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Wider use of Navy sonar approved by House
Vote upsets activists, who say marine life is more at risk now
By ROBERT McCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Saturday, November 8, 2003

Weeks after a groundbreaking scientific study said naval sonar appears to be killing marine mammals, the Bush administration yesterday won House approval to use sonar wherever Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sees fit.

Passage next week by the Senate is virtually assured.

Like their colleagues elsewhere, environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest were angry. They pointed to an incident earlier this year in which Navy sonar near the San Juan Islands panicked orcas and other marine mammals and may have killed harbor porpoises later found dead in the area.

The legislation, part of a $401 billion defense bill, gives the secretary of defense the right to exempt from the provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act "any action or category of actions" undertaken by the armed forces. Currently, that requires the approval of the National Marine Fisheries Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The new law requires only that the defense secretary notify environmental regulators of his intentions.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the bill embodied "common-sense environmental reforms allowing our troops to properly train."

Supporters said current provisions about "harassment" of orcas, porpoises, seals, sea lions and similar creatures are sufficiently vague that they could be interpreted to make it illegal for a passing Navy ship to startle a sea lion enough that it jumps into the water.

"The Marine Mammal Protection Act was adopted under the Nixon administration and ... the initial intent was to protect marine mammals from hunters and fishermen," said Navy spokesman Cappy Surette. "It was later applied to the military. The Navy finds the language extremely constrictive."

Opponents said the sweeping changes in the law -- unusual in a bill that authorizes spending -- are not necessary. Concern about vagueness of the current law could be easily fixed without giving the military the right to unilaterally approve its own harassment of marine mammals, critics said.

"Does anybody trust Donald Rumsfeld to save the whales?" asked Gerald Leape, vice president of the National Environmental Trust. "This means ... more freedom for the Department of Defense to do whatever it wants and not be burdened by working through our nation's most important law to protect marine mammals."

The move appears to undo an important recent court victory by environmentalists to limit where a new and powerful form of naval sonar can be used, members of Congress said.

The suit spearheaded by the Natural Resources Defense Council was settled in mid-October when the Navy agreed to limit deployment of the new, low-frequency sonar, which can reach hundreds of miles underwater.

That settlement limits the use of the souped-up sonar to waters off Japan, China and the Philippines, although it contains exemptions for times of war or "heightened threat conditions."

At the time of the settlement, Seattle orca activist Fred Felleman predicted, "If the Navy is able to successfully exempt themselves from the (Marine Mammal Protection Act), this is going to be a very short-term success."

His analysis of the situation after yesterday's vote: "It's dismal."

The vote to approve the change came as House members, headed home for a busy round of Veterans Day weekend appearances, voted on a broad blueprint for Defense Department operations that also sets spending guidelines for congressional budget-writers.

Negotiators from the House and Senate finished the bill at 2:15 a.m. yesterday. It runs to 712 pages of extremely complicated text, such as this bit from the part about marine mammals:

"The term 'Level A harassment' means harassment described in subparagraph(A)(i) or, in the case of military readiness activity or scientific research activity described in subparagraph (B), harassment described in subparagraph (B)(i)."

Members had about three hours to read the bill. To finish it, they would have had to take in about four pages per minute between the time it was released about dawn and debate began at midmorning.

Among those who objected to the rush and refused to vote for or against the measure was Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.

"Rubber-stamping laws without reading them is not what this nation was meant to be about, and not what this Congress should be about," he said. "How ironic that the legislation authorizing the defense of this great republic does such a disservice to the very principles of republican government."

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, charged: "Using defense as cover, they are proposing changes to environmental laws that have nothing to do with defense readiness."

Efforts by opponents to limit the application of the law to wartime, or to activities directly related to military readiness, were rejected.

The bill's provisions were drafted by the Armed Services Committees of the House and Senate.

In reaction, this week members of the House Resources Committee, the panel with official jurisdiction over the Marine Mammal Protection Act, passed an overhaul of the law. Democrats and Republicans on the committee said they worked together to work out language that -- while still angering environmentalists -- kept the National Marine Fisheries Service in charge of decisions about whether to allow use of sonar and other technologies that harm marine mammals.

