New Title: Heron Habitat Restoration Assistant

I just finished my first week working as the Heron Habitat Restoration Assistant on Prall's Island. Herons used to nest on the island, but environmental catastrophes (an oil spill and an Asian long-horned beetle infestation) have caused the herons to move elsewhere for nesting and feeding grounds. The best description of the island and its history I found on Mr Beller's Neighborhood Blog.

To get to work, I take the 1 train to the Staten Island Ferry, where my supervisor picks up the two other seasonals and I and brings us to the office at the Greenbelt Native Plant Center. From there, we drive a Parks truck to Saw Mill Creek Marsh, load the canoes in the water, and canoe 40 minutes to the northern end of the island.

The island is surrounded almost entirely by salt marsh (primarily spartina alterniflora). This is a view approaching it from the southern end. The island is shaped like an ice cream cone.

Here's a view looking south down the shoreline on the western side of the island. 

Looking northward on the western side. You can see the industry on the NJ shoreline. I found a live oyster that was over 6 cm on this beach. I think it would be a fantastic site for an oyster restoration project. : )

Currently, my job is to help construct a fence that will protect trees that will be planted in the spring with two other seasonals. The trees will hopefully serve as nesting habitat for the herons. In the effort to eradicate the long-horned beetle, all of the trees over 5 cm were cut down and mulched, eliminating all potential nesting habitat. Million trees attempted to plant 4,000 trees on the island a few years ago, but the trees were eaten by deer and rabbits over a period of a few days. Yes, there are deer and rabbits in NYC and they are increasingly becoming a problem because they are loosing habitat in suburban areas and are forced to forage in the city. This is why we need a fence. 

We are digging a trench a foot deep in order to place chicken wire and prevent the rabbits from digging under the fence. The chicken wire is going to be attached to a 7 ft tall fence. Organic pellets (which smell like a mixture of Christmas and pee because the ingredients are herbs and urea) are going to be placed around it to deter the animals. Fishing line and colored tape is going to form a web around the fence to scare off the deer as well. This thing is going to be a fortress.

So far I have enjoyed working here. It is nice to be outside all day surrounded by nature in New York City. It is a surreal experience. However, it is difficult to forget you are still in the city because the roar of traffic, planes, and construction is still omnipresent, albeit fainter and the island is covered in invasive plants and poison ivy...

Oyster Reef Restoration is Back in New Jersey

This article describes renewed oyster reef restoration efforts in NJ  by NY/NJ Baykeeper and features a video. Baykeeper has placed thousands of oysters in lantern nets and plans to monitor their growth and mortality in the Spring. The oysters have been placed at the Naval Weapons Station Earle Pier in Middletown, NJ.

Last year, Baykeeper had to remove the oyster reefs that they had restored throughout NJ because the reefs were deemed an "attractive nuisance." The restored reefs were constructed in areas that were closed to shellfishing due to low water quality standards. NJ has a $300 million shellfish industry and the NJ government.  It was thought that if people ate oysters from the restored oyster reefs, it would threaten the industry's reputation. These oysters will be regularly monitored by the Navy to dissuade any from harvesting the oysters for human consumption.

Salamander Monitoring with Students

About a month ago I assisted in the Salamander Monitoring Project that consisted of over 300 middle school students and teachers from around the city. Salamanders are considered bioindicators, they are extremely sensitive to the environment around them. If conditions are not right, they will not persist in the area. I went with other NRGers to receive training in montioring techniques and salamander and other species identification last month. With the students we conducted a biodiversity survey in Black Rock Forest and in parks around New York City in order to compare rural and urban habitats. There was even an article written about it in the New York Times. 

In the Black Rock Forest, my student group was from City College and they were a very smart bunch with an enthusiasm for nature and for lifting rocks. :) We found five salamanders: three Red-back salamanders, one lead-back variation of a Red Back Salamander, and one Northern Slimy Salamander. 

Their enthusiasm was a little too overwhelming for one salamander who lost its tail... but the students were relieved to learn that its tail would grow back eventually. We encouraged the kids to be a little more gentle with the salamanders and lifting rocks...

Our greatest group find was the Northern Slimy Salamander. It was the only one found that day. This species has been extinct from New York City for 150 years.

The students were really fond of the millipedes, which were also my favorite. :) 

Susan found a Two-lined Salamander next to our transect in a vernal pool. 

The second site I helped out at was in Van Cordlandt Park in the Bronx and the students were from Browning, an all boys school. Sadly we did not find any salamanders and two salamanders were found the entire day. This site was very different from the Black Rock site in ecology. We found many earthworms at this site, while in Black Rock we found none. Earthworms are actually not native to New York and have been affecting the area's ecology since their introduction by Europeans. They decompose the organic matter, such as leaves, which would normally provide shelter and a moist environment for salamanders. Accelerated decomposition also increases the availability of nutrients for plant uptake; however, many invasive plant species have the advantage because they are adapted to environments that contain worms. New York used to have native earthworm species but during the last ice age, the worms were wiped out. Native worms have slowly been moving up the East Coast, but the dissemination of European worms by humans has spead worms throughout the Northeast at a much faster rate. Most people think that worms are good for the soil, but not in the Northeast, except for your garden. 

