Hello new marine life! hello PADI Gator Specialty.

This is from TheLivingSea.com. (check it out cool site)

As I cruised along the sand, from the hazy distance I could see a dark shadow,” Ruda writes. “Not being able to discern its shape too well, I thought to myself, ‘Holy cow! That’s a huge stingray.’”

Ruda said when he got closer, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“This creature was so out of place that I thought it was nothing more than a well-planned out hoax by my good friends,” he said.

Biology professor Bradley Wetherbee has been studying the effects of sites where tourists feed wild stingrays in the Grand Cayman Islands since 2002.

In 2002, 2003 and 2008, Wetherbee traveled to Stingray City, one of the world’s most popular dive sites, where he began his research.

“We were interested in how feeding the stingrays was influencing their behavior,” Wetherbee said.

In the wild, stingrays are known to be nocturnal and maintain a diet consisting of organisms that dwell on the sea floor.

“From an evolutionary point of view, for millions of years these stingrays have been nocturnal,” Wetherbee said. “Tourists start feeding them during the day and they reverse their behavior. They became very active during the day, or diurnal, which they never were before, and now they sleep all night.”

Wetherbee explained that in the wild, stingrays are bottom-feeders, and do not typically eat non-natural prey items, such as squid, which many tourists have been feeding them.

“They eat a lot of invertebrates, worms and shellfish,” he said. “Their mouths are on the bottom, so they swim along and dig up stuff in the substrate mostly. They do catch little fish sometimes but it’s mostly invertebrates.”

Allison Seifter, a sophomore at URI who will be majoring in marine biology, helped organize the data from Wetherbee’s research and presented it at the 2009 Northeast Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Seifter said the largest ray Wetherbee found was a female measuring 120 centimeters in diameter for its disk width.

“I was surprised that the females are a lot bigger than the males, almost twice as big,” said Seifter. “With people feeding these rays, they’re getting to really big sizes that they wouldn’t usually grown to in the wild.”

The aquarium recently described the sharks, which can grow to 3.5 metres, as a ‘docile, non-aggressive species’.

Yousif Al Ali, General Manager of The Dubai Mall, confirmed on Wednesday some of the details of incidents at its showpiece aquarium with 33,000 marine animals.

‘During the stages of setting up the aquarium, two cases of minor injuries were reported and were immediately attended to by the on-site medical team,’ Ali said.

However, sources told Khaleej Times that while injuries were relatively minor, divers had escaped with their equipment bearing most of the extensive damage.

Feeding related activities were conducted from a cage, but other tasks relied on support with underwater communication equipment and the presence of safety divers monitoring all activities.

Ali would not confirm the extent to which aquatic species had been affected by the sharks’ aggression. ‘It is inevitable that aquatic species die — sometimes out of natural causes or out of injuries inflicted by bigger fish species,’ Ali said. ‘Sand Tiger sharks, by nature, are fish-eating. However, all sharks and other animals in the Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre at The Dubai Mall are currently on a monitored feeding schedule in order to subdue their naturally opportunistic behaviour and appetite. This is typical of aquariums the world over.’

Ali said the shark’s nature to ‘prey’ would become subdued within one to three months of regular feedings when they came to rely on the daily food provision.However, the Sand Tiger sharks arrived two months ago, in the beginning of July, and incidents were still occurring this month. The sharks had previously been in an aquarium in Singapore for one year but were not hand reared.

“Sand Tiger sharks, for example, are a fish eating species. They do not have the natural ability (jaw structure) to consume mammals,” Ali said. Oceanis Australia Group based its assessments of the sharks and the management of the aquarium on nearly 20 years experience in the industry, detailing that the shark species selected were considered “manageable and suitable animals” for aquariums. T he Dubai Aquarium and Discovery Centre features the world’s largest viewing panel and a 270-degree walkthrough tunnel. The centre will feature the world’s single largest school of sharks.

A series of dead porpoises and young bottlenose dolphins washed up the country’s coastline have borne the animal’s teeth marks.

But the appearance of the body of a rare baby Risso’s dolphin on a beach in the Scilly Isles has raised fears that bottlenose dolphins may be becoming more aggressive in its desperate search for food.

