most detailed financial analysis of its kind, by the Lenfest Ocean Program, finds that roughly half the $713 million in annual U.S. fishing subsidies contributes to overfishing by encouraging the targeting of overexploited fish stocks. Among the interesting other findings of the analysis: most subsidies come in the form of tax breaks on fossil fuels, and Western Pacific fishermen receive more than 20% of all subsidies, but catch just 2% of fish sold in the U.S.

What does the loss of fish in the oceans mean to us? Well, for starters, it greatly disturbs the food chain that we rely on for survival. And the situation is deteriorating frighteningly quickly. Catastrophic loss of fish species is close at hand – 29% of species have been fished so heavily that they’re down to 10% of their previous population levels. If we keep doing the same things that have caused these problems, we could see a 100% collapse in fish stock by mid-century. That, obviously, would spell disaster for the entire world.

Link [The Daily Green]

Climate Change Might be Altering Waters Along U.S. West Coast

Climate change might already be altering waters along the west coast of the United States, according to University of California Santa Cruz climate scientist Mark Snyder. Snyder noticed a large number of dead shellfish, sea stars, rock fish and other marine life in Oregon and began wondering whether nearby California faced a similar problem.

Scientists say climate change is responsible for stronger and more persistent winds along the coast, which drive more upwelling of nutrient-rich deep ocean waters. At normal levels, this upwelling supports a rich variety of life, but too much of these waters ultimately results in “dead zones” starved of oxygen.

From The Guardian:

To assess future wind and upwelling scenarios along the California coast, Snyder and his colleagues at UC Santa Cruz ran climate simulations for two time periods. One spanned from 1968 to 2000, verifying the accuracy of the modelling. The second simulated the region’s estimated climate from 2038 to 2070, using the intergovernmental panel on climate change “high-growth” emissions projections. Snyder said he chose the high emissions scenario because today’s are exceeding earlier IPCC estimates.

The results showed increases in wind speeds of as much as 2 meters per second, a 40% increase from current wind speeds, which now average 5 meters per second, Snyder said.

The change in wind speeds is already happening, Snyder said. California winds have been growing in strength in the past 30 years.

“It was just chance they found the dead zones in Oregon,” Snyder said, describing how fishers reported to marine scientists an alarming number of dead or dying crabs they were pulling up in traps. “It’s quite possible these areas could be off the California coast,” he said.

Researchers have been sending a robot equipped with a video camera to record images of the dead sea life, and have also deployed a fleet of robotic ‘gliders’ to measure oxygen levels and other conditions along the Oregon coast. Oregon State marine ecologist Francis Chan said they’ve seen areas “carpeted with dead marine life”.

More research is needed, and scientists say they can’t point to greenhouse gases as the sole culprit behind windier conditions on the coast – but no other explanation fits, given the historical pattern of winds and upwelling.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Flickr user Mahalie

Rising Acidity Threatens Food Web of Oceans

Acidity levels in the world’s oceans are rising so fast, they’re posing a major threat to the survival of coral reefs, shellfish and the marine food web in general – and, the cause of that rise in acidity is none other than CO2. The oceans have long buffered the effects of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide, but as the gas dissolves, it makes saltwater more acidic.

The study was performed by a panel of 155 scientists from 26 countries and other international groups, and calls for “urgent action” to reduce CO2 emissions.

From The New York Times:

“Severe damages are imminent,” the group said Friday in a statement summing up its deliberations at a symposium in Monaco last October. The statement, called the Monaco Declaration, said increasing acidity was interfering with the growth and health of shellfish and eating away at coral reefs, processes that would eventually affect marine food webs generally.

Already, the group said, there have been detectable decreases in shellfish and shell weights, and interference with the growth of coral skeletons.

“The chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable,” according to James Orr, who headed the symposium’s scientific committee.

The group warns that ocean acidification may render most regions chemically inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050. That will fundamentally change the complex ecosystems throughout the world’s oceans, disturbing the food chain. Considering how much we land-dwellers depend upon the ocean to support us, this is bad news indeed. The only answer, according to the panel, is to limit future atmospheric levels of CO2. We’ve got to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we’ve got to do it now.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Ocean Dead Zones Might be Worse Than Originally Thought

Well, you didn’t think things were actually better than we initially thought, did you? Frighteningly, dead zones in oceans around the world – which are oxygen-starved areas that can’t support most life – are greater than originally thought in coastal areas that support fishing industries. More than 400 dead zones have formed along continental coastlines since the mid-20th century.  They occur when fertilizer pollution causes algal blooms, whose decomposition feeds oxygen-consuming bacteria.

From Wired Science:

These so-called hypoxic regions now cover an area roughly equivalent in size to Oregon. Compared to Earth’s total ocean area, that’s relatively small, but they’re grouped in places critical to commercial fishing. They’re also spreading, in both size and frequency: Since the 1960s, the number of hypoxic areas has doubled every 10 years.

