By now most people have heard of Paul the psychic octopus, the prognosticating cephalopod that presaged the outcome of the 2010 World Cup. Paul, a caged male common octopus (Octopus vulgaris: the same species as the takoat your local sushi bar) at Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, managed to successfully predict the winners of eight consecutive soccer matches – most of which involved the German national team – by eating a mussel from one of two small plastic boxes. Each box was draped with the flag of one of the upcoming competitors, and Paul was allowed to choose between the two at his leisure. Paul’s choices were accurate in all cases.
A statistician would tell you that the odds of an octopus predicting the correct outcome of a soccer match eight out of eight times are 255:1, or 0.39%. Then, of course, another statistician would tell you that this would be true of any sequence of choices that the octopus made, correct or otherwise. At this point a third statistician would remind you that regardless of the choices that the octopus had previously made, the chances of him accurately choosing the winner of any one game, World Cup Final or not, is exactly 50%. Then you’d probably get bored and go do something more interesting than listen to a group of statisticians talk about an octopus.
Gimme ten bucks on Paul
Oddly, the world at large did not get bored. In fact, just the opposite occurred. The buzz surrounding Paul and his alleged clairvoyance grew to such a level that in the final match, bookies could actually see a shift in betting patterns immediately after the octopus ransacked his chosen mussel box.
Others are not as reverent. The Germans, in particular, have loudly and repeatedly called for Paul’s blood (which is blue, by the way… octopuses use hemocyanin to carry oxygen rather than the hemoglobin many other animals use, and thus they end up with blue blood instead of red). Many indignant German soccer fans are demanding that the octopus be grilled, barbecued, or otherwise ritually killed and consumed for predicting Germany’s upset loss to Serbia.
The octopus is not the issue here, dude
I’m digressing. This isn’t supposed to be about the octopus, or the fans, or soccer. For me, the most compelling piece of this ridiculous story is the conceptual angle – the fact that we find ourselves opening our minds to the possibility that the ocean may have produced something that is far beyond our comprehension.
Paul’s feat reminds us that there is a tremendous amount of wonder and mystery in the sea. We have learned enough about the complex ecosystems of this planet to realize that there are any number of potential superfoods, magic bullets, and cures for cancer hiding in their midst; we just haven’t found them all yet. The ocean is no exception. We have no idea what marvels are down there, hiding in the depths.
Last month, at Jacques Cousteau’s posthumous 100th birthday celebration, the great ocean explorer’s grandson Fabian reiterated the popular adage that “we still know more about outer space than we do about the deep ocean.” While I’m not certain how we can qualitatively prove this statement, the thrust of it is what’s important: we are still incredibly ignorant when it comes to deep ocean ecosystems. Unfortunately, this has not stopped us from causing untold damage to these unexplored realms — and there is little more damaging to the ocean than bottom trawling.
Bottom trawls are weighted nets that are used by fishing vessels to ensnare species that live along the floor or the ocean. These nets are dragged along the seabed, pulverizing corals and causing tremendous damage to reefs, invertebrates, and rocky habitats. Given that the total area of ocean floor trawled each year is twice the square mileage of the United States, we’re no doubt causing serious trouble for countless animals that live amongst the stones and eelgrass. The mortality rate of bottom trawling – that is, the percentage of impacted animals that are killed by these nets – is extremely high, often surpassing 90%. Many of these creatures aren’t desirable from a strict economic perspective, and are tossed overboard as soon as they’re pulled up. This carnage is known as bycatch, and some trawlers (especially tropical shrimpers) have been known regularly to haul up nets with bycatch outnumbering the targeted species by over ten to one. For every pound of shrimp these boats catch, over ten pounds of other animals – fish, invertebrates, etc. – are pitched over the side, already dead.
Imagine the scale of waste and destruction that the global trawling enterprise precipitates on a daily basis – the loss of life, the destruction of habitat… it’s staggering. In exchange for a short-run profit bump, these trawlers ride roughshod over the deep like the horsemen of some marine apocalypse. Who knows what miracles we may have already lost to their greed and indifference?
