Daily Science Dose

File this one under “why didn’t someone else think of this earlier?”

Scientists have figured out how to use satellite photos to find penguin colonies. Look for the poop. Much like how some future (or alien?) archeologist will search for former human population centers by looking for our massive landfills, researchers that follow the habits of flightless birds are finding new colonies by finding the waste product of said colonies.

Photo montage is from the British Antarctic Survey. The top right satellite shot is of Cape Darnley.

Up until now, most penguin colonies are found by happenstance in a way. The Antarctic winter is quite chilly, and few scientists hang out for it, so when biologists show up in the spring, it’s a matter of luck (or the past use of a spot) that they find the remains of rookeries — most adults have jetted by spring.

I mentioned that penguin researchers may find breeding grounds in the same spot of previous years, but with the changing ice conditions due to atmospheric warming, penguins are on the move. Which means that using the past to find the present isn’t working out so well. Enter satellites.

It’s like Google Earth maps for penguins. But of course, you have to know what you are looking for. Lots and lots of poop.

Penguin biologist Phil Trathan and cartographer Peter Fretwell, both of the British Antarctic Survey, wondered if it was possible to do better by tracking the penguins from space. The birds themselves don’t show up in satellite pictures; their black-and-white bodies are too similar to the white ice with black shadows. Not so with guano. “The poo just sort of stands out at you,” says Trathan. Emperors are the only penguins that breed on the sea ice, so he knows who’s doing the pooping. — Science Mag

From the initial analysis, of the 34 known breeding grounds, six have disappeared. Those six were located in warmer, more northernly areas. If the penguins are moving south to stay cold enough, the problem is that penguins also need to stay near the coast. So this pattern could spell trouble for Emperors and most penguins by extension.

The good news is that the team found 10 new colonies. The population numbers are still hazy at this point, so who knows if the six colonies are now part of the ten new ones or if the ten were always there and never found before now. But the satellite images will be a useful tool in going forward in penguin population studies.

penguins, satellite, satellite images, breeding grounds, Emperor penguin, guano, Antarctica, global warming, climate change, biologists, rookeries, marine mammals

A Woods Hole grad student, now working at the University of Southern Florida’s Mann Lab for Marine Sensory Biology, has released the finding from a study he conducted on marine mammal brains, and the news is not good. It seems that human’s propensity to use the oceans as a dumping ground (as well as our ineptitude in realizing that dangerous chemicals don’t just go away when we no longer see them) has resulted in bio-accumulation of some nasty substances in marine mammals.

Yes, again with the flame retardants…

Eric Montie went to work with Environment Canada to “learn the painstaking techniques required to extract and to quantify more than 170 different pollutants and their metabolites.” He brought back the methods to Woods Hole and started analyzing the brains of 11 whales and dolphins and a grey seal. The animals came from around the Cape Cod area, and darned if you didn’t guess, some not-so-nice chemicals were present in the cerebrospinal fluid as well as the grey matter.

And yes, our dear friends DDT, an overly effective pesticide that has been banned around the world, but doesn’t seem to want to go away; PBDEs, or flame retardants which are only know being scrutinzed despite their ubiquity; and PCBs, again a banned chemical family that just doesn’t go away have all been found in the marine mammalian brain studied by Montie. In fact, the levels of PCBs in the seal were in the parts per million, which may seem small, but according to Montie, “you rarely find parts per million levels of anything in the brain.”

So what’s the big deal? Well, PCBs kind of trick a body into thinking that they are thyroid hormones and instead of healthy and needed thyroid hormones, the body gets PCBs. That can lead to all sorts of neurological issues and problems when it comes to brain development and can disrupt the sensory functions of mammals like dolphins, seals and whales that really depend on their sense of hearing to live.

