The more you learn about your carbon-footprint, the more you’ll realize that it’s weighed down as much by food choices as by what car you drive and your home energy program.  Food production comes with a cornucopia of green issues, from pesticide use to deforestation to global shipping.

No food issue, though, is more important than choosing the right fish to eat. Seafood merits special attention, because the fish varieties that we’re consuming could be on the brink of survival.  Ocean ecosystems are being wrenched apart by the overfishing of certain species and the destructive fishing techniques used to harvest others.

Fortunately, there’s help out there to assist you in sorting out what you can responsibly buy and what you should avoid.

Seafood Watch is a current, easy-to-use table of contents to the marine menu. It breaks down your seafood options into three categories, “Best Choices”, “Good Alternatives” and “Avoid.” These lists are kept and updated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, an authority on marine health. You can download a pocket guide to use while shopping or use the iPhone application, handy for dining out.

For those who want to know why and how their favorite menu pescatarian choices have been graded, click through on any given species and find out more. Haddock, for instance, is considered either a “Good Alternative” or a fish to “Avoid” depending on the fishing technique used to catch it. Haddock caught the old-fashioned way, with a hook and line, are considered to have been reasonably harvested. Trawled Haddock, however, represent a destructive practice that’s harmful to coral and the ocean’s floor.

Now this gets to be a deep subject, so a new fish selector service has launched. FishChoice.com aims to help commercial buyers like restaurants and retailers hook up with sustainable fishing enterprises, so that the seafood industry can steer a new course. FishChoice.com is starting as a non-profit, funded by foundations and donors, but expects to earn some operating money from subscriber fees at a later date.

“It’s been difficult to find sustainable seafood at the right commercial quantities,” said Richard Boot, Founder & President of FishChoice.com, in a news release announcing the new service today.

“FishChoice.com provides a business solution to an environmental problem by creating a crucial link in the supply chain to connect buyers and sellers of sustainable seafood,” said Boot, a former chef who previously worked with a fishery advocacy group.

Soon maybe you won’t need that pocket guide.

(Image credits: Haddock, Monterey Bay Aquarium; FishChoice.com logo)

“Don’t let the vacation ruin the destination.”

These words of wisdom hail from environmentalists who have legitimate concerns about ocean pollution due to cruise ship dumping.

Cruise ship vacations have gained in popularity in the last decade, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which states that the industry has grown nearly twice as fast as any other means of travel during that time frame. And, at the same time, the average ship size has been growing at about 90 feet every five years. Ships used to average about 3,000 passengers, but today some carry as many as 8,000.

So with larger ships carrying more passengers, there is mounting concern about how this growth will affect the ocean’s marine life and water quality.

Recently the World Wildlife Federation’s Baltic Sea chapter recommended that area ports upgrade their facilities to cope with contamination from cruise ship sewage. The WWF said that Baltic-area ports are not keeping their facilities up-to-date in terms of disposing of cruise ship waste and suggested that the money being made by cruise ship tourism be spent upgrading the facilities, according to a report in the Environmental News Service.

“We find it unfair that so many ports are profiting from cruise line tourism but are not prepared to take care of their waste,” said Pauli Merriman, director of the WWF Baltic Ecoregion Progamme, in the ENS report.

In one week, a single average size cruise ship can generate about 200,000 gallons of sewage as well as 1 million gallons of gray water (the runoff from showers and kitchens), says Friends of the Earth Clean Vessels Campaign director Marcie Keever.

“That amounts to about 50 swimming pools-worth of polluted water,” she says.

Cleaning up pollution from cruise ships uses technology that separates the solids from the liquids and uses reverse osmosis to get rid of the pollutants. The solids get incinerated with the ashes either being dumped on land or at sea beyond 3 to 12 nautical miles. On land, the human manure can be recycled as nutrients for soil.

In the U.S., says Keever, there are no regulations for dumping sewage from vessels beyond three nautical miles from shore. Beyond three miles, cruise ships are allowed to dump raw, partially treated, or treated sewage.