Land of opportunity
While I haven’t yet made up my mind about whether or not I believe that Paul does indeed have some sort of extra-sensory perception, I am grateful to him for reminding us all that there is so much that we still don’t understand hiding beneath the waves. Psychic octopus or not, it doesn’t matter – the important thing is to realize that is that we can’t afford to sacrifice the immeasurable potential of the deep for a few extra dollars in the here and now.
Life is full of mysteries. Some, like Paul, can bring great joy and wonder. Others may take a bit more exploration to unlock, but could be even more dazzling. If we don’t reign in our destructive practices, though, we may never find out.
First, we have the overfishing crisis, which continues virtually unabated.Every day, we yank hundreds of thousands of pounds of life out of the sea, often in strikingly inefficient and destructive ways – bottom trawls rake the floor of the ocean, pulverizing corals and flattening any animals that lack the locomotive capacity to evade them, while pelagic longlines indiscriminately slaughter curious seabirds, turtles, and sharks as collateral damage in our unrelenting quest for seafood.
To make matters worse, President Obama, who was elected in part by an engaged and hopeful environmentalist demographic, has completely turned his back on the oceans and their largest denizens – whales.His 2008 promise to strengthen the international moratorium on commercial whaling has been completely subsumed by an insidious new agenda that seeks to dismantle the moratorium, legalize whaling in the Southern Ocean (including Japan’s ongoing hunt for endangered fin, sei, and humpback whales), and create an unspoken tolerance among the world’s governments for this intolerable activity.
Nice work, slick
And above it all, offshore drilling has finally revealed itself as exactly what we have always feared it would be – an inevitable environmental cataclysm.The ruptured Deepwater Horizon pipeline continues to release untold amounts of toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, strangling birds, fish, and any other life forms unfortunate enough to be caught within its suffocating expanse… which is currently the size of the State of Delaware, not to mention up to 45 feet deep in some areas.
Our oceans and their denizens are besieged on all sides.Given these seemingly insurmountable odds, it is difficult to maintain any sense of optimism when one considers the state of our world’s waters.Still, all is not lost.All three of the aforementioned menaces have sparked resistance, and with the right kind of passion and leadership, we just may find a way out of this mess after all.
Misleading labels: an endangered species
Although overfishing remains a tremendous problem, Greenpeace’s recent Carting Away the Oceans report highlights some significant progress: quite a few major retailers have taken strong steps towards the development of sustainable seafood operations.Companies like Target, Wegmans, Whole Foods, and Safeway are making positive sourcing decisions that reduce environmental degradation and enable their customers to shop with a more confidence.Even Trader Joe’s, which earned both ire and infamy last year for its indifference to sustainability in seafood, has turned a corner. A recent announcement on the company’s website indicates that Trader Joe’s has discontinued orange roughy and is currently developing a sustainable seafood policy as well as more informative and transparent labeling.Beyond this, the company has called out the need for marine reserves in fishery management and has promised to use its purchasing dollars to support visionary leadership in industry (such as closed-containment salmon). The work has only just begun, but it is comforting to know that this company, which was once an incorrigible laggard in these areas, may now be in the process of becoming a true leader.
Our government’s efforts to legalize whaling and reward Japan, Iceland, and Norway for their continual disregard of international law and the will of the vast majority of the Earth’s population seem to have hit a snag as well.Monica Medina, the lead US delegate to the International Whaling Commission and the champion of the legalization effort, seems to be backpedaling a bit in the face of enormous public resistance.Opposition to this despicable initiative is so vocal, in fact, that a petition urging Congress to reconsider has received over 100,000 signatures – and the number is growing every day.