Oyster Shucking Competition

Believe it or not, oyster shucking, or the opening of oysters, is a competition sport. Oyster shuckers want to be the fastest without damaging the oyster flesh, which can result in significant price reductions for the oyster because it is then only fit for selling for cooking purposes, such as stew, while undamaged pricier oysters are eaten raw. The fastest oyster shucker is Patrick McMurray, who set the world record of 38 oysters in under a minute in 2010. 

New York City has a long history of oyster shucking and it is still celebrated at an annual event called the "Oyster Frenzy" at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. They even made an ice sculpture!

There was events going on throughout the day. We arrived just in time for the first round of oyster shucking contestants to compete.

There was other entertainment as well. This is the Naked Cowboy that performed. Naked Cowboys are a variety of oysters grown in Long Island Sound. On my birthday I tried six different oysters and the Naked Cowboy was my favorite, in part because of the awesome name. : )

This is a photo from inside of the Grand Central Oyster Bar. It was packed. The restaurant was built in 1917 when Grand Central Station opened its doors.

Besides oyster shucking, there was also a beer shucking competition. This involved opening a case of bottled beer the fastest with a bottle opener. I was one of the last three contestants to sign up and opened a case of Pumpkin Ale, my favorite. Afterwards the shucked oysters and beer was given out the the contestants and the onlookers. Don't worry, nothing was wasted. :)

Here are the two final contestants for the oyster competition. That fistful of cash is the winnings: $3,000.

Oyster Spat Found!

Two weeks ago I went to the oyster reef with Danica to check the spat collectors and to our surprise we found oyster spat! In the photo below the oyster spat is the brown flat shell on the right with the white stripe down the center. To the left is a slipper shell, Crepidula plana, which is commonly confused with oyster spat. This species of slipper shell, or limpet, lives inside oysters and other bivalves, which is why it is so flat. 

Here is a close-up of the oyster spat. The small round encrusting organisms are barnacles.

Interestingly we only found oyster spat attached to the shell that had been sitting in the water for two months. There were no oyster spat found on the shell that had been out for a month or two weeks. Some research has shown that oyster spat are more attracted to substrates that have accumulated a layer of biofilm, or bacteria. This layer of biofilm takes approximately a month to produce. Although this is a possible explanation, I've talked to an oyster aquaculturalist and he said that oystermen put out shell only two weeks before it is expected for the oysters to spawn. Maybe there is another explanation...

Stay tuned for more baby pictures!

LaGuardia Spat Collectors

My most recent posts are full of links and are lacking photos. This post will change that. Yesterday I went to LaGuardia Airport to collect and replace spat collectors, a monthly activity that I have been involved in since June. The spat collectors consist of bags of oyster shell that are tied to a rope and weighed down with a rock to serve as an anchor. There are two bags per rope and there are two ropes. Sadly we haven't found any spat, but we have found a variety of organisms living inside the bags and attached to the rope, which further supports the fact that oyster reefs do not only provide habitat for oysters but other organisms as well. 

This is one of the ropes that the spat collectors were attached to. As you can see, it is completely encrusted with organisms, primarily hydroids. Hydroids are Cnidarians, so they are related to sea anenomes and can sting. It was so covered, the rope was difficult to pull up because it was slippery. We wore gloves to get a better grip and to avoid the hydroid's stinging cells.

Here is Eddie, an employee of the USDA who takes care of wildlife issues at the LaGuardia Airport. He is also a rock climber and has an extensive knowledge of knots, which came in handy in tying the oyster bags to the rope.

This is one of the spat collectors. It is completely covered with tunicates, which are also called sea squirts (because they can squirt water up to two feet) and sea grapes (because they appear, but do not taste like, grapes). They are highly tolerant of polluted water, which is probably why they are so numerous...

While I was waiting for the police to come open the gate for us, I noticed that there were oysters attached to the side of the boat launch. I have never been to this site when the water was so low, so I hadn't noticed them before. I had noticed that there were oyster shells washed up on shore, but when I asked the workers who repair the pier if they had ever seen an oyster attached to the pier, they said no. This is a huge find because there are currently only a few places in New York City where oysters have actually been documented.

I also found an oyster attached to the pier piling. Next time I go to LaGuardia, I'm going to try to go during a negative tide so that I can explore a little more to see how many oysters there actually are.

I brought the spat collectors back to the office so that I would have time to sort through them and look at all of the organisms that had hitched a ride. This is a mud crab. As you can see it is aptly named because it is covered in mud. It also has one claw that is bigger than the other. I'm guessing that this is a black fingered mud crab. They are predators of young bivalves, such as oysters and can crush shells that are less than 0.5 inches.

This is some kind of marine worm. I need to do more research because I don't know what it is but it looks very similar to an earth worm. I've found it in every spat collector so far.

Here is a close up of the sea grapes. They are filter feeders and suck in water though one siphon and their wastes out the other. You can see the two siphons on the sea grape to the left. You can also see their internal organs through their clear bodies. Tunicates are actually our closest invertebrate relatives. In their larval form they posess a notocord but lose it once the develop into adults.

There were also four eel-like fish that were unfortunately hiding in the spat collectors that I think are actually American eel. My next post is going to be devoted to them because they are a species of concern because it is disappearing at a rapid rate due to overfishing, habitat loss, pollution and blocked migration routes.

I had found a few of these eels in the spat collectors before but the pictures that I had taken of them were terrible because the office camera can't take pictures up close. I had thought that these eels were actually conger eels, but these eels short noses make that impossible.

