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Scoop.it!
Maps and charts updated weekly show the latest extent of the drought in the United States. 
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Scoop.it!
This author taught three-day workshop will cover the framework and issues associated with conducting an ecological restoration project.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
3-day class on restoration management and planning in SB this September.
Eco Man's curator insight,
December 6, 2018 9:50 PM
Always commending people for doing their part in restoring our environment to a healthy and robust one.
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The deep-blue Ten Mile River snakes down from the mountains through redwood forests and coastal wetlands near Fort Bragg before it flows past rolling sand dunes into the sea. "What we are doing is undoing a 100-year legacy of forestry damage," said Jason Pelletier, director of the Nature Conservancy's North and Central Coast regions, as he stood next to the river where it winds over flatlands before emptying out at the fog-shrouded beach at MacKerricher State Park. A significant watershedThe project is important because a third of all the coho along the Mendocino coast breed in the Ten Mile River, which got its name because it was 10 miles north of the mill on the Noyo River in Fort Bragg, where the ancient redwood forests of the Coast Range were turned into lumber. Coho, also known as silver salmon, once swam in huge numbers up North Coast rivers, providing ample food for American Indians and grizzly bears. Detecting ancient wetlandsDan Porter, the North Coast ecologist for the conservancy, said sophisticated airborne laser and light sensing technology called Lidar was used to detect ancient imprints along the river and develop a high-resolution topographic map of the former wetlands. Conservation easementIn June, the Nature Conservancy, with help from the Conservation Fund, the State Coastal Conservancy and Wildlife Conservation Board, paid $3.8 million for a conservation easement on the 872-acre Smith Ranch. The conservancy, in turn, will be able to do wetlands and fish habitat restoration work on 2 miles of the river's south fork. The Hawthorne Timber Co. has been working with Trout Unlimited over the past decade on fisheries restoration at the headwaters, Pelletier said, meaning the entire river from the ocean to the forested mountaintop soon could be returned to a more natural condition that supports a vibrant salmon population. The entire project is being monitored by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which are trying to develop technical standards and protocol for salmon recovery efforts across 300 miles of coastal watershed lands from San Francisco Bay to the Oregon border.
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U.S. economic sanctions against Russia over Ukraine may wind up helping the Alaskan fishing industry.
At least that's the hope of those promoting "Just Say Nyet," a petition intended to get Congress to ban Russian seafood imports.
The U.S. imported $327 million in fish, crab and other seafood from Russia in 2013, less than 2% of total U.S. fishery imports, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And Russia sells its catch for less money than U.S. fishermen do. "We're highly regulated, they're not," Hochbrueckner said. As a result, he argued, "the Russians end up selling at a lower price, but they can call it 'Alaska pollock.'"
Pat Shanahan, program director for Genuine Alaska Pollock, a trade association, says Americans are more likely to purchase seafood if they think it is from Alaska.
marianne.levine@latimes.com
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Here we go...never waste an international crisis to bolster your local business.
And here is the perspective from the other side:
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/agriculture-trade.xch
I wonder if the Alaskan folks would support increased imports from Norway. They are our ally and have done nothing wrong in this context. I mean, national security and justice are behind the Alaskan Seafood folks arguments, right?
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Pollution may soon overwhelm deep seas' ability to sequester mercury.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Wow, a HUGE number.
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From
kcbx
UC Santa Barbara researchers are asking recreational divers to participate in a giant sea bass census this week. According to researchers these fish can
PIRatE Lab's insight:
New Giant Sea Bass public science census week!
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Louisiana is known as the Sportsman's Paradise, and its a moniker that's well-deserved. Natives have heard all their lives about unfettered coastal subsidence that gobbles our marshes, turning them from fish nurseries and bird rookeries into vast, open-water nothingness. That...
PIRatE Lab's insight:
A great piece highlighting the challenges of delineating private property along a dynamic, eroding shore. When we are in Louisiana and on the water we use 1950's-era maps; so much wetland has converted to open water trying to silly navigate straight ahead is likely to get your boat stuck/prop bent on the bottom two feet below the surface. This story points up one of the many challenges to having the coastal zone be private and defining the resources that are on (or swimming over) them private. It is especially humorous that we need to reference 200 year old maps of a coastline that is eroding faster than almost anywhere else on the planet.
See the state "helper" mapping tool, that I am sure every angler and kayaker consults as they are navigating to their favorite spot:
http://sonris-www.dnr.state.la.us/gis/agsweb/IE/JSViewer/index.html?TemplateID=381
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From
www
Federal customs officials at the Port of Los Angeles have seized about $9,000 worth of mounted and stuffed wildlife "hunting trophies" that lacked proper export permits.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Wow! We recently had a guy from Africa trying to bring in a huge amount of huge snails into the US via Los Angeles. Now we have a guy trying to export dozens of animal parts and taxidermied bodies to the Philippines. This too seems to be a case of a person being ignorant of the law, with the primary problem here being he did not properly secure the relevant export permits/permissions. Nevertheless, CBP still staged a big press/media event (in this case inviting in TV crews, etc. to a warehouse displaying all the seized items). The mission here seems to be more like getting the word out that this is wrong rather than prosecuting the individual per se.