"It is considerably better than the Defense Department bill and although it's not the one I would have written if I was the only one involved ... it was necessary to head off something worse," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., a Resources Committee member.

That strategy did not work, though. It's possible those provisions re-restricting the military could be approved next year if the Senate passes similar legislation.

Fifty-one House members, including Inslee, Baird and Blumenauer, unsuccessfully appealed Oct. 21 to the Armed Services Committee chairmen to leave the issue alone for now, citing a study by Spanish and British scientists that came out Oct. 9.

The study said whales near naval exercises where sonar was used appeared to get a sometimes-fatal version of the bends, the nitrogen sickness suffered by human scuba divers. The study followed a string of whale deaths in the vicinity of naval exercises in several places around the globe. All involved common midfrequency sonar, not the newer, more-powerful low-frequency version.

"Marine mammal scientists have said that this study may be the so-called 'smoking-gun' linking sonar use with marine mammal strandings," the House members wrote. "It provides a plausible and credible scientific explanation for an abundance of circumstantial evidence that has linked sonar use to marine mammal stranding."

IN THE DEFENSE BILL

The Bush administration sought a number of exemptions to environmental laws, winning some and losing some:

Congress gave the military the right to police itself as far as protecting "critical habitat" for endangered and threatened species.

The Defense Department's request for exemptions to the Clean Air Act did not succeed.

Military efforts to win a reprieve from laws governing handling of hazardous chemicals and cleanup of toxic waste sites were denied.

Midway airport operation supported only till Nov. 30
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to operate the airfield at Midway Atoll while it waits for Congress to conclude budget discussions on paying for the mid-ocean runway.

Midway Atoll, all 2.5 square miles, once was home to about 1,500 people when it was used as a Navy base. Now, even continued use of the airstrip is in question.

The airport operation is financed through the end of this month.

A Senate transportation appropriations bill has authorized $6 million for keeping the runway open next year, but the House of Representatives has not allocated money for it, said Barbara Maxfield, of the agency's Pacific Islands office. The differences will have to be worked out in conference committee, she said.

The Department of Interior's budget for the 2004 fiscal year has been approved by both houses of Congress and has been signed by the president — but doesn't provide the cash to run the airport. That measure says the service may legally run the airport, but that the service doesn't really need an airport to operate the wildlife refuge. It says the agencies that do need it should be paying the Fish and Wildlife Service to keep the airport open.

A number of government agencies and private firms benefit from the presence of an airfield at Midway, which lies more than 1,000 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. The Coast Guard stops there during its law enforcement and search and rescue missions in the mid-north Pacific. Oceanic fishing vessels have come to rely on the runway for evacuation of injured or sick crew members. Trans-Pacific air carriers that use fuel-efficient twin-engine jets need a mid-ocean field in case they lose an engine.

Thus far, the Fish and Wildlife Service said, none has volunteered money to keep the runway open.

Midway is a nesting site for hundreds of thousands of seabirds, and a place where Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles haul out. It also is a national historical site, with a century of history as a communications relay area, an oceanic refueling stop for early long-distance aircraft, and most notably, the site of the battle that turned the tide in the Pacific in World War II.

Discussions about the operation of the airfield don't directly address the issue of public use of the atoll. Bird lovers and military history buffs had a brief period when they could visit the atoll during the late 1990s and early 2000s, but squabbles between the Fish and Wildlife Service and contractor Midway Phoenix Corp. ended that last year.

Service officials say they remain committed to public access, but the status of the airfield could be the thing that determines whether a viable visitor program can function.

Myth-Breaking Could Save Dugongs
AFP

Nov. 12, 2003 — Mass education among fishermen could help save the dugong, a large herbivorous sea mammal on the verge of extinction in Tanzania, a senior official said earlier this week.

Rumisha said that there were cases where the animals, also known as sea cows, were deliberately killed after getting caught in fishermen's nets because of various myths associated with them.

