12% of Pacific Species Threatened?
Twelve percent of marine species in the eastern tropical Pacific are facing the threat of extinction, among them a commercial fish species once common off Southern California, according to a new study by a global conservation group.
The study assessed some 1,600 species including fish, marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, corals and even marine plants, such as mangroves and sea grass; many joined the famous “red list” of threatened species compiled by the group, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The list includes species considered “critically endangered,” such as the giant sea bass once found in greater numbers off Southern California, and those classed as “endangered” and “vulnerable.”
Blue whales, Earth’s largest animal and a yearly visitor to the Orange County coast, are now considered “endangered” by the group, which relied on a variety of scientific surveys and more than 200 scientists to create its list.
Posted by OC Register Science reporter Pat Brennan
North Oregon Coast Crew Responds to Beach Orca in Washington
(Seaside, Oregon) – A crew from the Seaside Aquarium responded to a beached Killer Whale on the Washington coast Saturday, after the deceased creature showed up on the Long Beach peninsula, just north of the Cranberry approach. (All photos courtesy Seaside Aquarium, which is six miles from Cannon Beach).
Seaside Aquarium – which is part of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network – helped move the animal and made sure it stayed intact for an necropsy performed Sunday by the Network’s head scientist, Dr. Debbie Duffield from Portland State University. Also assisting were a group of biologists from Cascadia Research.
Posted on Oregon Coast Beach Connection
Oil drilling off California coast approved by House panel
A GOP-led House committee has approved bills that open the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve to oil drilling, encourage oil shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and push new oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast.
Republicans say the measures provide energy security and a source of revenue to help pay for roads and bridges, but it was the offshore oil lease sales that sparked the most spirited debate. Any discussion of offshore oil drilling among Californians revolves around the 1969 spill off the Santa Barbara coast that dumped 200,000 gallons of crude across 35 miles of coastline.
KPCC report by Kitty Felde
Leatherback Sanctuary Set Up On West Coast
Federal regulators designated nearly 42,000 square miles of ocean along the West Coast as critical habitat for the Pacific leatherback turtle Friday, far less than originally proposed but still the largest protected area ever established in American waters.
The protected area is the first permanent safe haven in the waters of the continental United States for endangered leatherbacks, which swim 6,000 miles every year to eat jellyfish outside the Golden Gate.
Coastal Cities Offer Beaches Up As Advertising Space
California beach cities are vying for corporate sponsors to advertise their business on lifeguard towers, trash cans, warning signs, vending machines and volleyball nets up
LOS ANGELES, January 15, 2012
This place used to sell itself.
The sun-kissed coastline, the glassy waves and the tens of millions of visitors who descended onto the spacious sand like clockwork. They were the magical ingredients that beach cities in California could bank on to bring in a steady stream of corporate dollars.
For exclusive rights to put company logos on lifeguard towers, trash cans, warning signs, vending machines and volleyball nets up and down the Los Angeles County coast, the bidding would start at $700,000.
But every wave must crash.
Precisely when government officials from San Diego to Santa Cruz are most eager to tap some much-needed revenue by considering logos on almost anything — even ads imprinted onto the sand itself — the still-lumbering economy has taken the sparkle right out of the seashore.
