SeaMonster blog
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Belize fisherman foresaw the collapse of the reef ecosystem 40 years ago
Belizean fisherman Villamar Godfrey. Photo by Clare Fieseler. Clare Fieseler is currently in Belize interviewing fishers as part of a lab study we have been working on for several years, investigating the effectiveness of fisheries management along the Mesoamerican Reef. A chance encounter with fisherman Villamar Godfrey eventually led to the revelation that he had appeared in…
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Unhappy Birthday to Deepwater Horizon
One year ago today we woke up to one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. Eleven people and countless animals dead, five million barrels of crude released, and the potential long-term transformation of the ocean on a regional scale. Only time will reveal the full consequences of the event but the picture is…
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Rime of a modern mariner
Illustrator and political cartoonist Nick Hayes has transformed Coleridge’s haunting tale into a beautiful graphic novel, The Rime of a modern mariner, featuring oceans of plastic waste and strangled seabirds. This is definitely on my to-read list. I flipped through a copy the other day at the wonderful Lutyens & Rubenstein bookshop in Notting Hill, after reading…
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Top Ten Sea Monsters (OK, make it a dozen)
We couldn’t have done this better ourselves. Meet the “12 most bizarre and frightening sea creatures“, courtesy of Asylum UK. This is so good I had to reproduce it: The planet Earth is full of scary stuff. Not just like the threat of bird-flu and unemployment, but even scarier things like angry bears and bity…
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Destructive Fishing Practices
Dynamite fishing, as depicted in the picture above, is pretty much what it sounds like: toss an explosive devise overboard (hopefully away from the boat), cover your ears and scoop up all the stunned and dead fish. Easy right? Problem is, this isn’t exactly sustainable since the act of fishing destroys the habitat fish need…
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The Sea Hag: Ugliest creature on earth?
As marine biologists we consider it our solemn duty to celebrate and sing of the beautiful and charismatic animals that live beneath the waves (see for example here and here). But every now and then one has to face the fact that some animals are, well, just plain disgusting. Alas, not everyone can be a…
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These girls can REALLY surf
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/21603768[/vimeo]
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From art to artificial reefs
Jason de Caires Taylor displays his artwork in a rather unconventional gallery. I’ve been haunted by his underwater sculptures (in a good way) since I saw pictures of them in the Guardian a while back. And I recently grabbed the chance to interview him for the Naked Oceans podcast. Jason told me all about how…
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Dueling videos: the battle over the Malibu lagoon restoration project
When I was an MS student at CSUN in Los Angeles, I used to take undergrad classes on field trips to Malibu Lagoon to see and sample the marsh and lagoon habitats there. They are pathetically small and are just about all that remains of Southern California’s coastal wetlands. But there isn’t much else…
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Post oil: Can rigs become reefs?
As ocean oil rigs run dry, the nemesis of many environmentalists may produce a silver lining. Defunct oil rigs are popular dive spots in the Gulf of Mexico and other areas (such as the Celebes Sea) because of the rich communities of reef life and fishes these structures attract on otherwise sandy bottoms. They are…
Got any book recommendations?