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purple-urself · 6 years ago

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Wild At Heart - A Kiribaku Zoo AU

So this is a tiny bit late, but I’m so proud to post my fic for the @takemyhandzine! This was such a great experience for me, thank you to everyone who took part in creating such an amazing project!

Title: Wild At Heart Rating: General Audiences Warnings: None Summary: "Technically, Eijirou isn’t actually supposed to be back here. It’s mainly reserved for keepers, vets, and sometimes security. But since him and Bakugou have been growing closer, Bakugou had for some reason decided Eijirou was trustworthy enough to accompany him. A terrible decision really, but one Eijirou appreciates nonetheless."

Or,

The one were Bakugou shows his caring side and Kiri swoons lol

READ IT ON A03

“And that concludes our Elephant talk for today!” Eijirou announces to the crowds of people gathered around the huge enclosure. “Thank you so much for listening! I’ll be hanging around for the next half an hour, if anyone has any further questions about the Hi Way herd, please don’t hesitate to ask. My next talk will be in the jaguar house at 3:30pm, so if that’s something you’re interested in I’ll see you there!”

Eijirou finishes his speech with a wave, stepping down from the podium and immediately turning off his head mic.

The crowd begins to chatter amongst themselves, and Eijirou takes the time to gaze across the desert terrain towards the creatures that lived within.

The Hi Way family were a herd of 7 Asian elephants, the youngest being only three weeks old. Little Anjan was trotting around in the sunshine, never straying far from his mother. Having a new baby at the zoo always boosted visitor numbers, and Eijirou couldn’t help but smile as he sees a man lift a little girl onto his shoulders for a better view of the calf.

“Excuse me.” The voice comes from his left, and Eijirou turns to find a boy, around the age of 12, with what seems to be his parents close behind.

“Hey!” Eijirou says enthusiastically, “Did you have a question for me?”

The boy glances back to his parents, who nod at him encouragingly. Eijirou smiles at him, and waits patiently.

“Well, um. I was just wondering, how much food they actually eat? ‘Cos they’re huge y’know?”

The boy holds his arms wide, as if imitating the size of an elephant, and Eijirou chuckles.

“It’s a really good question, and to be honest i’m not sure of the exact answer.” Eijirou tells the kid thoughtfully. “But what I do know is that they spend most of their time eating. Because they’re so big, they have to eat a lot of food so they get enough energy.”

The boy nods, as if agreeing with him.

“That makes sense I guess.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to ask?” Eijirou glances towards the parents questioningly.

“No, that was it.” The boy replies, going to grab his father’s arm to pull him towards the next animal.

“What do you say to him, Kouta?” The woman asks before the boy could run off.

“Thanks!” He shouts hastily before running off, parents trailing behind.

Eijirou smiles as he watches them go, before his attention is caught by another visitor, eager to learn more about the Hi Way herd.

Eijirou gets to the jaguar house a few minutes early, just in time to meet his favorite keeper at the back gate.

Bakugou doesn’t seem to notice him approach, instead focusing on the two big plastic containers he’s trying to balance in his arms.

“Dude!” Eijirou calls out, trying to get Bakugou’s attention. He succeeds, causing Bakugou to startle and fumble with the containers. Eijirou dashes forwards, catching them before they can fall.

“Dumbass, why would you shout me like that?” Bakugou growls at him, snatching his containers back from Eijirou.

“I was gonna offer to help! My huge manly muscles would finally be put to good use.” Eijirou flexes dramatically, and Bakugou rolls his eyes, cheeks turning slightly pink.

“I don’t need your muscles, just open the gate.”

Eijirou does, following Bakugou to the staff entrance of the building.

Technically, Eijirou isn’t actually supposed to be back here. It’s mainly reserved for keepers, vets, and sometimes security. But since him and Bakugou have been growing closer, Bakugou had for some reason decided Eijirou was trustworthy enough to accompany him. A terrible decision really, but one Eijirou appreciated nonetheless.

Bakugou puts both containers down on the stainless steel work surface, snapping on some latex gloves before going to open the lids.

“Please don’t tell me there’s something dead in those boxes.” Eijirou says in trepidation. Bakugou ignores him, reaching inside on if the containers and bringing out a whole dead chicken, feathers and all.

Eijirou wrinkles up his nose, looking away from the gorey sight.

“You’re the one who chooses to come in here, hair-for-brains.” Bakugou tells him. “I’m just doing my job.”

“I guess I’ll go and hang with Midoriya in the Education Center for ten minutes then.” Eijirou says innocently, turning on his heel to head for the door.

“I’ll be done in a minute, for fucks sake!”

Eijirou hides his grin.

With Bakugou still fiddling around with the dead chicken, Eijirou wonders into the next room, where there are two monitors showing grainy footage of the inside of the enclosure.

A closer look reveals Napo, their 11 year old golden-coated Jaguar, asleep on his favorite rock. Every once in a while his tail flicks outwards, but other than that he’s completely still.

Eijirou moves forward to flick through the 12 different camera feeds stationed around various sections of the enclosure. He finds Goshi after a good few minutes of searching. She’s always harder to spot owing to her pitch black fur, but eventually he sees her tucked away underneath a rock, overhanging a small stream that runs through the outdoor section of the enclosure.

She’s always been the shy one of the two, but it’s become more prominent since falling pregnant.

Or so Eijirou was told, he’d only started working for the zoo three months ago, which was around the time Bakugou and the vets guess that she might have gotten pregnant. She was due any day now, which seemed to be making Bakugou nearly as illusive as Goshi herself.

The keeper had been spending most of his time with the jaguars over the past week, Eijirou had noted. He also had the zoo vets on call, ready to help out with the birth at a moments notice.

His phone started to beep at him, signalling the alarm he’d set two minutes before his show was to start. He goes back into the main room, Bakugou wiping down the counters with the prepared food inside each of the tubs again.

“I’ve gotta go.” Eijirou tells him, gesturing towards the door. “But I’ll see you after?”

“Yeah,” Bakugou mumbles before looking up. “I’ll be feeding them separately again, Goshi inside and Napo outside.”

Eijirou nods at the info, knowing he’ll need it for his talk later.

“Awesome, see you later.”

Eijirou waves a quick goodbye before heading to the front of the enclosure.

There’s a barrier surrounding the enclosure looking across a small revine, on the other side of which is a forested area, complete with a running stream. There are a few small trees dotted around, and a huge wooden tree trunk, which was basically a glorified scratching post.

There’s already a small crowd gathered around the enclosure, but it doesn’t seem like any of them has spotted Goshi in the shadows.

As if hearing his thoughts, Goshi emerges from her hiding spot beneath the rocks, which causes quite a stir amongst the onlookers. There’s a flurry of camera snaps before she disappears inside. He can hear some of the visitors complain about how quickly she disappears, which makes Eijirou roll his eyes. Some people that visit the zoo don’t really understand that the animals actually have a choice whether they want to be seen or not. This isn’t some circus that forces them to perform. It’s a place to keep endangered animals safe, and to help increase populations of at-risk species.

Eijirou quickly steps up to the small podium to the side of the viewing area, putting on his head mic, and flicking it on.

“Not to worry folks, that’s not the last jaguar you’re going to see today!” He starts, trying to appease the grumbling crowd. “My Name is Kirishima Eijirou and I’m going to be telling you some fascinating facts about our jaguars today!”

Eijirou goes through his basic introduction for the jaguars, spouting off facts about their habitat and biology, keeping a close eye on the enclosure for any sign of movement.

He spots Bakugou not long after, striding into the enclosure, bringing with him the dead chicken from earlier carried on top of a long pole.

“And as you can see here, not a jaguar but just as scary, our keeper Bakugou Katsuki will be feeding Napo some lovely raw chicken.” He gets a few chuckles from the audience. “Keeper Bakugou will be putting the chicken right at the top of our 20ft scratch post.”

Bakugou does as Eijirou describes, using the pole to hook the chicken right at the top of the trunk.

“You might think this is a little cruel of the keepers, putting the food so out of reach from our Jaguar, but as you’ll see in a moment, getting the food down from that height will be no problem for him.”

Bakugou retreats from the enclosure, and Eijirou begins to tell the crowd about their two Jaguars.

“Napo, the Jaguar being fed here today, is our male jaguar. He’s 11 years old, and has the classic gold fur colouring with black rosettes. Goshi is our female jaguar, slightly younger than Napo at 10 years old. Some of you may have caught a glimpse of her just before my talk began. She has a black coat, though if you were to look really close, you’d still be able to see the black rosettes along her fur. Goshi is also expecting some cubs, so she’s going to be fed separately to make sure she gets enough to eat.”

Eijirou can see some of the crowd's attention being shifted from him back towards the enclosure, and sure enough, he looks over to find Napo slinking into view. He allows the crowd to chat amongst themselves for a moment .

“So here’s Napo, and as you can see, he’s opening his mouth and scrunching his nose slightly, which is, believe it or not, how he scents the air. He’s sniffing around, and he can already tell there’s food somewhere inside the enclosure.”

Napo slowly creeps towards the tree trunk, keeping an eye on the chicken at the top.

“He won’t run up and grab the food right away, like a house cat, he’ll look around for any danger or competition, and get ready to pounce when he feels like the time is right.”

As if on cue, Napo bounds towards the trunk at top speed, using his claws to drag himself up the bark. The crowd gasp at the display, camera shutters going off wildly.

The jaguar grips the chicken by the teeth, pulling it free, then leaping gracefully back to the ground. The crowd applaud, which Eijirou never understands because it only causes the animals to spook, but Napo seems to ignore them.

He settles down with his meal, ripping off chucks of meat clutched between his paws.

Eijirou finishes off the talk with some key facts about jaguar conservation, and how the audience could help with saving the planet, one recycled plastic bottle at a time.

After answering questions on the jaguars, Eijirou makes his way to the back rooms again, finding Bakugou hovering over the security footage, watching Goshi tear apart her own chicken.

“How’s she doing?” Eijirou asks when Bakugou doesn’t acknowledge his presence.

“She’s eating fine.” He says, not looking away, “Which is good. She seems comfortable, so I don’t think it’ll be today.”

“How will you be able to tell?” Eijirou enquires curiously.

“She’ll become restless, start pacing. She might even get aggressive with Napo, though they’ve been together for so long I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Eijirou nods to himself, not commenting, content on watching the jaguar consume her ‘prey’.

Bakugou lets Napo back inside once she’s done, and they both seem to settle down together, laying on a heated rock right next to the visitor viewing area. This gets quite a reaction from the crowd gathered in front of the glass, Kirishima can see camera flashes going off through the security feed.

“Are you staying?” Bakugou asks him, making his way to the small staffroom out back.

“I have a few minutes.” Eijirou replies, checking his phone. He trails after Bakugou, taking a seat at the tiny table in the corner of the room, whilst Bakugou makes them both coffee. Eijirou takes the mug gratefully, blowing on it before taking a sip.

Bakugou settles in the seat opposite, grabbing about 10 packets of sugar and dumping them all in his mug. Eijirou watches him wearily.

“That can’t be good for you.”

“Does it look like I give a shit?” Bakugou mumbles, stirring in the monstrous amounts of sugar.

