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To coral reef-driven tourism industries like those of the Cayman Islands, there could be a greater cost in ignoring climate change than fighting it.
Ranked among the top 10 scuba diving destinations in the world, the reef system of the western Caribbean territory has lost 50 per cent of its hard corals in the last 10 years in spite of strong environmental laws, scientists say.
“We are at a very critical time in the history of coral reefs,” said Carrie Manfrino, president of the Central Caribbean Marine Institute on Little Cayman Island.
“It is like working with a sick patient. How well we treat that patient will determine if that patient survives. We could potentially see the end of hard coral reefs in our lifetime.”
The Caymans tourism industry, which represents about 50 per cent of the colony’s gross domestic product, was kick-started in 1957 when dive industry pioneer Bob Soto opened the first scuba diving operation in the Caribbean.
Fifty years later, about 2 million visitors arrive every year, with most either diving or snorkelling on famous sites like the North Wall or Stingray City.
The sport helped transform a sleepy territory of 8,500 people subsisting on fishing and seafaring into a luxury tourism destination and sophisticated offshore banking centre whose 52,000 people have the highest per capita income in the region.
A UN panel “ the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change“ has warned that the world must make sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid a rise in temperatures that could inundate islands and coastlines under rising seas, and kill off the world’s temperature-sensitive coral reefs.
In a report issued on Friday, the IPCC said keeping the increase in temperatures within 2degC would only cost 0.12 per cent of the world’s annual gross domestic product.
To Cayman residents who depend on tourism, that would be a small investment if it were enough to save the coral reefs.
Global warming is heating sea water, which leads to coral bleaching, an ailment that causes normally colourful corals to turn white, and white plague, a disease sweeping and killing coral around the world.
Another threat in the Caymans comes from cruise ships, which have damaged large areas of living coral with their anchors and chains, said Gina Ebanks-Petrie, director of the Cayman Islands Department of the Environment.
Yet cruise ships are an important and growing part of the Caymans’ tourism industry. Thirty-six per cent of tourist revenue comes from 1.7 million cruise ship passengers who visit each year, and more ships are making the islands a port of call.
Even with a 50 per cent decline in hard corals, Caymans’ reefs are still considered among the healthiest in the Atlantic.
Scientists say the islands are geographically isolated by surrounding water 1,830 metres deep, which minimises the impact of pollution from other countries.
The Marine Conservation Law passed in 1986 established the marine park system and has played a key role in protecting Caymans’ reefs. But Ebanks-Petrie said it has struggled to adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions.
The dive industry worries that without a coral reef, the Cayman Islands will not have anything different to offer tourists than the rest of the Caribbean.
Manfrino said hope is not lost.
“We can’t give up,” she said.
“Science is always coming up with major discoveries, so we may find a way to save our reefs.”
SOURCE - Stuff
British dive equipment manufacturer Apeks has announced a recall on a batch of first-stage regulator yoke clamp screws.
RECALL To all Apeks Customers.
There maybe a potential problem with the yoke clamp screw on any yoke clamp type regulator with the serial number starting from 7010001 - 7053528. All Apeks dealers and distributors have been made aware of this issue.
Please return your yoke clamp screw to your nearest Apeks dealer for inspection, do not dive with the regulator until it has been inspected. If it is not possible for you to return the yoke clamp screw for inspection, then please contact Apeks Customer Service Department for assistance.
Apeks apologizes for any inconvenience this recall might cause. We are dedicated to making the world’s best diving products and to ensuring diver safety at all costs. This solution is the only reasonable course of action.
For more information phone the Apeks office on +44 (0)1254 692200 or see the company website www.apeks.co.uk.
Spain has broken relations with a US treasure-hunting company it had allowed to search for a sunken British warship in the Strait of Gibraltar over suspicions that it has illegally exported a coin treasure found in Spanish waters, the daily El Pais reported Thursday. Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration says the treasure was found in international waters and imported legaly into the United States.
Odyssey had been authorized to search for the British warship HMS Sussex, which sank in 1694. The Spanish government says the company did not have permission to extract any objects on board.
Instead, Odyssey announced the discovery of another shipwreck which contained more than 500,000 silver and gold coins. The treasure is estimated to be worth half a billion dollars (370 million euros).
Spain feels the company has not given sufficient information about the operation, and suspects the wreck could be Spanish or in Spanish waters, in which case Madrid could claim the treasure.
Odyssey says it does not yet know the nationality of the wreck.
The government was investigating all the movements of Odyssey’s two vessels over the past 20 days, Culture Minister Carmen Calvo said. The ministry has also requested information from the United States and Britain about an alleged Odyssey flight from Gibraltar and its cargo.
Spain has cancelled the permission to Odyssey to search for the Sussex, and does not intend to cooperate with the company again, the report said.
