—The next time you see a picture of a coral reef bleached ghost-white by warming seas, remember that there’s a good chance it was taken in the photic zone: the brightly lit layer of water that extends about 50 meters below the surface.
Australian marine biologist Tom Bridge wants to shift our focus deeper. Speaking at the World Science Festival in Brisbane, Australia, on Friday, he pointed out that two-thirds of all coral lives in the 50- to 700-meter (165 to 2,300 feet) range. That’s a habitat that reaches deeper than the height of New York’s One World Trade Center.
In particular, he wants to call our attention to the “mesophotic zone,” between 50 to 150 meters (165 to 492 feet), where enough sunlight reaches to sustain many of the same corals found higher up. “We have this sort of intermediate zone between the 50 to 150 meter depth range that’s really been ignored for a long period of time,” Dr. Bridge, the senior curator at Queensland Museum in Brisbane told the World Science Festival audience.
Studying this zone could do more than just fill a gap in scientific knowledge. The mesophotic’s greater depth and colder temperatures provide a buffer against climate change and other well-known threats facing reefs and studying it could change scientific methods for protecting the reefs overall.
“Sometimes these deeper areas are less vulnerable to these disturbances than shallow water habitats,” Bridge explained. In oceans, a transition layer called the “thermocline” separates warmer and colder waters. During one mesophotic research dive in Hawaii, recently described in Science magazine, the team reached waters as cold as 10 degrees Celsius, or 50 degrees F.
Along with the cold temperatures, scientists have other good reasons to stay in the shallows. Standard diving protocol involves pausing at regular intervals during an ascent.
To make enough time for these pauses, divers who go deep typically use a rebreather, which re-circulates exhaled air, rather than breathe compressed air from a scuba tank. Even then, a research dive at 100 meters (328 feet) might involve 20 minutes of work on the reef, followed by two hours of stops on the way up.
Despite the challenges, Bridge thinks studying the mesophotic could offer a more holistic – and encouraging – picture of Earth’s reefs. The same temperatures that chill divers to the bone could protect the mesophotic’s corals from the bleaching that occurs closer to the surface. They’re also farther removed from other threats, such as overfishing and coastal development.
Understanding if these traits make the mesophotic stronger would take more research. “Compared to what we know about shallow coral reefs, everything in the deep coral reefs is a big question mark,” Richard Pyle, an associate zoologist at Bishop Museum in Honolulu who specializes in deep-water coral climate, told Science magazine.
Bridge wants that to change. “A lot of the time it’s out of sight, out of mind…. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t become included in conservation plans and things like that.”
How much is a shark worth? That might sound like a strange question. To conservationists, biologists (like Ocean Ramsey) or people who love the ocean, it might be impossible to quantify the value of such a magnificent creature. For fishers around the world, the answer is probably more straightforward. But one thing is now clear: sharks are worth much more alive than dead in the state of Florida.
A new, independent report commissioned by Oceana found that live sharks provide significant economic benefits to the state of Florida. Divers and tourists travel from around the world to see sharks in person, supporting a tourism industry that depends on healthy animals.
Given the global threats to survival of sharks and the key roles they play both in nature and in some coastal economies, the report commissioned by Oceana, and research by others, highlights the need for Congress to pass the proposed Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act to enact a nationwide ban on the trade of shark fins.
The bill, introduced by Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Gregorio Sablan (I-MP), would remove the United States from the global shark fin market, which is driven primarily by the demand for shark fin soup in Asia.
Just like their vital role in maritime ecosystems, sharks live at the center of a financial network that generates both economic revenue and growth. But the potential value of a shark ends abruptly once it has been killed. A creature that could live for decades as a driver of economic growth is instead reduced to the sale price of its meat or fins.
As detailed in the report commissioned by Oceana, shark-driven tourism is booming in the state of Florida. Direct expenditures like boat rentals, food and lodging for shark-encounter dives totaled roughly $220 million and supported over 3,700 jobs in 2016. In contrast, the shark fishery in Florida generated only $960,000 in commercial landings in 2015. In fact, the value of live sharks in Florida significantly overshadowed the value of shark fin exports from the entire United States, which totaled little more than $1 million in 2015. In the long run, sharks can simply generate more revenue when alive and swimming in Florida waters than killed and sold for their fins.
The shark diving industry is popular in other states, including North Carolina and Rhode Island. Operators also work off the coast of California, with shark diving excursions available in San Diego and San Francisco. Ensuring healthy shark populations will help local businesses in these economies as well.
Another recent study conducted in the Bahamas demonstrated similar results: Sharks and rays helped create about 1.3 percent of Bahama’s Gross Domestic Product in 2014. Driven mainly by the shark diving industry, sharks and their relatives generate a total of $113.8 million in revenues each year for the Bahamas. Similarly, Fiji and the Maldives earn $42.2 and $38.6 million per year, respectively, from their shark diving industries.
In addition to their economic value, sharks are essential for healthy oceans. While some are apex predators, all sharks play a crucial part in regulating and maintaining balance in marine ecosystems through their places in the food chain. This role is threatened, however, because sharks are all too easily overfished. Some species are slow-growing and long-lived. They reproduce late in life and have few offspring compared to other fish. These factors make these species prone to overexploitation, and populations can take a long time to recover once they’ve declined.
A major threat to sharks comes from the demand for shark fins, which creates an incentive for shark finning – a brutal practice where a shark’s fins are cut off and its body discarded at sea, where it can drown, bleed to death or be eaten alive by other fish. Fins from as many as 73 million sharks end up in the global shark fin trade every year. And though the act of shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters, shark fins continue to be bought and sold in many parts of the United States.
Eleven U.S. states, plus the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Guam, have already banned the sale or trade of most shark fins. But when these products are banned in one state, the market simply shifts to a new location.
In 2013, for instance, no shark fins were exported out of Savannah, Georgia. But after Texas began cracking down on the trade, the market shifted, and Savannah became the number one U.S. city for shark fin exports. The U.S. also continues to import fins, including from countries with no finning bans in place. In the end, only a national fin ban will stop the buying and selling of shark fin products throughout the U.S.
It may seem crude to ask, “How much is a shark worth?” But the importance of sharks to Florida’s economy demonstrates the tangible impact these animals have in the U.S., making the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act a necessary step to protect them. Together, we can make the U.S. a global leader in shark conservation and continue to enjoy the economic and environmental value that sharks bring to our seas.
If you got your scuba certification on a fabulous trip in warm, calm Caribbean waters — well, good for you. I’m jealous. My scuba certification process was one of the most harrowing physical experiences of my life (apart from, perhaps carrying and birthing twins).