“It kinda does.” Eijirou laughs. Bakugou frowns at him, so he continues, “No one looks as good as you do without caring about their health.”

Bakugou’s eyes widen slightly, and Eijirou can feel himself beginning to blush.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Eijirou scrambles for an explanation. “J-Just that you’re super buff!” He flexes a bicep as an example. “There’s no way those muscles of yours are natural.”

Bakugou rolls his eyes, but Eijirou can tell he’s trying not to grin.

“I go to the gym, yeah.” He admits, “So that means I can have 10 sugars in my coffee and you’re not allowed to judge me for it.”

“I’m still judging you.” Eijirou tells him, trying not to let out a smile.

Bakugou snorts derisively. He opens his mouth to retort, but is interrupted by Eijirou’s phone.

“Ah, shit.” Eijirou plucks his phone out of his pocket, swiping the alarm off. “Five minutes until the penguin talk, I gotta run!”

Bakugou nods in understanding, and Eijirou swigs the rest of his coffee as he gets to his feet.

“I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow?” Bakugou asks him, frowning at his half-empty mug.

“Yep, usual time and place!” Eijirou confirms. He puts his empty mug in the sink, then rushes out of the room with a backwards wave, “See ya tomorrow!”

The next day starts as normal, a team briefing in the morning, followed by assignments. Eijirou has a Meerkat talk first thing, which is always great because the kids really get a kick out of them. Next is the Komodo dragon, then the Chimpanzees. By the time he answers all the questions the audience has for him, Eijirou realises he’s running late for his lunch with Bakugou.

He makes it to the staff cafeteria 5 minutes late, glancing around, trying to spot the familiar spiky blond hair and annoyed scowl. He doesn’t see Bakugou anywhere, and after a few more minutes of searching, he realises Bakugou isn’t even there.

Maybe he’s running late, like Eijirou had been? It’s uncommon, but not unheard of. He knows Bakugou gets caught up in work, and tends not to notice irrelevant things like ‘time’.

He decides the grab a sandwich, taking a seat close to the window so he’d be able to see Bakugou approach.

He starts eating by himself, scrolling through his phone as he does so. He’s finished his sandwich when he glances at the time again. Bakugou is now 20 minutes late.

Eijirou bites his lip, wondering if he’d done anything to offend Bakugou, or if he was just late. Or maybe he’d arrived on time, and couldn’t be bothered to wait for Eijirou to show up. The thought makes him frown, hoping that wasn’t actually the case.

He opens the messenger app on his phone, shooting off a text to Bakugou asking if he was held up. Eijirou hopes there’s nothing seriously wrong.

As soon as Eijirou turns up to the Jaguar talk, he realises why Bakugou had stood him up.

There’s a sign just outside the Jaguar house, directing visitors away, due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’.

Goshi must have had her cubs.

Eijirou grins at the thought, full of excitement over the new arrivals. He contemplates going through the back door, wanting to see for himself, be he knows that it’s a bad idea. There’s probably other keepers and vets hanging around, and he doesn’t want to get in the way. He decides he’ll wait to hear from Bakugou before attempting to visit.

Eijirou plucks his radio from his belt, informing his supervisor of the situation. Aizawa tells him to go help out in the education centre for an hour before resuming his planned talks.

When Eijirou comes into work the next day, he isn’t sure what to expect.

He’d gotten home just after sunset the day before, calling his moms as he made dinner for himself. They were the same as usual, asking about the animals and his friends in and out of work. He’d moved cities specifically for this job, so he really missed being able to see both of his moms everyday.

He answered their questions, staying on the line even as he was eating his dinner. After hanging up, he had a quick shower before heading to bed.

It was when he was checking his phone right before falling asleep that he finally heard back from Bakugou.

“Sorry for not replying sooner. Goshi had the cubs.”

Attached to the message was a picture of Goshi, curled into a ball, fast asleep. He was able to make out tiny ears and paws poking out of Goshi’s larger frame. Eijirou felt his heart melt at the image, wanting to meet the cubs desperately.

“Congratulations!!” he types out, “You’re going to be an amazing Father ;)”

It only took a few moments for Bakugou to reply.

“I was going to let you meet them tomorrow, but now I’m not sure you deserve it.”

Eijirou gripped his phone tighter and grinned at the snarky response.

“Haa, that’s mean Bakugou! I’m gonna be a great mom to those cubs, just you wait.”

“First of all, you’re not actually allowed to take care of them, that’s my job.”

Eijirou snorted, but didn’t reply, waiting for Bakugou to finish typing.

“Second, they already have a mom, idiot.”

Eijirou maked a face, typing out his response.

“I have two moms, and I turned out just great :P”

“Damn fine, you can meet them tomorrow.”

Eijirou smiles at the thought of being able to meet the Jaguar cubs today. He heads to the staff briefing, arranging with his supervisor to change his break time so it coincides with when the Jaguar talk was meant to happen. Aizawa stares at him when he makes the request, but ends up shrugging his shoulders and telling him to “do what you want, as long as you work the proper hours,” which is fine with Eijirou.

He gets through his animal talks, replacing his usual lunch break with a session about their herd of black rhinos. He is gets more and more antsy as the day goes on, quietly admitting to himself that maybe it wasn’t just the cubs he was excited to see.

As soon as Eijirou’s lunch break arrives, he practically sprints to the cafeteria, grabbing himself and Bakugou a sandwich. He has no idea when the last time Bakugou ate was, but knowing him, he’d likely sacrifice his break time in order to look after the cubs.

Eijirou gets to the Jag house, opening the back gate and knocking impatiently at the door. He waits for a couple of minutes, about to call Bakugou, but the door eventually swings open to reveal the man himself.

Bakugou looks as if he hadn’t slept in days, with dark circles under his eyes and hair more of a mess than usual. He’s smiling though, which is a rare sight, and Eijirou can’t help but smile back.

“Mama’s here to see his children.” He tells Bakugou, who rolls his eyes, beckoning him inside.

The kitchen area is a bit of a mess, with feeding equipment littered across the work space. Bakugou ignores the mess, leading him towards the security feed.

Eijirou gasps at the image; two tiny balls of yellow fluff in amongst a mountain of hey. They’re not moving, apart from a slight flick of the ears every minute or so.

“Have they got names yet?” He asks in a hushed voice, though he’s pretty sure the sleeping cubs can’t actually hear him.

“Not yet,” Bakugou tells him lowly, “Haven’t had much time to think about it.”

Eijirou nods, making a mental note to annoy Bakugou with texts of different names until he actually decides on two.

“Why aren’t they with their Goshi?” He asks curiously.

“They just got done with the vets. Weighed them and stuff.” Bakugou rubs the stubble just begging to grow at his jaw, “They seem healthy enough, but Goshi is refusing to let them feed.” Eijirou frowns but Bakugou continues before he can ask, “It’s pretty common with animals bred in captivity. We’re trying to get her to let them feed, but in the meantime they’ll be bottle fed.”

Eijirou nods in understanding, watching the two new arrivals for a couple more moments.

“Speaking of feeding, when was the last time you ate?”

Bakugou frowns, and Eijirou can tell he’s trying to remember if he forgot to eat lunch.

“I guess this morning?”

Eijirou shakes his head, glad he had the forethought to buy some food for Bakugou as well as himself.

“You’re lucky to have such a great friend like me taking care of you.” He tells Bakugou jokingly, leading him out of the security office and towards the staffroom. This time it’s Eijirou making them both a coffee, whilst Bakugou rips open the sandwich and begins to eat. Eijirou dumps ten sugar packs in Bakugou’s coffee, placing it down in front of him.

“Black coffee, with enough sugar to make even you turn sweet.” Eijirou winks and Bakugou flips him off, mouth too full to verbally cuss him out.

Eijirou laughs at his response, sitting down to dig in to his own food. Bakugou tells him about the day before, coming into work to find Goshi in labour but not yet given birth. He had called the vet just incase of any complications, but leaving Goshi alone was the best thing to do.

“Got home late, and I couldn’t really sleep anyway.” Bakugou ruffles the hair at the back of his neck awkwardly. “Ended up getting here at six this morning, just to check on them.”

Eijirou’s eyes flicker down to the empty mug in front of Bakugou. “You want a refill?” he asks, gesturing to it with a grin.

“I’ve had… more than I care to admit already.” Bakugou grimaces and Eijirou bites his lip hesitantly.

“You need to look after yourself better dude.” He says seriously. Bakugou waves him off, and Eijirou drops the subject. He knows that this is a stressful time for Bakugou, and as much as he jokes about it, Bakugou does kind of exude the aura of a new father, complete with wrinkled clothes and too much coffee.

They clear up their lunch, heading back to the main room, Bakugou fiddling around with the milk bottles before handing one over to Eijirou. He stares at it for a second, taking it slowly from Bakugou’s grip.

“Are you serious?” He asks astonished.

“If you ever tell anyone I let you feed them, I’ll kill you.”

“I promise! It’ll be our secret.” Eijirou pretends to zip his mouth shut and throw away the key.

“Oh good, finally some peace and quiet around here.”

Eijirou mock gasps, slapping Bakugou lightly in retaliation.

They both wash their hands and snap on a pair of rubber gloves, before Bakugou leads him towards the other room, and Eijirou feels a slight wave of nervousness. He’s never actually been inside the enclosure before. Or any enclose for that matter.

“Are you sure the Napo and Goshi are locked outside?” He asks as Bakugou opens to first door, closing it straight after them.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Bakugou opens the second door, allowing Eijirou to slip inside and locking it behind them.

From here, Eijirou can see the tiny balls of fluff beginning to stir. He steps closer, watching them roll around, tiny paws flailing in the air.

“Oh my God.” He says softly, not being able to express in words how adorable they were.

“Yeah.” He glances at Bakugou, who is looking at the cubs with an expression Eijirou had never seen before. He felt his heart rate speed up at the soft expression on Bakugou’s face. “Come on, they’re probably hungry.”

Bakugou sweeps them both into his arms, and one of them lets out a tiny squeak. Eijirou has to cover his mouth to keep from gasping out loud at how cute that was.

Bakugou settles down in amongst the leaves and foliage of the enclosure, gesturing for Eijirou to join him.

“It’s not that much different from holding a house cat.” Bakugou tells him, placing the tiny cub in his lab, “For now, anyway.”

Eijirou nods, putting down the milk bottle he was still carrying to pick the little guy up. He couldn’t really feel the fur underneath the rubber gloves, but he could tell it was soft and fluffy. The cub waves his paws in the air, mewling softly.

“I’m gonna call you Katsuki.” He decides and Bakugou huffs beside him.

“That’s not going to be his name.” He says, but Eijirou just shrugs.

They start feeding the cubs, who drink the milk out of the bottle with ease. Bakugou tells him it’s important for them to drink it all to stay as healthy as possible, so Eijirou makes sure his cub has every last drop.

“They’re so precious.” Eijirou says as he pets the cub, who is trying to grab at his gloves. He glances over at Bakugou, who is trying to coax his own fluff-ball out from under his legs. He manages to get ahold of her, laying her gently on his forearm so he can pet her against his chest.

Eijirou can feel his heart stop at the sight. Bakugou being so gently and caring apparently makes him go a little crazy.

“You should- I mean we should.” Eijirou tries to get out his words whilst he has the courage. “We should like. Do something after work.”

