1. First I’d like to renew my oath to eat only sustainable seafood. I think this is the EASIEST and most effective commitment consumers can make. I’ve rambled on about sustainable seafood a many, many times, so check out my Seafood section or contact me with any questions.
2. Read my favourited blogs more frequently. It’s a big world. There are a bigillion things happening every. single. second. It’s exhausting to try and keep up, which is why I no longer try. However, I do need to make more of an effort to keep tabs on issues I know I’d care about, especially when highlighted by writers I know I enjoy. I can’t read everything, but I can definitely read more. (If you’re also looking for more reading material, some blogs and sites I follow are: The Marine Detective, Blue Ventures, Deep Sea News, Speak Up for The Blue, David Suzuki Foundation, Ocean Minds, Hugh’s Fish Fight, The Beacon – Oceana)
3. Watch the documentaries I tell myself I’m going to watch. I’ll see a trailer, bookmark a link, or get a recommendation from a friend for a great documentary, but often I’ll forget to make the time for it. There are so many great informative films out there that would probably benefit me more so than a marathon of Criminal Minds… I need to use my downtime more effectively.
4. Reduce consumption of single-use plastics. This should be on everyone’s list, obviously. I don’t want to get worked up and go into an angry rant about it, so I won’t. I know the majority of plastic consumption is entirely unnecessary and I’m going to use my purchasing power to avoid unnecessary single-use plastics. And the keyword here is reduce, not reuse or recycle. Just don’t… from the beginning.
5. Carefully monitor ingredients in household products. This will be sort of a new one for me. I try to buy the “green” dish soap (when it’s on sale…), and I love the idea of using all natural beauty products, but I’ve never enforced it on myself. Well, 2013 will be the year! Especially after researching Canada’s wastewater systems, I know it is imperative that we monitor what we flush down the drain. The drain isn’t a black hole where toxic substances magically become unicorn dust, the drain is the pathway to the changing compositions of our streams, rivers, and ocean bodies. Here are naughty ingredients to look for when purchasing products, and if you’re up for it here is a great blog to help you make your own cleaners. Also, my new Pinterest addiction (late bloomer, I know) has led me to uncover some aweeesommee DIY beauty products. One thing I’m dying to try: homemade deodorant!

Have any green, ocean-conscious resolutions you’d be willing to share? Email, tweet, comment… share the inspiration!

(Sidenote: Speaking of news and headlines, my hometown made national news this week! Read for a laugh: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/03/can-parry-sound-sausage-theft.html)

We can’t let such a green city abate such dirty energy! The port needs to ensure that its decision will be in the best interest of Canadians; so now it’s our turn to speak up and tell them that exporting coal to Asia is NOT in our best interest!!

You, and all of your friends and family, have until December 31st to send your comments to Port Metro Vancouver. There are links, instructions, and more details here at Dogwood Initiative’s site. 

Coal fired power plants are the largest source of climate change pollution and greenhouse gases.

It is the largest bony fish in the world… and has a face that only a mother could love! Actually, it really only has a face… and a couple of awkward waving fins. The German name for it – Schwimmender kopf – actually means “swimming head”. Or, if you want to get even more ridiculous, you can refer to it by its Taiwanese name, “Toppled Car Fish”. Clearly it’s made global impressions.

Often mistaken as a shark when cruising near the surface, this 1,000kg fish actually has a teeth-fused beak-like structure with which it can mow on jellyfish, squid, crustaceans, and other small animals of the sea.

Friendly reminder that plastic bags could easily be confused by the ocean sunfish as a jellyfish dinner.

Scientists have recognized sea life from both the shallows and the deep in the stomachs of ocean sunfish, confirming that this goliath animal preys in more fathoms than we could fathom.

And it does not only eat with that aforementioned beak-like thing, this Toppled Car also has teeth in its throat! It has pharyngeal teeth, which it uses to grind food as it passes from the throat to the stomach. Awesome.

Throat teeth in a mola mola

Now on to the next freaky thing… This species is related to box fish and puffer fish, so its young share very similar, spiky characteristics. In fact, its larvae resemble spiky pin cushions when hatched, and then lose their spines as they age.