Apply lessons learned... please
It’s not easy to find something positive to say about the horrific oil disaster in the Gulf, but maybe – just maybe – we can find a way to coax a silver lining out of this mess.One can surmise that if it is this difficult to repair oil drilling mishaps in an area as accessible and temperate as the Gulf of Mexico, it would be infinitely more challenging in the Arctic.And there will be mistakes in the Arctic.There will be spills, fires, and other accidents – they are inevitable to some degree, as we have so painfully learned.So perhaps our government will read the writing on the wall and reinstate a total moratorium on offshore drilling, including the new leases in the Arctic.While this won’t quell Deepwater’s hemorrhaging, save Louisiana’s shrimp industry, or clean the crude off of any brown pelicans, it would certainly be a massive positive step towards precluding even more – and even worse – nightmares like this from occurring in the future.Even California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has heeded the harsh lessons of Deepwater Horizon and rescinded his support for a bill that would prompt new oil exploration off the coast of California.Now, I never thought I’d want Obama to take a page from the Governator’s book, but in this case, it seems like Schwarzenegger has the right idea.
Thank you
So yes, things look grim for our oceans, no doubt about it – but there is hope.There is always hope.Countless people are struggling against the crises facing our oceans, doing their utmost to heal this planet that we are ravaging so blindly.And it is those people, and their efforts, and the possibility of a better future for us and for our children that keeps hope alive.It is undoubtedly a bad week to be a fish, or a whale, or a turtle, or a Louisiana shrimper – but next week just might be a little better.
As promised, after four weeks of waiting, I finally have something substantial to report.
At three o’clock on a dark, sweaty Thursday morning, I was called to the bridge by the watchkeeper. I stumbled through the alleyways and hauled myself up two rolling and pitching stairwells, my shirt clammy and wrinkled and my eyes bloodshot from a long bout with insomnia. After nearly a month at sea and nothing to show for it, I was dearly hoping that I had been summoned for a good reason, not for just another false alarm. Please, I pleaded silently, please let there be a ship out there.
My bleary eyes were directed to the softly backlit radar screen, and suddenly my adrenals shot into overdrive and I was wide awake. There wasn’t just one ship on the screen – there were four.
Somehow, in the middle of the night, we had bumbled our way right into the center of a fishing fleet.
Filling their purse
As soon as it was light enough to see, the Esperanza’s crew sprung into action. A launch was scrambled and the boarding team shot off towards the nearest seiner, which had already set its net and was beginning to haul it in.
Our launch pulled up alongside the fishing vessel, close enough that we could almost touch the floats that kept the seine net in contact with the water’s surface. The massive net was looped around a FAD that had been bobbing in the water for a week or more. The seiner’s crew hooked the seine net drawstring to a massive, towering winch, and slowly the net began to constrict as the drawstring pulled tight: an ocean-going python of immense length and power.
A bloody mess
Eventually the fish trapped within the net began to panic. We began to see tuna jumping and splashing frantically, churning what had been the ocean’s calm surface waters to a white, bubbly froth. The net pulled tighter and tighter, forcing hundreds, even thousands of these animals together into a lethal gridlock. The winch slowly and inexorably cranked the net aloft, as unstoppable and unforgiving as the reaper’s scythe. The massive weight of the catch forced the strands of the net into the scales and flesh of the unfortunate animals on the bottom. The seine began to weep blood.
The fish were hoisted onto the deck and dumped into the cargo hold. We boarded the ship and set about scouring the decks and holds for evidence of bycatch. Our photographer and videographer documented everything as the unwanted catch, including dorado (mahi mahi), triggerfish, marlin, and mackerel, was tossed over the side or simply tossed into a trough that served as a temporary storage for bycatch. The fishermen were actually quite pleasant and helpful as a general rule, although that may have been because the language barrier prevented us from offering an in-depth explanation of our true motivation.
One of the lucky ones
Throughout the day, the boarding team cycled back and forth among the different ships, witnessing, boarding, and documenting. On two separate occasions we saw turtles ensnared by the seiners. They had been attracted to the FADs and were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the ship set. Luckily, the fishermen were able to free the animals both times. Turtles aren’t always so fortunate in these situations.
On one of the ships, I managed to sweet-talk my way deep into the guts of the ship so I could crawl into the fish hold itself. I rummaged through a pile of thousands of dead and dying skipjack, looking for juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tuna that had been netted along with their more numerous cousins. It only took me a matter of seconds to find the first, a bigeye that was no larger than my forearm. After that, I started to see them everywhere. My rough estimate is that between 10 and 15 percent of the seiner’s total catch was juvenile bigeye and yellowfin.
