Trans-Pacific turtle migration.

A new study of leatherback turtle tracking reveals a staggering 10–12 month trans-Pacific migration route from the nesting sites in the Western Pacific (Indonesia) to foraging sites off the coast off California.


See the review article at Science Daily:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110728103148.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

See the journal article at Ecosphere: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/ES11-00053.1

Bad news for big fish.

Bad news for big fish like tuna. Top researchers at the University of Miami and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) have reviewed the IUCN Red List (http://www.iucnredlist.org/) for several (61) species of big ocean-going fish. The IUCN Red List is the official site where the conservation status of species are listed, e.g. 'least concern', 'vulnerable', 'endangered', 'extinct' etc. Based on the results of their study, they have added seven species of big fish to the 'threatened with extinction' category and four other species to the 'near threatened' category.

See the review article in Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725091713.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

or the academic article in Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/291.summary

Overfishing stats.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports global fish production, from fishing and fish farming, is 142 million tonnes of fish, accounting for 44.9 million jobs. 

Excluding aquaculture, approximately 80 million tonnes of fish are caught from marine waters and 10 million tonnes from inland waters. These record global catches have been kept up for over a decade.

The FAO now estimates that:

- 53% of wild marine fish stocks are fully exploited (=bad)

- 28% are overexploited (=worse)

- 3% are depleted (=really really bad, may never recover)

- 1% is recovering (=not good, but some hope)

- 12% are moderately exploited (=ok)

- so only 3% of the world's marine fish stocks are underexploited (=good; but then if it's only 3% maybe its never that good).

Nobody should really be taking fish from any stock that is classified as fully exploited, overexploited, depleted or recovering. Which means that you can only fish from 15% of global marine fish stocks, compared to 40% in the 1970's.

Still, the highest catches in our history are being maintained and 80 million tonnes of fish are still being removed from our oceans every year.

(for the full FAO report see http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1820e/i1820e00.htm)