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They were swimming along together as one, two male North Atlantic right whales, each draping a fin over the other’s body.
It looked as if they were hugging.
“Are they showing affection? Are they showing love?” mused Michael Moore, a right whale expert at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts. He was on a small boat in Cape Cod Bay with a colleague, Amy Knowlton, and photographer Brian Skerry and his assistant. “We agreed ‘affection’ was a word we might hypothesize.”
The scientists had taken to the water on February 28 to count right whales and visually assess their size and overall health. In spring, the whales migrate northward from warm Caribbean waters where they give birth to cold waters in the northeastern U.S. and Canada, where the zooplankton they eat are more abundant.
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Citizen Science Increasingly Informs Ocean Expertise and Policy
An angler reels in a small fish from Puget Sound in Washington state. An increasing number of programs encourage the public to contribute data and observations from the natural world to scientists and policymakers. A new journal article highlights how marine and coastal leaders created a successful citizen science program in the U.S. Southeast.
Aaron McCoy
Getty Images
At The Pew Charitable Trusts, we’ve long believed that decisions about how to protect and manage natural resources from marine fish and coastal wetlands to rivers and terrestrial forests should be based on peer-reviewed science and other credible evidence. Gathering that data has traditionally been the purview of professionally trained scientists, but advances in technology and project design have made it far easier for members of the public to contribute useful information, interpret results, and otherwis
It’s no secret that humanity is abusing the world’s oceans. We’re overfishing at all levels of marine food chains, we’re annihilating critical habitats from mangroves to coral reefs, and we’re polluting global seas with plastic, agricultural run-off, and carbon emissions. The challenges standing in the way of addressing these issues however are immense. At the root of it: The world’s oceans are the ultimate global commons, and as such, profits have been realized privately, but costs are borne by the public, with often the most marginalized and disadvantaged facing the greatest burdens.
But while the situation can seem daunting, there are reasons to be optimistic says oceans expert Eric Schwaab, who current serves as the Senior Vice President of Ecosystems and Oceans at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
While the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, has approved a permit for the aquarium to import the whales with a five-year ban on breeding them, the aquarium needs Bernadette Jordan to issue the export permit from Canada.
The organization Last Chance for Animals is asking Jordan to deny the permit because the group says the transfer would not only endanger the whales but violate the intent of a 2019 Canadian law aimed at phasing out the captivity of whales, dolphins and other cetaceans as well as prohibiting them from being used for breeding or entertainment purposes. It also restricts their import and export but the minister of fisheries and oceans can approve permits for research purposes if it is in the best interests of the cetacean.
“How do we manage fisheries in the midst of climate change?” Q&A with EDF’s Eric Schwaab
The world’s oceans are the ultimate global commons, and as such, profits have been realized privately, but costs are borne by the public, with often the most marginalized and disadvantaged facing the greatest burdens.
Eric Schwaab, who current serves as the Senior Vice President of Ecosystems and Oceans at Environmental Defense Fund, says there are solutions to the ocean challenges we’ve created.
“What gives me hope is the combination of awareness, commitment and ingenuity coming from many different parts of the world,” Schwaab told Mongabay during a recent interview. “Despite all our environmental and geopolitical challenges, the oceans are providing solutions.”