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Cousteau's contraption to get close to sharks

Mon 3 Oct 2005

JIM MCBETH

WITH its fearsome jaws and teeth, the perfect predator of the deep is complete in every respect, including a diver which the "great white" has apparently swallowed whole.

In the deep-sea world of the Cousteau dynasty, nothing is what it seems, least of all a "Trojan" shark created by the grandson of Jacques, the legendary marine explorer.

Fabien Cousteau's passion for sharks has driven him to literally get alongside them by pretending to be a shark himself inside a £115,000 fake fish.

The mechanical shark is indistinguishable from the real thing, but it owes less to Jaws than to his childhood hero Tintin, the Belgian comicbook character created by Hergé. Cousteau had the idea for a shark submersible after reading how the boy detective utilised such a device in an adventure.

The explorer's version is in the interests of research, filling in blanks in scientific knowledge.

Cousteau's robotic fish can get him closer to the predator than has ever been possible before. Built from steel and plastic, the 14ft-long fish was created by a Hollywood prop expert.

"The whole point is to fool [the sharks] into thinking I am a shark," said the underwater explorer.

Cousteau's contraption is covered with Skinflex, a malleable material mixed with glass beads and sand to simulate the texture of shark skin.

The head swings open on hinges to allow Cousteau to enter the body. There he lies flat, holding a joystick in each hand to control speed and direction. The shark's eyes are camera lenses.

© 2005 Scotsman.com

http://tinyurl.com/9aw4f

"The animals were killed when the facility lost power and the staff had to evacuate."

It has taken us nearly a month to blog coherently on this subject; our sadness and anger were palpable, and writing about it tonight has us in hot bitter tears again. We initially blogged on September 6th that 1200 sea creatures had died. The news was far worse: most of the fish, including the sharks, were killed because there was no power to run the support systems. And there was no power because the staff had to evacuate for one reason only: the looting violence in the area.

An article from Mongabay.com explains:

"Animals suffered when the facility lost power and the staff had to evacuate due to violence in the area surrounding the aquarium. The area around the aquarium has now been secured but the lack of electricity meant filters and air pumps failed to deliver oxygen to tanks and maintain liveable conditions for many fish."

Needless and senseless. And disgusting. It would serve any who contributed to the death of those creatures by their violent activities (or their inaction in allowing or not preventing such) right if their dreams were filled with images of helpless fish, slowly suffocating, wondering what on earth had happened.

http://tinyurl.com/73fps

"Penguins, sea otters, rare Australian sea dragons and a 250-pound sea turtle named Midas -- all survivors of Hurricane Katrina -- were loaded into crates Friday to be airlifted out of the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas."

http://tinyurl.com/dssre

"Thanks to a dedicated staff, however, some animals survived. Among the fortunate: sea otters, penguins, macaws and raptors, leafy and weedy sea dragons, some fishes, and a green sea turtle named Midas."

From the NOAA's Question of the Month:

Q: Why does NOAA protect sharks

A: With all of the negative stories in the news about sharks, it is easy to wonder why NOAA would want to protect these "ferocious" sea creatures. However, most shark "attacks" are a case of mistaken identity - arms and legs hanging off surfboards and shiny jewelry resemble the shark's natural prey of fish and marine mammals. In fact, sharks hardly ever attack humans unprovoked, and when they do attack it is usually a "hit-and-run" with the shark quickly leaving after it realizes that what it has attacked is not a fish.

Sharks are awesome creatures whose biology has remained virtually unchanged for millions of years. Considered to be at the top of the marine food web, sharks play a role in the ocean similar to that of the top predators on land. There are not many known species that would be able to replace the shark at the top of the food web. The only known predators of sharks, other than humans, are killer whales and other sharks. Because of this, sharks play a very important ecological role affecting almost every other marine organism.

NOAA is mandated by Congress under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to conduct stock assessments, monitor the species' abundance of sharks and implement fishery regulations that maximize the benefits of sharks as a resource for humans, while also ensuring that shark populations are not depleted. Due to overfishing, NOAA began managing shark fisheries by limiting harvests in 1993. No data is available yet about the impact of this protection because sharks are long-lived, take many years to mature and only have a few young at a time. Experts estimate that it will take 30 or 40 years before NOAA's conservation efforts fully pay off with healthier shark populations.

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See also the NOAA FISHERIES: Shark Web Site, especially "It's The Ocean, Not A Swimming Pool"

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Lost nets prove death traps for rare sharks

Tue 20 Sep 2005

FRANK URQUHART

A "GHOST" fishery in the deep waters off the west coast of Scotland and Ireland is causing incalculable damage to vulnerable species of shark, delegates at a key fisheries conference will be warned this week.

