Scientists - Oceans On Edge Of Extinction Tipping Point - WP

[hatrack]

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Dozens of biologists believe the seas have reached a tipping point, with scores of species of ocean-dwelling fish, birds and mammals edging towards extinction. In the past 300 years, researchers have documented the global extinction of just 21 marine species -- and 16 of those extinctions occurred since 1972. Since the 1700s, another 112 species have died out in particular regions, and that trend, too, has accelerated since the mid-1960s: Nearly two dozen shark species are on the brink of disappearing, according to the World Conservation Union, an international coalition of government and advocacy groups.

"It's been a slow-motion disaster," said Boris Worm, a professor at Canada's Dalhousie University who wrote a 2003 study that found that 90 percent of the top predator fish have vanished from the oceans. "It's silent and invisible. People don't imagine this. It hasn't captured our imagination, like the rain forest."

Compared with the many activists who have focused on the plight of creatures such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the grizzly bear, relatively few have taken up the cause of marine species. Ocean dwellers are harder to track, some produce so many offspring they can seem invulnerable, and, in the words of Ocean Conservancy shark fisheries expert Sonja Fordham, often "they're not very fuzzy." Although a number of previous extinctions involved birds and marine mammals, it is the fate of many fish that now worries experts. The large-scale industrialization of the fishing industry after World War II, coupled with a global boom in ocean-front development and a rise in global temperatures, is causing fish populations to plummet.

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Large-scale fishing accounts for more than half of the documented fish extinctions in recent years, Nicholas K. Dulvy, a scientist while at the University of Newcastle's School of Marine Science and Technology in England, wrote in 2003. Destruction of habitats where fish spawn or feed is responsible for another third. Warmer ocean temperatures are another threat, as some fish struggle to adapt to hotter and saltier water that can attract new competitors. But nothing has pushed marine life closer to the edge of extinction more than aggressive fishing. Aided by technology -- industrial trawlers and factory ships deploy radar and sonar to scour the seas with precision and drag nets the size of jumbo jets along the sea floor -- ocean fish catches tripled between 1950 and 1992. In some cases fishermen have intentionally exploited species until they died out, such as the New Zealand grayling fish and the Caribbean monk seal; other species have been accidental victims of long lines or nets intended for other catches. Over the past two decades, accidental bycatch alone accounted for an 89 percent decline in hammerhead sharks in the Northeast Atlantic.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082200036.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Stunning

Traditional elders have been warning of this for a long time. They said my generation would live to see it, and have to cope with it.

[AlinPA]

2. ..and the US is trying to get the schools to teach creationism. Not to

worry, when we run out there will be some intelligent designer will be around to make more. It will only take 6 days to make fully grown replacements.

[Teaser]

3. An ironic hope

it is probably too much to hope that the slowdown in development that will occur once we pass peak oil will provide a comfort zone for us on biodiversity destruction.

But, as we all know, hope is not a plan.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. It's over

These processes are now self-sustaining. The Arctic Greenhouse Gas Air Inversion model, oceanic die-offs, thermohaline current disruption, increased weather volatility, progressive desertification, extinction of the few remaining families and genera of megafauna -- all had their start early in the 20th century, accelerated as the century continued, and have recently reached their critical points.

The best we can do now is to collect as much genomic material from as many species as we can before they become extinct, take steps to keep people safe during the climate catastrophe (if that is possible) and document what happens as carefully as we can.

--p!

[phantom power]

5. speaking of genome-preservation...

The Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species says this is the first time that clones of a wild species have bred.

Eight kittens have been born in two litters over the last month, and all are apparently doing well.

The researchers say this development holds enormous potential for preserving a range of endangered species.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4172688.stm

[Nihil]

7. Hmmm

> The best we can do now is to collect as much genomic material from
> as many species as we can before they become extinct, ...

Two by two?

:-)

Reminds me of a cartoon:
- Noah: Ok you lot, it's raining so let's do this alphabetically ...
- Zebra: Bummer!

[ramapo]

6. Also stunning

Stunning was my reply to the glacier story too. What else can you say?

The speed of deterioration of the planet's environment may soon become obvious to even the ignorant. To think that in just a few hundred years we were able to set in motion such enormously destructive changes. It is difficult to imagine what the next century will bring. Perhaps the triviality that our culture thrives on will be one of the victims.