December Seawords by Marine Option Program

Seaw rds The Marine Option Program Newsletter

December 2012

4 “ The industry can only be stopped if the demand for shark finning ends- a simple enough statement until the reality of just what exactly else shark fins are used for is taken into consideration. ”

6 “ One could say that this school has a unique commitment to the environment and the ocean ”

GYOTAKU STYROPHOBIA DIY HOLIDAY RECYCLED CRAFTS

December

2012

From Octoober 24, 1984 Seawords

Page 3: Gyotaku Page 4: Opinion Piece: Shark Documentaries Page 6: UH Manoa Surfrider Fights Styrofoam Page 9: Generation Blue Page 10: Ocean Poetry Page 12: Critter of the Month Page 14: Roaming Whales Page 15: Seawords Flashback Page 16: Seahorse Trade

Cover Photo: This month’s cover photo is courtesy of UHM MOP Student Dieter Stelling. Stelling also took the photo of this month’s critter, featured on page 12. Back Photo: UHM MOP

Seawords

Volume XXVI, Number 12, December 2012 Editor: Naomi Lugo Assistant Editor: Jessi Schultz Dr. Cynthia Hunter (éminence grise) Seawords- Marine Option Program University of Hawai‘i, College of Natural Sciences 2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall 105A Honolulu, HI 96822-2219 Telephone: (808) 956-8433, Fax: (808) 956-2417 E-mail: <seawords@hawaii.edu> Website: <http://www.hawaii.edu/mop/> Seawords is a monthly newsletter of the Marine Option Program at the University of Hawai‘i. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Marine Option Program or of the University of Hawai‘i Suggestions and submissions are welcome. Submissions may include articles, photographs, art work, or anything that may be of interest to the marine community in Hawai‘i and around the world. All photos are taken by MOP unless otherwise credited.

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UHM MOP John Coney/UHH MOP

UHM MOP

GYOTAKU. A traditional Japanese art form; Gyotaku is a form of fish printing dating back to the 1800â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Real fish were used by UHM MOP students on Nov. 4 as they created their own Gyotaku art.

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Do Documentaries Shed a Light on Shark Finning?

Article and page layout by: Kathryn Lam, UHM MOP Student John Coney/UHH MOP

Many readers may be familiar with the documentary, The Cove, highlighting the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. However, a lesser-known documentary, Sharkwater makes a similar point about sharks.

countries, including the United States. However, as the demand for shark fin soup is high, the market is still there and reaches even the most remote corners of the world.

Shark finning is a multibillion dollar industry, bringing in an estimated $300 or more per pound of dried fin. The process of shark finning is gruesome. It involves cutting the fins off of sharks and often times tossing them back into the sea- still alive, where, unable to swim, they sink to the bottom and, according to sharkwater.com, are “eaten alive by other fish.”

A documentary shown in University of Hawai‘i’s Hawaiian Studies 107 course called the Sharkcallers of Kontu, shows exactly how this industry is kept alive. No longer able to support themselves or their kids because of the introduction of modern technology, the men of Kontu collect shark fins and sell them to a Chinese merchant in town for money. These fins will most likely end up sold as a bowl of soup that cost $100 or more. Due to the high price of a single bowl of soup, shark fin soup is generally served as a dish of honor at Chinese wedding banquets or other special occasions.

Why aren’t people disgusted by this practice? If people were cutting the legs off of dogs and cats on the street in the same way, people would be up in arms. However, sharks are not portrayed as people-friendly animals. Shark attacks make the news worldwide, instilling and keeping this fear of a man-hungry beast alive. When fear is involved, people often become irrational. Not only that, but the fins are valued as an essential ingredient in shark-fin soup, and in many countries are used in traditional cures. Specialists estimate that“100 million sharks are killed annually for their fins.” So, fear and greed are what then must lead to the prosperity of the shark finning industry. However, there is one other hitch. What some people don’t know is that shark finning has been banned in many Seawords, December 2012 Page 4

The industry can only be stopped if the demand for shark finning ends- a simple enough statement until the reality of just what exactly else shark fins are used for is taken into consideration. Sharks are believed by many to have special healing powers such as the ability to regrow their fins and to never get cancer. Unluckily for sharks, this idea of a practically immortal shark is what causes fisherment to toss them back into the water to die. Their dried fins are then ground into powders and other so-called

Opinion medical remedies claiming to prevent cancer or other ailments.

promotion of shark preservation are helping to spread the word. This is important because as Rob Stewart, the creator of the documentary Sharkwater, says:

The fishermen who fin sharks and the workers whose job it is to clean, dry and sort the fins are only a small amount of the population contributing to the decline of these creatures. The public who is unaware of this tragedy also contributes as they unknowingly purchase the fins and other shark fin products.