As for port-side dumping, she says, “the dumping of treated sewage (using 30-year old-technology) is allowed in many ports except for states that have created no-discharge areas or agreements…. California is one of the places with anti-dumping laws, as are Alaska and Maine. Washington and Florida have voluntary agreements with the cruise industry but those agreements don’t go any further that U.S. federal requirements in most cases.”

Greenpeace followed up the release this week of its latest Carting Away the Oceans scorecard with a friendly and fishy demonstration outside Trader Joe’s stores in San Francisco.

Greenpeace members, two of whom dressed as orange roughy and others who parodied Trader’s by wearing Hawaiian shirts mimicking the store’s trademark uniform, handed out information on why its important to select and buy seafood that can be replenished and also asked prospective customers to sign petition postcards to privately held grocery company.

California-based Trader Joes is a grocery with more than 300 stores that caters to people looking for natural and organic and specialty items at reasonable prices. It prides itself on selling “unconventional and interesting products.” But Greenpeace has ranked the store dead last among national grocery chains for its conventional approach to selling seafood, specifically its lack of attention to seafood sustainability. The advocacy group says Trader Joes (which ranked #17 on the seafood scorecard) has no apparent plant to assure it is buying reputably fished and farmed seafood and sells “Red Listed” fish that are endangered by overfishing or habitat loss.

Orange roughy are on Greenpeace’s Red List, which includes several jeopardized fish that marine experts have identified as needing time to recover from over-harvesting and whose populations are at risk of collapsing.

Trader Joe’s has not replied to a query for response.

To keep the heat up on the chain, Greenpeace also opened a website, called “Traitor Joe’s” where a cartoon pirate welcomes people to his “one stop shop for ocean destruction.” The site further explains Greenpeace’s seafood campaign.

Greenpeace is urging consumers to buy from stores that are trying to minimize their impact on the oceans by selling sustainably farmed or caught fish. It’s new rankings released this week commended Wegman’s, Ahold USA, Whole Foods and Target for doing the best job to maintain an eco-friendly seafood counter. Safeway, Harris Teeter and Wal-Mart also received acceptable marks. But Greenpeace listed nine grocery chains, national and some regional, as doing little to help save the oceans and urged consumers to not buy seafood from those retailers. (Trader Joe’s was last among national chains, with three regional chains ranking lowest on the 20 store list.) For more details on Trader Joe’s response to Greenpeace’s seafood campaign, see the listings on the seafood scorecard.

The company responded to Greenpeace’s query for information on its seafood practices by saying its policy is guided by “listening to its customers” but declining to give any more information, according to Greenpeace’s report card. Greenpeace concludes in its report that the chain is not affiliated with any conservation groups, has no discernible seafood policy to reduce environmental harm and in addition, that signs posted in some of its stores suggesting that its seafood is environmentally friendly appear to be mere marketing ploys.

The company’s stated reliance on customer input helped shape Greenpeace’s decision to have Trader Joe’s customers sign petition postcards asking for strong seafood policies, a spokeswoman explained.

(Photo credit: Greenpeace, San Francisco.)

Who is Christopher Swain and why is he swimming through 1,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean muck?

Freestyling around the net looking for answers, we found the YouTube video, “Dirty for Swain” about how Swain supporters are bathing in sewage…moisturizing with crude oil…and drinking curdled milk (not makin’ it up) to support this eco-activist’s latest aquatic statement, which is taking him from Marblehead, Mass., to Washington D.C.

It might seem like a lot of toxic exposure just to make a point…except that Swain is leading a new wave of interest in cleaner water. With the oceans acidifying under global warming and fisheries collapsing due to excessive commercial fishing, there’s no time to waste, excuse the pun.

Swain’s bio page explains that he swims for “fishable, swimmable, drinkable waterways for future generations,” because — well, that is what he does. Over the last several years, this self-described “not a rich man and not a scientist” with degrees in French Lit, film and a master’s in Acupuncture, has braved all types of pollution, trash and mysterious toxic goo to swim the Charles, Hudson and Columbia rivers and Lake Champlain. These were long, dedicated, arduous swims — the length of the rivers — which have raised awareness about our polluted waterways and won Swain many accolades.