They average in size at about 6ft long and about 8ft high, but have been recorded up to 10ft long and 14ft high. They inhabit temperate and tropical waters, and their colours vary from white to silver, to even dark gray and spotted (most notably in Bali where I’ll be swimming with them.)

mola mola, mola mola, mola mola

No one really know how fast they grow out in the open sea, but in captivity there was an individual at the Monterey Bay Aquarium who gained 800lbs in 14 months! It was then too fat for its tank, so the Aquarium was forced to airlift it out by helicopter and release it into the bay…

Sightings of mola mola around the world

Altough they are difficult to maintain, ocean sunfish can be seen in a few aquariums around the world – I’ve seen one in Durban, South Africa. Or, you could look for them in the wild either doing their Jaws impersonation (as seen in photo earlier), basking in the sun (possibly to warm their bodies after a deep dive), or possibly breaching right out of the water (they have been seen leaping 10ft out of the water to rid their bodies of the many parasites they accumulate)!

Needless to say, these animals are harmless to humans. They are curious around divers, but have never been aggressive or threatening. There have been numerous reports of boats accidentally ramming into the 1,000kg fish and thus damaging the boat’s propellers, but I’d say that’s hardly the poor mola’s fault.

As always, us destructive humans are causing more harm to them than they are to us. Quite often these cumbersome swimmers become tangled in drifting gillnets and die as  bycatch. Plastic bags suffocate feeding ocean sunfish, and of course, our feeding on them has had its effects as well. Combined causalities of these human-caused deaths has taken its toll on the mola mola and caused a decrease in their once stable populations.

Toxin-loaded ocean sunfish meal, common in Japan

Instead of going on and on about sustainable seafood as I usually do, I’ll just quickly state that mola mola is NOT a sustainable seafood choice. Little is known about their mating practices, but in general an animal this large would require a number of years before it is able to reach sexual maturity. Since their populations are decreasing overall, fishing for these giants before we fully understand their reproduction strategies is not a gamble we should be taking. Not to mention how absolutely, horribly, unhealthy their toxin-loaded meat is for you! So bad!

Have you ever seen one of these crazy creatures in the wild? Share your Toppled Car experiences with me on facebook, twitter, or by commenting below. And for more weird biology highlights, follow @Seaingblue on Twitter!

Resources 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish#Human_interaction
• http://oceansunfish.org/index.php
• http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/mola/

If you’re awesome and you’ve already downloaded OceanWise’s free app, or one similar, then you’ve probably looked at it and been confused how the same species can sometimes be categorized as sustainable, sort of sustainable, and not at all. If you read the small print beside the animal name, it shows each of these species further separated into regions and fishing gear. Depending on where and how your seafood was taken out of the ocean, defines which category it is suited for. For example, here are the ratings for haddock:

OceanWise listing for Haddock

Notice how the only kind of haddock approved as sustainable is the Canadian haddock caught by more selective methods of gear, and the other three which include bottom-trawling (one of the most destructive practices) in their methods are unsustainable.

Here are a few figures from a great website called How We Fish Matters:

This first one is a visual comparison of the nets and traps used in Canada (click for enlargement)

This second one ranks the nets and traps on destruction severity levels (click for enlargement). I don’t know about you, but this hit home for me. A simple thing like a shrimp can be caught by gear on either end of this spectrum, and still taste like “shrimp” either way… so why eat the ones that are causing massive ecosystem degradation?

There, now you know what methods are most suitable for catching seafood (harpoon, diving, and hook & line), and which are not (bottom trawling, bottom gillnet, and dredging). Also, hopefully you’re wondering why the *** we still allow Bottom-Trawling in Canada?!?!

The BIG take home message would be not to buy products caught with any of the more severe methods, and if you can, try to only support the most selective methods near the bottom. Remember when you eat seafood you are not just killing the animal you’re consuming, but other sea life as well… how much other sea life totally depends on what you choose to do with this information!

Happy grocery hunting! And remember, Safeway and IGA both carry sustainable seafood options! If your local market doesn’t have it listed, just ask. It’s the distributor’s responsibility to be informed of their product… they’re there to help, so ask. Questions or comments for me, email (seaingblue@gmail.com) or tweet (@SeaingBlue)!

