PHP 5.1 or later requires: no simplexml_load_file() Wild Ocean Blue


h1

Stingrays, sawfish snouts & peeing sharks on the radio

July 12th, 2011

This week I had another trip to London to catch up with the Home Planet team at the BBC. For the first time I appeared alongside the fantastic astronomer Carolin Crawford, which meant we were 50:50 girls:boys – usually there’s a distinct male bias to the proceedings. It also meant that Toby the producer had a bit of a task fitting together questions about space and the oceans. And I was sad that my on-air impression of a sawfish – with it’s long with nasal protrusion – got left behind in the final edit. So instead, I will share it with you now…

On the aquatic side of the universe, we had one of those deceptively simple Home Planet questions that makes you think ‘Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought of that’:

Why are rivers fresh but the seas they run into are salty?

Philip Stott did a nice job of explaining the fresh/salty situation (it’s all about slightly acidic rainwater weathering rocks on land, dumping minerals and salts in the sea, where they get left behind when freshwater evaporates). Then I stepped in to talk about the challenges that aquatic life faces in fresh and salty water (or both)… time to dig out my GCSE biology and the whole deal of water diffusing across cell membranes from lower to higher concentrations in a grand attempt to even things out.

I decided elasmobranchs would be a neat example of a group of animals that figured out how to move from the sea into freshwater and back again.

The story includes sharks dealing with life in the sea by loading their tissues with urea (which is why shark meat smells and tastes terrible unless it’s prepared properly… or left to rot underground for months as is the case for Greenland sharks – yuk), and the fact that some sharks (including pajama sharks) sneak into less salty waters by peeing a whole lot more than they normally do in the sea.

Are they called that because their stripes make them look like they're wearing pajamas?

Then came part of my sharky story that didn’t make into the final cut of the show – I had a few things to say about river stingrays. These are the only group of elasmobranchs that are permanent, fully paid-up members of freshwater ecosystems. These guys have permanently reduced the urea content of their tissues and have essentially become freshwater prisoners unable to return to the sea, even if they wanted to.

And I was slightly miffed they cut this bit out because I’d spent ages practicing how to say Potamotrygonids. Ah well, I’m sure that’ll come in handy some day…

We also had a nice quicky question:

What are sharks teeth made of? Answer: same stuff as human teeth.

Sharks are also covered in tiny teeth (aka dermal denticles) which makes them slide silently through the seas – so you might not hear a shark sneaking up on you. But a very Helen Scales moment hit the cutting room floor, as I enthusiastically mimed (on the radio, yes) the sawfishes’ long, protruding nasal implement, adorned in modified teeth. *sigh*

And our quick chat about shark teeth also raised one question in my mind that I’ve not managed to answer yet: did teeth originally evolve from dermal denticles or the other way round? Or did they evolve on several separate occasions in different groups? Answers on a postcard please.

Home Planet wasn’t the only BBC Radio 4 show this week to mix together space and ocean science. Jonathan Freeland took The Long View of the end of the US Space Shuttle programme by comparing it with the decommissioning of the British oceanographic survey HMS Challenger. Well worth a listen.

Home Planet podcast [right click to download]

Posted in My radio | No Comments »

h1

A retrospective recipe for Naked Oceans – how to make a podcast

June 11th, 2011

Can it really be a year since I started making podcasts about the sea? 12 months have flown by at terrifying speed in a blur of chatting with amazing ocean experts, getting to grips with microphones, recorders, editing software, and websites, and having a lot of fun talking oceans alongside the lovely Sarah Castor-Perry.

We’ve just put the finished touches on the final episode of Naked Oceans series 1. And I must admit to being a teeny weeny bit proud.

It’s been an awesome year and in a moment of quiet reflection I had a look back and realised there’s a heck of a lot went into series one.

So here is my retrospective recipe for making a podcast series about the oceans:

Main ingredients

55 ocean experts – a mix of scientists, photographers, artists, and conservationists.

2 presenters – who no matter what will never get bored talking about the oceans.

Recording equipment and a room to record in – preferably one without humming radiators, slamming doors, and flushing toilets upstairs (but you can’t always have everything…)

22 marine news stories

11 Critters of the Month

12 Critters of Christmas

Preparation - Starters (setting the scene)

Get hold of 60 seconds of music (in our case, ask a talented musician friend to help you out).

Write catchy intro, ending, and taglines and get someone with a great voice to read them.

Mix them together in varying quantities and keep them ready to disperse throughout the show at appropriate intervals.