"The dugong is almost extinct in Tanzania and we must act now to save the creatures from total extinction," Tanzania Marine Parks and Reserves manager Chikambi Rumisha told AFP.

He said some people think it’s a bad omen to come across a dugong and so kill it immediately. Others catch the mammal for its meat because they consider it to be an aphrodisiac.

"But these are mere myths that could be addressed by reaching out to the fishermen with a message that the animals were innocent and need to be conserved," Rumisha added.

Rumisha said that the approach was applied successfully in the neighboring Mozambique.

"It is very, very clear that dugongs are now critically endangered in Tanzania, and without concerted conservation effort now, they will certainly become nationally extinct in the near future," he stressed.

There are very few dugong sightings in Tanzania nowadays compared with neighboring Mozambique.

The WWF warned last July that only 32 dugongs have been sighted in Tanzania since January 2000. Of those, only eight were alive; the rest were dead after having been tangled in gillnets, according to the statement.

Dugongs are seal-like creatures descended from terrestrial swamp browsers that lived 55 million years ago. They are more closely related to elephants than to other marine mammals, like whales and dolphins.

Dolphin species could die out says expert

New Zealand is at risk of being the first country to drive a dolphin species to extinction, says the World Wildlife Fund after the discovery of a second dead Hector's dolphin within 48 hours.

The butchered carcass of a Hector's dolphin was found on Monday, and another dolphin was found stranded on Tuesday, both in Kaikoura.

World Wildlife Fund New Zealand conservation director Chris Howe called on the Government to urgently introduce "long overdue" measures to protect the species.

While autopsies had not been completed, a high number of dolphin deaths in recent years had been the result of fishing-related activity, he said.

"The first carcass has the telltale signs of being a fishing-related death, as it has been reported in the past that drowned dolphins have been cut from nets hoping they will sink," he said.

Department of Conservation officials said the dolphin had net marks around its head, and it was not yet known whether it was already dead when it was hacked in half with a knife.

Yesterday, DoC staff examined a second dead dolphin on Mangamanu Beach, north of Kaikoura township.

DoC Kaikoura field centre supervisor Mike Morrissey said it appeared this dolphin, too, had drowned in a net.

The male dolphin, in "really good condition", was probably caught on Tuesday night or early yesterday.

Both bodies had been sent to Massey University to undergo autopsies.

Mr Howe said there was an urgent need for a species recovery plan that addressed all threats to the Hector's dolphin and to its critically endangered sub-species, Maui's dolphin, of which fewer than 100 remain.

Fishing, marine farming, pollution, recreational boating and genetic isolation of local populations, were all taking their toll on the fragile mammal.

"We urge the Government to formulate and implement a recovery plan to address threats to both Hector's and Maui's dolphins nationally. Otherwise we could be at risk of being the first country to drive a dolphin species to extinction," Mr Howe said.

Mr Morrissey said there were only about 1800 Hector's dolphins left in the South Island.

"Any further reduction in the population puts the future of the whole species in jeopardy."

Authorities investigating dead seals case
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 12, 2003 11:15 am

NEW CASTLE, N.H. — Authorities are investigating a poaching case after six seals were found dead, most of them along New Hampshire´s seacoast.

They either washed up on shore or were found by boaters. Authorities say two were clearly skinned and mutilated and others were badly decomposed and their deaths considered suspicious.

The last seal was found Tuesday night in Lynn, Mass.

Chris Shoppmeyer, special agent for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the people responsible are not amateurs.

"They were professionally skinned, with no damage to internal organs. Whoever did this is skilled with a knife," Shoppmeyer said.

There is a big black market for the male genitalia of seals, which are thought to be a powerful aphrodisiac. They can bring several hundred dollars an ounce.

A Seacoast conservation group is offering a $1,000 reward for information that helps find the people responsible.

The first two seals, a gray seal and a harbor seal, were discovered at Hampton beach during July and August. Two other carcasses were found off the New Hampshire coast in the fall. A fifth seal carcass was found at Foster Beach, in Kittery, Maine, around Halloween, Shoppmeyer said. That carcass was not saved, but Shoppmeyer is reviewing photos of it.

