Aquarium senior educator Jo Blasi is on expedition to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change in these areas and changes in the marine ecosystem. She will be live blogging frequently about the expedition, research technologies and marine life encountered during the trip. 

I've left for Antarctica! It’s hard to believe after waiting for months and months, I'm on an airplane heading south. After the paperwork, medical checkups, dental checkups, more paperwork, all it comes down to is packing. That’s not hard, right?

So, what did I pack? Well, when I told people I was going to Antarctica, some of the first things they asked were how cold would it be and how many pairs of socks I needed to bring. Antarctica is cold, true. Although you have to remember that it is summer right now and temperatures don’t get as cold as they do in the winter. I’m also working near Palmer Station, which is along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The average annual temperature there is -3ºC (or ~27ºF), more than 2º warmer than it was 50 years ago. Let's not be foolish, I still brought lots of warm layers. I also receive a duffle bag of "Cold Weather Gear" (CWG) when I get to Chile to protect me from the elements so I’m not too worried about being cold.  I thought I would practice to see how it feels in one of the freezers at the Aquarium before I left.

Preparing for the cold in the Aquarium’s food freezer

What other things am I packing? Well, lots of camera gear for one thing. I’m hoping to get some amazing footage of the environment, share with you the research I'll be doing, photographs of the ship and introduce you to the many people that work hard to make it all happen. So, that means two cameras, one camcorder, one GoPro camera, batteries, memory cards, backup drives, chargers, cords and lots of other stuff. I’m my own mobile movie studio!

Gear, gear and more gear

In addition to all the stuff, I was encouraged to bring a few items that remind me of home. For me this includes my trusty coffee mug, a daily journal hand painted by a friend of mine, some chocolates (yum!) and a t-shirt given to me by a class of students in Pennsylvania who will be following my journey. Hi, Polar Ambassadors! 
It doesn't sound like much but these little reminders of home can help me feel comfortable!

My reminders of home

Time is now ticking and I still can’t believe that it’s here. The butterflies in my stomach are kicking into high gear, both from the excitement and the nerves. Hopefully they will settle down so I can rest a bit. Can't wait to talk to you from Punta Arenas, Chile. Stay tuned.


Jo

Aquarium senior educator Jo Blasi is on expedition to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change in these areas and changes in the marine ecosystem. She will be live blogging frequently about the expedition, research technologies and marine life encountered during the trip. 

Say the word “Antarctica” and most people think of an icy, barren, windswept environment devoid of life…with the exception of the Emperor penguin.

Emperor penguin, photo © Samuel Blanc, via Wikimedia Commons

And, for the most part, they would be right. However, there is more. So, to make sure everyone is on the same page, here is a brief Antarctic summary to get you started.

Antarctica 101, Credit: US Antarctic Program

As you probably remember from grade school, Antarctica is the southern most continent on Earth. It’s one of the highest, driest and windiest places the planet with ice everywhere. How much ice? Lots! It covers 98 percent of the entire continent. Ninty percent of the world’s total ice amount is found in Antarctica and that ice represents 70 percent of all freshwater. That’s not even taking into account the sea ice! And of course, it’s cold. Temperatures at the South Pole have shown to be at an all time high around 10℉. I’m glad I’m going in the summer!

Ice, ice and more ice! Credit: NASA/Wikicommons

As for ownership, no one country owns Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty, signed by 50 countries including the U.S., makes Antarctica an area for peaceful research. These nations work together to study everything from geology to atmospheric sciences, marine science and climate change. Life and research on Antarctica has come a long way since a hearty New Englander named Nathaniel Palmer was among the first people to spot the continent back in 1820!

Country flags at the South Pole, Credit: Wikicommons

The U.S. Antarctic Program has formally worked in Antarctica since 1959. Around 3,000 people work annually at three field stations: McMurdo Station, the South Pole Station and Palmer Station, which is where I’m headed! I still can’t believe it’s happening! Although, the closer I get, the more excited I am and the more I’m looking forward to see all of this first hand.

Now…what to pack. — 
Jo

All of Jo's entries will be cross posted on the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Station site here. Learn more about the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Station.