The search for the Sussex was based on an agreement between the US company and the British government, which would have allowed Odyssey to keep a part of the treasure of gold coins believed to be on board.
An estimated 400 shipwrecks lie in the Strait of Gibraltar alone, and Spain is wary of treasure-hunters who could loot them for commercial purposes.
Odyssey accused Spain of contradictory behaviour, saying the Spanish authorities had not even contacted the company, nor sent Spanish archaeologists to watch over the search for the Sussex as had been agreed.
SOURCE - CDS
Coral disease outbreaks have struck the healthiest sections of 
And then there were four… Here’s the scenario: three sharks are in a tank, all three are female and all were captured when they were sexually immature babies. They spend three years in the tank together without ever coming in contact with a male. Then, one day, a baby shark pops up.
The sharks are hammerheads, living in an aquarium at
For many years, different theories were argued over. Perhaps one of the females had been inseminated by a shark from another species? Or maybe she had been inseminated before she was captured? Female sharks do have an organ that allows them to store sperm, but a three-year storage would have been unprecedented.
What is more, sex between sharks tends to be rather rough and females are usually left with marks as a result of this. But none of the three females from Florida Keys had any marks on them when they were captured.
Still, the insemination theory was considered “because it was even more difficult to imagine asexual reproduction in a shark,” says Paulo Prod of Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
DNA evidence
Prod is part of a team of researchers which has determined “beyond doubt” that one of the females did reproduce asexually to produce the mystery pup.
The team, led by Demian Chapman of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science in the US, used a DNA fingerprinting technique similar to that is used in human paternity tests. Initially, this was to determine which of the three females was the mother.
In offspring that are produced sexually, half the DNA comes from the mother and the other half from the father.
So, seeking evidence of the father, they then subtracted the mother’s contribution from the offspring’s DNA. “In this particular case, after we subtracted the mother’s DNA, there was nothing left,” says Prod. “It was fantastic!”
The researchers were forced to conclude that the pup had no father, making it the first documented case of asexual reproduction in cartilaginous fish. Sadly, the remarkable specimen later died, apparently killed by another fish in the aquarium.
Decreasing diversity? The discovery leaves mammals as the only vertebrates not known to be able to reproduce asexually outside of the lab.The researchers believe the hammerhead shark reproduced by a type of asexual reproduction called atomistic parthenogenesis, whereby an unfertilised egg is activated to behave as a normal fertilised egg by a small, nearly genetically identical cell known as the sister polar body.Because the unfertilised egg and the polar body both contain only half of the mother’s genes and the same half not only did the pup not get any genes from a father, it also only got half of its mother’s genes.
The researchers believe this restriction of genetic diversity could be detrimental to the survival of endangered shark species if female hammerhead sharks switch to asexual reproduction when they are having trouble finding a mate.
Less genetically diverse populations are less able to adapt to changes, such as disease or the changes to their habitat brought about by global warming.
“In some regions shark populations are declining by more than 90%,” says Prod. “Over time, if that continues and increases the incidence of asexual reproduction, then that might worsen the decline of the sharks.
Source. Scientific America
Photos by  Clair Nouvian
When, more than 70 years ago, William Beebe became the first scientist to descend into the abyss, he described a world of twinkling lights, silvery eels, throbbing jellyfish, living strings as “lovely as the finest lace” and lanky monsters with needle like teeth.
It was stranger than any imagination could have conceived,” he wrote in “Half Mile Down” (Harcourt Brace, 1934). “I would focus on some one creature and just as its outlines began to be distinct on my retina, some brilliant, animated comet or constellation would rush across the small arc of my submarine heaven and every sense would be distracted, and my eyes would involuntarily shift to this new wonder.”
Beebe sketched some of the creatures, because no camera of the day was able to withstand the rigors of the deep and record the nuances of this cornucopia of astonishments. Colleagues reacted coolly. Some accused Beebe of exaggeration. One reviewer suggested that his heavy breathing had fogged the window of the submarine vessel, distorting the undersea views.
Today, the revolution in lights, cameras, electronics and digital photography is revealing a world that is even stranger than the one that Beebe struggled to describe. The images arrayed here come from “The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss” (Chicago Press, 2007), by Claire Nouvian, a French journalist and film director. In its preface, Ms. Nouvian writes of an epiphany that began her undersea journey. “It was as though a veil had been lifted,” she says, “revealing unexpected points of view, vaster and more promising.”
The photographs she has selected celebrate that sense of the unexpected. Bizarre species from as far down as four and half miles are shown in remarkable detail, their tentacles lashing, eyes bulging, lights flashing. The eerie translucence of many of the gelatinous creatures seems to defy common sense. They seem to be living water. On page after page, it is as if aliens had descended from another world to amaze and delight. A small octopus looks like a child’s squeeze toy. A seadevil looks like something out of a bad dream. A Ping-Pong tree sponge rivals artwork that might be seen in an upscale gallery.