Bakugou looks up from the cub, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Do something.”

Eijirou feels his cheeks flood we heat, and quickly amends himself.

“Like a movie or food or something.”

“A date?” Bakugou is staring at him now, and Eijirou can feel his confident evaporating by the second.

“Yeah. You know, if you want. Or something.”

Bakugou looks back at the cub in his arms, and Eijirou can feel the rejection coming, except he notices the slight flush on Bakugou’s cheeks, and the small smile tugging at his lips.

#take my hand zine #kiribaku #bakushima #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #bnha #my fic #zine pieces

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usfwspacific · 6 years ago

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BREAKING NEWS

The first captive reared Aga were released into the forests of Rota on Friday, September 28, 2018

On Sept. 28, the first cohort of five captive-reared Aga were released on public lands on Rota. An additional five birds will be released into the same area later in the year. Researchers will continue to monitor and support the birds for approximately one year after the release to ensure their continued success in the wild.

“Aga are a critical strand in the ecological and cultural web that make up the forests of Guam and Rota. Without drastic measures, we could lose this part of our natural and cultural heritage forever,” said Anthony Benavente, secretary of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands - Department of Lands and Natural Resources (CNMI-DLNR).

Aga leave the aviary to explore their new forest home. Video by Henry Fandel

For more than 2 million years, the native forests on the islands of Guam and Rota were home to several thousand crows of a species found nowhere else on Earth. But over the last 60 years, the Mariana crow - called the Aga in the Chamorro language - has completely disappeared from the island of Guam and rapidly declined on neighboring Rota. Today there are only about 175 Aga left on the planet.

To ensure the survival of the species, scientists from the University of Washington and San Diego Zoo Global are partnering with the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands Department of Lands and Natural Resources and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a bold new project that they hope will stabilize the population of Aga on Rota.

Aga explore their new forest home. Photo by Henry Fandel

In 2016, researchers began collecting eggs from wild Aga nests to be reared in captivity. The captive-reared birds would be raised past the critical period of highest mortality and then released. This project has the potential to greatly increase reproductive output because the wild Aga pairs normally lay another set of eggs when a nest fails — thus this project will double the number of broods in a year — while increasing the survivorship of the captive-reared birds.

Researcher collects wild Aga eggs. Photo by San Diego Zoo Global.

“Today, there are many species in decline all over the world, and we are really proud to be part of an effort to bring a species back from the brink of extinction,” said Renee Robinette Ha, research associate professor at the University of Washington and director of the university’s Aga research efforts since 2005. “Our research has determined some causes of mortality in Mariana crows, and by working collaboratively with our partners, we have been able to start turning that around.”

Aga explore their new forest home. Photo by Henry Fandel

One of the notable recent successes in Aga conservation is the ability of conservation experts to successfully hand-rear the species using techniques perfected with other species at the San Diego Zoo Global Hawaiian Bird Center. "Although we are very experienced in such work, it is always a challenge to attempt to rear a chick from a new species in a new place," said Susan Farabaugh, associate director for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. "In the case of the Aga we were extremely successful. We had 100 percent hatch success and 96 percent rearing success."

Top- Researcher feeds Aga chick Bottom - Aga chick begs for food. Photo and video by San Diego Zoo Global

The Aga was driven to extinction on Guam by the brown tree snake — an invasive predator from Australia and Melanesia. The brown tree snake decimated most of the endemic bird population on Guam after it arrived there in the 1950s, but the reasons for the birds’ decline on Rota are less clear.

Brown tree snake. Photo by H. Richards USFWS

Predation by feral cats, persecution by humans, nest loss from typhoons, habitat degradation, inbreeding and disease are all considered threats to the birds. Over the past 22 years the population of Aga on Rota has fallen by over 80 percent, and only about six out of 10 of juvenile Aga survive their first year, a much lower percentage than is seen in healthy populations of other species of crows.

In 2005, the CNMI-DLNR asked the UW to determine the causes of the population decline and the current status of the species. At that time, very few birds were banded for research, and there had been no consistent tracking of breeding pairs since the late 1990s.

An intensive nest searching and monitoring program was implemented, in addition to a radio-telemetry program to determine causes of bird mortality. At the same time, federal biologists worked with island residents to encourage maintenance of bird habitat, especially through a landowner incentive program. With these efforts, the population appears to have stabilized — albeit at a very low number.

“This has been an ongoing learning process for everyone. This current effort highlights the importance of commitment to the long term goal of bringing the Aga back to a stable population,” said Manny Pangelinan, director of the CNMI-DLNR Division of Fish and Wildlife.

“Recovering threatened and endangered species takes dedicated partnerships,” said Mary Abrams, field supervisor for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We are working to ensure the long term survival of Aga, but that can’t happen in a vacuum. There is a whole ecosystem at work here, and the cooperation that has brought us this far is a great example of the kind of work that is necessary in conservation.”

Aga in the wild have a high mortality rate for the first two years of their life so the goal of the project is to boost the population of Aga by helping birds survive to adulthood. The capture, rear and release approach has the potential to greatly increase the population because the wild Aga pairs will have the opportunity to lay another set of eggs.

“By closely monitoring nests of the Mariana crow we realized we had the opportunity to intervene and double the output of a wild pair by pulling one clutch of eggs early in the season for captive rearing and allowing the pair to produce a second clutch in the wild, ” said Ha. UW and CNMI also formed a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and Binghamton University, a relationship that, in the future, may allow UW scientists to target specific genetically-healthy pairs for collection of eggs for San Diego Zoo Global biologists to rear and release.

“Each year we break new records on the number of new birds that are banded and genetic samples that are collected, and the number of nests found,” Ha said. “So we are getting better and better at understanding and studying this population.” The project does not end with the release of the birds. Researchers will continue to monitor and track the released birds as they work to ensure a future for the Aga.

“As stewards of our islands' unique marine and terrestrial habitats and species, it’s vital that we work together to make sure that they thrive and can continue to enrich our lives in the future,” said Manny Pangelinan (CNMI-DLNR).

Contact Information:

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana – DLNR –

Jill Liske-Clark, (670) 664-6017 [email protected]

San Diego Zoo Global –

Christina Simmons, (619) 685-3291, [email protected]

University of Washington –

Kim Eckart, (206) 543-2580, [email protected]

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service –

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hudsonespie · 3 years ago

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Rainforests of the Sea: Why Kelp Could Help Save the Planet

[By Emma Bryce]

When we think of forests, we mostly think of tree-filled landscapes. But the ocean also holds emerald stands of trees so vast, they line one-quarter of our coastlines. “The area is probably equivalent to about the size of the Amazon rainforest, if you add it all up,” says Karen Filbee-Dexter, a marine ecologist doing a research fellowship at the University of Western Australia. These are kelp forests – one of Earth’s most beneficial ecosystems.

Kelps are a type of seaweed, or macroalgae, made up of roughly 33 genera and 112 species — though there remains some disagreement over what constitutes a kelp. What makes them unique amongst other seaweeds is mainly their large size – giant kelp (from the genus Macrocystis and the biggest of the kelps) can reach heights of 45 meters. They tend to grow in cooler waters, where they create lush habitats rich in biodiversity. As ecosystems, they are as important as coral reefs and mangrove forests to the overall health of the ocean. And as Filbee-Dexter points out, it’s also “really important to understand the benefits that these ecosystems provide to humans”.

As a nursery and refuge for many marine animals, they support our fisheries. They store carbon in their photosynthesising fronds, and their wave-buffering bodies are the surest defence some coastlines have against violent storms. They also clean up our waste: kelps can rapidly absorb nutrient pollution caused by fertilizers running off from farmland into the sea. They use it to fuel their own growth and this averts the development of algal blooms which are so harmful to other marine life. In addition to all this, kelps have immense cultural value for many coastal communities.

(Illustration: Ricardo Macía Lalinde / China Dialogue Ocean)

But the world is losing kelp at an unprecedented rate. Water pollution, off-kilter predator–prey dynamics and the warming waters brought by climate change are driving marine deforestation and eradicating some kelp forests altogether. Meanwhile, just a fraction of these forests is protected. In the northeast Pacific Ocean, where some of Earth’s largest kelp populations occur, only four percent of the area covered by giant kelp falls inside marine protected areas.

Now though, an increasing number of researchers, conservation organizations and governments believe we need to better protect and restore our ocean’s once-mighty oases of kelp. Otherwise, we risk losing a significant carbon store, and a foundation of food security – a loss that many compare to the deforestation of the Amazon.

Ignored for too long

Part of the reason kelp forests have not received the attention they deserve is that more “charismatic” marine ecosystems, like coral reefs, have become synonymous with ocean biodiversity, and thus the focus of conservation, says Filbee-Dexter, who studies how climate change affects kelp populations in Norway, Australia and the Canadian Arctic.

She explains that, with rising temperatures, expanding layers of warm water are beginning to develop at the ocean’s surface. This is a problem, because warmer water contains less oxygen, and it’s also more buoyant than the nutrient-rich cold waters below – as the warm layers thicken, there is less mixing of oxygen and nutrients between deeper layers and the surface, where these ingredients are needed to fuel the growth of kelps, as well as other marine organisms.

Warming may also be contributing to kelp bleaching, which disrupts their ability to photosynthesize. At points along the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, Mexico, the United States and other countries, marine heatwaves and other anthropogenic impacts like pollution have already permanently wiped out whole forests.

Despite this, kelp forests have been left off the priority list for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which began in January 2021. “In the oceans [section of the Decade’s website], they talk about coral reefs and mangroves. But there’s not a single mention of kelp, despite it being one of the largest coastal ecosystems,” Filbee-Dexter says.

Another reason kelps have been ignored is perhaps the historic lack of research into the ecosystem services they provide. Scientists know they can sequester huge amounts of carbon thanks to their large biomass and high productivity – giant kelp can grow 45 centimeters a day. It’s been estimated that wild seaweeds (of all sorts, not just kelp) sequester about 173 million metric tonnes of carbon each year when they die and get buried in sediment on the ocean floor. But definitive calculations are difficult to make, because wild seaweed is always on the move. When kelp dies or is torn off the rocks by storms, it breaks loose, carrying its carbon store out to sea. Without knowing where all this loose kelp ultimately goes (it could end up rotting on a beach and discharging its carbon, or be buried forever in the deep sea), it’s difficult to calculate the carbon locked away by an individual forest.

The benefits of farming seaweed

Seaweed farms offer a more stable environment for researchers. In China, as well as Japan and Korea, seaweed aquaculture has been practiced for centuries. There are thousands of farms along China’s long coastline, where seaweed is grown for food, and for use in pharmaceuticals and biofuels. “We have seven types of cultivated seaweeds in China, but kelp is the major one with the highest yield. It accounts for two-thirds of all China’s seaweed yield,” says Jiaping Wu, a professor of marine science at China’s Zhejiang University.

Wu is interested in how seaweeds’ ecological and commercial value combine in this farming context. His research shows that farmed seaweeds can significantly offset agricultural pollution, removing phosphates and nitrogen that spill into coastal waters and fuel mass algal blooms. Such blooms strip oxygen from the water and create dead zones devoid of marine life. In another study, Wu calculated that at their current growth rate, China’s seaweed farms would remove 100% of phosphorus pollution from the country’s coastal waters by 2026. “Seaweed is a perfect solution to marine eutrophication,” he says.

