This article is a guest post by ODU undergradaute Ben Maxie. Ben works in the Barshis Lab and studies the evolution of stress tolerance in corals and other organisms. The 2010 BP Deep-water Horizon oil spill was an environmental tragedy of immense magnitude. Five million barrels of toxic crude oil were leeched into the … Continue reading
If you’re reading this blog, you have probably heard of the issue of overfishing. In sum, our appetite for seafood has grown larger than what the ocean can supply, and this ravenous demand has resulted in plummeting fish stocks. In fact, it has been estimated that we have reduced the populations of large ocean fish … Continue reading
Have you ever heard of the Pitcairn Islands? Answer: Unless you’ve read or seen Mutiny on the Bounty (based on real events), probably not. Well, they are a small group of islands in the middle of the Pacific about halfway between New Zealand and South America. Earlier this month, the British government turned these tiny … Continue reading
As a coral biologist/physiologist, the ethics of specimen collection for scientific research has been on my mind since day one. We do a lot of destructive sampling in this field. In order to make physiological measurements on a coral, the organism most often be sacrificed. I have seen many a freezer full of collected coral … Continue reading
Are the oceans a limitless resource? No. Clearly not, but we still have policies intact that treat them as such. We are overfishing down the food chain. Blue fin tuna is worth a small fortune and we dredge the deep sea to catch a fish called the Patagonian Toothfish to sell at market. Perhaps you … Continue reading
An article posted late last night on the NYT website reports that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, an independent Australian government agency whose purpose is to protect the Great Barrier Reef, has approved the dumping of 3 million cubic tons of sediment and dredging mud within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (a UNESCO … Continue reading
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that the government of Western Australia has decided to pursue a shark cull. The government supported program allows for the killing of sharks in Western Australian waters, including threatened Great Whites. There have been reports of people shooting sharks, but most of the culling will be done be baiting … Continue reading
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