And as significant as the problem is, it’s based on what may be outdated, overly permissive standards. The new study is a review of nearly 900 studies of 206 ocean floor-dwelling species, and suggests that the level of oxygen considered hypoxic needs to be raised.

“These results imply that the number and area of coastal ecosystems affected by hypoxia and the future extent of hypoxia impacts on marine life have been generally underestimated,” write Carlos Duarte and Raquel Vaquer-Sunyer of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies. The paper was published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Duarte and Vaquer-Sunyer believe that we need to replace the outdated oxygen baseline, set in 1983, to 4.6 milligrams per liter, if not higher, in order to preserve the biodiversity of bottom-dwellers.  This benchmark would probably double the number of hypoxic zones, or at least increase it by 100.

Robert Diaz, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science biologist who has been studying dead zones since 1995, says “Everything is pointing towards a more desperate situation in all aquatic systems, freshwater and marine.  That’s pretty clear.  People should be worried, all over the world.”

We sure have managed to mess things up, haven’t we?

Link [Wired Science]

UK Fishermen Dump Catch Overboard to Make More Money

The European Union put fishing quotas in place for a reason: to prevent the kind of overfishing that experts warn could lead to mass extinction of marine life in the coming decades. But, European fishermen aren’t pleased with the quotas because they limit profit possibilities. So to get around that, they’re doing something pretty horrifying: dumping tons of perfectly good dead fish back into the water. Fish that should never have been caught in the first place.

Recently, the Norwegian Coast Guard shot video of UK fishermen doing just this, and the sight of such wastefulness (a whopping 5 tons of dead fish) has shocked many people who didn’t realize the extent of what was going on. Check it out at The Guardian.

From The Guardian’s Environment blog:

The practice is legal, as the EU only sets quotas for fish landed at ports, not what is actually caught at sea. In this case, it appears the fishermen were discarding low-value small (but legal) fish in order to fill their quota with higher-value big fish.

But the wasteful consequences of Europe’s fisheries policies, though well-known, are rather abstract to most people – it all happens a long way out at sea. And that’s the power of the video. At the start, a stream of dead, silvery fish slip down a chute and into the water. It goes on. And on. Seagulls gather to snap up a free lunch.

But this is apparently not rapid enough. So the men start dumping whole boxfuls of their catch over the side. And then another load comes up from the hold, and so on.

What an incredible waste, and a slap in the face to conservationists who are working so hard to maintain sustainable numbers of fish in our oceans. WTF. This is incredible disrespect and disregard not just for the fish but the future of humanity. What’s going to happen when our oceans are overfished to the point of irreparably damaging the delicately balanced ocean ecosystems?

Learn more about the problem of overfishing by reading the article ‘More Species Considered Overfished’ at the Florida Museum of Natural History website.

Link [The Guardian]

Indoor ‘River Ecosystem’ Aquarium and Hydroponic Garden

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created an incredible item that serves as an art installation, aquarium, fish hatchery, hydroponic vegetable garden and home décor at in one. The refrigerated aquarium houses freshwater fish, with vegetables growing in glass pods on top. The vegetables get their water from the tank, and then filter and purify the water for the fish. It’s its own little mini river ecosystem indoors.

I don’t know about the snakes, but all in all this is a pretty sleek and sexy design, and an interesting approach to dealing with the global food crisis. Check out the video of the installation below:

Via [Inhabitat]

Officials in California Filling Pools with Mosquito Fish

For months, there have been little mentions here and there about how officials all over the country are worried about mosquitoes breeding in the brackish pools behind abandoned, foreclosed homes. You would think that the standard response would be a) drain the freaking pools, b) put forth some kind of community effort to either get people back in the homes or c) drop some mosquito dunks in there. But, the brilliant officials in California have decided that mosquito-larvae-eating fish are the solution.

From Treehugger:

The mortgage crisis is not only wrecking peoples’ lives, it’s not doing much good for the environment, either. The swimming pools of abandoned homes are perfect mosquito breeding grounds, there are worries about rampant West Nile Virus infections. In California, authorities are using airplanes to find green pools and are filling them with the Gambusia affinis, or mosquito fish, which eats the larvae.

“They are real heroes,” says Josefa Cabada, a technician at the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District, a government agency, in the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve never seen a mosquito in a pool with mosquito fish.”

The problem (despite the obvious one of, uh, fish in swimming pools) is that these fish wreak havoc on each new ecosystem they’re placed in. They’ve displaced native species all over the world, and are apparently ‘master escape artists’, able to travel in as little as 3 millimeters of water.

Surely, there is a better solution than this – it sounds like a story in The Onion.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: DAVID CARLSON / The Californian

Gross Olympic Souvenir: Goldfish in a Key Ring

If you were going to fly to China to attend the Olympics this summer, what kind of souvenir would you want to bring home? A t-shirt, a framed photograph? How about a plastic bag full of murky water and a decaying goldfish to attach to your key ring? Sounds like such a wonderful way to remember your great Chinese vacation.