Just how these chemicals might impact marine mammal health is something Montie plans to pursue. This summer, Montie, [David] Mann [the man behind the aforementioned Mann Lab], and Dr. Mandy Cook (from Portland University) will partner with scientists from NOAA to test the hearing in dolphins living near a Superfund site in Georgia and compare it to dolphins from locations where ambient concentrations of pollutants are significantly lower. Montie is also working with Frances Gulland, director of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, to examine how California sea lions’s exposure to PCBs may increase their sensitivity to domoic acid, a naturally produced marine neurotoxin associated with “red tides.” –WHOI news release

Great…

Related: Pelicans Dropping From Sky for Reasons Unknown

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In a very creepy Children of Men kind of way, this recent development in the state of our world’s water resources could be the first step to lower fecundity in humans, which yes, in an extreme case like the world of 2027 in Children of Men, could lead to diminished birth rates.

Guess I’ll stop worrying about overpopulation…

A British joint-research project finds that increasing numbers of new chemicals such as those used in pharmaceuticals and fertilizers — the very things that make life worth living, am I right? — are showing up in our water supplies. These chemicals may have a rather harmful and decidedly less fruitful side effect on a man’s reproductive system.

And on a fish’s reproductive system. Studies in the past have shown that male fish are being “feminized” due to female hormones in the water supply. Certain hormones in the water are turning the fish into girl fish, kind of in some cases and literally in others. These estrogens are making it through the water treatment process after passing through women taking birth-control pills. To be fair, chemicals that act like estrogen also have the same effect on fish, and those chemicals are coming from industrial manufacturing.

Now, researchers are finding new chemicals they are calling “anti-androgens.” These are acting much like the estrogen and faux-estrogen. Androgens are male hormones like testosterone, and serve to support sperm production.

In fact, the researchers says they really don’t know where some of these chemicals are coming from.

“We have identified a new group of chemicals in our study on fish, but do not know where they are coming from. A principal aim of our work is now to identify the source of these pollutants and work with regulators and relevant industry to test the effects of a mixture of these chemicals and the already known environmental estrogens and help protect environmental health.” [quote from Lead author on the research paper, Dr Susan Jobling at Brunel University's Institute for the Environment]

Senior author Professor Charles Tyler of the University of Exeter said: “Our research shows that a much wider range of chemicals than we previously thought is leading to hormone disruption in fish. This means that the pollutants causing these problems are likely to be coming from a wide variety of sources.

“Our findings also strengthen the argument for the cocktail of chemicals in our water leading to hormone disruption in fish, and contributing to the rise in male reproductive problems. There are likely to be many reasons behind the rise in male fertility problems in humans, but these findings could reveal one, previously unknown, factor.”–SPX via TerraDaily

These anti-androgens are known to cause a condition called testicular dysgenesis syndrome. Even the name tells us what is going on — dys means “ill” and genesis means “birth“. The anti-androgens can cause developmental damage to the reproductive system in embryos and the syndrome is becoming more and more common unfortunately.

We are what we drink. The ultimate anti-androgens, Women.

Yet more bad news for our water supply.

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This is rather unsettling. I ran across this article today about brown pelicans literally falling from the sky along the Pacific Coast. And no one knows why…yet.

Some scientists are initially pointing their fingers at demoic acid. Demoic acid is produced by nasty phytoplankton and has made news lately for its effects on sea lions and other marine creatures.

Brown pelicans are being found many miles inland, along freeways, in yards, and parking lots. The birds are disoriented and feeble. Some birds are so weak that people can walk up to them and pick them up, which is not at all usual. Many of the symptoms are those of demoic acid poisoning, but other symptoms are leaving researchers and rescuers stumped.

While some of the symptoms resemble those associated with domoic-acid poisoning — an ocean toxin that sometimes affects sea birds and mammals — other symptoms do not. Domoic acid also apparently has not been found in significant amounts offshore, although more tests are needed.

Rescuers are wondering whether the illness is caused by a virus, or even by contaminants washed into the ocean after recent fires across Southern California. Many of the birds also have swollen feet. — Seattle Times

The Brown Pelican is the only pelican species that lives only along sea shores. Other species may be found inland, but not the Brown pelican, which makes these inland suicide runs all the more troubling. The Pacific population of Brown Pelicans has been on the Endangered Species list since June 1970. Recently, the species has been considered for delisting, but this troubling news may prevent that. The species was initially listed, like many large birds, due to DDT poisoning. The East Coast population has been de-listed, but the Pacific population has been growing more slowly.