Aquarium senior educator Jo Blasi is on expedition to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change in these areas and changes in the marine ecosystem. She will be live blogging frequently about the expedition, research technologies and marine life encountered during the trip. 

“Hello everyone and welcome to the New England Aquarium!”

Those are words that I say a lot at the Aquarium while teaching visitors about the world of water! The Aquarium has lots of interesting creatures, including fish and sea turtles from the Caribbean, stingrays that visitors can touch and tidepool animals from our local waters. It’s my job to share these amazing animals and their stories with visitors, hoping to inspire people to learn more and take action help solve the problems facing the ocean.

Teaching about turtles

Though most of my time is spent at Aquarium, an upcoming adventure has me looking beyond Boston. In just a few days, I’ll be headed south….way south! I’m joining a team of scientists, researchers, photographers, film crews and support staff that will travel to Antarctica! Why are we going? This group of people will continue work being done at the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) station to study how things like climate change, warming temperatures, decreases in sea ice and other factors can drive big changes in food webs. These changes can impact everything from tiny phytoplankton to whales and penguins.

Adelie penguins, photo: Beth Simmons

During this journey, my job is to help a team from Rutgers University study some of these changes using underwater gliders (torpedo-shaped autonomous robots) to collect data. Talk about cool technology! These researchers hope to understand how oceans and atmospheric changes are connected and to document the current condtions.

Cool technology! Photo: Rutgers University

I’m not only excited to take part in the research but am excited to be able to share that information and findings with students, teachers and Aquarium visitors. I’ll be communicating while on board the ship, posting pictures, answering questions and showcasing the work being done on a daily basis. Check back often to read the latest post and learn more about the expedition! Cheers!

Satellite photo of Antarctica, via Wikimedia commons

Jo

All of Jo's entries will be cross posted on the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Station site here. Learn more about the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Station.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. She'll be sharing some of her observations and reactions through the coming over the coming days.



Sometimes I find it hard to believe that a month and a half ago I was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I was out so far that the closest people to my ship were not in California, or in Hawaii.  They were in the International Space Station over our heads!  I traveled to one of the most remote ecosystems on the planet, sailed over 2500 miles, and didn’t see land for over a month.  Now, the adventure is over, and I am left to reflect on our accomplishments and discoveries

Sunset in the gyre

What we discovered was a LOT of plastic. We counted almost 70,000 pieces of plastic! I knew, before joining this expedition, that plastic was out there, but I was still astonished by the sheer quantity of plastic particles inhabiting the open ocean. It made me realize: coastlines may receive the brunt of our ecofootprint, but NO part of the planet goes unaffected.

So what can we do? Well, it became immediately apparent to me that a massive ocean clean-up is not an option. Not only is this economically unrealistic, but also, because of the size of these plastic particles it is impossible to take out the plastic without taking out the plankton. So, the best way for us to help is to stop the flow of plastics into the ocean. We can reevaluate our relationship to plastic and realize the true environmental impact of using something once that will last for decades.

Here’s some things you can do to make a difference as consumers and citizens:

• REDUCE REDUCE REDUCE! Recycling is a great idea, but it is not a solution. It still drives consumption of petroleum, requires a lot of energy and is only an option for some kinds of plastic. Don’t use plastic unless you have to.
• BYOB: Bring your own bag! Bring your own bottle! Two million plastic bottles every five minutes is far too many. You never have to use one again.
• Avoid using single use plastics (straws, cutlery, plater, styrofoam cups, etc.). Traveling with your own coffee mug and utensils is an easy was to accomplish this.
• Shop local! Visit farmers markets and bulk aisles.
• Become an advocate: Tell your families and friends about trash in the ocean, talk to your local representatives about how to eliminate wasteful, single-use plastics.

Photo: Jon Waterman via

Plastics in the ocean has been covered on Aquarium blogs several times, unfortunately. Learn about finding plastic debris on remote Indonesian reefs, in the open waters around Costa Rica, around islands in the Bahamas and learn how some people in Dominica are learning to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. She'll be sharing some of her observations and reactions through the coming over the coming days.