Here is a beautiful pink-pigmented amphipod. :)

A barnacle. Fun Fact: They are actually crustaceans. 

Sea anenome. 

That's all the organisms for now! Hopefully we'll find some spat next time. :)

New York Oysters on WNYC

Here's an informative talk on the oyster reef restoration efforts in New York City on the Brian Lehrer Show featuring Mark Kurlansky, author of the Big Oyster, and Professor Jeffrey Levinton from Stonybrook University.

Oyster Donation

You can donate to restore oyster reefs! : )
http://www.coastalamericafoundation.org/researchprograms.html

Long Island Lobster Fishing: Another Example of Overfishing and Environmental Degradation

This article in the NY Times about lobster fishing in Long Island reminded me of the lobster overfishing in the Dominican Republic. However, the situation is even more complex because the lobster population is decreasing it is thought due to climate change and the flusihg of pesticides released into the water to kill mosquitoes. There is also a bacterial invasion that causes deformities, which reduces the lobster's marketability.

New Title: Oyster Reef Restoration Assistant

So... long time no write. I have been busy working at the New York City Parks and Recreation Department, the Natural Resources Group as the Oyster Reef Restoration Assistant and during my spare time I have been looking for jobs and having fun in the city. : ) It is a six month long position and the grant ends this year, but at least I get to stay in New York City for the summer and fall and who knows, maybe it will open up new opportunities because NewYork City is planning to restore 500 acres of oyster reefs by 2015 and 5,000 by 2050. There is a significant amount of research that needs to be done before oyster reef restoration goals can be met. Currently there is less than one acre of restored oyster reefs when all of the reefs are combined.

There are too many organizations to mention that are involved in oyster restoration in the New York Harbor so I will only focus on the main players. Oyster reef restoration is one of the components of the Comprehensive Restoration Plan, which was a collaboration led by the USACE (US Army Corp of Engineers) and the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program, established in the 1980s when the Hudson estuary was designated an estuary of national importance to coordinate restoration activities in the estuary. Oyster reef restoration was also mentioned as one of the components of PlaNYC 2030 and Vision 2020: NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan. The ORRP was formed in order to coordinate oyster restoration efforts among multiple organizations and to devise a plan to implement the large scale oyster reef restoration project I previously mentioned (5,000 acres by 2050). NY/NJ Baykeeper was charged with constructing five experimental small scale oyster reefs last fall and to organize the monitoring for this project to determine growth and survival of the oysters and the reefs effect on the estuary's biodiversity and water quality. One of the experimental oysters reefs was one of NRG's reefs that was constructed in 2006 but had subsided into the sediment due to low recruitment and high levels of sedimentation. Baykeeper added clam shell and 50,000 spat on shell that were raised with the help of high school students at the NY Harbor School located on Governor's Island. Part of my job is to serve as the liason between Baykeeper and NRG to help coordinate monitoring events and to assist with communication and data-sharing between organizations.

The other part of my job is to help close out the Shellfish Restoration Grant funded by the WCS-NOAA Jose. E. Serrano Lower Bronx River Partnership. NRG has been involved in oyster restoration work with this granting organization since 2006. I developed a monitoring protocol for the reef constructed in 2007, organized monitoring events, drafted progress and final reports, and analyze data. The two organizations that have been helping me with my monitoring are Rocking the Boat, an organization that teaches high school students environmental restoration and boat-building, and the Bronx River Alliance, which conducts environmental restoration along the Bronx River.

Published!

Hi all, I haven't written in a while but I need to share the news of my first publication! Here is the link to the journal's website. The journal is Consilience, the Journal of Sustainable Development. It's an online publication. My article is in Issue Six, Summer 2011. I am currently working on an article on lobster houses on wikipedia because there is currently nothing available on the subject. I am also going to make sure to cite my article. :)

Lobster Balls!

The University of Maine has succeeded in making a biodegradable golf ball out of lobster shells. This golf ball is actually cheaper than other biodegradable golf balls, has a similar flight pattern to regular golf balls, and is made out of a material that normally ends up in the land fill. Now golfers on cruise ships no longer have to worry about the environmental effect of hitting golf balls into the ocean, except for maybe hitting dolphins, reefs, and other organisms... The golf balls start to break down after 7 days and the material has other applications for products such as biodegradable plant pots.

For more information, here's an interview with the professor and undergraduate student working on the project: http://www.wlbz2.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=867508784001

and an article by the University of Maine:
http://umaine.edu/news/blog/2011/03/30/umaine-researchers-use-lobster-shells-to-create-biodegradable-golf-ball/

Lobster Migration

This is the most epic video featuring Caribbean Spiny Lobsters I have found yet! Narrated by David Attenborough, it follows the autumn migration of these lobsters from the shallow seagrass beds in the Bahamas to deeper coral reefs to avoid the hurricane season. Accompanying David is an upbeat soundtrack that brings to mind explorers venturing into the unknown but suspense builds to a point in which a lone lobster is confronted by a triggerfish, one of its predators. Watch and sea what happens (lol, I just realized that typo but I'll leave it in becase it's subject-related). Who knew triggerfish were so vicious? I'm going to think twice before I get into the water with one of them...