Bodies of dead birds and blood samples have been sent off to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in addition to the California Department of Fish and Game for testing. Bird rescue organizations along the coast are alarmed at the numbers of dead or sick adult birds they have seen in the last week and a half.

In the last few years, numerous reports have been published about increasing numbers of Brown Pelicans starving along the Pacific Coast. So this new development may be related, or could have facilitated whatever is plaguing the brown pelicans.

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While I was watching NOVA last night, which was called “Ocean Animal Emergency” and truly saddening, I was struck by a small seal pup that had facial tumors growing out of its mouth. The tumors were found to be inoperable, and the poor, little Harbor seal had to be euthanized.

The moment I saw the seal’s tumors I was reminded of another creature that has become afflicted with grotesque facial tumors, the Tasmanian Devil.

Are the facial tumors afflicting the harbor seal on NOVA and Tasmanian Devil related? Could there be something more to this? What is it that is causing these odd, devastating growths? In January 2008, reports came out detailing that Tasmanian Devils have elevated levels of chemicals used as flame retardants in their blood stream. Could these chemicals be causing this kind of growth? Or are the chemicals just enabling this kind of cancer, making some animals more susceptible to disease?

The science is still out on the Tasmanian Devil, but as more than 60% of the wild population has died in the last decade since this facial cancer was first discovered, there may not be much time for scientists to figure it out.

The facial growth I saw on the harbor seal did not look quite as gruesome as that which I have seen in pictures of tasmanian devils. The harbor seal’s tumors looked more like big “toes” sticking out of its mouth. The seal didn’t look bothered by them, so it is unsure if the tumors were causing pain of any kind. I have to wonder if there is some correlation between the toxins we keep dumping in the ocean and this poor seal’s face.

NOVA explained that the seal and sea lions that are euthanized at the Marine Mammal Center are given a post-mortum examination, and blood and tissue samples are collected. I have to wonder what the MMC will find, if anything. Of course, it may simply be a birth defect, and I am worrying over nothing. But as seals are higher up on the food chain and consume other marine creatures, they could be the front line when it comes to realizing the effects of the many, many substances we allow to flow into our waters.

The MMC and other marine researchers are finding that another toxin, domoic acid, is killing sea lions and the numbers are only increasing. The domoic acid is a toxin released by the Pseudo-nitzschia algae, an algae that needs sunlight and nutrient-rich water, which are usually not the same water. However, with increasing amounts of nutrients in the form of fertilizers running into our near-shore waters, like Southern California where many sea lions are dying, algae blooms are becoming common in the spring and early summer.

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Did you know that the present time is already considered one of the great mass extinctions? Humans seem to be the major culprit in this, the Holocene extinction event, but scientists have recently began surmising that a similar extinction 251 million years ago was caused by the same thing. But with no humans around 251 million years ago, what is it that I am talking about — yep, carbon dioxide.

The Christian Science Monitor published an article this last week detailing the current hypotheses of a team of researchers and scientists from multiple disciplines.

Now scientists are rethinking another of earth’s great die-offs. The end-Permian extinction 251 million years ago was the worst of earth’s five mass extinctions. Ninety percent of all marine life and 70 percent of terrestrial life disappeared. It took five million years, perhaps more, for the biosphere to recover.

But while the die-off was uniquely devastating, evidence of a single cataclysmic event, like an asteroid strike, hasn’t been found in the geological record. Scientists now suspect that “the mother of all mass extinctions” was of Earth’s own making. And the more they learn about it, the more parallels they see to today’s world: A bout of greenhouse-gas-induced global warming, much like today’s, set off a chain of events that culminated in oxygen-depleted oceans exhaling poison gas.

It seems that increased volcanic activity started burning through coal beds, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide — something we humans are doing, we are like little volcanoes, I guess. The Earth’s population at the time was already stressing the system, and when the extra CO2 entered the atmosphere, it lead to warmer seas (sounds familiar). The warmer seas lead to increased weathering and erosion, which washed nutrients into the oceans, thus leading to algae blooms (again, familiar). When the algae dies, the decomposition process requires oxygen, effectively starving the water of oxygen. When water does not have enough oxygen, many organisms cannot live in that water, except for anaerobic organisms that breathe in sulfates and give off hydrogen sulfide as exhalation. Hydrogen sulfide is poisonous to us oxygen-loving organisms.

