There was some hope recently that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the organization charged with managing the Atlantic tuna fishery, would listen to its own scientists and ban commercial Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing so that the species might survive. Nope:

Environmentalists on Sunday warned bluefin tuna was on its way to extinction after a international meeting of fishery ministry officials trimmed catch quotas but upheld continued hauls of the fish, prized in sushi dishes.

"After meeting for 10 days, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) refused to end fishing for Atlantic bluefin tuna," the Pew Environment Group, a U.S. organization that sat on in the meeting in Recife, Brazil, said in a statement.

"Instead, ICCAT set the catch limit for bluefin, considered the most valuable fish in the sea, at 13,500 tons," it said.

...Yearly quotas set up by ICCAT are systematically exceeded by industrial fleets. That and illegal fishing have caused the population to decline by more than 85 percent in the eastern Atlantic and by more than 90 percent in the western Atlantic.

ICCAT "has failed once again to act beyond the interests of a few tuna fishing and farming industries," Greenpeace said in a statement. "Again it has approved recommendations which fail to ensure the recovery of Atlantic bluefin tuna."

The ICCAT has a long history of putting commercial interests ahead of the fishery. It was about this time last year that I discussed the "Tragedy of the Commons" debate regarding the bluefin tuna. So when news broke the other week that ICCAT's scientists had called for a total ban -- while others were hopeful -- I was skeptical that the ICCAT as a group would follow through.

At the time, their own scientists observed that the bluefin tuna technically qualified as an endangered species, at least by international standards. And now that fact may be the only thing standing between the tuna and extinction -- as Barry Estabrook pointed out, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) will consider a proposal at their next meeting in March 2010 officially to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna as an endangered species and ban international trade in the fish. Of course, even that ban needn't be permanent. Other threatened fisheries have recovered and scientists expect bluefin tuna could come back within a decade, if properly managed. At this point, however, international groups have shown no ability to "properly manage" the fishery. Keep all that in mind next time you go out for sushi.

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This post is co-authored with Discovery Channel GM & President John Ford.

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Photo: Willy VolkEvery half-second a shark is killed for its fins, so in the time it takes you to read this post, hundreds of sharks will die. “Finning," as the practice is known, is decimating shark populations world-wide. Every year up to 73 million sharks are caught, stripped of their fins, and left for dead in the ocean.

Shark fins are a delicacy in many Asian countries, and the market is expanding to other parts of the globe. Fishing boats can save cargo space and pack more shark fins by just cutting off the fins and throwing the rest of the shark back into the ocean. But a shark can’t survive without its fins.

Sharks are the ocean’s top predators. They sit at the apex of the food chain, and their presence balances out the populations of the ecosystem.

They’ve roamed the seas since hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs, adapted to perfection for their habitat and purpose. But many species of shark are now facing extinction because of finning.

Sharks are often large, slow-growing, and slow to reproduce. They just can’t be slaughtered in large numbers and still survive as species. Already some scientists believe that there are species that are “functionally extinct,” unable to perform their role as top predator.

Removing sharks from the food chain will have broad, cascading, and unpredictable effects. To see this, we can just look at the experience of removing top predators on land.

Wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park in the early 1900s. As a result, elk populations boomed, with unchecked numbers grazing on aspen trees. In turn, the aspen trees were decimated, and their loss had a devastating effect on animals that relied on the trees for their habitat -- songbirds and beavers, in particular. Moreover, with the aspen trees gone, there was little to prevent rivers and streams from eroding their banks.

Yellowstone’s ecosystem deteriorated until wolves were reintroduced in the mid-1990s. Then, the aspen stands recovered and with them the species they supported.

Sharks serve the same purpose in our world’s oceans, balancing out populations of species so the whole system works. To protect sharks, Congress passed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act in 2000. But the act left some big loopholes, and we are working together to push to close them.

The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 [introduced by Senator Kerry and supported by John Ford of the Discovery Channel] would ban any U.S.-flagged vessel from carrying shark fins without the rest of the shark, and they must be brought to port with their fins naturally attached.

The legislation also would protect the American fishing industry by allowing the United States to identify and take action against any countries that do not have a regulatory framework comparable to ours to protect sharks.

We’ve already got some great support for this bill. There are 10 co-sponsors in the Senate representing some of the biggest fishing regions in America. In addition, the Pew Environment Group has joined the cause, pushing for protection of these amazing species of fish.

This week, during the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, there’s no better time to step up the effort to end the disturbing and destructive practice of finning.

Time is running out on some species of sharks. If we don’t take action soon, some of them will become extinct. And with the oceans under increasing strain from the effects of the crisis of global climate change, we can’t afford to slaughter such an important part of the ecosystem past the brink of extinction.

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Dr. Kerry Kriger cracks a smile during his visit to Grist's Seattle HQ.Russ Walker / GristOn Tuesday, the staff at Grist devoured frogs for lunch.  Well, not exactly.

