Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus)

Yesterday, a temporary six-month ban on Red Snapper fishing went into effect off the coasts of NC, SC, GA, and Eastern FL. This closure, requested by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and instituted by NOAA's Fisheries Department (National Marine Fisheries Service) is in response to a 2008 report that shows that Red Snapper are being overfished at about 8 times the sustainable rate. The NMFS estimates that the Red Snapper population is only at 3% of what it was 60 years ago. Another study found that 80% of what we buy as Red Snapper is mislabeled and is actually other fish, probably because Red Snapper has become so popular that it is overfished. This temporary closure is a stop gap until the SAFMC can institute more permanent rules to rebuild the Red Snapper population and create a long term financially viable and sustainable fishery.

Of course there has been a hubbub raised by local recreational sport fisherman who claim that the fish are not overfished. (See NPR article for more info)

Personally I am so happy to hear that the government is taking steps to save these fisheries. This isn't really a environmental move per se, but more of a financial move. Through the course of human history we have been depleted one fish stock after another, valuing short term profits over long term sustinable fishing. The most glaring of these fishery collapses is the Northern Cod fishery in the Canada/US. For 500 years, the Northern Cod fishery sustained generations of fisherman. Then greed and mismanagement took over and fisherman decimated the populations of cod. In 1992, cod populations plummeted to about 5% of what they had been decades before. Even after a fishing moratorium of 18 years, cod stocks in this fishery have failed to rebound, possibly due to a ecological shift in which Capelin, once one of cod's main prey, have become a dominant species and now feed on juvenile cod. This tale has been repeated over and over again, with humans exploiting a fishery to the point of collapse or near collapse... with Orange Roughy, California Abalone, Long Island Clams, and many more. Without government regulation, more fisheries will collapse. In fact some foresee that all fisheries worldwide will collapse by 2048, unless we do something about it.

Oh and for all those fisherman who constantly claim that their fisheries have not collapsed, here's a quote from a fisheries scientist, "There is always disagreement between fishermen and government scientists... Imagine an overfished area of the sea in the shape of a hockey field with nets at either end. The few fish left therein would gather around the goals because fish like structured habitats. Scientists would survey the entire field, make lots of unsuccessful hauls, and conclude that it contains few fish. The fishermen would make a beeline to the goals, catch the fish around them,and say the scientists do not know what they are talking about. The subjective impression the fishermen get is always that there's lots of fish - because they only go to places that still have them... fisheries scientists survey and compare entire areas, not only the productive fishing spots."

Red Snapper are a reef fish found in the Gulf of Mexico and in the South Atlantic. The one I drew is smiling because he is happy that the ban is taking effect.

Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus)

Call me obsessive.

All this thinking about Colossal Squids had me thinking of the epic battles fought between predator and prey. The Sperm Whale is the largest living predator (if you define predator as preying upon self-functioning animals). As a child I remember seeing the diorama of a Sperm Whale and Giant Squid locked in battle at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This depiction was based not on photos or video evidence, but on the fact that often Sperm Whales bear scars from Giant and Colossal Squid tentacle suckers, and that they often find squid beaks in the Sperm Whales stomachs, leading the super smart people to realize that the Sperm Whales like to eat the squid, and the the squid, not liking this, fight back rather mightily.

Sperm whale: FAST FACTS (from AMNH)

• Size: adults can reach 18 meters (60 feet) in length and weigh 35,000 - 50,000 kilograms (38-55 tons)

• Food: primarily deep-sea squid, also fish and octopus

• Life span: 50 to 80 years

• Closest relatives: pygmy sperm whales and dwarf sperm whales

• Fun fact: Sperm whales can hold their breath under water for up to two hours.

The Sperm Whale's name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm. Herman Melville, in his novel Moby-Dick, famously abbreviated the word to just sperm, leading to such colorful phrases as, "Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!" Actually, Moby-Dick was inspired by a real albino Sperm Whale called Mocha Dick, encountered off of an island called Mocha near Chile. He was large and powerful, capable of wrecking small craft with his flukes.

This drawing features a regular gray Sperm Whale, surfacing and exhaling through his blowhole. He is in the Southern Pacific near Antarctica so I added an iceberg, showing the tip protruding and the rest of it below the ocean surface. Of course he is eying his favorite prey floating many feet below him, a Colossal and Giant Squid.