From my last post you know that 95 percent of the pieces we found were smaller than your pinky nail.  But we also took notice of debris that was visible to the naked eye from the deck of our ship. We spent ten minutes of every daylight hour specifically scanning the waters for debris and carefully logging flotsam we spotted. Determining the definite origin of most of these objects is difficult or impossible.  Often it is just pieces of plastic or foam, huge swaths of fishing nets and tangled lines, fishing buoys with no definitive markings, and plastic bottles with no labels. Given our cruise track there is a possibility that some of this debris could be from the Japanese tsunami.

One of the first large pieces we found was a red round plastic fishing buoy stamped with Japanese characters. We sent a photo of the characters out for translation and found out that the buoy originated in a southern sub-region of Hokkaido. Besides fishing buoys we saw other small items like a capped plastic beverage bottle, a soccer ball, and a childs rubber ball.

A refrigerator found in the middle of the Pacific could be tsunami debris from Japan

Possibly our most startling find of the trip was an intact refrigerator floating in the middle of the ocean. We did not have the space or means to take it onboard but we were able to open a drawer and extract various packaged foods and wrappers labeled with Japanese characters. My personal favorite piece of flotsam was a “rare” glass fishing floats—we found two! These beautiful round glass balls were traditionally used to float fishing nets in Japan before plastic came along.

Items from a drawer of the fridge have Japanese characters

Finding “treasures” out at sea such as the items listed here can be thrilling, the excitement onboard is palpable when we spot something, change course, and attempt retrieval. The strange part is that it becomes a bittersweet moment because the floating debris has a history—potentially of devastation.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. She'll be sharing some of her observations and reactions through the coming over the coming days.



Astonishingly, every single tow we did within the North Pacific Gyre contained plastic. Plastic was found not only floating at the surface, but mixed by wind and wave down to depths of 30 feet. We now know that surface tows do not give us a complete picture of what is out there.

Just how much did we find? From out neuston, manta and MOCNESS tows we counted 66,077 pieces of plastic. From visual surveys we counted 2796 pieces of plastic. In total that’s 68,873 plastic pieces!

Counting plastic debris from a sampling

It’s hard to imagine what this number actually looks like out in the ocean. Let me tell you that is a LOT of plastic, and 95% of it is smaller than your pinky nail. That means there is no floating island of trash out there, and it is certainly not visible from space as some internet searches might lead you to believe.  In reality, the Giant Pacific Garbage Patch is a large area of plastic soup, seasoned liberally with tiny floating plastic bits and the occational larger dumpling, like a buoy or a capped bottle.

Much of the plastic particles are tiny, the size of your pinky nail

Why is this plastic so small? Just like we get a sunburn if we stay in the sun too long with no sunscreen, plastic gets sun damage, causing it to photodegrade, or break into smaller pieces. As plastic gets smaller, it becomes ingestible on every level of the food web, from zooplankton to albatross to whales and yes, even to us.  These plastic bits are known to leach and concentrate toxins. If these toxins accumulate in our food, they accumulate in us. Medical professionals are beginning to question whether the abundance of chemicals in the environment could be linked to rising occurances of diabetes, obeisity, autism and ADHD. Even though these plastic pieces are in one of the most remote places on the planet, they could be affecting our health.

Larger hunks of plastic often have hitchhikers

In my next post, I'll talk about some of those larger items of trash that we spotted—some could even have come from the Japanese tsunami. Stick around.

Learn more about Kim's expedition to study Plastics in the Pacific.
How do you study plastics in the ocean?
Why is there plastic in the ocean?
A quick recap of the trip
A firsthand look at the Giant Pacific Garbage Patch
 
Plastics in the ocean has been covered on Aquarium blogs several times, unfortunately. Learn about finding plastic debris on remote Indonesian reefs, in the open waters around Costa Rica, around islands in the Bahamas and learn how some people in Dominica are learning to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. She'll be sharing some of her observations and reactions through the coming over the coming days.


We did four to six tows a everyday within the gyre to look for plastics. The Robert C. Seamans was equipped with a variety of nets that were used for our sampling.