Oyster Restoration in the Bronx River

I recently was alerted to the fact that oyster reef restoration efforts have been going on since 2007! The blog NYC Transported already has done an amazing job at creating a multimedia guide to oyster reef restoration efforts in NYC that I cannot even begin to attempt to surpass but I added a few Internet nuggets and video that I found on oyster reef conservation in general and other oyster reef restoration projects around the country.

Oyster reefs have declined by 85% and are the single most endangered marine habitat. This is hard to believe that in the United States, oysters used to grow on trees (the mangroves in Florida) as described by this New York Times article. It is not only important to save oyster reefs because they are endangered and to be able to enjoy them as a scrumptious snack, they also provide essential ecosystem services. Oysters maintain the integrity of estuaries, which provide breeding habitat for a variety of species, many of which have commercial value and improve water quality (they filter up to 50 gallons of water a day!, removing sediment and pollutants).

Like I have mentioned before, New York City used to be the oyster capital of the world in the 19th century. I finally got around to reading the Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky over spring break. It turned out to be one of my favorite books because it combined food, the history of my favorite city, and ecology.

Active oyster restoration has been occurring in the Chesapeake Bay since 1994 by the Oyster Recovery Partnership and has seen some success in returning oysters to this area that was a runner-up to NYC as oyster capital of the world.

Why Dominicans Eat Codfish (Bacalao)

When I first arrived in the Dominican Republic, I was intrigued by two things that I thought were strange for a tropical island nation: the most popular fish eaten was "bacalao" (Bah-cah-LAH-oh) or dried codfish from the Northeast Atlantic and that most Dominicans don't know how to swim. I still don't know why Dominicans don't know how to swim, but after doing some internet research, I discovered why Dominicans savor the taste of codfish over fresh fish caught along their coasts. Thanks to Google Books, I was able to read the excerpt of a book called the Caribbean, the Codfish Story. When Europeans colonized the New World, they discovered that the waters off the coast of Newfoundland were teeming with cod. This fish supplanted the codfish industries in Europe because it was more plentiful and accessible and provided the base of the triangle trade between Europe, the Caribbean, and the Northeast colonies. High quality cod was exported to Europe, and salt cod was exported to the Caribbean, where it was the preferred food for slaves because it was high in protein, did not spoil, and did not take up a lot of space. The Caribbean traded sugar cane and other agricultural products for cod and slaves in Europe.

On my list of books to read is Mark Kurlansky's Cod: Biography of a Fish that Changed the World.

TED Talk: Jeremy Jackson, How We Wrecked the Ocean

I just watched a TED talk entitled How We Wrecked the Ocean by Jeremy Jackson. It paints an even more depressing picture of the situation of the world's oceans than I want to believe but he speaks the truth if something is not changed soon.



He talked about the coral reefs in Jamaica that were the most studied reefs in the 1970s. These reefs did not have any fish due to overfishing. After a major hurricane, all of the corals died, and now there is nothing but seaweed growing. I don't believe that all of the world's fisheries and coral reefs are doomed. I think that in the Dominican Republic, reefs are relatively healthy. In the reefs that we surveyed in Miches, there were still fish and there were several beautiful large expanses of large coral reefs. However, the same problems that were present in Jamaica are there as well. Water quality in Miches has decreased because of the increased sedimentation of the water, preventing sunlight from reaching the corals for photosynthesis; there is rampant overfishing, which reduces the number of grazers that keep seaweed from overgrowing the corals; and toxic algal blooms makes the trade of top predators such as the barrucuda forbidden but does not prevent the locals from consuming them for lack of food.

Depressing stuff.

Artificial Reefs Featured in National Geographic Article

I've gotten National Geographic since I was 13 years old and when I went home last weekend, I found 3 National Geographics waiting for me (I obviously hadn't been home in a while...). I was surprised to find that in the February issue was an article on artificial reefs! It featured a map that showed all of the artificial reefs off the eastern coast of the United States. I didn't realize how many of them there are. However, most of these were put into place before regulations were implemented requiring a certain procedure to be followed before the reefs are implemented to reduce environmental damage. I'm not going to post photos from National Geographic website because that would be copyright infringement, but if you want to check out the article, here's the link.

One of the artificial reefs mapped is the German submarine U-352, which is a popular recreational dive site due to its abundant marine life. While I was in the DR this winter, Paul let me borrow the book Shadow Divers, which was about a dive team off the coast of New Jersey that found another German submarine, the U-869, that over 200 feet deep in 1991. It is one of the best books I have every read and if you are into adventure books or diving, it is a must-read. A fisherman had sold the location to the divers because he had believed that a wreck on the ocean floor was attracting the abundant marine life that was found in the area. Three divers died while trying to discover the identity of the wreck because of its extreme depth and rudimentary diving technology at the time. One of the discoverers was John Chatterton, who is one of the most famous wreck divers in the world. He is currently working in Samana Bay in the Dominican Republic searching for wrecks, very close to Miches.

Lobster House Poster

I made a poster on lobster houses! Sorry the text is impossible to read, but you get the idea. There is no way to make it bigger. At least you can see the pictures... It's going to be presented at CERC's Sustaining Life, Securing Our Future next Tuesday. The conference is all day and the poster session begins at 4:20 and people just walk around looking at the posters so it's not going to be a formal presentation. 