Main course

For a regular podcast, pick a handful of oceans experts, a single critter, and a smattering of news stories (for special shows, festive editions etc pack in as many experts and critters as you can get away with).

Fill in the gaps with 2 presenters (get them to ask questions and offer an opinion or two).

Mix together in a preheated audio editing suite, keeping en eye out for unwanted mic pops and banging doors.

Decorate with photographs.

Listen to the whole thing and write down everything that’s said.

Stand back and set it free into the world wide web and see if anybody notices.

And that, dear readers, is more or less how Naked Oceans series 1 came to be. We may change the recipe slightly for series 2… to find out how you’ll just have to keep listening…

Posted in Naked Oceans | No Comments »

h1

How to be completely out of your depth

June 3rd, 2011

There are all sorts of ways to get out of your depth. You can buy too many things you don’t need on your credit card, teach a class on a subject you know nothing about (ahh, the sweet sound of silence…), or run up to a guy who’s bigger and meaner than you and tell him he stinks. But my personal favourite way to be completely and utterly out of my depth is in the ocean.

It’s especially fun when I can’t see land, just a line of horizon drawn all the way around me. Sometimes it’s fun to have something to aim for – a seabed tens of meters below – so I can swim down to try and touch it. But it’s best when there’s nothing to see at all but blue (with perhaps a lone whale shark wondering past or a shoal of silvery fish to swim through).

I admit that the idea of swimming in bottomless water is scary, especially if your mind is prone to wondering off into the monster-filled depths below. It’s something I didn’t imagine I’d like until I tried it. (And it helps if the water is nice and clear so you at least know there are no monsters right near by).

But my main problem is that getting out of my depth isn’t easy these days because I currently live a long way from the ocean. I could drive to the sea but it would take me at least an hour and a half. OK, so doesn’t sound like an awfully long way, but remember I live on a fairly little island – us Brits have a totally different attitude towards distance compared to Americans or Australians or anyone else who’s used to living on a huge continent.

I once cycled to the sea from my house in Cambridge. It took me nearly all day and when I set out on my return journey I discovered I’d had the westerly wind pushing me merrily towards the coast. Riding back home was painful.

So for now, my only option for getting easily out of my depth is the local outdoor pool. And in that respect, I’m pretty lucky.

There’s been a lido on Jesus Green in Cambridge since 1925, just next to the river near one of the tumbling weirs. And it’s huge. 100 yards long, apparently (I’ve not measured it, but I’ve puffed up and down enough times to be convinced of its grand size). The water feels and smells fresh and chemical-free. Even as I sit here and type, dried off but still tingling and not-yet showered, my skin has none of that clingy chlorine pong you get from indoor pools. Trees dressed in all different greens surround the pool. They drop their leaves and insects in the water and make it feel a little like swimming along the river, only a cleaner version with fewer rowers and barges panting by.

The deepest part of the pool – and the spot where I try to find myself out of my depth – is in the middle. Back in the day the pool was split in two: one end for men, the other for women. Now we’re all allowed to swim where we like, but the changing rooms still reveal the segregation of the past.

I’m half way through re-reading Roger Deakin’s book Waterlog and I’d like to think we can blame him for coaxing people back into out-of-doors water. I challenge any of you to read his wonderful words and not feel a tingling urge to find yourself some wild water and leap in. It is deeply sad that Roger is no-longer with us, but I was thrilled to spot him lately, as a character in the Rime of the Modern Mariner (more on that from me in a later post).

Today the water at Jesus Green was 18 degrees C (a little over 64 if you think in Fs not Cs). I was the only wetsuit-clad scardy-cat amidst the half-term crowds of screaming, leaping kids. But I came out triumphantly with pink toes and fingers – not blue or white as they sometimes get – so I was glad for warm reassurance.

We’ve just had the hottest April on record and they say June is going to be a warm one too – so I’m looking forward to getting out of my depth many more times this summer.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

h1

Meeting heroes is awesome

May 31st, 2011

They say never meet your heroes. But I did. I sat in a diner and ate junk food with her and it was perfect.

Earlier this year I went to Florida (my first time there). I had the best time hunting for tiny seahorses in Tampa Bay and paid a visit to Mote Marine Laboratory where I grabbed the chance to meet one of my all-time heroes, Genie Clark, aka The Shark Lady.

