Scubaism

The Environmental Protection Agency is warning bush fishermen in the Channel Country in Western Queensland to stop using illegal drum nets that kill native turtles, as well as catch fish.

Scientists carrying out research along the Coopers Creek near Windorah have found large numbers of dead short-necked turtles inside the drums being used by anglers. The turtles swim into the drums for the bait and drown when they cannot escape.

Biodiversity officer Darren Fielding recommends people fish with rod and reels - not drums. “At a local waterhole one drum net could kill off 100 turtles at once, because they’re quite big drums and the turtles could fit in there,” he said. “So with one drum net you could really make an impact on the turtle population.”

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This is the amazing story of Mark Chenoweth who has been strapped to a wheelchair for 10 years because spina bafida affected both his legs. But after a dive, was able to walk temporarily.

The deeper he gets, he says, the longer he is able to walk. After the first dive to 17 metres, he was able to walk unaided for three days.

After diving to 17 metres below the surface, Mark was brought to the boat.

As the instructors pulled him on board, he felt a bizarre sensation surging through his limbs. Shakily, he stood up—totally unaided for the first time since he was 12.

“I came out and I could feel my legs like I’d never felt them before,” Mark added. “They were actually working.

“The instructor couldn’t believe it. He’d seen me arrive in my wheelchair, and now I didn’t need it. I just stood up in the boat and shouted, ‘Look at this’.”

“I’ve found if I dive to 50 metres I can walk for about eight months.”At the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, where Mark has been treated over the last decade, doctors are baffled — as are colleagues worldwide.

Their only theory is that divers take in a richer mix of oxygen from their aqualungs than at ground level. That extra oxygen in Mark’s bloodstream might be having a temporary effect on the nerve cells.

“My case could have far-reaching implications,” Mark added. “If only someone knew WHY it happened.”

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The world’s first walking shark could be named after a global corporation, in an attempt to raise cash for wildlife conservation.

The right to name the shark and nine other newly discovered creatures is being opened up to businesses at auction this month. It is the first big sell-off of the right to create a name for creatures new to science, and will be hosted by Prince Albert II of Monaco. Businesses and individuals will be allowed to name the creatures after anyone or anything, even a product.

The names of new species are traditionally chosen by the people who discover them and usually highlight a physical feature of the specimen. An estimated 10 to 15 per cent are named in honour of a family member, a friend or someone whose work deserves recognition, such as Sir David Attenborough who has had an echidna named after him.

The ten species at the auction were discovered by the US-based Conservation International during a survey of Indonesian wildlife. Among them are the first walking shark — which has uniquely arranged pectoral fins for moving on coral reefs — a pipefish and a lionfish. If the suggested starting bids are achieved, the sale will raise more than $1.85 million (£900,000).

In 2004 a monkey discovered in Bolivia became known as the GoldenPalace.com monkey after the equivalent of £400,000 was bid by an internet gaming business. The monkey’s official name is Callicebus aureipalatii, the genus followed by a rough translation into Latin of “Golden Palace”.

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A California gray whale that was harpooned and shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state has died, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said.

Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said the whale disappeared beneath the surface in the evening, dragging buoys that had been attached to the harpoon, and did not resurface. A biologist working for the Makah Indian tribe declared it dead, Eggert said.

Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, Oswell said. The suspects could face civil penalties of up to $20,000 each and up to a year in jail, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Criminal prosecution under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act is rare, Gorman noted. “While it remains an option, I think we have to finish our investigation before we make any kind of call like that,” Gorman told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The whale had begun heading to sea Saturday afternoon, Oswell said.

Although the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally. “We allow native hunts for cultural purposes. However, this does not appear to be of that nature so far,” he said.

The Makah Indian Tribe’s whaling commission said it did not authorize the killing.

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An 18 year old woman was celebrating her promotion with her fellow reservist cadet officers at the Playa del Sur Beach Resort in Barangay Calumpang, Cauayan, when she and two others were stung by box jellyfish.

She was rushed into the hospital within 5 minutes, but was pronounced dead on arrival. The hospital chief said she died from anaphylactic shock due to her allergic reaction to the toxins from the jellyfish. A sting from a jellyfish is rarely fatal.

