When it comes to measuring the benefits of marine reserves (or Marine Protected Areas aka MPAs, or marine parks, or no take zones, or whatever you want to call them) it’s usually fish populations or marine habitats that we focus on. Now it seems that protecting areas of the sea from fishing pressure can very quickly help ocean predators – including penguins.

African penguins. Photo by ClifB

A new study from South Africa reveals that when a 20km stretch of ocean – not a lot really – was declared off-limits to fishing fleets, a local colony of African penguins spent on average 30% less time out fishing for themselves. Within 3 months of the fishing ban, the penguins found more to eat inside the protected area now that the human hunters weren’t competing for fish.

Spending less time hunting for their dinner is good news for penguins because it cuts down their exposure to other ocean predators that are partial to a penguin-dinner including great white sharks, orcas and cape fur seals.

African penguins. Photo by Paul Mannix

At the same time, another penguin colony 50km away weren’t so lucky. With no protection of their local fish stocks, they had to spend longer in the sea finding enough food for themselves and their youngsters.

African penguins are considered to be vulnerable to extinction, so it’s certainly very encouraging that they can benefit so rapidly from the careful siting of relatively small marine reserves.

Hopefully more reserves like this will be created to help secure the penguins’ future.

In detail:

• African penguins, also known as the black-footed penguin live on the SW coast of Africa.
• They are listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Redlist.
• Population declines are mainly blamed on overfishing of their target prey including sardines and anchovies by purse-seine fleets.
• In 2000, a catastrophic oil spill affected nearly half the entire population of African penguins and spawned the world’s largest sea bird rescue operation.
• The paper by Pichegru et al is published in the journal Biology Letters.

As their name suggests, Goliath Groupers are really very big indeed. The largest known have been around 2.5m long, or 8 feet.

They are undeniably fully-fledged members of the marine megafauna.

But these big fish are in big trouble and they need your help.

Goliath Grouper. Photo by pony 33406

Because it’s become more and more difficult to spot one of these giants, the fish formerly known as jewfish. Being so very huge made them an irresistible target for fishers. Over the last few decades goliath groupers have been fished so heavily from their reefy and rocky homes on both sides of the Atlantic, in the Caribbean and the eastern reaches of the Pacific Ocean, that they are now labelled as being Critically Endangered.

In days gone by, a common place to spot a goliath grouper was strung up on a quayside alongside a grinning recreational fisher. So many goliath groupers were caught by sport and commercial fishers that their populations became economically extinct: it made no sense to try and catch them if you wanted to make money.

Goliath grouper catch from 1950s Florida. Photo from Florida Keys Public Libraries

Goliath grouper catch from 1950s Florida. Photo from Florida Keys Public Libraries.

Good news is that since the 1990 it’s been illegal to catch goliath groupers in US waters. And a fishing ban on them has been in place across the Caribbean since 1993. As a result, populations of these enormous fish have been slowly recovering.

The problem is they have apparently been recovering a bit too well for some people’s liking. There is growing pressure to lift the fishing ban in Florida, one of the only places where scuba divers have a good chance of meeting these kings of the reef. Do we really want to relive a time when killing such magnificent fish was all the rage? Couldn’t we move on from that?

In early December the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will decide on whether to stick to the goliath grouper fishing ban or open these beasts up once again to human exploitation.

The Floridian scuba diving and conservation community are lobbying politicians hard in the hope they will hear a unified and loud voice of reason. An online petition to keep the fishing ban is gathering support and they hope to reach at least 1000 signatures.

So, do your bit and sign up. Because wouldn’t it be a crying shame if these spectacular beasts were once again allowed to be caught to make a bit of money or just for the fun of it.

Goliath grouper catch. Photo from Florida Keys Public Libraries.

It’s been well proven that big fish like the goliath grouper are far more vulnerable to extinction than smaller fish. In a twist of nature, it’s the bigger animals that grow more slowly and take longer to reach maturity (5 or 6 years for goliath groupers). So, if someone asks you to take a guess at which species are most at risk, whether they live in the sea, on land, or in freshwater, all you need do is pick out the biggest ones and you won’t go wrong.

In detail:

• Goliath groupers or jewfish (Epinephelus itajara) can live for nearly 40 years if we let them.
• They commonly grow to 1.5m from head to tail.
• Young goliath groupers live in mangrove forests, giving us yet another vital reason to care about and protect these habitats that are so often overlooked and cleared away.

Could this be the end of the Chinese paddlefish?

This extraordinary aquatic giant wasn’t seen once during an intensive 3-year survey of the upper Yangtze River in China.

The Chinese paddlefish. A fish no more?

The last official reported sighting of the Chinese paddlefish was back in 2003. So, have they all gone now?

This bizarre species looks (or at least it did) a lot like a sawfish (a close relative of sharks and rays) with a huge long saw-like snout, or rostrum.