“Shark populations have been decimated all over the world and the last sharks were being hunted down in the few remaining sanctuaries. Nobody noticed. Everyone wanted to save pandas, elephants., and bears. And the world was afraid of sharks.”

Websites such as happyheartslovesharks.org are ways the get people to start thinking about changing their actions. The website lets couples who don’t serve shark fin soup at their weddings enter for a chance to win a free honeymoon. As wedding banquets may servea many bowls of soup, this organization is saving at least a few sharks from the horrors of the dinner table. Groups like this who offer compensation for the

Sharks are essential to human survival. Seventy percent of the earth’s oxygen comes from the ocean. It’s a food chain; sharks eat fish who eat organisms producing this oxygen. Without sharks the amount of oxygen produced by the ocean will deacrease. Sharks have been portrayed as the villians for far too long, it is worth the time and effort to change public opinion on them.

Photos: National Geographic

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Styropho

UH Mānoa Surfrider’s campaign to eliminate styrof

Matthias Keller UHM MOP Studen Expanded polystyrene, otherwise known as EPS foam or styrofoam, has been used extensively in society since its invention in the 1950’s. While this material serves a number of purposes and is useful in many daily activities, it has also been proven harmful to human health and the environment. Here at UH Mānoa, polystyrene products have been widely used at on-campus dining locations for decades. The UHM Surfrider club is urging Bale, Jamba Juice, Panda Express, and L & L Hawaiian

Surfrider Foundation

This advertising campaign by the Surfrider Foundation showed various bits of collected marine debris from North American beaches. This one features “styrofoam bites.” During its manufacturing, polystyrene products contribute greatly to greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. The harmful chemicals in EPS leach into the products that it comes into contact with. Further, what makes the use of polystyrene products unsustainable is that discarded polystyrene does not biodegrade for hundreds of years and vast majority of EPS foam and polystyrene products cannot be recycled through public service recycling programs. This can lead to their pollution in the oceans, where they continue to leach dangerous

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The styrophobia campaign also sells biodegradable prod featured above.

chemicals. Polystyrene contains the toxic substances Styrene and Benzene. These suspected carcinogens and neurotoxins that may be hazardous to human health and may harm organisms living in the ocean. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, recognized the health risks present in use of this product when they listed styrene as a hazardous chemical in Proposition 65 – the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. The basis for the listing of styrene in Prop 65 was

that it was proved to be a female repr toxin. Regardless of this discovery, go agencies have determined that polyst safe for use in foodservice products. The Sodexo company at UH Māno already adopted policies to provide b postable containers, utensils, and plat dining locations. The Sustainability C at UH has prohibited use of styrofoam non-compostable products at its food locations (Da Spot & Govinda’s). Bale compostable sugar cane bowls for sal Alternative plant-based products t

obia

OCEAN UPDATES

foam use on campus

nt & Doorae Shin, UHM Student BB, to end use of polysterene and styrofoam products on campus through petition because of its negative effects on the environment and on our health. UHM Surfrider is a club on campus for surfers and everyone else who is concerned about the state of the ocean. The club has environmental film screenings and hosts beach cleanups to promote awareness among other events.

Star-Advertiser

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or many years now, a theme at the University of Hawai‘i Mānoa campus has been sustainability. One could say that this school has a unique commitment to the environment and the ocean since this issue has great importance when living on an island over 3,000 miles away from the nearest continental landmass. The production and concept of polystyrene conflicts with this idea of sustainability as it is produced using petroleum, a finite resource on this planet. Polystyrene products are generally manufactured for short-term use, and the reusing of EPS foam makes it more prone contamination.

safe for our health and environment are available, accessible, and affordable. For the welfare of the environment and the health of the students and faculty, we, the student body, call upon these companies to take responsibility by ending the use of polystyrene products and replacing them with biodegradable ones. The UHM Surfrider club will be creating a petition to get rid of EPS foam products on campus, and hopefully make a positive impact for the ocean by alleviating some ocean pollution.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Meat Eating Sponge The harp sponge (pictured above) was recently spotted in the deepocean off of Monterey Bay, CA. The invertebrate was initially discovered in 2000 with the use of a remotely operated vehicle. Although it was discovered over

a decade ago, this sighting was the first one in person. Scientists were then able to collect two sponges and observe 10 others by video. The sponge feeds by catching small animas like crustaceans and trapping them in barbed hooks that are on the sponge’s limbs. Afterwards the prey is digested using a thin membrane. The species lives about 2 miles below the surface, the one photographed was found at 11,500 feet.

