Management of northern fur seals on the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, 1786-1981

This paper includes information about the Pribilof Islands since their discovery by Russia in 1786 and the population of northern fur seals, Cailorhinus ursinus, that return there each summer to bear young and to breed. Russia exterminated the native population of sea Oilers, Enhydra lulris, here and nearly subjected the northern fur seal to the same fate before providing proper protection. The northern fur seal was twice more exposed to extinction following the purchase of Alaska and the Pribilof Islands by the United States in 1867. Excessive harvesting was stopped as a result of strict management by the United States of the animals while on land and a treaty between Japan, Russia, Great Britain (for Canada), and the United States that provided needed protection at sea. In 1941, Japan abrogated this treaty which was replaced by a provisional agreement between Canada and the United States that protected the fur seals in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Japan, the U.S.S.R., Canada, and the United States again insured the survival of these animals with ratification in 1957 of the "Interim Convention on the Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals," which is still in force. Under the auspices of this Convention, the United States launched an unprecedented manipulation of the resource through controlled removal during 1956-68 of over 300,000 females considered surplus. The biological rationale for the reduction was that production of fewer pups would result in a higher pregnancy rate and increased survival, which would, in turn, produce a sustained annual harvest of 55,000-60,000 males and 10,000-30,000 females. Predicted results did not occur. The herd reduction program instead coincided with the beginning of a decline in the number of males available for harvest. Suspected but unproven causes were changes in the toll normally accounted for by predation, disease, adverse weather, and hookworms. Depletion of the animals' food supply by foreign fishing Heets and the entanglement of fur seals in trawl webbing and other debris discarded at sea became a prime suspect in altering the average annual harvest of males on the Pribilof Islands from 71,500 (1940-56) to 40,000 (1957-59) to 36,000 (1960) to 82,000 (1961) and to 27,347 (1972-81). Thus was born the concept of a research control area for fur seals, which was agreed upon by members of the Convention in 1973 and instituted by the United States on St. George Island beginning in 1974. All commercial harvesting of fur seals was stopped on St. George Island and intensive behavioral studies were begun on the now unharvested population as it responds to the moratorium and attempts to reach its natural ceiling. The results of these and other studies here and on St. Paul Island are expected to eventually permit a comparison between the dynamics of unharvested and harvested populations, which should in turn permit more precise management of fur seals as nations continue to exploit the marine resources of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. (PDF file contains 32 pages.)

Effects of beach remourishment on the benthic macrofauna and the fishes of the nearshore zone at Sebastian Inlet State Recreation Area

Approximately 100,000 cubic yards of sand was transported to the ocean beach to renourish the eroded beach front during the period December 1985 through May 1986. The ocean beach at Sebastian Inlet SRA was previously studied in a project examining the benthic macrofauna and the fishes of the nearshore zone during 1981-1982 (Allenbaugh, 1984; Peters, 1984; Nelson, unpublished). In view of the existing data, the US Army Corps of Engineers provided funding to study the effects of the beach renourishment activities at Sebastian Inlet SRA on the benthic macrofauna and the fishes of the nearshore zone. This is the report on the results of this study.

Tracing the Basque presence in eastern Canada during the 16th and 17th centuries, through ceramic remains: the example of the glazed pottery produced in Bilbao

Poster presentado en Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Conference, in St John's, Newfoundland,(Canadá)(June 2010)

Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Coconut Island, Hawaii, February 7-9, 2007: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) convened a workshop, sponsored by the Hawaii-Pacific and Alaska Regional Partners, entitled Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology from February 7-9, 2007. The workshop was designed to summarize existing passive acoustic technologies and their uses, as well as to make strategic recommendations for future development and collaborative programs that use passive acoustic tools for scientific investigation and resource management. The workshop was attended by 29 people representing three sectors: research scientists, resource managers, and technology developers. The majority of passive acoustic tools are being developed by individual scientists for specific applications and few tools are available commercially. Most scientists are developing hydrophone-based systems to listen for species-specific information on fish or cetaceans; a few scientists are listening for biological indicators of ecosystem health. Resource managers are interested in passive acoustics primarily for vessel detection in remote protected areas and secondarily to obtain biological and ecological information. The military has been monitoring with hydrophones for decades;however, data and signal processing software has not been readily available to the scientific community, and future collaboration is greatly needed. The challenges that impede future development of passive acoustics are surmountable with greater collaboration. Hardware exists and is accessible; the limits are in the software and in the interpretation of sounds and their correlation with ecological events. Collaboration with the military and the private companies it contracts will assist scientists and managers with obtaining and developing software and data analysis tools. Collaborative proposals among scientists to receive larger pools of money for exploratory acoustic science will further develop the ability to correlate noise with ecological activities. The existing technologies and data analysis are adequate to meet resource managers' needs for vessel detection. However, collaboration is needed among resource managers to prepare large-scale programs that include centralized processing in an effort to address the lack of local capacity within management agencies to analyze and interpret the data. Workshop participants suggested that ACT might facilitate such collaborations through its website and by providing recommendations to key agencies and programs, such as DOD, NOAA, and I00s. There is a need to standardize data formats and archive acoustic environmental data at the national and international levels. Specifically, there is a need for local training and primers for public education, as well as by pilot demonstration projects, perhaps in conjunction with National Marine Sanctuaries. Passive acoustic technologies should be implemented immediately to address vessel monitoring needs. Ecological and health monitoring applications should be developed as vessel monitoring programs provide additional data and opportunities for more exploratory research. Passive acoustic monitoring should also be correlated with water quality monitoring to ease integration into long-term monitoring programs, such as the ocean observing systems. [PDF contains 52 pages]

Measures of turbidity in coastal waters, Coconut Island, Oahu, Hawaii, August 31 - September 2, 2005: workshop proceedings

A three day workshop on turbidity measurements was held at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology from August 3 1 to September 2, 2005. The workshop was attended by 30 participants from industry, coastal management agencies, and academic institutions. All groups recognized common issues regarding the definition of turbidity, limitations of consistent calibration, and the large variety of instrumentation that nominally measure "turbidity." The major recommendations, in order of importance for the coastal monitoring community are listed below: 1. The community of users in coastal ecosystems should tighten instrument design configurations to minimize inter-instrument variability, choosing a set of specifications that are best suited for coastal waters. The IS0 7027 design standard is not tight enough. Advice on these design criteria should be solicited through the ASTM as well as Federal and State regulatory agencies representing the majority of turbidity sensor end users. Parties interested in making turbidity measurements in coastal waters should develop design specifications for these water types rather than relying on design standards made for the analysis of drinking water. 2. The coastal observing groups should assemble a community database relating output of specific sensors to different environmental parameters, so that the entire community of users can benefit from shared information. This would include an unbiased, parallel study of different turbidity sensors, employing a variety of designs and configuration in the broadest range of coastal environments. 3. Turbidity should be used as a measure of relative change in water quality rather than an absolute measure of water quality. Thus, this is a recommendation for managers to develop their own local calibrations. See next recommendation. 4. If the end user specifically wants to use a turbidity sensor to measure a specific water quality parameter such as suspended particle concentration, then direct measurement of that water quality parameter is necessary to correlate with 'turbidity1 for a particular environment. These correlations, however, will be specific to the environment in which they are measured. This works because there are many environments in which water composition is relatively stable but varies in magnitude or concentration. (pdf contains 22 pages)