Chinese paddlefish have been measured at 3m long, while unconfirmed reports claim a 7m (22 feet) specimen weighing half a ton was found (that’s longer than three very tall men lying head to foot). Maybe they do grow that big, maybe they don’t. We may never know.

Because sadly we may never know much about Chinese paddlefish. They remain tremendously illusive with very few details uncovered about their habits. But it is thought that they probably spent time both in the sea as well as in rivers.

Overfishing and habitat destruction are named as the main culprits behind the demise of the Chinese paddlefish.

There was a possible sighting reported in Chinese newspapers earlier this year. But even so, with a team of keen-eyed scientists making every effort to find one – and failing – in the stretch of river they were most likely to hang out in, there is little doubt that there are hardly any of these magnificent beasts left in the wild.

If there are a few still hiding from us, there can’t be many.

And there aren’t even any in captivity.

What to do? Wave farewell?

Does this make the Chinese paddlefish the next on the list of species we have witnessed vanish, hot on the heals of the its former river-mate the Yangtze River dolphin?

If so, is there really anything we can do about it?

Scientists are talking about trying breeding programs, even artificial parthenogenesis. If only they could find a single, live female. Decide for yourself whether or not you think we should go to such extreme lengths to stop a single doomed species from being pushed over the edge.

A tiny part of me clutches onto a sliver of hope that there will still be Chinese paddlefish in the world in years to come. Just like I refuse to believe that I will one day wake up to the news that there are no more tigers or black rhinos or Philippine mahogany trees or any of the other critically endangered species there are.

But I’m afraid the pessimist in me seems to be winning on this one. I can’t really see how there is much chance the Chinese paddlefish will be with us for much longer, if indeed there are any out there right now. There are so many pressures crashing down on these fish – and many others species that live in the Yangtze. I just think we might be too late.

Flip side?

Is there a positive side to look on? Well, maybe.

While there may be not much hope for this particular species, I think we all need to reflect deeply on the possibility of another species lost. Stand (in your mind) on the banks of the River Yangtze, peer into the murky waters, and bid farewell to another creature gone, another fabulous product of natural selection.

It seems we never learn from our mistakes. But perhaps the story of the Chinese paddlefish could be one more reason to change that.

Because we’ve really got the stop this from happening. And not just for individual, charismatic species that we can admire and relate to, but for all creatures, great and small (as we used to sing in primary school assemblies), the species we may never meet and those we rely on in ways we may never know.

2010 is the year we said we’d reverse the tide of species loss. We’ve obviously not quite managed that yet. But I don’t think it’s time to give up.

In Detail:

• The Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) is one of only two known paddlefish, the sole members of the family Polyodontidae. The other species, the Mississippi paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) lives, as you might imagine, in rivers of southern United States.
• Photo of a tiny juvenile Chinese paddlefish.
• Link to paper: Zhang et al 2009.

The Pacific island nation, Palau, has announced a ban on shark fishing throughout it’s territorial waters. This bold show of commitment to curbing the global shark cull will put over half a million square km of ocean off limits to shark fishing. That’s an area slightly smaller than the whole of France.

In recent years we hear little but bad news about sharks. As experts work their way through the species, virtually every one is assigned a label of endangerment on the IUCN Red List, ranging from near threatened to critically endangered.

So is this at last some good news for sharks?

Young tiger shark (c) Terry Goss 2007/Marine Photobank

Surely yes, it is. It doesn’t matter one bit that Palau’s decision was sweetened by the prospect of tourist dollars pouring in from scuba divers desperate for shark encounters. Perhaps all the better that recognition is growing of the alternative price tag sharks carry, rather than as simply a pile of meat, cartilage and fins.

But I can’t help worrying about that enormous area of ocean we are talking about here in a region famous for it’s abundant shark populations. Does Palau have the resources to police such a vast area? How can they possibly keep out illegal fishing boats?

There’s no doubt that Palau are going to need some help if this is to be anything but a marine reserve on paper.

Other countries need to take steps to help stamp out illegal shark fishing and work out ways of cutting down the number of sharks killed unintentionally every year by long-lining and trawl fisheries.

One relatively straight-forward solution – or part of the solution – would be a world-wide ban on landing fins that are not accompanied by the sharks they grew on.

A shark thrown back without its fins. Nancy Boucha, www.scubasystems.org 2005/Marine Photobank

The greatest incentive for shark fishing these days is to sell their valuable fins into the shark fin soup trade. Forcing fishermen to give up at-sea finning could help cut down the number that of sharks are killed every year. A single boat can carry thousands of fins, but far fewer whole shark carcasses.

Pile of shark fins. Jessica King/Marine Photobank

President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, told BBC News “…the need to protect the sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup.”

Absolutely it does.

Whatever happens next, Palau has made a radical and admirable step in declaring shark fishing out of bounds. It raises the bar in terms of the level of commitment we need to see all around the world if the oceans are to be anywhere near as shark-infested as they should be.