Marine Protected Areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been used as a tool to protect biodiversity, genetic diversity, habitat, and reverse declining trends in overfished populations across the world. Many of these MPAs allow at least some fishing while excluding a form of fishing deemed unacceptable (e.g. harvest that is destructive or targets a particular species or group of species), whereas others exclude all forms of harvest. 

Marianas Trench Marine National Monument: one of the largest MPA in the world, established in 2009 and covering 95,216 square miles. Source: http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/photos/us-marine-protected-areas/

Magnuson-Stevens and Stock Recovery

Commercial marine fisheries on the whole are showing signs of recovery.  At least that's what the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced earlier this week.  A recent report put out by the NRDC re-evaluated many previously-overfished marine species, and came to the conclusion that 64% of stocks are successfully rebuilt or show significant signs of rebuilding progress.

Breakdown of US fish stocks including those used in the recent NRDC assessment.  The assessment reported on 44 stocks, although there were over 100 once deemed "overfished."

What do your pet and my study fish have in common?

By Patrick Cooney

Question: What do Jackson, my mutt dog, and my research fish all have in common?

Besides both being incredibly photogenic,
what do Jackson and this Brook Trout have in common?

Losing Atlantis...Again?

Bimini, just 50 miles off the coast of Miami,
sits beside the Gulf Stream. (Kristine Stump)

“The house was built on the highest part of the narrow tongue of land between the harbor and the open sea…It was shaded by tall coconut palms that were bent by the trade wind, and on the ocean side you could walk out of the door and down the bluff across the white sand and into the Gulf Stream.  The water of the Stream was usually a dark blue when you looked out at it when there was no wind.  But when you walked out into it there was just the green light of the water over that floury white sand...”

 - Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

The barge that has recently appeared off the coast of Bimini
is not just interrupting the view. (Craig O'Connell)