Shoppmeyer said investigators are conducting extensive interviews of all people involved in the fishing or sporting industries.

"I pulled databases on taxidermists, commercial fishermen, bluefish tuna to see who was out there at those specific times," said Shoppmeyer. "I am interviewing fishermen, trappers and fur buyers. All have been extremely cooperative, because everyone feels this is crossing the line _ that it gives the fishing industry a black eye. We´re checking tanneries to see if anyone has been bringing in seal hides."

The crime, a federal violation, is called "taking." The law prohibits any person or vessel from taking any marine mammal in waters or on lands under the jurisdiction of the United States; or for any person to possess any animal or product from an animal thus taken.

Shoppmeyer said taking can result in fines of up to $20,000 and up to one year in jail.

Whaling ships head for Antarctic
Japan to catch 410 minke whales
Friday, November 7, 2003 Posted: 0645 GMT ( 2:45 PM HKT)

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Five Japanese whaling ships set out Friday to catch an estimated 410 minke whales in an expedition to Antarctic waters, an official said.

The fleet set sail from the southern port of Shimonoseki with a crew of 200 aboard the five ships, including the 7,638-ton Nisshinmaru mother ship, Fisheries Agency spokesman Shuji Sato said.

Sato said the purpose of the expedition is research, and the data to be collected will be reported to the International Whaling Commission for use in whale population studies.

The expedition is set to last until next April and is Japan's 17th to the Antarctic since the program began in 1987.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, but approved restricted hauls for Japan's research program a year later.

Anti-whaling critics, including the United States, Britain and Australia, say the program is commercial whaling in disguise because -- though in keeping with IWC rules -- most of the whale meat ends up in restaurants.

Japan is one of the world's largest consumers of whale meat, considered a delicacy here. The government sells the meat from the research catches at local fish markets, and uses the proceeds to pay for the U.S. $37 million a year research program.

Fishing kills a third of turtles
Satellite-tracked tags hint at threatening mortality rate.
10 November 2003
JOHN WHITFIELD

Nearly one in three sea turtles may be killed by fishing each year, suggests a new global study.

"At this rate of mortality, you can project that some populations will go extinct in a few decades," says Graeme Hays of the University of Wales, Swansea, UK. Hays' estimates are based on records from turtles carrying satellite tags. These broadcast an animal's position, and record its dives.

Tags also record turtles being eaten - animals that suddenly move inland to a fishing village and stay there, for example, have almost certainly been taken for food. "Tourists have photographed turtles being barbecued with the transmitter still attached," says Hays.

His team pooled the data from eight tagging projects, covering 50 green, loggerhead and leatherback turtles for a total of nearly 6,000 days1. During this time, six perished at human hands - three in Mexico and one each in Japan, Indonesia and South Africa. That equates to an annual mortality of 31%.

International trade in turtles is prohibited, but subsistence fishers still kill them for their meat and eggs. Some Mexican villages have rubbish dumps piled high with turtle shells. And many turtles die as 'bycatch', caught accidentally in fishing nets.

The studied animals were probably killed deliberately, as tags must be on land and out of doors for several days to guarantee an upload to the satellite. Corpses discarded at sea would not be able to do this.

Conservationists are alert to the dangers of bycatch, but often overlook the impact of turtle hunting illustrated in this study, believes turtle researcher Karen Bjorndal of the University of Florida in Gainesville. "Thousands and thousands are taken for food," she says.

Conservation policies should try to reduce hunting through education, legislation and working to provide alternative incomes, she says.

"People can make more money from turtles alive than dead," agrees Hays. He works on green turtles in Brazil and Ascension Island, where the animals get good protection, and conservationists and researchers have helped to establish ecotourism projects.

As the risks to turtles are so different from place to place, the team plans a study covering hundreds of animals, to get a fuller picture.

Herring Break Wind to Communicate, Study Suggests
James Owen in England for National Geographic News
November 10, 2003

In polite society, flatulence is often a social faux pas—especially when issued deliberately. But in the world of fish, group "raspberry-blowing" sessions appear to perform an important social role.

