december seawords

December 2012Th e Marine Option Program Newsletter

GYOTAKU

STYROPHOBIA

DIY HOLIDAY RECYCLED CRAFTS

Seaw rds4 “ The industry can only be stopped if the demand for shark fi nning ends- a simple enough statement until the reality of just what exactly else shark fi ns are used for is taken into consideration. ”

6 “ One could say that this school has a unique commitment to the environment and the ocean ”

Seawords, December 2012

December2012Page 3: Gyotaku

Page 4: Opinion Piece: Shark Documentaries

Page 6: UH Manoa Surfrider Fights Styrofoam

Page 9: Generation Blue

Page 10: Ocean Poetry

Page 12: Critter of the Month

Page 14: Roaming Whales

Page 15: Seawords Flashback

Page 16: Seahorse Trade

From Octoober 24, 1984 Seawords

Cover Photo: Th is month’s cover photo is courte-sy of UHM MOP Student Dieter Stelling. Stelling also took the photo of this month’s critter, fea-tured on page 12.

Back Photo: UHM MOP

Volume XXVI, Number 12, December 2012

Editor: Naomi Lugo

Assistant Editor: Jessi Schultz

Dr. Cynthia Hunter (éminence grise)

Seawords- Marine Option Program

University of Hawai‘i, College of Natural Sciences2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall 105A

Honolulu, HI 96822-2219Telephone: (808) 956-8433, Fax: (808) 956-2417

E-mail: <[email protected]>Website: <http://www.hawaii.edu/mop/>

Seawords is a monthly newsletter of the Marine Option Program at the University of Hawai‘i. Opinions expressed herein are not

necessarily those of the Marine Option Program or of the University of Hawai‘i

Suggestions and submissions are welcome. Submissionsmay include articles, photographs, art work, or anything that may be of interest to the marine community in Hawai‘i and around the

world.

All photos are taken by MOP unless otherwise credited.

Seawords

UHM MOPJohn Coney/UHH MOP

GYOTAKU. A traditional Japanese art form; Gyotaku is a form of fi sh printing dating back to the 1800’s. Real fi sh were used by UHM MOP students on Nov. 4 as they created their own Gyotaku art.


UHM MOP


Many readers may be familiar with the documentary, Th e Cove, highlighting the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. However, a lesser-known documentary, Sharkwater makes a similar point about sharks.

Shark fi nning is a multibillion dollar industry, bringing in an estimated $300 or more per pound of dried fi n. Th e process of shark fi nning is gruesome. It involves cutting the fi ns off of sharks and oft en times tossing them back into the sea- still alive, where, unable to swim, they sink to the bottom and, according to sharkwater.com, are “eaten alive by other fi sh.”

Why aren’t people disgusted by this practice? If people were cutting the legs off of dogs and cats on the street in the same way, people would be up in arms. However, sharks are not portrayed as people-friendly animals. Shark attacks make the news worldwide, instilling and keeping this fear of a man-hungry beast alive. When fear is involved, people oft en become irrational. Not only that, but the fi ns are valued as an essential ingredient in shark-fi n soup, and in many countries are used in traditional cures. Specialists estimate that“100 million sharks are killed annually for their fi ns.”

So, fear and greed are what then must lead to the prosperity of the shark fi nning industry. However, there is one other hitch. What some people don’t know is that shark fi nning has been banned in many

countries, including the United States. However, as the demand for shark fi n soup is high, the market is still there and reaches even the most remote corners of the world.

A documentary shown in University of Hawai‘i’s Hawaiian Studies 107 course called the Sharkcallers of Kontu, shows exactly how this industry is kept alive. No longer able to support themselves or their kids because of the introduction of modern technology, the men of Kontu collect shark fi ns and sell them to a Chinese merchant in town for money. Th ese fi ns will most likely end up sold as a bowl of soup that cost $100 or more. Due to the high price of a single bowl of soup, shark fi n soup is generally served as a dish of honor at Chinese wedding banquets or other special occasions.