Microscopic Crustaceans

My study of carcinology (the study of crustaceans) began at the University of New Hampshire when I was working as a lab tech at the Center of Freshwater Biology. I identified freshwater zooplankton of the Northeast, such as daphnia, ostracods and copepods, and helped improve an online key that the lab had created. I had elementary training using Dreamweaver and now I'm trying to learn more about web design to improve this blog and for useful general knowledge. A significant number of improvements have been made to the key since I used it last and I took the pictures displayed here from it. If you are interested in learning more about the thrilling world of zooplankton, it's full of cool videos and photos of zooplankton eating and doing other various activities.  : )

I have to say that my favorite group to identify were the rotifers because they were super cute like this guy though their identifying characteristics were sometimes difficult to see. This species is Branchionus angularis, which I added to the key myself.

I didn't like to identify the copepods as much because you have to count the number of segments on the antennules and sometimes determine whether there was a ridge on their rami (which is their last segment with the long hairy extensions that look like their tail) or if the rami was hairy, which was difficult especially when the sample was degraded. This is a photo of a male copepod, which you can determine because he is flexing his muscles. : )

This is a photo of a female copepod. The black blobs on either side of its last segment are her eggs. 

 And here's a photo of a Daphnia species. This species has is named retrocurva because it has a long curved head. This specimen has a tiny head compared to others I've seen.

New Fulton Fish Market

A few weeks ago I went with Thomas to the New Fulton Fish Market at on a quest for live snails and crayfish  for my aquaponics system. : ) We got on the bus at around 4:30 in the morning and got there by 6 and already most of the fish was gone! The market is from 1-7 in the morning and the peak time is around 4. As you can see from the picture below, it wasn't very crowded but they have pedestrian walkways that line the fish vendors and the center remains free for the forklifts and other vehicles to pass through.

The New Fulton Fish Market is located on Food Center Drive in the lower Bronx. It used to be located on Fulton Ave. in lower Manhattan where it had been since 1807. Up to 5% of the fish consumed in the US moves through the market and has the largest consortium of wholesalers in the US. (This is why I thought it would be worth while to check out if they had snails and crayfish). Restaurant and supermarket owners come to the market daily to pick out fish. However, the market moved because the rent was high and the fish were exposed to the elements so in 2005, it moved to its current location where the temperature of the warehouse is controlled to make sure that the fish doesn't spoil and it is very sanitary. However, the fishers say that the new location doesn't have as much character as the old location. Oh well, I guess I should have moved to NYC sooner.  

I did find some frozen spiny lobster tails! Sadly no live ones, but we did see some live Maine lobsters though, which is to be expected.

These ones are from Brazil!

There were some interesting fish there. I don't know what species of fish these two are!

 I definitely want to come to the market during it's peak time to see all of the activity and the fish. : ) 

Tides of Trouble

Last spring I had an internship for the NDRC (Natural Resource Defense Council) and helped to produce a fact sheet concerning the rising frequency of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) due to climate change. I've been meaning to post it for a while because it's watershed-related but haven't had the time. To give you a brief synopsis if you aren't interested in reading the entire thing (extra bonus points if you open the end notes and find my name! : )), here's a summary:

• HABs are caused by a proliferation of cyanobacteria and other microorganisms in fresh and salt water that produce toxins that can harm people and animals (causing skin irritations, abdominal pain, other various symptoms, and in some cases even death) if they are consumed by eating contaminated fish or shellfish, inhaled through aerosol, swimming in contaminated waters, or drinking contaminated water. 
• As many as 10% of foodbourne disease outbreaks in the US may result from the consumption of algal toxins (the common ones you hear about are ciguatera and red tides).
• Algal toxins cannot be destroyed by cooking and accumulate toxins up the food chain. (This is why "picua"- barracuda are not allowed to be sold by fishers in the DR).

What I find the the most fascinating about cyanobacteria is that almost all cyanobacteria produce BMAA (B-Methylamino-L-alanine), an algal neurotoxin that has been linked with the development of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. There was an extremely high incidence of these diseases in Guam, which was due to the fact that the Chamorro people would eat the seed from the cycad tree, which accumulated BMAA from the symbiotic cyanobacteria in its roots. A common delicacy was also fruit bats, which ate the cycad fruit, and were so delicious that they became extinct from the island. While I was working at the Center for Freshwater Biology at the University of New Hampshire, Dr. Haney was writing a paper concerning the high number of ALS patients around Mascoma Lake, which has frequent algal blooms.

Punta Allen to Receive Marine Stewardship Council Certification

Punta Allen is one of the case studies that I am using in my thesis. It is considered by the IUCN to be the most successful lobster fishery in Latin America and is located within the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. Fishers use lobster houses as its sole fishing method and each fisher is in charge of his own "campo,"or territory where he maintains and fishes his own lobster houses. Some of the reasons why this fishery has been so successful is because it is highly productive, its co-management system facilitates enforcement, and it is isolated. I was excited to learn recently that is one of six Panulirus argus fishing cooperatives that is set to receive Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification as part of the Regional Federation of Fishing Cooperatives in Quintana Roo. You can track the fishery or any other fishery certified or undergoing assessement by the MSC at this website.

The area undergoing certification extends from Tulum to the Mexico-Belize border. Scientists determined that this enormous area was necessary to sustain the lobster resource because it was considered a "bank," which is an area where recruited lobsters do not substantially mix with recruited populations. In order to receive certification, the fisheries will have to maintain a spawning abundance of adults above a precautionary limit in which the recruited lobster population is not impaired due to dispersal to other areas. This management strategy makes sense because the larval stage of spiny lobsters can last for almost a year, carrying the larvae great distances.

