Mother Jones just launched a unique website that highlights the threats facing our oceans. What's noteworthy about the site is that it doesn't focus on the work of one organization, but rather highlights the best of the best of what a multitude of nonprofits are doing to conserve our oceans. Oceana's mercury pollution work, Greenpeace's pirate fishing work, and World Wildlife Fund's polar bear work all live in perfect harmony. It's refreshing to find journalists that are more interested in the big picture than playing favorites. Check it out.
Ocean Voyager
A five part journey to protect the oceans 1
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Posted 2:35 PM on 6 Jun 2006
by Andrew Sharpless -
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Andrew Sharpless is the CEO of Oceana, the world’s largest international nonprofit dedicated to ocean conservation. Visit www.oceana.org.
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caniscandida Posted 11:27 pm
07 Jun 2006
wonderful site
Thanks for posting this, Andrew, it is fascinating and very well done.
(Even if they mis-identify the WWF as "World Wildlife Federation." But it is hard to get the WWF right; nowadays they seem to be calling themselves "WWF, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund." That sort of thing may, or may not, have worked for Prince ... )
I hear what you are saying about "not playing favorites," and I agree that that is a good thing and that the Oceana site does it very well. Still, it helps to be photogenic.
E.g., one of their featured projects is the work of Ken Balcomb and the Center for Whale Research with the San Juan orcas off Washington. Balcomb is fortunate to have been joined by the cetacean-loving activist-photographer Hardy Jones, who was featured in a recently aired episode of Nature; and so the Oceana site has up on view some remarkable orca video material, including a live birth, and a few seconds showing the mother pushing her new-born to the surface. Meanwhile, here in the Northeast, the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies has been doing important work with cetaceans, including a whale-rescue program, and with the entire ecosystem round about Cape Cod, for years. And they are just one of several serious research centers working around the Gulf of Maine.
Ken Balcomb likes to bring his dog Tsuchi, an Irish setter I think, on board his boat, because the orcas poke their heads up out of the water to look at the dog. Balcomb says, they are curious, and want to examine this strange new creature. That could be. It could also be that the dog and the orcas are communicating on some level beyond our understanding. And it could also be that, since orcas famously have a sweet tooth for members of the Order Carnivora, especially Pinnipedidae but also Mustelidae -- sea otters -- , they might be eager to have a taste of Canidae, and are saying to themselves, "I hope that nice human being will just drop that little treat into the water near me."
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