SEE Turtles in Bahia Magdalena

Ive just returned from Magdalena Bay, Baja California filming and participating in a new effort linking eco tourists with local people who are working in a grass roots conservation efforts. Matching gringos with local pangeros, SEE Turtles is introducing resources, enthusiasm and attention on the plight of declining sea turtle populations and degradation of the Bahia. Home to turtles, mangroves and visting Gray Whales, the bay is experiencing increasing human impacts both from industrial outfall and from increased fishing pressure from areas that have been exhausted.
To counter these impacts, local fisherman Julio Solis and his Vigilante Bahia Magdalena- a part of the International Waterkeepers Alliance - are raising local awareness on the beauty and fragility of the Bay. The VBM efforts include water sampling, public awareness and advocacy and helping protect the turtles, mangroves and others sensitive wildlife of this ecologically significant bay.
A slide show on part of the expedition.

For more information go to see.turtles.org & Magdalena Bay Keepers
http://www.propeninsula.org/window/1/8.html

Videos will soon be up on seastewards.org

LA Times: Is Scientist taking great white shark research too far?

The first question is why is this in the sports section??


The answer is yes! Media is useful and even essential for funding research, but not when it places endangered species in a Sanctuary at risk. As Peter Klimley says "the benefit exceeds the risk." With a career of working with sharks, he should know.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/11/great-white-shark-research.html

Tell Your Senator to Protect Sharks!

Shark populations are crashing around the world. Help protect sharks before it's too late.

Tomorrow at 10am, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 - a bill that would end the barbaric practice of finning sharks in U.S. waters. Urge your Senator, a key member of this committee, to support the bill.Urge Your Senator to Protect Sharks »
Tell your Senator to support the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 and end shark finning in US waters.


http://takeaction.oceana.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=23
Take action now and tell your Senator to pass the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 »
Sharks have been swimming in the world's oceans for more than 400 million years. And, some shark populations have now declined by as much as 99% in the past 35 years.

This spells trouble for our oceans because many shark species are apex predators and help keep our seas in balance. The oceans would just not be the same without sharks.
Ask your Senator to vote yes on the Shark Conservation Act »

The Shark Conservation Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year, will put a stop to shark finning in U.S. waters by requiring that sharks be landed with their fins attached. The committee votes on the bill tomorrow at 10am and it's vital that your Senator support the bill in order to keep shark populations healthy for generations to come.

Tell your Senator that you won't stand for anything less than full protections for sharks »

PS. Once you've taken action, make sure to pass the link along to your friends and family.

Letter to the Santuary Managers Protesting MCSI Methods

To Irina Kogan,
Permit Manager
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

Im writing regarding the recent collecting and tagging of white sharks in Sanctuary waters by Dr. Michael Domeier and his team.
As a strong supporter of the Sanctuary and white sharks, I believe that research is important for understanding and managing sharks. Thanks to satellite tagging efforts, we are discovering that these sharks are traveling thousands of miles and back again, crossing borders and international waters, aggregating with Guadalupe sharks at an offshore location and performing remarkably deep dives.
Tagging white sharks is exciting work and makes for good film, but is the method employed by Michael Domeier by hooking white sharks, fighting them to fatigue them and then pulling them aboard harming the sharks more than revealing anything more than the standard tagging methods? Capturing a large shark on a hook and line is stressful to the shark, and it is unknown what the adverse effects of this are on the animal. A 4000 pound shark is not a striped sea bass or even a marlin and likening the impacts as analogous is specious. Aquatic animals like sharks and whales are evolved to have their bodies supported by a fluid medium. Transferring an unsupported aquatic animal to a ship puts stress on internal organs and the animal itself.
We know that there are pregnant white sharks at the Farallones and that placing an endangered animal at risk while pregnant is not a responsible management practice.
Using standard tagging methods such as those used at Guadalupe Island by Dr. Domeier and MCSI has contributed to our understanding of sharks. Why alter an accepted methodology to hook a shark and pull it aboard? Does the improved tagging and work up really benefit science or is it harming the sharks the Sanctuary is charged to protect?
The National Geographic TV team makes for exciting media. Speaking as a shark conservationist and filmmaker this smells like more like media promotion than pragmatic scientific methodology.
The efforts of local researchers such as Scot Anderson and Salvador Jorgensen at the Farallones, Peter Klimley's Lab at Tomales and the Block Lab and Sean Van Somerman at al of PSRF at Ano Nuevo have revealed important new information regarding the movements of these mysterious predators. The tagging methodology employed by these investigators does not create the stresses or risk of physical harm faced under the new methods employed by Dourmeir et al.
It is disturbing to learn that part of a hook has been left in one shark, and one of the tagged sharks has left the island after being released.
In the first year of implementing new rules to protect white sharks in our National Marine Sanctuary it is difficult to understand how this researcher employing a methodology beyond the normally accepted practices received a permit without the peer review of researchers who have studied this population for 15 years.
Sea Stewards is appealing to the Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuary to suspend the permit and discontinue this activity until a proper assessment of the hooking, capture and onboard work ups of white sharks is made, or that best acceptable practices are agreed upon in advance of permitting.