The Marine Detective has written an amazing and detailed post about what you can do to take action against this proposal. Click HERE to read her post and then please, please, PLEASE, write a submission by following her links at the bottom.

Whales & Turbines DO NOT MIX!!!

THANK YOU READERS!

Also, if you’re on Twitter or facebook, share, share, share! The more voices, the louder the noise. 

Howeverrrrr, there is a huge, huge gap between good sushi and bad sushi. Yes, in the quality of product sold by each establishment, but more importantly, in the sustainability of the species being consumed. By evaluating the health of each species and the method of catch used, we can note huge differences in types of salmon, tuna, crab, etc. It does get complicated and there are a lot of gray areas, but fortunately many programs have been developed to make ordering sushi much easier.

Vegetarian options are always a sure bet. Or, pay that extra $ to get tastier, WILD salmon instead!

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a downloadable sushi guide and updated research on their website, and the OceanWise program also has a downloadable app to help you make smart decision on the go.

Sushi Guide from Monterey Bay Aquarium

Note that salmon, tuna, and some other popular items are in all three categories! This sucks. It makes things really confusing for consumers, especially since the different kinds are not usually marked on menus. It is a pain in the ***, and sometimes a little intimidating, to ask the server or chef for more details about where, what and how they got their product, but I beg of you please just ASK! It makes all the difference to your body (mercury accumulation is a serious threat in salmon and tuna) and to the oceans. By staying within these seafood guidelines you are helping to keep our oceans ecosystems in check; if fish populations are kept healthy and fishing regulations are maintained, then sushi can continue to be a staple for all of us hungry Vancouverites… and that would make me very happy indeed!

What’s your favourite sustainable sushi item to order? Have a favourite place in Vancouver? Share the wealth! Comment or tweet me your secrets (@SeaingBlue).

Huge breath from the double blow hole.

Beginning of a fluke….

FLUKE!

Each fluke is like a human fingerprint, unique to each whale, so next time you’re out in the Strait of Georgia keep your eyes peeled for this guy.

Aaaand, have a lovely night!

This morning I came across an article that I think is very concise and well-written , but on top of that it makes some strong points to encourage even non-environmentally conscience people to make environmentally friendly decisions without realizing it.

If you love the ocean and you want to actively work to keep it healthy, then likely you are already eating sustainable seafood and promoting it to your friends and family. (And if not, then I think you underestimate your power as a consumer and you need to step up yo game!) However, if you are impartial to the earth’s current circumstance and, unfortunately, are part of the majority, then your decisions are probably more health-conscience and economically based.

Well, researchers at Arizona State University have found that unsustainable seafood items actually present a higher health risk. Huffington Post summarized their findings and highlighted why things like albacore tuna, wild salmon, and farmed oysters are wise choices, and why things like grouper, farmed salmon, and bluefin tuna are a big, big no-nos.

Tuna

As an avid tuna fan, this has perhaps been the hardest one for me to avoid. Every health magazine used to recommend tuna sandwiches and salads as a healthy protein option, and Tim Horton’s makes a pretty yummy tuna sandwich, but ever since I took my sustainable seafood oath I’ve been avoided this mercury-loaded muscle machine.

BUT, there are different kinds of tuna, and they are caught in different ways, so if you don’t want to eliminate it completely from your diet there are still options out there. Albacore tuna that has been troll or pole-caught is a sustainable AND healthy option because “Smaller (usually less than 20 pounds), younger fish are typically caught this way (as opposed to the larger fish caught on longlines). These fish have much lower mercury and contaminant ratings and those caught in colder northern waters often have higher omega-3 counts.”

Albarcore tuna is a sustainable and healthy choice

Whereas, bluefin tuna you should avoid like the plague! Not only is this fish loaded with mercury (unhealthy), but WWF listed it as one of the top 10 threatened animals to watch for, along with pandas, tigers, and leatherback turtles. It is being fished out of our oceans as if there is literally no tomorrow (thus, unsustainable) and is being stock piled in many Asian countries to maintain its high demand status. There is an amaaaazing documentary (End of the Line) all about the state of bluefin tuna and I’d highly recommend watching it.