I contacted those in charge of the project and they informed me that the full assessment of the fishery has been completed and if everything goes smoothly, the fishery will be certified by the middle of this year and you will be able to buy spiny lobster from Punta Allen with this snazy logo!

Punta Allen isn't the first spiny lobster fishery that the MSC has certified. The MSC's first certification was issued to a Western Spiny Lobster (Panulirus cygnus) Fishery in Western Australia. The lobsters are harvested using baited pots. This fishery is the most valuable single-species fishery in Australia and generates US$300-400 million annually, exporting to markets such as Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and the USA. Markets have also opened up locally due to rising demand for local, sustainably-sourced seafood. Another lobster fishery that is undergoing recertification is the Red Rock Lobster (Panulirus interruptus) Fishery of Baja California. 

I also had no idea how successful MSC has been. Approximately 6% of the world's total edible wild capture fisheries are now engaged in the program. Wal-Mart announced in 2006 that it would buy all of its wild-caught fresh and frozen fish for the US from fisheries certified by the MSC by 2011.

Becoming certified by the MSC allows fisheries to access higher-priced markets and may increase their income but also require compliance with certain terms of certification, which may require management changes that are difficult for fisheries to accept. The basic requirements for certification include:

(1) that the fishing activity must be at a sustainable level

(2) that fishing operations should be managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function, and                       diversity of the ecosystem on which the fishery depends

(3) that the fishery must meet all the local, national, and international laws and must have a management system that responds to the changing circumstances and maintains sustainability


Sadly the Miches fishery does not meet any of these criteria because the catch is decreasing, the fishing methods used are destructive to the environment, and none of the national laws are obeyed. 

Possibly No Consumable Oysters in the Gowanus Canal.... Ever

The future of oysters in Gowanus Canal looked bright in light of Kate's TED talk, but this New York Times article finds otherwise. The Canal has been deemed a Superfund Site, which is a site designated to clean up unregulated wastes. The canal is polluted with more than a dozen contaminants, some of which are carcinogens. The flow of contaminants into the canal has decreased but still continues today. The city and the EPA are working jointly on remediation measures. The city is upgrading the canal's flushing tunnel and pump, which will decrease combined sewer overflows by 34% and will be completed in 2013. The canal is in for years of dredging, starting in 2015 and ending 10 years later. This means that it will be impossible to have any oysters in the near future. Maybe oysters can be grown for consumption in a less polluted New York City waterway?

Aquaponics System Set Up

Here's my aquaponics system all set up! The system includes a 10 gallon fish tank, an air pump, a grow bed (a storage container with holes melted into the bottom with a glue gun), hydropon clay pellets, a plastic tube to carry the water to the grow bed, 8 gold fish, and several basil plants. We bought the grow bed, the fish, and the plants ourselves. I bought the gold fish at Petco in Union Square for 15 cents each. Sadly two of the goldfish died on the first night but the other eight are doing splendidly.

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Aquaponics is the growing of plants and fish together. It's a symbiotic relationship. The fish produce waste in the water, which is pumped up into the grow bed, where bacteria converts the waste from nitrites to nitrates, and the plants suck up the nutrients, providing clean water for the plants. It requires less water than conventional growing systems because it is cleaned continuously. Some systems even grow duckweed to feed the fish, creating a complete closed loop. Will Allen uses a system that grows duckweed to feed the fish and supplements his grow beds with vermicompost (worm poo!) and grows nile tilapia.

We used a water conditioner to take the chloride and other water treatments out of the water. I was concerned about chloromine in the water, which is toxic to fish. Unlike chlorine, which evaporates after a few days, water with chloromine has to be treated with a water conditioner and let sit for a few days. We had already bought the fish and didn't have a few days so we tossed them in hoping for the best. Luckily I did some research and New York City's water is only treated with chlorine, fluoride, phosphoric acid, and in some cases sodium hydroxide.

New Release: FAO's State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) just released the 2010 update of the State of the World's Fisheries and Aquaculture. Time to update the statistics in my thesis...

Fun Fish Facts

Overfishing

• The proportion of marine fish stocks estimated to be underexploited or moderately exploited declined from 40% in the mid-1970s to 15% in 2008 (the lowest proportion recorded since the mid-1970s) and the proportion of overexploited, depleted, or recovering stocks increased from 10% to 32% (the highest since the mid-1970s). 53% of stocks are estimated to be fully exploited, with no room for expansion.
• Global marine fish catch production peaked in 1996 at 74.7 million tonnes. Although many studies predicted a rapid decline in production, the catch has remained relatively stable

• The same species have dominated marine catches since 2003, with the top ten species accounting for 30% of all marine catches. The fully exploited stocks in this list are the two main stocks of anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), Alaska pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) (some stocks are depleted), Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus), Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi). It may be possible to expand some stocks of chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus). The largehead hairtail (Trichiurus lepturus) was estimated to be overexploited.

• 60% of the tuna stocks are fully exploited and up to 35% are overexploited or depleted and only a few appear underexploited (skipjack). Although the Atlantic bluefin was refused listing under CITES Appendix I, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has had some success in reducing the exploitation rates in some areas.

