greenrightnow.com » ocean conservation

‘Mad Men’ star January Jones advocates for sharks

BKessler — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:24:54 +0000

January Jones, star of the Mad Men TV series and an ocean advocate, went to Washington this week to lobby for the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 and stronger US leadership for saving the ocean’s top predators.

January Jones (Photo: American Movie Classics)

“We should be scared FOR sharks, not of them,” said the Golden Globe nominee. “The survival of sharks and the health of our oceans depend on it.”

Jones met with various members of Congress, including Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The actress, best known for her role as Betty Draper in the critically acclaimed Mad Men series on the American Movie Channel, became a spokesman for Oceana’s Save Sharks campaign earlier this year.

Sharks have survived in the oceans since the age of the dinosaur, but today some species are nearly extinct due to overfishing and killing some sharks just for their fins, Oceana reports. As the ocean’s top predators, they play a critical role in keeping ecosystems healthy; their decline is causing potentially irreversible changes in the make up of the seas.

The Shark Conservation Act would outlaw shark “finning,” in which the animals fin is sheared off at sea with the body discarded. The law would require that all shark brought in to land would be whole.

The Act was introduced by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in April. A similar measure introduced by Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), passed the House of Representatives in March.

For more on sharks and why their survival matters see the Oceana website. There you can also find out about Ms. Jones’ recent trip to swim with sharks (no, that’s not the same as the Washington tour).

Oceana honors Glenn Close and Morgan Freeman at summer fundraiser

BKessler — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:30:57 +0000

From Green Right Now Reports

Oceana raised nearly $900,000 at last weekend’s second annual SeaChange Summer Party, where it honored celebrities Glenn Close and Morgan Freeman.

The gathering supporting the ocean protection group was star-studded. Attendees included Oceana board member Ted Danson, last year’s honorees Harrison Ford and John Picard; Kate Walsh, Aaron Peirsol, Lauren Hutton, Anne Heche, Jeff Goldblum and many others.

Actress Close works with Arbor Day programs in her native New York City and has been a longtime supporter of human and animal rights, including assisting the Fountain House in New York City, a recovery facility for people with psychological disorders.

Freeman, an advocate for fighting global warming, has been active in the recovery efforts related to Hurricane Katrina. The Memphis native helped co-found PlanIt Now, a non-profit focused on hurricane preparedness.

Glenn Close has been nominated for five Academy Awards for her work in Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction, The Big Chill, The Natural and The World According to Garp.S he won both a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for her role as ‘Patty Hewes’ on Damages and is a three-time Tony Award winner.

Freeman won an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby in 2004, and was nominated for an Oscar three times before for acting turns in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy and the Shawshank Redemption. He has narrated many movies including March of the Penguins.

Oceana has been cited by Kiplinger Magazine as among the nation’s most effective environmental groups. The summer party took place at a private residence in Laguna Beach. The event had a long list of sponsors, including Lugano Diamonds, the Harriet E. Pfleger Foundation and many national and local businesses.

Aquariums: a cool place to learn about ocean conservation

BKessler — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:23:29 +0000

By Christopher Peake
Green Right Now

Aquariums are wonderful places to spend a summer day: if the weather is cool you can stay outdoors, if it’s hot there are indoor exhibits. Menacing sharks, beautifully-colored fish, gliding sea turtles, manta rays, sea snakes, sea horses, penguins and birds and river otters and performing orcas and porpoises all represent what is most beautiful and exciting about the waters of Planet Earth.

But they also represent a world that is disappearing quicker than we thought possible, and this is where aquariums hold a key to the future of water creatures.

Aquariums have realized that they must conduct research and they must also show us what is alive, what is dying and what we can do to balance it all. And so they tie their exhibits and their activities back to conservation, and tell us how we can help.

The South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston has two fun shows that deliver the green/blue message: their ongoing Sea Turtle Rescue Program and the new Penguin Planet exhibit.

The endangered sea turtles migrate annually to, and give birth along, beaches from Virginia to the Florida Keys, so there are many turtles of varying ages that run into trouble: bacterial and fungal infections, the shock from cold water, wounds from boat strikes and shark bites. The South Carolina Aquarium Turtle Hospital receives turtles that are found and its animal care staff administers whatever medical care they can to eventually get the turtles back into the ocean. But the really cool part of this program is that Aquarium visitors are able to go into the hospital; they can adopt injured turtles and can keep track of some of the rescued turtles with satellite tags.

Planet Penguin’s Magellanic penguins are typically found along coastal Southern Argentina and Chile. They are classified as “near threatened” and the South Carolina Aquarium exhibit helps visitors understand what threatens these two-foot tall birds and what can be done to ensure they don’t become full-fledged members of “threatened” species. Visitors will be able to tie in the penguins’ plight to ongoing interactive learning games and educational exhibits on climate changes in South Carolina. (Check out their penguins from anywhere on the aquarium’s live penguin cam.)

California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium has two unusual offerings: a live Laysan Albatross exhibit and for children 8 – 13, an Underwater Explorers event.

The Laysan albatross lives on tiny Midway Island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They fly hundreds of miles, sometimes even a thousand miles in search of food. All too often the shiny thing floating on the ocean surface not a squid or other sea food but instead a cigarette lighter or a bottle cap or other small bit of plastic. The albatross swoops down, swallows it and when her stomach is full she returns to Midway and regurgitates the food into her young; including the plastics. Scientists estimate that as many as 40% of Laysan chicks die from ingesting plastics. This may sound impossible but autopsies prove it. Even healthy Laysan chicks have at least one ounce of plastic in their stomach.

So what’s the green message of Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Laysan albatross exhibit? Properly disposing of plastics, but more importantly finding substitutes for plastic containers, helps wildlife. The live albatross exhibit shows their vulnerability.

The Underwater Explorers swim along the water’s surface and study the sea life below them. By wearing flotation suits and breathing from air (SCUBA) tanks participants are able to float and have a fish-eye view of Monterrey Bay’s Great Tidal Pool below. As the tides ebb and flow the water creatures come and go, so each trip is different and there is always something going on below the surface. Certified dive staff oversee the program.

The National Aquarium in Baltimore lives by a creed of conservation: “Everything we do ties back to a conservation message, telling people what they can do to help protect the environment.” And so this summer they’re exhibiting Jellies Invasion: Oceans Out of Balance. Visitors will learn about the role they’re playing in a changing ocean, where global warming is shifting territorial ranges and creating an over population of jellyfish that can be deadly to other species, especially fish needed for food.

You’ll see nine different species of these pre-historic creatures and learn how the jellies’ existence and increasing population are important environmental indicators.

(Photo credit: Penguin, South Carolina Aquarium; Laysan Albatross, Monterey Bay Aquarium)