1: Neuston Net
Traditionally used to sample plankton this net is towed on the surface of the water. Its fine mesh net lets water pass through while collecting plankton and everything else into the plastic container at it’s tapered “cod end”. Since in the middle of the ocean we are only going to find plastic that floats, this net is a great way to collect gyre samples.

Skimming the surface of the Pacific Ocean with the neuston net

A closeup of the neuston net

2. Dip Net
Long handles dip nets allowed us to scoop up visible pieces of debris, such as buoys, fragments of styrofoam and a soccer ball.

Dip nets are used to recover visible pieces of debris

3. The MOCNESS (Multiple Opening and Closing Net with Environmental Sensing System)
This beast-of-a-net weighed over 100 pounds, and had to be lowered over the side using a hydraulic J frame and our wire winch capable of lowering research equipment down to 3000 meters. This net could be programmed to open and close nets at different depths so we could see if plastic was being forced downward in the water column by the mixing effect of the wind.

Plastics in the ocean has been covered on Aquarium blogs several times, unfortunately. Learn about finding plastic debris on remote Indonesian reefs, in the open waters around Costa Rica, around islands in the Bahamas and learn how some people in Dominica are learning to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. She'll be sharing some of her observations and reactions through the coming over the coming days.

Let's start out by closing your eyes and trying to imagine a world without plastic.

Having trouble? It’s hard. The stuff is everywhere! How would we brush our teeth, store our food or use the internet without plastic? Yet, plastics are relatively new to human culture. Talk to your grandparents and they can tell you about a world with milkmen, glass bottles and food wrapped in wax paper. The smorgasbord of cheap plastic goods we find around us today, from toys to bags and bottles, are the products of “throw away living”, the ideal of disposability that didn’t pop up until the 1950s.  Now, Americans go through two million plastic soda bottles every five minutes! The amount of waste we create is staggering. So where does it all go?

Plastic debris recovered from the Pacific Ocean

Every piece of plastic we have ever made is still with us today. Some, inevitably, ends up in the ocean.  When it does it usually congregates in one of the five major gyres, or rotating ocean currents. As coastal and equatorial currents rotate around these gyres the middle, like the eye of a storm, remains calm. Once plastic gets there, it doesn’t leave.

We think that the majority of ocean plastic comes from land. Any walk through Boston will tell you that our waste disposal system is not perfect. Trash barrels overflow, bottles lay discarded on curbs, and plastic bags blow like tumbleweeds through the streets. This plastic works its way into storm drains and rivers, which all lead to the sea. Other sources include offshore activities (military, fishing, drilling, etc.) and natural disasters (tsunamis, hurricanes, etc.). In addition, it was completely legal to dump plastic in the ocean until 1988!

Our expedition headed to the middle of the North Pacific Gyre to take a closer look at this mid-ocean plastic. Coming up, how do you look for plastics in the middle of the ocean?

Plastics in the ocean has been covered on Aquarium blogs several times, unfortunately. Learn about finding plastic debris on remote Indonesian reefs, in the open waters around Costa Rica, around islands in the Bahamas and learn how some people in Dominica are learning to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Kim McCabe is a Visitor Education Specialist at the New England Aquarium. She recently returned from an expedition in the North Pacific ocean studying plastic debris and its impact on the marine ecosystem. 

Read blog entries from this expedition on the Plastics At Sea: North Pacific Expedition website. Kim's reactions to follow, stay tuned. Below are some quick figures about the expedition.





The expedition has concluded. Here's a quick summary of the researchers encountered along the way from San Diego to Honolulu:

• Number of plastic pieces counted: 69,566
• Number of net tows: 118
• Distance traveled: 2597 nautical miles
• Fuel consumed: 2885 gallons
• Fuel remaining: 3010 gallons
• Days at sea: 36
• Position: Honolulu, HI

The Robert C Seamans, Photo: Jon Waterman via

And more about those plastics from the researchers on board the Robert C. Seamans:

• Hand counted 66,077 pieces of plastic from 118 plankton net tows
• Logged 3,489 pieces of large “macrodebris” from visual surveys
• 95 percent of the plastic collected was millimeters in size
• Plastic was collected in every net tow within the North Pacific subtropical gyre
• Every subsurface net tow contained plastic
• All plastic collected had living organisms on it
• Each net tow also contained plankton
• Plastic counts from net tows ranged from 9 to 24,213 in the gyre

Hand-counting plastics. Photo: Jon Waterman via

The scientists will process all this data back on land, and it's a lot of information to digest. If you're interested in learning more about plastics in our oceans, check out this New England Aquarium lecture, peruse this blog about plastics around us and learn about nurdles on Caribbean beaches. And stay tuned, Kim will return with her reflections on her experience at sea.

Kim is all smiles during the expedition. Photo: Jon Waterman via

This is a report on a project conducted by the Manta Trust and supported with a grant from the Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) in 2012. MCAF supports the Aquarium’s commitment to ocean conservation by funding small-scale, high-impact projects across the globe. Since its founding in 1999, MCAF has funded more than 100 conservation projects in 36 countries and has disbursed more than $600,000 to protect highly vulnerable species and habitats and to conserve marine biodiversity. 

Manta rays are massive and graceful animals. With widths reaching over 20 feet from wingtip to wingtip, and weighing in at up to 2 tons, the manta is the largest of the ray species. These huge animals feed on the smallest creatures of the sea, including tiny zooplankton and very small fish. In the past decade, scientists have learned a great deal about these magnificent animals. However, much remains to be known about their intelligence, their social lives and their role in marine ecosystems.

Manta rays (Manta alfredi) are thought to have the biggest brains of all the fish in the ocean. Much remains to be learned about the intelligence and social interactions of these fascinating creatures. Photo: Guy Stevens

Unfortunately, these fascinating creatures are gravely threatened by overfishing due to a growing demand for their gill rakers for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Gill rakers are the tough cartilaginous structures that protect the rays’ gills and allow them to strain plankton from the water. Although purported health claims about the gill rakers are not supported by science, the market for rakers continues to grow, heavily increasing fishing pressure on mantas and their relatives, the mobula rays. These ray species grow slowly and have a low reproductive rate. Consequently, this intense level of harvesting could be devastating to their populations.

Manta and mobula rays are being hunted at record levels for their gill rakers, the cartilaginous structures they use for feeding. The gill rakers are highly valued by the traditional Chinese medicine trade.

The Manta Trust, an organization dedicated to the research and protection of manta rays, is studying the impact of this growing fishery on manta and mobula populations. With a grant from the Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF), Manta Trust project leader, Daniel Fernando surveyed fish markets in Sri Lanka, a major exporter of gill rakers. The purpose of these surveys was to assess the number of manta and mobula rays caught each year, so as to better understand and highlight the vulnerability of these animals.

Daniel Fernando noted that:

The data collected [in the surveys] is already being used to produce a scientific publication outlining catch rate of landed species in Sri Lanka. More importantly, data from this project [was] used to support a [successful] proposal to include manta rays in Appendix II of  CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species), [which will] help control and regulate the global trade of these species and improve their survival in the wild.

Ultimately, the Manta Trust hopes to use their research to support a ban on the export of gill rakers in Sri Lanka, which would significantly reduce the fishing pressure on these animals.

In addition to their fish market surveys, the Manta Trust is working on several other fronts in Sri Lanka to protect manta rays over the long term. They are conducting ocean surveys to identify key manta habitats such as nursery grounds and aggregation areas. This data will be used to advocate for marine protected areas for these critical habitats. The Manta Trust will also work with local communities to encourage sustainable alternatives to the manta fishery, such as promoting dive tourism. With these efforts the Manta Trusts hopes to secure a brighter future for these magnificent animals.

Learn more about the work of the Manta Trust on their website and Facebook page.

This is a report on a project led by the Nature Conservation Foundation and supported with a grant from the Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) in 2010. MCAF supports the Aquarium’s commitment to ocean conservation by funding small-scale, high-impact projects across the globe. Since its founding in 1999, MCAF has funded more than 100 conservation projects in 36 countries and has disbursed more than $600,000 to protect highly vulnerable species and habitats and to conserve marine biodiversity. 