And the lessons for today? At the Permian boundary, “you’re in a state of gradual warming, then as you approach that boundary, the warming in­­creases dramatically,” says Jeff Kiehl, a senior scientist at the Na­­­tion­­­al Center for Atmospheric Re­­search in Boulder, Colo. “It wasn’t a linear warming.” Says Professor Kump: “This shows us what could happen if we push the system too hard…. We don’t know where the intermediate thresholds are.”

We’re still some way from the atmospheric CO2 levels hypothesized at the end-Permian extinction – which were perhaps 10 times preindustrial levels, or 2,800 ppm. Yet, according the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if trends continue we’re still approaching 1,000 ppm of CO2 by 2100. That’s not Permian-extinction levels, but it would be the highest CO2 concentration in 80 million years, and a level at which both ocean anoxia and lesser extinctions have occurred.

This theory on what lead to the “great dying” at the transition between the Permian and Triassic periods (the extinction event is called the Permian-Triassic extinction event, appropriately enough) has been bouncing around for a while now, once scientists started questioning the evidence of the Killer Asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs. It seems that despite the asteroid’s impact and subsequent devastation, many big dinosaurs stuck around for quite some time afterward. When the asteroid impact theory gained popularity, some scientists felt that all of our many mass extinctions throughout Earth’s history were caused by otherworldly impacts, but not all the evidence added up.

Until fossil records started showing evidence of little sulfide-emitting organisms, and then scientists started looking at the Permian-Triassic more carefully.

From a Scientific American article from 2006:

But the biomarkers in the oceanic sediments from the latest part of the Permian, and from the latest Triassic rocks as well, yielded chemical evidence of an ocean-wide bloom of the H2S-consuming bacteria. Because these microbes can live only in an oxygen-free environment but need sunlight for their photosynthesis, their presence in strata representing shallow marine settings is itself a marker indicating that even the surface of the oceans at the end of the Permian was without oxygen but was enriched in H2S.

Also, the P-Tr event is marked by volcanic activity in Siberia, of all places, and only a couple of months ago, scientists discovered that large amounts of methane are leaking from the Siberia Seabed. Hmm, methane is a greenhouse gas that has 20 times the power to trap heat that carbon dioxide does, and if that “leak” continues, well, estimates that 50 percent of all species will go extinct in the next century may not be too far off the mark.

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Earlier this month, Science Magazine reported that an international collaboration of scientists have published a comprehensive database of everything mammalian. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) pulled together information from all parts of the world as well as going back into records from the 1500’s in order to get a total picture of what is going on in the world of warm-blooded vertabrates.

The database, part of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, updates and expands a survey from 1996 and includes both land and marine species. Taking 5 years to compile, the effort involved more than 1700 researchers from 130 countries. They combed their literature and pooled their unpublished knowledge of ecology, taxonomy, distribution, population trends, threats, and conservation efforts. The species were then classified according to their extinction risk. “We wanted to make this one-stop shopping for scientists and policymakers,” says IUCN and Conservation International mammalogist Jan Schipper, who coordinated the project.

The bad news is that one quarter of those 5487 species are on the fast track to extinction. Half are experiencing declining numbers. Out of the total number, more than 860 species are too poorly known to be properly assessed in terms of population health.

The good news is that since the last published database, 700 new species of mammals have been discovered. Also encouraging is that well-established and funded conservation programs are working for the most part in many areas.

More numbers…

29 of the species in the database may already be extinct, including China’s freshwater dolphin the baiji.

188 species are critically endangered.

1 in 5 species that are not already showing danger of extinction are showing decreases in population.

1139 species are presently threatened with extinction.

Habitat loss is the major reason for declining numbers in addition to hunting for land mammals. Marine mammals face the same threats, but also suffer more acutely from pollution issues and fishing including by-catch of species that are not regulated by fishing agencies. The larger the animal, the higher the risk of extinction, such as in such animals as gorillas and rhinos. Marine mammals are facing the biggest threat in the North Atlantic and Pacific as well as in the waters around Southeast Asia.