Traditional seaweed farming in China’s Fujian province, where species such as Saccharina japonica (konbu) are grown on ropes hung between bamboo poles in tidal areas (Image: Alex Berger / Flickr, CC BY NC 2.0)

Research is also ongoing to show the role seaweed farms could play in mitigating climate change. An organization called Oceans 2050, which Wu is part of, is leading an effort to definitively calculate how much carbon farmed seaweed locks in, based on a survey of 23 farms around the world.

When the unharvested parts of farmed seaweed die, they fall to the bottom directly below the farms, locking their carbon in the sediments in an easy to measure way.

“The farmer, by controlling the location of the farm, can control where the carbon ends up,” explains Carlos Duarte, distinguished professor of marine science at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, author of several papers on the carbon-storing potential of macroalgae and principal investigator of the Seaweed Project at Oceans 2050.

Farming could gain recognition for seaweeds in programs like the UN Blue Carbon Initiative. This organization raises awareness about the carbon-trapping potential of mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes, but has historically excluded seaweeds because of their unpredictability in the wild.

Eventually, the goal is to incorporate seaweed farms into carbon accreditation schemes, because seaweed farming is “scalable and accountable," Duarte says. “I think Oceans 2050 is going to deliver the first robust science to underpin the inclusion of seaweed farming in blue carbon.” Duarte adds that seaweed aquaculture also provides jobs, as well as social mobility for women, who make up the majority of seaweed farmers worldwide.

Optimism for wild seaweed

Filbee-Dexter believes that the growing interest in farmed seaweed “is also translating to [wild] seaweed forests”. This is important, she says, because the enthusiasm for seaweed aquaculture shouldn’t override the importance of protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, especially kelps.

Wild kelp forests are worth more than the carbon they lock away. This has become increasingly evident in Tasmania, where 95 percent of the giant kelp that used to line its shores has been wiped out by warming waters, taking with them the rich fish stocks upon which local fishers had long relied. But for the past two years, Cayne Layton and Craig Johnson – marine ecologists at the University of Tasmania – have been trying to revive these once-great forests by breeding some of the few kelps that survived after warm waters swept through during the 2015-16 El Niño event (a climate phenomenon that research suggests is intensifying with climate change).

Believing these species might be more resilient to warming seas, Layton and Johnson began in 2019 by culturing samples of reproductive tissues from the remaining kelp stands, from which they bred baby kelp. In 2020, they planted these “saplings” out in the wild on 100-meter-squared plots off Tasmania’s coast. Out of three test sites, two grew successfully. Now, ten months on, the duo’s hypothesis has proven correct: several hundred resilient kelps are thriving on those plots, Layton says. “Perhaps most encouraging was that despite our warmer than average El Niño summer, our ‘super kelp’ seemed to withstand the warm temperatures, and looked healthy and had nice dark pigmentation, with no bleaching or necrosis,” he says. “This was in contrast to the natural giant kelp, which was shabby, bleached and pretty unhappy.”

Although seaweed breeding has a long history in countries such as Japan, Layton thinks this may be the first time kelps have been bred explicitly to withstand climate change. The discovery could aid other restoration projects, and possibly provide a solution for kelp farms that struggle with climate-related declines in the future. “We’ve demonstrated the potential to use selective breeding to ‘future-proof’ restoration efforts,” Layton says.

Conservation and protection

But climate change isn’t the only threat kelps are facing. Many forests are under attack from kelp-eating sea urchins, which have thrived with the decline of their natural predators, like sea otters. Along the southern coast of California, a local NGO called the Bay Foundation has taken a simple but highly effective approach to tackle this threat: they’ve partnered with fishers who cull the urchins by hand, and have managed to restore 23 hectares of forest to its former glory. This simple approach has also brought back hectares of kelp forest around Japan’s Hokkaido island, thanks to voluntary divers schemes, while the reintroduction of sea otters in Norway has helped kelps regain a foothold there once more.

Others are pushing kelp conservation in a new direction, not by restoring seaweed forests but by creating entirely new ones. In China, Jiaping Wu is involved in the development of 150 floating “marine ranches” that span the length of the coast, where multiple species of seaweed – including kelps – are being cultivated without any commercial intent. “The requirement is to restore seaweeds primarily for ecological conservation. The ranches are never harvested,” says Wu. The goal is ultimately to incorporate these carbon-sequestering, biodiversity-supporting life rafts into China’s climate mitigation plan, he explains. “We’re thinking of all kinds of ways to capture carbon.”

Carbon sequestration is, of course, not the only ecosystem service kelp provides. But developing more sophisticated measures of wild kelps’ sequestration potential could be a good way of getting these ecosystems the protections they need, says Filbee-Dexter. Along with colleagues, she’s now developing models to precisely map where kelps end up in the ocean when they break loose, to try and reliably account for the amount of carbon individual kelp forests lock away. “If we don’t account for ecosystem services, then often there’s less of a push to restore and protect, and people care less what happens to these ecosystems,” she says.

Alongside this, there are small but positive signs that kelps are beginning to receive more protection. In Australia, giant kelp forests were granted endangered status in 2012 – a world-first for macroalgae. Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden’s executive order on tackling climate change mentioned the protection and restoration of wild kelp forests as a priority. And now, researchers from the University of Queensland are embarking on a pioneering project to comprehensively map the planet’s kelp, so we know what we have, and where marine protected areas might better safeguard these ecosystems.

“There are very large areas of kelp forests that have no protection, no monitoring, and haven’t even been seen by a human eye. From a global standpoint, we’re far away from any similar knowledge that we have about forests on land,” Filbee-Dexter says. But things are changing. In research circles, there’s an argument that “we should stop calling them ‘kelp beds’,” she says, because it minimizes the magnitude of what these ecosystems do in our oceans.

In other words, it’s time to start seeing seaweeds – and their giant mascots, kelps – for what they are: the rainforests of the sea.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/rainforests-of-the-sea-why-kelp-could-help-save-the-planet via http://www.rssmix.com/

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juniperpublishersoceanography · 4 years ago

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Linking Ocean Observation and Fisheries - Relevance to Deep Ocean Living Resources- Juniper Publishers

Abstract

Systematic ocean observation for real time data collection during the last three decades, development of sensors and tools, and ocean modelling have paved the way for better understanding of the ocean processes and better prediction of coastal hazards like cyclones, tsunami, storm surge, etc., leading to direct societal benefits globally. In particular global ARGO float data have brought in remarkable changes in ocean science studies. This paper discusses about the growing need to link ocean observation to fisheries and futuristic approach about deep ocean marine living resources

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Introduction

The goal of fisheries oceanography is to understand the oceanographic and ecological processes that affect fishery abundance, distribution, and availability and then apply this understanding to improve fisheries assessment and management. Ecophysiology is the interrelationship between the environment and an organism's physiology [1]. The future of fisheries oceanography lies in the pursuit of multiple hypotheses [2]. Using temperature as an example, a range of biological processes are related to temperature either directly or indirectly [3]. All organisms have thermal limits above and below which death is rapid. Within these limits, temperature controls a number of rate processes, including gene expression, enzyme kinetics, metabolism, activity, consumption, and growth. Organisms also respond behaviourally to temperature through migration, foraging, and resting.

Looking ahead, the core question is whether today's agriculture and food systems are capable of meeting the needs of a global population that is projected to reach more than 9 billion by mid-century and may peak at more than 11 billion by the end of the century [4]. Human activities have profound, possibility irreversible impacts on ocean health, in terms of physical state (warming, freshing, and circulation changes), its biogeochemistry (carbon uptake and acidification) and its ecosystem. The ocean influences climate by storing and transporting large amounts of heat, freshwater, and carbon, and by exchanging these properties with the atmosphere. Ocean warming dominates the global energy change inventory with warming of the upper (0 to 700m) ocean accounting for about 64% of the total. However, below 700m ocean depth, data coverage is too sparse to produce annual global ocean heat content.

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Deep Ocean Policy, Strategy and Capacity Building

The deep ocean is the single largest ecosystem on our planet. It sustains a great variety of habitats and life forms and is host to potentially valuable resources such as minerals, oil and gas and more traditionally food. Harnessing the full potential of deep ocean resources, whilst mitigating and managing environmental impacts, requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of the complexities of deep sea ecosystem and interconnection of the physical environment and the life forms within it [5].

Deep Ocean is yet to be understood and answered in the context of the role of deep ocean processes and various science questions pertaining to Earth's energy imbalance, heat budget, fluxes, and deep ocean mixing, on climate change. Industrial activities on deep sea mining, bottom trawling and oil and gas extraction need detailed study of the biogeochemical processes and impact assessment, which require systematic ocean data collection. Available reports indicate that inertial-period oscillations have been observed by numerous investigators in deep sea locations ranging from subtropical to polar latitudes [6].

Innovative technologies are a key to study ocean processes in space and time. Today's underwater exploration is supported by vessels operated by a number of skilled crew members, and underwater robots controlled from the vessel. These underwater technologies have been utilised widely by the private sector. Different robotic platforms like benthic landers, crawler, floats, glider, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAVs) and sensor systems are required for deep sea studies. The use of these new underwater technologies will enhance our capabilities in improving our knowledge on the effects of climate change and ocean observation [7,8].

The deep ocean is our planet's largest biome, and is under increasing pressure from human activities such as resource exploitation and pollution. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) declared the seabed area beyond national jurisdiction (the Area) and its mineral resources as the "common heritage of mankind", to be administered for the benefit of mankind as a whole. All mineral exploration and exploitation activities must be sponsored by the Party to UNCLOS and approved by the International Seabed Authority (the Authority). The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report states "it is important that policies guiding mineral extraction from the deep seas are rooted into adaptive management-allowing for the integration of new scientific information alongside advances in technology. Governance mechanisms for international waters and the seabed need to be strengthened". Hence there is also an unprecedented need to integrate the deep ocean into ocean science and policy. New international regulations (e.g, for mining) and treaties (e.g. for biodiversity), environmental management, and spatial planning also must incorporate climate and the role of deep processes.

New knowledge is critical to climate predictions and societal impact assessments and will require the expansion of deep-water research with experimental capacities, to support the design of marine protected areas encompassing vulnerable regions in deep waters, and to inform environmental management of industrial activities and development of new policies addressing deep national and international waters.

Outreach events on advances in ocean science and technology and their role in judicious and sustainable exploitation and use of the vast resources should target groups of people including schoolchildren, people and local communities and by contributing interactive exhibits and displays for curious visitors of all ages. They can contribute directly to the country’s prosperity, benefit humanity, and many non-scientists who have little knowledge of these important issues. The public awareness of science by communicating their work widely, whether it involves explaining climate change, and/or investigating life at the bottom of the world's deepest oceans, will go a long way in knowledge enhancement among the entire cross section of the society.

The deep sea is out of sight, out of mind, and because there is no specific human society that is directly impacted by the negative consequences of extraction, it is challenging to focus attention on environmental issues of deep-ocean industrialization, including commercialisation of deep sea fisheries. It is imperative to work with industry and governance institutions to put in place progressively strong environmental regulations, even at the planning stage of the industry itself. There is a need for international agreements and multiple sources of research funding that can help provide the scientific information to protect and manage the deep sea environment and its resources. All these will require efforts that bridge several disciplines and engage different stakeholders in these tasks.