The latest victim, which washed up in St Agnes, was young enough to still be dependent on its mother for nourishment and researchers believe it was killed by an adult predator.

Risso’s dolphins have tall dorsal fins, extensively-scarred, almost stripy black bodies and blunt heads. They are often seen around Cornwall although not as frequently as bottlenose and common dolphins. It is the first time one has been linked with a fatal attack by bottlenoses.

The baby dolphin has been brought back to the mainland where it will undergo a post-mortem examination.

Jan Loveridge, volunteer co-ordinator for Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network, said: “Despite their friendly image bottlenose dolphins can be aggressive towards one another and on the rare occasion that we see a dead bottlenose wash ashore it often has rake or tooth marks inflicted by its own species.

“But we have recently begun to see an increase in the numbers of young and female harbour porpoise that have clearly been attacked by bottlenose dolphins and results from the post mortems carried out on these animals confirm this.

“The discovery of yet another species that has suffered from these attacks is of particular interest especially as it was so young.

“The motives for such attacks are unclear, although scientists have considered that competition for declining food stocks may trigger the behaviour.”

Dr Peter Evans, director of Sea Watch Foundation, said the Risso’s dolphin may simply have been mistaken for a porpoise.

“Risso’s dolphins feed on things like squid and cuttlefish and octopus, which are rarely eaten by bottlenose dolphin, which feed predominantly on fish,” he said.

“It was quite possible that it was quite vulnerable because of its size and was mistaken for a porpoise. Young Risso’s look a bit like porpoises.”

But now a French scientist has said the majestic mammals – which can reach 80ft in length and weigh the same as a passenger jet – could also suffer from heartbreak.

Paris naturalist Yves Paccalet said: ‘It may be that these intelligent animals are so exhausted from their combat with humankind that they have simply have given up the fight.

‘And the psychological consequences of our aggression have compromised their will to live.’

Paccalet, who worked with French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, added: ‘To reproduce, whales need a large number of individuals to ensure that they meet, frolic and excite each other.

‘Otherwise, the species may give in to a kind of sexual melancholy and simply stop breeding.’

Despite an international moratorium on whale hunting in 1986, Japan, Norway and Iceland continue to cull more than 2,000 a year for their meat and oil.

Some species like the North Pacific and North Atlantic whales have been reduced to just a few hundred survivors, and could be extinct within decades.

Even species counted in the thousands and expanding each year by up to ten per cent would need many years of uninterrupted breeding to regain their original numbers, scientists say.

Blue whales have recovered from a low of 400 in the 1970s to around 2,200 today, but that is believed to be only one per cent of their numbers 500 years ago.

A 2007 study by the Iceland Marine Research Institute revealed a ’significant decrease’ in the population of minke whales since 2001. Japan and Norway killed more than 1,600 minke in 2007.

Regina Asmutis-Silvia, senior biologist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, said commercial hunting was not the only threat to their survival.

‘It is a mistake to factor out the single issue of hunting. You need to look at the cumulative impact of vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing nets, pollution, destruction of habitat and acoustic disturbances.

‘Climate change is also looming as a danger, and acidification of the oceans driven by global warming could also sharply reduce the number of krill, which are the mainstay of the whale diet.

‘Their situation is very critical. It could go either way,” she said.

Respresentatives from pro-whaling and pro-conservation groups will come face to face at the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting this week to discuss how to save the species from extinction.

The beluga whales have been fitted out with the cute Santa hats to entertain the crowds at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise on Yokohama Island.

There’s even a chance to receive a wet kiss under the mistletoe from a yuletide beluga.

Yet while the white belugas are entertaining the crowds, their humpback cousins are facing a brutal end in cold storage at the hands of Japanese whalers in Antarctica.

Hunting ships are already on their way to the icy reaches of the Southern Ocean, where this year’s catch of 1,000 will include humpbacks for the first time in 40 years.

Ironically, among the possible targets is another extremely rare, if not unique, white whale – a humpback – Australians have named Migaloo, which means ‘white fella’ in the Aborigine language.

The hunting expedition also plans to kill 50 fin whales, the world’s second largest animal after blue whales, as 850 smaller minke whales.

