UKRecord waves
British scientists from Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre who intentionally sailed into an intense storm in the North Atlantic 155 miles west of Scotland, found waves so high that they were not thought to exist. Giant waves as high as 30m (98ft) struck the Research Ship Discovery for nearly 12 hours.
Measured from trough to crest, these waves were the highest ever measured by scientific instruments in the open sea.
Whale sighted in Firth of Forth
Unusually, a humpback whale has been spotted in the Firth of Forth.
The whale was spotted thrashing about in shallow waters around a quarter of a mile off Belhaven Bay, near Dunbar. A dog-walker reported it to the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick and members of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue team, but by the time they reached the spot, the whale it had freed itself.
This sighting follows that of a fin whale, the world’s second largest creature, near North Berwick and an unidentified large whale off the coast at Dunbar.
Only one other sighting a humpback whale has been reported in recent years - that was three years ago - though minke whales are quite common. The increase in sightings of whales is thought to be due to the warm weather and the increase in sand eels, which whales feed on.
Swordfish, bigeye tuna in nets
Fisherman Peter Dent found a Mediterranean swordfish thrashing about in his salmon net a mile off Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in Northumberland
The 6ft-long swordfish, which was following shoals of mackerel, was thousands of miles from its usual habitats. Fishermen cannot remember one appearing in the North Sea before.
Dent sold it to a local restaurant.
In the same week bigeye tuna was caught by a Penzance-based fishing vessel in the Atlantic - 70-miles off Land’s End and 2,000 miles from its usual habitat. A highly prized species of tuna, it is usually found off the coasts of Hawaii and Australia where it is generally preferred by discriminating purveyors of sashimi and sushi. Only the third bigeye tuna to be caught off British shores, the 40lb fish was sold for £90 to a fish dealer at Crowlas, on the Cornish coast.
Ireland
Leatherback’s 5,000m journey
When a leatherback turtle became entangled in lobster pots off the holiday resort of Dingle, County Kerry in southwest Ireland, she was rescued by a team from the local Oceanworld aquarium and scientists from University College Cork and the University of Wales, Swansea, who were able to fit a satellite tracking device to the turtle before she was returned to the Atlantic.
In the next eight months she swam 5,000 miles to the Cape Verde Islands, off west Africa. From Ireland, the turtle swam along the French coast towards the Bay of Biscay before turning round and zigzagging around off northwest Spain, suggesting that she had found a rich supply of jellyfish food. She then headed towards Madeira and the Canary Islands and on to off the Western Sahara and then off Senegal.
For almost three months the signals from the battery-operated tracking device stopped but somehow resumed to show that she had moved away from the African coast and was now heading north again, suggesting that she will not mate this year.
Lebanon
Catastrophe in Mediterranean
Israeli air strikes on the Lebanese power plant at Jiyyeh south of Beirut on July 13 and 15 have spilt up to 30,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Mediterranean Sea. This has created an ecological disaster that Lebanon’s government has neither the money nor the expertise to deal with, nor could it do anything while the air strikes continued.
“We have never seen a spill like this in the history of Lebanon. It is a major catastrophe,” Environment Minister Yacoub al-Sarraf told Reuters.
“The equipment we have is for minor spills. We use it once in a blue moon to clean a small spill of 50 tonnes or so. To clean this whole thing up we would need an armada ... The cost of a full clean-up could run as high as US$40-50 million.” The spill is especially threatening since fish spawn and sea turtles nest on Lebanon’s coast, including the green turtle which is an endangered in the Mediterranean, local ecologists say.
An Israeli warship that was struck by a Hezbollah missile on July 15 may also have spilled diesel oil into the sea.
Lebanon has asked Kuwait for help but the Israeli air and sea blockade in place since the war began on July 12 is hampering both the clean-up and the delivery of equipment.
The migratory season is over so seabirds should not be badly affected but July is hatching season for turtle eggs and baby turtle hatchlings need to reach deep water as fast as possible to avoid predators.
Tanzania
Coelacanths for dinner?
Due to poor catches fishermen have been trawling much deeper off Tanzania and have been catching coelacanths.
Asia
Reefs to recover in 10 years
A report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network claims that most coral reefs escaped serious damage from the 2004 tsunami and should recover from it in less than 10 years. A larger problem will be local government’s protection of marine ecosystems. Activities such as illegal dredging and building, blast and cyanide fishing, overfishing, bottom trawling and climate change are likely to have more effect on the future of reefs and mangroves.
The December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami hit rural, coastal communities in 12 countries, leaving at least 216,000 people dead or missing and more than a million homeless. Research found that reefs in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand were the most damaged, some as much as 30% in places.
Turtles were the animals most affected as they lost nesting sites in Thailand and India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, but they are beginning to find other beaches to nest on.
Philippines
‘State of calamity’
The island province of Guimaras has declared a ’state of calamity’ after what authorities think is the country’s largest major oil spill.
528,360 gallons of industrial fuel is leaking from the tanker Solar I, which sank in rough seas in the Panay Gulf between the central islands of Panay and Guimaras, about 500km (311 miles) southeast of Manila. Two of the 20 crew are still missing.
Regional environment chief Julian Amador said that 1,128 hectares (2,787 acres) of mangroves in Nueva Valencia and another 26 hectares (64.25 acres) on an island marine reserve have been damaged. 24 hectares (59 acres) of seaweed farms were also contaminated. The oil was about 10cm (four inches) thick at the Taklong Island marine sanctuary. Emergency food supplies have been distributed to residents of 11 coastal villages along 132km (82 miles) of shoreline where many families normally depended on fishing.
The local authorities have no way of reaching the tanker, which is more than 900m (2,953ft) underwater some 27km (16.8 miles) south of Guimaras. Officials have asked for equipment and specialist teams from Japan as well as a team from Indonesia to help manage the slick.
The international lobby group Greenpeace have urged the government to hold petroleum firm Petron and its partners ‘accountable’ for the disaster.
Sperm whale stoned to death
A dwarf sperm whale that was stranded in the shallow waters of Manila Bay died after local residents mistook it for a shark and stoned it.
Thailand
More tsunamis possible?
People living in the area hit by the December 2004 tsunami have been warned of more underwater disturbance. Between March 9 and March 11, 2006, over 30 earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 4.0 to 5.3 on the Richter Scale were detected along a fault line near the Andaman Islands, some 500km (300 miles) east of the southern Thai province of Ranong.
As this is unusual and a major eruption of underwater volcanoes could trigger a tsunami that would damage Thailand, people are advised to be careful.
Clownfish protected
Clownfish (anemonefish) are to be listed as protected species in Thai waters under a new regulation to be issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
They will be one of 110 fish species protected under the new regulation on environmental protection zoning, which covers six Andaman coastal provinces: Krabi, Phangnga, Phuket, Ranong, Trang, and Satun.
The number of clownfish found in the wild has dropped considerably due to collecting and poaching since one was shown in the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo.
Refuse trucks make reef
189 old refuse trucks previously used in Bangkok have been dumped off Thailand’s southern coast to form an artificial reef that attracts fish for local fishermen. The trucks were dropped into the Gulf of Thailand, about 5.5km from the southern province of Pattani.
Under a project initiated by the Queen of Thailand in 2002, everything from concrete pillars to old railway wagons have been dumped at 47 sites in the waters off southern Thailand, attracting about 43 species of fish compared with only 15 species before. |
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