|
Dear NYSMEAns,
Since the pandemic in early 2020, scheduled marine science events, activities, conferences and coastal cleanups have been canceled. Behind the scenes, many folks are working on future marine science endeavors. NYSMEA has been focusing on future NMEA and NYSMEA conferences, an October whale watch and our Denyse Wharf Cleanup. The Denyse Wharf Cleanup on Saturday, October 17th, helps promote an Eco-Lab to be built to help accommodate local elementary school children who don’t have access to a science lab. Checkout our NYSMEA Zoom series listed below.
Save the Dates
October 17th Denyse Wharf Cleanup (See Below For Details)
December TBA Holiday Party (Virtual?)
NYSMEA EVENTS
October 17th Denyse Wharf Cleanup
NYSMEA Zoom Series
1-Tuesday, October 20th at 1:00 PM ET
Tanasia Swift, Community Reefs Regional Manager
Did you know that BOP has community reefs in Coney Island, Canarsie, Sunset Park, Far Rockaway, and Brooklyn Bridge Park?
Join to learn about BOP’s hands-on programming around oyster restoration and find out how you can get engaged. To join click here at the appropriate day and time.
2-Tuesday, October 27th at 10:00 AM ET
Kyle Troy, Director/Naturalist
The Marine Education Center is an organization built around promoting and educating the public on the Long Island Sound Ecosystem.
Join to get a personal tour around the building and learn about the animals in the tanks. To join click here at the appropriate day and time.
Press Release by Thomas Greene
An EcoLab to Promote Resilience: A Budget Saving Solution
Here is a little known and disturbing fact. Almost all the K-5 public schools in New York City have no science laboratories. While lab science is compulsory in the high schools, it has been historically neglected, both citywide and nationally, in the elementary schools. This lab deficit problem may help to explain the poor performance of our students in the later grades, and their dismal showing in competitions with students from other nations.
What can City officials do? The Dept of Education can build a regional lab, one in each of the five Boroughs. Each science lab would serve hundreds of schools during the academic year. Since the five Boroughs are fringed by more than 500 miles of coastline, the EcoLabs should be placed near the shore to reflect the City’s natural marine environment.
Students would be bussed from their home school to the EcoLab and back after a two - hour lab session. Each lab activity would consist of a combination of fieldwork on the beach, followed by age appropriate science activities in the EcoLab. Science laboratories are critical facilities where students learn best because they use the hands-on science tools needed to observe and investigate their environment.
A regional EcoLab would be extremely cost effective when compared with the cost of building a lab in each of the more than 600 elementary schools without labs. Housed in inexpensive sturdy steel shipping containers, and equipped with solar panels and a wind turbine, the EcoLab would show students first - hand how clean energy can replace the polluting fossil fuels in the production of electricity. Operating off the grid would be another budget saving measure. Each EcoLab, at an estimated cost of $250,000, represents only a tiny fraction of the Dept of Education’s $17 billion Capital Budget.
More importantly, children who are taught from an early age about the perils of pollution, and the need to learn about alternative energy to counter the looming menace of global warming, will become better-informed citizens needed to foster community resilience.
Recently a number of high school and middle school students skipped class to protest in the streets about environmental issues. The teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg dramatically proclaimed, “How dare you!” at a UN Summit meeting on climate change. This rising tide of concern from teens and pre-teens, who rarely protest, should not go unheeded.
It’s time we listened to the kids. Young people are fearful about the state of the environment they will inherit and are pleading for us to do something about it. They are saying – stop the environmental damage; look for new alternative solutions to pollution. Be resilient!
Meaningful environmental science in a regional lab for the K-5 students would serve as the foundation for promoting resilience.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas Greene
Board Member and Former President
New York State Marine Education Association (NYSMEA)
9437 Shore Road Apt E2
Brooklyn, NY 11209
January 10, 2020
Modern Commercial Whaling with A Focus on Iceland
For the second time in a row, Iceland has cancelled whaling for the year. It is much more profitable for the country to focus on ecotourism such as whale-watching. An estimated 2,000 tons of whale meat is wasted each year (the meat remains in a freezer, unpurchased), with Iceland being the second largest supplier of whale meat after Japan. The only other country that practices commercial whaling is Norway.
The main whales hunted in Iceland are Minke and Fin Whales. Over 700 Fin whales were killed between 2006-2015. In 2018 alone, 146 fin whales were killed including a dozen pregnant females and two fin-blue whale hybrids (Whaling in Iceland, 2020). According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Fin whales are listed as an endangered species. Despite the vast number of whales killed, a pole conducted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Capacent Gallup, revealed only 3.2% of Iceland’s population eats whale meat with any regularity (with regularity being defined as consumption of six times per year or more). Additionally, less than 1.7% of Iceland’s population eat whale meat once per month (Whaling in Iceland, 2020).