For that earlier story, see: http://sco.lt/7uRj9d
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Two hurricanes continued to head toward Hawaii on Wednesday as officials in Hilo announced school closures and warned visitors and residents to prepare for possible heavy rains, strong winds, dangerous swells and flash flooding.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Here is the post storm update:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Hawaii-s-Big-Island-struggles-after-tropical-storm-5679648.php
There has been remarkably little coverage in the Hawaiian press after the first day. The locals are apparently more interested in the upset in the Governor's race than in the minimal storm impacts. The only significant impact seems to have been the hiker who died while hiking in a closed park during the initial hours of inclement weather.
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From Europe to Asia to the Americas, major retailers and restaurant chains have made big promises regarding sustainable seafood. Are they keeping their word though?
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is a very interesting analysis. Firstly there are lots of apples to oranges comparisons. But if we get through that, it seems that more amorphous targets (e.g. "increase" use of sustainably-sourced seafood) are met, but the specific numeric goals (100%, top 20 items, etc.) are not that often met...although the compliance was much greater than I would have guessed.
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Anglers on a tuna-fishing trip out of San Diego are surprised to find an opah school in their midst; three of the large moon-shaped fish are landed
PIRatE Lab's insight:
We here in Southern California certainly seem to have some ocean that thinks it might want to be heading towards an El Nino condition. While I am still waiting for the pelagic red crabs to start showing up on our shores from the balmy waters of Mexico's Baja California (my main marker of an impending El Nino winter), the Opah have certainly seemed to have found our digs of late.
Don't forget the pier fisherman who caught one in March:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/28/outdoors-opah-san-diego-bay/
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James Perkins sees the federal Bureau of Land Management more as a belligerent occupying army than a government agency serving U.S. citizens, including those like him in south-central Utah.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
While I have at times seen some pretty poor examples of public relations and less than optimal choices in the context of resource management, likening BLM to militants or WWII villains is difficult for me to get my head around. This seems another case of extremist political jockeying and fear mongering for political goals, the resources and the facts be damned.
One need look only to the racist, bizarre ramblings of Mr. Bundy or the murder spree two of his supporters went on in the suburbs of Las Vegas as evidence for the fact fostering such "us vs. them" mentality has negative consequences well beyond the natural resource dimensions of the western U.S.
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‘Deepsea Challenge 3D’ blends Movie Director James Cameron’s passion for exploration and playing in the sea. Last year was the culmination of his exploration technology and deep sea diving desire He funded much of it with proceeds from his previous film making, sponsors, and contracts to make documentaries like this.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
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Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski is asking McDonald’s to stand down on an issue that could impact the long-term availability of one of its signature products — the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, according to Lance Morgan, president of the Marine Conservation Institute (MCI). These canyons — Zhemchug and Pribilof — are the largest underwater canyons in the world and occur along the fruitful, yet totally unprotected, Green Belt zone.
“Comments urging precautionary protection for the canyons have come from a broad coalition of NGOs, together with more than 130,000 individuals, indigenous stakeholders, independent scientists, Seattle businesses, and even some of our nation’s largest supermarket chains,” writes Morgan.
Safeway, Trader Joe’s, SuperValue, Ahold USA and HyVee have all sent letters urging protection for the canyons, and other companies, including McDonald’s, have communicated their concerns directly to the fishing industry, he claimed.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
You know the heat is starting to get cranked up on the efforts to set aside some of the Bering Sea under a new MPA umbrella when Senators start sending e-mails asking businesses to ignore the campaign.
See: http://greenpeaceblogs.org/2014/08/01/mcdonalds-murkowski/
http://www.lib.noaa.gov/about/news/Bering_Sea_Canyons_NOAA_seminar.pdf
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2013/06/6_11_13b_sea_canyons.html
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"This animation distils hundreds of years of culture into just five minutes. A team of historians and scientists wanted to map cultural mobility, so they tracked the births and deaths of notable individuals like David, King of Israel, and Leonardo da Vinci, from 600 BC to the present day. Using them as a proxy for skills and ideas, their map reveals intellectual hotspots and tracks how empires rise and crumble. The information comes from Freebase, a Google-owned database of well-known people and places, and other catalogues of notable individuals. The team is based at the University of Texas at Dallas."
PIRatE Lab's insight:
While this is only a subset of people, it makes for an interesting watch. Among other things, this video highlights how central coastal and river-based centers were/are for our society. Especially the coasts.
