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French Former Champion Bodyboarder Missing

SAINT-PAUL, Reunion Island -- Mathieu Schiller, age 38, former champion bodyboarder, was reported missing and presumed dead after being attacked by a shark off the island of Reunion. The latest attack is the second deadly shark encounter at Boucan-Canot, a top tourist beach on the island, and fourth overall off Reunion since the beginning of the year.

Schiller, the head of a surf school, was attacked in the mid-afternoon while he was in the water with several other surfers. Local police said a red flag was present at the time of the attack, warning bathers to stay out of the water.

Witnesses to the attack managed to put the victim's body back on his board, but a wave swept it off. "The attack was devastating", said one witness. Shortly after the attack, rescuers searched the area with boats, jet-skis and a helicopter, but the victim was not found. "There is little hope that he is alive", commented one of the authorities on the scene.

The shark attack is the fourth occurrence since the beginning of the year on the island, the second fatal, said the police. Local authorities met after the attack and announced "immediate steps to prevent further tragedies." Authorities announced a ban of water sports within 300 meters of a posted red flag. The local authorities also suggested the removal of all tiger, bull, mako sharks from the area.

by Underwatertimes.com News Service - September 20, 2011

Just 4 Percent....

Image via Wikipedia

PALO ALTO, California -- Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales, according to researchers at Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Their findings were published in the Aug. 16 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Of the 129 species of marine mammals on Earth, including seals, dolphins and polar bears, approximately one-quarter are facing extinction, the study said.

"It's important to protect marine mammals if you want to keep the ocean's ecosystems functional," said study co-author Paul Ehrlich, professor of biology and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. "Many of them are top predators and have impacts all the way through the ecosystem. And they're also beautiful and interesting."

Mapping marine mammals

To pinpoint areas of the ocean where conservation could protect the maximum number of species and the ones most vulnerable to extinction, the researchers overlaid maps of where each marine mammal species is found. Their composite map revealed locations with the highest "species richness" – the highest number of different species.

"This is the first time that the global distribution of marine mammal richness has been compiled and presented as a map," said co-authors Sandra Pompa and Gerardo Ceballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "The most surprising and interesting result was that all of the species can be represented in only 20 critical conservation locations that cover at least 10 percent of the species' geographic range."

The researchers identified the 20 conservation sites based on three main criteria: how many species were present, how severe the risk of extinction was for each species and whether any of the species were unique to the area. The scientists also considered habitats of special importance to marine mammals, such as breeding grounds and migration routes.

Nine key sites

It turned out that preserving just nine of the 20 conservation sites would protect habitat for 84 percent of all marine mammal species on Earth, the scientists found. That's because those nine locations have very high species richness, providing habitat for 108 marine mammal species in all.

These nine sites, which make up only 4 percent of the world's ocean, are located off the coasts of Baja California in Mexico, eastern Canada, Peru, Argentina, northwestern Africa, South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the study reported.

The researchers also looked at how pollution, local climate disruption and commercial shipping overlapped with species richness in or near the nine key sites. "At least 70 percent of the richness areas coincide with regions highly impacted by humans," said Pompa and Ceballos. "This is powerful information that obliges us to enhance marine conservation."

Factoring in other impacts, such as overfishing and global climate change, would likely reveal even more negative effects on the nine conservation sites, the authors said.

"The next 2 billion people we're going to add to the planet are going to do much more damage to the ocean than the previous 2 billion did," said Ehrlich, president of the Stanford Center for Conservation Biology. "Humans reach for the low-hanging fruit first, so to speak, but for the ocean that's gone now."

Unique creatures

While nine of the conservation sites harbor numerous marine mammal species, the remaining 11 sites boast species found nowhere else. Preserving these areas is important, because species that live exclusively in one place may be at especially high risk for extinction, the authors said. For example, the critically endangered vaquita, or gulf porpoise, lives only in the upper northern Gulf of California, and only a few hundred individuals remain, the researchers noted.

"We need to conserve what's left of the biota of the planet, both on land and in the sea," said Ehrlich. "We need to know where the biodiversity is before we can take many of the necessary steps to conserve it. This is just a start on the mammals of the sea."

Boy Bitten by Shark - Holden Beach

HOLDEN BEACH, NC (WECT) – Holden Beach Police report that a boy, 10, was bitten by at shark in the water at around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday. 

According to the child's father, the victim was bitten while in 3-4 feet of water in the mid 500 block of Ocean Boulevard West. He felt something bite his foot in the water, and then made his way to shore, revealing a bite wound to the heel of his foot. 

Holden Beach Police, Brunswick County EMS, and Emergency Responders from Tri-Beach Fire Department responded to the scene within minutes, and Brunswick County EMS transported the victim to Brunswick Community Hospital. 

The victim's father has updated police on the boy's condition. He said his son is out of surgery and is in stable condition and had a long road of recovery ahead.

The Town of Holden Beach called this "an isolated, chance occurrence." 

Hidden Baja Undersea Park

ScienceDaily (Aug 13, 2011) - A thriving undersea wildlife park tucked away near the southern tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula has proven to be the world's most robust marine reserve in the world, according to a new study led by researchers at Scrips Institution of Ocanography at UC San Diego.