Thank you for your consideration,

Shark is the New Dolphin

A Huffington Report blog by friend and Colleague David Helvarg

Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 12:24:29 PM | David Helvarg
I recently attended a "Sharktober Fest" at San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay where Sherman's Lagoon cartoonist Jim Toomey was given a shark protector award. Groups in attendance included the pro-shark 'Sea Stewards' and 'Dorsal Friends.' Last month, the President of the Pacific island nation of Palau went in front of the U.N. to announce the creation of the world's first "shark sanctuary," banning all commercial shark fishing in its 230,000 square miles of water, an area about the size of France.

CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, has given protection to three species of shark: Great Whites, Whale Sharks and Basking Sharks and will consider six more, including the less charismatically named Spiny Dogfish at its meeting next year. In February 2010, the U.N. Convention on Migratory Species will be sponsoring a gathering in the Philippines aimed at establishing a global agreement on the conservation of sharks. And just as environmentalists campaigned in the 1990s to guarantee dolphin safe tuna, two groups recently formed to certify "shark safe" restaurants that can still serve tuna as long as they leave sharks unharmed.

In the midst of this new shark makeover I've even seen footage of two advocates who free dive, touch and ride tiger sharks and white sharks to demonstrate that they aren't really "man-eaters." Since one of them is a woman even if she's eaten her supporters might still argue sharks aren't "man-eaters."

Having swum with bull sharks, hammerheads and other big predators, I tend towards the more cautious advocacy of naturalist author Ed Abbey who used to say, "If there's not something bigger and meaner than you out there it's not really wilderness." Of course the odds are unfairly stacked. Every year some five to eight humans are killed by sharks, worldwide, while we kill 100 million of these sleek, slow-growing carnivores emptying the seas of sharks just as we once emptied our terrestrial frontier of wolves and bears.

Going back over 450 million years sharks were well established when dinosaurs were still the coming thing. And yet in the last fifty years about half the world's shark species have become endangered at the hands, nets and hooks of humans -- even as science is discovering that, like the big land predators, sharks tend to act as keystone species for maintaining the balance of life in a range of ocean habitats.

Much of today's commercial killing is for shark fin soup, a tasteless cartilage dish flavored with chicken broth and seasoning and popular among China's expanding middle-class as a status symbol of wealth. Its served at weddings and other special occasions and often goes for $150 a bowl or more.

The late "Jaws" author Peter Benchley, who went on to become a shark conservationist, once contrasted his youth on Nantucket Island, when you couldn't haul in a swordfish without a shark taking a chunk out of it, with today's rapid decline of the large predators. He recalled a dive off Costa Rica where he found the bottom littered with dead sharks whose fins had been cut off to sell for soup.

Sharks are also killed for meat and shark liver oil, although you can get the same health benefits by listening to your mother and eating your dark green vegetables. So while I believe a global moratorium on commercial shark fishing would be both right and justified in terms of maintaining marine diversity and ocean health, I'm opposed to anthropomorphizing sharks as sleek but harmless swimming buddies, a misunderstood breed of toothsome Flippers.

Unfortunately that boat may have already left the dock as I discovered some years ago. I was helping release a pair of relatively docile nurse sharks off Key Largo that had been raised in a Chicago pet shop until they grew too large for their tank. Having been flown cross-country in large coolers we had to form a circle in the near shore water to revive them before their release from a dive boat.

As I guided the first shark through the water, I noticed its skin felt more like raw silk than sandpaper and could feel its jet-lagged muscles beginning to work beneath the skin as it tried to move away from the circle. I firmly directed it back along the line. Shark wrangling could seem Macho I thought except for the fact that Sky, a 7-year-old blond pixie in a blue wetsuit was now hugging the other animal. "No hugging the shark, you have to pass her along," the girl's mother gently chided her.

Like I said, Shark is the new Dolphin.

Hooking White sharks at the Farallones Responsible Science?