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Role of Oceanography in Sustainable Fisheries Management

Often fisheries stock assessment and management has been questioned for failing to account for oceanographic processes. It is clear from the abundant research that fisheries scientists and managers are well aware of the role that oceanographic processes play in controlling fish populations. Debate about the relative roles of fisheries versus the ocean conditions / environment in determining the abundance of fish stocks has persisted for decades. There are numerous examples of academic exercises developing methods to identify relationships between population dynamics and oceanography, to integrate oceanographic data into stock assessment and management, and to evaluate the advantages of using oceanographic data, but there is a lack of successfully implemented examples in the real terms.

Recently, the methodology adopted by USA and Australia have shown success. NOAA Fisheries oceanography program is more than 100 years old and has successfully developed methods for annual outlooks with emphasison the long-term sustainability of fish stocks. Linking ocean conditions to salmon returns using plankton species, SST and DO revealed important changes in the marine food chain and offshore ecosystem and their "red light-green light" chart has become popular among fishing industry.

Periodic research articles by Oceanographers along the Indian east and west coasts have showed the linkage of Phytoplankton survey, Oxygen Minimum Zone and Upwelling in Arabian Sea, fronts meandering in Bay of Bengal which are linked to fishing, and impact of coastal/ocean pollution to fisheries. The availability of fine spatial and temporal scale oceanographic data from remote sensing and ocean observation system like moored buoys, ARGO floats, etc., ship borne measurements, and oceanographic models allow research on more appropriate scales, which may lead to improvements in the near future, leading to better understanding of the interaction between the ocean parameters and the deep sea fisheries resources.

Unfortunately, the understanding of the mechanisms involved, the available data, or the large scale correlations are limited. In most cases, statistically significant correlations between population dynamics and population processes break down are yet to be established. This has led to advocating direct monitoring or developing management strategies that are robust to the variation rather than determining the relationships between population dynamics and oceanographic processes. The few successfully implemented examples mainly relate to predicting the spatial distribution of a fish stock. Therefore, use of oceanographic data to determine dynamic spatial closures to reduce by catch appears to be one of the most promising areas of research.

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Indian Context

Of late, in India our enhanced observing and modelling capacity is providing new opportunities to improve fisheries management at both short (e.g., weekly) and long (e.g., climatic) time scales. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) Hyderabad under the Ministry of Earth Sciences develops Potential Fishery Zones (PFZs) advisories and issues them to the coastal fishing community through various media. INCOIS uses satellite measurements of sea surface temperature (SST) and chlorophyll generated from OCEANSAT to develop these PFZ advisories, which consist essentially of curves drawn on a map to delineate the Potential Fishing Zones. Judging by download statistics and the feedback available, the product is popular with the fishing community within India as well as in this region.

In India, there is no industrial fishing fleet operating within the EEZ. Out of 199,141 fishing craft which are presently operating in the Indian seas, non-motorised and motorized traditional fishing crafts constitute 63.41% (126,392), with the remaining 72,749 (36.59%) being the mechanised fishing boats including trawlers. Traditional fishing crafts do day fishing in east coast up to 3 to 5 NM and west coast up to 7nm. The motorized fishing crafts (fitted with Outboard motors of 10-15 HP) do fishing up to a maximum of 70-100m depth. The mechanised fishing craft including trawlers which are less than 20m Overall length (OAL) operate as either day fishing boats or multi-day fishing boats depending on their OAL and the horse power of the inboard engine and do fishing for 7-15 days in the open sea depending on their endurance. These fishing crafts are landing on an average 3.10 million metric tonnes per annum during 20042014, against the projected Maximum Sustainable Yield levels of around 4.5 million m.t. This is in spite of the fact that there had been an increase both in terms of the fishing effort in the form of increase in fishing craft and the fisher population. The existing satellite based technique often does not work close to land and hence there is a need to evolve an unique methodology supported by primary field level data on productivity, coastal ocean monitoring data and fisheries data, which could be integrated and used to supplement the sea surface temperature derived from satellite imageries and other physical and chemical oceanographic data collected from moored and floating buoys for providing information on potential fishing zones along the coastal belt within 5-10nm zone for the benefit of fishers who do fishing using traditional sail powered and motorized fishing boats.

In India pioneering work carried out in the Arabian Sea by the Indian researchers has provided a lot of opportunities for correlating the oceanographic parameters with fisheries resource abundance beyond 100-200m depth zone within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone and areas beyond national jurisdiction. The data and information collected so far from these studies will be very useful in furthering our studies in the Bay of Bengal and parts of the Indian Ocean abutting the southern tip of the country and the Andaman and Lakshadweep areas. It is proposed to involve all the relevant Government organizations and stakeholders to make a realistic assessment of the deep sea fisheries resources/fish stock assessment and management in correlation with the oceanographic parameters.

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Issues to be Addressed in Fisheries Oceanography

I. Why do we get a certain fish in a certain region?

II. Why is the fishery pattern changing ?

III. Forcing in shelf has any influence.

IV. Early fish life history to integrate with river run off nutrients which trigger fish to bread mostly after monsoon.

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National Fisheries Outlook

There is a need to involve national outlook on fisheries and to support ecosystem based fisheries management following the example of NOAA's Fisheries oceanography program on ocean conditions to salmon returns using plankton species, SST and DO, Although traditional single-species management continues to use spawning stock biomass as the primary indicator for recruitment, recent research is being addressed on the early life history of fishes (Figure 1).

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Summary

There is growing demand from funding agencies and public on the sustained fishing practices and relevance of Oceanographic scientific finding to support the society in particular the fishing community / Industry. When a fisherman sets out to sea, he confronts a vast expanse of water and the vagaries of nature. There exist no roads to follow, no tracks to lead him to the fish, which too are not to be found all over the ocean. Fish, being migratory in nature, either tend to congregate in certain regions, or are always in motion and hence it is important for the fishermen to locate them in order that their fishing effort serves its purpose. By seeking to elucidate mechanistic relationships between fish species and their surrounding oceanic habitats, the field of fisheries oceanography will aim to provide a solid understanding of fish behaviour, population dynamics, and life history with an ecosystem perspective. In future similar weather forecasting. Science would improve to focus on prediction or forecast for fishing using a different data sets available.

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#Ocean Observatories #Oceanography #oceanography articles #Juniper publishers Address #Juniper Publishers Indexed Journals

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scienceblogtumbler · 4 years ago

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Proposals for Europe’s bold 10-year R&I missions officially handed to Commissioner Gabriel

by Fintan Burke

Five ‘mission reports’ outlining ambitious 10-year plans to tackle some of the major challenges faced by Europe were officially handed over to EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel on 22 September at the opening session of this year’s European Research and Innovation Days.

The five so-called missions, which have been a year in the drafting and drawn up after consultation with European citizens, are designed to provide a bold, inspirational approach for research and innovation to tackle five issues: cancer; adaptation to climate change; healthy ocean, seas and waters; climate-neutral and smart cities; and healthy soils.

Receiving the reports, Commissioner Gabriel said: ‘It’s not that we have not tried (to tackle these challenges) – billions are spent every year using disperse initiatives. Each of these initiatives may be doing a great job, but the whole does not match the sum of the parts.

‘We all agree there is a need of a holistic approach.’

The missions are a new concept for EU research funding and will form part of the next funding programme, Horizon Europe, which is due to kick off in 2021. The next step is for the European Commission to decide how missions will go ahead, a decision due by the end of this year.

The mission concept is partly inspired by NASA’s Apollo 11 mission to put a man on the moon and have been developed by a board of experts including academics, policymakers, business people and citizen representatives.

Each of the five missions use the year 2030 as an endpoint and are designed to have clear targets and drive systemic change.

Cancer

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Professor Walter Ricciardi, President of the Italian National Institute of Health and chair of the cancer mission board, said: ‘Europe has a quarter of all cancer cases and less than 10% of the world population. The number of new cancer cases diagnosed is projected to increase by 25% in Europe by 2035. If we don’t act now, of course, this could be a serious problem.’

The aim of the cancer mission, entitled Conquering Cancer: Mission Possible is to avert more than 3 million additional premature deaths over the period 2021 – 2030.

Among his board’s 13 recommendations are starting an EU-wide research programme that can use patient genomic data to better understand an individual’s cancer risk, and creating a virtual, federated European Cancer Patient Digital Centre so that cancer patients and survivors can share their healthcare data to improve personalised treatments for others.

‘The mission is not only research,’ said Prof. Ricciardi. ‘The mission is to support member states, it’s to improve the lives of individual citizens.’

Adaptation to climate change

Connie Hedegaard, the former European Commissioner for Climate Action and head of the adaptation to climate change mission board, used the 2020 coronavirus pandemic as an example of the importance of having a resilient society.

‘If anything, the Covid-19 crisis has taught us all some lessons,’ said Hedegaard. ‘We have seen how costly – economically speaking and in human terms – it is to ignore science. We have seen the necessity of focusing more on building resilience in our societies.’

The mission A Climate Resilient Europe is designed to help European communities to become better prepared for the worsening effects of climate change.

It proposes working with different regions and communities throughout Europe to design ways of improving how they deal with climate disruptions. This involves, for example, funding research into ways to climate proof buildings in energy and resource efficient ways, better using public spaces, developing early warning systems for storms, and incentive schemes to make sure water is used efficiently.

‘We all agree there is a need of a holistic approach.’

Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

Healthy ocean, seas and waters

Pascal Lamy, former EU trade Commissioner and former Director-General of the World Trade Organization, told the R&I Days audience that there’s a need to change the way people view their relationship with the Earth’s hydrosphere – the water on our planet.

‘Most people believe we have a problem with our atmosphere, but very few people know we have a problem with our hydrosphere,’ he said. Filling this gap, he says, will require a mix of science, culture, art and reasoning.

Lamy chairs the board of Mission Starfish 2030: Restore our Ocean and Waters. ‘We were inspired by this small animal who’s very nice, but very fragile’ he said. ‘The rest is horribly complex – restoring EU ocean and waters.’

Decades of pollution, litter and unsustainable practices such as overfishing, have led to a decline of marine biodiversity and biomass in the last 50 years, the mission report says. Climate change has also amplified the damage.

To regenerate Europe’s ocean and waters by 2030, the mission recommends a mixture of policy, such as ending overfishing and regulating underwater noise, and environmental goals, such as regenerating 20% of degraded habitats.

Carbon-neutral and smart cities

Also speaking at the handover ceremony, the chair of the cities mission, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, emphasised the importance of making the missions inclusive.

‘As the former mayor of the capital city Warsaw I know that to make progress on the climate transition, we need the support of citizens and the private and public stakeholders,’ she said.

Cities cover about 3% of the land on Earth but produce around 72% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The mission 100 Climate-Neutral Cities notes that many of the climate-friendly and smart technologies to lower emissions already exist, though they are poorly implemented. The mission aims to have 100 cities sign on to new ‘Climate City Contracts’ that will use these technologies to make themselves climate-neutral by 2030. It involves cities receiving funding, creating new regulations, and collaborating with locals to develop their own contracts.