“Some of my motivation is selfish. I want my daughters to be able to swim in these waters themselves someday–without having to wade through a broth of heavy metals and sewage to do it. And I want them to know that I tried,” Swain writes on his bio page, which also tells about his childhood spent sailing.

“But some other part of me feels that these swims are my patriotic duty. Pleading the case for waterways has come to feel like my own twisted form of national service.”

Like the climber who confronted the mountain because it was there, Swain explains that he makes these swims because he has the will and wherewithal to “dive in when others might not.”

And so Swain is mid-swim on his latest adventure. And you can check up on him at ToxTour.org, which opens with the title: “An ordinary guy seeks healthy world.”

Ordinary, naw. Inspiring, yes! So if you want, you can get “Dirty for Swain.”

Or you can stay clean, wish him the best, perhaps donate to help classrooms launch projects to protect the oceans, or adopt-a-mile of Swain’s swim. The options are listed at ToxTour.org, and there’s more on the journey at Changents.com, which is carrying his blog and a chronicle of each swim day (he’s dipping in and out after a few miles each day, and the water temps are warming).

(Photo of Swain by Carrie Branovan.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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The world’s shark population is dropping rapidly, and the primary reasons are humans’ increasing hunger for both a Chinese delicacy and an alternative medicine: shark fins.

Between 1970 and 2005, some shark species’ populations have dropped 99 percent, in large part due to ”finning,” according to a report in the journal Science in 2007. Fishermen slice off the valuable fins (they can cost up to $300 a pound) and toss the sharks’ bodies back into the ocean. By tossing the shark – either alive or dead – the fishermen do not have to transport large, heavy carcasses, plus the price of shark meat is dramatically lower than that of the fin.

Shark fins are prized as a key  ingredient in costly shark-fin soup favored by the Chinese around the world.

The U.S. has had a shark-finning prohibition since 2000, but that law will be strengthened with the introduction of the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) last week. Rep. Madeline Bordallo of Guam has already introduced similar legislation in Congress, and that bill received unanimous approval.

The older law contained loopholes that at least one American ship took advantage of when they were discovered carrying the fins of about 30,000 sharks. They appealed on the basis that they were a “transport” ship, not a “fishing” vessel, a distinction specified in the earlier law’s language.

The new legislation will close that loophole, along with a ban on importing any shark products that come from countries without shark conservation efforts.

At the same time, the European Union is looking at similar measures to strengthen an existing EU ban on shark finning. One of the conservation act’s proponents, The Pew Environment Group, released a statement that the regulations, if approved, would be a concrete step to stop the slaughter of sharks.

Of the 591 shark and ray species examined by an international group of conservation scientists, 21 percent are “threatened with extinction” and 18 percent have “near-threatened” status, according to the Pew group. The difficult task of tracking so many shark species likely misses about 35 percent of the shark and ray population, researchers say.

One species, the dusky shark, has declined in population off America’s East Coast by more than 80 percent since the ‘70s, and will take about 400 years to rebuild, according to the Pew group.

Because sharks are slow to reproduce, the populations will not recover easily. A loss of sharks, the sea’s most storied predators, alters the delicate ecosystem of the world’s oceans by over-population of fish that would normally fall prey to sharks.

“Approximately 100 million sharks are being killed every year, with potentially enormous negative consequences for the global marine food chain. Every country that allows shark fishing will need to adopt strong conservation measures if sharks are to be saved,” said Joshua S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group.

The journal Science has numerous studies related to the world’s declining shark population.

For more information about how to eat seafood selectively, avoiding fish like shark that are endangered, see our story, How to shop for seafood.

(Photo credit: Whale shark (at top) and bags of shark fins (above) © 2009 The Shark Alliance.)

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

What I do:

I have been working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA), National Ocean Service since 1999.  Currently as the National Education Liaison for the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, I work with various partners, such as National Geographic Society and the Institute for Exploration on national and regional educational programs that enhance public awareness, understanding and appreciation of the marine environment, particularly America’s underwater treasures, known as national marine sanctuaries.

One of the exciting new projects I manage is called Ocean for Life, which provides high-quality, immersive ocean field studies and follow-on education programs to facilitate cross-cultural learning, appreciation and lasting experiences between Middle Eastern and Western students.  Another fun program for students in grades K-8 is the Ocean Guardian Kids Club.