This intriguing idea comes from scientists who discovered that herring create a mysterious underwater noise by farting. Researchers suspect herring hear the bubbles as they're expelled, helping the fish form protective shoals at night. It's the first ever study to suggest fish communicate by breaking wind.

The study's findings, now published online in the U.K. science journal Biology Letters, reveal that Atlantic and Pacific herring create high-frequency sounds by releasing air from their anuses.

"We know [herring] have excellent hearing but little about what they actually use it for," said research team leader Ben Wilson, a marine biologist at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre, British Columbia, Canada. "It turns out that herring make unusual farting sounds at night."

Wilson and his colleagues named the phenomenon Fast Repetitive Tick, which makes for the rather mischievous acronym, FRT. But unlike the human version, these FRTs are thought to bring the fish closer together.

Two teams carried out the research in Canada and Britain. One team studied Pacific herring in Bamfield, British Columbia, while the other focused on Atlantic herring in Oban, Scotland. The fish were caught locally and transferred to large laboratory tanks where their behavior was monitored using hydrophones and infrared video cameras.

The fish were found to produce high-frequency sound bursts up to 22 kilohertz. The noise was always accompanied by a fine stream of bubbles.

"In video pictures we can see the bubbles coming out of the anal duct at the same time," said Robert Batty, senior research scientist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban. "It sounds very much like someone blowing a high-pitched raspberry."

Further tests revealed these outbreaks of "flatulence" are not a response to fear or feeding. When high concentrations of shark scent were introduced to the tanks, there was no noticeable increase in bubbles or sound. Similarly, unfed herring maintained the same level of emissions.

"The evidence suggests it's not gut gas that's responsible," Batty said. "If you starve the fish, they still produce this sound." Instead of gas, he says the fish use air gulped from the surface which is then stored in their swim bladders and expelled through a duct with an opening next to the anus.

What seems to trigger the noise is darkness and high fish densities, suggesting that herring use farting as a means of communication.

"Herring and other clupeids such as pilchards and sardines have a sophisticated auditory system," said Batty. "This is made even more sensitive by a gas-filled sac near the inner ear which acts to amplify sound pressure."

Clupeid fish, like herring, anchovies, and sprats, can detect sound frequencies up to around 40 kilohertz, way beyond the hearing range of most other fish. (The normal range of human hearing is 20 to 20,000 kilohertz.) So a method of nighttime communication using pulses of air would be extremely useful. It would enable herring to maintain contact after dark, but without giving their position away to predatory fish.

While unusual, other marine fish are known to communicate using sound. For instance, male cod make a noise to attract females when they breed. But Batty adds: "These are produced using the swim bladder, which vibrates to create a kind of drumming sound. However, the method we found hasn't been noticed before."

The researchers say further studies into how herring produce such sounds could help fishermen in locating shoals. Pacific and Atlantic herring are both important commercial species in the Northern Hemisphere.

Furthermore, given the herring's sensitivity to underwater sounds, and the likelihood they use them to communicate, there are concerns about the possible impacts of noise pollution. For example, engine noise from shipping or seismic guns used for oil surveys could all interfere with the fish's hearing.

Similarly, herring-eating dolphins and whales, which can pick up high frequency sounds, may use FRTs as a foraging clue. Consequently, noise pollution may seriously impair their effectiveness as hunters, researchers say.

"There are pods of killer whales that specialize in feeding on herring," Batty said. "The fear is they won't be able to pick up the sounds the herring are making."

It might seem an amusing idea to us that herring communicate using farts. But for herring and the mammals that prey on them, FRTs may signal safety—or the next meal.

Study: Species Switch Sex at Specific Size
Male Today, Female Tomorrow
AFP

Oct. 23, 2003 — Species that automatically change sex do so when they reach nearly three-quarters of their maximum size, neatly proving a cornerstone of evolutionary theory, scientists said.