The new database “is the most valuable effort to date to summarize the state of conservation and threats to the world’s mammal populations,” says mammalogist Don Wilson of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. “By detailing threats at the species level, it will now be possible for management agencies in every country in the world to prioritize their efforts to try to mitigate these threats.”

With more and more people needing more and more room, I cannot say with any conviction that we can save some of these mammals. That brings up an interesting question: What do we save? What can we save? And who decides?

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I found this interesting, and disturbing, considering the amount of Pollock that we Americans consume. Recent studies are showing that Alaskan Pollock is moving to colder Russian waters.

This is from the LA Times.

Pollock spawn each winter near the Aleutian Islands and then follow their food north as waters warm in the spring. But the food has shifted farther north with receding sea ice, and now pollock, which follow the northwesterly contour of the continental shelf, are shifting their range ever closer to Russian waters.

Scientists who help manage the fishery are confirming what fishermen report: The fish disappear from the Aleutians area each summer and can mostly be found near Russia.

Every June and July, federal scientists trawl a grid pattern in the Bering Sea in an area about the size of California. Counting the fish caught in these trawls and matching them against sonar readings, they estimate the size of fish stocks. These assessments help set limits on the next year’s catch to safeguard spawning stock.

An analysis of 25 years of surveys showed that the ranges of most fish are shifting north as the ice and cool water have retreated, said Franz J. Mueter, a fisheries oceanographer at the University of Alaska.

“What we found confirmed the obvious,” Mueter said. “As waters warm, a lot of fish on the eastern Bering Sea shelf are moving north.”

Not all scientists agree. Some suggest that other factors need further study, including different migration patterns of older and younger fish, whether trawl data provide a complete picture of fish populations, and whether these waters are becoming overfished despite the Marine Stewardship Council’s eco-label certifying that the pollock fishery is managed sustainably.

So the implications of fewer pollock are many, indeed. Firstly, yeah, Americans eat a lot of the stuff, in fast-food, fishsticks (after all the cod disappeared), and imitation crab and lobster. Second, if the fish move to Russian waters, US fisherman will not be catching the pollock, thus putting more strain on other fisheries and the local Alaskan economy. What happens when the US is forced to import more fish? Also, with less fish being caught, prices will most likely go up, like the prices of just about everything lately. More still, do the Russians take fish stocks as seriously (and I can barely keep a straight face writing that) as the Americans? Sure, some scientists were allowed over the border now, but what happens in the future, especially if relations with the Russians continue to become chilly. Not only that, but what will happen to the Stellar sea lion as the pollock are a major part of their diet? Will they also follow the fish, and if so, will they continue to be as protected as they are in Alaskan waters? Yeah, there are lots of problems here.

Also, what of the larger implication of migrating fish stocks due to warming? How many other species will move out of US waters as we continue to pump carbon into the air and water? As it is right now, there a fewer and fewer fish that are considered “good choices” by environmental groups and oceanographic institutes across the world. Pollock is already in trouble as a commercial fish stock, despite many groups saying that it is sustainable, with recent reports that the recovery of the stocks is not going as swimmingly (couldn’t resist) as possible.

This is just more bad news for fish and the people and others predators who love to eat them.

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If you pay attention to the news, and especially news on the state of the environment, you may have heard of something called “ocean acidification.” This is a very serious issue that is just starting to gain some attention from scientists. The ocean won’t become a bubbling cauldron of acid, steaming and fuming with potential pain and burning, but the water’s pH balance may shift toward the more acidic.

The oceans are well-known as a sequester of carbon dioxide. So much so that some have advocated that instead of bothering with cutting carbon emissions, we can just “sink” the carbon in the oceans. And it is true that this has been the Earth’s way of dealing with excess carbon and methane for eons, but lately, it seems that anthropogenic carbon (that means that the source is man-made) is too much for the ocean to take it in without throwing the whole system out of whack. When the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, or CO2, water’s H2O binds with that CO2 and forms HCO3, and that, my friends, is carbonic acid.