Th e industry can only be stopped if the demand for shark fi nning ends- a simple enough statement until the reality of just what exactly else shark fi ns are used for is taken into consideration.

Sharks are believed by many to have special healing powers such as the ability to regrow their fi ns and to never get cancer. Unluckily for sharks, this idea of a practically immortal shark is what causes fi sherment to toss them back into the water to die. Th eir dried fi ns are then ground into powders and other so-called

Article and page layout by: Kathryn Lam, UHM MOP Student

Do Documentaries Shed a Light on Shark Finning?

John Coney/UHH MOP


medical remedies claiming to prevent cancer or other ailments.

Th e fi shermen who fi n sharks and the workers whose job it is to clean, dry and sort the fi ns are only a small amount of the population contributing to the decline of these creatures. Th e public who is unaware of this tragedy also contributes as they unknowingly purchase the fi ns and other shark fi n products.

Websites such as happyheartslovesharks.org are ways the get people to start thinking about changing their actions. Th e website lets couples who don’t serve shark fi n soup at their weddings enter for a chance to win a free honeymoon. As wedding banquets may servea many bowls of soup, this organization is saving at least a few sharks from the horrors of the dinner table. Groups like this who off er compensation for the

promotion of shark preservation are helping to spread the word. Th is is important because as Rob Stewart, the creator of the documentary Sharkwater, says:

“Shark populations have been decimated all over the world and the last sharks were being hunted down in the few remaining sanctuaries. Nobody noticed. Everyone wanted to save pandas, elephants., and bears. And the world was afraid of sharks.”

Sharks are essential to human survival. Seventy percent of the earth’s oxygen comes from the ocean. It’s a food chain; sharks eat fi sh who eat organisms producing this oxygen. Without sharks the amount of oxygen produced by the ocean will deacrease. Sharks have been portrayed as the villians for far too long, it is worth the time and eff ort to change public opinion on them.

Opinion

Photos: National Geographic


UH Mānoa Surfrider’s campaign to eliminate styrofStyropho

Th is advertising campaign by the Surfrider Foundation showed various bits of collected marine debris from North American beaches. Th is one features “styrofoam bites.”

Surfrider Foundation

Expanded polystyrene, otherwise known as EPS foam or styrofoam, has been used extensively in society since its invention in the 1950’s. While this material serves a number of purposes and is useful in many daily activi-ties, it has also been proven harmful to human health and the environment. Here at UH Mānoa, polystyrene products have been widely used at on-campus dining locations for decades. Th e UHM Surfrider club is urging Bale, Jamba Juice, Panda Express, and L & L Hawaiian

Th e styrophobia campaign also sells biodegradable prodfeatured above.

During its manufacturing, polystyrene products contribute greatly to greenhouse

gas emissions and energy consumption. Th e harmful chemicals in EPS leach into the products that it comes into contact with. Further, what makes the use of polystyrene products unsustainable is that discarded polystyrene does not biodegrade for hundreds of years and vast majority of EPS foam and polystyrene products cannot be recycled through public service recycling programs. Th is can lead to their pollution in the oceans, where they continue to leach dangerous

chemicals. Polystyrene contains the toxic substances Styrene and Benzene. Th ese suspected carcinogens and neurotoxins that may be hazardous to human health and may harm organisms living in the ocean. Th e Offi ce of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, recognized the health risks present in use of this product when they listed styrene as a hazardous chemical in Proposition 65 – the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. Th e basis for the listing of styrene in Prop 65 was

that it was proved to be a female reprtoxin. Regardless of this discovery, goagencies have determined that polystsafe for use in foodservice products. Th e Sodexo company at UH Mānoalready adopted policies to provide bpostable containers, utensils, and platdining locations. Th e Sustainability Cat UH has prohibited use of styrofoamnon-compostable products at its foodlocations (Da Spot & Govinda’s). Balecompostable sugar cane bowls for sal Alternative plant-based products t

Matthias Keller UHM MOP Studen


OCEAN UPDATESa decade ago, this sight-ing was the fi rst one in person. Scientists were then able to collect two sponges and observe 10 others by video. Th e sponge feeds by catching small animas like crustaceans and trapping them in barbed hooks that are on the sponge’s limbs. Aft erwards the prey is digested using a thin membrane. Th e species lives about 2 miles below the surface, the one photographed was found at 11,500 feet.

