The oxygen-starved "dead zone" along the US Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought, scientists said.
Weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, scientists said, and no relief is in sight. However, some said there is no immediate sign of long-term damage to the crab fishery in the dead zone, a 115km stretch of water along the Continental Shelf between Florence and Lincoln City.
Oregon State University (OSU) scientists looking for weather changes that could reverse the situation aren't finding them. They say levels of dissolved oxygen critical to marine life are the lowest since the first dead zone was identified in 2002. It has returned every year.
PHOTO: AP
Strong upwelling winds pushed a low-oxygen pool of deep water toward shore, suffocating marine life, said Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at OSU.
She said wind changes could help push that water farther out, but current forecasts predict the opposite.
After a recent trip to the dead zone and an inspection via camera on a remote-controlled submarine, she said, "We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day."
"Thousands and thousands of dead crab and molts were littering the ocean floor. Many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away," she said.
The effect on the commercial fishery isn't yet known, said Hal Weeks, a marine ecologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He said the last two years were record-breaking for the Dungeness crab despite dead zones.
"In that fishery there has been no apparent effect. That doesn't mean there won't be," he said.
Weeks said crab populations fluctuate wildly for reasons not well understood. Whether any harvest decline is a result of normal fluctuation or the effects of the dead zone is hard to say, he said.
He said some reports indicate the loss of fin fish may be due to their movement to areas with more oxygen rather than to mortality.
Al Pazar, chairman of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and a crab fisherman out of Newport, said this season is shaping up to be the second-best ever, around 12.6 million kg, but that most crabs are caught in the six or eight weeks following the season's winter opening, well ahead of the appearance of the dead zones.
Few boats are fishing now, he said, and the season closes at midnight Monday. But he said the affected area is a major crab producer, "right in the thick of it."
The 2002 dead zone was the worst until this year's, he said. After 2002, he returned to the area when the season reopened and had good results.
"They [the creatures] do move back in eventually," he said.
Oregon State scientists working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife used a remote-control device Aug. 8 to check biological impact and continue oxygen sampling.
Dissolved oxygen readings off of Cape Perpetua north of Florence are between 3 percent and 10 percent of levels needed for survival and near zero in some areas.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
‘NO WORKABLE SOLUTION’: An official said Pakistan engaged in the spirit of peace, but Kabul continued its ‘unabated support to terrorists opposed to Pakistan’ Pakistan yesterday said that negotiations for a lasting truce with Afghanistan had “failed to bring about a workable solution,” warning that it would take steps to protect its people. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been holding negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, aimed at securing peace after the South Asian neighbors’ deadliest border clashes in years. The violence, which killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds, erupted following explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban authorities blamed on Pakistan. “Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses,” Pakistani Minister of
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
RSS