Don't it make your bigeyes blue
I grabbed a dead bigeye and a dead skipjack and showed them to a fisherman. I pointed at the skipjack and asked him in Spanish what it was called. He looked at me blankly and replied, “atun.” I nodded, and then pointed to the bigeye. “This one is different, though,” I said, “it’s a different species. What’s this one called?” He shrugged and gave me a friendly grin. “Atun,” he said.
Maybe that’s part of the problem.
We repeated these visits all day, moving from ship to ship, documenting clean catches as well as hauls that were stuffed with unwanted animals. I saw dozens of dying mahi mahi and triggerfish tossed back into the sea, left to bleed out and sink to their doom. Large, majestic marlin, crushed and suffocated by the seining process, were tucked away in back corners of the hold as a private stash for the seiner’s captain. Worst of all, we saw hundreds of baby bigeye and yellowfin tuna – species already under serious threat — meet their end as they got lost in the shuffle, mixed in with skipjack destined for low-value tins. No doubt the bigeye and yellowfin stocks will never be able to recover if we keep purloining their young, but that is precisely what is happening.
We shall overcome
Still, as troubling as it was to witness these travesties, morale on the ship has never been higher. We have done what we set out to do — obtained photographic proof of the horrifying bycatch associated with these FAD seiners. We still have several more days to search, but even if we end up with nothing more than what we’ve already collected, it is certainly enough to convince me that something rotten is afoot in the Eastern Pacific.
So another week has passed, and life aboard the Esperanza goes on relatively unchanged. The air is muggy and heavy, tempered only by an ephemeral breeze, weak to the point of being almost imaginary. The furious equatorial sun rises above the bow and slices the bridge open in the morning, spends the day beating its chest high in the sky, and finally tires itself out, slipping astern, red and exhausted beneath the indigo sea.
We still press on eastward, slowly gobbling up the massive distance between us and our final port, keeping watch for the purse seiners that ply these waters. We also have daily watches that consist of various crew members staring at the sea, searching desperately for fish aggregating devices (FADs) — small rafts or buoys used by skipjack seiners that draw many different kinds of fish together, causing the bycatch problems that brought us out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the first place.
The problem is, we haven’t been able to find any of these things. At least, not until a few days ago.
Ghost ship
On Wednesday night, a blip appeared on the Esperanza radar screen. It was over twenty miles out, moving quickly, and in completely the wrong direction, so direct confrontation was out of the question. Still, we were able to raise the ship on the radio. A short conversation confirmed that we had indeed found a purse seine vessel. It was steaming northwest, off to find FADs that it had deposited earlier.
Since we were not going to be able to intercept it, we elected to use some subterfuge. Without disclosing who we were, we mined the seiner’s radio operator for information. A cordial discussion yielded some excellent direction about where we could go to “find some fish,” and where a “private vessel” such as ourselves could reasonably expect to find “productive fishing grounds.”
We cross-referenced the information we got from the seiner with our charts. Everything was matching up — climactic anomalies, plankton blooms, underwater topography — and it all highlighted one particular area as a potential magnet for neighborhood skipjack poachers. Luckily, this target zone was directly on our course, about a week away at full steam.
Aww.. you say such nice things
At present, we’re only about three days away. The crew is energetic, and standard watches on the bridge have been augmented with volunteer labor by officers and deckhands that are eager to see some action. We’ve seen increased signs of life as well in recent days, with pods of spinner dolphins cavorting off the bow and innumerable birds circling off the foredeck. Flying fish continue to provide a beautiful distraction, especially when entire shoals of the delicate little creatures rise from the waves in unison, hundreds of glimmering pairs of wings stretched akimbo, tiny shining bodies gliding effortlessly into the air as the ship splits the water just behind them.
More next week. At the risk of being overconfident, I’m quite certain that I’ll have something more substantial to report by the time next Monday rolls around.
I hear they’re vicious, blood-thirsty death machines bereft of qualms or conscience, living only to feed, sowing terror in the hearts of beach bunnies and surfer dudes everywhere.
Best get rid of ‘em.