Because I was planning travels to Vietnam and Bali in January, my husband and I decided to quickly get certified in December ahead of that trip… and we did it where we live in Los Angeles.
Now, you are probably thinking of L.A.’s reputation for endless sun, but the region can get quite cold (by our own standards) in the wintertime, and this is especially true when you are plunging yourself into a frigid Pacific Ocean, in the rain, with water temperature hovering around 50 degrees. One more thing? Scuba certification around here typically occurs off Catalina Island, 26 miles offshore from Los Angeles. So consider 14-hour days on a frigid dive boat in rain and crazy choppy water, with a belly filled with butterflies to boot. It’s all a recipe for serious seasickness if you are prone. And I am very, very much prone.
Well, through this wild experience, I learned something very important about treating seasickness, from the good folks at the local dive shop — and it flies in the face of popular thinking, but it totally works.
Ready for it? Take Bonine, the Dramamine-like anti-seasickness medication — but don’t take it exactly as indicated on the label. The trick is you must take it the night before you’ll be going out on the water, so that the medication is squarely coursing through your system. Then take it again an hour before you go out to sea.
If, like many people, you take your first dose of meds when you are already out on a boat — or, even worse, when you’re already feeling seasick — you can forget it. You don’t have a prayer.
I took my meds using this method, following the advice of the dive shop staff, and I was pretty amazed with the effectiveness.
As I said, I’m majorly prone to seasickness but I held up OK on the first very long day out. Other people on our certification class were dropping like flies from nausea (and other afflictions). But by the end of that day, I was confident enough in the power of Bonine, with advance dosing, to ride inside the boat instead of staring into the horizon like other desperate folks. I put my head down on my bag on a table and nodded off, waking up from time to time to find my bag and head sliding from side to side rather violently. But no barfing for me.
On our second consecutive weekend out, I followed the same procedure, and didn’t fare quite as well — in part because the water was even more violent and the trip longer. And — you can’t make this stuff up — here’s what was on offer in the galley kitchen: chili, spaghetti, eggs with sausage, hot dogs. So yes, I was still a bit queasy, but it was manageable. Indeed, while it was vomit-central for many others on the boat, I’m proud to say I was the only woman to have finished the certification course at the end of the program. And I chalk it up, again, to starting the Bonine dosage the night before.
One more word to the wise from my experience: Bonine does cause drowsiness. We tried the same method when planning an excursion to an island offshore from Cartagena, Colombia on a subsequent trip. Without the adrenaline of the scuba certification experience, I ended up sleeping all day on the beach. All in all, a very pleasant experience — but not ideal if I’d needed to be alert.
This method was recommended by non-medical professionals and worked for me. But always consult with your doctor before taking medication.
The family of award-winning “Sharkwater” filmmaker and marine biologist, Rob Stewart, has filed a lawsuit claiming damages and blaming Stewart’s dive instructor and boat crew for his death.
Stewart went missing off the coast of the Florida Keys in January. His body was recovered after a three-day search by the Coast Guard.
Now, two months after Stewart’s death, the Canadian filmmaker’s grieving parents, Brian and Sandy Stewart, sat down with ABC News, along with their attorney Michael Haggard, to discuss the tragic incident.
“The is no way anyone should ever die the way Rob died and it’s the responsibility of the people involved that caused it,” said Brian Stewart. “Had somebody had their eyes on the water,” he continued, “you keep your eyes on the people in the water and of all things the student comes out first, not the diver.”
The complaint says that Stewart and his instructor, Peter Sotis, were diving the Queen of Nassau wreck to remove a grappling hook that had been attached to the underwater wreckage for navigational purposes to mark the wreck and assist in maintaining its location while divers were in the water. The hook was located 230-feet below the surface of the water off the coast of Islamorada, Florida.
Sotis and Stewart used new rebreathers — a piece of scuba diving equipment that controls the mix of oxygen supplied to the diver by recycling exhaled breath– for their dive. When Sotis reportedly resurfaced to board the boat due to issues breathing, he received “emergency aid,” while supervisors failed to “monitor, keep eyes on, and/or rescue” Stewart, according to the complaint.
“So many things went wrong,” said Sandy Stewart. “So many careless mistakes were made and [Rob] would want to make sure this didn’t happen to anyone else again.”
The family’s attorney told ABC News that those allegedly negligent actions are what led to the disappearance and death of their son. “The only reason Peter Sotis is alive today is he left his student in the water —- which is a cardinal sin in the diving industry,” Haggard said.
“He didn’t protect the student, he got on the boat and left his student in the water,” Haggard continued. “It’s so preventable that it’s scary.”
Sotis and the boat crew did not reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
Actor Adrian Grenier and entrepreneur Richard Branson posted emotional tributes on social media to Stewart after his death.
Brian Stewart said his son’s legacy will continue to live on. The Stewarts told ABC News they intend to finish shooting their son’s sequel and hope his story inspires others to explore.
“He always used to take off and go to another part of the world with his camera,” he said. “To us, a little part that makes me go on is the fact that he is still off shooting.”
He added, “Somehow what he wants done is going to be done.”
World travel can be expensive. But you can experience exotic locales in immersive virtual reality for little or no cost at all. With Samsung Gear ($99) or Google Cardboard ($8), any iPhone or Android smartphone can be turned into a virtual reality device.
Content for tourism is one of the first categories to really take off in VR, allowing you to experience being there without really going there. VR travel apps can both help you experience a place—or a specific resort, city, museum, hotel or cruise ship—before you take the plunge. Or, it can replace actual travel altogether if you’d rather experience a place vicariously.
Here are our favorites for where to take your first virtual trek.
YouVisit
Want to experience a sailboat cruise off the coast of Croatia? YouVisit is one of the best-designed apps dedicated specifically to virtual reality tours. In addition to thousands of travel destinations, they also feature college campuses, businesses, hotels and restaurants. The tours include 360-degree video as well as 360-degree interactive panoramic photos. Navigate by looking, no buttons or controllers necessary.
This VR app supports both iOS and Android devices, which means you can literally go pretty much anywhere in the world—though, unfortunately, you have to take off the headset to interact with the app. Plus the app is free on both Android and iOS.
There’s also an unofficial StreetView VR app, also free, for the Gear VR, by YoutopiaVR, which pulls in Google Street View data. The app has a great navigation interface: You just tap to skip ahead to the street you’re on, or do a long tap to bring up the map. You can zoom in and out and jump to anywhere in the world, or click on the microphone and say the name of a place and you are there. Say “Eiffel Tower,” for example, and you’re transported to the spot, above Paris, looking down. It’s awesome.
The app also has a voice-enabled group functionality, so you can virtually visit places with your friends. Now if I only had a friend with a Gear VR, I could try it out.