Among the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, coral reefs support life for thousands of known species, and perhaps millions more that have yet to be discovered. They are also critically important to humans, providing food, livelihoods and protection from the damage of coastal storms. These vital ecosystems are faced with an increasing number of threats, including global warming. Higher than normal ocean temperatures stress a coral, often causing it to bleach white from the loss of its zooxanthellae, the microscopic algae that live in the coral, give it its color and help it to grow. If the coral is able to recoup these losses, it may recover, if not, it will die. Given that bleaching events are likely to become more frequent with global warming, scientists want to learn more about the factors that determine which reefs are most susceptible to bleaching and which are most resilient.

In 2010, MCAF awarded a grant to the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in India to study coral reef resilience in the Lakshadweep Archipelago, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean. The reefs of this archipelago were severely impacted by coral bleaching events in 1998 and 2010. The goal of NCF’s project was to assess the reefs’ responses (both resistance and recovery) in the wake of these bleaching events, in hopes of understanding how they might weather the effects of climate change over the long term.

Some species of coral like this Acropora are particularly susceptible to bleaching. When young individuals like this one are bleached it affects the population dynamics and recovery potential of the entire reef.  Photo: Rohan Arthur, Nature Conservation Foundation

The NCF team, lead by Rohan Arthur, Ph.D., surveyed 42 sites in the archipelago, measuring 30 different ecological and environmental characteristics to calculate a resilience score for each reef. Dr. Arthur’s team has been monitoring changes in these reefs since 1998, allowing them to relate these environmental characteristics with known patterns of resilience responses. The team has identified that reefs across the archipelago vary considerably in their responses to the stress of higher ocean temperatures. So, while some reefs are very susceptible to bleaching, others are highly resilient and still others are highly dynamic—bleaching, dying and then recovering very quickly after ocean warming events. The team is now trying to understand what factors drive these different responses.

During the survey, the research team measured 30 environmental and ecological parameters at each site, including the presence of bleached coral, as well the number of fish and invertebrate species. Photo: Rohan Arthur, Nature Conservation Foundation

Although this research is at an early stage, these findings could one day help guide management decisions. Reefs identified as having the greatest potential to survive long-term climate change could be strategically protected from human influences such as overfishing. In the meantime, Dr. Arthur and his team will continue studying the Lakshadweep Archipelago to better understand what the future may hold for these endangered ecosystems.

This is a report on a project led by Sea Turtles Forever and supported with grants from the Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) in 2009 and 2010. MCAF supports the Aquarium’s commitment to ocean conservation by funding small-scale, high-impact projects across the globe. Since its founding in 1999, MCAF has funded more than 100 conservation projects in 36 countries and has disbursed more than $600,000 to protect highly vulnerable species and habitats and to conserve marine biodiversity. 

The Punta Pargos region on the west coast of Costa Rica is an important nesting area for the endangered Eastern Pacific green sea turtle.  In Costa Rica and globally, these turtles face many threats, including pollution, entanglement in fishing gear and poaching of adult turtles and their eggs. The organization Sea Turtles Forever (STF) has been working for over a decade to improve the plight of these animals. STF began when founders Marc and Rachel Ward visited Punta Pargos in 1998.  Troubled by the rampant poaching of the turtle eggs, they started hiding nests from poachers. Recognizing the large scale of the problem, they soon formed Sea Turtles Forever and recruited others to help in their efforts. Now there is a team of STF staff and volunteers working together to protect the turtle nests.

Sea Turtles Forever Director Marc Ward (center) and his daughter work with a former poacher named Arnoldo to count turtle eggshells. After being recruited by STF, Arnoldo went from being a top poacher to a fierce protector of turtle nests, and is now one of STF’s most successful patrollers. Photo: Sea Turtles Forever

Every night during the sea turtle nesting season (which runs from October to May in Punta Pargos) the STF team heads out before high tide to search for nesting turtles. This is a race against time because poachers and predators are also on the hunt for these eggs. After the turtle lays her eggs, the STF team camouflages the nest or moves the eggs to a more covert location to keep them from being poached. The team also monitors the nest and counts the hatchlings weeks later. Recognizing the value of their work, MCAF awarded STF grants for both the 2009 and 2010 nesting seasons. In each of these years, STF secured more than 100 nests and ensured the safe hatching of over 10,000 turtles.

