Tag archives for marine
iLCP Photo Expedition to Document Cradle of Marine Biodiversity
Posted by International League of Conservation Photographers on March 15, 2013 
“Long term and meaningful conservation success really is only possible if NGOs and photographers work together – very often also working with scientists. If you can get those three sectors working together, you’re pretty much a non-stoppable force.” Thomas Peschak, Conservation Photographer and iLCP Fellow The International League of Conservation Photographers has pulled together an…
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Over the past 20 years, scientists have been assembling compelling data that show the world’s oceans are in deep trouble. Once-abundant species are disappearing, habitats are being destroyed, and fisheries are collapsing across the globe (Jackson et al. 2001, Lotze et al. 2006). For example, studies estimate that biomass of tunas and billfish have decreased…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: An Exceptional Mission
Posted by erinhirota on March 8, 2011 Comandante Andres Rodrigo, commanding officer of the Comandante Toro, shares his thoughts on the Chilean Navy’s first patrol of the new marine park surrounding Salas y Gómez and on hosting a civilian expedition team aboard his ship. Chilean Navy Comandante Andres Rodrigo scans monitors on the bridge of the OPV Comandante Toro. By Ford Cochran…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Locating an Island Via Satellite
Posted by erinhirota on March 7, 2011 Marine ecologists use a new satellite image of Salas y Gómez and existing imagery of Easter Island to plan their dives and plot their data–and to correct long-standing cartographic errors in the placement of the former island. Alan Friedlander imports a high-resolution satellite image of Salas y Gómez into the GIS on his laptop and…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Enric Sala Answers Your Questions
Posted by erinhirota on March 7, 2011 Marine ecologist and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala takes a break from diving around Salas y Gómez Island to answer your questions. Are you guys taking necessary precautions so as not to affect the marine life in any way? Yes absolutely. Our objective is to study the natural behavior of marine life, so we do…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Marine Protection for Rapa Nui
Posted by erinhirota on March 6, 2011 Oceana’s Alex Muñoz Wilson and National Geographic’s Enric Sala met this afternoon with Rapa Nui community representatives on Easter Island to discuss their ambition to create a marine protected area off the island’s only town, Hanga Roa. In time, such a park might restore some of the abundance recalled by long-time Easter Island residents and…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Last Day in the Marine Park
Posted by erinhirota on March 5, 2011 Today was our last day at Salas y Gómez before returning to Easter Island. We have spent only six days at this little island but already it feels like home. We first dived here wondering what its underwater world was like; now we leave feeling part of it. A rainbow greets the dive team at…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: To Motu Motira Hiva
Posted by erinhirota on March 4, 2011 For days, we’ve dived around Salas y Gómez and stood on deck, staring at its rocky, surf-swept contours. Much as we wanted to explore it above the waterline, a landing looked reckless, if not impossible. Michel Garcia had done it before, years ago, and thought it could be done again. He found a way. The…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: How to Tag a Shark
Posted by erinhirota on March 3, 2011 Colleagues and marine biologists Alan Friedlander and Jim Beets of the University of Hawaii have brought satellite tags to track the wanderings of Salas y Gómez’s Galapagos sharks. Before they can tag them, they have to catch them, a days-long undertaking that requires teamwork, experience, patience, chum, quick reflexes–and a little luck. (Kids, don’t try…
Salas y Gómez: The Need for Protection
Posted by erinhirota on March 2, 2011 The Salas y Gómez expedition team awoke this morning to find a commercial fishing boat with lines in the water in sight of the Chilean Navy’s patrol ship–no more than a mile or two from the island and well within the marine park’s no-take zone. Chilean sailors boarded the boat and found illegally caught yellowfin…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Sharks, Stars, and Empanadas
Posted by erinhirota on February 28, 2011 From a Chilean Navy ship just off the remote Salas y Gómez Island in the South Pacific, marine ecologist and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala reports that the sharks are becoming less timid as they grow accustomed to multiple visits daily from expedition team divers. The expedition crew gathers for empanadas, a Chilean Navy tradition…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: Dropcams Scan the Depths
Posted by erinhirota on February 27, 2011 Eric Berkenpas with National Geographic’s Remote Imaging team has brought along three dropcams–glass spheres with lights and video cameras inside designed to descend to the bottom, film, and return to the surface. Their purpose on this trip–to record deep-water creatures and environments near Salas y Gómez. I spoke with Eric about how the cameras work,…
Salas y Gómez Expedition: The Sunken Cathedral
Posted by erinhirota on February 26, 2011 The team continues to explore at Salas y Gómez, including diving at a spectacular site south of the island where the reef evokes a gothic cathedral. Lobsters and coral abound, but big sharks and other large fish are less prevalent than expected–suggesting something may have happened here to reduce their numbers. Waves crashing against rocks…
Salas y Gómez: Tiny Speck of Land in a Vast Ocean
Posted by erinhirota on February 25, 2011 After a 20-hour crossing, we arrive at the tiny, rocky speck of land that is Salas y Gómez Island. We drop cameras in transparent spheres to probe the depths, don masks, tanks and fins for our first dive into the waters of Chile’s remote and spectacular new marine park. Salas y Gómez Island By Enric…
One Man Down, We Set Out for Salas y Gómez
Posted by erinhirota on February 24, 2011 Aboard the Chilean Navy vessel Comandante Toro, the expedition team sets out from Easter Island for the storied Salas y Gómez Island. Before departing, we lose legendary underwater cameraman Manu San Félix to–of all things–a broken toe! Manu resting his broken toe By Enric Sala Today is an exciting and sad day. Our underwater cameraman,…
A Rapa Nui Welcome
Posted by erinhirota on February 24, 2011 Alex Muñoz Wilson, Executive Director of Oceana in Chile, discusses the encouraging meetings he and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala have had with Rapa Nui officials at the outset of the expedition, as well as the extraordinary work they’re doing with the Chilean Navy. Chilean Navy vessel Comandante Toro By Alex Muñoz Wilson Yesterday we…
Easter Island: Where Are the Fish?