Before the widespread use of petroleum products for lubricants, spermaceti were used to for a number of commercial applications.

Spermaceti, obtained primarily from the spermaceti organ in the head, and sperm oil, obtained primarily from the blubber in the body, were much sought after by 18th, 19th and 20th century whalers. These substances found a variety of commercial applications, such as candles, soap, cosmetics, machine oil, other specialized lubricants, lamp oil, pencils, crayons, leather waterproofing, rust-proofing materials and many pharmaceutical compounds. Ambergris, a solid, waxy, flammable substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales, was also sought as a fixative in perfumery. American sperm whaling spread from the east coast of the American colonies to the Gulf Stream, the Grand Banks, West Africa (1763), the Azores (1765) and the South Atlantic (1770s). From 1770 to 1775 Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island ports produced 45,000 barrels of sperm oil annually, compared to 8,500 of whale oil.^[84] In the same decade the British began sperm whaling, employing American ships and personnel.^[85] By the following decade the French had entered the trade, also employing American expertise.^[85] Sperm whaling increased until the mid-1800s. Spermaceti oil was important in public lighting (for example, in lighthouses, where it was used in the United States until 1862, when it was replaced by lard oil, in turn replaced by petroleum) and for lubricating the machines (such as those used in cotton mills) of the Industrial Revolution. Sperm whaling declined in the second half of the 19th century, as petroleum came in to broader use. In that sense, it may be said to have protected whale populations from even greater exploitation.

It is estimated that the historic worldwide population numbered 1,100,000 before commercial sperm whaling began in the early 18th century. By 1880 it had declined an estimated 29 per cent. From that date until 1946 the population appears to have recovered somewhat as whaling pressure lessened, but after the Second World War, the population declined even further, to only 33 per cent of the pre-whaling era.

The species was given full protection by the International Whaling Commission in 1985. This species is considered to be threatened.

Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni)

So I've been totally obsessed with Colossal Squid since I heard that the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa put one on display a couple of years ago (on my birthday no less!). The Colossal Squid is the largest known invertebrate in the world; current estimates put its maximum size at 12–14 metres (39–46 feet) long. It also has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. This species was first described in 1925 when two arms of the squid were recovered from the stomach of a sperm whale. Then for many years, very little was learned about the species as only damaged and incomplete specimens were found. In recent years, several whole specimens have been caught, mostly as a result of our fishing the deep ocean for Antarctic and Patagonian Toothfish (the latter is sold and eaten here in US under the name Chilean Sea Bass... on a side note, the Chilean Sea Bass fishery is considered unsustainable as Toothfish grow and mature very slowly. Don't order it at restaurants!)

Here's some fun facts from Wikipedia:

While little is known about the life of this creature, it is believed to hunt prey such as chaetognatha, large fish like the Patagonian toothfish and other squid in the deep ocean using bioluminescence. Based on capture depths of a few specimens, as well as beaks found in sperm whale stomachs, the adult squid ranges at least to a depth of 2200 metres, while juveniles can go as deep as 1000 metres. It is believed to be sexually dimorphic, with mature females generally being much larger than mature males, as is common in many species of invertebrates.

The squid's method of reproduction has not been observed, although some data on their reproduction can be inferred from anatomy. Since males lack an organ called a hectocotylus (a tentacle used in other cephalopods to transfer a spermatophore to the female), they probably use a penis instead, which would be used to directly implant sperm into females.

Many sperm whales carry scars on their backs believed to be caused by the hooks of Colossal Squid. Colossal Squid are a major prey item for Antarctic sperm whales feeding in the Southern Ocean; 14% of the squid beaks found in the stomachs of these sperm whales are those of the Colossal Squid, which indicates that Colossal Squid make up 77% of the biomass consumed by these whales.Many other animals also feed on this squid, including the beaked whales (such as the bottlenose whales), pilot whale, southern elephant seal, Patagonian toothfish, Pacific sleeper shark, and albatross (e.g., the Wandering and Sooty albatrosses). However, beaks from mature adults have only been recovered from those animals large enough to take such prey (i.e., the sperm whale and Pacific sleeper shark), while the remaining predators are limited to eating juveniles or young adults.

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has lots of info on the Colossal Squid and you can even build your own squid on their website!