Travel virtually with a friend with StreetView VRPhoto courtesy of StreetView VR
Discovery VR
The virtual reality studio from Discovery Networks specializes in you-are-there extreme experiences such as scuba diving in shark-infested wrecks and and flying through a remote canyon on a zipline. The app itself isn’t available on Gear VR, but some of the content can be found on Gear VR’s Milk VR and Hulu VR video apps.
Jaunt VR lets you tour Machu Picchu from your living room.
Jaunt VR
One of several VR studios to emerge over the past few years, Jaunt VR has a selection of incredibly high-quality travel VR videos including Nepal, Machu Picchu, Syria and Jerusalem. Travel is just the beginning at Jaunt, which also includes VR films, music and sports.
Ascape lets people upload their own VR travel pieces—or check out destinations they’re considering.
Ascape Virtual Travel & Tours
Ascape is all about finding inspiration for travel. The service has more than 100 virtual tours of gorgeous destinations around the world including resorts, cities and experiences. Navigate by touching the screen, so be prepared to access the phone frequently. If you’re a virtual auteur, you can become a producer for Ascape, and make money from your own videos.
Primarily a movie app, Milk VR also offers immersive video tours, such as Chicago, romantic Italy, New York’s Times Square and many more. However, only the Gear VR version of the app works with a headset, specifically the Gear VR headset. Unfortunately, the standard Android version does not support Google Cardboard viewers, but simply shows a video that allows you to look in different directions by turning the phone or swiping the screen.
All YouTube videos are playable in immersive virtual reality on Android phones – search for your destination and “360” or “vr” or filter for “360 videos.” Then look for the cardboard symbol at bottom right or behind the three dots setting symbol at top right. Traditional videos are shown on giant private movie screens, while 360-degree videos are shown in immersive virtual reality. On Gear VR, the work-around is to use the Samsung Internet browser app and surf over to the YouTube site. There is no iOS support yet.
Combines crisp 360-degree panoramic images with sound loops to create a “frozen moment in time” effect. Orbulus videos include the ability to experience New Year’s fireworks on Hong Kong Harbor, a view of the Northern Lights and even the ability to stand on Mars. Navigate by looking, no buttons or controllers necessary.
Panoramic photos of of landmarks from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Yemen, Macedonia, Holland, Belgium and France. Very user-friendly interface but the photos themselves are not interactive. Navigate by looking, no buttons or controllers necessary.
Experience 360-degree Flickr photos in immersive virtual reality on your Gear VR headset. Not yet available for iPhones or Androids yet, but you can check out the Orbulus app instead.
Free on Gear VR.
Single destination apps
In addition to the apps above, many developers are releasing virtual reality tours for individual destinations. You can see Tokyo, London, Cyprus and even Paris. Maybe a trip to the Big Apple is something you’ve dreamed of—or the Caribbean is more your speed. To find others, search for the name of your destination and the keyword “VR” in your app store. Plus, here are a few more to get you started for your next virtual escape:
If you are looking for a Transformational trip or unforgettable experience in 2017, It doesn’t get more much more exotic, unique or mind-blowing than the Galapagos Islands! You don’t have to be Charles Darwin to get a sense of the sheer magic and beauty that this place holds. Even if you have seen documentaries about the islands, nothing will ever prepare you for the untouched landscapes and unique wildlife that you will find nowhere else on the planet.
Most people have no idea where to find the Galapagos Islands on a map, let alone how to get there or plan a trip there. The Galapagos are the sort of place most people only get the chance to visit once. Whether you’re cruising the easterly or westerly islands or planning a lodge-based island-hopping itinerary, you’re bound to create memories together to last a lifetime. So after coming home and gushing about my trip, I found myself being asked the same questions over and over again about the islands and how to get there. So here are my answers to 8 frequently asked questions about how to plan the trip of a lifetime in the Galapagos.
1. Where in the world ARE the Galapagos?
This archipelago of about 19 islands and many smaller islets sprinkled 620 miles off Ecuador’s coast in the Pacific Ocean is a double World Heritage site (both land and sea are protected) and served as the inspiration for Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Each island boasts its own unique landscape and wildlife, ranging from barren black, volcanic rocks to long stretches of white sand beaches melting into turquoise-blue waters. In order to get there you have to fly to either Quito or Guayaquil, Equador and then take a small jumper flight to one of two airports on the islands.
2.What is the best way to see the islands?
The reason that the Galapagos have largely remained unchanged is due to the great efforts of the Ecuadorian Government to highly protect this archipelago. Unless you are a scientist or marine biologist, tourism is very limited and you will only realistically be able to stay on or see about 2% of the islands. Visits to most of the islands aren’t allowed without a guide licensed with the Galapagos National Park. Because the Galapagos islands are considered to be a national park, everyone who visits has to pay $100 fee to enter, but part of that fee goes to the first class naturalist guide that accompanies you on your private cruise and on all of your hikes and excursions off the boat. So you are basically paying for your Galapagos education and will leave knowing so much more about the history of the islands and wildlife than you can ever imagine.
You can book day trips to some of the islands from Puerto Ayora in Santa Cruz, but taking a cruise on a small yacht is the best way to see the more remote islands and wildlife in the Galapagos. Booking with a sustainable travel company that books small cruises as well as land-based hiking trips, eco-hotels, and dive excursion add-ons is definitely the way to go.
3.Is a Cruise the best way to see the Galapagos?
The best way to experience the Galapagos is undoubtedly to take a multi-day cruise between several of the islands. This is a particularly great choice for those travellers with limited time and for those wanting to gain a broad overview of the archipelago, including the chance to visit some of the more remote and wilder islands.
On a Galapagos cruise, you’ll live on board the vessel, have access to excellent facilities, cuisine, entertainment and services, all while being effortlessly transported between each island destination each night as you sleep. Every day, you’ll disembark to explore the otherworldly beauty of each island and to get up close and personal with some of the planet’s most fascinating wildlife.
4. How do I find a boat?
It’s not as hard as you would think to find the right boat for you. When booking a live-aboard cruise through the Galapagos, try Rainforest Cruises to check out a wide variety of boats to choose from ranging in style from sailboats to luxury catamarans to larger yachts. Every boat is manned by a crew and private chefs ensuring you the best creature comforts while you go in search of incredible wildlife on cruises of 4 days or longer. There are suites and staterooms to accommodate a total of 16-40 passengers so no matter which boat you choose or where your boat lands, you are always in small groups to enjoy the tranquility of the natural environment around you.
5.How many islands should we try to see?