Healthy soils

Cees Veerman, former Dutch minister for agriculture and chair of the board for the soil health and food mission, Caring for Soil is Caring for Life, spoke of the economic impact of what is maybe a lesser-known challenge for Europe – soil health. ‘In monetary terms, we lose 50 billion euros per year, because it’s always deteriorating,’ he said.

The mission report says that in Europe, it is thought that 24% of land has unsustainable water erosion rates and another 25% is at a high risk of desertification in southern, central and eastern Europe.

By 2030, the aim of the mission is to make sure that 75% of soils are healthy and can provide their role in the ecosystem. This includes providing food, regulating the flow of rivers or, in the case of bog lands, removing carbon from the atmosphere. The mission aims to establish ‘living labs’ where landowners, and researchers can work to develop new agroecological principles and organic agricultural practices that have shown evidence of improving soil health.

source https://horizon.scienceblog.com/1447/proposals-for-europes-bold-10-year-ri-missions-officially-handed-to-commissioner-gabriel/

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kathleenseiber · 4 years ago

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Monarchs from east and west fly differently, but still mate

Even though eastern and western monarch butterflies fly differently, they are genetically the same, a new study shows.

Each year, millions of monarch butterflies migrate across eastern North America to fly from as far north as the US-Canadian border to overwinter in central Mexico—covering as much as 3,000 miles.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, western monarchs generally fly 300 miles down to the Pacific Coast to spend the winter in California. Researchers long believed that the eastern and western monarchs were genetically distinct populations.

The new study in Molecular Ecology, however, upends that idea.

“It was surprising,” says Jaap de Roode, professor of biology at Emory University, whose lab is one of a handful in the world that studies monarch butterflies.

“You would expect that organisms with different behaviors and ecologies would show some genetic differences,” de Roode says. “But we found that you cannot distinguish genetically between the western and eastern butterflies.”

20 million DNA mutations

The current paper builds on previous work from the de Roode lab that found similarities between 11 genetic markers of the eastern and western monarchs, as well as more limited genetic studies by others, and observational and tracking data.

“This is the first genome-wide comparison of eastern and western monarchs to try to understand their behavioral differences better,” says first author Venkat Talla, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab.

Talla analyzed more than 20 million DNA mutations in 43 monarch genomes and found no evidence for genomic differentiation between eastern and western monarchs. Instead, he found identical levels of genetic diversity.

“Our work shows that the eastern and western monarchs are mating together and exchanging genetic material to a much greater extent than was previously realized,” Talla says. “And it adds to the evidence that it is likely differences in their environments that shapes the differences in their patterns of migration.”

Coauthor Amanda Pierce, who led the earlier study on 11 genetic markers, launched the project while a graduate student in the de Roode Lab.

“Monarch butterflies are so fragile and so lightweight, and yet they are able to travel thousands of miles,” Pierce says. “They are beautiful creatures and a great model system to understand unique, innate behaviors. We know that migration is ingrained in their genetic wiring in some way.”

After monarchs leave their overwintering sites, they fly north and lay eggs. The caterpillars turn into butterflies and then fly further, mating and laying another generation of eggs. The process repeats for several generations until finally, as the days grow shorter and the temperatures cooler, monarchs emerge from their chrysalises and start to fly south. This migratory generation does not expend any energy on breeding or laying eggs, saving it all for the long journey.

“For every butterfly that makes it to California or to Mexico, that’s its first journey there,” Pierce says.

Monarch ‘sprinters’ and ‘marathoners’

Previous work had identified a propensity for the eastern and western monarchs to have slight differences in their wing shapes. For the current paper, the researchers wanted to identify any variations in their flight styles.

They collected eastern monarchs from a migratory stopover site in Saint Marks, Florida, and western monarchs from one of their overwintering sites near Oceano, California. Pierce ran flight trials with the butterflies by tethering them to a mill that restricted their flight patterns to circles with a circumference of about 25 feet. The researchers performed the trials in a laboratory under controlled light and temperature conditions that mimicked overwintering sites. They arranged artificial flowers around the circumference of the flight mills.

“The idea was to try to give them some semblance of a ‘natural’ environment to help motivate them and to orient them,” explains Pierce, who has has since graduated from Emory and now works as a geneticist for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC.

The researchers released the butterflies unharmed from the flight mills after performing short trials.

The results showed that the eastern monarchs would choose to fly for longer distances while the western monarchs flew shorter distances but with stronger bursts of speed.

“The more powerful flight trait of the western monarch is like a sprinter, essentially,” Pierce says, “while the eastern monarchs show a flight trait more like marathoners.”

Talla, who specializes in bioinformatics, grew up in India where the rich diversity of wildlife inspired him to become an evolutionary biologist. He moved to Sweden to get his PhD, where he studied the genomics of the European wood white butterfly. Although all wood whites appear identical visually, they are actually three different species.

“One of the big questions I’m interested in answering is how does an individual species wind up becoming multiple species?” Talla says. “I want to understand all the processes involved in that evolution.

“Monarchs have always been at the top of my list of butterflies I wanted to study because of their incredible migrations,” Talla says. “They are a fascinating species.”

Last November, he joined de Roode on a lab field trip to the eastern monarch overwintering site, inside and adjacent to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico. Tens to hundreds of millions of monarchs blanket the trees and landscape through the winter.

“It’s a mind-blowing sight,” Talla says. “It makes you wonder how they all know how to get there.”

Previous tracking and observational studies had shown that at least some western monarchs fly south to Mexico instead of west to California. The full-genome analysis suggests that more than just a few of the western monarchs may be making the trip to Mexico where they mix with the eastern monarchs. And when the butterflies depart Mexico, some may fly west instead of east.

“Evidence from multiple directions is coming together to support the same view,” de Roode says.

The findings may help in the conservation of monarchs. Due to a combination of habitat loss, climate change and lack of nectaring flowers, numbers of both eastern and western monarchs have declined in recent decades, with the western ones showing the most precipitous drop. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently considering whether the butterflies need special protections.

“If environmental factors are all that drives the differences between the eastern and western monarchs, it’s possible that we could help the western population by transplanting some of the eastern ones to the west,” de Roode says.

The de Roode lab now plans to investigate what exactly in the environments of the butterflies triggers different expressions of their genes.

Additional coauthors are from Emory; the University of Chicago; and Polytechnic State University in Obispo, California. The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and Emory University funded the work.

Source: Emory University

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journeytoamoresustainableyo-blog · 5 years ago

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Blog Post - Sustainable fishing, whats the catch?

Sustainable fishing can be defined by three categories:

1. Sustainable fish stock: are there enough fish left in the ocean to continue the fishing trade without endangering a species? Fishing must maintain a level which ensures the trade can continue indefinitely and the fish population can continue to be productive and heathy.

2. Minimising environmental impact: What impacts does it cause? The level of fishing must be managed closely to ensure other species and habitats within the ecosystem are not damaged by the activity and remain healthy.

3. Effectual management of fisheries: Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fisheries must adhere with the appropriate laws and must be able to adapt to varying environmental circumstances.

Sustainability is focusing on the needs of the present without compromising the future

The goal of sustainable fishing is the assurances that there will be populations of ocean and freshwater wildlife in the future. Marine environments are home to immeasurable species of fish and invertebrates, most of these species are considered food and therefore sought after. Many of which are harvested for reasons other than food such as oysters which produce pearls used in jewellery or assorted fish oils for medicines and supplements. Fish and other marine animals have been a source of food which has for thousands of years used to feed their families and communities. It is respected and consumed globally, in many different forms by many different diverse cultures.

The demand for seafood is rising and the global is population rising. In addition, the demand for advances in technology have been on the rise consequently traditional fishing practices such as spearfishing, angling and hand gathering depleting. Modern day commercial fishing extract more than 77 billion kilograms of wildlife from the sea each year (FAO, 2018). The main concern of such a large demand for seafood and widescale fishing is that if this rate continues or worse increases it may soon result in a collapse of fisheries globally. This could result in the point of no return for many species. In order for fisheries to be sustainable they must be able to meet the needs and current demands of consumers. While maintaining their business at a degree which ensures the level of sea life remains plentiful enough that they are not at risk of species endangerment or extinction.

“Another way to prevent overfishing and bycatch is to simply abstain from eating fish and other seafood” Dr. Sylvia Earle, renowned marine scientist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence suggests “people need to take a break from eating seafood until we learn better how to maintain healthy fish and wildlife populations.”

(National Geographic Society, 2019)

So why eat fish?

There are numerous reasons for people choosing to eat fish and other seafood. Some of the popular reasons include the health benefits, many fish are high in protein, major sources of healthy long chain omega-3 fats. As well as being rich on vitamin D and selenium – an antioxidant which plays an important role in protecting the body from disease (Fernandes et al., 2012). Additionally, studies such as that by Fernandes et at., (2012) have shown that eating fish or taking fish oil supplements is good for our blood vessels and cardiovascular health. As people are becoming more aware about the negative effects of a high red meat diet, many are becoming encouraged to add more fish into their diet as an alternative, but is this really the answer? While the healthy omega-3 fats, rich in calcium and phosphorus may all sound great, is eating fish really healthier for you long term when compared to not eating any animal sourced products at all? The thought of not having an animal product on our plates for dinner time may seem absurd to some people but the question is, can we live without it? And should we?

While nutrition is important it is not the only reason individuals choose to have a seafood-based diet. Location is a big factor people often forget, for countries where fish is the main protein food source in their diet and their long-standing traditions, they are reliant on their coastal economies.

The problem with plastic

If no action is taken, there could be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050 (Bicanski, 2018). As people become more aware of the ethical battles faced when consuming traditional cattle such as cows and pigs they may turn to fish, but is it more ethical? Data from FISH TO 2030 Prospects For Fisheries And Aquaculture projects shows that in the UK alone, the weekly consumption of fish is expected to increase from just under eight million kilograms to 9.23 million kilograms by 2030, an increase of 17% (Voegele, 2013). The current world as we know it faces a number of other issues regarding sustainability, mainly encountered from plastic waste and the pollution resulting from single use packaging waste. Well you may be thinking “what does this have to do with me eating fish?”.

In a 2017 UN report it is stated, there are more than 51 trillion microplastic particles in the sea, this is more than 500 times the number of stars in the Milky Way (United Nations, 2017).

In contrast to plastic bags, fishing gear and other macroplastic waste, microplastics are so dangerous because they are invisible to the naked eye. These microplastics get into the stomachs of the fish that we eat, resulting in plastic ending up inside of us. At this point in time more research is needed to understand exactly how ingested microplastics may affect human health. It is known however that humans are in fact eating these microplastic particles and the average person is consuming roughly 182 plastic particles a week from fish alone.