Oh, and something else: you know those funny things that stick out from their bodies? Those cartilaginous ridges that help them to turn, accelerate, and maneuver in the water? The ones without which they wouldn’t be able to function? The ones with an off-putting chewy texture, virtually no flavor, and only the most dubious gastronomic appeal?
I hear they make a damn fine soup.
Because of nonsense like this, sharks have been in our cross-hairs for decades. Due to a combination of unjustified fears and an insatiable appetite for shark fins in east Asia, it’s been an absolute bloodbath. We kill tens of millions of sharks every year. A countless number of them die on tuna longlines, ending their lives as ignominious tick marks on a bycatch report that no one ever sees. Many are killed by fishermen and aquaculturists as a part of “predator control” programs. Some are taken by recreational anglers that simply want the thrill of the fight.
But most of them? Most of them die for their fins.
On the chopping block
The global shark finning fleet is a vast network of hundreds of vessels that operates as countless independent cells, terrorizing sharks from the Red Sea to the Caribbean, from the icy coasts of Greenland to the Cape of Good Hope. Dozens of species are targeted solely for their fins, which can be exchanged for buckets of cash in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other centers of the trade. Shark finners catch the sharks on lines or in nets and haul them to the surface. Once the animals are immobilized, the finners dismember the sharks with machetes or similar implements. The hapless creatures are then either chopped into steaks or callously tossed overboard to bleed to death as they sink into the deeps.
Shark fins are coveted due to their alleged medicinal value. When purified and injected, shark cartilage has been linked to an antiangiogenic effect (blood vessels shrinking away from the injected area.) This is particularly interesting in the realm of tumors and cancer treatment. The link between such an effect and a bowl of boiled shark fins in broth, however, is theoretical at best.
Just dying for some soup
Sadly, the unproven nature of shark fin’s medicinal status hasn’t hindered demand in the slightest. Bowls of shark fin soup can fetch over $100 each, and the Hong Kong market alone handles over 3000 tons of shark fin every year. All the while, shark populations across the planet are crashing – some have decreased by 90% or more.
Thankfully, governments are starting to wake up to the reality of the situation.
In March of this year, the United States House of Representatives passed the Shark Conservation Act, which would amend both the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to improve the conservation of sharks. Unfortunately, this bill is now tied up in committee in the Senate.
Just this week, Scotland enacted legislation that will prohibit all shark finning in Scottish waters. While this is not the comprehensive fishing ban that is necessary to truly protect the animals, it is a tremendous step in the right direction, and will hopefully send signals to the European Union that shark conservation is a critical issue.
Toribiong: Shark Savior
Last month, Johnson Toribiong, the President of Palau, announced a ban on all forms of shark fishing anywhere in Palauan waters. Henceforth, he proclaimed, his entire country would be a shark sanctuary. Palau is the first country in the world to take such progressive action.
So how can we continue to turn the tide and save these incredible creatures?
1) Boycott companies like Seagate that try to legitimize shark finning.
Shark fin isn’t just sold in Asia. Believe it or not, you can find it in markets all over the world — largely because it is camouflaged by gel caps and a white plastic bottle. Seagate, a supplement company, renders shark fins into powder, hides them under a childproof cap, and markets the resulting product to natural food stores. The actions of this company — which actually has the audacity to proudly proclaim itself “the only producer of [powdered shark fin cartilage] in the world” — cannot be tolerated. I encourage you to contact the company directly, at 1-888-505-GATE.
Oh, and when they tell you “No, we’re not taking sharks for their fins, it’s actually a byproduct of a food fishery” — just ask them what part of the shark is worth the most. Then feel free to lambaste them for supporting an unmanaged, unregulated shark fishery that targets diminishing stocks off the coast of Baja California.
Let's be clear
2) Avoid buying seafood from grocers that sell shark.
Incredibly, some major US seafood retailers still sell shark and shark products. Publix, Giant Eagle, H.E.B., and Supervalu (the company which operates as Albertson’s, Cub Foods, Lucky, Shaw’s, and many other regional banners) are all known to sell shark in some locations.
3) Support political initiatives that promote shark protection.