Posted by erinhirota on February 22, 2011 Marine ecologist and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala reports that during his initial dives at Easter Island, he saw some of the healthiest coral communities anywhere, but practically no fish. Corals fluorish beneath the clear blue water off Easter Island, but the team saw no lobsters and no large fish on Enric Sala’s first day…
Expedition Near Easter Island, Chile
Posted by erinhirota on February 20, 2011 National Geographic and Oceana scientists, in collaboration with the Chilean Navy, are traveling to their next expedition location–the remote Salas y Gómez Island, some 200 miles (about 323 km) east of Easter Island, Chile, where they will discover what lies beneath these largely unexplored waters. Their backs to the sea, enormous figures called moai carved…
Mission Blue: The Wake-Up Call
Posted by Ford Cochran on January 11, 2011 Aboard ship in the Gulf of Mexico, ecologist and author Carl Safina of Stony Brook University’s Blue Ocean Institute talks with Sylvia Earle about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its aftermath. “It was a wake-up call,” says Carl, “and I hope we don’t hit the snooze button because it will happen again. There are…
Mission Blue: Second Successful Team Dive in the Dual Deepworker
Posted by erinhirota on January 9, 2011 Though foiled by weather mere seconds before a planned sub launch on their morning attempt to dive together, executive director of the Harte Research Institute Larry McKinney and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle persevere, and the effort pays off: They complete a successful shallow-water dive off the Florida coast in the dual Deepworker sub–the second…
Mission Blue: Grim Forecast Sends Medusa Ashore
Posted by erinhirota on January 8, 2011 After two journeys to the bottom of the sea and back, a grim marine weather forecast–60-knot winds and 12- to 16-foot seas–for target deepwater drop sites forces the Medusa back to shore. The Medusa, back on deck after its second and final descent of the expedition. By EDIE WIDDER We’ve been WOW: Waiting On Weather.…
Mission Blue: Moments From Deployment
Posted by erinhirota on January 8, 2011 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and Harte Research Institute Executive Director Larry McKinney prepare for Mission Blue’s second Gulf dive in the Deepworker submarine, but rising winds and seas put the mission on hold mere moments from deployment. The duo shares their frustration with the uncooperative weather, and their determination to try again. Larry McKinney…
Mission Blue: Video Postcard–Into the Deep
Posted by erinhirota on January 8, 2011 A few days into the Mission Blue expedition to the Gulf of Mexico, oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle sends a video invitation: “Let us take you along as we venture into the deep, and come back with reasons for hope.” By SYLVIA EARLE Pensacola, Florida, with the research vessel Brooks McCall. I’m Sylvia…
Mission Blue: The Land of Oz
Posted by erinhirota on January 7, 2011 On the Survivors of the Spill expedition’s second attempt, we successfully deploy the Waitt Institute’s dual Deepworker sub in relatively shallow waters near the Florida coast. Moments after their safe return to the research vessel Brooks McCall, oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and ecologist Thomas Shirley describe the green “blizzard of life” that…
Mission Blue: Seafloor Dramas Unfold Before the Medusa’s Eye
Posted by erinhirota on January 7, 2011 On our second full day at sea, the Mission Blue: Survivors of the Spill team departs Roughtongue Reef for quieter waters near the head of the submerged Desoto Canyon. We drop the marine observatory Medusa to the bottom for the second time. Edie Widder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association discusses what Medusa sees…