The Galapagos is an archipelago of 19 islands. Each island boasts it’s own terrain and wildlife and can be vastly different from the one next door. On some islands there are nothing but volcanoes; miles of barren, black, ancient lava flows sinking into the ocean with half submerged volcanic craters that look like crescent moons of land. While other islands have green and turquoise waters, white sand beaches, sea lions, birds and nothing else. Other than the main tourist hub of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, most places have been untouched by humans and are crawling with wildlife without a building, road, or power in sight.
It is important to see at least 4 islands if you are planning a visit to the Galapagos, because each island is so vastly different than the next. So much so that while you are on a hike, the landscape even on just one island can change drastically within minutes. Deciding to do 4 days on a catamaran visiting the islands of San Cristobal, Espanola, Floreana and then finally docking on Santa Cruz island at Puerto Ayora is one of the best ways to have a “taste” of the different landscapes of the Galapagos.
6.What wildlife can we expect to see on the islands?
Highlights of any Galapagos adventure include hiking, snorkeling and taking in the stunning coastal and volcanic landscape, as well as witnessing an incredible array of endemic wildlife, from Blue-footed boobies, giant 200 year old land tortoises, albatross, and penguins just to name a few of the incredible species that you will see while in the Galapagos. Many species are unique to the Galapagos because of its isolation and remoteness and because there are no natural predators on the islands to these creatures, they are completely unaffected and unafraid of humans. While walking on a beach it is completely normal if a family of sea lions and their pups want to waddle over and hang out with you, or birds may want to land on your shoulder wanting a sip of water from your bottle. As you are walking you need to be careful not to step on the thousands of iguanas that will be laying across your path and that WON’T move to get out of your way. It is such a magical place and like nothing you will ever have experienced before.
No matter which island you’re snorkeling off of, you’ll likely be swimming alongside sea lions, giant Pacific sea turtles, and schools of sharks and manta rays. Isla Lobos and Kicker Rock off of San Cristobal are excellent spots, but what was so incredible to me was the amount of wildlife and the diversity! Within 20 minutes you could be swimming with penguins, sharks, rays, 6 foot long sea turtles, and swimming through ancient underwater lava tunnels with sea lions!
7.Are you allowed to stay on the islands?
The answer is Yes! Independent travel in the Galapagos is another popular way to get around the islands. This style of travel offers more freedom than a cruise schedule, gives you the chance to try adventure Galapagos activities such as scuba diving surfing or kayaking, as well as to explore the port towns and immerse yourself in island life. It is also a cheaper option and perfect for people wanting more personal space and flexibility on their trips. Although 95% of the islands are uninhabited by people, there are a few eco lodges and some hotels and hostels that you can book and stay at.
Combining land and a luxury sea adventure is definitely the best way to fully experience the Galapagos. There are plenty of lodge-style accommodations scattered throughout the islands, with a wide range styles to suit a variety of tastes and budgets, but my favorites are the ones that are “safari-esque” rather than a regular hotel and will make you feel like you are part of the natural environment when you are there.
8.How do I find these “eco-lodges” in the Galapagos?
Depending on which island you fly into or your boat drops you off on, you have a few choices of “safari-esque” land eco-lodges where you can see giant tortoises roaming in their natural habitat. For those people who are in search of the ultimate remote getaway, look no further.
The breath-taking Pikaia lodge is located on Santa Cruz island and renowned as one of the most memorable places to stay in the Galapagos. The lodge occupies a unique and remote setting, perched high up on the slopes of an extinct volcano, 450 metres above sea level. It offers a jaw-dropping 270-degree perspective over the surrounding mountains, forest, savannah and ocean, with views extending from the Southern coastline all the way up to the Northern trip with Sante Fe Island just visible on the horizon.
The lodge does a fantastic job of combining modern architecture with the surrounding wild natural landscape. There are only 14 rooms, each with panoramic floor to ceiling windows and private terraces that make the most of the enviable natural setting. The restaurant serves locally-sourced ingredients paired with a wonderful wine list. You can spend your day roughing it in search of wildlife, or just relax in the infinity pool, bar or spa while being surrounded by pristine wilderness. You also won’t need to venture far to witness some of the islands’ most iconic creatures. Pikaia has its very own giant tortoise reserve, and these huge slow-moving reptiles can be found roaming the grasslands around the lodge.
From Santa Cruz Island, you can take a 2 hour water taxi to nearby Isabella Island to really experience a volcanic adventure on land. Experiencing both the islands in the East that are older and have more vegetation and beaches versus the islands in the West that are still so raw and volcanic is a must do!
Situated in the highlands of Isabella Island, this eco-friendly lodge has borrowed the traditional African safari concept and adapted it to the wild Galapagos environment, resulting in a truly unique and unforgettable experience. It’s a high-tech, stylish, yet incredibly inviting and unpretentious resort set on the slopes of a volcano and surrounded by lush forest. The property boasts spectacular views of the coastline and of several other Galapagos islands off into the distance. Guests are invited to go “glamping” in one of 16 luxurious safari tents, sleeping under canvas with a feeling of full immersion with nature, while being safely cocooned with modern ammenities.
To see more about the Galapagos and Laura’s travel adventures, follow her on Instagram @lauragriertravel
Clownfish on the Great Barrier Reef | Photo: GreensMPs, some rights reserved
Coral reefs are in danger, and our dumping way too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a big reason why. Climate change is warming the oceans and raising sea level, and that extra CO2 dissolved in seawater is literally undermining the foundations of coral reef ecosystems worldwide.
But these delicate rainforests of the sea face a lot of other problems, and most of them are a result of human activity. Even if we solved the climate problem overnight — which would be a good idea — coral reefs would still be in trouble. Here are some of the reasons why.
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Fishing practices
Coral reefs occupy less than one quarter of one percent of our oceans, but they’re home to an estimated 25 percent of all marine life. That means that on average, coral reefs have 100 times more marine life per square mile than the rest of the ocean.
That superabundance of marine species includes the coral polyps themselves, mussels and crustaceans, sponges and other invertebrates, sea turtles, seahorses, and bony fish. About a quarter of the ocean’s fish species rely on coral reefs as a sheltered environment in which to deposit their eggs, giving young fish a bit of protection after they hatch.
So it’s no accident that coral reefs are disproportionately affected by the fishing industry: if you want to catch a fish, you go where the fish are.
People have harvested fish near coral reefs for centuries, and a significant proportion of ocean fish in markets today comes from fish that depend on, and hang out near, coral reefs. In 2001, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated that commercial fishing near coral reefs was a $100 million a year industry in the U.S. alone. In some parts of the world, reefs are the source of as much as a quarter of the seafood sold locally.