We sat down with conservation biologist Dr. Kerry Kriger of the newly minted nonprofit Save the Frogs! -- one of several stops he's making in Seattle during a country-wide speaking tour. As one of the lone voices raising the alarm for amphibians, Kriger dished about the worst disease ever to hit wildlife, why it's such a big deal that one-third of amphibians are threatened with extinction, and just how many people actually are having frogs for lunch.

A scientist by training, Kriger first became involved with amphibians while in Australia researching how frogs are affected by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis, which currently is decimating frog populations and which may be the worst disease ever recorded to hit a group of organisms. It's the chytrid fungus, and it has caused more than 100 extinctions since the 1970s.

Didn't know frogs were in such shoddy shape? Don't worry, you're the norm. Which is precisely the reason Kriger started Save the Frogs! in the first place. He realized he was writing scientific papers about how bad the situation is globally for frogs, which then got published in journals "normal people don't read." On top of all that, he and other scientists were making recommendations based on that research, but there was no one to carry them out. Kriger figured starting a nonprofit was the best way to fill that void.

His current vision for the organization is simple but powerful: "that everyone in America know that frogs are disappearing." Once general awareness is established, especially among the younger generation, it is Kriger's hope that grassroots and legal action to protect frogs and their habitat will follow.

When asked why the average citizen should care about some dying frogs on a mountain somewhere, Kriger took a minute to measure his answer.

"Frogs have been around 250 million years," he said. "They've outlived the dinosaurs ... But in the last 30, 40, 50 years, they're now going extinct."

Because thin-skinned frogs live both on land and in the water, they are biological indicators of the planet's health -- the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. With over one-third of these species in imminent danger of extinction, what's really alarming is that most of us have no idea what's going on.

If that's not cause for concern, he reasoned, you only have to look as far as human disease and medicine. Little-known fact: 10 percent of Nobel prizes in medicine and physiology recognized research that was performed, in part, by researchers using frogs. Additionally, frogs eat disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes, reducing the spread of malaria, dengue fever, and other less-than-desirable conditions people don't want to catch.

So where is the ray of sunshine in all of this? Kriger admitted he was rarely asked that question, saying, "Good news comes out occasionally."

However, he went on, individuals can do a lot to reverse the threats to amphibians. A few ways to do this are by supporting organics (keeping harmful pesticides far from frogs), by buying pet or food frogs that are captive-bred and local (America is the second-largest importer of frog legs ... who knew?), and by dropping into casual conversation news of the amphibian extinction crisis (over cocktails, naturally).

If you're interested in hearing more from Kriger, take a look at his list of speaking engagements or contact him to help organize an event in your area. And really, consider skipping the frog legs next time.

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The Caribbean monk seal is extinct, U.S. officials declared Friday. The seals, also called West Indian seals, have been on the endangered-species list since 1967; the last confirmed sighting of one was in 1952. The Caribbean monk, native to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, is the only seal that has gone extinct directly because of human causes. "Following European colonization from the 1700s to 1900s, the seals were exploited intensively for their blubber, and to a lesser extent for food, scientific study, and zoological collection," the U.S. Marine Fisheries Service explained in a statement. Those carrying on the monk seal name are also barely hanging on: only 1,200 Hawaiian monk seals and 500 Mediterranean monk seals remain in the wild, and the Hawaiian population is declining at a rate of 4 percent per year.

source:

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Maya Lin, an artist best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is making plans for a tribute to what has passed from the earth -- literally. Her planned memorial will list the names of animals, birds, and plants that have gone extinct. "The top 10 songbirds we grew up with are in a 40 percent to 70 percent decline. Our oceans are being devastated by overfishing. The landscape we grew up with has been significantly diminished," she says. "I just want to bring attention to it and give people the idea that you can do something about it." Lin, who is usually commissioned to do memorials, is instigating this one, and hopes that donors will help with funding. The multi-site, multimedia endeavor -- Lin hopes to incorporate everything from the internet to billboards --will be launched on Earth Day 2009.

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Six species discovered in Congo, four endangered gorillas shot

A research expedition to a remote forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo found six new animal species -- a bat, a rat, two shrews, and two frogs -- and may have found new plant species as well. The trip, which ran from January to March and was led by the Wildlife Conservation Society, represented the first scientific access to the isolated, violence-prone area since 1960. "If we can find six new species in such a short period, it makes you wonder what else is out there," said Andrew Plumptre of WCS. Dreamy! But hold on to your feel-good hat: the country is also struggling with the aftermath of the bewildering late-July slaughter of four endangered mountain gorillas. Officials from the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization will venture to Virunga National Park next week to investigate and to encourage more protection. "If we can't stop these attacks," said Russell A. Mittermeier, head of Conservation International, "our closest living relatives will disappear from the planet."

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