Abandoned fishing nets, cause marine wildlife threats

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United nations (FAO) state that over 640,000 tonnes (the same weight as 55,000 double decker buses) of nets, lines, traps and pots all used every year in commercial fishing are abandoned and discarded into the sea (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 2009). This accounts for roughly 10 percent of all marine litter and that there is no sign of this slowing down. Instead it is getting worse due to the increased scale of global fishing operations. While most fishing gear is not being purposely dumped but, instead being lost as a result of storms, strong currents or from “gear conflicts” for example, fishing with nets in areas where there are bottom-traps that can entangle them are already deployed (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 2009). These fishing nets can accidently capture marine animals such as sea birds, whales, dolphins, sharks and sea turtles (Werner et al., 2020). This causes even more unintentional damage which has further effects on species populations. Different species often ingest plastic waste including net fragments, sea turtles may mistake plastic bags or other prey. Ingesting plastic can lead to increased rates of death when the stomachs or intestines become blocked or damaged.

It’s not only marine wildlife that is affected it is also the marine environment. Commercial capture fishery methods such as dredging and bottom trawling can be especially harmful for the sea-floor habit (National Research Council, 2002). Due to the decline in traditional fisheries efforts to find previously unfished areas and under exploited fish populations. Labours have been made to develop new gear and navigational aids in order to be able to achieve this. However, it is often these new technologies that are abandoned and find their way to the seabed and pollute marine habitats. The National Research Council (2002) states that any fishing gear will affect the flora and fauna of a location. While the damage is dependent on a number of factors, for example the towing speed, water depth and the substrate over which the tow occurs. The alternatives in substrates consist of sediment type, the bed formation as well as the biological structure (sponges, corals and macroalgae). So, what are the ecological costs of this? In order to fully determine the consequences of trawling and dredging it is vital that the differences between the direct and indirect consequences are determined. Direct effects include an abundance and biomass of larger fish and species decrease. While indirect results involve the greater chance of survival for small fish due to the limited predation and competition which results in depensation effects (Shin et al., 2005). The results of this are pollution, the environmental damage, depleting marine species all of which lead to a substantial loss of biodiversity further threatening the ecosystem.

“The high seas – in other words, the oceans beyond the 200-mile national limits – are a lawless realm. Here fishing ships put out lines of hooks up to 75 miles long, which sweep the sea clean of predators and any other animals which may encounter them.” – George Monbiot

Why biodiversity is important

The marine environment contributes to many ecosystems that help maintain biodiversity in coastal and open ocean habitats. With high diversity, more opportunities for efficient resources become available, this provides stability to ecosystem processes in environments which encounter disturbances from fishing and other human influences (Strong et al., 2015). In systems where communities are species-poor they are theoretically likely to be functioning more poorly, be less resilient and resistant to human disturbances than systems with species-rich communities (Stachowicz, Bruno and Duffy, 2007). Overfishing can devastate the environment and marine ecology and disrupt the food chain entirely. For example, in the Shetland Islands seabirds such as puffins were dependent on the Sandeel for their food, when these Sandeel’s are overfished by local fisheries this depletes not only the fish, but the colonies of seabirds automatically decline due to the fight for food resources.

So, what can you do?

With all these problems it can seem like there is no way to contribute to fishing practises without causing damage, further contributing to the problem. Luckily there are many things that can be done, beginning with stakeholders in the fishing industries switching to support those already doing their part in guaranteeing fishing is done sustainably. Conservationists have put efforts into protecting marine and freshwater environments, often by seeking more traditional fishing methods such as rod and reel fishing, which is a more sustainable alternative to long lining for commercial fishers (Brown, 2019). As consumers the most effective method we can do is support small local fisheries, which are practising these strategies for sustainable fishing.

The marine conservation society (2017) provides tips for making sure consumers purchase seafood from responsibly managed sources, which are caught and farmed by fishers which catch and farm fish while minimising damage to the marine environment. World fish catch may be at an all-time high, but the majority of the world’s fisheries are in trouble. A way to help this is to start shopping small and local. This helps support the livelihoods of people and communities who fish sustainably and preserve marine life. The less fish there is in demand, the less pressure there is for large commercial fisheries, with a decrease in consumption there is a decrease in demand. Is it more ethical to stop eating fish all together? This would help reduce the pollution and risk of extinction to many species, but what would it do for the local fisheries who depend on selling fish as their only source of income? By being better informed about the damages fishing causes, you can then make more educated decisions about what is right for you and our seas. Whether that decision is to cut out fish all together, reduce your consumption, only buy from local reputable fisheries who are marine stewardship certified, or to continue educating yourself and others on the impacts large scale commercial fishing has on our planet, there is something each of us can do.

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Crop diversity can buffer the effects of climate change

https://sciencespies.com/environment/crop-diversity-can-buffer-the-effects-of-climate-change/

Crop diversity can buffer the effects of climate change

How we farm can guard against climate change and protect critical wildlife — but only if we leave single-crop farms in the dust, according to a new Stanford study.

The research provides a rare, long-term look at how farming practices affect bird biodiversity in Costa Rica. “Farms that are good for birds are also good for other species,” said Jeffrey Smith, a graduate student in the department of biology and a co-author on the paper. “We can use birds as natural guides to help us design better agricultural systems.”

By and large, the team found that diversified farms are more stable in the number of birds they support, provide a more secure habitat for those birds and shield against the impacts of climate change much more effectively than single-crop farms.

“The tropics are expected to suffer even more intensely in terms of prolonged dry seasons, extreme heat and forest dieback under climate change,” said Gretchen Daily, director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project and the Center for Conservation Biology and a senior author on the paper. “But diversified farms offer refuge — they can buffer these harmful effects in ways similar to a natural forest ecosystem.”

The findings, published in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, highlight the importance of farms that grow multiple crops in a mixed setting instead of the more common practice of planting single-crop “monocultures.”

“This study shows that climate change has already been impacting wildlife communities, continues to do so, and that local farming practices really matter in protecting biodiversity and building climate resilience,” said Nick Hendershot, a graduate student in the department of biology and lead author on the study.

Threatened in the tropics

Tropical regions are some of the most species-rich in the world, but they also face the greatest threats to biodiversity. As their forests are felled to plant cash crops like bananas and sugarcane, the amount and availability of natural habitats have shrunk dramatically. Meanwhile, climate change has resulted in longer, hotter dry seasons that make species survival even more challenging.

“It’s the one-two punch of land-use intensification and climate change,” Hendershot said. “Wildlife populations are already severely stressed, with overall decreased health and population sizes in some farming landscapes. Then, these further extreme conditions like prolonged drought can come along and really just decimate a species.”

Until now, little had been known about how agricultural practices impact biodiversity in the long term. This study’s researchers used nearly 20 years of meticulously collected field data to understand which birds live in natural tropical forests and in different types of farmland.

“It is only because we had these unusually extensive long-term data that we were able to detect the role of diversified farmlands in helping threatened species persist over multiple decades,” said Tadashi Fukami, an associate professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a senior author on the paper, along with Daily.

The varied agricultural systems at work in Costa Rica provided the research team with an ideal laboratory for studying bird communities in intensively farmed monoculture systems, diversified multi-crop farms, and natural forests. They compared monoculture farms — like pineapple, rice, or sugar cane — to diversified farms that interweave multiple crops and are often bordered by ribbons of natural forest.

Who’s there matters

Surprisingly, the researchers found that diversified farmlands not only provide refuge to more common bird species, they also protect some of the most threatened. Species of international conservation concern, like the Great Green Macaw and the Yellow-naped Parrot, are at risk in Costa Rica due to habitat loss and the illegal pet trade.

In intensive monocrop farmlands, these species are declining. But in the diversified systems the researchers studied, the endangered birds can be found year after year.

“Which species are in a given place makes a huge difference — it’s not just about numbers alone, we care about who’s there,” Daily said. “Each bird serves a unique role as part of the machinery of nature. And the habitats they live in support us all.”

Changing the paradigm

In Costa Rica and around the world, the researchers see opportunities to develop integrated, diversified agricultural systems that promote not only crop productivity and livelihood security, but also biodiversity. A paradigm shift towards global agricultural systems could help human and wildlife communities adapt to a changing climate, Daily said.

“There are so many cash crops that thrive in diversified farms. Bananas and coffee are two great examples from Costa Rica — they’re planted together, and the taller banana plant shades the temperature-sensitive coffee bean,” she added. “The two crops together provide more habitat opportunity than just one alone, and they also provide a diversified income stream for the farmer.”

#Environment

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kayawagner · 7 years ago

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Call of the Wild(book): How GPUs Help Track Threatened Animal Species

It’s not true that if you’ve seen one zebra you’ve seen them all. But unless researchers can get a handle on their real numbers, it one day may be.

To do that, you have to be able to identify individual zebras and — as Tanya Berger-Wolf discovered after spending 25 minutes trying to identify a specific zebra — that’s even harder than it sounds.

A zebra’s stripes are as subtly individual as human fingerprints. “I thought I was going to lose my mind,” admits Berger-Wolf, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

So Berger-Wolf helped create a solution that harnesses publicly shared videos — and GPUs — to speed up the task of identifying individual animals of all kinds.

Called Wildbook, the tool promises to solve a big headache for Berger-Wolf, who runs her school’s Computational Population Biology Lab, and the many wildlife researchers she works with.

Take the challenge of identifying zebras.

Berger-Wolf found her software’s computer vision component was great at identifying zebras. And she expanded to other species by partnering with Charles Stewart, a computer vision researcher at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. But matching images of individual animals with others within a dataset was a slow, immature process.

During her subsequent search for options, Berger-Wolf came upon the nonprofit WildMe, which had employed a superior data model to create a log of sightings of whale sharks. She figured her team and the WildMe staff could help each other.

“They were interested in adding computer vision to the system, and we were interested in a mature data management layer,” Berger-Wolf said. “It was love at first sight.”

The resulting Wildbook project is a multi-organizational effort to protect and preserve endangered and threatened animals.

Using publicly and intentionally shared images and videos, the Wildbook team creates species-specific visual databases of encounters with animals, incorporating whatever data can be gleaned from the photos and videos.

Extracting Data from Videos

To accomplish this, videos from YouTube and social media sites are scraped using AI-infused computer vision to identify each animal. Natural language processing is also applied to transcribe any text or audio.

To date, the team has created 15 Wildbooks for animals ranging from giraffes and polar bears to whale sharks and manta rays. It has a backlog of more than 200 requests from conservationists for more Wildbooks.

GPUs figure prominently in the computer vision pipeline, helping the Wildbook team sift through images to classify species. The combination of GPUs and deep learning approaches enables Wildbook creators to dig deep into the data inherent in the images.

“For each image, we not only identify the species, we identify the individual,” Berger-Wolf says. “We can tell you this is a zebra pixel and this is background. We can identify occlusion and classify the quality of the image.”

GPUs are speeding the process significantly. Berger-Wolf estimates GPUs have reduced the time it takes to detect species from a few seconds per image to a fraction of a second — an important consideration as she deals with thousands of images.

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Global Aspirations

Berger-Wolf has lofty goals for the Wildbook project. She sees it becoming a global resource that will help conservationists respond to poaching attacks, or provide scientists with more information on how different species interact with each other.

“We’d really like to expand it to a planetary scale,” she said. “I want to scale it to the level of habitats, to the level of continents.”

Perhaps even more important, she wants Wildbooks to help humans understand how their activity impacts animal environments. Until now, this information has been elusive.

Berger-Wolf notes, for instance, that as of a few months ago, scientists estimated that there were 4,000-6,500 snow leopards in the world, which isn’t real useful information since the uncertainty is too high. Elsewhere, conservationists spent $8 million over a two-year period trying to count elephants so that they could begin to understand the true impact of poaching.