Consumption

• In 2008, 115 millions tonnes of fish was consumed by humans, which is 17kg (live weight) per person, an all-time high.
• In 2007, fish accounted for 16% of the global population's intake of animal protein and 6% of all protein consumed. In low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), fish is 20% of the total animal protein consumed and is probably higher than the statistics indicate because of underreporting from small-scale and subsistence fisheries.
• Consumers of fish, particularly in the world's richer economies are increasingly demanding that retailers guarantee that their fish is high quality and also that it comes from sustainable sources. Several large-scale retailers are demanding certification to their own private standards schemes in food safety, quality, and sustainability. Traceability initiatives are growing, being initiated by NGOs, governments, or RFBs (regional fishery bodies)

Aquaculture

• Aquaculture now makes up 46% of the total food fish supply, which is slightly lower growth than than predicted but has grown from 43% in 2006 and is set to overtake capture-based fisheries in production.
• Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the highest growth rate in aquaculture from 1970 to 2008 (21%).

Employment

• In 2008, 44.9 million people were engaged in the fish sector, and at least 12% were women. This is a 167% increase since 1980. For each person employed directly by fishing or aquaculture production, about three jobs are produced in secondary activities. Each job-holder provides for three dependents or family members on average. Therefore, fisheries support about 540 million people or 8% of the world population.

Small-scale Fishery Management

• The role of RFBs in international fisheries governance is growing but strengthening their performance is a major challenge. Their major tasks are regulating unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, effective implementation of monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) and overcapacity in fishing fleets. Many RFBs have been unable to control IUU fishing, implementing the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), the control of bycatch and the promotion of economic development in member countries.
• Small-scale fisheries contribute to more than half of the world's marine and inland fish catch, almost all of which is destined for direct human consumption. These fisheries employ more than 90% of the world's 35 million capture fishers and support another 84 million people in secondary jobs. Almost half of these people are women. More than 95% of small-scale fishers and related workers live in developing countries. Poverty remains widespread for millions of these communities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
• Overfishing are a threat but social structures and institutional arrangements play a central role in engendering poverty. Critical factors that contribute to poverty in these communities are insecure access rights to fishery resources, poor or absent health and educational services, lack of social safety nets, vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change, and exclusion from wider development processes owing to weak organizational structures and inadequate representation and participation in decision-making.
• Policy makers are suggesting a human rights approach to include marginalized groups in institutional processes, which would include measures such as: strengthening the capacity of fishing communities to be aware of, claim and exercise their rights effectively; requiring duty-bearers, including states, to fulfill their human rights obligations, including through legislation; the delegation of management responsibilities and the creation of comanagement arrangements that involve local resource users together with the state, which require human capacity on the local level as well as legal, practical, and community-based arrangements.

Data Collection

• The number of non-reporting countries increased this year due to the economic crisis.

Abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG)

• Magnets have been attached to longlines to repel sharks.
• Acoustic beacons and reflectors in gillnets and set net fishing gear to reduce catch of non-target species such as cetaceans, turtles, and seabirds.
• Trials are testing lines made from substances that reflect sound, such as barium sulphate, which don't affect the performance or appearance of the net in anyway

FAO Abbreviations

ALDFG- Abandoned, Lost, or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gear

CITES- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

EAF- Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

EEZ- Exclusive Economic Zone

FAO- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

ICCAT- International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas

IUU- Unreported and Unregulated Fishing

LIFDC- Low-Income Food-Deficient Country

MCS- Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance

NGO- Non-Governmental Organization

RFB- Regional Fishery Bodies

RFBN- Regional Fishery Bodies Secretariat Network

Blue Lobsters/Crawfish

For my aquaponics class I've been researching species to grow in our 10 gallon tank. I went to Petco to do some research and came away with 10 goldfish because they are hardy and only cost 15 cents each. One of the most exotic species I saw there were these small crustaceans, which were called blue lobsters and were $21 each! Maybe it would be profitable to start a breeding operation...

(They are even using artificial shelters!)

The blue lobster is a color morph of many different American crayfish species, some that breed in captivity and some that don't (there goes my plan). There are also blue American lobsters (the full-size Maine lobsters that you normally think of as lobster), but only one in a million is blue. They can get to 6 inches long. I decided that redclaw crawfish were a better option...

Oyster-tecture on TED!

My Sustainable Futures professor, Kate Orff, is a TED celebrity! I love TED talks. One of my favorite activities is exploring their videos, which are talks given by experts in many different fields, from cartooning to architecture to ecology to music artists. After coming back from the architecture class on aquaponics that I'm sitting in on, coming across this video was a real treat. I already made a blog post concerning oyster-tecture so you can find more details there but Kate's project proposed to reintroduce oysters to NYC's waterways in order to reduce pollution, restore the ecosystem, and grow some tasty mollusks for human consumption (I'm not sure I want to eat oysters from the Gowanus Canal though...).

How to Harvest Lobsters from a Lobster House

Finally I found an accessible video of harvesting lobsters from a lobster house! Even stranger, it was made during an exchange of Dominican fishermen to Punta Allen with ReefCheck DR. okgo007, who are you? Have you met James, he is also a fan of OK Go. : )

Bionic Lobster Commercial

I came upon this video over the summer and was luckily able to find it again. : ) This lobster lost his right arm in an unfortanate fishing accident and came across a leatherman laying on the seafloor. Caribbean Spiny Lobsters don't have claws but maybe they could make an investment in some leathermans!

