Video: Rescuing A Humpback From A Drift Net

I just came across great video posted by Gershon Cohen of fellow Great Whale Conservancy (Earth Island Institute) founder Michael Fishbach and friends saving a juvenile Humpback Whale caught in a drift net this past winter in the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez.

It's an abject lesson in the perils of even the most local of fishing practices, if it's carried out recklessly. That's no more than a few kilograms of monofilament webbing bringing down an animal that weighs tens of tons and is among the largest animals that's ever inhabited the earth.

Bravo to Cohen and Fishbach, and to others like them.

More Plastic People

I mentioned the Plastiki Expedition the other day, but Scripps is conducting its own voyage to examine the plastic waste problem in the Pacific, too.

It's called SEAPLEX (Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition).

Great Insights Into Fish Farming

While I was on the TED website ("Ideas worth spreading" and highly recommended), I came across this, a truly thought-provoking and entertaining meditation on sustainable practices in fish farming and the dilemma of a fish-lover...er, -eater.

Chef Dan Barber on "How I Fell In Love With A Fish," and how Spaniards could revolutionize fish farming. It seems so good, one wonders what the catch is.

The farm he's talking about, on wetlands at Veta La Palma, is an amazing endeavor.

'60 Minutes' Features Ocean Adventurer

Fans of geophysicist/adventurer and National Geographic "explorer in residence" Robert Ballard (of "Titanic" fame) will want to tune in to CBS on March 14. Says "National Geographic":

Best known for the discovery of RMS Titanic, Ballard has led more than 120 oceanographic expeditions. He located the wrecks of the battleship Bismarck, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, John F. Kennedy’s PT-109, the nuclear attack submarines USS Scorpion and USS Thresher, and numerous ancient ships in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. He also discovered and documented the extraordinary marine communities surrounding deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Ballard is certainly an entertaining guy, as this TED mini-lecture demonstrates. And a staunch advocate of ocean awareness and exploration.

'The Cove' Making Headway

There's a great collateral benefit to the Oscar for best feature documentary going to "The Cove."

Turns out the Oscar telecast is just about the only way (OK, OK, there's that Internet thing) that the Japanese public was going to hear about this project, which lifts the grisly shroud of secrecy on Japanese dolphin and porpoise slaughters.

I hope it boosts their "DOLPHIN" to 44144 text-messaging awareness campaign.

This is what director Louie Psihoyos would have liked to tell the global audience.

And here's a red-carpet interview with director Louie Psihoyos and star Ric O'Barry ahead of the ceremony:

'Kon-Tiki' For The 21st Century

Three cheers for banking family scion David de Rothschild and the crew and sponsors of the Plastiki Expedition. They embark this month on a San Francisco-to-Sydney sail aboard a vessel constructed of recycled plastic to draw attention to the catastrophic dumping of plastic and other junk. CNN:

The Plastiki's journey will spotlight current environmental issues. En route to Australia, Plastiki will sail through the infamous North Pacific Gyre, now home to "The Great Garbage Patch," named due to the high levels of waste that have been drawn there by ocean currents. Estimated to be around the size of Texas, this contaminated area of ocean has by some estimates more plastic than food for marine life.

"I was astounded to hear that that there are places in our oceans where the ratio between plastic and plankton is 6-to-1," de Rothschild told CNN, referring to the area.

CNN says two of "Kon-Tiki" skipper Thor Heyerdahl's grandchildren are taking part, which is appropriate given the similar audacity of this venture to the Norwegian adventurer's 1947 exploit.

Greenpeace has an amazing graphic called "The Trash Vortex" that shows the drift of that garbage that's clogging up our seas.

Egypt Does The Mediterranean A Favor

It's long been clear which side Egypt's bread is buttered on. The Red Sea side, with first-rate marine reserves like the legendary Ras Mohamed (pictured is an Arabian Picasso Triggerfish near the lighthouse at Ras um Sid).

But now Egypt's looking to spread the wealth in the form of a nearly 400-square-km marine park on its Mediterranean coast, at a place called the Gulf of el-Salloum. Says Reuters:

"Declaring this protectorate is a way to confront a host of environmental problems, such as soil degradation and coastal inundation, climate change and loss of biological diversity," [Egyptian Environment Minister Maged] George said in a statement, adding that the area was rich in natural resources.

The protectorate contains more than 160 migratory and local bird species, about 30 reptile and amphibian species and 10,000 to 12,000 marine species. Its creation should encourage scientific research on biological diversity in Egypt, he said.