Meat Eating Sponge

Th e harp sponge (pictured above) was recently spotted in the deep-ocean off of Monterey Bay, CA. Th e invertebrate was initially discovered in 2000 with the use of a remotely operated vehicle. Although it was discovered over

Moby Dick Returns

Dan Fisher, a British maritime engineer spot-ted an all-white hump-back whale, and capture it on photo and fi lm. Th e whale was seen off the coast of Norway. Th e cause of it’s pigmentation, or lack their of, is due to albinism. Only two other white whales have been believed to be observed in the wild.

Fisher named the rare whale Wil-low.

Video of the whale can be found by clicking here.

toxic seaweed. Th e goby has a symbiotic realtionship with coral, and were the fi sh obeserved.Scientists set up a series of experiments to help explain the rela-tionship between the goby, coral, and toxic seaweed.Th ey moved the seaweed to touch the coral, and aft er a few min-utes two species of gobies responded and would remove the seaweed from the coral.

Emergency Response: Goby

A new study published in the journal Science suggests that corals send out a distress signal to herbivorous fi sh when they sense a threat from

Monterey Bay Aquari-um Research Institute

Joao Paulo Krajewski/ National Geographic

Dan Fisher/treehugger.com

foam use on campusobia

BB, to end use of polysterene and styrofoam products on campus through petition because of its negative eff ects on the environment and on our health.

UHM Surfrider is a club on campus for surfers and ev-eryone else who is concerned about the state of the ocean.Th e club has environmental fi lm screenings and hosts beach cleanups to promote awareness among other events.

Star-Advertiserducts like the container

For many years now, a theme at the University of Hawai‘i Mānoa campus has been

sustainability. One could say that this school has a unique commitment to the environment and the ocean since this issue has great importance when living on an island over 3,000 miles away from the nearest continental landmass. Th e production and concept of polystyrene confl icts with this idea of sustainability as it is produced using petroleum, a fi nite resource on this planet. Polystyrene products are generally manufactured for short-term use, and the reusing of EPS foam makes it more prone contamination.

roductive overnment tyrene is

oa has bio-com-tes at UH

Courtyard m and d truck e now uses les of Pho. that are

safe for our health and environment are avail-able, accessible, and aff ordable. For the wel-fare of the environment and the health of the students and faculty, we, the student body, call upon these companies to take responsibility by ending the use of polystyrene products and replacing them with biodegradable ones. Th e UHM Surfrider club will be creating a petition to get rid of EPS foam products on campus, and hopefully make a positive impact for the ocean by alleviating some ocean pollution.

nt & Doorae Shin, UHM Student


UHM MOP

GENERATION


If you have a suggestion for a green act, email us at

[email protected] with subject line Generation Blue to submit your idea.

Actions for the Ocean

THE OCEAN SPANS OVER 70 PERCENT OF OUR WORLD.

It is responsible for regulating temperature, food production, sustaining numerous marine species, and is a source for inspiration among multiple other things. Th e ocean gives us so much and it is time for us to return the favor and take actions to make the ocean ecosystem healthy again. Almost every action that we take aff ects the ocean in some way. Our everyday choices can be tailored to support a healthy ocean. Here are some examples of green acts that will keep the ocean blue.

BLUE

Dieter Stelling/ UHM MOP

Holiday Edition: DIY Recycled Craft sFrom December 11, 1987 Seawords

Make your own recycled gift tags

Take old ocean magazines or pictures and cut them into a tag shape. To make your tags more solid, cut out the same shape from a thin piece of recycled cardboard and paste the two together.Th is craft will help recycle those piles of ocean and science maga-zines you have laying around, and personalize your gift s.