Das Klima um Grönland - 1996

Based on air temperature data from three sites of West and East Greenland, on ice charts for the area 54°N, 71°N and 20°W, 70°W, and on CTD profile observations around Greenland, the annual variability of climate is shown. Mean monthly air temperature data from Nuuk/West Greenland reveal the long-term interannual changes of air temperature anomalies. The warming trend which was observed during November, December 1995 was maintained into 1996 for about five months. Thus, spring warming of the near surface water layers, especially on the shallow bank areas off West Greenland has been favoured. As a result of mild air temperatures over most of 1996, sea ice conditions were about normal around Greenland and off eastern Canada. Subsurface observations indicate considerable warming of the 0-200 m water layer off West Greenland. The thermal anomaly of this layer amounts to +1.59K, which is the second highest value on record since the warm 1964 event. The warmer than normal conditions as recorded since November 1995 off East and West Greenland, point at intermediate warming which is characteristic of the second half of the recent decades. The long-term trend of air temperature anomalies off West Greenland points, however, still at cooling, a trend which is persistent since the early 1970s. As the potential driving mechanism for the intermediate warming in the Labrador Sea area, the sea level air pressure gradient between Iceland and the Azores is identified. The 1996 value of this gradient, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index, is strongly negative and this represents the flow of mild air masses from the midlatitude Atlantic Ocean to the Greenland/Labrador Sea region. Accordingly, air temperature anomalies indicated unusual warming during the month of February which amounted to >2K in the region of Baffin Land, Labrador and Greenland.

The Coastal Barrier Island Network (CBIN): Future management strategies for barrier islands

Barrier islands are ecosystems that border coastal shorelines and form a protective barrier between continental shorelines and the wave action originating offshore. In addition to forming and maintaining an array of coastal and estuarine habitats of ecological and economic importance, barrier island coastlines also include some of the greatest concentrations of human populations and accompanying anthropogenic development in the world. These islands have an extremely dynamic nature whereby major changes in geomorphology and hydrology can occur over short time periods (i.e. days, hours) in response to extreme episodic storm events such as hurricanes and northeasters. The native vegetation and geological stability of these ecosystems are tightly coupled with one another and are vulnerable to storm-related erosion events, particularly when also disturbed by anthropogenic development. (PDF contains 4 pages)

The island of Kauai, Hawaii's progressive shoreline setback and coastal protection ordinance

Approximately two-thirds of coastal and Great Lakes states have some type of shoreline construction setback or construction control line requiring development to be a certain distance from the shoreline or other coastal feature (OCRM, 2008). Nineteen of 30 coastal states currently use erosion rates for new construction close to the shoreline. Seven states established setback distances based on expected years from the shoreline: the remainder specify a fixed setback distance (Heinz Report, 2000). Following public hearings by the County of Kauai Planning Commission and Kauai County Council, the ‘Shoreline Setback and Coastal Protection Ordinance’ was signed by the Mayor of Kauai on January 25, 2008. After a year of experience implementing this progressive, balanced shoreline setback ordinance several amendments were recently incorporated into the Ordinance (#887; Bill #2319 Draft 3). The Kauai Planning Department is presently drafting several more amendments to improve the effectiveness of the Ordinance. The intent of shoreline setbacks is to establish a buffer zone to protect shorefront development from loss due to coastal erosion - for a period of time; to provide protection from storm waves; to allow the natural dynamic cycles of erosion and accretion of beaches and dunes to occur; to maintain beach and dune habitat; and, to maintain lateral beach access and open space for the enjoyment of the natural shoreline environment. In addition, a primary goal of the Kauai setback ordinance is to avoid armoring or hardening of the shore which along eroding coasts has been documented to ultimately eliminate the fronting beach. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Radioaktivität in Fischen aus Bereichen der Nordsee und aus Seegebieten bei den Färöer Inseln und Island

Ziel war es festzustellen, ob in den Fischen bei den Färöern und bei Island noch ein Einfluß der Ableitungen der britischen Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Sellafield in die Irische See nachgewiesen werden kann.

"Rapid and dramatic changes in vegetation" of a small pond on Holy Island (Northumbria): Chaotic dynamics?

This note describes changes to the relative extent of four structurally dominant submerged macrophytes in a pond on Holy Island National Nature Reserve, Northumbria, between 1991 and 1998. The estimated extent of the four submerged macrophytes and bare substratum between 1991 and 1998 showed dramatic changes with no obvious pattern or periodicity, as well as no identifiable natural or anthropogenic causes. Chaotic variation may be an important character of submerged pond plant populations, so that surveys taken in a single year may give an unreliable picture of plant populations.