Results of a 10-year analysis of Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP), published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE journal, revealed that the total amount of fish in the reserve ecosystem (the "biomass") boomed more than 460 percent from 1999 to 2009. Citizens living around Cabo Pulmo, previously depleted by fishing, established the park in 1995 and have strictly enforced its "no take" restrictions.

"We could have never dreamt of such an extraordinary recovery of marine life at Cabo Pulmo," said National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala, who started the study in 1999. "In 1999 there were only medium-sized fishes, but ten years later it's full of large parrotfish, groupers, snappers and even sharks."

The most striking result of the paper, the authors say, is that fish communities at a depleted site can recover up to a level comparable to remote, pristine sites that have never been fished by humans.

"The study's results are surprising in several ways," said Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher, World Wildlife Fund Kathryn Fuller fellow and lead author of the study. "A biomass increase of 463 percent in a reserve as large as Cabo Pulmo (71 square kilometers) represents tons of new fish produced every year. No other marine reserve in the world has shown such a fish recovery."

The paper notes that factors such as the protection of spawning areas for large predators have been key to the reserve's robustness. Most importantly, local enforcement, led by the determined action of a few families, has been a major factor in the park's success. Boat captains, dive masters and other locals work to enforce the park's regulations and share surveillance, fauna protection and ocean cleanliness efforts.

"We believe that the success of CPNP is greatly due to local leadership, effective self-enforcement by local stakeholders, and the general support of the broader community," the authors note in their report.

Strictly enforced marine reserves have been proven to help reduce local poverty and increase economic benefits, the researchers say. Cabo Pulmo's marine life recovery has spawned eco-tourism businesses, including coral reef diving and kayaking, making it a model for areas depleted by fishing in the Gulf of California and elsewhere.

"The reefs are full of hard corals and sea fans, creating an amazing habitat for lobsters, octopuses, rays and small fish," said Brad Erisman, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the article. "During some seasons thousands of mobula rays congregate inside the park and swim above the reef in a magnificent way."

The scientists have been combining efforts to monitor the Gulf of California's rocky reefs every year for more than a decade, sampling more than 30 islands and peninsula locations along Baja California, stretching from Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Angel de la Guarda to Cabo San Lucas and Cabo
Pulmo south of the Bahia de La Paz.

In the ten years studied, the researchers found that Cabo Pulmo's fish species richness blossomed into a biodiversity "hot spot." Animals such as tiger sharks, bull sharks and black tip reef sharks increased significantly. Scientists continue to find evidence that such top predators keep coral reefs healthy. Other large fish at Cabo Pulmo include gulf groupers, dog snappers and leopard groupers.

"I participated, back in the 1990s, in the studies for the declaration of the marine park. Frankly, we decided to go ahead because the community was so determined but the place at that time was not in good environmental health," said Exequiel Ezcurra, Director of theUniversity of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and co-author of the article. "If you visit the place now, you cannot believe the change that has taken place. And all of it has occurred thanks to the determination of a community of coastal villagers that decided to take care of their place and to be at the helm of their own destiny."

"Few policymakers around the world are aware that fish size and abundance can increase inside marine reserves to extraordinary levels within a decade after protection is established; fewer still know that these increases often translate into economic benefits for coastal communities" said Aburto-Oropeza.

"Therefore, showing what's happened in Cabo Pulmo will contribute to ongoing conservation efforts in the marine environment and recovery of local coastal economies."

Personal note:  This article proves that we still have time to turn our oceans around.  That if we act now we can have healthy oceans again, with an abundance of fish, corals, and other worthy sea animals.  Sure, it takes time, work, effort, and a backing community, but the point is it is not too late...YET!  One day, it will be too late and then what?

Plettenberg Bay Shark Attack

A 49 year old surfer was killed on 23 August 2011 by a shark in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. 

The man, who surfing website Wavescape identifies as Tim van Heerden, was attacked by an unknown breed of shark on Lookout Beach.

According to reports, the attack happened at Keurbooms River Mouth. Despite paramedics’ attempts to resuscitate him at the beach, he later died in hospital.

Wavescape writes that eye witnesses said the shark looked like a “small” great white and that the man was pulled out of the water by a fellow surfer, identified as Charles Reitz.

My personal note:  This story took my breath away when I saw the title. Does it really say Plettenberg Bay, South Africa??!!  The answer is yes! For most of you readers Plettenberg Bay is just another city where another shark attack has occurred.  However, for me this city is so much more than a city…it is a place that I called home for a brief period in my life.

In 2004 I conducted my undergraduate research in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa.  I was conducting scientific research at Lookout Beach and was daily in these waters.  Not to mention one of our work stations was at the mouth of Keurbooms River.  I know these waters, swam these waters, and collected data on the sharks in this area.  Yes, of course I knew sharks were in this area – I was there and saw them with my eyes, collected data on them, but I never feared them, however, today’s story reminds me that attacks do happen EVERYWHERE, even places I called “paradise”.