Turn old denim into a whale

If you’ve got some old denim jeans or shirts, what bet-ter to do with them than to trun them into a whale!Th e full tutorial for making the whale pictured can be found by clicking here. It’s is a diff erent language, but there are very helpful photos alongside the text.If you’re feeling extra creative, make your own whale from scratch! We’re sure whoever receives this gift will adore it just because you made it.

Th e ocean: Lava lamp style

3 simple ingredients, tutorial can be found here. Reuses plastic bottles and captures the imagination.


HallucinationsSometimes the night falls like a wet flower too heavy to stand,The stars I wish upon start burning,Candles I hold dancing for hours until the wax drips down between,The frame of fragile ribs, the white coral starving where we can’t see,There’s no one to call, no souls to unite,Just for one second.I drive Myself crazy but then the ocean is there,Inside my head and all around the rock. When I close my eyes her vastness is there, looking back at me.When I close myself in solitude, it’s the chaos that needs to be quieted.There are hallucinations of a salt water kiss to cool the fire,Caught in a drops of rain, you, my Ocean.Maybe if I can be anywhere and everywhere at once,I can always be seated where the water meets land.Foam reaches the body which encases me, glassy, and it recedes,Back to the mother’s womb, back to the blueness, back to night.I’m hungry for that sublime blue, But still in my dark room, the imagination functions like a drug,That helps you escape.And if I could be anywhere, I’d stand by the ocean and watch it waver,And explode like a thousand white feathers. The sapphire sweeps through these ancient dreams,Still caught in my body but a world away.They told me to shake the dreams of coral and escaping from my hair,Focus on the ocean, its the meditation to save, to rise above fear.Where home is where you stand with eyes open and closed, except the disregard of reality.


Th e Great Blue Cat

Ocean Poetry: Jessi Schultz, Assistant Editor

Land dweller with big dreams,The blue facets are pathways to some unknown heaven.

The oceanI can hear it nowMellow purring,

like a tired old catthat I once knew

Her footsteps were soft,But could bring down-

Castles of sand,Paw prints washed away on shore,

Whiskers full of salty dew drops,Hiding truth like an opal’s Guiding Light,

Refracted lighthouse cat on the water,Rainbow-

My vast Calico.I can hear her now,

Meandering around an island of souls,Who let water take them in.

She is love and grace and solitude.No lanterns, just the light of her yellow eyes,

The jewel of the always-Returning footsteps.

Sinking in the sand, conscious of losing ourselves.

Critter of the Month

Seawords is starting a new segment which will feature marine critters seen and pho-tographed by MOP students. Send your critters to [email protected] to be fea-tured and be sent an issue of Seawords in color and a MOP sticker.

This month’s critter photo is by UHM MOP student Dieter Stelling.

Green Sea TurtleScientifi c name: Chelonia mydas

Pacifi c Island names: honu (Hawaiian), haa-gan (Chamorran), laumei ena’ena (Samoan)

Hawaiian green turtles are distinct from other green turtles and are the most common turtle species found in Hawaiian waters.

Th e green turtles are protected under Hawai‘i state state law and the Endangered Species Act. However, the sea turtle’s status as endan-gered is currently under review.

Dec. 28th is the 39th anniversary of the Endan-gered Species Act.

To submit photography, send an email to [email protected]


Off the coast of Anchorage, Alaska there is a man named John K.B. Ford who is studying a species of North Pacifi c killer whale that eats warm-blooded animals,

like seals, sea lion and sometimes seabirds.

Th ey are now known as “transients” due to the fact that they roam all the way up to the Arctic Ocean, unlike the “resident” whales that like to stay close to home. Because of this diff erence in character and prey, Ford and other colleagues have set out to declare this whale a new species.

Th ey are even fi ghting for a new name for the species - Bigg’s killer whale, in honor of Michael Bigg whose research led to the identifi cation of these transient whales. Th ese creatures still mystify scientists as to why they travel and others do not.