Once Wildbooks are established for those animals, the resulting influx of data will give biologists and conservationists a better understanding of the challenges they face in preserving them. Eventually, Berger-Wolf wants them to be able to interact with the data dynamically.

And this is only possibly with GPU acceleration, considering the large amount of data and high image, spatio-temporal and individual animal resolution.

“I want to be able to zoom in on a map and say, who’s there? How did it change with the difference in rainfall, or with the ocean currents?” she said. “We can really enrich our knowledge of basic information about species.”

The post Call of the Wild(book): How GPUs Help Track Threatened Animal Species appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog.

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usfwspacific · 8 years ago

Video

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Ducks, ducks, everywhere! Wildlife wins with collaborative farming program on Umatilla NWR

By Brent Lawrence

Have you ever wondered what 70,000 ducks looks like? Well, now you know.

This video was taken Dec. 20, 2016, at the McCormack Unit on the Oregon side of Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. This field is located close to the Columbia River.

At the time this video was taken, 50,000 to 70,000 ducks were regularly moving back and forth from the river to feed in the field, which contained a standing crop of winter wheat and buckwheat. The ducks were primarily mallards, but there were numerous northern pintails. (And one very fast-moving Brewer’s blackbird that wanted to get a cameo appearance on the video.)

This was a significant number of waterfowl being supported by a single 125-acre farm field, which sustained the high number of ducks every night for two weeks. The field is part of a cooperative farming program between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mid-Columbia River Complex and local farmers that provides food sources to waterfowl during the critical winter season.

This is an important program because it gives waterfowl nutrition on their migration south. This food source on refuges is more important than ever because of changing land use across the nation, which includes: 1) once-productive farm fields being developed into housing or other non-farming uses; 2) crops being harvested earlier in the year or left standing; and 3) new types of crops being planted that are less beneficial to waterfowl.

That’s where this collaborative conservation effort comes in. Through the cooperative farming program, local farmers grow corn, wheat and other crops on the refuge. In return, the farmer leaves a portion of the crops in the field for wildlife. At Umatilla National Wildife Refuge, for example, there are about 1,400 acres of irrigated cropland in the cooperative farming program.

“This is a great win-win for the refuge and the farmers,” said Charlie Stenvall, project leader for the Mid-Columbia River Complex. “Cooperative or contract farming helps us meet our migratory bird conservation mission. The large wintering populations of ducks and geese here, for which the refuges provide significant habitat and food resources, also provide good opportunities for waterfowl hunters and birders, which adds important dollars to the local economy.”

The Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge Complex includes Cold Springs, Columbia, Conboy Lake, McKay Creek, McNary, Toppenish and Umatilla National Wildlife Refuges and Hanford Reach National Monument. Many of the refuges have waterfowl hunting options during the season, as well as fantastic bird watching. Check out each refuge’s website for details.

Since much of the waterfowl feeding noted in the video occurs in the evenings, the refuge complex has struggled with accurately document the use of its farm fields. The trail cameras (one of which was used for this video) were purchased to see if infrared technology would be able to capture this foraging behavior and provide accurate numbers. The answer was a resounding, “Yes!”

“We knew that lots of ducks were using the fields, but it was hard to say at what numbers and for exactly how long they were there,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Faye Healy. “After a few nights of using the cameras, we were pretty confident that we could accurately capture the numbers.

“We will likely be expanding this experimental array into a survey to monitor the waterfowl usage of our farm fields. Using these cameras, we have gotten some pretty spectacular footage of birds, and through a single experimental array we have gained a much better understanding of just how many birds are supported by our cooperative farming program.”

Brent Lawrence is a public affairs officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Regional office in Portland, Oregon. Watching and hunting waterfowl are two of his favorite hobbies.

#conservation #usfws #oregon #washington #ducks #duckseason #refuges #wildlife #collaboration #farming #nwr #nwra

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scienceblogtumbler · 4 years ago

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Oyster Reef Restoration Efforts Get Help from Potato Chip Byproduct

Longtime work to restore oyster reefs in the Indian River Lagoon has found a new, unusual ally: potato chips.

The Coastal and Estuarine Ecology Lab at UCF has been experimenting with various products looking for an effective, biodegradable material for restoration that’s inexpensive. For the past 14 months the group has been testing a mesh made from leftover potato starch collected from chip factories. So far, it’s been a successful method providing habitats for the lagoon’s vital shellfish population. A second material — a cement-infused fiber — also shows promise as an alternative to traditional plastic-based methods to attract oysters, which help improve lagoon water quality.

“The oysters seem to really be taking to the potato chip method,” says biology Professor Linda Walters. “While our plastic mesh was effective and brought over 14 million oysters to Mosquito Lagoon, this is an exciting step forward in using genuinely effective biodegradable materials.”

In the past 100 years, more than 85 percent of shellfish reefs have been lost globally as the result of human harvesting, loss of habitat, diseases and invasive species, according to research published in BioScience. Oyster reefs play a vital role in ecosystems as natural water filters, barriers against erosion and habitats for marine life.

“Harmful algal blooms became frequent after the loss of oysters,” Walters says. “The reefs can stabilize shorelines and provide nutrients to other animals. We need them so that synergy in ecosystem services may be restored.”

The recent innovation builds on years of work by Walters and a team of students and more than 62,000 volunteers to rebuild these lost habitats in Mosquito Lagoon waters near New Smyrna Beach. Walters is also a member of the Sustainability Coastal Systems cluster at UCF. Their search for a more eco-friendly product led them to the Netherlands and a company called BESE Ecosystem Restoration Products. BESE-products, formed around a team of ecologists and habitat experts, developed the innovative mesh from leftover potato starch collected from chip factories. The mesh is manually attached to the shells of oysters using wire, then left alone to be observed in the regeneration process. After 14 months of pilot testing, the potato chip reefs have over 400 live oysters per square meter.

After 14 months of pilot testing, the potato chip reefs have over 400 live oysters per square meter.

“We wanted to test a method that is biodegradable and has the material lifespan approaching that of a local oyster. That span ranges around five to ten years,” explains Walters.

That durability is a key component of a long-time challenge for the lab. Previous products either quickly fell apart in the corrosive seawater or proved too expensive for the broad scope of Indian River Lagoon restoration.

Success on Florida’s coast augers well for similar projects in the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, for instance, currently funds more than 70 restoration projects in 15 states.

“People generally don’t understand how difficult it is to make biodegradable materials that get the job done for coastal restoration,” Walters said. “There are a lot of technicalities to consider when finding new materials to use. We also are testing for unintended consequences to the environment.”

While the team tests the efficacy of potato chip mesh, another restoration material is in competition for long-term adoption by the lab. A faculty member of the University of North Carolina developed a cement-infused fiber called OysterCatcher. The lightweight, biodegradable material is modular, making it significantly easier to set up than lugging heavy bags of oyster shells into place. Free-floating oyster larvae attach to the shells and create their own shell, exponentially growing the reef over time.

“We are testing both methods simultaneously as to not put all our eggs in one basket. So far, this method works great and we’ve noticed that crabs and fish are loving the refuge it provides,” Walters says.

It will be at least a year until Walters reaches a conclusion on the best option.

“It’s a very different summer with COVID, that much is for sure,” Walters says. “It’s been difficult not being able to work with community volunteers and with only 20 percent of the number of UCF students that we planned to hire. It is a total adjustment, but it’s better to continue working this way than not working at all.”

source https://scienceblog.com/518084/oyster-reef-restoration-efforts-get-help-from-potato-chip-byproduct/

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kathleenseiber · 5 years ago

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Farms with diverse crops protect animals and the climate

Farms with diverse crops can help protect wildlife and buffer against climate change, researchers report.

The researchers found that farms with diverse crops planted together provide more secure, stable habitats for wildlife, and are more resilient to climate change than the single-crop standard that dominates today’s agriculture industry.

The research provides a rare, long-term look at how farming practices affect bird biodiversity in Costa Rica.

Coffee is one of the best crops for growing in a diversified landscape because it is sensitive in the heat and can use the shade of taller plants. Here, the single-crop system directly exposes the coffee to the powerful sun. (Credit: Nick Hendershot)

“Farms that are good for birds are also good for other species,” says coauthor Jeffrey Smith, a graduate student in the biology department at Stanford University. “We can use birds as natural guides to help us design better agricultural systems.”

By and large, the team found that diversified farms are more stable in the number of birds they support, provide a more secure habitat for those birds, and shield against the effects of climate change much more effectively than single-crop farms.

“…local farming practices really matter in protecting biodiversity and building climate resilience.”

“The tropics are expected to suffer even more intensely in terms of prolonged dry seasons, extreme heat, and forest dieback under climate change,” says senior author Gretchen Daily, director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project and the Center for Conservation Biology. “But diversified farms offer refuge—they can buffer these harmful effects in ways similar to a natural forest ecosystem.”

The findings highlight the importance of farms that grow multiple crops in a mixed setting instead of the more common practice of planting single-crop “monocultures.”

“This study shows that climate change has already been impacting wildlife communities, continues to do so, and that local farming practices really matter in protecting biodiversity and building climate resilience,” says lead author Nick Hendershot, a graduate student in the biology department.

‘One-two punch’

“It’s the one-two punch of land-use intensification and climate change,” Hendershot says. “Wildlife populations are already severely stressed, with overall decreased health and population sizes in some farming landscapes. Then, these further extreme conditions like prolonged drought can come along and really just decimate a species.”

Until now, little had been known about how agricultural practices affect biodiversity in the long term. This study’s researchers used nearly 20 years of meticulously collected field data to understand which birds live in natural tropical forests and in different types of farmland.

“Each bird serves a unique role as part of the machinery of nature. And the habitats they live in support us all.”

“It is only because we had these unusually extensive long-term data that we were able to detect the role of diversified farmlands in helping threatened species persist over multiple decades,” says senior author Tadashi Fukami, an associate professor of biology.

The varied agricultural systems at work in Costa Rica provided the research team with an ideal laboratory for studying bird communities in intensively farmed monoculture systems, diversified multi-crop farms, and natural forests. They compared monoculture farms—like pineapple, rice, or sugar cane—to diversified farms that interweave multiple crops and are often bordered by ribbons of natural forest.

The many benefits of farms with diverse crops

Surprisingly, the researchers found that diversified farmlands not only provide refuge to more common bird species, they also protect some of the most threatened. Species of international conservation concern, like the great green macaw and the yellow-naped parrot, are at risk in Costa Rica due to habitat loss and the illegal pet trade.

In intensive monocrop farmlands, these species are declining. But in the diversified systems the researchers studied, the endangered birds can be found year after year.

“Which species are in a given place makes a huge difference—it’s not just about numbers alone, we care about who’s there,” Daily says. “Each bird serves a unique role as part of the machinery of nature. And the habitats they live in support us all.”

“There are so many cash crops that thrive in diversified farms. Bananas and coffee are two great examples from Costa Rica—they’re planted together, and the taller banana plant shades the temperature-sensitive coffee bean,” she adds. “The two crops together provide more habitat opportunity than just one alone, and they also provide a diversified income stream for the farmer.”

The research appears in Nature.

Source: Stanford University

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