I love her two books. I have a gorgeous secondhand copy of Lady with a Spear (it even comes with crayon scribbles from its previous owner), which follows Genie as she travelled the world studying fish in her early 20s. And The Lady and the Sharks (which has just been rereleased) follows her adventures setting up the Mote Marine Laboratory in the 1950s.

I’d arranged to have lunch with Genie the day following my talk at Mote Marine Labs – they had kindly invited me over to give a lecture on seahorses. The talk went well but I nearly fell off my chair during the book signing afterwards when who should walk up, clutching a copy of my book, but Genie herself.

Her friend leaned over and said ‘This is Eugenie Clark. She’d like to have her picture taken with you’.

It was one of those moments I could have played cool, but failed completely. I just stammered ‘I know who she is’ then grinned. A lot. Here was one of my all-time ocean heros asking me for a picture and wanting me to sign her book (I’d brought one along for her, which I gave her next day and signed to her kids).

And as we posed for the picture she wrapped her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. Right then I realised that Genie Clark is different. Different and wonderful. That night I skipped back to my beachside hotel room and eagerly awaited our lunchtime date.

Next day we met in the diner at Mote Marine Labs, overlooked by tanks of tiny gyrating baby seahorses in Shawn Garner’s lab. We ordered junk food, sat in a booth and chatted away like long lost friends. She asked me about my work with seahorses, writing my book, where I’ve been diving. And I asked about her work, about convict fish, and swell sharks that puff up like puffer fish, about what Jacques Cousteau was like, and about the time she took a baby shark on a plane as a gift for the Emperor of Japan.

Genie has just turned 89 (not a big year for her she admitted. 88 was important because the number 8 is special in Japan – her mother was Japanese). Man, I hope I’m still diving and exploring the world in my eighties. After reading her books and learning about her life, it was a curious feeling to meet her now. I could almost picture her life stretching away behind her like a movie, and I’ve just walked on set as a minor character somewhere towards the end of the story.

After lunch we recorded a short interview including a bit that I put in this month’s Naked Oceans podcast. I asked her if she was a marine critter, which would she be, and why… here’s what she said.

The thing I love the most about Genie is she is pure and simply a lovely lady. She put on no aires and graces, she didn’t allude to any personal greatness. She didn’t see herself as a pioneer female scientist (which I truly believe she is), just a girl who loved fish who got a few lucky breaks. She welcomed me into her world and seemed genuinely as interested in me – a lowly marine biologist/writer – as I was in her. I guess it comes down to our shared fascination in the underwater world and a certain amount of geekiness, an obsession with figuring out how it all works.

She hugged me goodbye and I felt happy and sad. Happy to meet her and spend time with her. Sad because I was saying goodbye not knowing if I’d get the chance to meet her again.

So I say go ahead and Meet Your Heroes. You never know, they might just inspire you even more in person than they do from a distance.

Posted in My travels, Naked Oceans, ocean literature | 3 Comments »

h1

Out of sight no longer

April 12th, 2011

For this month’s Naked Oceans podcast we picked a topic that is very close to my heart: art and the oceans. I spoke with two fantastic artists and here are some of my thoughts about them both plus some more bits that didn’t fit into the half-hour podcast, including underwater photographer Brian Skerry’s top moment underwater.

As you may have guessed from various posts on my blog (and some of my own artwork) I have a thing about the beauty of the oceans. I’m convinced that uncovering the magnificence of marine life is one of the most powerful ways we have of getting people committed to protecting the oceans. Otherwise it all stays out of sight and out of mind.

So, I jumped at the chance to call up some of my favourite marine artists and persuade them to appear on Naked Oceans.

I’ve been haunted (in a good way) by the underwater sculptures of Jason de Caires Taylor since I first saw them in the Guardian. His work blends thought-provoking sculptures with the very practical role of creating artificial reefs that provide home for marine life while also luring tourist divers away from natural reefs that need time and space to recover from the onslaughts of natural and manmade problems.

One of his latest projects, called Silent Evolution, is a seabed gathering of 400 people – all cast from real people he picked from the local community in Mexico. They all seem to be thinking and waiting quietly for something – and I love pondering what that might be.

One of my favourite pieces is The Collector, in which a man oversees a collection of messages in glass bottles. Jason told me how he used his Dad as the model for this work because he wanted someone who looked like a desk clerk. (And the dog was cast from a real dead dog from the local crematorium).

Speaking with Jason was such a treat – what a nice man! I’ve only seen the stunning photographs of Jason’s work, and not been lucky enough to visit them in person in Mexico and other spots around the Caribbean, but I can imagine they’re even more breathtaking in person.

