By RYAN McCARTHY. Keynoter
Wednesday, February 01, 2012 11:08 AM EST
Keys Energy Services is making the most of a state Clean Energy Grant it was awarded last summer. The most recent initiative — a pair of wind turbines — has been getting noticed a lot lately at the Lower Keys utility’s Cudjoe Key substation.
Keys Energy spokesman Julio Barroso said the utility plans to track how much energy the turbines produce and make the information available on its website. Barroso said the plan was to install one on Cudjoe Key and another on Stock Island, but instead both were put in the same location.
The smaller turbine is 35 feet tall, the maximum height allowed under county rules. Keys Energy got a waiver to install the other one at 52 feet.
“It’s always been said the Keys aren’t a good area for wind generation. Our thinking was to gain some information and see if height had something to do with it,” he said. “They’re definitely there for a year and we’ll see if we want to keep them both there or move another to perhaps the Stock Island substation. There’s no plans one way or the other.”
By KeysNet Staff
Posted – Wednesday, February 01, 2012 11:05 AM EST
The superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary has been named the outstanding manager of his federal agency.
Sean Morton, who has overseen the 2,900-square-mile marine area since February 2009, was picked as manager of the year by the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, an agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Keys sanctuary is one among 15.
Sunday 29 January 2012. Herald Scotland.
By Rob Edwards Environment Editor
Scottish fishing boats are under fire for trawling seas far from home for catches of tuna, shark, swordfish, mackerel and sardines.
The Sunday Herald can reveal that at least five vessels registered in Scotland have been licensed to fish in the Indian Ocean and off the northwest African coast.
Along with boats from elsewhere in Europe, they are facing criticisms that they are plundering foreign seas, damaging local fishing industries and threatening fish stocks.
As fish stocks in European waters have declined, big fishing businesses have increasingly searched further afield for more lucrative and less depleted waters. Scottish fishermen, already in straitened circumstances, are also keen to exploit foreign waters to keep operating.
According to a study for conservation group WWF, one-third of the world’s oceans are heavily fished, 10 times more than in the 1950s.
Jeremy Hance. mongabay.com . November 03, 2011
Researchers with the Smithsonian have catalogued almost as many crab species on tropical coral reef bits measuring just 20.6 square feet (6.3 square meters) as in all of Europe’s seas, finds a new paper in PLoS ONE. The team used DNA barcoding to quickly identify a total of 525 crustaceans (including 168 crab species) from dead coral chunks taken from seven sites in the tropics, including the Indian, Pacific and Caribbean oceans.
By David Fleshler. Sun Sentinel. Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011
They are whimsical symbols of the beach, appearing on key chains, murals, logos and postcards. They form inseparable, monogamous couples. And they are hauled from the sea in nets, ground into powder for traditional Chinese medicine and dried for sale in souvenir shops.
The world’s four dozen or so species of seahorse have had a rough time of the last few decades, as coastal development, international trade and commercial fishing took their toll. Read the full article
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
The Marshall Islands government has created the world’s largest shark sanctuary, covering nearly two million sq km (750,000 sq miles) of ocean.
The Pacific republic will ban trade in shark products and commercial shark fishing throughout its waters.
Tourism, including diving, is a staple of the Marshall Islands archipelago, which is home to just 68,000 people.
Sharks and their near relatives such as rays are seriously threatened by issues such as habitat loss and fishing.
by Underwatertimes.com News Service – September 22, 2011 16:32 EST
NEW YORK, New York — Leaders from eight countries launched an initiative today to prevent the extinction of sharks, symbolizing the latest development in the growing movement to safeguard the ocean’s top predator. Members of the coalition committed to a declaration supporting the development of sanctuaries that end commercial shark fishing in their national waters. Read the full article
by Underwatertimes.com News Service – September 14, 2011 21:43 EST
DURHAM, North Carolina — The number of sea turtles accidentally caught and killed in fishing gear in United States coastal waters has declined by an estimated 90 percent since 1990, according to a new study by researchers at Duke University Project GloBAL and Conservation International.
The report, published in the scientific journal Biological Conservation, credits the dramatic drop to measures that have been put into place over the last 20 years to reduce bycatch in many fisheries, as well as to overall declines in U.S. fishing activity.
Read more: http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=57691001843
By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers
CABO PULMO, Mexico — What’s happened at the Cabo Pulmo marine reserve off the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula is fishy — in a good way.
Once severely depleted of fish, the reef system off Cabo Pulmo now teems with marine life, thanks to fishing restrictions imposed more than 10 years ago.
But environmentalists are worried that that ecological advance will be lost if the Mexican government allows a $2 billion development plan to go ahead that would place a “new Cancun” less than three miles north of the Cabo Pulmo marine sanctuary.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/14/124121/in-mexicos-baja-worry-that-a-new.html#ixzz1Y26Q7zpo
Cabo Pulmo Marine Reserve from Gulf Program on Vimeo.
September 8, 2011
Contact: Martha Bademan, 850-487-0554
On Thursday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) took final action on a series of proposed changes to its marine life (aquarium species) requirements. The amendments extend state conservation efforts governing the harvest of marine life into federal waters adjacent to state waters.
For octocorals, a group of soft corals like sea plumes and sea whips, the changes also create an annual quota and adopt the federal areas currently closed to harvest by the NOAA Fisheries Service. These conservation efforts take effect Oct. 31.
The federal fishery management councils are in the process of repealing federal regulations for octocorals in federal waters off Florida, which allows Florida to take over management of these species. At the request of the federal councils, Florida agreed to manage the octocoral fishery in both state and federal waters.
Specifically, the octocoral rule amendments extend existing state regulations into federal waters, establish an annual harvest quota and prohibit the use of power-assisted tools. The new rules continue to prohibit all harvest of octocorals in Atlantic federal waters north of Cape Canaveral and in the Coral Habitat Areas of Particular Concern adjacent to Florida state waters (Stetson-Miami Terrace and Pourtales Terrace). Finally, the rule clarifies that regulations for all marine life species apply in state and adjacent federal waters.
To see the Marine Life Rule Extension: Octocoral, go to MyFWC.com/Commission, select “Commission Meetings” and click on the link to the September meeting agenda.