Wildlife officials say the display of the white belugas wearing Santa hats is both sad and ironic against the background of the Antarctic hunts, due to start in the region after Christmas.

“While whales are being used for entertainment in Japan, the Japanese fleet is subjecting whales to a cruel death in the Southern Ocean,” said Mr Darren Kindleysides, a Sydney-based campaigner for the International Fund for Wildlife.

“Sadly, the aquarium owners seem to be showing as little respect for whales as their Government.”

An Australian whale-watching official, Mr Peter Lynch, said the aquarium display was disrespectful to the whales, adding: “The real irony lies in the fact that the general population in Japanhave no idea what’s going on in Antarctica.”

Greenpeace said it was “unfortunate” most Japanese people only got to see whales in novelty type contexts.

However, the Australian government will be casting a different eye over the activities of the Japanese whalers in Antarctica – it plans to send a former P&O cruise ship, now converted into an armed vessel, to the region to monitor the hunting.

Following high-level talks, the vessel, Oceanic Viking, which has a reinforced hull to cut through ice, will be leased to the government to track the Japanese whaling ships and keep a check on their activities.

The crew is trained for polar conditions and they will use ’super-telephoto’ lenses to record the whale slaughter.

In addition, the ship will have two .50-calibre machine guns manned by a customs boarding party should a clash of any kind with the Japanese vessels occur.

Australia’s new Labour Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has accused the former John Howard government of doing nothing to save the endangered whales, adding that nobody took seriously Japan’s claim that it was conducting scientific research.

Pictures of rows of the corpses have been widely featured in Iranian newspapers, which said the dolphins had “committed suicide” — behaviour the animals have occasionally exhibited in the wild.

“The suicide of dolphins on Jask’s coast continues,” Iran’s state run-newspaper wrote on Saturday. “Locals tried to put the animals back in the water but they refused to return.”

Concern over the deaths of these highly intelligent mammals prompted Iran’s environmental protection authorities to show reporters the cut and bruised corpse of a dolphin to explain the “suicides”.

Mohammad Baqer Nabavi, deputy head of Iran’s environmental protection organisation in charge of marine biology, said the most likely explanation was that the dolphins drowned after becoming entangled in fishing nets.

“We are basing our hypothesis for the suicide on fishing — either nets left at the bottom of the Persian Gulf or the big fishing nets that ships spread to catch different kinds of fish,” Nabavi said.

“As you know, they are marine animals but they need to come up to surface and breathe.”

It was unlikely that the deaths were caused by pollution, with no traces found in the tissue of the dolphins examined a month ago, he said.

“We did not spot any kind of pollution in their digestive system that could have been caused from eating poisoned fish, and we also have not spotted any viruses or parasites,” he said.

Striped dolphins are normally found in temperate and tropical waters.

The following few basic steps will help you with a successful artificial reef project:

1. Planning is the most crucial aspect. Success will ultimately reflect the quality of planning and ongoing management.

First, determine the specific purpose of your project – creating a new dive spot, repairing existing reefs, or protecting endangered species.

Next, determine your budget; what you can afford will determine the options.

2. Now set up a project team with roles and responsibilities. Projects require reef monitoring and data collection programmes for at least three years. There are many tasks to do: project management, public relations, sourcing materials and labour, fish counts, water quality analysis, coral photo documentation, and security.

3. Site location – if you’re building the reef for diving then a reef of 10-30 metres depth is sensible. Depth will also be important to ensure the reef does not become a hazard to boats. Ecological characteristics that are conducive to coral colonisation, fish behaviour, sediment type and biodiversity are also all important factors. Others include environmental conditions such as currents and wave action, water quality, seasonality, and temperatures.

When considering a project to repair a damaged reef, it’s important to consider how the reef was damaged. Pollution, cyanide and over-fishing, and bleaching leave the reef framework intact, so reef recovery may be possible. Dynamite fishing on the other hand, destroys the reef and will prevent recovery.

4. Your main PR job will be to persuade the local authorities and public that the reef and its no-take zone are in the public interest. Often the way to do this is demonstrating it in monetary terms; by demonstrating tourism potential or fish population growth.