I also got in touch with underwater photographer Brian Skerry after seeing his TED talk. And he turned out to be another inspiring artist who, like Jason, was also a joy to talk to.

I caught Brian on the phone during one of his rare spells at home (he spends almost all his time in the field visiting amazing locations around the world – what a job!) and we ended up chatting for an hour about his work, the way he tries to capture a balance of both the beauty of the oceans with the problems they face. It was all fascinating and I felt terrible that so much great stuff ended up on my editing suite floor.

So here are a few more clips from my interview with Brian that I just couldn’t quite squeeze into the podcast:

First up, I asked Brian to pick his most memorable moment underwater and he told me an enchanting story about diving with a curious Southern Right Whale in New Zealand which resulted in an award-winning image. Brian & the Southern Right Whale

We also talked about the International League of Conservation Photographers who use photography to help promote awareness and conservation of a whole range of habitats around the world. (Check out the ILCP website).

It was a great pleasure and a privilege to speak with Jason and Brian. And I do believe they are both doing vital work in helping promote the oceans and getting people thinking a little more about what goes on down there and why it’s all so important.

Posted in Naked Oceans | No Comments »

h1

Ocean poetry & a dress to match

February 1st, 2011

It’s been an exciting & inspiring start to 2011 for me because a couple of weeks back my gorgeous little sister got married to a wonderful man. We had a fantastic party, I read an ocean poem that turned out to be more poignant than I figured, and I accidentally went dressed as one of my favourite fish.

A few months ago, my sister asked me if I would do a reading at her wedding. After long deliberation, I finally picked out The Sea Goddess by a lady who lived 300 years ago called Margaret Cavendish. It reminded me of my ocean-loving sis, with all the swimming around beneath the waves and curly hair, and seemed the perfect poem for a marine biologist to read to her dearest oceanographer sister on her wedding day. And I like the way it sounds.

It went down well at the wedding (despite me welling up again half way through – I cry a lot at weddings, especially ones as great as this). And chatting at the buffet table a little later, one of the guests pointed out that Margaret Cavendish was something of a pioneering 17th century female scientist and writer (among her prolific works she wrote one of the first science fiction books).

Margaret Cavendish - scientist & writer

So it turned out I was spot on with this poem: science meets writing just about sums up me and my sister.

And it was only a few days ago that I realised my wedding outfit – a homemade midnight blue silk dress with saffron yellow belt – matched the colours of that most beautiful coral reef fish, the emperor angelfish Pomacanthus imperator, with its stunning blue & yellow stripes (okay, so my outfit wasn’t stripey but you get the idea).

I never intended to go to my sister’s wedding dressed as a fish. But I kind of like that I did.

(My beautiful bicycle has the same colour pallet, inspired by the sea.)

Here’s the poem:

The Sea Goddess by Margaret Cavendish, 1668

My cabinets are oyster-shells,

In which I keep my orient pearls;

To open them I use the tide,

As keys to locks, which open wipe The oyster shells,

Then out I take those orient pearls and crowns do make;

And modest coral I do wear,

Which blushes when it touches air.

On silver waves I sit and sing,

And then the fish lie listening:

Then sitting on a rocky stone I comb my hair with fishes’ bone;

The whilst Apollo with his beams doth dry my hair from watery streams.

His light doth glaze the water’s face,

Make the large sea my looking-glass:

So when I swim on waters high,

I see myself as I glide by:

But when the sun begins to burn,

I back into my waters turn,

And dive unto the bottom low:

Then on my head the waters flow in curled waves and circles round,

And thus with waters am I crowned.

Posted in Fantastic aquatic beasties, ocean literature | 4 Comments »

h1

The making of… The 12 Critters of Christmas

December 16th, 2010

The festive season is once again upon us (let’s face it, it has been for a while now that Christmas starts in September) so for the sixth episode of Naked Oceans, Sarah and I decided to have a bit of fun and get into the yuletide mood by counting down the 12 critters of Christmas.

Normally, we choose a topic to base each show around and it was Sarah’s idea to take our “Critter of the Month” feature and give it a seasonal twist.

So, we sat down and made a long list of the marine critters we thought had some Christmas cheer about them (including sea angels, turkey fish aka lionfish, christmas tree worms, and diatoms… because they make marine snow and some of them look like stars). And we threw in a few more that we were keen to chat about just because (mine was the mimic octopus with all its incredible impersonations of other animals, and Sarah’s was the tube worm, Riftia, that lives a crazy life on deep sea vents).