Lobster Houses Illegal in Florida Keys

I found these two videos on the use of lobster houses in Florida, which is illegal. Divers dump all kinds of material into the ocean in order to attract lobsters and have been causing damage to the environment and is resulting in overfishing. According to the video though they have been very successful and have been bringing more lobster than the fishers that use traps. There are some fishers that are licensed to create artificial reefs by dumping materials but they have to be approved beforehand to make sure that the area where the dumping occurs will not be damaged and the materials will not disintegrate and cause damage to the environment.

I think that lobster houses should be regulated to make sure that they are made out of approved materials and put in the proper locations to reduce environmental impact, but I'm not convinced that they should be completely banned. The fishers that use traps feel threatened because the lobster houses are more effective and their fishing method is harmful to the environment as well. When there is a major storm, their traps get thrown about reefs causing damage and the fishers leave juvenile lobsters, called "shorts," in their traps to attract other lobsters. This results in a significant loss in the number of juveniles in this fishery because they usually get eaten by other lobsters or fish or die due to starvation.

Shark Fishing

WARNING!

This post may contain images, videos, and information that may be alarming for those that are ecologically-conscious and/or squeamish.

This Sunday I had an extraordinary experience. I went shark fishing with Fran, Luis, and Paul. I do not know how long Fran has been shark fishing, but below is a photo of Fran with the biggest shark that he has ever caught. It has to be over 15 years old. He says that he is the only shark fisher in Miches.

While I was in Miches over the summer I wasn't aware of shark fishing occurring, which could be because Fran didn't trust me or the others working for ESSEG, but when I came back over winter break, Paul told me that Fran goes shark fishing quite often and had offered to take him out. He sets out nets to catch enough rays and other fish to use as bait, which he puts on lines with a giant hook on the end and a large buoy. There is a row of 5 bouys on one line. This time he caught 4 sharks on 5 lines.

Fran sells the entire shark: its fins, the meat, the shark oil, and the teeth. The fins are sold to Chinamen who come all the way to Miches to buy the fins from him for 800 pesos ( $22) a pound. The Chinese use them to make shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy and has been growing in popularity as people are able to afford it. In most other locations where sharks ar caught for its fins, it's finned alive and thrown over board to slowly die. So one upside about shark fishing in Miches is that almost everything is used. The meat is sold to the cities and the fishers say that it tastes delicious. The shark oil is used locally for curing respiratory aliments. Over the summer, one of the kids in Los Mameyes was sick so they gave him a botella made from shark liver oil, honey, and some other herbs to drink. I was feeling under the weather as well and they let me try some. It tasted like honey. They also use the shark's teeth to make necklaces and other jewelry. Fran's wife said that she had a necklace made from shark's teeth.

Here is one of the four tiger sharks that were caught. When they were cleaned, together they all weighed 480 pounds. Fran said that sometimes they only catch one shark that weighs over 500 pounds. When sharks get that big, they can't load it into the boat and drag it alongside it. They would rathe rhave larger sharks than smaller sharks. For these sharks, they got 2,000-3,000 pesos for each, which is around US$ 56-83.

Here's a shark that got its head bitten by another shark after the fishers left it out on the line to die.

Hooked

This shark was a little "guapo," the Dominican word for agressive, and had to be tied down with a line.

Shark fishing footage.

Shark fishing is not sustainable and is one more reason why I hope the lobster house project is successful. You are fishing at the top of the food chain, which disrupts the entire balance of the ecosystem, and it is unhealthy to consume shark meat because it is high in mercury since it is so high in the food chain. I also do not like that they catch spotted eagle rays, which are listed as not threatened by the IUCN, but would be a thrill for a tourist to see while snorkeling. They are truly magnificant fish. I don't know why they can't use other types of fish or even rotten meat from the butcher. It is very profitable though and as Fran said, shark fishing is is "divertido" (fun) compared to other kinds of fishing. I imagine he takes pride in being able to kill these top predators of the ocean. One aspect of this experience that gave me hope is that there are enough sharks out there in order to be able to shark fish. This means that the ecosystem is very healthy because the more top predators there are, the less effect fishing has had on the ecosystem. This has been shown by the research conducted at the Palmyra atoll, an isolated island that has never had extenisive fisheries and 56% of its total fish biomass is top predators. I hope that shark fishing will be stopped before the sharks are fished out.

As for the legality of shark fishing, it is legal to fish for sharks besides the basking shark, the great white, and the whale shark. The only state in the US in which shark fishing is illegal is Hawaii but the US has toughened its laws so that there shark finning is illegal, meaning that the entire shark must be kept and shark fins can still be traded and sold in restaurants. However, more than 80 other countries are suppliers to the shark fin market in Hong Kong, which is stated by this article, and one kilo (2.2 pounds) of shark fin can go for US$ 120. The demand for shark fins is not going to disappear any time soon. It is not on the same level as blue fin tuna and Japan because there are many different species and sharks will be likely to be protected by CITES in the future because they are charismatic and not as tasty. What worries me is that there are so many species that can be fished to meet the shark fin demand, which means that fishers can switch to other species once one has been made illegal, causing a total collapse of all shark populations. A total ban on shark fishing and the sale of shark fins should be issued before this happens.