We adopted a family of Right Whales!

Thanks to the kindness of the Saint Mary's University Geography community, we have symbolically adopted a family of Right Whales through the adoption program based out of the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station in New Brunswick. I will post more information about Wart and her family over the holidays. Thanks everyone!

Killing Pond Inlet narwhals 'humane harvest': DFO

I found an article on the CBC website about the narwhals trapped in Pond Inlet, Nunavut. DFO say there are no conservation issues surrounding these whales and that sustainable quotas will not be exceeded by killing the trapped whales, though more than 200 will be killed. The edge of the ice floe is too far away for the whales to get out of the unfrozen section where they are trapped. DFO doesn't want to cut a path with a ship for the whales to get out. I'm not sure what I think about this situation. It is a very complex situation and is emotionally charged for me, much like the seal hunt. Though I respect the seal hunt a lot more now as one of the more humane ways that meat is acquired in this country, I kind of think that DFO should cut a path for these whales. Population data on these whales is somewhat ambiguous. The WWF info page about narwhals can be found here.The CBC article can be found here. Photo source is here.

Sea Cucumber Feeding

I can't find a sea cucumber curled up and rolling as we discussed in class, but I found a video of one feeding.

"Slow Progress on Ocean Protection"

This link is to a BBC article assessing the current state of ocean protection. The article concludes that less than 1% of the world's oceans are protected. The global survey was carried out by The Nature Conservancy, and the results are published in the journal Conservation Letters. Almost every country in the world signed the UN Convention on Biodiversity four years ago, which commits governments to protect 10% of the world's oceans in the interest of maintaining a healthy ecosystem. The Bijagos Archipelago, Palau, Indonesia, New Zealand, Micronesia and several Caribbean states are listed as making significant progress in marine protection. The hippos in the photo live in the coastal waters of mangrove coasts in the Bijagos Archipelago. They are clearly benefitting from the country's marine protection.

Dumbo in the Gully

This is a picture of a bizarre creature found in 'The Gully" off the coast of Nova Scotia near Sable Island. In 2007, BIO scientists explored the Gully Marine Protected area for the first time with robot submersibles. The creature in the photograph is an octopus that is approximately one metre in length. The large fins on the sides of its head look like elephant ears, which is why the nickname given to the creature by researchers is Dumbo. They belong to the cephalopod family and have been observed as deep as 7000 metres! For a fact sheet on the Dumbo octopus click here. For the article about what BIO scientists found in the gully, click here.

Real Examples

Here are real pictures of an erosional and a depositional coastline. Photocredit 1, Photocredit 2.

Erosional vs. Depostional Coastlines

I found this great diagram illustrating the differences between an erosional and a depositional coastline. Depositional coastlines are formed by the gradual building up of sediment. Erosional coastlines are obviously products of erosion. Topography, prevailing winds and ocean currents, and geology are all factors that determine the nature of a coastline. The BBC Scotland education section has a few good pages about coastlines here. Image source here.