Moby Dick Returns Dan Fisher, a British maritime engineer spotted an all-white humpback whale, and capture it on photo and film. The whale was seen off the coast of Norway. The cause of it’s pigmentation, or lack their of, is due to albinism. Only two other white whales have been believed to be observed in the wild.

Dan Fisher/treehugger.com

Fisher named the rare whale Willow. Video of the whale can be found by clicking here.

Emergency Response: Goby A new study published in the journal Science suggests that corals send out a distress signal to Joao Paulo Krajewski/ herbivorous fish when National Geographic they sense a threat from toxic seaweed. The goby has a symbiotic realtionship with coral, and were the fish obeserved. Scientists set up a series of experiments to help explain the relationship between the goby, coral, and toxic seaweed. They moved the seaweed to touch the coral, and after a few minutes two species of gobies responded and would remove the seaweed from the coral.

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UHM MOP

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GEN ERA BL TION

Actions for the Ocean

THE OCEAN SPANS OVER 70 PERCENT OF OUR WORLD. It is responsible for regulating temperature, food production, sustaining numerous marine species, and is a source for inspiration among multiple other things. The ocean gives us so much and it is time for us to return the favor and take actions to make the ocean ecosystem healthy again. Almost every action that we take affects the ocean in some way. Our everyday choices can be tailored to support a healthy ocean. Here are some examples of green acts that will keep the ocean blue.

Holiday Edition: DIY Recycled Crafts From December 11, 1987 Seawords

Make your own recycled gift tags Take old ocean magazines or pictures and cut them into a tag shape. To make your tags more solid, cut out the same shape from a thin piece of recycled cardboard and paste the two together. This craft will help recycle those piles of ocean and science magazines you have laying around, and personalize your gifts.

The ocean: Lava lamp style 3 simple ingredients, tutorial can be found here. Reuses plastic bottles and captures the imagination. Turn old denim into a whale If you’ve got some old denim jeans or shirts, what better to do with them than to trun them into a whale! The full tutorial for making the whale pictured can be found by clicking here. It’s is a different language, but there are very helpful photos alongside the text. If you’re feeling extra creative, make your own whale from scratch! We’re sure whoever receives this gift will adore it just because you made it.

If you have a suggestion for a green act, email us at seawords@hawaii.edu with subject line Generation Blue to submit your idea. Dieter Stelling/ UHM MOP

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Hallucinations

Sometimes the night falls like a wet flower too heavy to stand, The stars I wish upon start burning, Candles I hold dancing for hours until the wax drips down between, The frame of fragile ribs, the white coral starving where we can’t see, There’s no one to call, no souls to unite, Just for one second. I drive Myself crazy but then the ocean is there, Inside my head and all around the rock. When I close my eyes her vastness is there, looking back at me. When I close myself in solitude, it’s the chaos that needs to be quieted. There are hallucinations of a salt water kiss to cool the fire, Caught in a drops of rain, you, my Ocean. Maybe if I can be anywhere and everywhere at once, I can always be seated where the water meets land. Foam reaches the body which encases me, glassy, and it recedes, Back to the mother’s womb, back to the blueness, back to night. I’m hungry for that sublime blue, But still in my dark room, the imagination functions like a drug, That helps you escape. And if I could be anywhere, I’d stand by the ocean and watch it waver, And explode like a thousand white feathers. The sapphire sweeps through these ancient dreams, Still caught in my body but a world away. They told me to shake the dreams of coral and escaping from my hair, Focus on the ocean, its the meditation to save, to rise above fear. Where home is where you stand with eyes open and closed, except the disregard of reality. Seawords, December 2012 Page 10

Ocean Poetry: Jessi Schultz, Assistant Editor

The Great Blue Cat

Land dweller with big dreams, The blue facets are pathways to some unknown heaven. The ocean I can hear it now Mellow purring, like a tired old cat that I once knew Her footsteps were soft, But could bring downCastles of sand, Paw prints washed away on shore, Whiskers full of salty dew drops, Hiding truth like an opalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guiding Light, Refracted lighthouse cat on the water, RainbowMy vast Calico. I can hear her now, Meandering around an island of souls, Who let water take them in. She is love and grace and solitude. No lanterns, just the light of her yellow eyes, The jewel of the alwaysReturning footsteps. Sinking in the sand, conscious of losing ourselves. Seawords, December 2012 Page 11

Critter of the Month Seawords is starting a new segment which will feature marine critters seen and photographed by MOP students. Send your critters to seawords@hawaii.edu to be featured and be sent an issue of Seawords in color and a MOP sticker. This month’s critter photo is by UHM MOP student Dieter Stelling.