My job is extremely exciting and fun, with a wide diversity of activities ranging from scuba diving, assisting in research projects, giving presentations, planning and implementing field experiences for students, providing hands-on training for teachers, and much more.  Some days I sit at my desk and plug away at planning programs and ensuring ocean conservation information is available online, and other days I am out counting fish in marine protected areas, kayaking with students, or engaging teachers in ocean literacy.

How it helps:

Everyone makes choices daily that impact the environment and the ocean.  Ultimately, the ocean sustains life on Earth.  So anything I can do to get teachers, students, and the public-at-large to better understand the environment, especially the ocean, and their connection to it, the more likely people will make more informed decisions that can have a positive effect on the lifeblood of our planet.  Everyone needs to understand that they are connected to the ocean, no matter where they live, and that there is only one big, interconnected global ocean.

Everyone is connected to the ocean through their local watersheds, such as rivers and streams, and their daily actions have an impact of the environment and ultimately the ocean.  The NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries education vision is an ocean literate public making informed environmental decisions and our mission is to inspire ocean literacy and conservation through national marine sanctuaries.

How I got here:

I have always been fascinated with the ocean and marine life.  This stemmed from being born and raised in the Hawaiian Islands, and as a little girl, investigating tide pools and strapping on a mask and snorkel to observe life in the sea.  Throughout my childhood, I was absorbed by nature.  It was quite easy, considering I grew up without electricity for ten years on the slopes of Mauna Kea and wasn’t distracted by television or video games.  Through these childhood experiences, my passion for the ocean and the environment grew.

During my high school years in Hawaii, I had an opportunity to assist with research on threatened Hawaiian green sea turtles conducted by George Balazs of NOAA Fisheries.  Working with sea turtles, as well as with pinniped (seals and sea lions) rehabilitation in California and other exciting projects provided valuable field experience and fueled my ambition to promote ocean conservation.  Working with marine life had a profound impact on my future, although I hadn’t realized it until a few years after college when I started as a volunteer for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in California.

I got my foot in the door through volunteer work and internships during and after college.  Many of the people I work with have very specialized marine science or oceanography degrees, yet I come from a very different perspective.  I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, which is quite an unconventional degree for someone working for our country’s leading oceanic and atmospheric science agency.  Yet this passion I have always had for the ocean allowed me the opportunity to work for NOAA.  Anything is possible as long as you have the passion and diligence.  This is an important message I often impart to the school children with whom I work.

Where I’m going:

My work with the ocean has inspired me to further pursue my interests in photography and in telling stories through compelling imagery.  As an avid diver who spends time underwater for work and for fun, I have captured images ranging from playful sea lions in the kelp forests of the Channel Islands to basking green sea turtles in Hawaii.  During a 28-day research trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in summer 2006, I witnessed firsthand the human impacts on the marine life and sea birds of these remote, uninhabited atolls and islands. As a result, I now am committed not only to share images of the splendor and magnificence of the ocean world, but also of the tragic impacts humans are having on our blue planet.

As an ocean educator, my prospects for growth are wide open at this point.  Careers in the environmental field will only become more relevant as more Americans and people around the world better understand the importance of conservation and protecting the environment for future generations.  Also, the Obama Administration looks to be emphasizing topics such as climate change and education, which will only lead to more opportunities to educate people about threats to the ocean and environment.

How I’m doing:

The salary range for an ocean educator can vary widely depending on what organization you work for.  My best guess of the current salary range is about $45,000 – $100,000/year.  Also remember that you don’t necessarily need a science degree to work in the ocean field.  There are ocean-related jobs in photography, cinematography, engineering, socio-economics, business, and more.

Advice:

My advice is to pursue your passion no matter what, even if it means volunteering, doing an internship, or starting at the bottom of the totem pole in a career.  Anything is possible as long as you have the passion and diligence to follow through!  Your life will be so much more fulfilling if you truly love what you do.