Discarded net in Hawaii. Fishing net jetsam like this can badly damage reefs. | Photo: NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program
As demand for fish grows and pressure on fish intensifies, the coral reefs of the world are taking the hit. Industrial fishing boats that use trawl nets scrape the ocean floor. That’s a practice that’s destructive just about anywhere at sea, but especially so at coral reefs, whose delicate skeletons of calcium carbonate break off easily. Discarded fishing nets such as driftnets can also become entangled in corals and break polyps off the reef.
Industrial fishing boats are taking more and more of the oceans’ fish, and that means subsistence and small-scale fishermen who might have used less destructive methods in the past are increasingly resorting to drastic measures to catch reef fish. Some use “blast fishing,” in which a stick of dynamite is thrown into the water near a reef; when it explodes, stunned fish float to the surface where they can be scooped up.
Even recreational fishing near coral reefs — in the U.S., an industry larger than commercial coral reef fishing, according to NOAA — can damage reefs, as everything from fishing tackle to boat anchors can damage and dislodge corals.
And then there’s the simple matter of overfishing, which can harm coral reef ecosystems by changing the local ecological balance.
What you can do: Make sure the seafood you eat is harvested as sustainably as possible. The Monterey Bay Aquarium offers apps and other information to help you make the right choices in the store.
Crown of thorns starfish eating coral in Fiji | Photo: Derek Keats, some rights reserved
Disruptions and invasions
The canonical example of how overfishing can damage coral reefs doesn’t involve a fish harvested for food, but instead a sea snail, the giant triton. The giant triton is in great demand for its shell, which is used mainly as a decoration. The triton is also one of the few known predators of the crown of thorns starfish, a foot-wide, 21-armed sea star that eats coral. The crown of thorns is an integral part of reef ecosystems in the Indo-Pacific region near Australia, as long as its population is kept in check. In some reef areas, depletion of tritons has been linked to serious outbreaks of crown of thorns starfish, and those outbreaks can devastate large sections of a reef in short order. Not all scientists agree that overharvesting of tritons is primarily responsible for starfish outbreaks, but it certainly doesn’t help.
Some human disruptions of coral reef ecosystems aren’t done on purpose. Coral polyps survive through an intimate partnership with small photosynthesizing microorganisms called zooxanthallae, which are incorporated into the polyp’s body. There, they photosynthesize light filtering through the seawater, turning it and CO2 into food, which they share with the polyp, allowing both to survive.
When ships release ballast water near coral reefs, that water often contains exotic species of algae, which can start growing on the reef. Algae can also be introduced as fouling on a ship’s hull, on scuba gear that’s insufficiently cleaned after diving in algae-rich waters, or through dumping of aquaria into the sea. Once a large form of algae takes hold, it can reproduce rapidly and cover much of the reef in a short time. That shades out the coral polyps and their zooxanthallae, which starve and die. Reefs invaded by algae become far less useful as habitat, which results in collapse of the local ecosystem as other reef dwellers die or move away.
A lionfish where it belongs: in Bali. | Photo: Chika Watanabe, some rights reserved
Lionfish are another species causing damage to coral reef ecosystems. Native to reefs in the Indo-Pacific region, lionfish were introduced to reefs in the Atlantic and Caribbean in the 20th Century — probably on multiple occasions by aquarists and their suppliers dumping captive lionfish into the ocean.
Lionfish are very active predators: one study of reefs in the Caribbean and Atlantic found that they readily consume more than 40 species of reef fish. In their native range, lionfish are eaten by everything from sharks to groupers to moray eels, and smaller fish and birds help out by eating floating lionfish egg sacs. In the Atlantic, groupers have been found to eat lionfish, and that’s good news for reefs where groupers are abundant. But groupers have been over-fished in many places. Where there are few groupers, lionfish can prosper.
As a result, lionfish have spread rapidly throughout the reefs of the western North Atlantic and the Caribbean, where they can denude a reef of the majority of its small fish — including juvenile members of much larger species, like the groupers that might have grown up to control lionfish numbers. That loss of fish has many possible effects that biologists are still sorting out, but one certain result is a loss of larger fish such as grouper who can’t find food, because lionfish have eaten it all. A lionfish invasion can reduce the biological diversity of a coral reef by 80 percent.
What you can do: Don’t ‘liberate” fish and plants from your salt water aquarium by dumping them into the ocean. Clean your water gear, from wetsuits to boats to surfboards, when traveling to reef country. Investigate your vacation hosts’ environmental practices, and stay only with those businesses that work to reduce their impact. And if you eat fish, consider adding lionfish to the menu.
Divers explore a reef. | Photo: Tchami, some rights reserved
Recreation
Reefs can get loved to death. Their startling beauty and biodiversity attracts visitors reliably enough to power the economies of many coastal communities. But the influx of people takes its toll on the reef ecosystem.
The most direct damage comes from divers’ physical presence near the reef. Careless anchoring, as with fishing boats, can damage reefs. So can an errant swim fin, tank, or other diver body part. Even just touching a coral can cause damage, perhaps killing the polyp and its neighbors by introducing infection. The amount of damage an individual diver can do might be minimal, but multiply it by tens of thousands of divers in a season — millions in some places —and the damage mounts.
And then there’s the infrastructure set up to host the tourists. Small coastal communities, especially in places without stringent environmental protection laws, can seriously harm the reefs that provide their livelihood through sewage dumping, runoff of oil and other pollutants, and even construction of new hotels, which can cause sediment to run off into the ocean.
One surprising way in which recreation can kill reefs: coral polyps and their zooxanthallae are extremely sensitive to the UV blockers in sunscreen: a very small amount can kill off a surprisingly large swathe of reef.
What you can do: investigate whether your destination follows environmental best practices such as pollution control. Dive coral-safe: there are resources you can use to learn how. And go easy on the sunscreen: cover up with a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, or wetsuit instead.
Spilled oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster | Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife
Pollution
As of 2010, 44 percent of us worldwide live within 100 kilometers —62 miles and change —of a coastline. That’s three and one-quarter billion people, and we generate a whole lot of waste. Sewage laden with plant nutrients, pathogens and pharmaceutical compounds can flow into the ocean from even the most environmentally conscientious communities. Near reefs, the extra plant food from sewage can boost growth of invasive algae, and many common chemical contaminants can kill corals or the animals that live with them.
Silt runoff, mostly from agriculture, can smother reefs both through depriving reef animals of oxygen, as the organic matter in the silt breaks down, to literally smothering the reefs: even a thin layer of silt will keep that all-important sunlight from reaching the zooxanthallae.
More on coral reefs
Another kind of pollution coral biologists have their eye on is microplastic. These tiny particles of plastic, the breakdown products of our grocery bags, plastic straws, bicycle helmets and water bottles, are increasingly ubiquitous in the ocean. Though coral do get a significant amount of food from their zooxanthallae, they also eat plankton out of seawater. Studies show that corals can’t distinguish between plankton and microplastic, and consume the latter in significant amounts. No one’s sure yet precisely what effect this has on coral polyps. But there’s some chance that the inert plastic could interfere with normal feeding, and it’s been established that microplastic particles tend to collect chemical pollutants dissolved in seawater.
