Category: Featured

  • What a marine massacre looks like

    Yesterday I led a team of eight scientists and students from UNC, USFQ and the Galapagos Science Center that documented the catch aboard a vessel caught illegally long lining in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. We worked alongside a great team from the Galapagos National Park and were also assisted by the Ecuadorian Coast Guard.  We identified, sexed, and measured every individual (there…

  • Humpback whale speaks, says “Thank you”

    Well, maybe not in so many words. Not in English anyway. But to those who believe that animals don’t experience emotions–and I gather they still exist–I challenge you to watch this and tell me you don’t understand how the whale feels [Show starts about 6:30 in] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490[/youtube] P.S. Don’t try this at home kids.

  • Cuba journal: Day 7 – The Wall of Mouths

    Day 7: Thursday 2 June Done. All over now but the last dregs of clean-up and packing. Five days in the “Gardens of the Queen”, and what a time it’s been. A journey back in time in both the state of society and of the Sea. In the last five days we’ve become accustomed to…

  • WOW – did you see them? they must be scientists!

    [This guest post comes from VIMS graduate students Lindsey Kraatz, Sam Lake, Daniel Maxey, and Stephanie Salisbury] Have you ever walked down a street and seen someone so big, so athletic looking that you instantly thought to yourself “WOW, they must be a football player, they’re huge!”? What about a high-class businessman or a runway…

  • Forum on fish, food, and people

    Editor’s note: The following discussion, which more than one participant called “extraordinary”, began after  Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington published an op-ed “Let us eat fish” in the New York Times on 14 April 2011, and  John Bruno of the University of North Carolina (and my Co-Editor at SeaMonster) replied here at SeaMonster.…

  • Let us eat (other people’s) fish

    Should Americans really eat more fish? In a recent op-ed in the NYT titled “Let Us Eat Fish” Dr. Ray Hilborn, a fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, argued we should. Ray thinks that because some of the hundreds of fish populations harvested in U.S. waters appear to be recovering and approaching levels that…

  • Thieving sperm whale

    From Science Friday: For years, longline fishermen in Alaska have complained that whales have been stealing their sablefish catch. A team of researchers, including Aaron Thode, Delphine Mathias and Jan Straley, mounted a video camera to a fishing line and caught a sperm whale stealing.  Footage courtesy of Delphine Mathias, Aaron Thode, Jan Straley, Kendall…

  • Climate Change Impacts on Ocean Ecosystems: the movie!

    A talk by Dr. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from a session on climate change impacts on ocean ecosystems at the NCSE  Our Changing Oceans. You can download some of the papers Ove referrs to here. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18924324[/vimeo]