Now, obviously, it would take a LOT of carbon dioxide to turn the seas acidic, or more accurately, less alkaline, as the ocean’s typical pH (potential Hydrogen) is 8.2, or at least was before the Industrial Revolution. And guess what we humans have pumped into the atmosphere — a LOT of carbon dioxide.

Do you ever wonder that perhaps fossil fuels were buried in the first place as “carbon sinks?” And we have simply released all that carbon that nature put under ground so many years ago…

I digress. The problem at hand is now that if the pH of the ocean becomes too acidic (less alkaline) too fast, many marine organisms will not be able to adapt quickly enough to survive. Any creature that builds a shell uses calcium carbonate and aragonite in order to do so. Carbonic acid corrodes the aragonite, and shell formation becomes difficult. Scientists have found that some snails that happen upon carbon vents in the Mediterranean are losing their shells, literally. The carbonic acid is dissolving the shells.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, you know, the Nobel-prize winning IPCC) has warned that pH may decrease 0.14 to 0.35 by 2100. This could mean that with the decrease of 0.1 experienced since the beginning of the Industrial Rev, we could see oceans of 7.8 pH. Shelled creatures will most likely not be able to keep up with that amount of change in pH, and when we lose the shelled organisms, such as some snails, we can lose a valuable food source for things we like to eat, like salmon. With the oceans already stressed, a decrease in pH may be more that they can handle.

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Well, it is exactly that. Technically, this condition is known as “hypoxia.” Remember that the prefix hypo- means low, so it means low oxygen (FYI: You can also suffer hypoxia in your blood). Dead zones are popping up all over the world, so this is a timely opportunity to find out what creates these dead zones.

Science is publishing a new report that the number and size of these oceanic dead zones are increasing. This may be because of more extensive surveying, but many of these dead zones are being attributed to agriculture and the use of fertilizers.

So, how do fertilizers kill organisms living in the ocean? Aren’t fertilizers used on land and not the sea? Also, how do fertilizers make our crops grow, but kill fish? What gives?

The red areas signify extremely low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water.

A notable dead zone of late is the Gulf of Mexico. I actually wrote something about it for Environmental Graffiti some time last year. The problem in the Gulf is that fertilizers being used in the Midwestern states like Iowa and Illinois are leaching into water sources or just running off the acres the nitrogen-rich fertilizers are originally applied and entering the Mississippi River system. Any little creek running by a corn farm in Iowa picks up the fertilizer run-off and then that creek meets up and joins a bigger creek, and then a small river, and so on until that fertilizer enters the Mississippi River. Then that nitrogen is headed for the Gulf of Mexico.

The nitrogen does not kill plants or animals in the Gulf. In fact, quite the opposite. The nitrogen and other nutrients involved in agricultural fertilizers cause what are known as “blooms.” Algae and other microscopic organisms thrive in this newly fertilized environment. They thrive and thrive so much that it is like a bloom, when everything comes into maturity at the same time. However, the downside of that is most organisms have an expiration date, if you will, and when a enormous number of anything dies at the same time, it means that an enormous number of things are going to decompose at the same time.

Guess what diatomic element is need for decomposition? Yep, O2. Good ol’ Oxygen.

The primary agents involved in decomposition are bacteria, and bacteria require oxygen. Thuse bacterial decomposition requires oxygen, and the problem is that when all that algae dies, their little corpses require a LOT of bacteria and that bacteria requires a LOT of oxygen. So much so that the too much oxygen is being depleted from the water at too fast a rate to balance the system. And voila, no oxygen, no life.

There are other dead zones that are not being attributed to fertilizers, but instead on perhaps natural fluctuations in ocean currents. The increase in hypoxia in the world’s waters may mean that ocean currents are becoming a little whacked out. Some scientists point to global warming as a cause for this disruption in normal ocean currents.

These dead zones are popping in some of the richest fishing waters around the globe, so obviously, this is a dangerous situation. The boom in ethanol and other bio-fuels is further heightening fears about the affects of fertilizers in our oceans.

And geez, it’s not like our fishing industries aren’t hurting enough…

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