5. You should be aware of all the environmental and legal requirements involved in the preparation and placement of an artificial reef and should discuss these with authorities before starting.

6. The design, structure and stability of artificial reefs are obviously critical. Important aspects in targeting fish species include void space, shelter, bottom relief, reef height, light and shading.

Many popular reefs are made in the shape of a hollow concrete balls riddled with holes, or hollow concrete pyramids with triangular holes. Coral growth rates can be significantly increased by creating stable, spatial structures that are high above sediment to minimise burial or abrasion.

For one diving reef at Manado Tua Island, Bunaken, Sulawesi in Indonesia there are 500 square metres of ‘Ecoreefs’ – snowflake-shaped ceramic modules which will break down eventually leaving a natural reef behind.

7. Materials used to develop artificial reefs must be selected that create habitat for fish and invertebrates. Materials that pollute through leaching, weathering, or biological activity should never be used, nor those whose disposal at sea is prohibited.

By far the most favoured reef materials are concrete and limestone rocks. For simple, low budget, large scale sites they are good for coral settlement and growth. Moulded and manufactured reefs are also popular.

Ships are often turned into artificial reefs. Organisers clean the ships and passageways to make habitats safe for divers. A poorly prepared ship can contain considerable amounts of toxic substances and have a devastating impact on marine life.

8. Reef management and regulation involves the long, on-going task of monitoring, maintaining and safeguarding your new coral reef. Access to the reef must be controlled and fishing regulated. Buoys can be attached for divers to reduce anchor damage, but care must be taken not to create easier fishing conditions.

In Komodo , Indonesia, weekly patrols were set up to enforce the ban on destructive fishing practices. Dynamite fishing decreased by 75% and cyanide fishing and live reef fish trades also reduced.

9. The placement of artificial reefs results in the aggregation of fish. When there is no regulation of the fishery, an artificial reef may reduce local fish populations simply by making them easier to catch. For this reason we recommend that fishing be restricted to the outlying areas that the new reef can contribute to and support.

10. Transplanting corals from one reef to another has some obvious benefits as it can lead to an immediate increase in coral cover and diversity. It works well in areas that have poor coral larval supply or high mortality rates, such as isolated inlets and bays. Water quality will need to be good and the area needs to be free from big waves and strong currents.

However, transplantations are expensive if done on a large scale and cause the loss of corals from donor areas, as well as reducing the growth rates and fecundity of colonies due to stress. If a site is suitable for coral growth and has a good supply of larvae, it should be able recover naturally anyway, without the need for transplantation.

11. Conclusion – successful artificial reef programmes can and do make positive contributions. In Komodo, corals reached 60-80 cm in diameter after four years growth on an artificial rock structure. On the nearby untreated rubble fields, no change in coral cover was detected after six years.

In Sarawak, Malaysia, artificial reef balls have contributed to green turtle conservation efforts, where illegal trawling was decimating populations. The project started seven years ago to protect the nesting and swimming areas of the turtles, and has helped reduce the number of dead turtles washed up on the islands by 75%.

Jordan and Israel have become unlikely partners in an artificial reef project designed to provide alternate ecosystems in the Gulf Of Aqaba. In 2007 several huge concrete structures were lowered into designated zones, the structures containing pre-drilled channels into which the young nursed corals will be placed.

Your success will depend on your planning and preparation, making the best use of resources, and keeping fishermen away. One thing that no one can take away from you should your project fail, is that at least you will have tried and played your part in helping to preserve our endangered marine environment.

Traditionally Costa Rica has never fished or hunted for whales or dolphins in their waters and has never been an attraction or benefit to Tico fishermen unlike Japan or Iceland. This was a decree that was easy to put in place, one that would help promote good publicity for the government and Arias and Dobles made the most of it.

Arias even linked the decree to when 50 years ago the Costa Rican military was abolished saying that now Costa Rica was coming to peace with the environment whilst Dobles continue his promotion of stating that Costa Rica was at the ‘forefront’ of biodiversity internationally.

Despite coming under heavy pressure from the Japanese earlier this year, Dobles attended the International Whaling Convention and voted against reinstating a limited hunting proposal.