Green Sea Turtle Scientific name: Chelonia mydas Pacific Island names: honu (Hawaiian), haagan (Chamorran), laumei ena’ena (Samoan) Hawaiian green turtles are distinct from other green turtles and are the most common turtle species found in Hawaiian waters. The green turtles are protected under Hawai‘i state state law and the Endangered Species Act. However, the sea turtle’s status as endangered is currently under review. Dec. 28th is the 39th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.

To submit photography, send an email to seawords@hawaii.edu

The Roaming Killer Whale

Jessi Schultz, Assistant Editor

Jeff Kuwabara/UHM MOP

ff the coast of Anchorage, Alaska there is a man named John K.B. Ford who is studying a species of North Pacific killer whale that eats warm-blooded animals, like seals, sea lion and sometimes seabirds. They are now known as “transients” due to the fact that they roam all the way up to the Arctic Ocean, unlike the “resident” whales that like to stay close to home. Because of this difference in character and prey, Ford and other colleagues have set out to declare this whale a new species. They are even fighting for a new name for the species - Bigg’s killer whale, in honor of Michael Bigg whose research led to the identification of these transient whales. These creatures still mystify scientists as to why they travel and others do not. More work and research regarding Bigg’s observations is still underway. In 1977, Bigg was reassigned to other marine mammals to investigate, yet he kept searching for answers on why some killer whales were outcasts from the families of orcas that stayed in close range of one

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another. These whales were found to be mammal-eaters and also, do not interbreed with the stationary orcas. Geneticist Philip Morin, one of 14 researchers collaborating with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said in an article from the Underwater Times, “The evidence suggests that the transients in particular are quite different than everybody else and probably shared an ancestor about 700,000 years ago.” Scientists and researchers have been working to analyze differences in evolutionary divergence among various types of killer whales. As research progresses, the scientists will observe molecular data, behavioral signs, acoustic communication, and descriptions of killer whales around the world.

Calendar of Events at UH Sea Grant’s Hanauma Bay Education Program

hbep.seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/

Marine Science in East O`ahu ***Presentations take place in the theater of the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, beginning at 6:30 p.m. every Thursday evening***

Decamber Events Movie Month December 6, 2012 Kilauea: Mountain of Fire – A film produced by Nature in association with National Geographic

December 13, 2012 Voyage of the Lonely Turtle – A film produced for PBS by Nature

December 20, 2012 No Program: Breaking for the holidays

hawaiipacificparks.org

December 27, 2012 No Program: Breaking for the holidays

For more information or questions please contact: Hanauma Bay Education Program 100 Hanauma Bay Rd. Honolulu, HI 96825 Phone: (808) 397-5840 Email: hanauma@ hawaii.edu http://hbep.seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/

allmovie.com

FLASHBACK: 2003

Artwork by Elena Millard from the June, Aug., and Dec. 2003 issues of Seawords. The featured species are the; Lactoria fornasini (above), Hippocampus bargibanti (right), and Nautilus belauensis (far right).

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FIRST VIDEO OF THE WEST AFRICAN SEAHORSE REVEALS SEAHORSE TRADE

Photos: National Geographic/ Zoological Society of London

Naomi Lugo, Editor

Click the picture to see the video he rare West African Seahorse was captured on video by researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in October of this year.

Researcher Kate West took the video of the elusive creature of the coast of Senegal. It was the first video ever taken of the species.The video offers a rare chance to study to study the seahorse, however the video also lends itself to another purpose. The ZSL’s Project Seahorse in partnership with Imperial College London and the University of British Colombia is investigating the West African Seahorse trade. “It’s shocking that so little is known about the the West African seahorse when the amount of trade officially documented is in excess of a tonne,”said West on Seawords, December 2012 Page 16

the ZSL website. Project Seahorse has found a rise in seahorse trade in recent years, with about 600 thousand seahorses exported annually. The ultimate goal of the project is to make the seahorse trade sustainable. Seahorses are considered a flagship species, and their protection the ZSL believes will lead to broader marine conservation.

DECEMBER

MOP & Community Events

Sun.

Mon.

Tues.

Wed.

Thurs. Fri.

Sat.

1 Deadline Maritime Archaeology Papers UHM MOP

UHM Surfrider Table at Campus Center 5th & 6th

Last Day of Instruction

MOP Graduation 4:30 -7 pm (@ Mﾄ］oa)

15 Mid-year Commencement

First Day of Winter

39th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act

See you next year! Seawords, December 2012 Page 17

University of Hawai`i at Mﾄ］oa Seawords, Marine Option Program College of Natural Sciences 2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall 105A Honolulu, HI 96822-2219 Address Service Requested

Next Issue: Winter Issue, UHM MOP Spring Events