From InventorSpot:

A plastic bag with a picture of Huan Huan, one of the cartoon mascots of the Games, on the outside. And inside: a live goldfish. The bag is part of a plastic key ring. According to the Telegraph story, the bags are sealed, so the fish live in a small pool of water, with little access to air, and no food whatsoever. The goldfish key rings are, of course, not a piece of official Olympic merchandise.

The story quotes a spokesperson from the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals calling the key chains a gimmick which “show no respect for the animals at all,” though there’s no record of the story on the RSPCA’s web site. A manufacturer of the key chains could not be identified. This could mean the entire thing is a hoax, although there is a picture here of something that looks like a live goldfish in a tiny plastic bag.

A lot of people seem to think it’s a hoax, and we sure hope it is. A few months driving around with that thing on your keys and you’d be sure to end up with rotting fish remains all over your lap at some point or another.

Link [InventorSpot]

After Sewage Spill Cleanup, Fish in Lake Washington Evolving in Reverse

While locals were dealing with the fallout from a sewage spill in Lake Washington in the 1960s, the little threespine stickleback fish was evolving. It seems that the cloudy murkiness from the sewage allowed the fish to move beyond its need for armor that protected it from hungry trout. Unfortunately, now that the lake has been cleaned up, the fish has been slowly devolving back to its former state.

From Seattle PI:

By dusting off samples of the fish dating to the 1950s, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington on Thursday documented the stickleback’s “reverse evolution” triggered by the cleanup.

“This idea of reverse evolution has only been documented in a few cases in the wild,” said Katie Peichel, an author of the paper in Current Biology and scientist in the Hutch’s Division of Human Biology.

Sticklebacks originally were found in marine waters where they grew bony armor and prickly spines to ward off predators. As they migrated into freshwater and over many years, the widespread fish lost much of its skeletal shields, or plating.

That’s how they looked in Lake Washington — at least until recently.

Scientists have documented the change and done genetic studies on the fish, confirming that the armor transformation was due to genetic changes and not an influx of plated fish from the Puget Sound. It’s a stunning example of how fast some species are able to evolve, but scientists note that we shouldn’t expect such a thing from all species as the world struggles to adjust to global warming:

Take the case of polar bears, which this week were added to the Endangered Species list. The population of bears is too small, habitat needs are too specific, reproduction is too slow, genetic variability is too limited and the melting of the polar sea ice too fast for them to adjust, scientists said.

“Whether or not (polar bears) can find some different way of utilizing the environment and adapting to the changes seems improbable,” Reznick said.

“Polar bears are doomed,” he said. “Sticklebacks may not be.”

Link + Photo Credit [Seattle PI]

Old Subway Cars Now Luxury Condos for Fish

Ever wondered where old subway cars go to die? You might not be too surprised to learn that there’s a subway car graveyard off the coast of Delaware. Before you get your panties in a wad, consider this: fish are moving into these subway cars so fast, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control can’t get more cars down there fast enough. Jeff Tinsman, the artificial reef program manager, has called them ‘luxury condominiums for fish’.

Having planted a thriving community in what was once an underwater desert, state marine officials are faced with the sort of overcrowding, crime and traffic problems more common to terrestrial cities.

The summer flounder and bass have snuggled so tightly on top and in the nooks of the subway cars that Mr. Tinsman is trying to expand the housing capacity. He is having trouble, however, because other states, seeing Delaware’s successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free.

I never thought I’d view tankers dumping old junk in the ocean as a good thing. Not only are the subway cars being recycled and scores of fish getting brand new homes, but states are fighting over the opportunity to do it themselves. Pretty awesome.

Link [New York Times] via [DVICE]

Photo: Tim Shaffer for The New York Times

Pavlov’s Fish: Researchers Train Fish to Swim Into Nets For Harvest

The march of science, as described by Trendhunter Magazine:

Once again, with the idea of restocking our depleting resources, scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood’s Hole, Mass. are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves using sound.

The fish swim into a net when they hear a tone signaling feeding time. The system could eventually allow depleted fish like black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage at harvest time when they hear the signal. This way, farmed fish might be better acclimated to the wild when they can be called to feed every few days. The big goal is to help with the costs of fish farming, an important source of the world’s seafood. Trained fish return after several days of feeding saving the farms money on feed and reducing the fish waste released in concentrated areas.

The fish will actually swim into an underwater structure called the Aquadome (someone has been watching old Mad Max movies at Woods Hole).

It was the Russian researcher Ivan Pavlov who conditioned dogs to salivate when they heard the bell that announced feeding time, and the Aquadome works on the same principle. A major hurdle for the researchers will be the question of how many fish are lost to predators. I know from long personal experience that fish are pretty dense, but maybe they can be taught this skill, intricate for them. I wonder, though, if other fish will learn to associate the sound with food. Like sharks.

Link: [Trendhunter Magazine]

Photo credit: Flickr user Florian