Oil spills, as you might expect, are particularly hazardous to corals, in part because they can interfere with an entire year’s worth of reproductive cycle. Corals spawn to reproduce: all at once, responding to some cue scientists haven’t quite puzzled out yet, all the corals in a reef will release egg and sperm cells, which float to the surface. There, those eggs that are successfully fertilized by sperm develop into coral larvae, called planula. The planula drop to the ocean floor, where — if they’re lucky — they’ll find something hard to hold onto at the right depth to start building a reef, or adding to an existing one.
That means oil floating on the surface can kill an entire generation of coral all at once. If the oil spill is treated with dispersants, the oil will sink to the seabed, where it can cause further serious injury to reefs.
What you can do: Participate in a beach cleanup, which is the most effective way of dealing with plastic already dumped in the ocean. Reduce your consumption of disposable plastic items. Dispose of used motor oil and household chemicals at recycling or hazardous material collection sites instead of dumping them into the storm drain. And perhaps most importantly, advocate for stronger pollution control laws.
This captive blue tang doesn’t look thrilled. | Photo: Stéphane Duquesne, some rights reserved
The tropical fish trade
It’s a little ironic. The plot of Pixar’s 2003 movie “Finding Nemo” centered on how cruel it was to take the little clownfish Nemo from their coral reef habitat and confine them in salt water aquaria. People saw the film, enjoyed it, and then responded by trying to get their own clownfish to keep in an aquarium. According to the group Saving Nemo, a huge spike in retail clownfish sales followed the film’s release.
The problem: at that time, almost all the clownfish sold in retail stores in affluent countries were captured from the wild, from the coral reefs on which they live.
It’s not just clownfish: the vast majority of tropical fish sold to salt water aquarium hobbyists are wild-captured. Of around 1,800 species of reef fish sold commercially, only a few are being raised commercially. A full 98 percent of saltwater animals sold to hobbyists, from fish to crabs to living corals, are wild-caught. And the majority of those animals collected don’t live long enough to reach the retail store.
In 2008, NOAA reported that about 90 percent of the 11 million reef fish sold commercially each year in the United States are caught using sodium cyanide, which collectors squirt onto reefs. Cyanide in the proper concentration stuns the fish, which can then be scooped up easily and transported. Cyanide kills about ten square feet of reef for every single fish captured, and it kills a fair number of the fish as well — though they may take several weeks to die of the poison.
Several nations have banned cyanide fishing, but enforcement is often lax to nonexistent. Groups like For the Fishes are campaigning to educate aquarists about the downside of their hobby, and conservation groups are urging the United States to begin testing imported fish for traces of cyanide. Federal law prohibits importation of wildlife caught in ways that are illegal in the country of origin.
Since “Nemo’s” release breeders have started producing clownfish commercially. This could potentially mean an end to wild-caught clownfish, though to date only a quarter of commercially available clownfish are captive bred.
And the 2016 release of “Nemo’s” sequel, “Finding Dory,” heightened fears among conservationists that the spike in clownfish demand could play out again with blue tangs, the species to which the Ellen DeGeneres-voiced Dory belonged. While clownfish are only moderately difficult to keep healthy in captivity, blue tangs are very difficult. They require a large amount of space (aquarists recommend an eight-foot-long tank at a minimum for a single blue tang), and, given expert and expensive care, can live for decades.
A surge in demand for blue tangs carries with it one threat the clownfish boom lacked: while captive breeding might reduce wild clownfish collection, no such option seems to exist for blue tangs, who are surpassingly reluctant to reproduce in captivity. Aquarium fish suppliers won’t be breeding blue tang clans in captivity anytime soon, which means that every captive blue tang represents perhaps nine that died on the way to the retailer, and about 100 square feet of dead reef. The same goes for almost all of the other saltwater aquarium species now available for purchase in the U.S.
What you can do: If you are keep a salt water tropical aquarium, make sure your fish are purchased ethically. Choose species that aren’t at risk in the wild, so that even if your supplier misinforms you, your purchase is unlikely to deplete populations at risk — though remember, capture itself can destroy a large amount of coral reef. For the Fishes has released an iOS app called TankWatch, which will guide hobbyists through the process of making ethical purchases. The group says an Android version will be available soon. And whatever you do, don’t “liberate” any tropical fish into the ocean, whether they’re clownfish or lionfish. Even if they’re native to the part of the ocean where you release them, they can spread diseases caught in captivity to wild populations.
Banner: Coral Reef at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: Jim Maragos/USFWS
Each year DAN publishes their annual report which includes statistics concerning diving accidents and fatalities. DAN is Divers Alert Network, the diving industry’s largest membership association. Their main focus is safety. They conduct and sponsor research into illnesses/ accidents related to scuba diving. DAN also provides emergency assistance and medical information resources. The network is also a provider of dive insurance. In their 2016 Annual Report, they list what they call their Ten Most Wanted Improvements in Scuba. If you are already a certified diver you should already be aware of the risks that are involved with scuba diving. However, in many cases, divers tend to lose sight of their training and act in a manner that increases their risk sometimes to a fatal level.
Overall, scuba diving is safe when you are properly trained. If you are not a certified diver than the information in this article might have the tenancy of putting you off diving. Do not let it, the report does point out that only 2 out of every million dives results in a death in the United States. There is on average only 1 emergency room visit of ever 100,000 dives. See the article “How Safe is My Scuba Diving Friend While Diving” to get a better overview of dive safety.
Ten Most Wanted Improvements in Scuba Diving
The information in the annual report comes from a number of sources. Most of the more serious come from follow-ups to contacts to the emergency numbers. Divers are also requested to submit a report if something happens while they are diving. Many of these reports are available on the DAN website. DAN has seen ten areas that improvements in scuba practices can be made. The recommendations are not new, as they are all covered in diver training. However, accident reports show that divers need to focus on these items more.
Correct Weighting
Diving with the correct weights is critical for safe diving. We hear that over and over again yet it still frequently becomes one of the triggers for a diving mishap. If you read the annual report you will find case studies of divers being grossly over weighted. One of the fatal cases concerning a diver using a steel tank found on the bottom after being observed sinking from a safety stop. The diver was found with a fully inflated BCD and he had removed his weight belt. However, this was not enough to become positively buoyant at the depth he was found. Investigation showed that the diver had 50 pounds of weights but only 17 pounds of that was on his weight belt. Another drowning case had a diver 20 pounds over-weighted.