After some negotiation, we whittled our list down to just 12 critters and headed off to find experts to talk to.

I hopped on my bike and peddled over to the British Antarctic Survey (braving Antarctic temperatures on the way – it’s been cold lately here in Cambridge) to meet up with ornithologist Richard Philips and chat about an ocean migrant that I reckon could lend Santa Claus a helping hand.

I had a great chat with Richard about the amazing Arctic terns that fly all the way from the north pole to the south pole and back again each year (although I didn’t always get the name right. Are there Antarctic terns?)

This for me is the best bit about making Naked Oceans – getting to meet with so many great researchers to chat about their work.

And now that episode 6 is finished, it means we’re half way through this first series of Naked Oceans – where does the time go? I’m excited to plan out the next 6 episodes and we’ve got various things in the pipeline, including some on location reports from Florida.

Because today I finally started getting ideas together for a trip to Florida this coming February. I’ve been invited to give a talk about seahorses at the Mote Marine Laboratory special lecture series on Valentine’s Day (how appropriate!). And I’ll be bringing along my recording gear to get some interviews and features for Naked Oceans.

Anyone have ideas of ocean critters or stories I should look into while I’m in Florida?

I might go have a look for some Florida manatees and find out how they’ve been coping with the cold winter weather (last year hundreds of them died during a major cold snap) – although sitting here in wintery Cambridge, it’s hard to imagine that it ever gets that cold in Florida.

I can’t wait to be there.

Posted in Fantastic aquatic beasties, My travels | 1 Comment »

h1

Did you know…? (A perfect Christmas gift).

December 12th, 2010

Over the years I’ve accumulated a stack of glossy coffee table books filled with underwater photographs. In occasional idle, dreamy moments I flip through them to remind myself of how beautiful, weird, and wonderful ocean life can be (one of my favourites is Light, Water, Time by David Doubilet). And while that’s all very lovely, the latest book I got my hands on isn’t only a collection of stunning images but this one also got me thinking “I do not know that” over and over.

I picked up a copy of Nancy Knowlton’s book Citizens of the Sea at the Census of Marine Life conference back in October (find out more about that in a special episode I recorded of the Naked Oceans podcast).

I’ve finally I had a chance to sit down and look at it properly and now I keep asking my friends “Did you know…?”

So, for example, did you know that there are ‘flotillas’ of swordfish, ‘smacks’ of jellyfish, and ‘huddles’ of walrus mooching through the oceans?

Did you know there are sponge-dwelling snapping shrimp that live seem to in cooperative colonies like bees and ants?

Did you know that wandering albatross couples date for two or three years before they have any babies?

And I for one didn’t know that sea slugs can detect magnetic fields.

Nancy’s book is a celebration of the Census of Marine Life. And while it’s not an exhaustive catalogue of everything that was discovered during this groundbreaking decade-long study (nor should it be – that would be a seriously long read!), this is a fitting tribute to our growing knowledge of oceanlife.

So, if you’re looking for a Christmas gift this is the perfect book that has everyone covered from the ocean novice to a fully paid-up marine geek like me (that is, if you’ve already read all you want to know about seahorses. Gah, dreadful plug there, my apologies).

Posted in Books, Census of Marine Life, Fantastic aquatic beasties | 1 Comment »

h1

My new favourite thing

October 27th, 2010

I recently paid my first visit to the Red Sea and discovered my new favourite thing: freediving.

The idea of learning to freedive first came to me years ago when I was floating on my back in a saltwater swimming pool by a beach in Madagascar, gazing at the sky and imagining what it would be like to swim with the whales as they migrate up and down the Mozambique Channel.

Sure, I can snorkel and scuba dive, but freediving – the sport, art, or way of thinking maybe (?) of venturing down into the blue with nothing but a breath of air – that seemed such a simple, pure, graceful way of being in the oceans. I had to give it a try.

But it was an idea that was shelved – along with various other schemes, plots, and dreams that I may one day come back to – until I saw this video on youtube. Then I realised it was time for me to freedive. (Be warned. This is so awesome it may make you want to get into the big blue too).

(Not that I truly want to chuck myself into a deep, black hole – but you get the idea).

So I went to Dahab, a chilled spot on the Gulf of Aqaba that’s swiftly becoming a free diving mecca. With warm, clear seas, and the seabed falling away as you swim just a few metres off shore, it’s the perfect place to learn.