White sharks are controversial. Some people hate them, many who will never have any contact with a shark have an irrational fear while others are feral about protecting white sharks. Studying sharks is not simple, especially large sharks like the white shark. The efforts of local researchers such as Scot Anderson with PSRF at the Farallons, Peter Klimley's Lab at Tomales and the Block Lab and PSRF at Ano Nuevo have revealed important new information regarding the movements of these mysterious predators. Thanks to sattelite tagging efforts, we are finding that these sharks are traveling thousands of miles and back again, crossing borders and international waters, aggregating with Guadalupe sharks at an offshore location and performing remarkably deep dives.
Gone is the illusion that white sharks are local.
A new controversy has risen from the depths of our misunderstanding and its likely that the blood slick created by media hype will cloud our reason. Tagging white sharks is exciting work and makes good film but is the method employed by Michael Doumeier by hooking white sharks, fighting them to fatigue them and then pulling them aboard harming the sharks more than revealing anything new using the methods of tagging the shark in the water? The marine mammal world knows that pulling animals from their medium stresses them. Aquatic animals like sharks and whales are evolved to have their bodies supported by a fluid medium. Playing a shark on a hook and line is stressful to a shark, and it is unknown what the adverse effects of this are on the animal. A 5000 pound shark is not a striped sea bass or even a marlin and likening the impacts as analogous is specious.
We know that there are pregnant white sharks at the Farallones and that placing an endangered animal at risk when pregnant is not a responsible management practice.
Using similar tagging methods as the aforementioned researchers at Guadalupe Island Michael Doumier and MCSI has contributed to our understanding of sharks. Why alter the methodology to hook a shark and pull it aboard? Does the improved tagging and work up really benefit science or is it harming the sharks ther Sanctuary is trying to protect?
Accompanied by a National Geographic TV team the activity makes an exciting story. Speaking as a shark conservationist and filmmaker this smells like more like media hype than pragmatic scientific methodology.
In the first year of implementing new rules to protect white sharks in the National Marine Sanctuary it is difficult to understand how this activity received a permit without the peer review of reserchers who have studied this population for 15 years.
Sea Stewards is appealing to the Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuary Managers to discontinue this activity until a proper assesment of the hooking of white sharks is made.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/iteam&id=7122288

Got Fish? California- Fish Need Fresh Water.

Call Your Assembly Member and State Senator Today



After two incomplete hearings in which the majority of the proposed 14 bills covering Delta legislation were not publicly vetted (or later ammendments) , Restore the Delta has learned that the State Assembly and Senate may be calling for votes on the Delta water package and Delta water bonds on Monday, November 2, 2009.



We need you to call your Assembly and Senate Representatives first thing Monday morning to express your opposition to the proposed legislation. (You can look up their phone numbers this weekend and call them on your way to work Monday).



Here are 10 reasons why your representative should oppose the Steingberg Water Package, and all its potential ancillary bills, as well as the bond proposals.



1) The purported environmental benefits in SB x7 1 and SBx7 4 hinge on unfunded programs and unstaffed planning processes. There is no identified funding for the Delta Conservancy or the Delta Protection Council. Without identified funding, the restoration projects and consistency processes intended for Delta health will fall
behind the construction of facilities in the Delta paid for by beneficiaries. This repeats a cornerstone failure of CalFed. This creates a real risk of the infrastructure and water supply projects proceeding without environmental gains.




2)There is no assurance that a permit for any future Delta facility will accommodate the instream flow needs of fish. Public trust criteria are not proven tool for ensuring dedicated water for the environment Experienced water lawyers disagree whether the creation of public trust criteria compel the State Board to base apermit for a future Delta project on the public trust.



3)The bond allows public funds to be spent on required mitigation or necessary compliance with environmental regulation. Existing law requires beneficiaries to pay for those activities. This is a massive cost shift to taxpayers.



4) The Delta Stewardship Council holds no fee authority to carry out its mandate. Delta communities, most impacted by this legislation, would not have adequate representation.



5)The Delta Plan is not required to reduce state dependence on the Delta. The objectives for the Delta Plan do not include reducing state reliance on Delta exports. SB x7 1 only states that it's an intent of the state to reduce dependency.


6) The bill lacks sufficient oversight of the BDCP. The Council lacks the authority to ensure the project does not cause greater harm to the fragile Delta ecosystem.


7) One-third ($3 billion) of the SB 7x 2 funds above-ground storage, which is the least efficient way to increase water supplies.



8) Less than 3% of the funds in the bond would be dedicated to disadvantaged communities most in need of safe drinking water.



9) The proposed water conservation package lacks the enforceable goals needed to achieve 20% conservation by 2020.



10) A $9 billion bond will cost taxpayers about $600 million a year for 30 years. The state's debt service on bonds already authorized by the voters will grow to about 10% of the state's budget and will contribute to more state funding cuts for public safety, health, education, and environmental protection have been slashed to the bone. And the Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that the state will see $10 to $15 billion deficits each year until 2014. Even if a bond is delayed until 2015, we will just be at the beginning of financial recover and should not be piling up more debt.



There is one bill they should vote for however!



Delta Area Assembly Member Alsyon Huber, along with co-sponsor Senator Lois Wolk, have introduced AB 13 7x. This bill would require lawmakers to sign off on any canal, and it would require the Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal adviser, the Legislative Analyst, to put together an economic feasibility study of the potential project. We commend Assembly Member Huber and Senator Wolk for pulling this piece of legislation together.



Tell your representatives to support AB 13 7x.