GOMAEEN News Archive
These stories reflect Gulf news from June 2009 forward.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 | Male pipefish play the field, get pregnant In experiments with a species of pipefish native to the Gulf of Mexico, the researchers found that the pregnant males carefully nurture the eggs of the preferred larger females, but destroy the eggs of the less attractive females. The males either refuse to nourish those unwanted eggs and let them die of neglect or absorb their bodies as nutrients for themselves to build up strength for another mating encounter, the scientists found. more info |
| Lab takes on red snapper production A 5,260-square-foot building under construction on the University of Southern Mississippi's Cedar Point site is designed to play a vital role in red snapper stock enhancement. more info |
| A prescription for the ocean's ailing health The ocean is a beautiful, mystical world that covers more than 70 percent of our planet and supports a mind-bending array of life below the surface and above. But it's also a fragile ecosystem that is vulnerable to the strains placed upon it, which include pollution, increased acidification, and the warming of the water, all of which can harm the life supported by the oceans. more info |
| State of the Oceans Health: In Crisis Alison Barratt, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program discusses the health of the oceans in relation to native fish populations, and the decline of their ecosystems. In the last 50 years, industrial fishing practices have severely lowered fish populations, altering the balance of species diversity within ecosystems. Fishing practices have also led to destruction of native habitats, and increased collateral damage to unintended fish caught by accident (bycatch). Nitrogen pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, and automobile and factory emissions, have created more than 150 different "dead zones," areas of water--under a one-mile square radius to as large as 45,000 square miles in size containing such depleted levels of oxygen--within each, no fish can survive. more info |
| Obama Proposes Opening Vast Offshore Areas to Drilling President Obama today proposed allowing oil and gas drilling for the first time in large swaths of water off the East Coast, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and potentially off Alaska. more info |
| Environmental groups seek fix for Gulf dead zone The Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Mississippi River Collaborative released a joint report this week called “Cultivating Clean Water.” The report examines the effectiveness of state regulatory programs that control agricultural pollution and recommends policies the groups say will result in cleaner water. more info |
| NOAA seeks comments on proposal to increase the red snapper quotas in the Gulf of Mexico NOAA Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would increase the commercial and recreational quotas of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. A recent red snapper assessment update projected overfishing ended in 2009, and therefore, the total allowable catch (TAC) can be increased. As evaluated in a regulatory amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, this increase would be from the existing 5.0 million pounds (MP) to 6.945 MP. more info |
| Report: Iowa needs to improve control of runoff Authors suggest improving regulations by leveling the playing field for all farmers; sufficiently funding agencies to oversee compliance; creating significant penalties to deter non-compliance; and having states develop monitoring programs to document improvements. more info |
| White House Releases Details Of 'Comprehensive Energy Strategy' The Administration's strategy calls for developing oil and gas resources in new areas, such as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico; increasing oil and gas exploration in frontier areas, such as parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans; and protecting ocean areas that are simply too special to drill, such as Alaska's Bristol Bay. The strategy will guide the current 2007-2012 offshore oil and gas leasing program, as well as the new 2012-2017 program that this administration will propose. more info |
| Mexican Eco-Blogging - How You Can Save Coral In The Ocean Sadly, coral is dying all along the Riviera Maya coast in Mexico because of over fertilization. Do something good for the earth - stop using chemical fertilizers!! more info |
| Cities slap fees on storm runoff The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started issuing a series of limits on storm water pollution that will require local governments to spend large amounts of money on water quality and soon start slowly reshaping America's roads, housing developments and even the traditional lawn. more info |
| Whoopers work to survive One of the icons of Texas is in trouble. The whooping crane has been a symbol of Texans' love of the wild for many years. more info |