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LITTLE penguins are drowning in large numbers around Tasmania in gill nets, the International Penguin Conference in Hobart heard yesterday. Unseen by fish and penguins, the fine mesh nets — dubbed the “phantom menace” — were deadly to the diving birds, said scientist Eric Woehler.

“Recreational gill netting is banned in other states with little penguins. We don’t know how many penguins are dying this way because the research hasn’t been done but we hear of 20 in a net,” Dr Woehler said. “These nets are invisible. The penguins get caught in the spaces as they dive but because they come up for air, they’re trapped and they drown. They should at least be banned near colonies.” Tasmanian Conservation Trust chief executive officer Christian Bell said fishers had admitted to rangers they had caught 30 penguins in a net.

Only about 5 per cent of the state’s little penguins exist on the Tasmanian mainland. Mr Bell said regulations had increased but there were no penguin colonies on mainland Tasmania where gill netting was banned. “The birds are fully protected. But it’s difficult to enforce,” he said.

Department of Primary Industries and Water primary industries general manager Wes Ford said regulations over the past 15 years aimed to minimise the impact of nets on seabirds.

“Prohibitions on gill netting apply to most sheltered waters and gill nets cannot be set overnight. There is a very active education campaign aimed at raising awareness and improving fishing practices,” Mr Ford said. “We will also continue to review our regulations to ensure that any impact is reduced while providing opportunities for Tasmanians to be involved in fishing.”

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Shane Pinder took this well composed shot in the Bahamas. Wish I shot that!

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A U.S. study focusing on global sea turtle populations has found that half a dozen species are still endangered or threatened despite promising increases in the number of adult females and nests, U.S. wildlife officials said Thursday. Officials with two U.S. federal agencies recently completed the five-year study after analyzing population trends, habitat conditions and conservation measures in the Caribbean and around the world.

The leatherback, hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley turtle species are listed as endangered. The breeding populations of Olive ridley and green sea turtles are endangered along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, and threatened elsewhere, the study found.

Coastal development, beachfront lighting, pollution and hunting are contributing to the demise of the sea turtles, which come ashore periodically to lay their eggs in “nests” dug in the sand, according to the study.

“Threatened” means a species could become “endangered,” which means the species might face extinction.

But some sea species were found to be doing well in specific areas where conservationists and researchers helped to protect their habitat, said Sandy MacPherson, national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which conducted the review along with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“A lot of times that has to do with the fact that there is a dedicated research program,” she said, adding there has been an increase in leatherback nests in Puerto Rico, where prime nesting spots for the endangered sea turtles draws international researchers.

The study is federally mandated every five years, but the last study was done in 1995 because of funding and staffing problems, MacPherson said.

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American and Canadian scientists have found evidence that fishes living in coral-reef habitats undergo higher rates of diversification than similar groups living in other habitats. The biologists examined the DNA of 67 species of tetraodontiform fishes (pufferfishes and their allies) and compared them with a series of fossils.

The authors found that tetraodontiform lineages associated wih reef habitats generally experience greater rates of diversification than nonreef-associated lineages.

In addition, the authors found that the pattern of diversification is complex and does not suggest an ancient reef-fish association, but coincides with reef diversifiacation and marine provincialization during the late Oligocene (about 25 million years ago).

The authors argue that this increase in diversification rate is due in part to the ecological opportunities provided by the unique and complex reef habitat, and in part by major paleoclimatic events that have increased diversification rates in reef clades by fragmenting reef biotas.

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An almaco jack seems to have travelled over 4,000 miles and ended up in Cornwall. It was snared by fisherman Phil Trebilcock off Crantock and taken to the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay. David Waines from the Blue Reef Aquarium thinks it hitched a ride on a ship or simply got lost.

“No one is entirely sure why a fish that is normally native to tropical waters should have been discovered just offshore. There is an outside chance that it could have been carried over in the ballast tanks of a large vessel.

“But I suppose the most likely reason is that it simply got lost and somehow ended up thousands of miles off course.

“Sea temperatures around Cornwall peak at around this time of year at 16C-17C so it is possible for warmer water species to survive.

“However, in winter they drop back by 10C-12C and therefore exotic fish only have a small window of opportunity to survive.”

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