The lack of market for whale meat and the pressure of environmental organizations such as Greenpeace has proved taxing on whaling companies, which is why Iceland has halted whaling for the second year in a row. Iceland’s whaling activities also negatively impacts their economy as over 100,000 tourists and locals signed a petition in 2016 asking for the end of the consumption of whale meat. Tourism makes up nearly half of Iceland’s economy (Spinks, Lenhart, Sheivachman, Skift, & Southwest Airlines, 2019), with whale watching being listed as the country’s top attraction according to according to Planetware.com. In fact, the country makes approximately 33 million dollars per year because of whale watching alone (Malinauskaite, Cook, Davíðsdóttir, Ögmundardóttir, & Roman, 2020), while only 8.4 million dollars are made from Iceland’s primary whaling organization, Hvalur hf (Whales Safe Again in Icelandic Waters, 2020).
Japan is the country that practices whaling the most. Despite this fact, Japan consumes less than one ounce of whale meat per captia and like Iceland whaling, is not economically viable (Mulvaney, 2020). Whale watching contributes eight million dollars of annual revenue in Japan, with a predicted 20% increase per year, while whaling generates very little to the Japanese economy (Fobar, 2019). The Japanese originally started whaling for food and it became a significant part of their cultural heritage. Japan continues to whale, because whale meat has become a status symbol (the equivalent of eating caviar in the west) as it is quite expensive to purchase.
Last year, Norway killed as many as 1,278 Minke whales. The quota set for 2020 is the same number. Similarly, there is no great demand for whale meat in Norway, as only 5% of Norwegians consume whale meat (Alberts, 2018). However, whale meat is regularly used as pet food. The Norwegian government has tried to encourage its citizens to consume whale meat, in order to justify its hunts, but with little success. Like in Japan, whaling is an important part of Norwegian cultural heritage, although like Japan and Iceland, whale-watching and eco-tourism play a larger role in Norway’s economy than whaling. It is important to note however, that Norway focuses its hunts on Minke whales as opposed to more threatened species like humpback, fin and blue whales. Minke whales are not endangered and fall under Least Concern under the IUCN red list. It is believed that the global Minke whale population (which includes all three species, the Northern Minke whale, Antarctic Minke whale and the Dwarf Minke whale) is over 700,000, with the North Atlantic population consisting of approximately 180,000 individuals (International Whaling Commission). However, the quota may be too high for the population to remain sustainable, but this is debatable, since the population is not considered to be at risk.
Whales play a vital role in the ecosystem and are considered to be ecosystem engineers. Whale feces stimulates phytoplankton growth which make up over 50% of the oxygen on the planet and control the entire ocean ecosystem. The great whales (blue, fin, sei, bryde’s, humpback, bowhead, right and sperm) are play an important role in regulating climate change. Whales accumulate vast quantities of atmospheric carbon during their lifetime. When whales die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean along with the vast amount of absorbed carbon. In fact, it its estimated that each great whale sequesters 33 tons of Carbon Dioxide. A tree sequesters less than 3% of this number (Protecting whales to protect the planet, 2019). Whales are essential to the health of our planet and our future generations.
By Alexander Mildener, Gotham Whale Intern and Graduate Student at Hunter College, Animal Behavior Conservation Program under the direction of Dr. Diana Reiss
Bibliography
Alberts, E. C. (2018, June 15). This Country Is Trying To Make Eating Whale Meat 'Trendy'. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.thedodo.com/in-the-wild/whale-meat-marketed-as-trendy-norway
Fobar, R. (2019, March 15). Whale watching in Japan is on the rise, even as commercial hunts are set to resume. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/whale-watching-becomes-increasingly-popular-in-japan0/
Malinauskaite, L., Cook, D., Davíðsdóttir, B., Ögmundardóttir, H., & Roman, J. (2020). Willingness to pay for expansion of the whale sanctuary in Faxaflói Bay, Iceland: A contingent valuation study. Ocean & Coastal Management, 183, 105026. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2019.105026
Minke whale. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://iwc.int/minke-whale
Mulvaney, K. (2020, May 20). Commercial whaling may be over in Iceland. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/commercial-whaling-may-be-over-iceland/
Protecting whales to protect the planet. (2019, October 14). Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/protecting-whales-protect-planet
Spinks, R., Lenhart, M., Sheivachman, A., Skift, & Southwest Airlines. (2019, September 11). The Rise and Fall of Iceland's Tourism Miracle. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://skift.com/2019/09/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-icelands-tourism-miracle/
Whales Safe Again in Icelandic Waters. (2020, April 30). Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/latest-news/whales-safe-again-iceland/
Whaling in Iceland. (2020, May 13). Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://us.whales.org/our-4-goals/stop-whaling/whaling-in-iceland/
NYSMEAns For the latest marine related news,events and updates please check our website, nysmea.org, like our Facebook page, New York State Marine Education Association, and follow our Twitter feed @nysmea
Sincerely,
Lane Rosen
NYSMEA President
president@nysmea.org
|