For 2 and a half days I  trained for my AIDA ** certificate with free dive instructor Brian Crossland from Blue Ocean Freedivers.

Brian was a fantastic instructor. Calm and patient. Clear and reassuring. All the things I needed to encourage me to head down into the blue. And he’s setting up an exciting free dive school in Dahab, complete with purpose-built 30 metre training pool… probably the only one in the world!

Brian took us through the basics, taught us techniques of how to prepare for a free dive, how to relax, and how to avoid doing anything stupid or dangerous. Before my trip to Dahab, many friends and family thought I was crazy, risking my life underwater holding my breath – seems free diving has a pretty ropey reputation, which it really doesn’t deserve, especially now the good folks at AIDA are working hard on training and safety.

And after some initial nerves, I quickly discovered that when I wasn’t trying too hard (I’m clearly not cut out for competitive free diving, which is fine by me) I could do things I never imagined possible after just a few hours training. Like, for example, holding my breath for nearly 3 minutes and swimming down to 20 metres.

Brian also let me play with a piece of kit I’ve been dying to get my hands on. A monofin. Seriously cool.

So I got my first glimpses at what it feels like to be a dolphin… or a mermaid perhaps. Here’s a video Brian shot of me scooting happily down to 15 metres…

So, free diving. I’m hooked. Absolutely.

I’ll still scuba dive (I did a great dive in Dahab just off the main drag and saw a seahorse – yeah). But free diving has undoubtedly opened a whole new window on the underwater world. Snorkeling will never be the same again.

And here I sit, in ocean-free Cambridge as autumn closes in around me and I’m dreaming of a monofin, clear, warm blue waters, and just me and a breath of air (and maybe some migrating whales).

Posted in Free Diving, My travels | 2 Comments »

h1

Celebrating a decade of ocean discoveries

October 14th, 2010

A few months back I was invited to a party I couldn’t possibly resist – “Come celebrate a decade of ocean discoveries”.

I’m there.

So, last week, with my best ocean celebrating outfit on, I went along to the Royal Institution in London to a special day to mark the ten-year milestone of the world’s very first Census of Marine Life.

I went with fellow ocean enthusiast, Sarah Castor Perry, and with audio equipment in hand, we planned to record a special edition of Naked Oceans, all about the Census. We spent a fantastic day chatting with scientists and conservationists… and I got to meet one of my all-time ocean heroes, Sylvia Earle (she was just as awesome as I always imagined she’d be).

The Census of Marine Life is the brainchild of Fred Grassle and Jesse Ausabel. It was a huge privilege to meet Jesse and chat about how the whole grand project got off the ground. Those two are testament to believing in your ideas, no matter how big or ambitious they seem to be. Because you never know, it might just work out…

The whole Census is a seriously inspirational example of what can be achieved when people work together. To set out and scour the oceans for the diversity, abundance, and distribution of marine life is no mean feat. But with nearly 3000 scientists from 600 institutions all throwing their hats into the ring, it became a reality.

Over the past ten years you will probably have caught some of the news stories emerging from the Census… a new handful of deep sea species here, an unstudied ecosystem showing up there, the saddest, uggliest fish in the world (but wouldn’t you be a bit grumpy if you were yanked out of your comfy, dark, deep sea realm into a bright, dry alien world).

As Jesse Ausabel said when we chatted at the Census party, it is all about the beauty of the oceans.

It has been an awesome decade for the oceans and we have a better idea than ever before about all the weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit the seas.

The big messages I took away from the Census of Marine Life conference and party was that we are slap bang in the middle of an Age of Discovery, and that there is still so much more we can do to look after all this extraordinary ocean life and there’s so much left to discover – we can’t stop now.

So many books, maps, reports, websites, photographs, and databases have come out of the first Census of Marine Life it can all start to get a bit overwhelming and it’s difficult to know where to start (don’t get me wrong, I love that we know so much more about the oceans than we did a decade ago – but sometimes I wish for another lifetime so I can take it all in).

Now, I’m biased (naturally), but I think episode 4 of Naked Oceans has come out very nicely (our best yet, perhaps?), so I suggest you go make a cup of tea, tune in, and hear from some of the guys behind the Census – including a special message from Sylvia Earle – telling us, in their own words, about what went on, what their highlights are, and what might happen next.

Cheers to Census of Marine Life!

Posted in Census of Marine Life, Naked Oceans, conservation | No Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Page »