Interspersed among 220 colour photographs are essays by some of the world’s top experts on deep-sea life that reflect on what lies beneath. For example, Laurence Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes the violence that air and gravity do to creatures without internal or external skeletons when they are pulled up to the deck of a ship, obliterating their varieties of form and function.
“This unattractive jello-like mass,” he writes, “is the unfair land version of amazing and delicate creatures that can display their true beauty only in their natural watery environment.” The photographs in the book right that wrong, and not just for jellyfish. One shows a dense colony of brittle stars, their arms intertwined and overlapping, their masses in the distance merging with the blackness of the seabed, alive, inhabiting a place once thought to be a lifeless desert.
Craig M. Young of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology writes in the book that the diversity of life in the abyss “may exceed that of the
Amazon Rain Forest and the Great Barrier Reef combined.” Beebe, who ran the tropical research department at the New York Zoological Society, surely had intimations of what lay beyond the oceanic door he had opened. “The Deep” brings much of that dark landscape to light, even while noting that a vast majority of the planet’s largest habitat remains unexamined, awaiting a new generation of explorers.
Source:- New York Times
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HONOLULU (AP) - Environmental groups sued the US Navy on Wednesday to compel steps they believe would protect marine mammals when sailors use sonar to practice submarine hunting off Hawaii. The groups want the court to prohibit naval sonar exercises near Hawaii until sailors adopt mitigation measures to protect marine mammals, citing studies saying Navy sonar can kill, injure, or significantly alter the behaviour of whales and dolphins.
The suit says the US Navy plans a series of up to 12 anti-submarine warfare exercises off Hawaii through next year. Earth justice sued in federal court in Honolulu on behalf of five groups, including the Ocean Mammal Institute and the Animal Welfare Institute. Paul Achitoff, the lead Earth justice attorney for the case, said that other organizations were challenging anti-submarine warfare exercises in other areas but that this was the only case seeking to force the US Navy to change how it conducts drills off. A US Navy spokesman said the service was complying with all applicable laws and regulations, adding that sailors have used active sonar in two undersea warfare exercises in the islands since January without incident.
We go to great lengths to minimize any potential effects on marine life through the use of protective measures and make every effort to safeguard marine mammals when exercises are conducted, said Jon Yoshishige, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The lawsuit also names the National Marine Fisheries Service, which awards permits to the US Navy to carry out underwater exercises.
Jim Lecky, director of the office of protected resources at the Fisheries Service, said his organization was working with the Navy to finish environmental studies governing anti-submarine warfare exercises. The US Navy last year decided for the first time to seek federal permits to use sonar in exercises. Until the studies are completed, the Navy has agreed to post more lookouts on ships to watch for marine mammals, Lecky said. The US Navy also has agreed to turn off its sonar when marine mammals get too close.
During some exercises, the US Navy uses airplanes to look for whales from the air, Lecky said. Achitoff argued those measures don’t do enough to protect marine mammals. He said posting lookouts won’t protect whales that dive for long periods and can be affected by sonar while they’re underwater. The environmental impact statements for sonar drills should be finished before the US Navy conducts the exercises, he said.
Scientists say sonar may mask the echoes some whales and dolphins listen for when they use their own natural sonar to locate food. Navy sonar may also startle some species, in particular beaked whales, prompting them to rush to the surface. There’s evidence that this gives them a form of bends, the decompression sickness human divers get when they surface too fast.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study said the US Navy’s use of sonar contributed to the beaching of 16 whales and two dolphins in the Bahamas in 2000. Eight of those whales died, showing haemorrhaging around their brains and ear bones, possibly because they were exposed to loud noise.
Source: www.kval.com
So just how did the explorers find one of the most lucrative shipwreck sites of all time? First things first, this venture had nothing to do with luck…
A 17th Century shipwreck with a fortune in gold, silver and jewels has been found in the Atlantic Ocean, most probably off the Cornish coast. The haul made by treasure hunters from an American company called Odyssey Marine Exploration is likely to make more than $500m (£253m).
It took months of painstaking research, dozens of dedicated crew members, a needle-in-a-haystack type search and several millions pounds to recover one of the largest coin collections ever salvaged. An almighty task, but to those in the world of shipwrecks, pirates and treasure troves, this was their El Dorado.