Pacific green sea turtle hatchlings emerge from a nest protected by STF. Photo: Sea Turtles Forever

As successful as they have been at protecting turtle nests, STF knows that threats to sea turtles must be addressed on many fronts. For a number of years, STF has been collecting scientific data on nesting females, eggs, and hatchlings to track the movements and reproductive health of the turtle populations. STF has also worked in local communities to change the cultural attitudes about consuming sea turtle eggs.  STF director Marc Ward regularly dresses up as Turtle Man to educate local children with engaging lessons about sea turtles and explain why their eggs need protection. Most importantly, STF has gained the cooperation of former poachers who now work for STF guarding turtle nests. Along with these community efforts, STF tackles the threat of marine debris by removing huge amounts of monofilament line and other plastics from turtle nesting beaches and nearshore habitats.

Marc Ward, dressed as Turtle Man, teaches local school children about sea turtle conservation.  Photo: Sea Turtles Forever

Sea Turtles Forever is a great example of how a small group of dedicated individuals can make a significant difference even with limited resources.  With their comprehensive conservation efforts, STF continues to work tirelessly toward a better future for sea turtle populations.

This is a report on a project led by ECOCEAN and supported with a grant from the Aquarium’s Marine Conservation Action Fund (MCAF) in 2010. MCAF supports the Aquarium’s commitment to ocean conservation by funding small-scale, high-impact projects across the globe. Since its founding in 1999, MCAF has funded more than 100 conservation projects in 36 countries and has disbursed more than $600,000 to protect highly vulnerable species and habitats and to conserve marine biodiversity. 

Whale sharks are gentle, beautiful animals, and at lengths reaching well over 40 feet, are the largest fish in the ocean. They are also one of only three known species of sharks that filter feed, straining their food from the water. Unfortunately, these magnificent animals face many threats to their survival. Overharvesting and bycatch along with habitat degradation have caused the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to list whale sharks as “vulnerable to extinction.” In 2010, the sharks faced an additional threat when the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill contaminated a large area of whale shark habitat.  Given the great potential for this spill to affect the whale sharks, it was imperative to track any changes in their population.  With support from MCAF, the organization ECOCEAN teamed up with the whale shark tourism industry to help monitor this species in the wake of the oil spill.

A whale shark filter feeds in the waters off the coast of eastern Mexico. Photo: ECOCEAN

The team focused their efforts on the waters surrounding Isla Mujeres and Isla Holbox, in eastern Mexico. Large numbers of whale sharks visit these waters every year, drawing thousands of tourists eager to see the sharks up close. The ECOCEAN researchers worked with a local whale shark research organization, Proyecto Domino, to train tour boat operators how to photograph the sharks to capture the unique markings that identify each individual. The tour operators taught these methods to tourists who came to swim with the sharks. With the help of the tourists, more than 5,000 images were collected and over 400 sharks identified during the 2010 season. These sightings were entered into the ECOCEAN’s database, which is the largest online whale shark photo-ID library.

Individual whale sharks can be identified by the unique pattern of markings on their skin. The photo taken by this diver was entered into ECOCEAN’s database, which contains more than 43,000 photos of whale sharks. Photo: ECOCEAN

 

As ECOCEAN researcher Darcy Bradley notes, these sightings helped to, “establish a baseline on the number of whale sharks visiting the area. This was necessary to better understand the extent of pressure that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may exert on whale sharks in the region - before these sharks potentially venture north to an area contaminated with oil.”

Additionally, Ms. Bradley notes:
Thanks to the 2010 pilot program, the 2011 whale shark season in Mexico has been a tremendous success in terms of sighting reports sent in to the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo Identification Library for new and returning sharks. This is crucial both for our efforts to better understand this impressive annual aggregation of whale sharks and to provide critical input to our work to better protect this threatened species.