More work and research regarding Bigg’s observations is still underway. In 1977, Bigg was reassigned to other marine mammals to investigate, yet he kept searching for answers on why some killer whales were outcasts from the families of orcas that stayed in close range of one

another.

Th ese whales were found to be mammal-eaters and also, do not interbreed with the stationary orcas. Geneticist Philip Morin, one of 14 researchers collaborating with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said in an article from the Underwater Times, “Th e evidence suggests that the transients in particular are quite diff erent than everybody else and probably shared an ancestor about 700,000 years ago.”

Scientists and researchers have been working to analyze diff erences in evolutionary divergence among various types of killer whales.

As research progresses, the scientists will observe molecular data, behavioral signs, acoustic communication, and descriptions of killer whales around the world.

Th e Roaming Killer Whale Jessi Schultz, Assistant Editor

Jeff Kuwabara/UHM MOP

Decamber EventsMovie Month

December 6, 2012Kilauea: Mountain of Fire – A fi lm produced by Nature in association with National Geographic

December 13, 2012 Voyage of the Lonely Turtle – A fi lm produced for PBS by Nature

December 20, 2012No Program: Breaking for the holidays

December 27, 2012No Program: Breaking for the holidays


Calendar of Events at UH Sea Grant’s Hanauma Bay Education

ProgramMarine Science in East O`ahu

***Presentations take place in the theater of the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, beginning at 6:30 p.m. every Th ursday evening***

hbep.seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/

FLASHBACK: 2003

For more information or questions please contact:

Hanauma Bay Education Program100 Hanauma Bay Rd. Honolulu, HI 96825Phone: (808) 397-5840 Email: hanauma@

hawaii.eduhttp://hbep.seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/

Artwork by Elena Millard from the June, Aug., and Dec. 2003 is-sues of Seawords.

Th e featured species are the; Lacto-ria fornasini (above), Hippocampus bargibanti (right), and Nautilus belauensis (far right).

hawaiipacifi cparks.org

allmovie.com


FIRST VIDEO OF THE WEST AFRICAN SEAHORSE REVEALS SEAHORSE TRADENaomi Lugo, Editor

The rare West African Seahorse was captured on video by researchers from the Zoological Society of

London (ZSL) in October of this year.

Researcher Kate West took the video of the elusive creature of the coast of Senegal. It was the fi rst video ever taken of the species.Th e video off ers a rare chance to study to study the seahorse, however the video also lends itself to another purpose.

Th e ZSL’s Project Seahorse in partnership with Imperial Col-lege London and the University of British Colombia is investigat-ing the West African Seahorse trade.

“It’s shocking that so little is known about the the West Afri-can seahorse when the amount of trade offi cially documented is in excess of a tonne,”said West on

Photos: National Geographic/Zoological Society of London

Click the picture to see the video

the ZSL website.

Project Seahorse has found a rise in seahorse trade in recent years, with about 600 thou-sand seahorses exported annually.

Th e ultimate goal of the project is to make the seahorse trade sustain-able.

Seahorses are considered a fl agship species, and their protection the ZSL believes will lead to broader marine conservation.


DECEMBERMOP & Community Events

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UHM MOP

Deadline Maritime Archaeology Papers

MOP Graduation4:30 -7 pm(@ Mānoa)

Last Day of Instruction

31

39th Anniversary of the Endan-gered Species Act

First Day of Winter

See you next year!

UHM Surfrider Table at Campus Center5th & 6th

Mid-year Commencement

University of Hawai`i at MānoaSeawords, Marine Option ProgramCollege of Natural Sciences2450 Campus Road, Dean Hall 105AHonolulu, HI 96822-2219

Address Service Requested

Next Issue: Winter Issue, UHM MOP Spring Events

december seawords

Documents

shark fi ns

shark fi nning ends

shark fi nning ind

sharkfi n soup

real fi sh

th e process of shark

pound of dried fi

shark documentariespage