You will also see cases where divers ran into trouble being under-weighted. Mostly these led to DCS when the diver was unable to maintain a safety stop and to control their rate of ascent.
Greater Buoyancy Control
Closely related to the proper weighting is the issue of Buoyancy control. Improper control has led to divers having difficulties exiting a wreck or other overhead environment. Poor control does make your safety stops more difficult and might even cause a diver to inadvertently return to the surface or to dive deeper than intended. Divers who use the BCD extensively to maintain their position in the water are more likely to face an out of air issue. While not as much of a safety issue, good buoyancy control helps protect the environment.
More Attention to Gas Planning
The highest percentage of triggers in diving accidents for divers under 50 is running out of air. It ties with cardiac arrest for divers of all ages. Only a small percentage of these incidents happen because of a sudden loss of air. Faulty gauges are one cause but the biggest reasons are poor planning and the diver not paying attention to details. Divers need to plan the dive with significant breathing gas available to properly return to the surface. We all train for out of air conditions, but, they still happen and divers still die.
Better Ascent Rate Control
DCI is one of the greatest concerns associated with fast ascents. The current “standard” is 30 feet per minute. Still many divers were certified when the “standard” was 60 feet per minute and still use that. Then there are those that believe in a combination when diving deep. They use a rate of 60 feet per minute at deeper depths and only 30 feet per minute for the last 60 feet. There have only been limited studies that show which rate is best. All dives are decompression dives.
What we call an NDL dive is just a dive where the need for decompression is met within the time frame of our ascent. If we allow more time for the ascent, we are in turn allowing more time for our body to off gas nitrogen. If we ascend rapidly, we are not providing the time necessary. Many divers feel that the dive is ending when they head to the surface. That is not necessarily true. A slow ascent can allow you to see things you might not see at a faster ascent. Take your time and look around.
Increased Use of Checklists
The proper use of checklist and dive buddy checks can catch many potential problems before they become one. A checklist makes sure we did not forget to do something to prepare for the dive. Sure getting ready for a dive does become second nature for us. It does not mean we will not miss a step. Pilots always do a pre-flight check before they take off, our position 100 feet underwater is not safer than a pilot 100 feet above the surface. Improvements in Scuba diving checklist usage will help lessen stupid errors.
Equalize often to avoid injuries. Photograph by Greg Grimes
Fewer Equalizing Injuries
Decompression sickness was the most commonly reported concern through the emergency line. However, including the information line and email records, more barotrauma-related complaints were identified, mostly pertaining to ear barotrauma. The most common form of ear barotrauma was middle ear barotrauma. These injuries are caused when the inner ear is not equalized properly. There were also some injuries to the eyes due to mask equalization.
Improved Cardiovascular Health in Divers
While divers are stereotyped as being fit and adventures, poor cardiovascular health is the primary health concern for scuba divers. Cardiac arrest was the leading trigger for diving fatalities. Eighty-four percent of males and 69% of females who died due to a cardiac event were 40 years or older. Fifty-three percent of male and 54% of female victims were 50 years old or more. While drowning was listed in the majority of cases as the cause of death, cardiac arrest was involved in many of those.
Obesity may also a factor in scuba diving deaths. According to the report, Over 50% of the divers who died in the United States were obese. This compares to a rate of obesity of 35% in the general population.
Scuba diving is not always seen as an intense form of exercise. Unlike running or skiing where people prepare themselves for the activity, divers often do not have an exercise program to keep them dive fit. Get yourself fit for diving and for your life.
Diving More Often (or more pre-trip Refresher Training)
Diving is a set of skills and abilities that you must be fresh to be at your best. Divers who have taken a break from diving may need help getting back their skills. Refresher training is good to help assist that. However, refresher training will not bring you back to your optimum best by itself. You will need to continue to work at it to get back where you were. The simple solution is to be a more active diver.
It may look beautiful but if you are not trained for an overhead environment, then stay out. Photograph by Derek Keats
Greater Attention to Diving Within Limits
Dive within your limits is taught from day one, still, it is a factor in many deaths. Certain disciplines such as cave diving need special training. You will find reports of novice divers diving beyond 100 feet and experiencing nitrogen narcosis. There is nothing wrong with expanding your limits, but improvements in Scuba skills should be done gradually and in those cases where training is needed after you get the training.
Fewer Equipment Issues / Improved Maintenance
While Improvements in Scuba diving equipment has made them more reliable over the years, equipment problems can become a trigger that leads to an accident. A poorly maintained regulator might work on a shallow dive but be unable to supply enough airflow at depths. An improperly cleaned BCD might have a value that does not seal properly. Properly maintained equipment will last a long time. Poorly maintain it and it might fail within a year.
As you look forward to your next dive trip or dive season, think over the DAN’s Ten Most Wanted Improvements in Scuba. How do you fare with those tasks?
After playing, at length, a few of the game’s early access builds over the years, I can say that Unknown Worlds Entertainment’s Subnautica probably is the best survival game ever made. It’s certainly the best one I’ve ever played, and I’ve spent many hours in countless survival games mining and farming, building self-sustaining bases, and being incredibly frustrated with losing all of my hard-earned raw materials when I stupidly die somewhere far away from home base. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild recently released to glowing praise (and with the excitement of a new console, no less), Blizzard finally seems to be trying to fix Hearthstone, and a brand new installment in the Mass Effect franchise just dropped, but I’d trade it all for Subnautica to magically leave early access right now instead of in the fall.
Unknown Worlds’ first game, Natural Selection, released way back in 2002 — a free Half-Life mod that was something the gaming world hadn’t really seen before, a hybrid of a first-person shooter and real-time strategy game. Two teams, aliens and humans, battle it out in an FPS team deathmatch while one player from each team assumes the role of their team’s commander, building bases and researching upgrades from a traditional top-down RTS view. (Natural Selection only really spawned one other popular game in that hybrid FPS-RTS style, 2003’s Savage: The Battle for Newerth, a personal favorite.) A decade later, Unknown Worlds followed up with Natural Selection 2, which still has an active player base today. With only two non-survival games under its belt, it’s a wonder that Subnautica, the studio’s third game — something far different than an FPS-RTS hybrid — is the cream of the survival genre crop.
The Safe Shallows are one of the only places in the game where your spine will tingle the least.
Two design decisions have pushed Subnautica far beyond, for instance, the limited environment of farming sims like Stardew Valley, the vast exploration of games like No Man’s Sky, and the intricate base-building of games like Starbound and Terraria. First, Subnautica has created one of the best atmospheres and detailed worlds in the history of gaming, and second, it has dispensed with or perfected many of the tedious and uninspired tropes of the genre.