Dozens of animal species, from types of fish and crustaceans to mollusks and worms, spontaneously change sex as a result of the pressures for survival and reproduction.

In the case of the clownfish, a favorite of aquarium-lovers, the gender bending is taken to extremes — males can not only switch to female, but also increase in size to become the alpha-breeder in their piscatorial group.

Biologists David Allsop and Stuart West of Edinburgh University in Scotland studied 77 sex-changing species, ranging from a tiny shrimp, the Thor manningi, to a 1.5-meter (5-foot) fish called a black grouper.

They found that the creatures swapped gender when they reached 72 percent of maximum size, regardless of mating system, sex-change mechanism and other factors.

"This suggests that there is a fundamental similarity across all animals ... in the underlying forces that select for sex change," they wrote in Thursday's issue of Nature, the British weekly science journal.

Under evolutionary theory, an individual is at most pressure to change gender when there is a serious imbalance between the sexes and it has reached an age and size where it can do the switch successfully and contribute quickly to the gene pool.

Rare Sponge Could Hold Cancer Cure
Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

Nov. 3, 2003 — After almost 20 years of searching, marine biologists have rediscovered a small, mysterious sponge that may contain a powerful cancer cure.

The unnamed sponge was rediscovered in the waters off the Bahamas by scientists at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Florida.

"We're really excited," said Amy Wright, director of Harbor Branch Biomedical Marine Research. The 1984 tests with limited amounts of the sponge revealed that it contained an unknown compound with 400 times the cancer killing potency of the drug Taxol®, which is widely used to treat breast cancer and other cancers.

Since 1984, however, only inadequate tiny bits of the sponges have been found. "That's when we got stuck," said Wright of the 1980s. "We didn't have enough."

Last year, dive cruises with Harbor Branch's submersibles brought home two slightly larger pieces of the sponge — enough for marine biologists to start piecing together a rough idea of the undersea habitat the sponge preferred. With that in mind, an exploration cruise that concluded on Oct. 24 was able to go straight to the right sort of places and, violá, come back with the long-lost mystery sponges, Wright explained.

The sponge is unnamed because scientists have not yet successfully classified it, Wright said. It was found at an unusual depth that requires submersible vehicles to reach. Because of the sensitivity of the discovery and the rarity of the sponges, no pictures could be released and Wright could only describe them as "small and round."

Despite the exciting potential of the mystery sponge, marine pharmaceutical researchers caution people to keep in mind that it's still very early in the game.

"What you are doing at first is looking for a molecule that kills cancer cells effectively at very low concentrations," explained Bill Fenical of Scripps Oceanographic Institution's Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine at the University of California, San Diego. Of those molecules, he said, only about one percent of the molecules succeeds.

Next the molecule has to be identified and tested more thoroughly to be certain it is not toxic to other parts of human or other animal bodies, Fenical explained. It takes years of work — but it's well worth it. "Without this kind of discovery, there would be nothing," he added.

Global warming boosting tropical reefs?
Rising sea temperature expands range of Caribbean coral.
4 November 2003
BETSY MASON

Global warming might not be all bad. Some corals are flourishing, heard this week's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Seattle, Washington.

At least one Caribbean genus, Acropora, seems to have capitalized on warmer sea temperatures to expand its range northwards, as it did in the past. So say William Precht of PBS&J, an environmental engineering company based in Miami, Florida, and Richard Aronson of Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama.

In 1998, live samples of the coral were found near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and in 2002 in the northern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas. Similar northward expansions have been spotted in Pacific corals. "The silver lining in the cloud is that there are these bright spots where some corals aren't going to go extinct and might even expand," Precht told the meeting.

Global warming's impact on plants and animals at middle and high latitudes is well documented. Here temperature gains have been greatest and there have been northward range shifts and changes in the timing of migrations and blooms.

Much less is known about the reaction of tropical species. And for corals, most of the news has been bad. Warmer waters are thought to boost diseases and cause bleaching - the release of algae that are crucial to the coral's survival.