Stran smith's curator insight,
August 27, 2014 9:25 PM
Hi it's one of your students try to guess who it is�� 
Emily Coats's curator insight,
May 27, 2015 10:27 AM
CULTURAL UNIT This amazing youtube video is something we watched in class, and is such a great animation. This video charts hundreds of years of cultural diffusion in a mere five minutes. You can see empires rise and crumple, people die and become born, as well as many other significant dates. This applies to the diffusion patterns of culture, because we can see where people and cultures are going throughout the centuries.
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Energy companies are taking their controversial fracking operations from the land to the sea -- to deep waters off the U.S., South American and African coasts.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The cat (or is that drilling muds?) is out of the bag.
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The contentiousness of killing grizzlies for trophies extends far beyond Bella Coola and far beyond the 32,000-square-kilometre Great Bear Rainforest.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
When critters become more valuable alive than dead...
See also:
http://www.cascwild.org/of-farmers-hunters-oil-money-and-the-double-secret-deja-vu-shuffle/
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Southern California is renowned for its beautiful beaches. The effect of sea level rise on these beaches could have grave economic consequences for the region.
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There's a tract of land in India Basin that's one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets: 14 acres of wild waterfront grassland that is home to coyotes and hawks and a destination for weekend anglers fishing for stripers. While the developer is putting together its preliminary planning application, company representatives have been meeting with the India Basin Neighborhood Association to discuss scenarios for the site. There would be a 300-foot-wide shoreline buffer zone, 40-foot height limits, a boating center and a restaurant row to the north.
While the neighborhood plan envisions about a third of the number of units that Build Inc. is contemplating constructing, Yarne said his group is "taking that community vision seriously, and our vision has grown from that."
PIRatE Lab's insight:
A good example of the landscape of modern urban coastal communities and the developmental pressures involved with managing them.
After you read this story, read this important context from the LA Times about a less wild/more brown sitey type site adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles:
The challenges here for people wanting to make money, for communities wanting to have a say in their neighborhoods, and for ecosystems are numerous. Especially here in California. I would suggest that we using any and every "road block" tool on development projects is ill placed. There are certainly bad development projects out there. But the current approach is often much more one of NIMBY rather than a reasoned approach to managing a growing population.
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What's in a name? In the case of hurricanes in the Pacific, you could answer with another cliché: location, location, location.
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A program being launched off the California coast this summer will tackle two environmental problems posed by thousands of cargo ships that ferry goods to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach each year: Not only are the hulking vessels major sources of air pollution, their shipping lanes overlap with a prime feeding area for migrating blue whales off Santa Barbara.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
After several years of meetings and discussions, we are about to start the first trial of a " we'll pay you to slow down" policy in the whale-heavy waters of the Santa Barbara Channel.
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You can't really put a price on the Mississippi river and the ways its used by so many people, but saving the wildlife of Minnesota's most popular waterway may come with the price tag of just $75,000 dollars. A species of carp have been slowly making their way up north on the Mississippi River, threatening the natural species that call those waters home.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Acoustic fences to drive away invading fish is interesting and worth a try. The worry is the 10% of the fish in the lab that are not scared of the sound. Chances are those dudes will get right through this barrier (especially when it becomes a routine sound in this system.
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Julie Packard's Aquatic Vision Directly Impacts Gulf
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The Gulf of Mexico fishing community's take on the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
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A tropical rain storm that caused deadly floods and destructive mudslides in the San Gabriel Mountains on Sunday was the kind of weather event seen only once about every 500 years, the National Weather Service said.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
I love the "once in a _______" fascination we seem to have with natural hazard frequencies.
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A Northern California dam is under repair after it cracked Sunday and prompted nearby residents to panic as officials issued a flash-flood warning.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
California's hydrological infrastructure and poor drought planning/management is showing its age and lack of foresight. On top of the drought and flash flood warnings over the past few days, we are seeing dams crack (as in this story), major pipelines bust (freeing ~1 days worth of water for the City of Los Angeles flowing through UCLA's North Campus over the course of a few hours), and the state freeing local water districts to fine residents up to $500 per event for wasteful outdoor water use.
This is the sound of the piper getting ready to be paid.
See:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/08/04/california-west-water-drought
http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-drought-terra-bella-20140704-story.html#page=1
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ucla-cleanup-20140804-story.html
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Although California has perhaps had it the worst, drought also affects other states, mainly the southwestern ones (even with New Mexico's slight reversal last week with summer downpours). Mike Bostock and Kevin Quealy for the New York Times have been updating an animated map weekly. It shows the spread of drought severity, across the United States. But, be sure to scroll down to also see drought levels over time, shown as stacked area chart.
To show the increased levels of drought throughout the state of California, Kyle Kim and Thomas Suh Lauder for the LA Times showed weekly change in drought levels with 188 color-coded California maps. Here is the animated version:
http://www.latimes.com/la-me-g-california-drought-map-gif-htmlstory.html
A couple of years ago, the New York Times did something similar, but with a two-category color scale and on a national scale.