See more profiles at MY GREEN JOB

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Google has a way of attracting attention, whether it’s by upending cell phone paradigms with an open-source platform or frightening publishers with its quest to digitize every book ever written. Now environmental groups have reason to hope one of the search giant’s projects will raise eco-consciousness among people who spend more time playing with the latest techie fad than they do reading conservationist pamphlets.

The reason is Google Earth, a standalone application that has been much loved by travel enthusiasts and geography buffs for the last few years. The program is a viewer in which satellite photos are augmented with three-dimensional computer renderings of geological formations and man-made buildings. Viewing New York City on Google Earth, for instance, you can not only check out the treescape at Central Park from overhead but tilt toward the horizon and fly by buildings that jut up all around you.

With an update to the software issued this week, though, Google Earth users can glide out over the edge of Manhattan, hover above the Atlantic, and dip below to explore. The project has added huge chunks of data from undersea exploration to its database, and — now that it has worked out a programming limitation that assumed everything worth seeing was above the zero-elevation mark — users can see the wreck of the Titanic, chart debris floating far from land, and observe marine sanctuaries they could never visit in person.

Groups like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are excited about the development, and in fact have actively participated both in providing data and in encouraging Google to make it available.

NOAA and others are hoping that the easy availability of all these images will help land-lubbers connect with, as the group’s Richard Spinrad puts it, “the myriad issues affecting our ocean.” That could happen through the ease with which organizations can connect their own content to a given location’s Google Earth representation (already, National Geographic and BBC World are among the contributors; the National Snow and Ice Data Center uses it to demonstrate climate change’s effect on glaciers), or it might simply develop as users embrace the vicarious pleasures of undersea exploration, using an interface in which computer-generated waves ripple hypnotically above as you sink lower into millennia -old underwater canyons. (See this page for more on using the new features.)

If swimming through virtual water doesn’t create new environmentalists, though, another new Google Earth feature might: A historical viewing option lets users see time-lapse images that dramatize, say, urban sprawl or the impact of a hurricane. Google’s access to old images only goes back so far, of course, but the years to come are likely to offer enough dramatic changes to scare a Google Earther or two into taking climate change seriously.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

President Obama may be moving swiftly to turn his environmental campaign pledges into official policy, but even a miraculous transformation of our behavior at this point would be too late to stop some effects that are “basically irreversible,” according to statements made by climate scientists this week.

In a press teleconference held in advance of the publication of their research, the scientists said that, contrary to what many laymen and policymakers assume, the earth’s temperature would not return to normal even if carbon emissions were cut to zero tomorrow — not in 100 years, not in 200 years, and probably not within this millennium.

“I don’t think that the very long time scale of the persistence of these effects has been understood,” the report’s lead author Susan Solomon, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.

The “effects” she referred to are climate change effects already in play — melting ice sheets, expansion of the ocean, changes in global rainfall patterns.

She pointed out that one factor slowing global temperature rise, the ocean’s ability to absorb heat, will also keep heat around if and when the greenhouse effect is reined in. She also noted that carbon dioxide, which is responsible for around half of global warming, remains in the air for hundreds of years as opposed to other, more rapidly degrading gases.

Solomon, who has been a leader on the International Panel on Climate Change, led a team of international scientists to produce the report on the long-term effects of global warming. It is due to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Solomon and scientists not involved in the report — like Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona, who described the paper as “quite important, not alarmist, and very important for the current debates on climate policy” — all emphasized that its findings were one more reason to act immediately to turn debate over carbon emissions into action.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Photo: Jean Kenyon, Coral Reef Ecosystem Division, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, NOAA

Dense populations of coral and pink coralline algae are found along the outer slopes at Rose Atoll. The fan-shaped coral pictured here is Pavona duerdeni.

Remember the global food crisis of earlier this year? Unfortunately, the intervening mortgage, energy and banking crises have not solved it.

The next food shortages are headed our way in waves – from the oceans, where overfishing has led to the steep decline of shark populations worldwide, the closing of West Coast salmon fisheries and now, the potential slide of the Alaskan Pollock.

This latest fish-in-trouble was once so prolific that it became the world’s most omnipresent, affordable everyman’s seafood, sliced into faux crab, minced and pressed into fish sticks and filleted into fast food McFishwiches.