No, I can’t afford it either, but it’s still important to mention. Palau is a small and relatively impoverished country; it is making tremendous strides towards sustainable ocean stewardship, but there are certainly grumbles about the costs of such behavior in the short run. Anything we can do to inject dollars into the Palauan economy would help to reward these progressive decisions and to support current leadership.
Paradise indeed
It’s comforting to see us finally throwing off the anachronistic sharks-are-bad misconception. We’ve come a long way in that respect. Movies like Sharkwater are changing the way that we think about sharks by transforming them from monstrous to magnificent. Even the creator of Jaws, Peter Benchley, has done a tremendous amount of work supporting shark conservation efforts and rebuilding the image of these animals in the public eye.
So let’s make use of this progress. Sharks are mysterious, charismatic creatures – why are we tolerating the cruel barbarity of finning?
Stop the slaughter. Get shark products out of our markets. Demand more shark sanctuaries and marine protected areas so these creatures can thrive. If we can do that, well, we may just save them after all.
When Sustainable Sushi was being developed, the Alaska pollock fishery — the 2nd largest fishery in terms of total biomass in the entire world — seemed relatively healthy and stable. At the very least, it provided a traceable and ostensibly well-managed seafood source that was superior to the random mash of imported whitefish that provides the ersatz fish protein underpinning our fish stick and surimiindustries. In fact, the Alaska pollock fishery has been considered a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program for years, and is an MSC-certified fishery.
Things seem to be taking a turn for the worse, however. Recent developments in the fishery seem to suggest that all may not be well in pollock country.
Bottoming out
For five years running, the stock has seen lower levels of recruitment (new fish in younger age classes) than historical trends would lead researchers to expect. Overall stock levels have severely declined as well, taking the overall populations to levels only previously reached in the late 1970s — a time when the fishery was open to international fleets and was being heavily over-exploited.
Bycatch levels are also higher than one would like. An increase in overall CPUE (Catch Per Unit of Effort — a measurement of the amount of resources and manpower needed to produce a given amount of fish) has led to increased mortality among co-habiting salmon. Local sea birds and marine mammals are also being affected; strong links are being drawn between the pollock fishery and a downturn in northern fur seals and the endangered Stellar’s sea lion.
Trawl victims
Pollock trawls are impacting sensitive seabed habitats as well — new explorations in the Bering Sea have revealed rich areas of endemic corals. Unfortunately, these areas are not yet protected from fishing, and the pollock fleet is freely operating in coral beds which should ideally be listed as no-take zones.
Most troubling, however, is the reaction on the part of the Northern Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), a federal body that is responsible for setting the yearly pollock quota. Rather than use the aforementioned concerns as justification to pare down the fishery and reign in some of its more worrisome aspects, the NPFMC instead did the exact opposite and increased the allowed amount of king salmon bycatch to 60,000 fish.
This is poor management from an environmental standpoint. The pollock fishery’s regulations are such that when the bycatch cap for salmon is reached, the fishery is immediately shut down for the year. This increase in tolerable bycatch numbers reflects the rising CPUE within today’s pollock fishery, but rather than move to rebuild the fishery, it simply allows for greater and more damaging exploitation.
Can you spot the pollock?
The pollock fishery is no longer what it once was. It is clear that federal management cannot be depended upon to make wise and environmentally sound decisions in the face of the economic and industrial short-term interests that dominate the pollock industry. Given the current situation, I have no choice but to urge readers to refrain from purchasing products that contain Alaska pollock. In the sushi industry, this means the California roll and other items that include kanikama (imitation crab).
This is by no means an irreversible situation. The Alaska pollock is an incredibly resilient and fecund fish that has the capability to bounce back. Proper management can restore the fishery to its former productive glory, just as was done in the early 1980s. The greater worry is for other impacted populations, primarily Stellar’s sea lions, Alaskan king salmon, coldwater corals, and northern fur seals. If the pollock fishery is to continue, it must reinvent itself to be more sensitive to these co-habiting species.
I have no doubt that other environmental organizations have this issue on their radar, and that we will in the very near future begin to see more criticism of the Alaska pollock fishery from groups much larger and more established than Sustainable Sushi.