Salmon

I could go on and on about salmon and how magnificent they are!… but I’ll save that for another rainy day, which in Vancouver means I’ll have plenty of opportunities. For now I’ll just paste the arguments from the article.

Wild Alaska and BC caught: GOOD

“To give you an idea of how well managed Alaska’s salmon fishery is, consider this: Biologists are posted at river mouths to count how many wild fish return to spawn. If the numbers begin to dwindle, the fishery is closed before it reaches its limits, as was done recently with some Chinook fisheries. This close monitoring, along with strict quotas and careful management of water quality, means Alaska’s wild-caught salmon are both healthier (they pack 1,210 mg of omega-3s per 3-ounce serving and carry few contaminants) and more sustainable than just about any other salmon fishery.”

Grizzly catching wild salmon

Farmed: BAD

“Most farmed salmon (and all salmon labeled “Atlantic salmon” is farmed) are raised in tightly packed, open-net pens often rife with parasites and diseases that threaten the wild salmon trying to swim by to their ancestral spawning waters. Farmed salmon are fed fishmeal, given antibiotics to combat diseases and have levels of PCBs high enough to rate a health advisory from EDF. Recently, however, freshwater-farmed Coho salmon have earned a Best Choice status from Seafood Watch. There is hope consumer pressure will encourage more farms to adopt better practices.”

Congested open-net salmon farm

Grouper

Grouper is also on the unhealthy and unsustainable list. It so full of contaminants and unhealthy fats, you are honestly probably better off eating a cheeseburger. Since they have a life cycle of up to 40 years it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity, and in many developing countries they are being caught before they have the chance to regenerate their species.

Goliath Grouper harem in cave

Diver and (huge!) Grouper

Spread the news, for the health of your friends and wealth of our oceans, sustainable seafood is healthier seafood as well! And if you are looking to eat sea life that I haven’t mentioned above, don’t fret, I can help you with that too. November is OceanWise month at the Vancouver Aquarium, and if you don’t have it already, get the free ap here! This is the easiest way to double check that you are making smart purchases – whether it be while dining out or shopping at the market – the answers are RIGHT HERE!

Happy sustainable seafood hunting

First of all, I must apologize for my absence to the blogosphere. It has been a busy and exciting summer out on the ocean, and although I intended to post regularly about my adventures, I was too busy whale watching to write about it. So, actually, I’m not sorry. However, now that the season is over (and I’m jobless once again..) I’ve got nothing but time to blab to you all November long! Secondly,.. it’s November already. How depressing is that? This realization has made me feel ill. Thirdly, I’m going to try to develop some structure and routine around here, as posting frequency has been wishy-washy for far too long! (And we could all use a little more consistency in our lives, right?) First order of business, I’ve decided that Sunday’s will be allotted to Sustainable Seafood. So every Sunday I’ll give you a recipe and a run-down on what is good to eat; as in good for your taste-buds, your body, AND for the oceans. And as for what is going to happen on the other days of the week… you’ll just have to wait and see!

Today’s recipe uses deliciously versatile wild BC Spot Prawns. I actually made this way back in the spring when prawns were in season (May & June) and I could get them fresh at Granville Island Market, but you can still find them frozen in grocery stores year-round.

Image from http://www.wildbcspotprawns.com

Image from http://www.wildbcspotprawns.com

I did not know this, but there is actually an entire website devoted to BC Spot Prawns (www.wildbcspotprawns.com) where you can read about how sustainable they are, where to buy them, how to store them, and even snag a few tasty looking recipes (seriously, I think spot prawn ceviche is going to require further investigation…). So, straight from their website, this is why wild spot prawns are a sustainable seafood choice:

• restricting the fishery to trap gear
• limiting the number of licenses and the number of traps per license
• harvest log requirements
• minimum trap mesh size restrictions
• minimum harvest size requirements
• single haul per day limitations
• maximum trap volume
• effective monitoring programs
• license holders funding scientific research
• fishery closures when the number of spawning prawns reaches a pre-determined level

Here is what one of their traps looks like, and if you’ve spent any time out in the Strait of Georgia you probably recognize them from being hauled over the sides of fishing vessels or by the pink marker buoy on the surface.