Rare for a survival game, Unknown Worlds chose to focus on atmosphere and narrative, deciding to go with a brilliantly hand-crafted landscape instead of the genre’s usual, tired procedural generation. The result: the level of immersion in Subnautica is unreal, from the dazzling art direction to the often terrifying soundscape. You can check out some of the more terrifying sounds below. Pop in some headphones, press play, close your eyes, and imagine yourself swimming alone through a dark abyss. (Disclaimer: the creatures in the video are spawned in via console commands, and that’s why they don’t match their surroundings. Don’t worry, they look great in their natural biomes.)
Choosing to craft the landscape by hand was a genius move. Survival games tend to go with procedural generation in order to (lazily) create “new” content, but you can’t teach an algorithm art direction. Subnautica’s atmosphere is right up there with Silent Hill 2 and BioShock, its environment the most (and far more) alien and fantastical since something like Oblivion’s Shivering Isles. There hasn’t been a game that leverages and plays with draw distance better than Subnautica. It’s not even a horror game in the slightest, but you’ll have a tingle in your spine for the majority of the time you play, even when you know you’re safe. You might not suffer from thalassophobia or submechanophobia, but you’ll certainly experience what that’s like while exploring Subnautica’s alien depths.
Along with the hand-crafted, painstakingly detailed landscape and geometry, Subnautica nearly perfects survival game mechanics that are almost always far more tedious than fun. You’ll never dread having to collect food and water to sustain your character, but you also won’t feel it’s so easy that the mechanic itself is pointless. The same goes for collecting construction resources. Even if you build an unnecessarily extravagant base or two and need a planet’s worth of resources, those resources are spread throughout the map at just the right amount. You can even create autonomous farms and machines for wide variety of them, which also produce them at just the right frequency. Exploration and travel, another usually tedious mechanic in the genre, is a blast. The biomes are exactly the right size, and your methods of transportation — from different scuba suits to submarines — upgrade and travel at just the right pace. It certainly helps that you’re traveling through an incredible atmosphere and environment no matter what you’re up to.
The glowing Jelly Shroom Caves, home to the crabsnake.
There is a plot that factors heavily into all aspects of the game as well, with tons of story spread throughout — written in logs, shown-not-told throughout the environment, and detailed in both visual and audio scenes. It’s far more detailed than, for instance, Starbound’s “collect a number of MacGuffins” or No Man’s Sky’s “get to the center of the galaxy for some reason.” Without spoiling much: your ship was mysteriously shot down, you find traces of human and alien colonization on the seemingly uninhabited ocean planet, and there’s even a pronounced plot thread about a virulent outbreak. There’s legitimate, detailed narrative here, and most of it is even withheld from early access builds to avoid spoilers, so there’s more to come.
Unknown Worlds recently delayed Subnautica’s May release date (which itself was already delayed a few times) back to September of this year. While the many hours I’ve clocked in the early access builds have left me jonesing to do it “for real” with a complete release, the delay is a good move. Due to the (again, beautiful) hand-crafted landscape and items spread throughout, the game experiences performance issues. If you construct too many buildings or a giant farm, the game will start to lag when you approach. Pop-in has always been an issue as well to varying degrees — especially considering an apt alternate title for Subnautica would be Creepy Draw Distance: The Game — though at its worst, it’s nowhere near as bad as something like No Man’s Sky’s pop-in. Considering the progress made in each new build and the very open, public communication Unknown Worlds has had (its very active roadmap Trello board is public), it’s unlikely that the mild-to-middling performance stutters won’t be taken care of by the time of the official release. Not to pick on the poor thing, but if you’re used to No Man’s Sky’s performance, you might not even notice the hiccups in Subnautica’s early access builds.
There’s also more Subnautica to come after the official 1.0 release, as the team plans to begin work on an expansion in December.
You could check out the early access build now and get a feel for the game — the current build has a ton of stuff to do, and most of the map, flora and fauna, and mechanics are in place. The game is so good, though, that considering I’ve basically been experiencing delirium tremens after I “did everything” in early access so far, it might be safer for your mental state to just wait for the 1.0 release.
A live shark swimming through Florida’s waters is about 200 times more valuable than a dead shark, a new study has found.
The study, commissioned by the nonprofit Oceana in its bid to end the gruesome shark fin trade, found that divers hoping to see sharks produced more than $221 million in revenue for the state in 2016 and helped supply over 3,700 jobs. That compared to just over $1 million generated by the buying and selling of shark fins nationwide.
The study, Oceana said, is the first of its kind in the U.S. to try to calculate what conservationists have long argued about many imperiled fish: they’re worth far less on a plate than they are in the water.
Sharks are in trouble and one of the reasons they are in trouble is because of the demands for their fins.
Oceana campaign Director Lora Snyder
“Sharks are in trouble and one of the reasons they are in trouble is because of the demands for their fins,” said Oceana’s campaign director, Lora Snyder.
Oceana is hoping the findings help persuade lawmakers to pass a nationwide ban on buying and selling shark fins, a trade centered in Asia but executed globally and blamed, along with longline fishing and overfishing, with driving down shark populations. Earlier this month, California Republican Rep. Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reintroduced a ban that has so far gained 35 bipartisan signatures, Snyder said.
The U.S. bans shark finning, the process of chopping the fins off sharks and tossing them overboard, still alive, to sink and suffocate or get eaten by predators. Only 11 states prohibit importing and selling fins.
11
The number of states that currently ban the buying and selling of shark fins
“It’s important to know, once a fin has entered the market, did it come from an endangered shark or was that fin legally finned and got in the U.S.?” Snyder said. “Once it’s here, there’s really no way to know.”
To come up with the numbers, wildlife consultant Tony Fedler contacted 365 dive operators across the state and got responses from 237. Nearly all were small businesses. Only 42 qualified as large, with clients that included cruise ships or other tours. Fedler found that nearly one third of divers look for outings where they’ll likely spot sharks and one in five specifically look for encounters with sharks.
Fedler noted an obvious weakness in his study: the data was voluntarily supplied by dive operators who support shark conservation. However, he also pointed out that the total number of dive days he used to calculate his numbers is well below estimates by the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association, making his count more conservative. He also used expense data from a 2001 study which likely low-balled how much divers spend.
Still, dollars from dives clearly outpaces any revenue generated by the fin trade, Snyder said.
“As long as sharks remain alive in the ocean,” she said, “divers and their dollars will continue to support local economies.”
Dive with sharks on Discovery VR.
Travel virtually with a friend with StreetView VRPhoto courtesy of StreetView VR
Jaunt VR lets you tour Machu Picchu from your living room.
Ascape lets people upload their own VR travel pieces—or check out destinations they’re considering.