Seabed Scan
Shipwreck expert Richard Larn, of Shipwrecks UK, said the explorers would have probably spent an entire year researching the ship to find out exactly what it carried, to whom it belonged and to whom the cargo belonged. They would also consider how accessible a ship which sank seven leagues under the sea near Land’s End could be.”They would then draw a huge circle around the spot and double it, and then start ‘mowing the lawn’,” he said. This involves travelling up and down a 100-or-so mile channel, turning around and then moving several yards across before heading back. In the meantime, a multi-beam side scan sonar would bounce signals down to the seabed to show signs of lumps which could indicate a shipwreck. A magnetometer would be towed by the ship to detect any anomalies in the usually straight lines of the earth’s magnetic field which can be diverted by ferrous metals that can be found in cannons or shipwrecks. Behind the leading ship would be sister ship, called into action if there is a hit. It would then take co-ordinates and lower an underwater robot into the sea in a bid to salvage treasure. Mr Larn said at 800ft down, the wreck was not beyond diving, but beyond “economic diving”.
Finders keepers.
The cost of the whole operation is likely to have run into millions. Odyssey have not put a figure on their costs, but Mr Larn suggested a two-year search, a crew of 80 and the running costs of two huge ships could have been at least £50,000 a day. As a commercial company, there are huge costs to recoup. So while it is mainly a case of “finders keepers”, Odyssey needed to be sure that as much of the haul as possible would remain theirs.
Critically, the coins were taken to the US. Had they been brought into the UK, the Receiver of Wreck would have impounded them until ownership was decided which could take years. Lawyers will have been alerted to deal with any claims to ownership. As some experts believe the wreck to be the Merchant Royal, an English ship carrying stolen Spanish treasure which sank in 1641, claims could be made by Spain or the British government.
And what of the ship and its treasure?
Odyssey has been very secretive about the recovery, saying it is important to limit speculation about the wreck’s identity and the value of the haul. But on its website it says more than $33m was made from another recovered shipwreck, the SS Republic, lost in 1865 off the US coast. It says the coins from this latest wreck will be sold off to collectors, with a sample of the different varieties of coins sold for study and display purposes. And there may still be more to come.
The site says another major excavation may reveal more coins and a “large number” or artefacts. But in the meantime, is there a danger that others may raid the treasure trove? Mr Larn thought it unlikely. “It’s in very deep waters. You won’t find it easily,” he warned any prospective bounty hunters
Source BBC
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An extraordinarily diverse array of marine life has been discovered in the deep, dark waters around Antarctica.Scientists have found more than 700 new species of marine creatures in seas once thought too hostile to sustain such rich biodiversity.
Groups of carnivorous sponges, free-swimming worms, crustaceans and molluscs were collected.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, could provide insights into the evolution of ocean life in this area.
Dr Katrin Linse, an author of the paper and a marine biologist from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said: “What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment.
“Finding this extraordinary treasure trove of marine life is our first step to understanding the complex relationships between the deep ocean and distribution of marine life.”
New to science
The research formed part of the Andeep (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity) project, which is the first comprehensive study of Antarctic marine life.
It is designed to fill the “knowledge vacuum” that surrounds the fauna that inhabit the deeper parts of the Southern Ocean.
During three research expeditions that took place between 2002 and 2005, an international team collected tens of thousands of specimens from the Weddell Sea, from depths of between 774 and 6,348m (2,539-20,826ft).
The samples were taken from diverse settings, including the continental slope, the abyssal plain and channel levees.
The researchers found the area to be teeming with lifeforms; well over 1,000 species were recovered, and many were completely new to science.
The research, which uncovered creatures such as this Ctenocidaris, formed part of the Andeep (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity) project. It is the first comprehensive look at marine life in these waters..
For example, they spotted 674 species of isopod (a diverse order of crustaceans), most of which had never previously been described; more than 200 polychaete species (marine worms), 81 of which were found to be new species; and 76 sponges, 17 of which had previously been unknown.
Lead author of the paper, Angelika Brandt, who is based at the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum, University of Hamburg, Germany, said: “I initiated the Andeep project because such a vast area of the Southern Ocean had never been explored.
“We thought we might find some novel species, but previous research had suggested deep-sea diversity this far south would be poor, so we were very surprised to find such enormous diversity.”
The findings could help to shed light on the evolution of ocean life in this area, Professor Brandt told the BBC News website.
By comparing the species that are found in the deep-sea and those found in the shallower waters surrounding Antarctica, scientists will be able to better understand how climate and the environment these animals live in drove past evolutionary changes.
Source BBC
A British study suggests the world’s threatened coral reefs might be helped by establishing marine reserves.University of Exeter researchers demonstrated how marine reserves might help in the recovery of corals, which are suffering effects of climate change and over-fishing.
The research was conducted at The Bahamas’ Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, one of the largest marine reserves in the Caribbean.
The team found the number of young corals doubled in areas in which native fish, such as parrotfish, were protected. The scientists discovered the reserve enabled young corals to survive marauding seaweeds by plentiful numbers of parrotfish living in the reserve.
Lead researcher Professor Peter Mumby of the University of Exeter said the findings are the first evidence that marine reserves benefit coral.
“These findings illustrate the need to maintain high levels of parrotfishes on reefs in order to give corals a fighting chance of recovering,” he said.
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.