BC Spot Prawn Trap

These traps are very selective for the spot prawns, unlike many other fishing methods that are still gathering devastating numbers of un-targeted marine life (cough, cough,… bottom trawling).

Most likely you are more familiar with tiger prawns, or as I like to say, the Devil Prawn. These little guys are NOT a sustainable seafood choice, and therefore I would rather you eat a can of beans than use these in a seafood recipe. The developing nations in which tiger prawns are harvested are suffering more and more each year because of the high demand of prawns from the western world. Without knowing it, westerners are dining on an antibiotic & growth hormone enriched product, which is causing other nations serious environmental degradation, disease, pollution, debt and dispossession, illegal land seizures, and abuse of child labour and violence in other nations. (For more info on the devil prawn: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/jun/19/food.fishing). There isn’t much of a cost difference if you switch to spot prawns, and I assure you spot prawns taste much better!

Intensive farming practices in developing nations destroy precious mangrove habitiat.

So once you’ve got those big, beautiful, live wild spot prawns flip-flopping around on ice, what do you do? Weeell, what didn’t quite register with me when I made my purchase, was that I would have to be the one to rip the heads off of their live bodies! I was told a quick twist behind the head is all it takes, but believe you me, when there’s a tail kicking in your palm it is a much different story. It took my roommate and I the better part of an hour before the final decapitation was complete. Gross.

Finally, all cleaned up:

And from here the possibilities are endless… salads and stir-frys, oh my!

At this stage I was pretty fed up with how much of my day these prawns had consumed, so I just threw the prawns in a pan with bell peppers, garlic, chilies, and teriyaki sauce and dumped it on a bed of basmati. Of course there are much more involved recipes that I’d like to try once the prawns are ready to go, and I’ll get there some day. But really, accompany with a delicious beer, and  you’re all set. Nom nom.

Until next time, seafoodies!

If you don’t have it already, I HIGHLY recommend downloading the OceanWise app for your smart phone, so that you can make sustainable seafood choices on the go. Healthy choices for you, healthy choice for Mother Earth; Win Win! And, follow me on Twitter (@SeaingBlue) for more on seafood sustainability!

On the top of my list of videos recommended for you, is a video I came across last night on the Deepseanews blog. A post by Miriam Goldstein highlights some AMAZING footage of seastar preying on a mussel. I’ve seen this many times in the wet lab – a menacing seastar envelops a helpless clam or mussel as it secretes digestive enzymes to break apart and liquify the insides of the mollusc – but never before have I seen this from the point of view of the victim! This video will tantalize you with suspense… don’t spill your popcorn!

Next on my list is something that is also on my bucket list to see in real life; cooperative bubblenet feeding. Humpback whales use this technique by exhaling in a circle underwater to aggravate schools of fish into a dense “net” of bubbles, from which they can then entrap from underneath in their large throat grooves. Here is an amazing blog post by Gina Ruttle (Whalegeek) with breathtaking stills and video footage of 19 humpbacks cooperatively using this technique together. Here’s one still to tease yah…

“Cooperatively bubblenetting humpback whales in SE Alaska, USA” – Gina Ruttle

Next is a video of a pod of dolphins. Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen that before… but not like this! In this viral video, you are given an underwater perspective of the pacific white-sided action (man, I want a GoPro), and the image is so crisp, and the water is so azure, and the dolphins are so lovely, and ahhh, so great! Thank you Mark Peters for this delightful accident.

Lastly, here is a video of a beautiful piece of plankton that lives just off our shores here in the Pacific Northwest; the Lion’s Mane Jelly! The Marine Detective caught some mesmerizing footage on one of her dives the other week, so feast your eyes…

There you have it… inspired to go diving or traveling or get your butt off your computer? I am! Time to research winter travels to Southeast Asia

Have any videos you want to share with me?! Comment or tweet em my way (@SeaingBlue)!

BONUS VIDEO:

Watch as a surfer almost gets swallowed by a humpback whale! That’s what you get for paddling on top of a bait ball, silly.