A review of the biology, ecology and management of Scirpus Olneyi. Volume 1: An annotated bibliography of selected references

This annotated bibliography of selected literature on Olney's three7square (Scirpus olneyi Gray )compiled basically for two reasons: 1) to assist a task force in its pursuit of an explanation for the substantial reduction in marsh acreage at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland, and 2) to serve as the author's foundation for the initiation of ecological research on this species as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Botany Department of the University of Maryland. Both purposes are directly related in that the Author's research will be of use to the task force, along I with its other technical information and research results, in under-standing and possibly correcting the marshland loss problem at the Refuge. (PDF contains 100 pages)

Mathematical models for the prediction of temperature distributions resulting from the discharge of heated water into large bodies of water

Mathematical models for heated water outfalls were developed for three flow regions. Near the source, the subsurface discharge into a stratified ambient water issuing from a row of buoyant jets was solved with the jet interference included in the analysis. The analysis of the flow zone close to and at intermediate distances from a surface buoyant jet was developed for the two-dimensional and axisymmetric cases. Far away from the source, a passive dispersion model was solved for a two dimensional situation taking into consideration the effects of shear current and vertical changes in diffusivity. A significant result from the surface buoyant jet analysis is the ability to predict the onset and location of an internal hydraulic jump. Prediction can be made simply from the knowledge of the source Froude number and a dimensionless surface exchange coefficient. Parametric computer programs of the above models are also developed as a part of this study. This report was submitted in fulfillment of Contract No. 14-12-570 under the sponsorship of the Federal Water Quality Administration.

Soviet Illegal Whaling: The Devil and the Details

In 1948, the U.S.S.R. began a global campaign of illegal whaling that lasted for three decades and, together with the poorly managed “legal” whaling of other nations, seriously depleted whale populations. Although the general story of this whaling has been told and the catch record largely corrected for the Southern Hemisphere, major gaps remain in the North Pacific. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the details of this system or its economic context. Using interviews with former Soviet whalers and biologists as well as previously unavailable reports and other material in Russian, our objective is to describe how the Soviet whaling industry was structured and how it worked, from the largest scale of state industrial planning down to the daily details of the ways in which whales were caught and processed, and how data sent to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics were falsified. Soviet whaling began with the factory ship Aleut in 1933, but by 1963 the industry had a truly global reach, with seven factory fleets (some very large). Catches were driven by a state planning system that set annual production targets. The system gave bonuses and honors only when these were met or exceeded, and it frequently increased the following year’s targets to match the previous year’s production; scientific estimates of the sustainability of the resource were largely ignored. Inevitably, this system led to whale populations being rapidly reduced. Furthermore, productivity was measured in gross output (weights of whales caught), regardless of whether carcasses were sound or rotten, or whether much of the animal was unutilized. Whaling fleets employed numerous people, including women (in one case as the captain of a catcher boat). Because of relatively high salaries and the potential for bonuses, positions in the whaling industry were much sought-after. Catching and processing of whales was highly mechanized and became increasingly efficient as the industry gained more experience. In a single day, the largest factory ships could process up to 200 small sperm whales, Physeter macrocephalus; 100 humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae; or 30–35 pygmy blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda. However, processing of many animals involved nothing more than stripping the carcass of blubber and then discarding the rest. Until 1952, the main product was whale oil; only later was baleen whale meat regularly utilized. Falsified data on catches were routinely submitted to the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics, but the true catch and biological data were preserved for research and administrative purposes. National inspectors were present at most times, but, with occasional exceptions, they worked primarily to assist fulfillment of plan targets and routinely ignored the illegal nature of many catches. In all, during 40 years of whaling in the Antarctic, the U.S.S.R. reported 185,778 whales taken but at least 338,336 were actually killed. Data for the North Pacific are currently incomplete, but from provisional data we estimate that at least 30,000 whales were killed illegally in this ocean. Overall, we judge that, worldwide, the U.S.S.R. killed approximately 180,000 whales illegally and caused a number of population crashes. Finally, we note that Soviet illegal catches continued after 1972 despite the presence of international observers on factory fleets.