We might not want to put Acropora in the global warming winners' column just yet, counters geologist Dennis Hubbard of Oberlin College in Ohio. The coral may fare better in Florida because the Gulf Stream is available to carry larvae northward, but the same may not be true in other parts of the world.

And even the Florida population will only benefit as long as tropical sea temperatures stay below the coral's upper temperature limit of 32 °C. Climate models that predict temperatures will not breach this threshold are based on assumptions with no evidence to back them, Hubbard cautions. What's more, today's corals must contend with other human impacts such as pollution - potentially making them more vulnerable to temperatures near their upper limit. "We have thrown a man-made wildcard into the system that the coral reefs haven't had to deal with before," says Hubbard.

Precht and Aronson found their first evidence while repairing a coral reef off the coast near Fort Lauderdale that had been severely damaged by a US nuclear submarine. They noticed that the collision had exposed a fossil reef. The ancient coral was Acropora, whose current range ends 50 kilometres south of the crash site, near Miami.

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers found that the coral was 7,000 years old. Between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago, sea temperatures in the Atlantic were 2-4 °C warmer than today. "Thousands of years ago there was a luxuriant, ten-metre-thick reef far north of its present extent," says Precht. He has since found several other ancient reefs off the Florida coast, extending as far as Palm Beach, 150 km north of the coral's current limit.

New estimate doubles shipping emissions
Tankers and trawlers may release as much nitrogen oxide into atmosphere as US.
10 November 2003
TOM CLARKE

The amount of pollutants belched into the atmosphere by international shipping could be double previous estimates, suggests a new analysis. If the figures are confirmed, regulations and climate models may need revising.

Each year tankers, container ships and trawlers emit a quantity of nitrogen oxides (NOx) similar to that released by the entire United States, the study finds1. "A single industry's emissions rival an entire nation," says marine-policy researcher James Corbett of the University of Delaware in Newark.

Nitrogen oxides are potent pollutants. Produced in large amounts by ships' burning of heavy diesel fuel, called bunker, they can release complex cocktails of reactive gases, such as ozone, into the atmosphere.

Emissions from ships are difficult to measure, as they are dispersed across the globe. Estimates are based on fuel sales and the average performance of marine engines.

Previous calculations were suspected to be too low because of the way fuel sales for international shipping - as opposed to domestic ferry services, tugboats and harbour craft - are accounted for.

Drawing on different data, Corbett and his colleague Horst Köhler, of MAN B&W Diesel in Augsburg, Germany, propose that the 88,000-strong fleet of international merchant vessels consumes around 289 million tonnes of bunker each year.

If the assessment is accurate, models of how ships' fumes effect the chemistry of the atmosphere, and ultimately climate and human health, will have to be revised, says atmospheric chemist Mark Lawrence of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. "Besides lightning, which is very rare at sea, there's almost no other significant source of NOx in the oceans," he explains.

Other experts agree that current estimates are too low, but warn that Corbett and Köhler's is too high. Øyvind Endresen and colleagues at shipping consultancy Det Norske Veritas in Høvik, Norway, revise ships' fuel consumption upwards only by around 30%. They reckon that Corbett and Köhler overestimate the average engine's running speed.

Endresen's team co-opted a satellite-based tracking system designed to alert rescue services to stricken cargo and tanker vessels. They collected accurate measurements of ships' sizes and therefore emissions, and tracked the vessels' courses2. "There are considerable differences globally as to where emissions occur," says Endresen.

Location is everything for short-lived pollutants such as NOx,. Released close to the shore, the oxides' toxic effects could be felt on land - important information for policy-makers.

Shipping's contribution of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, is around the same as that from the commercial airline industry, Endresen finds. As both industries are shared between nations as far as emission regulations are concerned, they are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol.

But if a significant amount of tanker and trawler emissions occur in domestic waters, as the NOx figures hint, national rules might need to be extended to shipping. "There needs to be continuing policy change at the international and regional level," argues Corbett.

Legislation is beginning to emerge. In Los Angeles, for example, harbour ships must slow as they near port to reduce their emissions. Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organisation is expected to ratify a treaty governing emissions on the high seas within a year.