“Greed and Mackerel endanger ocean life”


A school of jack mackerel in the Southern Pacific. Stocks of the fish, rich in oily protein, have declined from 30 million due to a feeding frenzy in the last  two decades.

Jack mackerel, feeds a hungry Africa. People eat it unaware of the shortage of this staple fish; much of it is reduced to feed for aquaculture and pigs. It can take more than five kilograms, more than 11 pounds, of jack mackerel to raise a single kilogram of farmed salmon.

The world’s largest trawlers, after depleting other oceans, now head south toward the edge of Antarctica to compete for what is left.

Industrial fleets bound only by voluntary restraints compete in what amounts to a free-for-all in no man’s water at the bottom of the world. From 2006 through 2011, scientists estimate, jack mackerel stocks declined 63 percent.

Greed knows no bounds until the ocean balance is totally reduced and thousands of species disappear and people starve.

Excerpts courtesy of nytimes.com  http://tinyurl.com/8yfea6u 

“Saving humpback Valentina from death”


Humpback Whale Shows AMAZING Appreciation After Being Freed From Nets

Thanks for this great video. It makes my heart sing and my energy rise. For more ways to raise  energy visit.

Thanks Great Whale Conservancy and UTube.com

“Welcome to my world-gorillas surround man”


On the last day of his vacation this man had an encounter with a troop of mountain gorillas in Bwindi National Park, Uganda  unlike most will ever have.

Mj Jensen and Amy Kalama Hochreiter on FaceBook

“Harp seals safer”


International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)’s Seal Team Director, Sheryl Fink, has just let me know that Russia has banned the import and

Seal pups slaughtered for fashion

export of harp seal skins. This is a huge victory as the Canadian Government estimates that Russia receives 90% of Canada’s exports of seal skins.

IFAW supporters have worked so hard to help us close down the markets for seal products around the world.

Next goal end to Canada’s commercial harp seal hunt. 

Mother Nature and her seals thanks everyone for their continued support and for saving their skins for them(the seals) to wear.

For more seal info

Image courtesy of NC library

“Osprey protecting whales”


Eco-activists using drones to protect whales in the Antarctic seas

The Japanese whalers are relentless so whale protectors have taken to the air to save  hundreds of whales – remote-controlled drone
Every morning for the past week, a battery-powered drone with a range of 300km (190 miles) has been launched from the MV Steve Irwin.  This ship is trying to frustrate the whalers into leaving their annual Japanese whale hunts in the waters off Antarctica.

“We first found the Japanese fleet when they were 28 nautical miles away,” said Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an international marine wildlife protection group based in the United States.

Watson has 88 crew on three ships, two of which are equipped with spotter drones.

With these drones Steve Watson hopes  to finally end the Japanese hunt and bringing publicity to the cause in Whale Wars, the Discovery channel documentary series that tracks the hunts: “Our goal is to bankrupt them and destroy them economically. Now that we can track them, it is getting easier.”

.For under £500, the drone used by Sea Shepherd can run for hundreds of hours . It was given to Sea Shepherd by Bayshore Recycling, a New Jersey-based solid waste recycling company committed to environmental protection. In addition to paying for the drone at an estimated cost of £10,000, Bayshore also paid for pilot training to run the remote control equipment. It is expected that drones will be used much more frequently to protect Mother Nature’s most endangered species on land and sea.

“Everyone here at Bayshore is thrilled with the Sea Shepherd’s news of not only saving the lives of many whales, but knowing our drone will continue to track the Japanese whaling fleet in this chase,” said Elena Bagarozza, marketing co-ordinator at Bayshore.

Watson expects drones will be used to patrol environmentally sensitive areas ranging from the Galapagos Islands to other famed wildlife areas, including South Africa’s Kruger National Park  by the Sea Shepherd crew and other environmental groups. It is very durable handling winds up to 40 knots, waterproofed and has multiple security backups so that if it has problems or low battery it automatically returns to base.

Resources

Excerpts courtesy of guardian.co.uk/environment

Image courtesy of guardian.co.uk/bveiga