Needlenose

I wrote a post (currently missing from the site until I can get the ‘lost years’ reloaded) suggesting that we need to track all the various environmental insults to the ocean (e.g. warming, acidification, non-point specific run-off, eutrophication, overfishing, etc.) and chart (and map) the cumulative impacts to determine just how bad things have gotten.  It looks like the scientists are catching up to Needlenose, as you’ll note in this depressing report from a workshop on ocean stresses and impacts.  Cliff notes summary for the lazy:

• Oceanic warming & acidification are accelerating hypoxia (which, as you may recall is being caused by agricultural and sewage runoff)
• Decline of the ocean is as bad, or worse than the ‘doomsayers’ have been predicting
• The cumulative effects are worse than previously understood
• The cumulative stressors are reducing the ability of ocean life to adapt to the ‘big changes’ of warming & acidification
• Ecosystem collapse is well underway, accelerating and spreading
• We are running out of time to take useful action

But enough of this dreary talk!  Let’s go back to our ordinarily scheduled programming to cover more on Weiner’s weiner!

In the very beginning of the Judeo-Christian bible, God allegedly grants humanity

“…dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

And so it came to pass.  And speaking of creeping things that doth creepeth, it seems the creeps have inherited the Earth, creeps that seem intent to stomp every creeping thing over which they have dominion into extinction (and don’t forget the permanent snuffing the fowl of the air).

You’re probably wondering why I’ve decided to bum you out tonight.  I’m blue because of these new bummer tidbits, the massive die-off and looming extinction of nine species of shark due to the charming practice of ‘finning’ the poor critters for shark-fin soup while tossing the still alive but mutilated shark back into the ocean to effectively die slowly from blood loss and asphyxiation.

I can’t tell you how depressed I get knowing that over the course of my lifetime I’ve watched the biggest species die-off since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.  Except for a few modest successes (think a few species of whales, wolves, American bison), people world-wide seem driven to destroy as many habitats and species as rapidly as possible, whether through global warming, deforestation, desertification, strip mining, urban sprawl, polluting and increasing the acidity of fresh and salt water, overfishing, poaching and just polluting the air and land in general.  Is the game to see how many of them we can take with us before our fossil fuel runs out and civilization collapses?

In the case of creatures like pelagic sharks or other deepsea fish, we’re looking at the classic tragedy of the commons writ large.  Unless some modern day, environmentally-motivated Captain Nemo decides to take matters into his own hands, it’s pretty much all she wrote for these poor creatures.  Wouldn’t hurt to have some more (and less gentle) Bruno Mansers on land as well.

There might be a bit more hope for the poor vaquita which recently lost funds for protection due to the economic downturn.  Rather than watch it follow the Yangtse River Dolphin, perhaps a campaign funded by private donations run by a group such as the WWF could make up the shortfall?

The only thing that depresses me more than the actual mass extinction event underway is how people seem to care so little about it.