| Coral Reefs Face Extinction Within Century Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. more info |
| 9 Problems Destroying Our Oceans In the fight for the environment, the health of our oceans should be a top priority. We've put together 9 of the biggest issues that threaten our oceans more info |
| Who will protect ocean coral? While this CITES conference was disappointing for marine species, the delegates should know that the world was watching. I hope that people will realize that owning a coral necklace or eating shark fin soup is not necessary but that protecting these species is vital to the health of all of us who live on this ocean planet. more info |
| Louisiana Oysters Recalled After Norovirus Outbreak Another recall of oysters over concerns regarding norovirus has been announced, Louisiana is recalling oysters harvested in part of Plaquemines Parish area following 11 illnesses in people who attended a seafood conference on March 1 in Mississippi, writes New Orleans City Business. more info |
| New Study: Ocean Currents Doing Fine For Now NASA scientist builds a bigger data set, and finds that the globe's heat transferring oceanic currents appear to be in good shape, and may be more stable than we previously thought. more info |
| Local wetlands project receives grant The state will provide $70,000 to continue a Terrebonne land-building project to keep the shoreline separating Lake Mechant and Raccouri Bay intact and slow the Gulf of Mexico’s march into interior parish wetlands. more info |
| As ocean life goes, so goes life on Earth The fundamental problem in the ocean, says Mitchell, is human behavior. Can we, will we, change our relationship with the ocean — a relationship, we are only beginning to understand? more info |
| Heart vs. brain: round 1 Isle de Jean Charles now amounts to a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, the front line in Louisiana’s battle to save its eroding coast from becoming the next Atlantis. Successive hurricanes and tropical storms have flooded the tiny community of mostly poor Native Americans, robbing them of almost everything they own. more info |
| Ecosystem Services HRI's Executive Director Dr. Larry Mckinney, Endowed Chairs Dr. Paul Montagna and Dr. David Yoskowitz, and research specialist Carlota Santos attended the first Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Services Collaboratory (GOMESC) workshop at the EPA’s Gulf Ecology Division in Gulf Breeze, Florida, held January 14-15. more info |
| Seagrass Beds Declining The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate: more info |
| Students nurse mini-marshlands in project More than 280 students in Galveston County are nursing mini-marshlands in a unique project teaching hands-on wetland restoration. The children, in 14 classes in four schools, will end their lessons by wading into shallow waters on Nassau Bay Peninsula this spring to transplant cultured marsh grass. more info |
| Pew to Launch Urgent Effort to Protect Bluefin Tuna in Gulf of Mexico On Thursday, March 25 at 1 p.m. EDT, the Pew Environment Group will host a Web-based tele-press conference to detail its new campaign to protect bluefin tuna in its only known spawning area in the western Atlantic Ocean by prohibiting surface long-lining in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Mexican Eco-Blogging - An Adventure To Learn About The Environment In just a few days my family and I will be taking a fantastic journey to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. I'm flying you with me to experience this cool green eco-adventure. more info |
| EPA seeks carbon data from oil, natural gas sectors Most of the large U.S. oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico would have to report their emissions under the EPA rules, according to Karen Ritter, spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute. more info |
| Texas A&M host annual sea camps in Galveston From wiggling their toes in marsh mud to harvesting oysters from Galveston Bay reefs, Sea Camp at Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) offers students 10-18 years old some of the most memorable days of their lives. more info |
| Structure generates great fishing, but few wetlands benefits Over the past decade, Terrebonne taxpayers have spent at least $750,000 to install and remove a system on Bayou Sale Road meant to monitor and control salinity levels in and around Lake Boudreaux. more info |
| A Stake in the Sand The sands found Destin first. They started off eons ago, from the Appalachian Mountains, washing their way down the rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Winnowed to pure, hardy quartz, the sediment moved with the gulf’s currents and gathered into the necklace of narrow barrier islands that buffer Florida’s Panhandle. more info |
| CITES Conference Fails to Widen Shark Protection On Tuesday, the Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, turned down U.S.-sponsored proposals to protect dwindling numbers of scalloped hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks. more info |