Hundreds of miles of lost and discarded nets, left to drift on the slopes of the Atlantic, are death traps for fragile stocks of deepwater sharks, according to a report to be presented at the conference in Aberdeen of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas.

Its authors are calling for action to be taken to manage the uncontrolled fishery to prevent an ecological disaster.

The report by scientists at the Marine Institute in Iceland, Britain's Sea Fish Industry Authority, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries and the Irish Marine Institute, reveals that since the mid 1990s a fleet of up to 50 vessels have been using "gill nets" to enmesh fish on the continental slopes to the west of the Scottish and Irish coasts and to the north of Shetland.

The vessels, though mostly based in Spain, are registered in the UK, Germany and countries outside the EU.

The boats, fishing at depths of between 200 and 1,200 metres, are targeting lucrative monkfish stocks and deepwater sharks, such as the Leafscale gulper shark and the siki shark, also called the Portuguese dogfish.

The report says the vessels together have up to 5,400 miles of gill nets at sea at any one time and leave them drifting for up to ten days. But gear is being lost and nets deliberately dumped, creating a deadly "ghost" fishery.

It says: "Essentially these fisheries remain totally unrestricted.

"The nets are left fishing unattended and hauled every three to ten days. The amount of fishing gear used, and the fact that the nets are unattended much of the time, make it very likely a large quantity of nets are lost, while there is also evidence of illegal dumping of netting.

Action is urgently needed to properly monitor and control these fisheries."

© 2005 Scotsman.com

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Sharks bask in climate change

Fri 16 Sep 2005

JAMES REYNOLDS

CLIMATE change and warmer coastal waters are thought to have caused a massive increase in the number of basking sharks feeding in Scottish waters.

The latest survey results from the Wildlife Trusts (TWT) show that out of 180 sharks spotted over a ten-week period around the UK coast, 172 were seen in Scottish waters.

Despite their association with the oceans' fiercest predators, basking sharks are filter feeders, and it is thought that the slight increase in sea temperatures has caused a related surge in the plankton content of the water.

Colin Speedy, the skipper of TWT's survey boat, said: "Despite the devastating year for seabirds and other marine creatures in Scotland, basking sharks seem to have benefited from the abundance and quality of their main food source, plankton, and are following this supply. Although there are a number of reasons that could have caused this availability, climate change does factor here as the warmer currents south of the Border are pushing it northwards."

Although sea conditions have proved extremely favourable for the fish, other species have suffered in recent years.

© 2005 Scotsman.com

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Hungry dolphins attack researchers

Mon 11 Nov 2002

James Reynolds Environment Correspondent

BOTTLENOSE dolphins in Scotland are sinking their teeth into humans, because of a shortage of fish.

Scientists studying the behaviour of the mammals in the North Sea have been bitten by the hungry animals desperate to find food. The dolphins also are attacking harbour porpoises in the battle for food.

Professor Monty Priede, of Aberdeen University who has been studying the dolphins for ten years, said he has never seen them so vicious.

"The population of cod in the North Sea has fallen by half, and this takes away the dolphins’ main source of food," he said.

"This is mainly due to fishermen catching huge amounts of fish, so the dolphins are searching for other forms of food."

Researchers who have been following the movements of the creatures in the Moray Firth have been shocked when the normally calm-natured animals have attacked their flesh. Prof Priede said: "The creatures have a reputation for being cute and cuddly, but they do have very sharp teeth that can cause damage.

"Researchers have reported several injuries where the creatures have bitten them. They are predators, and when they are hungry they will feast on what they can find. We also have discovered porpoises and other sea life which has been attacked by the sharp teeth of a dolphin in a fight."

Researchers at Aberdeen University also claim the bottlenose dolphins are abandoning their home in large numbers to fight starvation. It is thought a quarter of Scotland’s resident dolphins have left the Moray Firth and have been spotted as far south as England.

In Scotland this year, they have been seen around Caithness, the estuaries of the Forth and Tay, Aberdeen and even the Outer and Inner Hebrides - including Barra and Skye. Dr Paul Thompson, a reader in zoology at Aberdeen University, said he believed that "at least" a quarter of the 130-strong population had now moved out of the area.

Prof Priede added: "The group of dolphins that lived in the Moray Firth area were very unusual. They had lived there for many years and had been communicating with each other and built up a special bond.

"Because they stayed in one place, we were able to trace their life history, and this was very interesting. However, they are now swimming further out to unknown waters to find food, which is putting them at risk as they may not cope with surroundings they are not used to."

The bottlenose dolphins can grow up to 13 feet long and require around ten kilos of fish every day.

Their diet includes cod, haddock, salmon, herring, squid and whiting - some of the same species under threat in the North Sea.

© 2005 Scotsman.com