oceans

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Menhaden muddle, part 5.

[This is the fifth part of a five-part series on the issue of menhaden depletion by Charles Hutchinson; here are parts one, two, three and four.
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Hurricanes and sea level rise threaten us all.

Although the summer's first tropical storm to make U.S. landfall, Claudette, avoided doing significant damage, we're now in the midst of hurricane season.
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Suspicious Absence of Conservation (SAC)

Greenpeace is well known for non-violent direct action in support of conservation. Very recently, they took a bold step in the German North Sea when they placed large granite boulders, each weighing two to three tons, around the Sylt Outer Reef. This reef is one of the few areas of rocky sea bed in the North Sea and is designated as a Special Area of Conservation under European Law.
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Devilfish in diabolical decline

News comes this week that the Giant Devil Ray (Mobula mobular) has declined so much in abundance in recent years that it has been listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species (according to Dulvy et al. writing in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems). This vast fish has a wingspan that can top five metres and spends most of its time flapping gracefully near the surface, straining plankton and small fish from the water. It lives in the Mediterranean and eastern North Atlantic and has fallen victim to longline fishing.

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