Now, the workhorse Pollock, once vastly abundant, is experiencing a sudden unanticipated population decline of about 50 percent, jeopardizing the world’s supply of fish sticks (which may or may not alarm you), the survival of the Stellar Sea Lions of and countless Alaskan fishing jobs, according to a survey by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The findings have conservationists calling for a reassessment fishing limits in the seas along the Bering Strait. They want the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to set new reasonable catch limits on the Pollock that consider sustainability when the council meets in December.

Without a reassessment, they say, the entire Bering Strait ecosystem, where seals and whales also depend on the Pollock for food, could collapse.

Ocean and marine life experts say that the focus on single species management – with catch quotas based on estimates of what the fish can “sustain” – are missing the mark. More sophisticated models that look at the entire ecosystem, which includes the Pollock’s natural predators, are needed.

“Economic pressures to keep on fishing at such high levels have overwhelmed common sense,” said Dr. Jeremy Jackson, Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a press release.

“With the huge uncertainties inherent in fisheries models, a far more precautionary, ecosystem-based approach is required. Otherwise, fisheries managers are gambling with the health of our oceans and coastal communities,” Jackson said.

A report by Greenpeace, the Alaska Oceans Program, the Center for Biological Diversity and Trustees for Alaska concluded that urgent action is needed to ensure adequate Pollock, which are largely caught off Alaska’s vast coastline. Marine managers must rebuild fish stocks at higher levels to “preserve the ecological relationships between the exploited, dependent, and related species in the food web” and establish a network of marine reserves to conserve fish and wildlife habitats, according to the report called Rethinking Sustainability: A New Paradigm for Fisheries Management.

The extensive continental shelf in the eastern Bering Sea accounts for about half of the marine fish and shellfish caught in the entire United States annually, the report said.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Satellite pictures of the Arctic suggest that this year’s summer melt likely will be worse than last year’s, providing a dramatic demonstration of how global warming can snowball — no pun intended.

As the ice melts back farther and farther each summer, it loses its ability to reflect heat from the earth, becoming a contributor to, as well as a victim of, global warming. In addition, as the permafrost of the Arctic regions warms, it releases stored carbon, adding to greenhouse gases, and furthering the escalation of warming temperatures, scientists say. All this bad news, unfortunately doesn’t have any quick fixes, but will continue escalating until and unless global warming is stalled or reduced.

According to ongoing monitoring by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), August satellite images show that shrinking polar ice has receded to the second lowest level since satellite recording began, and September will tell if it surpasses the lowest level ever reached, in 2007.

“We will know in the next several weeks, when the melt season comes to a close. The bottom line, however, is that the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent characterizing the past decade continues,” according to the report this past week by the NSIDC.

The main areas of the melt are in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast and the East Siberian Seas off the coast of eastern Russia.

For more info about sea ice see the FAQ page of the NSIDC, which is based at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Certain species of large whales, particularly humpbacks, are less threatened now than they were when whaling bans took effect in the ’80s, according to a new report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Geneva-based IUCN, which describes itself as “the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network” and counts nearly eleven thousand scientists around the world as volunteers, is the author of a Red List which for four decades has kept tabs on the status of plant and animal species worldwide, focusing on conveying “the urgency and scale of conservation problems to the public and policy makers, and to motivate the global community to try to reduce species extinctions.”

In the 2008 Red List, the humpback’s situation is described as one of “Least Concern,” meaning its odds of extinction are low, although two subpopulations are still considered “Endangered.” (This page provides an exhaustive explanation of the organization’s approach to categorizing risk.) The group attributes the whales’ resurgence to legal protections against commercial hunting, though it says whales do face the threat of accidental entanglement in fishing gear, strandings caused by military sonar, and the various effects of climate change.

The news, unsurprisingly, is not all good. The latest Red List finds that “Most small coastal and freshwater cetaceans,” — a category that includes dolphins and porpoise — “are moving closer to extinction.” The IUCN also notes that the overall picture could be worse than reported, since they don’t have enough data to make accurate assessments of nearly half of cetacean species.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media