People tend to appreciate things AFTER they lose them. As Westerner's we tend to see ourselves in control of the environment rather than a part of the environment. Neither mindset bodes well for the environment we depend on for food and shelter.
Two articles this month on how bad things are getting out there thanks to our stewardship.
So much for Salmon
It turns out that overfishing (this particular article doesn't blame overfishing) and damming rivers are doing a number of wild Salmon here on the Left Coast. Who would have thought? The Feds have been debating this issue for over a week with no decision as of yet.
Salmon season postponed for Bay Area coast
Tue, Mar. 14, 2006
Salmon season, set to begin April 2 in the Bay Area, has been postponed at least one month at popular fishing spots from Bodega Bay to Point Sur while officials deal with dangerously low levels of the popular fish.
But while the postponement and potential cancellation of salmon season could mean millions in lost revenues for commercial fisheries and high prices for consumers, the Pacific Fishery Management Council said it could mean the survival of the popular king salmon.
Open-ocean fishing can deplete the number of grown salmon able to make the trip upstream to spawning grounds. Many of the salmon that end up in the Bay Area make their way from the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border to the Sacramento River and eventually to the Pacific Ocean.
According to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, however, levels of Klamath salmon started dwindling after environmentally damaging dams were built along the salmon's spawning routes, not because of over fishing. The dams have contributed to rising water temperatures, increased parasite infestation and low river flows.
Biologists estimate that there are now 110,000 adult Klamath River Chinook salmon in the ocean. Before last year's season, the estimate was 185,700. The lowest number on record was 96,000 fish in 1992, according to the council.
Coral Reef die off
First graders are taught that the ocean's food system depends on the coral reefs... This issue really isn't about tourism.
Ghostly coral bleachings haunt the world's reefs
Tue Mar 14, 2006
SYDNEY (Reuters) - When marine scientist Ray Berkelmans went diving at Australia's Great Barrier Reef earlier this year, what he discovered shocked him -- a graveyard of coral stretching as far as he could see.
"It's a white desert out there," Berkelmans told Reuters in early March after returning from a dive to survey bleaching -- signs of a mass death of corals caused by a sudden rise in ocean temperatures -- around the Keppel Islands.
Australia has just experienced its warmest year on record and abnormally high sea temperatures during summer have caused massive coral bleaching in the Keppels. Sea temperatures touched 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit), the upper limit for coral.
"My estimate is in the vicinity of 95 to 98 percent of the coral is bleached in the Keppels," said Berkelmans from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
Marine scientists say another global bleaching episode cannot be ruled out, citing major bleaching in the Caribbean in the 2005 northern hemisphere summer, which coincided with one of the 20 warmest years on record in the United States.
Bleaching is due to higher than average water temperatures, triggered mainly by global warming, scientists say. Higher temperatures force corals to expel algae living in coral polyps which provide food and color, leaving white calcium skeletons. Coral dies in about a month if the waters do not cool.
"The traces suggest we are tracking the temperature profile of 2001-2002, which led to the worst incidence of coral bleaching ... for the Great Barrier Reef," he said.
In 2002, between 60 and 95 percent of the reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef were bleached. Most corals survived but in some locations up to 90 percent were killed.
Hoegh-Guldberg said projections from 40 climate models suggested that oceans would warm by as much as three to four degrees Celsius in the next 100 years.
"We're starting to get into very dangerous territory where what we see perhaps this year will become the norm and of course extreme events will become more likely," he said.
